Week 7 recap

Well, Week 7 was interesting! I was up north all of last week and was feeling pretty decent. I woke up on Thursday morning and noticed when I got out of bed that one of my veins was hurting in my right leg. 

I already have varicose veins (they run in my family) and they've been starting to get more prominent over the last few years. Between gaining all that weight, then working out with a trainer/weights (which puts extra pressure on the veins), I've unfortunately done some damage to them, even though I've lost weight. 

I didn't think much about my vein hurting, until I noticed later in the day that I had a red, swollen spot right where the pain/burning was. I tried icing it and heating it and keeping it elevated, but it really never went away. I called Aunt Kathy (ER nurse) who told me to call my OB in case it was infected. 

Of course, when I called the OB, they wanted me to go in and get a doppler to rule out a deep vein blood clot, even though it was pretty unlikely. I decided to wait another day and see how it felt when I got up in the morning because I was pretty sure I just had a superficial thrombophlebitis (irritation/blood clot of a superficial vein, which is not threatening). 

When I woke up the next day, it was still red and swollen, so Kathy and I headed to the local urgent care. Keep in mind - this is Houghton Lake. Apparently, they didn't get the memo about the urgent part. An hour and a half later, we headed back to see the P.A. who told me that it was exactly what we thought (phlebitis). As we were almost out the door, he came back after us and told me that he had looked up the procedure/guidelines for it and that I needed to get the doppler anyways, because I am pregnant. (Side note: I found it a little scary that he had to look up the procedure guidelines online!) 

Of course, the girl who does their dopplers was off that day so we were told to go to the emergency room in Grayling, since that was the next closest place to get one done. Gotta love small towns up north, right? So, after a quick trip to McDonald's for lunch, we got back in the car and went 30 minutes north to Grayling, where we sat in the ER for about 2 hours, only to have them tell me that nothing was wrong and it was exactly what we had originally thought! 

So that was our little adventure for the week! On Monday, we go to the doctor's office for my "first" appointment. (Too bad I've been there 4 times already between the initial visit, 2 ultrasounds and a blood draw!) I get to meet with a midwife and I have lots of questions to ask and get answers for. 

Here is my Week 7 picture. Please ignore that I look like a bum with my hair up and no make-up. I just got back from a walk and realized that today was the last day to take this picture and I didn't want to skip 2 weeks in a row. Definitely not looking my finest!! :)  I've gained a little bit of weight, but it seems to be fluctuating back and forth between a few pounds, which is pretty normal for me. 

Thoughts this week:

I was mostly just wondering about the veins and making sure that I was doing everything I could to help them along. Still kind of having that "is this really happening?" feeling. The cramps seem to have mostly gone away. I get them here and there but nothing like before and I am back to sleeping through the night. 

How I'm feeling:

Aside from my veins, I've felt pretty decent. Each day seems to be different - today I felt good, yesterday I was nauseous all day long. Overall, still feeling a little tired and lethargic and just having some good and bad moments with the nausea. Also have had some heartburn and indigestion - discovered that I think the Kroger-brand antacids taste better than the last set of Tums that I bought. 

Cravings/Aversions, etc.:

I have been so sick of only drinking water so yesterday Randy and I went to Kroger to try and find me something else I could drink. My biggest problem is that I've only been drinking diet and light drinks for the last 15 years or so and I can't stomach the taste of anything regular (pop, juice, kool-aid). Since I can't have the sugar-free stuff, I decided to try grapefruit juice and apple juice. So far, so good, but we'll see how it goes. 

All week long, all I could think about was a strawberry sundae from McDonald's. I think it's because Kathy got a chocolate shake from there when we were on our little road trip and I had a sip and couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards. Somehow that turned into needing a strawberry sundae. So finally, we got one yesterday and it was soooo good. And now I haven't thought of it since! Guess that one little sundae was all I needed (and nice that it was only $1 too!). 

Below is the baby size comparison picture for Week 8. By the time I post these pictures at the end of each pregnancy week, I've already moved onto the next size comparison, so I thought I'd start posting the next week's picture instead of the week that was already finished. So we're skipping the blueberry picture (which was for week 7) and moving right along to Week 8's kidney bean.