Monday, March 11, 2013

25 Week Update: Thyroid Appt, Saving milk, and Stomach Movement!


25 Weeks… and counting! With only 15 weeks to go. Not really ‘only’ but maybe if I say ‘only’ it will seem like there is less time than there really is! :D

Let’s start with my weight. I’ve weighed myself for the past 3 days, and me weight has been jumping! But as of today I am 147.8. So I’ve gained a little less than a pound from last week… which is good because with me gaining 6 pounds last week alone I started getting a teensy bit nervous that by the 40th week I was going to explode. I mean, that could still totally happen… I have 15 more weeks to go and stuff but hopefully I won’t! :)

This past week I had my monthly thyroid appointment. I haven’t really talked about them too much because nothing was really happening and such, but I am going to update you as to where I stand now. Originally (if you’ve been following along my health journey) you’d know that I have been taking thyroid medicine from the very beginning of my pregnancy. Every month I basically need to get my blood drawn and then I meet up with the doctor who checks my thyroid level to see if the dose of thyroid hormone they are giving me is keeping me at an elevated level. They started me out on the smallest dose. The first month I showed improvement, but the second month the hormone I was taking was still not enough to have my thyroid keep up with the amount of thyroid baby and I need. So they bumped up my dose a from 50 mg to 62.5 mg. Same thing happened now with the 2nd dose. First it seemed to bump me up, now it is going down again, so they now bumped me up to 75 mg.

I really wasn’t concerned at first, now I kinda am. Well, I was concerned in the very beginning in general, especially when 10 different health issues seemed to pop out at me at once. Once I understood the whole thyroid situation I was calmer about it. Because there really isn’t any negative effect to the baby unless I don’t have ENOUGH of the thyroid… it could cause a lower IQ. And I also read somewhere the other day that how does a baby adjust from warm uterus temperature of 98.6 to the rapid cold temperature of the hospital…. Thyroid! Anyway, having the right amount of thyroid… especially when pregnant is very important.

What the thyroid specialist told me a few months ago and mentioned it again at this week’s appointment is that they also found an elevated thyroid antibody or something like that ( I still don’t fully understand this part.) Anyway, she says that may indicate I may have some auto-immune thyroid problem. I asked her, the fact that my dose keeps getting raised, that is not a good sign and does this mean I have to take thyroid medicine for the rest of my life?  She told me that there could be different causes for why my body is not producing the right amount of thyroid and such, and everything can also change once I give birth. But right now, there is no point to even try to figure out what the exact problem is because there isn’t much that can be done while I am pregnant. The most important thing right now she said is to keep the thyroid at a good level for the baby. After baby is born then they could look into doing more blood work or an ultrasound on the thyroid and see if they can see any growths or other abnormalities that may lead to the underlying reason for why my body isn’t producing enough thyroid hormone and go from there. Just sucks… and makes me a little sad that there is some sort of imbalance and issue going on with my body :(

I also remembered that I was recommended to take the natural iodide supplement by a friend and that should stabilize my thyroid. I started to take them, and then when I got sick with the kidney infection I didn’t take the pills with me to the hospital, and then I got the stomach flu and forgot about them altogether. I just randomly thought about that today and will start taking them tomorrow and stick to it this time… maybe it will help.

Saving milk… what the heck am I talking about you might think? Well, as you all know… I’ve mentioned that I have been leaking colostrum for the past 3 weeks already. And yes, with this week it is even more than last! I mentioned this to my friend the other day and she told me I can start saving and freezing it already now for the baby. Which I thought was weird at first, but then thought about it, and spoke to another friend and decided I would give it a try. Don’t worry… I am not pumping! Because we all know that could make me go into labor. I noticed now that I wear the bra pads during the day, I usually don’t have any leakage at all. It’s the moment I come home and strip down and enjoy the freedom of no clothing restraining my body- and usually in my warm bedroom do I begin to pour! I have a few milk freezer bag samples that I have gotten from various places, so I thought I would give this a try. I can definitely tell you this; I never predicted or saw myself saving colostrum at 24- 25 weeks pregnant! It is just crazy, and definitely not comfortable or easy to do so when it comes out in drops. But I can say as a matter of 3-4 days, I have probably 1.5 ounces already frozen. Weird. But then also I am thinking, this stuff is coming out of me and I am just wiping it and throwing it away? Why the heck is my body making this if it is not going to be used. And I know mamas consider this colostrum stuff GOLD… so… I am not sure if I will end up actually giving this old frozen colostrum to our baby, because if I have this now… I can only imagine how much I will have at birth! I am just simply collected this boob leakage from now and see where and how it goes.

Oh baby…. Baby has been having a party in my stomach every day! For the past 4 days visible movement has drastically increased! Even Zhenya got a look at this and was amazed and slightly creeped out that my stomach is moving on its own! It is weird, that is for sure! But also amazing and beyond cool at the same time. I have recorded a couple videos but they don’t capture his strongest movements. Most of the time when he IS moving crazily I just stare at my belly with awe and am too busy to take a video! :) I will get a good video recorded one of these days and share it with you guys! But yes, baby is SO strong! He legit has so much energy, that for such a small baby I have no idea where he gets it! Papa keeps saying that it’s because he is a boy! ;) We  have definitely been having a lot of fun with that this week as well.

There probably won’t be any blanket update this week, because I don’t think I have worked on it enough to have any “update” really. I have been excited and distracted with crocheting other things… and working of course. As I mentioned in last week’s post ( I think) my friend Katharine is going to expand my knowledge in the crochet realm, and hopefully by the time I give birth I will have learned how to make not only blankets and hats… but possibly socks, pants and sweaters too! I have so much enthusiasm for this now, and while I do… and have someone teach me I am using every moment I can! :)  Next on the list is to learn little socks! If I have something to show off , only then maybe will there be a small post about that! :)

That pretty much sums up my week! A week from today I have my midwife appointment and the following week I have my 2 hour Glucose test. From that point on my appointments are going to be every 2 weeks! Another milestone (kind of) in pregnancy to be looking forward to!

I did not do my belly shot today; I will make Zhenya take my picture tomorrow! I also can’t wait for the weather to get warmer out so we can start doing some artistic outside pictures as opposed to the boring old picture of me in front of our balcony curtains :) And just in general, once the weather gets warmer and my belly gets bigger I want hubby to do some very nice pregnancy photos of me. So a lot to look forward to! :)

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