Don't let life get you down!

Well, I'm still dealing with my heart acting up.  I'm not sure what it is.  My OB doc says it's not damaging my heart and the baby is fine.  Well I don't feel fine!  I feel like I've just run a marathon without getting off my couch!  It's exhausting and I'm ready to be done with this pregnancy to see if this stuff continues on it's own or not.  I see the cardiologist tomorrow morning and I'm hoping that Regions gets the report from my holter monitor back to her in time for my appointment.  I'm going to ask her to track it down if she doesn't have it on the top of my file when she walks into the room.  So I'm hoping for good news tomorrow.  Good news would be this:
1.  There is no lasting damage done to your heart, it is simply the strain of being pregnant and you will be 100% fine.
2.  In order for your heart to stop being stressed you need to deliver this baby sooner rather than later.  YaY!
3.  In the 6 weeks after you give birth you should have no episodes and will not have to continue to take the heart medication.

Ok, so that probably isn't going to happen, at least #2 probably wont. I'm preparing for another 4 weeks and 2 days of being pregnant.  I want my baby to be healthy but I also don't want to have a heart condition for the rest of my life either!  It's pretty hard to decide which is worse!  Deliver baby early or have a lasting condition that will forever affect how I can live my life?  I'm hoping that the cardiologist will be able to answer some of these questions for me tomorrow.

For those of you that haven't been talking to me recently this is what I feel when I have an episode:
1. My heart beat increases
2. I start to breathe faster
3. My chest gets tight
4. I get light-headed which leads into full on dizziness if I don't get control quick enough
5. My ears stop working.  I can barely hear anything because of the lack of blood pumping through my body and to my brain.
6. I get shaky
7. I get nauseous
8. I am exhausted.

These happen at almost every episode, but not always in that order.  These episodes last anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours.  Try taking care of your children when you can't hear what they are saying to you.  Rather difficult my friend.  I've had this with the other two pregnancies as well but the heart medication has always kept it under control with very few break-through episodes happening.  Well this time none of the 3 different heart meds that I've been on this week have done anything to keep it under control. 

So I'm hoping that the cardiologist has the magic answer tomorrow and everything will be perfect!

On a side note: 

I'm turning the big 3-0 on Monday.  What!  No way you say!  You can't possibly be that old.  Well, my friends, that is exactly how old I'm going to be. 

I've started thinking about which face creams I will have to apply daily so that this ancient face doesn't fall right off my bones.  Did you know there are like millions of them out there?  How in the world do you chose?  How do you know what you need to look for?  Alpha-hydroxy, green tea extracts...  blah blah blah....  It's the most confusing decision I think I've had to ponder in a long long time.  Which college to go to was easier than this!  It's crazy and makes my head spin!  So with crazy pregnancy hormones I'm supposed to decide which magical cream is going to keep me from looking like the crypt keeper in five years?  Ha!  Not going to happen my dear friend, not going to happen!  I think I'm going to take my chances and wait until my face actually starts to shrivel up, then I will get serious!

Another side note:

I really want an e-reader!  I keep hoping that my wonderful husband will surprise me with one for my birthday but I don't think that we can afford one right now and while I totally understand it still sucks!  I really want the NOOKcolor but I can't figure out how to come up with $249 for a machine to read books that I can get from the library for free?  Did you know that there are like millions and millions of ebooks out there fore free?  Or even as little as $.99?!!?!?!  Talk about crazy! 



I was talking with my mom the other day about how much the revolution of ebooks is going to save the planet.  Can you imagine how many trees are going to be saved because they don't need paper to make a book?  Think about the manufacturing pollution that will not be needed anymore because instead of a factory making books it will be a group of people sitting in an office, working on their computer, to publish these books.  I'm sure that the editing cost will go up because someone is going to have to sit there and make sure that they are in the right format for publishing electronically and such.  However there will be a loss of job in those factories for the people who are standing there working the machines that create books.  The great thing is that even though there will be less books made there will still be books made! Not everyone can afford an e-reader and as such they will still be purchasing regular old books! 

I started out thinking I would never want an electronic form to hold all of my books.  Then I realized that there are so many more books available to me in the virtual world that my library will never be able to accommodate my reading habit to the fullest.  So I've decided that an e-reader would be amazing and that I will gladly take one from any method I can secure one from! 

So for all of you out there that have a ereader that is simply collecting dust on a shelf.  Please email me and I will forward you may address so that you may send me my birthday present.  If you don't happen to have a spare one lying around then you can send donations to me for the purchase of a new one.  Rest assured that it will be well loved and taken care of.  At least you aren't making donations for some bimbo to get a boob jog.  This will continue to educate me and I will be a better person for it.  Not simply a bigger breasted one...

Holy Heart Batman!

So we all know that I'm pregnant... and now you get to listen to my latest worry/complaint.  Well I'm 35 weeks tomorrow.  I've suffered from Hyperemesis and Tachycardia in addition to the normal pregnancy complaints.  So I feel like a whale, my back hurts, but vagina is being ripped from my body, heartburn, mild water retention, just to name a few. 

For the last few weeks my heart hasn't been cooperating with me.  I've been on medication to keep it under control since about 10-12 weeks and it has worked with all three of my pregnancies so far until delivery.  Once baby is out everything goes away.  I stop hurting, my heart stops racing, I stop wanting to throw up every second...

For the last month the medication for my heart hasn't been working that well.  So I talk to my doc and she says lets increase your meds and see if that helps.  Well for a few days nothing, no improvement.  Then for a few days the episodes are a little better...  I think YAY!!!  It's going to work!  Then yesterday hits.  I have the WORST episode that I've ever had since going on medication with my first pregnancy.  So I finally get home and call my doc and leave her a message.  She calls me back later that night and says that if it happens again or doesn't get better then she wants me to go in and get checked out.  She's talking about hooking me up to a Halter (sp?) monitor again to see what my heart is doing. 

So I wake up today and my heart is still working too hard.  I talk to Jason and he says just call and make an appointment.  So I get an appointment with another doctor who is familiar with my 'issues' for later this afternoon.  All the while I'm sitting here feeling like I'm running a marathon without leaving my couch.

Here's my issue.  This heart thing FREAKS me out!!!  How do I know that it isn't creating damage that I will deal with for the rest of my life?  Is it safe for the baby at this point?  How do we know?  I'm 35 weeks, 36 is considered full term.  Why can't we just deliver the baby so that everybody is safe?  I'm willing to wait until she decides to come on her own if it's safe for everyone.  I'm freaking out that I'm going to have a heart attack or something.  I have a friend who had some heart problems while she was pregnant and they found out that her heart was only working at 25%!!! 

Why do we have to go through all these tests when we are so close to the end?  I know I want to meet my little girl and I want her to be healthy and safe but jeez, this is crazy!  This is my last pregnancy, I plan to get my tubes tied after this is all over with too.  I can't deal with this again and so I will be giving up on my dream of having a son.  My pregnancy is THAT bad.  I will refuse to have anymore children because my body and mind can't handle being pregnant, so why can't we just be done with it already!

So I know this is basically a bitch blog post but I don't know who else will listen to me.  Jason understands because he deals with it everyday.  My Mom understands because she worries about me.  Things that are messing with your heart just aren't to be taken lightly.  So what do you think that the doc is going to say this afternoon?  More than likely there will be little done, I might be put on the monitor for a few days but I will be told to wait until I go into labor and then everything will be alright.  How do I impress on her the stress and worry that this is causing?  It's so frustrating.  I know there is something wrong but I don't know how to express my concern. 

Well, keep your fingers crossed that the appointment goes well and that I get some answers that are satisfactory!!!

Thanks for listening to me complain and vent my worries.  Cyber-space is the perfect place for this type of stuff!