21 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 21 Weeks, 

Size of baby: Baby T is about the length of a banana

Total Weight Gain: 8 lbs

Maternity Clothes: All maternity pants and regular/maternity tops

Gender: GIRL!!! She has a name but we haven't told all of our family yet so I'll let y'all know next week!

Movement: I've been feeling some movement in there but nothing too strong yet

Sleep: I love sleep.  I wish the feeling was mutual.  I've been waking up with very fast heart rates several times this week and can't fall back asleep afterwards.  More on that below....

What I miss: Just sleeping through the night.  And right now Chick Fil-A iced tea.

Cravings: Sweets 

Symptoms: Oh, this week was a doozy...  I actually felt pregnant for the 1st time on Saturday when I helped my friend Jackie and her mom set up for a bridal shower.  By the end of the afternoon I. Was. DONE!  My belly was feeling heavy and I was exhausted.  I've learned that I can't do everything that I could do before baby girl was growing in there.

Best moment this week: Just feeling her moving around and celebrating our anniversary!  Oh, and her bedding came in and it's so cute and we ordered her furniture!  :)

So, this week was WAY more eventful than we would have liked!  I started noticing about a week and 1/2 ago a weird feeling in my throat randomly.  After a few days of it I described it to my friend and she said it sounded like heart palpitations so I started paying attention to my pulse and it was palpitations.  It became more frequent so I called my OB and described what I felt and she wanted me to see a Cardiologist right away.  I went on Monday and he ran an EKG, Echo cardiogram (ultrasound for the heart) and hooked me up to a Holter monitor (portable heart monitor) for 24 hours.  Today I had another EKG and Echo cardiogram checking things out again.  

I for sure wasn't wearing the right shirt the day they hooked me up to the Holter monitor and had to walk through the medical building looking like this.  Awesome.  This thing was ANNOYING!!!  There were seven pads stuck on me with wires attached and they itched.  BAD!  Not to mention the 2.5' of wires hanging down.  The black thing hanging from my neck was the little computer that stored all my heart beats.  Did I say it was for 24 hours so I also had to sleep hooked up to this thing??

I think I did a pretty awesome MacGyver job with this thing on Tuesday morning!  I had a little extra time since you can't shower while wearing it!!  Awesome.  Luckily it was only for one day, I was able to take it off after work.  I tucked all those wires into my maternity pants and then stuck the monitor through the buttons and kept my sweater button all the way up like a nun to hide the pads.  Only one person asked me all day at work what was  hanging from my neck!  

Some really well hid wires!

See why I didn't want this showing??

So, the results weren't exactly what I hoped for but it could have been much worse.  I ended up at the Cardiologist three different days this week due to some heart rate issues (my highest heart rate was 210 beats a minute, not so good and that was just from walking up one flight of stairs.  You would have thought I had just sprinted a mile without stopping the way I was breathing).  I apparently am anemic and also have something called Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT).  Basically my heart beats so fast that the heart muscle can't relax between contractions.  When the chambers don't relax they can't fill with enough blood for my body and the brain doesn't received enough blood and oxygen causing me to get light headed, out of breath and have a very fast heart rate.   I've been becoming out of breath just walking across the room or talking on the phone so it hasn't been the greatest week but my Cardiologist and OB got together and discussed the situation and came up with a plan for now.  I'm unable to take the medication necessary to regulate my heart or have other tests run because of baby girl but plan B is in motion so hopefully everything will work out.  My Drs say it's not going to get any better (actually, it's just going to get worse as she gets bigger and requires more blood) until after I deliver her and then we'll reevaluate my condition again.  Until then I'll just keep being monitored and hope for the best!  Best news is that baby girl is not effected by any of this, she's just hanging out and growing in there!

Other than that minor issue, I'm loving being pregnant and can't wait to meet our little girl in a few months!!  :)