29 Weeks
I’m going to purposely look at this update as a good thing. Yes, I’ll be in the hospital five times in the next two weeks, but I’m thinking about how thankful I am that my doctors realized something was wrong, and had a solution to fix it. I’m thankful that I’m going to start to hopefully feel a lot better in the next few weeks, and get some energy back!
See, I was just thinking that I was in the third trimester so it was normal that I was so tired and out of breath. Apparently what I’ve been feeling is a bit extreme though. We all know my hemoglobin came back pretty low last week, and a follow up showed my ferritin (iron stores) to be 5, when they should be many times higher than that.
So IV iron infusions were ordered.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the syringe full of thick, black, iron and sugar mixture wasn’t really it. It’s incredibly gross to look at, and even weirder to see it enter your veins. I was thankful it wasn’t too cold and didn’t burn going in, though. Both of which I’ve experienced with IVs before. So overall, besides the visual, it wasn’t that bad. I’ve only had my first infusion, so I’m crossing my fingers that I have as easy a time with the upcoming ones.
Looking back, I’ve had all the symptoms I should have recognized as severe anemia, but since I’m always a bit anemic, I guess I’m used to them. I was chewing ice again, the pulsatile tinnitus in my ears is probably related, as it the random itching attacks I was getting. Of course I was tired and out of breath, but when you don’t leave the house I think it’s easy to not notice how bad it was. That I’d require a two hour nap after doing a load of laundry, or that walking across the house would leave me panting surprisingly wasn’t obvious to me.
Unfortunately the iron isn’t an instant cure, but instead I’m supposed to feel my stamina (and oxygen!) slowly come back in the next few weeks. I’m also hopeful that this will help avoid the postpartum hemmorrhaging that I’m all too familiar with. I’ve recently learned there’s a connection between low iron stores and hemorrhaging, and since my levels had never been checked before, could this have been the reason all along??
Either way, I’m actually excited to start this journey, and can’t wait to face this summer massively pregnant but full of energy!
