I had a spinal for my c-section with Juniper and for whatever reason, the hole from the injection never closed up after surgery causing me to leak spinal fluid from the site. The lack of spinal fluid meant that my brain was no longer suspended, it was resting against the side of my skull every time I sat up at more than a 15% angle. These headaches are incredible. It felt as though the skin was melting off my face. Despite being on significant amounts of pain killers for my c-section recovery, they had absolutely no effect on the pain in my head. Breast feeding was impossible and because of that Greg spent a lot of time feeding Juniper through a feeding tube that was taped to his pinkie. It took the doctors a couple days to find the cause of the headaches, known as spinal headaches. Once I was diagnosed they were able to fix the problem by taking blood out of my arm and injecting it into the leak in my spine which coagulated and blocked the hole. I had relief from the headaches within 10 minutes of that injection. While I was glad that they had gotten the problem fixed, I was left with nerve pain at the injection site ever since.
Two weeks ago, the pain at the site of my spinal went away completely in the wake of very persistent lower back pain which is very typical during pregnancy. What I hadn't planned on was the intensity of back pain at such an early stage of pregnancy. I brought it up to my doctor at last week's visit. She gave me a belt that I can wear while standing for long periods of time. It sits just below my hip bones and has elastic and vendor sides that I can tighten to help hold my hips together. By holding my hips together it should keep my lower back from having to compensate as much for my loose joints. At this point in pregnancy you start to feel the hormone relaxin kick in. No joke, that's what it's called and what it does is it causes all your joints to loosen up in preparation for your growing uterus. This is what causes pregnant women to waddle later in pregnancy. Your hip joints get so loose that walking alone requires a little more care. The other suggestion she made was to try to make an effort to lift Juniper less since she's pushing 30 lbs. Easier said than done with a very cautious toddler. You have to go up a single flight of stairs to get to our front door, and then Juniper's room is upstairs once you are inside, then there's lifting her into and out of her crib, up onto and off of the changing table for diaper changes, and then our laundry set-up is in the basement so you're looking at 2 flights of stairs each way for each load of laundry. It really starts to add up when you break it down. Greg had a great suggestion of removing one side of Juniper's crib and installing the toddler railing so that she can get in and out of her crib on her own. A couple days ago I went on ahead and changed her bed over and WOW! She LOVES it!
Here's a picture of her in her new "big girl bed":
Even this little change has really made a huge difference in how my back feels on a daily basis. I still have painful days that are usually an indication of pushing myself a little too hard. We are also working with Juniper on crawling up the stairs by herself. It is a work in progress though. Juniper loves her bed. She calls it "camping" and who can blame her!
A single flight of stairs wipes me out. I have also found that I can no longer clean the whole house in a single day without being in a lot of pain at the end of the day. This for me is very hard to get used to but it is a great exercise in patience. I'm trying to nap on a daily basis during Juniper's afternoon nap and that seems to help a lot. I haven't found that my appetite has increased much from my pre-pregnancy appetite. I was a little worried about that since my goal is to gain between 24-45 lbs to help ensure higher weight twins. I am only 4 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight mainly due to a 13 lbs loss during the first trimester. I brought it up with the doctor and she said not to worry. I am still on target and most of the time you aren't really packing on the pounds until the third trimester. She also had us watch a 6 minute video about preterm labor and how to recognize those signs.
All in all the twins are doing very well and there is only a 6% difference in their size (anything above 15% is cause for concern). She said that although I am starting to feel uncomfortable the twins are developing perfectly so I just need to accept this as the new normal. I am 22 weeks on Friday. Once I get past 24 weeks the twins are viable, meaning that they can survive out of the womb if I ended up having any other complications and they needed to be delivered really early. It will also mean that we are past the highest risk for TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome).
We have three bedrooms in our house, one on the main level and two upstairs. Juniper's room is upstairs and we are moving our bedroom to the main level so that the twins can also be upstairs once they are sleeping more regularly. That will be the next major change in the house but thankfully the company that we bought the bed from is willing to move our giant, king sized, platform bed down to the other bedroom for $50! Major win there! Now to just figure out when we should do it...
Until next time...
Love,
W
A single flight of stairs wipes me out. I have also found that I can no longer clean the whole house in a single day without being in a lot of pain at the end of the day. This for me is very hard to get used to but it is a great exercise in patience. I'm trying to nap on a daily basis during Juniper's afternoon nap and that seems to help a lot. I haven't found that my appetite has increased much from my pre-pregnancy appetite. I was a little worried about that since my goal is to gain between 24-45 lbs to help ensure higher weight twins. I am only 4 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight mainly due to a 13 lbs loss during the first trimester. I brought it up with the doctor and she said not to worry. I am still on target and most of the time you aren't really packing on the pounds until the third trimester. She also had us watch a 6 minute video about preterm labor and how to recognize those signs.
All in all the twins are doing very well and there is only a 6% difference in their size (anything above 15% is cause for concern). She said that although I am starting to feel uncomfortable the twins are developing perfectly so I just need to accept this as the new normal. I am 22 weeks on Friday. Once I get past 24 weeks the twins are viable, meaning that they can survive out of the womb if I ended up having any other complications and they needed to be delivered really early. It will also mean that we are past the highest risk for TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome).
We have three bedrooms in our house, one on the main level and two upstairs. Juniper's room is upstairs and we are moving our bedroom to the main level so that the twins can also be upstairs once they are sleeping more regularly. That will be the next major change in the house but thankfully the company that we bought the bed from is willing to move our giant, king sized, platform bed down to the other bedroom for $50! Major win there! Now to just figure out when we should do it...
Until next time...
Love,
W