As a first time to-be-mother, pregnancy was a completely new experience for me. I had a lot of questions and was fondling to understand the changes taking place in my body. I was equally worried about the growth of my baby inside my womb.
With this blog series, “Pregnancy Week By Week”, I hope to extend a helping hand to all expecting parents by telling you about my journey.
There might be some things that you would be able to relate to and would even give you solace to know that someone went through the exact same thing as you. Hope I’m able to help!
Disclaimer – This is entirely my personal experience. The intent of this blog is not to advice but only to share. Any medication, medical examinations, dietary intake or exercise, mentioned in this blog, were prescribed as per my pregnancy and my body. Please do not perform these without consulting your medical adviser.
This week we had a scheduled visit to my OB-GYN. There was no ultrasound or any other test prescribed at this time. The doctor simply asked me about my health and any discomfort that I was facing. She enquired if there was any vaginal discharge, which she also physically examined.
For me, vaginal discharge had been minimal and only for the sake of hygiene I was changing my underpants twice a day. She also did a physical examination to check the amount of vaginal discharge and concluded that there wasn’t much.
I highlighted two points to my OB-GYN. One, was about the butterfly type sensation that I had felt last week. She did not conclusively say if it was the baby’s movements that I had been feeling. She however, checked the baby’s heart rate using a hand device – a baby heart rate monitor and found it to be normal. With this, she advised that I needn’t worry.
The other thing that I had highlighted to my doctor was I could feel a little leakage of urine and a slight pain in my crotch area. Though there was no pain or burning sensation at the peeing. I had an inclination that it could be UTI, particularly since it’s common at this time. To check this, I was advised to get a urine routine and culture test done. I deposited my sample the next day since the urine collected was supposed to be the first urine in the morning and without having eaten anything.
The doctor had also prescribed an Influenza vaccine since flu in India at this time of the year was quite common. I went to take my influenza shot the next day as it was pretty crowded on the day of the visit. The shot was administered in my arm and was very quick and painless. I didn’t have any side effects or after effects from having taken the shot.
Apart from this, all my other oral medicines like iron, calcium, folic acid, Vitamin D, oral progesterone medicine and blood thinner (ecosprin) continued as-is.
As for my symptoms, I continued to have a lot of fatigue and occasional pain in my legs. The new addition was acid reflux which was quite severe and was making it very hard for me to keep my food inside. To take care of this, I did deviate a bit from what my dietician had suggested. I started focusing more on what I was able to have and liked eating and took food in slightly lesser quantities than what the dietician had prescribed. I also avoided immediately lying down after a meal.
It did help a bit with acid reflux but in all honesty, acid reflux was so severe this week that these efforts were just a drop in the ocean.
As for exercises, this week I was able to increase the duration of my walk to around 45 minutes to an hour. I would walk very slowly and also if need be sit in between to catch some breath. This part of the day was the most welcome change as I would get an opportunity to step out of the house, which otherwise was where my days were spent, week on week.