Pregnancy Journal: What An Adventure….

I’m almost 29 weeks…and had an adventure at the mall yesterday.  Here’s a thought: there’s a downside to consuming very little sugar.

I woke up Wednesday morning feeling fine.  And actually I had a physical on Tuesday afternoon confirming things were fine.  I didn’t really eat breakfast because my parents were coming and we’d be going out for an early lunch.  We headed out just after 11.

At the mall, we had lunch at a restaurant. Normally I’d order unsweetened iced tea, but they had an in-house-made peach tea and I ordered that.  It was sweet…too sweet for me, and the first thing I’d had all day.  I drank it anyway.  Not so smart.

We had lunch, then walked around the mall a bit.  I was feeling really sore and tired and wanted to sit.  And then I felt really dizzy and light-headed and my eyes wanted to close.  I walked to a bench and said I was dizzy and needed to sit for awhile.  I tried to kind of lean back, relax, breathe…I wanted water, but I couldn’t quite stay sitting up or make sense of what was going on.

Then I was asleep.  Or at least, that’s how I felt.  I was dreaming about something.  Then I was waking up and everyone was around me, leaning over, asking me what had happened and was I all right.  I was still sitting on the bench.  At first it felt like they were talking from far away, it was so hazy.  I was trying to “wake up” and remember what had happened. 

I quickly came out of it and realized that I was at the mall and what had happened.  I explained to them this happened once when I was pregnant with Daniel, too.  Slight dehydration + sugar on an empty stomach (even if followed by a meal) affects me poorly.  When not pregnant, I’d just not feel that well, kind of tired and nauseous.  When very pregnant, I actually faint.  Super fun, right?

Anyway, they’d already called paramedics, who showed up and took my blood sugar (212, which sounded ridiculously high to me, but they said given that I’d just eaten and just had a sugary drink, it wasn’t really out of the ordinary) and my blood pressure (normal).  I knew exactly what was going on and could talk to everyone, answer questions, felt basically fine, except very tired and a little dizzy still.

We ultimately decided that we’d go home.  I could stand and walk by then without feeling dizzy and my parents were with me to take care of the kids and drive us.  And we were only five minutes away.  Since I knew what had happened and I had a midwives’ appointment that night, I decided not to call them immediately.  I didn’t feel like I needed to go to a hospital when the paramedics had already checked the crucial stuff and deemed me fine.

But, it sure wasn’t my favorite event of the day!!

Later we went to the midwives’ appointment.  They were not particularly happy to hear what happened, nor my blood sugar level.  They said it was likely because I don’t really eat carbs/sugar too much, so my body wasn’t able to react quickly enough to bring my blood sugar down when I did.  Apparently a lot of people with diets like mine fail the gestational diabetes test for the same reason.  I found that interesting.

Other than that, everything was good.  I only gained about 2 lbs., I’m measuring basically “on” again.  Blood pressure normal, no glucose or protein in my urine by that time.  And, since it was my 28-week appointment, they checked my hemoglobin levels.  In my other pregnancies, eating no beef at all, I was anemic at this time — my level was around 10.  Now, eating beef nearly daily, my level was 12!  So, I’m not anemic and we don’t need to worry about this.

We talked about my ideal birth situation, too.  The midwives think the best plan may be for them to be in a separate room (very close by) during most of my labor, so that I can focus entirely on my body and my baby.  And then they’ll come in here and there to monitor me and then deliver the baby.  This sort of thing worked the last time (in the time where they were in and out, but mostly left me alone, I went from 4 to 10 in barely an hour…after no progress for about 12 hours!).  We’re also exploring using music and water for relaxation.

Hopefully the next week will be less eventful!