My Pregnancy Continued - The beginning of a dizzy spell

I'm not even sure where to start with this post. I imagine I will have to do it in two parts. My last updates covered up to week 22 and my anomaly/anatomy scan. I'm now week 37, so 15 weeks has passed and a lot has happened since then! The journey had not been so smooth up to this point (but obviously it had had its good points) but it was only going to get bumpier along the way.

After my scan I had a few nice days of reveling in the experience and being able to buy my first baby purchases! I didn't want to push my luck, so had waited until this scan before allowing myself to get anything. Fortunately payday was the day after my scan on the Friday, but I had work on Saturday morning and a 2yr olds birthday in the afternoon, so I didn't get to go shopping until the Sunday.

 

I then has a tiring but fun day dragging myself and my baby shopping list across sunny Leeds to Babies R Us  and Mother care (both nowhere near my house or each other) and excitedly looking round at all the cute baby outfits and toys, and getting my first baby items. 

 However the next bump in the road was only 6 days after my scan when I started getting weird sharp pains, so popped over to the Maternity Assessment Center during afternoon break from work, and as a result ended up being admitted to hospital! Leaving some of my work friends wondering where on earth I'd gone.

I had gone to get checked due to the stabbing pains, which I'd been having in my abdomen, from my naval area onwards. I had no idea what they were and being a first timer, it really scared me. I pushed my worries aside at first, but then at work the next day it was getting a lot worse and as I work in a hospital, it was only sensible to go get checked out.

MAC at L.G.I were really great and looked after me and did the usual checks and suggested the pain was probably just my muscles being stretched and moved aside. However they were more worried about my active Crohns disease which had been getting worse (and makes my pregnancy a high risk one) and my iron levels, which from a test that morning had been shown to have dropped from 10.6 to 9.5 in the space of a week, and the previous week 11.6 to 10.6. They wanted my G.I treatment sorting out and so I was admitted to the antenatal ward. 

I did get a bit upset about this as I have had to stay in hospital in the past when very ill and I hated it (more so the first time, the second time I was incredibly ill and out of it so didn't notice as much). However I knew the best thing for me and baby was to get my health sorted out. Anyway the next morning (where I was given no breakfast for no known reason) I was seen by a youngish cocksure G.I Dr, who didn't have the best bedside manner (seemed cold and 'in your face'), seemed to think he knew better than anyone else and tbh was a bit of a knob and quite rude to the antenatal staff. The two departments obviously had different specialties and different priorities.....he wanted me to stay in for a few days at first for tests and didn't want me on Iron tablets due to my G.I condition, and didn't seem bothered about it, as "patients intensive care only have to have theirs at 8". Yeah fair enough but I've got to grow a baby and go to work everyday and not be on life support thanks! Not really a fair comparison I thought.

The antenatal Dr's then had their rounds and amazingly the consultant was called Mr.Simpson and he seemed old and wise, so I warmed to him much more quickly. He got my hospital antenatal and G.I care set up and sorted so I could be monitored along with my iron (which he wanted higher, especially as I was constantly loosing blood - my main problem with Crohns besides the stomach aches) and if needs be have an infusion.So he was brilliant, even though this is what he said about my baby: "babies are excellent parasites, they take everything from you. Were more worried about mummy".

Then thanks to my previous consultant at Manchester, they got my background history, so after a few more tests I was allowed to go, but I had been put on steroids to treat my IBD.
However despite this hitch in the road, there was one highlight whilst I was there; when I'd had my hand on my belly and felt her kick through my hand for the first time. Then when at home after relaxing in the bath I saw her kick make my belly move for the first time. Both magical experiences which made me giggle a bit with happiness and amazement.

So it had been a bit of weird couple of days, but the next day I planned to go to my sisters for the weekend for some baby shopping and to spend time with my nephew, so I had something to look forward to. So that morning I took my 40mg of steroids, which I've had in the past at high levels, and got on with getting ready, only to find when doing my make up that it was a massive struggle to stand up, I felt dizzyish but more a kind of heaviness was coming over my head and my chest and a weak feeling everywhere else. I had to sit down for quite a while. I then trekked to Armley town as I needed cash for bus fare, only to find that was quite a struggle too and did wonder if I would pass out, but I put it all down to my blood pressure, as I had occasionally been feeling like this due to it being pretty low.

However the next day at my sisters, when left alone to mind my nephew, not long after taking my steroids I started feeling really funny again. I tried to wave a walk around, have a drink, breathe properly but i began to feel awful. After a while I realized I couldn't even sit down I was going to have to lie on the floor, and so not to scare my nephew I dragged myself to my room on the 2nd floor (the attic room) and only just made it to my bed. It was like climbing Everest and I don't know how i didn't fall back down the attic stairs as i crawled up them, and by this point I couldn't even see. 

I felt horrific, similar to how I felt when very ill a few years ago and my b.p had dropped to 56 over 38 ....dangerous levels. I was terrified and actually thought I was going to die or something. I told my family and my mum and brother live down the road but neither were going to come round for a while as they weren't ready and my sister was driving off to meet her boyfriends parents so wasn't coming back, so I was on my own. My nephew acted very grown up and kept coming to check on me. Eventually I recovered but knew then I couldn't take these steroids during pregnancy.

Mothercare my little world of dreams bathset

Back on the pregnancy roller-coaster, the next day my sister took me baby shopping. I still wasn't right, so we didn't spend too long out and I took things slow, but it was lovely and fun getting baby things again, so was a much better day than the previous. My sister had been unbelievably kind and given me an amount of money to help get some of the baby things I would need. I was so grateful and it helped massively, and whilst I was with her, with her having a car, I managed to get a couple more of the bulky items such as a baby bath set (pink :) ) and a baby bouncer.

So that takes me up to 23 weeks 5 days. Only a week and 4 days written about, and already this post is long enough. I'll try be more brief with all the up's and downs in my next posts where I get very ill or it will be a long time before I get it all written about and I only have 19 days left til my little girl is due!

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