Twin Pregnancy Diary - 29 weeks 4 days

I went along to the hospital to see my consultant following last week's growth scan for the twins.  As always, finding a parking space was a joy except it wasn't and the whole fuss and bother of waiting and looking for a place to leave the car took longer than my journey to the hospital.  Still, I suppose if that is my only gripe then I shall consider myself lucky.

Clinic was running a little behind schedule but the wait wasn't as long as I had expected it to be.  I saw a new doctor yesterday, another on my consultant's team, who was once again ever-so lovely.  I feel so very lucky to be under the care of such pleasant and nice professionals who make me feel at ease.

All the checks for the babies were fine.  Both are growing well, my uterus now measuring 33cm and both babies have remained in a head down position since last week's scan.  The doctor looked over the scan results and stated how everything looked perfect, with no cause for concern at all.  Then we discussed how I have been feeling, to which I explained that I had been a lot more tired and feeling exceptionally unwell the last couple of weeks in particular.  I assume, I told her, that my hb levels had dropped but I wasn't sure as the midwife hadn't informed me of my blood test results.

The doctor left the room to find out and returned with the news that indeed they had dropped, from 9.3 in the first trimester to 8.5.  This is not a good level to be at and most certainly does explain why I have been feeling so dreadful and uncontrollably sick, tired and breathless.  We have four weeks of the maximum dosage I can take of folic and ferrous tablets and if there is no improvement it looks like iron infusions are a real possibility as these levels really do need to be brought up.

I'm not quite sure what the infusions will involve.  As far as I am aware they take a while to work through via IV and while I am not averse to having the infusion as I feel so awful, I am going to make a concerted effort to take my pills as prescribed and see what happens.  I'm not holding out much hope that my body will suddenly start absorbing the iron like we need it to though.  Wish me luck.


 Tweet

Subscribe to Larger Family Life and get the latest news directly in your inbox or reader.  You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter too!

Larger Family Life is also available on Kindle!

Twin Pregnancy Diary - 27 weeks 2 days

Twin Pregnancy Belly Photo at 27 weeks

Turning 27 weeks pregnant seems to have marked a noticeable decrease in my energy levels.  Yesterday morning, I woke up at my usual time of 5am.  An hour later I was lying on the sofa feeling as if I hadn't slept all night.  With it being a Sunday I took myself off to bed for another hour or so.  I have not done anything like that in over three and a half years!  This followed my falling asleep on the sofa on Saturday afternoon, where the five minute sit down I had intended to have became a 20 minute nap instead.

I woke this morning feeling like I've been hit by a sledgehammer.  The tiredness is overwhelming at the moment.  I am hoping that I am not actually coming down with something.  Colds and sickness are not good things to be suffering from when you have children as it is.  Throw pregnancy into the mix and they become even more unwelcome.

I suspect my HB (haemoglobin) levels are taking another hammering.  To give a brief explanation, the haemoglobin level is the level of red blood cells in the blood.  The lower the haemoglobin (HB) level, the fewer red blood cells there are.  The red blood cells move oxygen around your body and a lower HB level indicates anaemia caused by low iron stores, poor nutrition or by conditions such as sickle cell or beta thalassaemia.

I have beta thalassaemia trait (thalassaemia minor), thanks to my mediterranean genes, which means that while my body is able to make enough HB normally, it struggles to keep up during pregnancy.  The average HB level is approximately 11g/DL.  If a pregnant woman has a level below this figure she is considered anaemic.  When my bloods were taken at my first midwifery appointment back in the first trimester at around 10 weeks my HB level was 9.3.  I think the figure for a transfusion at my local hospital is around 8.1 although I believe this is different depending on the hospital.

Despite taking iron tablets my body is never able to absorb the iron and so my levels remain low.  I had a blood test taken last week during my midwife appointment so I may call her tomorrow to see what the results are.  This would explain the extreme tiredness straight away as this is the main symptom of anaemia.  Unfortunately, apart from continuing to take my tablets there is little else we can do.

Otherwise, everything seems to be going well.  According to the app the babies are each approximately 37cm long from head to foot and weighing approximately 900g.  Their lungs still need to mature quite a lot, so if born now the babies would need a lot of medical help to survive.  Hopefully they won't arrive for a few more weeks yet.

If you are a new reader (please do leave a comment and say "hello!") and would like to catch up on this pregnancy diary from the start you can go back to where it begins with the Twin Pregnancy Diary - The First Nine Weeks (Part One). 

If you've caught up, or you've already been following to date you can continue to keep up with our journey by subscribing to a full feed in your reader.

And don't forget, if you'd like to chat with me or keep up to date with all the little stuff in life you can leave a comment after any post or join Larger Family Life on our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter too.

(You can also share posts on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble them or Digg them too so don't be shy! It's good to share, after all!)



 Tweet

Subscribe to Larger Family Life and get the latest news directly in your inbox or reader.  You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter too!

Larger Family Life is also available on Kindle!