Now Lower In Sodium!

My diet so far during this pregnancy has been fairly decent, in my opinion anyway. While I’m not keeping super close tabs I think up about 13-15 lbs so far. I gained 12 of that in the first 6 weeks because the only things that didn’t want to make me yak, were dairy and carbs. But since the second trimester I’ve been able to eat better and I’ve pretty much maintained my weight in the last 10 weeks. Maybe going up or down a pound here and there, but mostly  staying the same. So I’m golden, right? Yeah, not so much.

At my last appointment with the OB formerly known as my doctor, he made a comment about my blood pressure being on the high side. Like, consistently on the high side. In the past I’ve been known to refer to myself as “one of those patients” .. Meaning, my anxiety is always a little heightened at the beginning of an appointment, thus my BP elevates. So I asked that they check it again at the end of the appointment. ( FYI, I’m also one of those patients who doesn’t have a gag reflex until someone has to stick a wooden tongue depressor in my mouth… Go figure.) Anyhoo, he said if it was high one at one more appointment they were going to put me on a Blood Pressure medication. Crapola. And much to my dismay, this time it did not go down much at the end of that appointment.

So that was at my appointment last Monday. Tuesday was my car accident, so Wednesday I had to go back in for another checkup. That time I saw my favorite Nurse Practitioner and she noticed that yet again my BP was elevated. She seemed more concerned than the Dr. did, and asked me to pick up a BP Cuff at a drug store so that I could monitor my rates for the next few days, and possibly two weeks.  She told me to call in two days with my BP from that evening, then an AM and PM log for Thursday. When I called her back with the results she was still pretty unhappy, and told me I needed to start a low sodium regimen asap, and that she’d give me two weeks and if my levels didn’t drop they were going to put me on BP meds, STAT.

I have to say, I was pretty bummed. Especially when I read how dangerous elevated Blood Pressure levels can be during pregnancy. With  pre-term labor, and cardiac arrest being two of the worst case scenarios. I was terrified at the idea that my body was putting the baby in danger, and just plain hated the fact that I couldn’t have an uneventful pregnancy, just when I started to feel a little more at ease… And damn it, I didn’t want to take any more medications.

So began my low sodium diet, and my new obsession with checking my BP. My worst recorded rate at home was 138 over 87. Not. Good. And for the first three days it stayed within that range: Mid to high 130’s over mid to high 80’s. Double crapola. But over the weekend I started getting better numbers and by this morning I was 113 over 72. It hasn’t taken an exorbitant amount of effort to eliminate extra salt, but it is like any other diet – I just have to pay more attention to things like the fact that I like black olives. A lot. Like to the point where I would pretty much open a can to snack on while cooking dinner, and maybe I’d drink some of the juice right from the can… (Heathen! they shout) WHAT? It’s a healthy fat! Come on, they’re just olives. It’s not like I was snacking on Crisco, for crying out loud.

Anyway. I’m really grateful to have seen a difference so quickly, and I know it could have been a lot worse. I think it was that much harder emotionally because I had finally gotten to the point where I received fairly consistent reassurance that the baby is alive from feeling it’s kicks, to then finding out that there is potentially something that could take the baby away, and possibly me with it. Worst case scenario, I know. But still, very scary. And speaking of scary, my three hour blood glucose test is next week. I would like to think it’s going to be fine, but the truth is I have no idea what my body is or isn’t doing any more. So I’m just going to roll with it… 


(New pics to come in the photo gallery shortly!)