Another week down. 2 weeks - HOPEFULLY LESS - to go :) On Monday, I still had a pretty bad migraine (that I've had since the previous Monday) so I called the doctor's office to find out if there was anything else that I could safely take to get rid of it. When I was in the office on Friday, Dr. Swaim gave me some medicine (basically a stronger dose of tylenol) to see if that would help. It helped me fall asleep in spite of the pounding in my head, but didn't get rid of the migraine because I can't take anything to treat the cause of the migraine (over dilated blood vessels in the brain). Migraine medication is not safe during pregnancy because its' job is to constrict the over dilated blood vessels - safe for mom, but not for baby because it crosses the placenta and can cause the baby's blood vessels to constrict which can hinder brain blood supply, development, growth because her blood vessels are so tiny right now.
Anyways, I was just calling to see if there was anything else that I could take that wouldn't cross the placenta...and instead ended up having to go to the hospital for testing. (ughhhhhh) Annoying and frustrating but I guess better to be safe and make sure nothing else is going on than to just assume things are fine and something bad happen that could have been prevented. They ran some tests on me just to make sure that I wasn't developing preeclampsia and everything looked good on the testing. The baby was moving around a lot and her heart rate was perfect :) My migraine/light sensitivity is still going strong and they aren't sure of the cause or why it hasn't gone away...I'm guessing it's probably just because of blood volume increases in pregnancy. She gave me another medicine (a different version of a tylenol based medication) and again, it didn't really seem to help.
I had my 38 week appointment with Dr. Swaim today, as well as an appointment with a neurologist to see about my migraines (I guess just to make sure there wasn't anything else serious going on). Dr. Swaim said I'm between 2 and 2.5 cm dilated, 70% effaced, and the baby's head has moved further down in my pelvis, positioned at the -1 station. I've been having a lot of menstrual type cramps, lower back pain, pelvic pressure and some contractions - all of which are normal for "early labor", which I'm officially in as of the last doctor visit. Don't get too excited though- early labor can last for hours, days, or even a week or two so there's nothing to say that baby Lauren is coming any sooner than her due date......but MAN I hope she does!!!! Anyways, unless my contractions get stronger/more painful and more frequent, the baby's staying in for a while longer and I will be seeing Dr. Swaim again next Friday for my 39 week appointment. (Please get out little baby! I'm tired of being pregnant and miserable. We want to meet you and I want my body back and all of the ailments to go away!!)
The neurologist appointment was nothing too exciting. After a bunch of poking and proding and questions, he recommended that I get an MRI. An MRI (of the head) would be fine for pregnancy but I've only got 2 weeks (more or less) left of pregnancy so I'm just going to hold off for now. I'm just tired of jumping through so many medical hoops honestly. We've had a lot of ultrasounds for the baby and various things come up along the way these past 9 months and I'm just tired of it all. I can't imagine that anything more serious would really be going on since I'm in otherwise perfect pregnant health - I really think my migraine just won't go away because of my increased blood volume from being pregnant. And if that's the case then the issue will resolve itself whenever the baby is delivered (and there is also nothing they can do about it anyways as long as the baby is still camping out in there). Once the baby is here, if my migraine hasn't gone away after a few weeks then I'll go for the MRI and get things checked out further. But until then, I'm just going to chill and play it by ear.
That's the latest! Here are some belly pictures - the first 4 are 37 weeks and the last one is 38 weeks. I'll have Sterling take a better 38 week picture tonight after he gets home and we have our Friday night dinner date :) Will post them next time.
Up 41 pounds!!!Love,
J&S
J&S
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