A Bit of a Scare.

It has been a scary couple of days. I've had a cold/cough all week, so Friday I finally broke down and went to the doctor. The main reason I decided to go in was because I was coughing so much and it was keeping me up all night. The last three nights I had spent sleeping upright on the couch because of the coughing. There are limited medications you can take while pregnant and those really weren't helping either. So, I made an appointment for Friday afternoon, thinking they'd probably end up giving me an antibiotic and maybe a breathing treatment if it was really bad (worst case scenario). I figured I'd be in and out in 30 minutes, so I brought Reese along too.

When I got to the doctor, they took my pulse and it was 135. A normal pulse (even for someone who is pregnant) is under 100. They were immediately concerned with this and starting doing all kinds of tests and rushing in and out of the room. My doctor came in and told me that they were worried I might have a blood clot in my lungs. Your blood thickens when you're pregnant, making pregnant women more susceptible to clotting. She said they were going to do a chest x-ray to see if they could find a clot. If they didn't find a clot on the x-ray, they were going to send me over to the hospital to get a spiral CT scan, which would be able to show a clot that a chest x-ray might miss. At that point, I panicked and asked if I should call Elliott. She said yes. Then I really panicked. They did the chest x-ray and nothing showed up that looked unusual. My doctor also decided to draw blood to check my thyroid levels, which can also be affected during pregnancy. Those results wouldn't be in for a day or two. Then they decided to do an EKG to check my heart. When Elliott arrived, they were putting wires and stickers all over me for the EKG- kind of a scary sight. That came back fine too, except for my high heart rate, which we already knew about. We spent the next hour waiting for my admittance paperwork for the hospital. Poor Reese had been at the doctor since before 2pm and it was now almost 5pm. She was a trooper and was rewarded with lollipops from the nurses! Once the paperwork was ready, we headed to Wesley Hospital for the test.

The spiral CT was an interesting experience. They put some fluid in my arm that made my insides feel really warm and I felt like I was wetting my pants. Fun times! Then they moved me in and out of a machine that was spinning around me. It only lasted about 5-10 minutes, but that was long enough for me. A few minutes later, my doctor called to tell me that the CT scan was clear as well. No blood clot. This was good news, but it still left us wondering why my heart was beating so fast. I was sent home for the night and my doctor said she'd call me about the thyroid results over the weekend.

On Sunday, my doctor called with the results. Normal. My doctor said she was going to contact a cardiologist in the morning to consult with them about what to do next.

On Monday, my doctor called and said they wanted to schedule an appointment with the cardiologist. After meeting with the cardiologist today (my pulse was still high at 126), she has decided to do an echo (ultrasound) of my heart tomorrow to make sure everything is working properly. Then she wants me to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours to monitor my pulse over a longer span of time to see if there are spikes or if it's running that fast all the time. She said that she thinks I'm going to be just fine, that some people have normal heart rates of close to 100 and pregnancy makes your heart beat up to 30 bpm faster, so it could be nothing. However, since I'm pregnant, we are trying to rule out all possible causes.

I am anxious to see how things check out at the echo and with the heart monitor. I have never had any heart problems or really any major ailments (not even a broken bone), so this is all a bit scary for me. It's also scary because I'm pregnant and I don't want to harm the baby in any way. Plus the thought of this being something life-threatening brings tears to my eyes instantly and all I can think about is how Reese needs her mom around and how I don't want to miss out on seeing her grow up. I'm probably being a bit dramatic (I hope), but these pregnancy hormones, plus just feeling crummy with this respiratory illness, have really put me on a rollercoaster.

Thanks for reading! I know this is a long post, but I wanted to let everyone know what's going on. Please keep us in your thoughts as we try to figure out what's causing this and continue with a healthy pregnancy. 4 months to go! :-)

We did manage to do a few things on our summer list this week. We went to another splash park and the farmer's market. Here are a few fun pics from both!

 

Reese said her favorite part was spraying other kids! :-)