Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A Jinx

Throughout this pregnancy, I have been quite proud of the fact that I really haven't had many of the typical side effects of pregnancy: exhaustion, emotional, heartburn, swelling or crazy cravings. Generally, I have felt like myself, only heavier. :) Well, yesterday, I had one of the typical pregnancy-related side effects, and it scared the shit out of me.

I was sitting at my desk at work, and I started to feel lightheaded. I know dizziness is pretty common during pregnancy, so no big deal, I thought, and I put my head down on my desk. The dizziness didn't pass and I started to get kind of hot, so I went into our bathroom where there is a chair and it's usually 10 degrees cooler. I sat down for several minutes, and just continued to feel worse. My dizziness turned into serious tunnel vision and I thought I was either going to faint or puke. At some point, I realized that if I did, in fact, faint, I would be all by myself locked in the bathroom. Not a good plan. So I stumbled down the hall into my boss' office, completely ashen and dripping in sweat, and put my head on her desk and told her I didn't feel right. She took one look at me and told someone to get water and a cold compress. I was still so dizzy, and then I lost feeling in my hands. That totally freaked me out. It scared me so bad that I actually started to get upset. My boss called James to come and get me, and insisted I go home and call my doctor immediately.

What I learned is that not only is this sort of episode fairly common during pregnancy, but that I need to get used to weird stuff happening with my body and having absolutely no control over it. I was not outside in the oppressive heat, I had a nutritious breakfast, plenty of water, I was doing all the right stuff, but sometimes the pregnant body just decides to throw you for a loop. I've had such an easy pregnancy and been so proud of that, that it's somewhat difficult to accept that the next three months could be totally different. I'm getting bigger, it's hotter than hell here, and I'm slightly more uncomfortable. I've been taking it easy, and will continue to do so, but I just can't spend the entire weekend on the couch. I'm hoping I can continue to clean my house, run errands and go out to eat, at a bare minimum. A workout would be nice, too, but when I get home from work and feel tired, that's the first thing to go, and I'm OK with that. So, hopefully these last three months of pregnancy will continue to be relatively easy. And no more "spells." But we'll see.

The 26 week pictures were taken in downtown Austin on a Friday night. Date night with my husband...dinner and a concert. Which is nice, but I'm told we'll never be able to do that again once we have kids, so we're living it up!





No comments:

Post a Comment