Monday, August 22, 2016

Week 11: Preparing for my first ultrasound

So after 11 weeks of hell, I'm about to get my first ultrasound tomorrow. I was good yesterday and then at around midnight i started to feel funny, and was up until 3pm when i finally puked and then was able to fall asleep.

I woke up this morning anxious. Is my appointment today or tomorrow? Crap - i haven't learned about what i'm supposed to expect yet and i need all the stuff listed and translated in french in case they miss something or i dont understand something. Why didn't i do this yesterday instead of laying waste on a couch watching 2 hours of Friends on Netflix when I own the entire DVD set and had even watched all of it with commentary?

Anyway, so here I am, getting prepped. I've been a bit nervous about not having done an ultrasound or even going to the doctors to get more info since I had gone the one time to get a prescription for a blood test. I havent taken my prenatals cuz i can't stomach it, and ive been looking online and chatting with friends, family, or friends of friends on what to do about my stomach - it feels a bit irresponsible but it feels like even if i went the french way does not care.

This was confirmed as soon as I googled "First ultrasound France" and this was the first link http://frenchmamma.com/2012/11/01/first-ultrasound-is-at-12-weeks-in-france-why-go-sooner/
Apparently even if you went out of your way to go, it's kinda pointless. Their attitude is so laissez-faire.

Here are the things i will need to ask or make sure i do tomorrow:

1. Make sure to get the "Declaration de grosesse" forms for declaration:

  • The document is called "Premier examen medical prenatal"
  • Pink slip + lab result go to Caisse d'assurance maladie
  • 2 blue forms go to Caisse d'Allocation Familiales (CAF)
  • Do it within 14 weeks to be reimbursed 100%

2. Determine actual due date of pregnancy (la date prévue d’accouchement)

  • Last period (dernières règles) was 28th Mai commence

3. Provide all my symptoms (symptômes de grossesse)

  • a lot of dry-heaving - at least 5 times a day (avoir des haut-le-cœur au moins 5 fois par jour)
  • actual throw up 2-3 times week since july (vomir 2-3 fois par semaine depuis juillet)
  • stomach hurts and burns all the time - symptoms of indigestions and a lot of gas (avoir mal d'estomac, L'ingestion cause des brûlures dans estomac, se sentir ballonnés et avoir davantage de gaz tout le temps, jamais arret)
  • Diarrhea happens but not too often (parfois avoir des coliques/diarrhee)


4. Ask about

  • Down's Syndrome test (si le bébé a la trisomie 21), 
  • abnormalities (s’il existe des anomalies), 
  • risks (les risques maternels et fœtaux)
5. Ask about next about appointment/ consultation (consultation prochaine, les autres examens)

  • seeing a gynecologist (gynécologue) or a midwife (sage-femme) or obstetrician (gynécologues-obsétriciens)
  • Low taxoplasmosis antibody - igg and igm (anticorps contre la toxoplasmose)
  • Presence of infection from my first blood test
  • Ask about Father's blood type being different (groupe sanguin de Caleb)


6. Ask about prenatal vitamins (vitamines prénatales)

  • thinking about them makes me gag (j'ai essaye de prendres prenatales et acide folique mais j'ai des haut-le-coeur alors j'ai arrete - je veux le faire quand j'en pense)


7. Provide my medical history: asthma, severe allegy, eczema (atopy triad), a lot of stomachache/indigestion (no known cause)
  • triade atopique: 
    • urticaire (grave, quand j'ai chaud and quand je sors de maison, cetirizine)
    • asthme (pas souvent, flovent & ventiline)
    • eczema (plus depuis grosesse, betaderm)
  • ingestion, haut le coeur souvent mais pas de diagnostique)


8.  Preparation for birth? (Préparation à l’accouchement)

9.  Drink lots of water as fluid is needed for ultrasound

10. Bring my test results!




Sunday, August 14, 2016

Week 11: Giving up on counting the days

So i totally thought three weeks had gone by already and next tuesday would be my check up, except it's still another week after - so you can see how exhausting this pregnancy has been. Everyday feels like forever.

On Friday, i finally took a folic acid pill of 400 gram and puked immediately after. Yesterday I did not take any because i was queasy all day feeling really terrible. Today i've been okay and have not done any heaving all day...so i took a pill just now at 11pm and the heaving has started again. Looking online a lot of ppl get sick from taking it - i reallly want to just give up on this stuff.

I looked up the tests that i am supposed to have prior to my ultrasound and it appears that other than the pregnancy test, the doctor didnt miss any other tests i'm supposed to have taken, so that's good. I've also looked up all the other stuff im supposed to have tested when i do my 3 hour appointment with the ultrasound just in case anything is missed - i should learn all the names in french.

went to see Suicide Squad last night (wanted to see Bad moms) and i didnt feel pukey throughout which made me wonder if my mind just needs to be occupied - but with this folic acid episode i am no longer sure. i wish this were in the 50s and i didnt have to take anything and could eat what i want and drink what i want and smoke what i want (even though i dont smoke) and wouldnt have to work - how nice would that be?

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Week 11: still first trimester - feels like it's never going to end.

So i haven't been taking my prenatal vitamin last week because i was feeling so sick. Over the last week i was feeling much better so on monday night i took it. Then it went all downhill from there. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (today) had been non-stop heaving and actually threw up last night in the middle of the night. Every time i eat something and i feel sick after i stop wanting to eat that item, so im starting to really run out of food options to eat. i had read that Popsicle are supposed to help so i went and bought a Popsicle mould. And then yesterday after eating it every time i wanna gag, i now associate popsicles with throwing up. nice.

i had thought rice, my favourite comfort food would never make me puke, but last night i puked out alll rice. now i cant eat it. the fridge is full of food i made and can't touch again.

so then i stopped taking my prenatal again, which is pretty bad because im supposed to at least be taking folic acid. i went to the pharmacy on tuesday and picked up just folic acid under the direction of di, and yet i still have yet to take it. im eating regularly but because i feel so terrible 90% of the time, i find it hard to swallow pills.

my boss keeps lecturing me on making sure i have enough calcium. but i've been having the runs and i couldnt tell if it's from the vitamin or from the milk and yogurt i have with cereal. yesterday while i was on a call, i had to stop the call for 10 minutes while i ran to the bathroom. i spent a few hrs in the grocery store yesterday comparing all the different milk and their calcium and i found lactose free milk, which i had with my cereal this morning. i hope this will solve this.

im gonna try to make cantonese congee tomorrow to see how it works out. they always say when you start having a child youd want to be closer to home - i hadn't believed this but now i really do. i wish my mom was here taking care of me. as much as ppl around me here try to help, none of them can cook what my mom cooks and caleb definitely cannot cook any chinese food.

i wake up every morning and i dont want to get up because im so uncomfortable and i know i'll start gagging as soon as i start moving. i keep tellling caleb i wanna rip my upper stomach out cuz it's always hurting, or retire for good so i dont have to get up in the morning. the fear on his face about my retiring is both funny and scary. sigh.

honestly everyday feels like im passing a year.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Week 10: Maybe I'm i'm in week 9?



Spent a weekend pigging out on chinese food - both bills were 50EUR for each night.
And then i found chatime in paris last night.
been feeling slightly better these days (though still not great).
Went from average of 6 to 8 discomfort to average of 3 to 5 discomfort, sometimes hitting 6 to do some gagging. Not bad.

Yesterday was hot. Went for a walk and broke out in hives despite taking 20mg of cetirizane. Could be worse.

Friday, August 5, 2016

Pregnancy in Paris - Week 10? Part II

So it's Friday and I got my lab results back. My HCG is insanely high at 191,793 UI/l.
It does explain why i have been feeling so terrible and why everything tastes so terrible and I get up at 4am to vomit.

I told Dr. Di who says either i have twins (though unlikely cuz it doesnt run in either of our families), it's high for no reason, or I have molar pregnancy, which is 1/1000 chances. But since I am not bleeding vaginally I wont really know until i get my ultrasound at 13 weeks.


The blood test only shows that 2-3 month of pregnanyc is between 20k to 200k beta-HCG so there's no way to tell right now exactly how far i am along. But based on the fact my ultrasound was schedule don the 23rd, im probably right in my math (which is rare too..ha!).

Most of the result i had to interpret on the internet since i am neither a doctor nor french. But overall i dont seem to have any irregularities with the exception that i have a higher than normal polynuceaires neutrophiles, (8.16 where normal is between 1.5 and 7.0), a higher count of titer antibody (21UI/ml where anything above 15 is positive), and seems to be immunodeficient given i have less than 2UI/ml of igg and 0.16 igm where less than 7.5 igg is negative and less than 0.8 igm is negative. The conclusion is that i follow up during the course of pregnancy.

All this basically points to the fact that i'm either fighting some infection or it's just my autoimmune overreacting - which is not surprising since i have had severe allergy symptoms for the last year. The allergist that my family physician introduced me to isnt available until next May - which is a bit ridiculous. I found another one online but the earliest availability is still 29th of august - after my ultrasound.

Today has been the first day i havent been feeling super crap, but now that i have eaten something, my mouth is filled with bitterness again, causing me to want to gag. Based on the lab test, my horomone levels wont decresse until im in my second trimester so i guess thats when all this will hopefully subside, if im lucky....man i feel like crap

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Pregnant in Paris - Week 10? Part I

At this point, I'm about 10 weeks pregnant on August 02, 2016.

So now the fun begins. I made an appointment with my Generaliste (family/general physician) for August 1. He wrote me a prescription to get my blood test and then gave me a phone number for Necker Hospital, which is a teaching children's hospital in the 15th (I live i the 7th). I was supposed to call for a Suivi Grossesse.

I went directly to the blood test lab afterwards but because I had eaten, they told me to come back the next day empty stomach and then gave me a two urine jars to put my urine in first thing in the morning. The whole day i was feeling sick and I could hardly drink water, so when I went to pee in the morning at 5:30am i thought this was my chance except i read that i was supposed to provide the urine sample within two hours so i went to the bathroom, took a couple more sips of water and went back to bed. At around 9am, I was hungry but i didnt want to pee, which posed a pretty big dilemma since i can't eat until i get my blood test done, and i can't go until I pee. I was also scared that drinking too much water would dilute my pee. Finally at 10am, everything was done and I headed to the lab.

The first sign that made me nervous was the nurses, when i was filling out the form, asked me if i'm pregnant. If i am there to do a pregnancy test, why would you ask me? After being asked twice, I started to wonder what's going on. When I went in to do the blood test, the guy asked me again. I was like, well I think im pregnant, but i thought that's what the blood test is for... and he looks at his form to double check and he says...no...there's no list for pregnancy test on the form....this just seems liek a standard test to me.

.....

I didnt know how to feel. He told me i can go back to my doctor again to ask for a prescription (ordonnance) for the pregnancy test. I asked him if i can just get it done now anyway, and he said it'll cost about 20 EUR. I said that's fine and then he told me he can charge me tomorrow so that if i get a prescription by today I can pay tomorrow (Since i have to do another blood test tomorrow called groupe faire or something - which i think is a blood type test).

I got home and tried to book an appointment with my doctor on doctolib.fr, but he's not available today or tomorrow. I called the office and the guy who picked up said he will see what he can do and he would call me back....I'm not expecting a call-back. I emailed my doctor as well, but no response yet. Oh well.

But this experience did make a nervous about what other stuff he's missing from our consultation. I had asked him if he was going to write an introduction letter to an obstetrician, but he said it wasn't necessary and recommended the Necker hospital for sick kids. After doing some research, i found out that although it is a teaching hospital, it's one of the top pediatrics hospital in france...so i guess thats a good thing?

Anyway, I got Moira to help me call, just in case i get the run around like i usually do cuz my french is not good and they booked me in for August 23rd - I'll be done my 12 weeks by then. I'm debating on going to see a sector 2 conventionne doctor and pay 100 EUR if i can could get some consultation before then. But most of the doctors are on vacation, so we'll see what happens.

Pregnant in London and Bangalore - Week 1 to 9

So it's been a long while since I have updated. This really isn't a formal announcement since I'm not yet 3 months and I shouldnt be telling anyone (who knows what could happen). But I really waned to come back to a space where I can document and remember the dates. So if you're still reading this blog after a year of neglect, you're the first few to know that I'm very likely preggers.

It started approximately May 27th, 2016 when I thought I had been pregnant and went and bought a home pregnancy test. Alas, I got my period about 1 or 2 days after. Assuming it was the 29th of May, then right now, I'm around 9 weeks right now.

I left for London on the 15th of June so I'm assuming that I was pregnant between the 15th of June and the 30th of June. I came back to Paris on the 2nd of July to take off to India on the 8th of July.

Around the 10th of July was when I started to feel like I ate something bad and had mild indigestion symptoms, which lasted all week long. By the 15th of July, my boss went and found me a home pregnancy test in Bangalore and alas - it was almost immediately positive.

For the next two weeks I was in India, I wanted to puke all the time. Everything gave me stomach pains and i would be rolling around the bed all night long with lower stomach pains from diarrhea and upper stomach pains from indigestion. Not to mention the smells that made me want to puke constantly. Between the terrible detergent they were using at the hotel, the pungent food, and almost every other person having really terrible body odour (especially the women), I wanted to jump off a cliff. I was surrounded by odour every second of the day.

But I stuck through it all the way to the end and finally returned home on the 30th of July. I think I have serious PTSD from the experience because everything that reminds of India makes me gag these days. When I opened my suitcase to do my laundry, looking at the clothes i brought to india made me gag. The slightest smell of typical india spices like coriander, cumin, and curry, makes me nauseous. Ironically, French body odour no longer bothers me as much.