Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Pregnancy hormones…oh my!


          I had my follow up blood work done last Thursday, to make sure that my HCG and progesterone levels were doubling. The really good news is that yes, they are!! My HCG count was 2,152 and my progesterone was at 68. Two days earlier we were worried because LabCorp said my progesterone count was only 12…so either it was lab error or my progesterone shot up by 56 points in 2 days. Now wouldn’t you know it, I had the blood work done on Thursday, but I didn’t get the results until Friday, while at work. (Guess I still have some patience to learn!!)
          So it looks like we are progressing along at a good rate and my 6 week ultrasound is scheduled for 6/11/12, which is next Monday! I am so excited for this. I just found out that they will be looking for a Fetal Heart Tone, which may be audible this early. That is almost unbelievable! So we may come home Monday as the parents of multiples and we may hear a hear beat! WOW! Thank you Lord for this Gift! After this ultrasound at the local fertility clinic, I will be free to see an OB/GYN of my choice. My regular doctor now is also an OB and she is an assistant professor at a big college here. She has a great bedside manner and puts me at ease, so I may just stick with her.
          So an update on how I am feeling: nauseous, tired, and hungry! Before pregnancy I thought I had a bladder the size of a lemon, but now it feels like the size of an olive! I am peeing all the time. It’s almost comical thinking about it now. The most annoying part is that not many foods seem appetizing and there are so many things I am not supposed to eat. Pregnancy definitely has a lot of “do’s and don’ts.” I’m not supposed to eat lunch meat or mayo, so what the heck am I supposed to eat for a quick lunch? I think yesterday was the epitome of the problem this poses for me.
It was Monday and I had not yet been to the grocery store for this week’s groceries, so I didn’t have a whole lot of pregnancy approved lunch food on hand. I read that I could have tuna fish, but after I bought it last week, I discovered I couldn’t have mayonnaise. Who wants dry tuna? Yuck. So yesterday I had the bright idea that I could open a can of tuna in water, drain it, put some mustard in it and eat some dill pickles with it. (Sounds very appetizing right?) Ugh! It was HORRIBLE! I didn’t drain enough water out of the can so I had this mustardy, watery, fishy muck plus pickles. I tried to eat some saltines with it to lessen the mush part, but the crackers were stale! I couldn’t win!!
Luckily for me, God saw fit to give me an amazing husband. He happened to be home that day and witnessed my horrible lunch ordeal. He then went about the kitchen trying to find me something I would/could eat. He finally landed upon some uncooked pork chops and had to persuade me to allow him to go outside and grill me these pork chops for lunch. I didn’t want him to go through the trouble but he insisted I needed something good in my belly so he actually went out in the middle of the day and grilled me lunch….what a man. Diamonds and roses are beautiful, but a man that would go through that much trouble for his wife’s lunch is priceless.
Sadly, I have to say that the worst affect these hormones have had on me is causing irritability and mood swings. I feel like I am PMSing, but on overdrive. I have read that many women experience this but I fear that mine is worse because not only am I producing progesterone, estrogen, and HCG but I am also injecting and swallowing high doses of estrogen and progesterone. So I have at least double the hormones raging in my body. (Is this what athletes on roids feel like? Haha)
My dear husband likes to refer to me as Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde because you don’t know who you may get! I hate this feeling though. It is as if I literally have a very short fuse attached to me. I know it is the hormones because in the middle of my tirade I feel ridiculous; I am completely aware of my behavior, but I can’t stop the feelings surging through me. I have only had 2 big episodes in the last 6 weeks so I think that is pretty good, but I am still moody and touchy. Poor husband; I know he tries hard not to “poke the bear” as I like to put it. I don’t want to be ruled by these hormones either, though. Just because the irritability is a known symptom, I don’t want to use it as an excuse to be grumpy. So I am aware of it and I do try to reign it in. To my readers out there, any advice on how to handle the mood swings?

2 comments:

  1. Came over from the Bump adoption boards (hi!).
    First off, I have to say that our phrase in my household was "don't poke the bear" too when I was pregnant! DH would sometimes make the mistake of tarrying too long at the office. I'd go from a little hungry to a monster in like 5 minutes. Bad news.
    They do make nitrite-free lunchmeat that you just microwave for a little bit to kill any listeria that could be on it. I couldn't give up my sandwiches, so that's what we did (and still do), except I toast mine in our toaster oven to melt the cheese at the same time.
    Not to be a know-it-all, and I know uninvited advice can be really annoying, but I wanted you to know that lunch meat doesn't have to be a thing of the past!

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  2. Thanks Michelle! I did read that I could microwave the meat to kill that bacteria, but I cant wrap my appetite around hot lunch meat! (yuck)! But I may be forced to break down and try it :) I did find a recommendation to heat a loaded baked potato for lunch. I tried that and it was a success! I just used well cooked turkey bacon. But I do appreciate the advice; any future advice will be greatly appreciated as well :)

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