16 Weeks in Pregnancy #2

Hello all,

We last left you off at week 10 of our pregnancy and here we are at week 16! So we haven't shared a lot in advance (my apologies) due to some scary medical stuff that was going on. So here are my updates I wrote down to be able to share and I will break them down for what I meant by them at the time.

July 15th: I had been experiencing some "weird" pregnancy symptoms so I messaged my doctor's office and then called as well saying basically, "I know every pregnancy is different so can you just tell me if this is all normal?"

Symptoms: 1) Chronic Migraines, debilitating to sound or light. It hurt my head to hear my son sucking on my breast while feeding! 2) I was fainting/passing out or getting very dizzy daily, 3) Always exhausted, 4) My hands would hurt at times and other times almost all the way up to my elbow would just go completely numb, 5) Nausea and vomiting (normal I know).

There were a lot of concerns that it was in fact not normal and my OB called me in for an emergency OB appointment that day. After speaking with her about my long list of weird symptoms she asked if I could see a neurologist the same day if she got me in. Yes of course I said nervously. So, we end up in the neurologists office who sends me for an MRI again, fast tracking the same day stuff, and we are really nervous about all of this. I was so thankful for Tomek supporting me and being there with Patrick because it was a lot to take in. We didn't really learn anything other than there were concerns that something was going wrong in my brain. An all morning, day, and into the late afternoon day of appointments exhausted our poor baby boy and left us both hoping we were okay.

July 22nd: Sometime just before this appointment after many calls by me to the neurologist we learned that the MRI scans showed I have 2 lesions in my brain. One through the parietal lobe that was leaving the neurologist quite concerned that I may be developing MS (Multiple Sclerosis). At my appointment today I talked to my OB about first how baby B was doing and thankfully after a bit of time because baby B wouldn't stop moving she got a 155bpm heart rate and told us baby was doing well. (Apparently we are really good at making energetic babies!)

July 29th: After a lot of pushing and my own discovery (I found an MRI of mine done when I was 19) our neurologist was able to confirm the lesions were in my brain at age 19! This was a big relief (weird huh!) because he was pushing that once we hit the second trimester I do a Lumbar Puncture but I was really concerned about the effects such as radiation on the baby or even the odds of losing the baby afterwards. So, finding out that I have lived with these lesions at least since I was 19 Tomek and I decided to hold off on the lumbar puncture until after baby B arrives.

July 31st: My cravings have been on fire this pregnancy! Some similar to Patrick such as mashed potatoes, grilled corn, and burritos, but also cheesy bread, kettle corn, and tacos. "This pregnancy has been much more intense than our first which is why we (and everyone we know) keeps saying we are having a girl but we won't know for 7 more weeks!

All the symptoms I discussed before we talked about with my OB and she said it's quite possible I just won the pregnancy lottery of symptoms because independently the symptoms I was having could be explained as: Orthostatic hypotension, Carpal Tunnel, Chronic Migraines, and other typical pregnancy symptoms but collectively they can sometimes mean something else. Again after baby B is born we will confirm either trauma history theory or multiple sclerosis theory.

Aug. 19th: We are 16 weeks today and had another follow up appointment. This pregnancy is starting to finally feel calmer and the symptoms have died down a bit. My blood pressure was 110/60 and baby bowtruckle had a heartbeat of 134bpm. Patrick enjoyed his dada time in the office too. He has all the ladies in the office wrapped around his finger already.

Stay tuned...Our next update with be Baby B....Boy or Girl!