34 Weeks Pregnant - low platelets again!
Last week’s blood tests show my platelets have dropped off a bit again, which for Australian standards has technically put me back in the range of gestational thrombocytopaenia (very borderline still). Platelets dropping during pregnancy is physiologically normal for some women, and certainly seems to be my norm, since I know it happened with my first pregnancy too.
33 Weeks Pregnant - you don’t need permission to change your mind!
I have never been anti-water birth. I’ve always believed that water is a fantastic tool for pain relief during labour and birth, and studies are quite convincing that birthing in water significantly lowers the chance of perineal tears. However, it’s just never felt right for me.
32 Weeks Pregnant - back pain in pregnancy and abdominal separation (aka diastasis recti)
I’ve had a bit of upper and mid back pain this week as my abs have really let go, and the weight of my uterus and baby is pulling my upper body forward. I need to be very mindful of posture and of engaging my core. But I’m also feeling very motivated to really focus on building up the muscle in my abs and back after I close up my diastasis recti postpartum!
31 Weeks Pregnant - bonding with baby
For many of us, this past week has been a week of holiday and family time. It certainly has been for me and my family. We enjoyed a few days with some of the extended family, and are loving having a week for just our family at home right now, after a very full year. It’s important to spend time together, bonding as husband and wife, parents with children, siblings with siblings.
And it’s just as important to spend time bonding with baby!
30 Weeks Pregnant - good news!
This is going to be a very brief post today, but in keeping with the festive season I am celebrating some good news! Not only did my latest tests come up negative for any pathologies that could have been linked to the low platelets, but my platelet levels have gone up already, and are actually back into the acceptable range!
29 Weeks Pregnant - is my baby too big to be born vaginally?
When I had my morphology ultrasound around 21 weeks, the sonographer commented that baby was measuring in the 96th percentile, and that my provider would probably want to schedule growth scans during third trimester to make sure baby wasn't getting too big. I just smiled and thanked her, but I knew that we would not be planning any growth scans based purely on this comment...
28 Weeks Pregnant - my diagnosis of gestational thrombocytopaenia and iron deficiency
If you’re asking “Thrombo...umm, what even is that??”, that’s a perfectly valid question! It’s a fancy name for “low platelets”, and no, I wasn’t familiar with the term before either! It’s a relatively common condition in pregnancy, although the diagnosis is quite subjective. In Australia, the accepted “healthy minimum” level of platelets shows up as 150 on your blood test results, so anything below that is diagnosed as thrombocytopaenia. In Italy, where I had my first baby, they calculate the minimum as 130, so the level of 145 on my latest blood test results wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow there.
27 Weeks Pregnant - heading into the third trimester!
Well, that went quickly! Here we are heading into third trimester! I am so so grateful for how well I’ve been feeling this pregnancy. My energy levels have been so good, it’s really been amazing!
I’m also really glad I was able to get into a routine at 20 weeks with daily birth prep exercises, both mental and physical. Now in third trimester I have some changes to my birth prep routine.