7 Weeks Pregnant: Exhaustion, Hypothyroidism, Paramedics and an Early Scan

I’m currently 16 weeks pregnant, but this is the post I wrote when I was 7 weeks pregnant. I am no longer with (or in contact with) SD, but I wanted to share the whole of my pregnancy journey, so I have left it as written at the time and you can follow my story…

I’m now 7 weeks pregnant and the nausea is really kicking in, to the point where it is beginning to control my decisions. If I need to eat something, I need to eat within seconds. At the moment eating little snacks is quelling the urge to hurl. I am chuffed to pieces that so far, I’ve managed to keep everything down and I’m dreading the moment when I actually start being sick. With the twins I had Hyperemisis Gravidarum for ten weeks and was sick a minimum of six times a day for at least twenty minutes a session. I was weak, dehydrated and exhausted. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. I felt like I was dying. I really really hope I don’t have to go through that again. I remember that started at week seven too though.

I am UTTERLY EXHAUSTED… to the point that I am struggling to stay awake past 3pm and I can’t get up a flight of stairs without stopping in the middle due to feeling faint and being completely out of breath by time I reach the top. The spiral staircase at work is particularly horrific! I don’t ever remember feeling quite this weak and pathetic in my former pregnancies, so I went to see the doctor, who said… “Oh no… I forgot you are on Thyroxine!” It turns out that when you are pregnant, you need to take more Thyroxine, but because I am a former cancer patient, my GP isn’t allowed to adjust my dose. This meant blood tests, which I’ve just had done, and my oncology consultant will review the results and let my obstetrician consultant (which I’ve not yet been assigned) have an input, before they jointly decide what my new dose should be. That new dose will take at least a week to kick in, so in the meantime, I have to suffer hypothyroidism on top of being pregnant.

In addition to the above… I have a kidney infection. After a failed attempt at the school run, where I ended up in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, crying with pain and exhaustion, I ended up calling the out of hours doctor. By 11pm, the paramedics were at my door administering antibiotics. I had to go into hospital this morning to check that the pain is purely just the kidney infection and not another ectopic pregnancy. They did an early scan, but SD didn’t bother to come – apparently work is more important. All was fine though. I am 7 weeks pregnant plus 5 days, which works out exactly correct to my conception date and the baby looks just like a kidney bean. There is a cyst on the ovary which released the egg, which is also causing me pain, but they have said this should go down in a few weeks time and that they will monitor it. The nurse didn’t want me to go home though. She took my vitals and said that I am desperately ill with this kidney infection and the hypothyroidism and that I should be admitted to hospital. I have a fever, I am tachycardic, my sats are low, I am weak and I look like death. I shouldn’t be alone, I shouldn’t be looking after the children and I should be in hospital on a drip. Unfortunately though, my ex won’t come and take the girls, my family can’t come up here for various reasons and SD is working 16 hour days, so I have no choice. I just have to somehow find a way through it. Mums don’t have time to be ill.

Now that I’m 7 weeks pregnant, I’ve registered for a midwife, but apparently she is on holiday. That felt like a big step though. It means that SD and I are definitely keeping the baby, as long as my life is not at risk. To be fair, I don’t think I ever doubted it. I started taking folic acid as soon as I found out I was pregnant. Now I need to start watching what I eat though. I need to say goodbye to brie and goats cheese for a while *sobs*.

I’ve had a difficult week with my ex, there was an incident which caused a lot of upset and problems and he has now moved out and moved back to Somerset. SD and I are supposedly “exclusive” now and it’s really starting to feel like we are almost a couple. I wonder how long it will be until we are “official”?

Life is very difficult at the moment, both physically and emotionally due to issues with my ex, the pregnancy symptoms, my health problems and the fact I’m about to become homeless.