Growing

I had my OB appointment this morning and we talked about a bunch of stuff. First thing though are my stats:

I'm up about 20 lbs in weight so far
My fundal height is measuring 25. It should be measuring 22 but we chalked the difference up to the fibroid.
The baby's heart rate was 146 and sounded like a tom-tom drum more now.

I mentioned my roster of new symptoms from the past week -- puffy ankles, dizziness, fibroid pain, leg cramps. He said cross country flying was hard for just about all pregnant women so that factored a good bit. The dizziness he agreed was just keeping up my water consumption and also if I feel a bit of a crash an hour after lunch to just eat a little more then to keep my sugar levels ups. He though the leg cramps was more likely due to lactic acid build up but I'm still thinking its the calcium supplement that is helping and he didn't have a problem with that.

So my fibroid... he said it should be moving out of my pelvis based on where it was located in the ultrasound, but it's not yet. It still might as things continue to grow -- other women with fibroids have noted changes like that over time in their pregnancies I've seen from the various message boards I follow. Since it is causing me some irritation he said that we do need to keep an eye on it and to make sure that it isn't triggering pre-term labor. Just as I thought, though so far it's just been focalized pain.

He said by our next appointment we should know which way my fibroid is going to go and whether or not it is going to cause problems. We talked a bit about fibroid degeneration, which I've learned a fair bit from on the uterinefibroids discussion group over the past four years. He said if ibuprofen doesn't help then we could try stronger pain relievers though I assured him that the pain wasn't that bad yet.

He said the fibroid isn't in the greatest position but that it shouldn't cause any issue during my c-section he doesn't think. He said we will want to monitor it more as we get closer to delivery, having another ultrasound at 32 weeks or so. He said it might interfere some with monitoring the baby's growth, I'm thinking that's because it is making my uterus larger. I asked him if as the baby grows if it might cause me more discomfort and he said it was likely.

I asked about travelling at Thanksgiving to Los Angeles to be with my partner's family and he said it should be okay, provided my fibroid isn't causing me more problems (cramping, pre-term labor). I talked to my partner about it, that we might book refundable fares and also call the airline ahead of time to get a seat that was well positioned -- aisle seat, near toilet, with leg room.

My next appointment they will check for anemia and I also have to do the glucose tolerance test with the nasty Glucola stuff.

I came back to work and was feeling a little sensitive about things but writing down what we learned here in my blog, and sharing it with you all, it makes me feel a little less isolated. Having the fibroid isn't a fun thing at all but at the end of the day we do have a baby on the way and my body is doing pretty well -- once I just figure out the minor dietary adjustments to keep it happy in this next phase of pregnancy.