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Good luck. Try not to worry too much in the meantime! Remember, 1:130 is still a very, very low risk.
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Oct 21, 2016 00:07
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LizzieBorden posted:After much hand-wringing, we've decided to have a CVS on Tuesday. We should have at least some of the results by Friday at the latest. I've draughted in the big guns, my Mum is coming to stay for moral support. Please cross everything you've got that it goes well, and the results are good. Good luck! The odds are in your favour.
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Oct 22, 2016 23:59
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A good rule of thumb is that if it's occasional weepiness or grumpiness or what-have-you and it goes away on its own, it's probably normal hormone nonsense. If it's persistent or intrusive or interferes with your enjoyment of life, you should talk to a professional about it.
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Oct 24, 2016 01:42
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Holy poo poo you guys I got a scrip for Zofran and I'm about to get fat as hell from all the stuff I can suddenly eat. I always thought ondansetron sounded like a party robot and now I know that that's because life is a nonstop celebration when you don't want to puke constantly. LizzieBorden posted:After much hand-wringing, we've decided to have a CVS on Tuesday. We should have at least some of the results by Friday at the latest. I've draughted in the big guns, my Mum is coming to stay for moral support. Please cross everything you've got that it goes well, and the results are good. Lizzie, hope your CVS went OK today and you're feeling as well as you can be. I'm thinking of you!
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Oct 26, 2016 00:56
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If she's only had one cycle off the Pill and hasn't conceived, that's not really cause for concern. Some people get lucky and get pregnant on their first try, but most people don't - and lots of women don't ovulate their first cycle off hormonal contraceptives, especially if they've been on them for awhile. Timing intercourse appropriately with ovulation (tracking cervical mucus and basal body temperature, as well as using LH dipsticks) helps a lot of people to conceive. If she has PCOS, she's at higher risk for infertility that requires treatment, so probably the appropriate person for her to ask if there's anything she can do to improve her chances of conception and what investigations or monitoring might be appropriate is the doctor who's treating her PCOS.
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Oct 26, 2016 02:10
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54 40 or gently caress posted:Oh yeah, she's definitely had convos with her doctor and even though she only went off the pill in June she's definitely already kind of frustrated. Basically the only advice I could give her was just stay off TTC forums where everyone is getting beyond worked up. I sympathize with your pal; I got knocked up after two cycles (one just having sex without protection, then one timing intercourse with ovulation, which worked immediately) and after the first period I was like WELL THAT'S IT, I'M DEFINITELY BARREN, WE SHOULD JUST GIVE UP. (And had a positive pregnancy test three weeks later.) If it's something your friend really wants, of course she's going to be impatient about it, as we all are when we don't have direct control over a situation we're emotionally invested in. If it makes her feel better to eat legumes and use Pre-Seed and do a handstand for 20 minutes after intercourse every time, she's not going to cause any harm by doing so. Otherwise, tracking her mucus, temperature, and LH, making sure she's otherwise in good health (including a healthy weight and taking a prenatal vitamin) are the only options for now, and if those don't work there are tons of medical treatments that are often effective to help people with PCOS conceive. One thing she should be careful about is taking herbal supplements like chaste tree berry, which a lot of people do but nobody should try without talking to their doctor first. A lot of herbal supplements have interactions with prescribed medications or can affect pre-existing medical conditions, so even though they're available over the counter, she shouldn't take them without her doctor's OK.
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Oct 26, 2016 16:23
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LizzieBorden posted:Fingers crossed for some very low odds and a nice positive scan. Let us know how you get on. I think you mean a negative scan  I did the first trimester screen last week but I'm in the happy position of not caring if I have a baby with Trisomy 21 so I only have to spend my worries on two out of three conditions screened for. I've worried about so much stuff already in this pregnancy that the relief of having something I don't have to fret over is almost indescribable. Another 22 weeks of being high-risk-pregnant sometimes seems impossible. I told my husband he gets one baby out of me and then if we want to grow our family we're fostering/adopting. He couldn't agree fast enough!
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Oct 29, 2016 15:38
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Actually I have to disagree with that pretty strongly. Harmony is a screening test because there have been a couple reported cases of false negatives and we don't have years of data collection yet, but I would be very surprised if in a couple of years, with a few refinements and more data gathered, we didn't characterize it as a diagnostic test. (It's also worth noting that although CVS and amnio are considered diagnostic tests and are very, very accurate, they too can rarely have false negatives due to genetic mosaicism or other rare conditions. There is no such thing as a 100% accurate test for prenatal diagnosis of Trisomy 21.) Right now we primarily classify CVS/amnio as diagnostic and Harmony as screening not because of a significant different in their accuracy for predicting Trisomy 21 (because the difference in their negative predictive value is extremely small) but because CVS/amnio eliminate one of the potential sources of error in Harmony by collecting tissue directly from the placenta/amniotic fluid, whereas Harmony uses free fetal DNA in the maternal blood. It's also important to be clear that Harmony absolutely WILL give you information that the first trimester screen won't, because it measures something completely different. First trimester screening calculates the risk of Trisomy 21 based on the ultrasound in combination with a number of different proteins and hormones (serum markers) that are associated with Trisomy 21. An abnormal amount of those serum markers can be caused by Trisomy 21 but it can also be caused by problems with the placenta that aren't chromosomal, or by normal human variation. That's why the first trimester screen is a screening test, not a diagnostic test: abnormal levels of those serum markers increase the chance of a baby with Trisomy 21 because that's one possible cause, but can't rule in Trisomy 21 because there are other potential causes. In contrast, Harmony looks at free fetal DNA, which is DNA from the baby that makes its way into the mother's bloodstream. That's a very different set of information and that's why it's so much more accurate. The difference between a diagnostic and a screening test isn't black-and-white. For example, when we diagnose diabetes, we consider a very elevated level of HbA1C in the blood to be diagnostic, even though the "gold standard" of diagnosis is a glucose challenge test and HbA1C is a proxy measure. That's because it's very rare for someone to have a HbA1C that's very elevated and not have diabetes. It's also worth mentioning that your risk of having a baby with Trisomy 21 is 1:148, your risk of miscarriage with CVS is about 1:100 and your risk of miscarriage with amniocentesis is about 1:200. So if you have an invasive test, you are more likely to cause harm to a normal pregnancy than you are to detect a pregnancy affected by Trisomy 21. (And the most likely outcome of course is that you detect a normal pregnancy which continues uneventfully.) Some people assess that the consequences to their life of having a baby with Trisomy 21 would be so severe that that imbalance in risk is acceptable. For other people, the discrepancy in numerical risk is too great and they choose not to have invasive testing. There's no right approach. What you choose will have to depend on what would be worse for YOUR family; it's a very personal choice. The biggest advantage to having an invasive test is that the results are available much more quickly; if your plan with a diagnosis of Trisomy 21 would be to terminate, that can make a big difference, depending on the gestational age you're at. We always recommend invasive testing before termination, so if you had a positive Harmony you'd be adding time and a step to that process. On the other hand, if you had a negative Harmony, you'd be avoiding an invasive procedure that would have exposed your pregnancy to unnecessary risk. Weighting these risks and benefits is very individual; you're the only person who knows what's right for you. I know it sounds like I'm advocating for Harmony here; I'm not, because I'm not invested in whether people find out prenatally whether their babies have Trisomy 21. What I AM invested in, as someone who provides prenatal care professionally, is that people are making decisions based on good and accurate information, and that includes the information that not all screening tests are created equal. In Ontario, we offer Harmony as a universal next step after a positive first trimester screen because it provides such high-quality information that we can often advise people based on its results and save them a procedure that, while very safe, still carries risk. Dogfish fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Nov 2, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2016 17:18
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Yeah here it's a different calculus because Harmony is covered for people with a positive first trimester screen, and invasive procedures are all covered by the government's medical care program. When I have patients who aren't eligible for government care because they've just moved to Ontario or something similar, we talk about the potential costs of Harmony (which is about the same $450 here) vs the costs of CVS/amnio (which can be upwards of $1000) vs the potential cost of Harmony AND invasive testing if Harmony is positive. We definitely don't offer termination without invasive testing because the risk to the pregnancy is much less of a concern when we're planning to end the pregnancy, and for obvious reasons we always want all the information available before we perform a termination. The purpose of screening tests is to try to avoid unnecessary exposure to risk; when we're ALMOST completely sure that we have a diagnosis and our plan is to terminate the pregnancy, we can have a much higher degree of comfort that we're not causing unnecessary harm by doing an invasive procedure to confirm our plan.
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Nov 2, 2016 17:32
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That sucks. Print-outs and keepsake pictures are one thing (remember that an ultrasound is a medical procedure), but if you felt that the technician wasn't doing the procedure as she explained it to you, or that she was abrupt or dismissive in the exam, that's a problem. Here everyone with a positive first trimester screen gets referred to a genetics counsellor to talk about their options; do you have the option of talking to genetics at the hospital where your OB appointment will be? It's pretty common in some places for obstetricians not to see patients until 20 weeks and to have the earlier care done by the family doctor, but if you've had an abnormal test result you should be able to be referred to a genetic counsellor. My pregnancy is also high-risk and I definitely sympathize; it's so hard not to worry about everything once you've been given that label. But remember that odds of 1:148 for Trisomy 21 is odds of 147:148 of the usual number of chromosomes. There is a 99.3% chance that your baby doesn't have Trisomy 21 at all.
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Nov 3, 2016 22:29
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Your baby's head is probably wayyyyyyy up in your vagina if you're not in labour. Unless your finger was up in there as far as it goes, it probably wasn't your baby's head. 
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Nov 5, 2016 02:17
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The worst-kept secret in obstetrics is that when everything's going well, a moderately intelligent monkey could catch a baby. Skilled birth attendants aren't there for when things are working right- we're there just in case they go wrong and you DO need medical expertise. We're like lifeguards; most of our job is just sitting around in case something goes wrong.Eponymous Bosch posted:Birth plans are more about you figuring out what is important to you. Always understand that very bad things can happen and then all that should be on the plan is "living mother and baby." The difference, in my experience, between feeling things did not going according to plan (even the smoothest birth can surprise you) and being happy with how it went was more a matter of the mother feeling respected and trusting her care team. I didn't get to do everything on my birth plan that I wanted, but I discussed my Top Three Seriously Important Things that I wanted and said the rest was gravy. This is great advice. I usually ask my patients to come up with "birth preferences" for me: we usually list the top three things that they really would like to have happen unless it's truly impossible, and the top three things they absolutely don't want unless it's to immediately save their life or their baby's life. 54 40 or gently caress posted:My midwife told me the 'wrong' due date on Wednesday? She said I was 17+4 but my expected due date is April 7th so that would put me at 19 weeks. Do I correct her next time? If you're due April 7th you were indeed 17+4 on Wednesday. That being said, if you think your midwife has your gestational age calculated wrong another time, always better to double-check. She won't mind; happens all the time.
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Nov 5, 2016 22:09
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I love it when my patients hire doulas for the same reason I love it when my patients take their medication as prescribed: it improves outcomes. Even if you don't want a low-intervention birth, there's a lot they can do that's very helpful. They do an amazing job helping people feel better and also helping birth work better and be safer. I've hired mine, and my birth will be a high-intervention, high-risk nonsense factory. Also if cost is a factor lots of places have a volunteer doula of volunteer birth companion program where you can access those services for free or for low cost, and many doulas will charge on a sliding scale. They're amazing.Eponymous Bosch posted:They are really helpful to your partner too, because men can just lose their poo poo when they see you in childbirth (except if they're an OB/nurse/etc) Even if they are, man, even if they are. Maybe especially if they are. No matter how many babies you've delivered nothing prepares you for it being someone you love. I delivered my niece because I was like "Oh yeah no problem it'll be the same as any other birth" and it WAS NOT. I actually think it's worse for those of us who work in obstetrics because we've seen all the scary stuff and no matter how much you know the odds are in favour of everything going well, when it's somebody you love it's so hard not to send you brain to that place of "OH GOD EVERYTHING WILL BE A DISASTER AAAAAA" I even find I have to be really careful of that tendency for myself; every time I have a twinge or something I like "Oh my God remember that gal who had a sudden unexplained seizure? Didn't she say she had felt a weird twinge earlier that day? Maybe I should go to emerg just in case!" The more you know, the crazier it makes you, haha! 54 40 or gently caress posted:Really? I'm so confused! I had been given the April 7th due date and then there was some calculator I found where you input the due date and it shows you how many weeks you are, when heartbeat can be seen on ultrasound etc. Oh well, no biggie. A bunch of the calculators on the internet are kind of crappy. Count it backward on a calendar, where April 7th is 40 weeks, and you'll see.
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Nov 6, 2016 18:47
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Miranda posted:Gahhhh I feel like I have a uti. Unfortunately I have a history of often feeling like I have a uti (pain, spasms etc) but not actually having an infection (some docs think it's interstitial cystitis, mostly we have no idea). Usually I'd just take pyridium and it'd go away in a day or so. Now I don't know. I've already had one uti scare early on which wasn't an infection. I know the risk of preterm labour with one too. But it's likely just my usual issue for which I'd just take pyridium and drink a ton of water (the latter I am obviously doing anyway). Still feel like my body is revolting against me after the glucose test. Ughhh halp. Have you ever seen a pelvic floor physiotherapist? I've had a couple patients with the same issue, which unfortunately worsened in pregnancy. They all turned out to have hypertonic pelvic floors, and when treated by a physio got way better both during and after pregnancy. Some people also get venous congestion in the vulva during pregnancy that causes irritation that can mimic urethral irritation. That UTI feeling is so miserable! Poor you. You definitely do want to rule out infection, as I know you know, not only because of the PTL risk but it's surprisingly easy to get pyelonephritis when you're pregnant thanks to progesterone dilating the ureters. Why not swipe a Multistix from work and pee on it? If the dip is suspicious for UTI, go to a walk-in and get antibiotics. Pyridium's not available in Canada so I don't know if you can take it in pregnancy. Eponymous Bosch posted:Thank you Dogfish for your hard work (and terrible terrible hours)! Back at you! The hours are indeed crap, but it's such a great job that I always feel like I'm just whining when I groan about getting up at 3 am. Wouldn't do anything else. Being on sick leave is HORRIBLE. I felt like I was abandoning my patients and also I just miss going to work. Watching Netflix and feeling like I have a permanent flu is definitely no substitute for convincing babies to be born.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:27
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54 40 or gently caress posted:I'm hoping I can avoid one but man. I'm just going to drink all the cranberry juice on hopes that it'll help. It doesn't help that I've had increasingly bad pain in my groin joints? Like it needs to be popped really badly. I'm nervous since I'm so short and already top heavy with my chest that my lower back, hips and pelvis are going to just get progressively worse. Hopefully I can at least make it to 30 weeks before if I need to consider short term sick leave. Get a pelvic support belt! Also called belly belts, maternity belts, v-belts (the ones that look like an aerial harness), or hip braces. If you're getting lower back and pelvic pain, now is the time to introduce structural support and also to pay really close attention to your positioning and ergonomics. When your ligaments loosen, the muscles in your pelvic floor, butt, hips, back, and legs have to tighten up to stabilize your pelvis. The more stable you can keep those pelvic bones (by bracing them with one of the aforementioned devices, but also by watching your pelvic positioning), the less that muscle tension will increase, and the less pain you'll have. In terms of positioning, remember that any time you move one leg and not the other, you're tilting your pelvis out of whack and causing that tension. So don't cross your legs or sit with your legs wide apart, try to move both legs together when you turn over in bed, and sleep with a pillow between your knees. Basically you want to keep your hips in line with your knees in line with your toes as much as possible.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:50
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When they rewrote I think it was the Employment Standards Act they made a list of caregivers who can write absence notes from work and midwives weren't included in that because, the theory goes, midwives manage normal pregnancies and if your pregnancy is normal you should be able to work. If there's enough not-normal that you can't work, you should see a doctor. That this approach misses significant nuance in the lives of real people should be immediately obvious, so I get to waste the taxpayer's money (and sometimes my patients' money, if their doctors are sensible sorts who charge for non-essential services like work notes for bullshit HR/insurance rules) by sending my patients to see their family doctors for a note that says "Sarah Jane's back hurts a lot because she's pregnant; she can't do her job at the anvil-lifting factory right now but will be able to again once she's not hauling a whole human being around in her torso." Some private insurers do accept notes from midwives, as do many HR departments for their internal leave processes, but the government and most of the major insurers don't, for that reason. (Manulife in particular are especial dicks about it.) (We're also only paid 52% of what our work is worth and receive no compensation for being on call but that's fine because we're [mostly] ladies, and all ladies really want to do is help people and be lovely and kind so it's no trouble at all for us. It's in our natures, so why would we need a financial incentive? I do love my job and I do mostly want to help people and be lovely and kind; I just also want to be paid commensurately with what that's worth.)
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Nov 7, 2016 04:07
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I could write a literal book on all the social, political, and financial factors that influence the current status of midwifery practice in Ontario, but I won't, because that would be very boring to most of the people in this thread. The short version is that as long as institutional and cultural sexism is a thing, pregnancy care in general and midwifery care in particular will face significant funding and logistical challenges. I am hopeful that if the Association of Ontario Midwives wins our pay equity suit against the government, we'll see some effects beyond remuneration, but ultimately the entire way maternity care is delivered in Ontario is way overdue for an overhaul (and there are councils and committees set up at the provincial level that are addressing this). I'm hopeful that pregnancy care here will look very different in 10 years. Not that we don't do a pretty good job now! But we could be doing way better, both for our patients and for the taxpayer.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:33
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The trouble, as you mention, is that in the States there's so much variation in the education, training, and regulation of midwives that you could be getting a Master's-educated nurse or you could be getting some lady who read Ina May Gaskin and decided she was called to catch babies. There are tons of really competent, excellent American midwives, and there are some really scary dangerous unregulated practitioners, too. Here in Canada midwives aren't nurses, we're a separate health profession trained separately, which I think has its pros and cons as a system of regulation. I'm pretty active on hospital committees and other professional advocacy groups in trying to integrate midwifery better into the healthcare system, because when it comes down to it every obstetrical health profession wants the same thing - happy, healthy parents and babies - so we should all be on the same team. And since we have different training and different approaches, we have a lot to learn from each other! When I've worked in hospitals where midwives are well-integrated and we use a teamwork approach, it's been awesome - all the patients, no matter who their care provider is, really benefit from it. Which is pretty much what you'd expect: when you have lots of smart, competent people from different educational backgrounds working together and supporting each other, you get good outcomes. When they take an adversarial approach to each other, you get worse outcomes. Eponymous Bosch posted:I'm sure you've heard it all, but sex with the goal of semen hitting the cervix has evidence to help. Evening primrose oil also and if all else fails (talk to your healthcare provider first of course) castor oil, and the Miles Circuit to get baby's head in the best position for birth. The prostaglandins in semen aside, also bear in mind that oxytocin is the hormone both of labour contractions and of orgasm, so if you're not in the mood to give your cervix a dose of prostaglandins, feel free to get a little oxytocin boost by yourself instead. Evening primrose oil I usually find we have to do for a couple of weeks for it to be effective. Castor oil can work really really well BUT only if your cervix has already started to make some of its pre-labour changes. Otherwise you'll just have hours and hours of painful diarrhea. I usually advise my patients to come in for a stretch and sweep first and then depending on what their cervix is doing I'll give them the castor oil recipe or we'll meet up again in a day or two to try again. Everyone in my family goes to 42 weeks. Everyone. Some people just need a long time to gestate. I firmly believe that those extra two weeks were necessary for me to become as good-looking and brilliant as I am today. Unfortunately the hormones that start the labour process have to come from the baby, so until your wee one decides it's time to party, you're stuck waiting around. Get used to it: this kid's going to be setting your schedule for a long time to come!
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Nov 7, 2016 22:48
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If you want to learn more about outcomes for babies at 37 weeks, "early term" is the search term to use. But remember all research can tell us is that babies with certain characteristics (being born before 39 weeks, being born to university-educated parents, being born in a low-resource country, being born by Caesarean, etc) are more or less likely to also have certain health or developmental outcomes; we can't predict anything for an individual baby or family. Being born at 42 weeks, I was eight times more likely to die being born than a baby born on its due date, but of course obviously I didn't (probably because my chances were still less than 1%...). Sometimes people have their babies early because something artificially starts the labour process, like an infection or high blood pressure; in circumstances where the baby is safer outside than in, you're more likely to go into labour early. Sometimes people have their babies early because of normal human variation - if 90% of normal babies are born after 38 weeks, that means 10% of normal babies are born before 38 weeks. But the reality is that, as with most things to do with the human body and particularly as with most things to do with getting tiny humans out of the human body, stuff happens for reasons we don't understand even a little bit. I will most likely be induced at 34 weeks because of my crazy high-risk pregnancy and I'm trying very very very very hard not to read the research on outcomes for late preterm babies! Because nobody publishes a study that says "It's fine. They're fine. Don't worry about it."
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Nov 7, 2016 23:11
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Well you shouldn't have used the deck stain made with oxytocin, duh Oh man I think biostatistics would be such a cool field in which to work. Evey so often I flirt with the idea of an epidemiology master's. Evidence-based medicine is such a tricky concept because it's so hard to figure out how much of what we know we actually DO know, let alone how to go about filling in our knowledge gaps, let alone translating knowledge into practice. Human beings should come with manuals.
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Nov 8, 2016 02:43
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54 40 or gently caress posted:My sister is super particular and strict about car seats so when she asked if she could help me pick one out I happily obliged. Not only are TENS machines fine in pregnancy and very helpful for some people in labour, lots of midwifery clinics in Ontario rent or lend them to clients, so ask your midwife if she has one for you.
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Nov 9, 2016 05:57
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Ah, what a bummer. Sorry to hear that. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect in terms of the diet. Small portions of lean protein + whole grains + veg + fruit, frequent snacks, low GI foods, few to no refined sugars. They'll give you dietary targets for sugars and total carbohydrates most likely, and have you check your BG before and after meals. Remember that you work in the NICU so you only see the diabetic babies who aren't well! I have loads of patients with well-controlled GDM whose babies are normal size, with stable sugars, who go merrily home from the postpartum floor the next day without any issues.
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Nov 9, 2016 23:19
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When you're induced, you go from not being in labour to being in labour much quicker, which can make it harder initially to cope with the sensations of contractions. Usually when you go into labour it's a slow ramp-up that gives your mind and body time to get used to the feeling. With inductions (or for people who just go into labour really quickly) it can be more intense quicker. But if you can get through that initial shock and find your groove, most of the labouring people I've attended say that it's pretty manageable. I've been to lots of lovely inductions where the women coped beautifully and had a good experience. If you really don't want an induction, you can talk to your care provider about trying something like castor oil first at home tonight. Or ask them to wait two to four hours between breaking your water and starting the oxytocin drip and see if you'll go into labour on your own just from that.
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Nov 10, 2016 15:59
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Rondette posted:I asked my midwife the other day about castor oil, she gave me a look which suggested I had asked her if it was safe to break my own waters with a knitting needle. A crochet hook, surely. I definitely don't recommend taking anything that your care provider isn't on board with (although I tend to think that shaming people for asking questions about alternative treatments isn't the best clinical approach). For people who want to avoid oxytocin if possible, I've also had good success with rupturing the membranes and doing a couple of hours alternating walking and nipple stimulation with a breast pump. If you have an electric pump, you could bring it with you to the hospital and see what your midwife thinks. Breaking the waters releases prostaglandins and other helpful chemicals, and nipple stimulation releases oxytocin.
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Nov 10, 2016 16:49
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Fear isn't a good reason to make any decision - not to put off an induction that you've decided is the right thing for you, but also not to opt for an induction because the "what ifs" of continuing a pregnancy scare you disproportionately. It's hard to say whether anything good can happen after 42 weeks if you routinely induce people when they hit 41+3. I've had lots of folks opt for a 41+3 medical induction for postdates and have a great experience. I've also managed uncomplicated spontaneous labours at 42 weeks and beyond. Human variation is too great for categorical statements. (Except "Nothing good happens when you text after 2 a.m." That is always true.) The risks do go up across a population after 42 weeks, but there's no way of knowing what that means for a particular individual a priori. Make sure you have all the information you need to make a decision you're comfortable with, and decide based on what's important to you.
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Nov 10, 2016 19:46
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Whatever happens, you'll get through it! You'll make the right choices for you and get your baby out however you can. People do this every day.
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Nov 10, 2016 21:38
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Congrats SquirrelFace! That's great news! That's going to be you soon, Rondette! #teamRondetteAll this stuff about cute babies and the miracle of birth is great and all, but can we please talk about pooping for a minute? Ondansetron the miracle drug that has allowed me to eat and move without wanting to puke has also apparently shut down all my insides. I look like I'm 28 weeks gone and it is ALL POOP. Dear friends of the pregnancy thread, please tell me one of you has a miracle pooping cure. So far I have increased my fibre intake to the point where my diet is indistinguishable from that of a giraffe, I drink 3L of water a day, and I'm taking a stool softener. Nothing. I had a go at glycerine suppositories, which produced limited results, but I'm still so, so bloated. Please save me. I might explode.
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Nov 11, 2016 02:45
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Thanks everyone for the advice; I'm going to take all of it. I'll send my husband a warning text before I have the coffee, though, because it makes me SO SO SO PERKY. I honestly think the biggest thing (besides ondansetron, the double-edged drug) that's causing this is lack of exercise. I've always been super active but on interferon I'm so exhausted I can barely manage a 10 minute walk. Gonna have to flog myself through it though I think because I would rather be exhausted and pooping than my current state. Basically, I'm a mess hahaRondette posted:
Yes Rondette! You got this! Go get that cute baby out of you!! #teamRondette 54 40 or gently caress posted:I think today I'm having a very emotionally confusing day. It's the 18th anniversary of my dad's death, but I also have my anatomy scan in an hour. I'm excited and happy that this day will finally have an emotion tied to it other than sadness but it's bittersweet because my dad isn't here. I'm so sorry about your dad. My granddad died on the weekend and in the weeks before his death all he could talk about was this baby and how excited he was about it; I have that same bittersweet feeling when I hear the heartbeat because I know how much it would have meant to him to see this kid born. Loss is complicated and difficult. Definitely eat your feelings.
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Nov 11, 2016 15:58
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3pm today I'm being induced AHHHHHHH
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Overjoyed double post about pooping: that coffee really did the trick, hoo boy! What would I do without you gals?! Also 54 40 or gently caress I'm thinking of you and hoping your day's going OK. You too, Rondette!
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Nov 11, 2016 18:31
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Oh Rondette, poor old you! Remember you only have to do this one time, no matter how long it takes, and then you get to be a mum for the rest of your life. And sometimes things can turn on a dime with the Cervidil - you might suddenly break your water and boom! be in rip-roaring labour. Also you should be able to buy ranitidine at any pharmacy; the brand name is Zantac. So if you find the heartburn is getting worse before you go back you can send someone round to get some for you! You can't be pregnant forever! But here's hoping baby gets the picture sooner rather than later. At least you get to do the waiting bit at home instead of in a hospital room. Good luck!
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Nov 12, 2016 17:09
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I mean, really, I've never fully understood why babies let themselves be persuaded to be born. So, I can float in a hot tub all day while someone eats and breathes for me through my bellybutton, or I can be born into a harsh world where I have to do all my own bodily functions and learn to communicate, and walk, and eventually pay taxes. I'LL JUST BE STAYING IN HERE, THANKS. Yes I have found the last week slightly trying, why do you ask? P.S. Don't listen to me, Rondette's baby. There's all kinds of things out here that you can't see in a uterus, like goats.
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Nov 12, 2016 22:21
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You can never talk too much about pooping. Miralax is PEG, right? I don't think we have that brand in Canada. Motherisk says it should be fine because it's not absorbed. (A small cup of coffee worked a treat for me, I can tell you! I felt like a new woman.)
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Nov 13, 2016 05:02
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Miranda posted:Edit: I think you and I just bounce back and forth between the same threads! Are you following me?! We're just both of us sea creatures floating around this ol' internet. But yeah I see you everywhere haha. Rondette posted:Thanks for your comments they have made me laugh! I'll be screaming GOATS, NORMAN, GOATS!!!!!! and no one will know why!! They had a go late last night at trying to break my waters but to avail...however after a crap night's sleep in a communal ward full of crying women I have been shifted to my own delivery suite so I guess this is where the magic will eventually happen. ..... ...... Go #teamRondette! Goats! GOOOOOOOATS!!
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Nov 13, 2016 15:36
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Rondette posted:Should touch down in a couple hours....I've ended up with an epidural which is AMAZING and feeling pretty chilled right now. Labour pains are brutal, I was at it for about 7 hours before I hosed that poo poo. Definitely before midnight...in my time zone Go Rondette go!!the_chavi posted:I am at 32 weeks and change, and the pain in my hips is miserable. It's like I can feel the ball part at the top of my femurs connecting to my hips, and those joints have been beaten with hammers. I have to say, I didn't expect my hips to be the most painful part of this pregnancy so far! Any suggestions on mitigation techniques? So many suggestions! First I would get a belly band or pelvic support to see if you can externally stabilize the hips. Part of what's causing the pain is probably loose ligaments from pregnancy hormones giving your joints extra mobility, and helping restrict that movement will probably help. Paying careful attention to positioning helps with that, as well - you want to keep your pelvis quite stable, so focus on keeping your hips aligned with your knees and your feet. No crossing your legs, try to move both legs together when you roll over in bed, sleep with a pillow between your knees to maintain that spacing. If you have insurance for massage, that's probably not a bad idea, and if that doesn't cut it, a referral for physiotherapy might help.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:36
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Congrats Rondette! You did it!!
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Nov 14, 2016 15:58
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Miranda posted:I am seriously struggling to get through the night at work lately. I need snack ideas - obviously low sugar and high protein. Popcorn and diet coke probably not the eat idea (normally I have yogurt and fruit. But I forgot everything tonight. And fruit has gotta be cut down). Yes I know I'm not for sure GDM but I'm gonna eat like I am kinda sorta. I think that's a smart call and it's what I advise all my clients with positive OGCTs to do even if their 75g OGTTs are negative. I've been eating super high protein because it helps my nausea so I have lots of snack ideas for you! - Cheese and low GI fruit like apples or pears - Veggies with hummus - Homemade trail mix: your favourite nuts and seeds all mixed together, plus I like to put in yoghurt-covered raisins - Protein shake or high-protein smoothie (I blend at home and put in a mason jar for portability) - If you like yoghurt, switch it up for plain high-protein like Greek yoghurt or Skyr, and sweeten it yourself with honey or jam - My favourite work snack is snack size burritos. Get the little tortillas (you can get the low carb version if you're worried about carb counts) and fill with beans, cheese, veggies and guacamole. I usually make two or three to last the day. - Toasted chickpeas: roast canned chickpeas in the oven until crispy with a little oil and whatever seasoning you want. Delicious for snacking. - Egg salad salad: lettuce, veggies, and one egg's worth of egg salad on top. I put curry powder in the egg salad, too. As a bonus, most of this is pretty high-fibre too so it's good for pooping, which of course is pretty much all I think about all day every day. Also most of it will keep in its container for awhile so you can meal prep before you start your line and just grab pre-portioned snacks on your way out the door every night.
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Nov 15, 2016 15:32
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Nobody's pelvic floor is working right five days postpartum. I usually tell people that if they're still feeling like things aren't normal in that area three weeks out from birth, or if they're having incontinence (urine, flatulence, or feces) that's getting worse or not getting better after three weeks, to let me know. Pelvic floor physiotherapy is really effective but most physios won't see people except in really dire cases before 6-8 weeks postpartum, because that's how long it can take for things to naturally get back where they need to be. I wouldn't do Kegels at this point, especially not if you had a tear. I would rest and let your body do what it has to do, and then talk to your care provider if it's not better in two weeks.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:51
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SquirrelFace posted:Thanks for this. I think this is what I really needed to hear. I know realistically it's just going to take time, but I just want to get up and get back to being myself so bad that I think I may be doing more harm than good. You are still yourself! You're just the version of yourself that recently created an entire human being from scratch and spends most of every day sustaining that human being from your own body. You have accomplished and are accomplishing an enormous physical task and it only makes sense that a) you're feeling the effects of that and b) your body has different needs right now than it would if that weren't the case. Hang in there!
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Nov 16, 2016 00:15
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The short answer is yes, and the long answer is yes, but... Here's the short answer: yes, the more expensive brands work better in the sense that generally speaking, they'll get out more milk quicker. The higher-quality pumps are more expensive, generally speaking. Double electric pumps are the most efficient, single manual pumps the least, and the ranking seems to work pretty much exactly as you'd expect. Generally the more you pay, the less time each pumping session will take, too, because the pump is more efficient, so as with so many things, part of the calculus is time vs. money. The long answer is really the answer to the question, "Does it matter enough to spend the extra cash?" and that's going to depend on your situation. If you're buying a pump as part of the plan to increase your low milk supply, because you had problems breastfeeding in a previous pregnancy, or you're planning on exclusively pumping, a double electric pump is absolutely worth it if you can afford it. If you're planning on pumping very occasionally so Grandma has something to feed baby when you finally go out on a date just the adults, it's probably not worth it. It all depends on how big a role the pump is going to play in your baby feeding plan and how much time you're willing to invest in pumping.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:46
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You are doing a great job growing your baby. As it turns out, you're not a robot, which is why you occasionally make decisions based not on the logical calculation of what will be Objectively the Best Thing to Do but on what you want in that moment, and sometimes what you want is a delicious fountain Coke. That's a thing all humans are prone to (and it's a good thing too because not being a robot is also what will allow you to love and care for your baby) and if our bodies all disintegrated every time we made a less-than-perfect dietary choice there would be no humans left on this forsaken planet of Earth. Cut yourself some slack. Then cut yourself some more. Then tell your husband he needs to find another management strategy for his anxiety that doesn't include dumping it on to you. The short answer is that we don't actually know what causes gestational diabetes. It's comorbid with a bunch of things like gestational hypertension that suggest it may be in part triggered by something that happens during placentation. People who have gestational diabetes are also at significantly higher risk for T2DM later in life, though, so there's some thought that a genetic predisposition to insulin resistance/elevated baseline blood sugars may also play a part. But given that the guys who study this for a living don't have a good handle on what causes it, I think it's safe to say that your husband hasn't singlehandedly discovered that the cause of GDM is you having the evil white sugar occasionally. There are tons of things that can cause an elevated OGCT. A breakfast that's too sugary, accidentally not eating enough before the test, a high-stress week or even just a high-stress morning, and the list goes on. It's fair to note that one of the things that can cause an elevated OGCT is in fact a metabolism that's not doing a great job of regulating blood glucose, and that there seems to be an intermediate condition between normal metabolism and GDM that's associated with an elevated 50g test and a normal 75g test. People who are in that intermediary condition do have a higher risk of some of the things associated with GDM even though they don't have it, like macrosomic babies (which is why I advise everyone who has a positive OGCT to eat for blood sugar control regardless of the OGTT results). But lots of people have an elevated OGCT for reasons that have nothing to do with their glucose metabolism in general, and they're not at higher risk for anything. The bottom line is that pregnancy is a hyperglycaemic state for everyone because babies love sugar and so they make chemical signals in their placentas to keep your blood sugar higher. Some babies are really good at doing that, and we don't know if that's a quality inherent to them (they make more of those chemical signals or have placentas that let more of the signals through) or inherent to you (you have a predisposition to high blood sugar that means the usual amount of chemicals is more effective on you) or, more likely, some combination of both. I've had patients who had literally every risk factor for diabetes who had perfect sugars and gave birth efficiently to trim little six-pounders. I've had patients who were the picture of health with no risk factors who ended up on insulin. It's a complex metabolic process and we don't have a good handle on it, so blaming any one thing is not a good move and your husband needs to find a different approach to his worries. I wish we knew exactly how the human body works, but it's really complicated and full of nonsense and so mostly we just make our best guess and go from there. We can't prevent everything, and we all have to go about our lives and do the best we can to live in a way that makes sense to us even when we're pregnant. I don't think assigning blame is useful most of the time, and it's doubly useless in a situation like this where we don't even know what the cause is in general, let alone where we could place fault if we wanted to. ALSO, this is my pet peeve, but laboratory testing isn't something we "pass" or "fail." The results are not given out on the basis of merit. They're a window into what's happening in our bodies at the particular moment that the test is done, and they give us a clue to how our bodies are currently working, and THAT IS IT. It isn't a value judgment. It's not a barometer of moral worth. It's just how much sugar is in your blood and all it informs is what decisions we might make to try to help you and your baby be healthy.
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Nov 17, 2016 05:58
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