4 Weeks Pregnant and Drunk

Since I had absolutely NO IDEA which doctor to go with around here I had to call around for advice and do some extensive research.  After talking with a few friends who all have had multiple babies it seemed that they all use the Southeast Texas OB/GYN.  The office is made up of 10 doctors and everyone I talked to said they are all GREAT.  So I went with the "who has the best looking picture/description" method for choosing which one I would use.  After narrowing it down by the best looking candidates I began to read their background.  The winner....the author of The Hurried Women a book all about the stress of being a wife and mom.  What better choice, right?

The first thing I loved is that when I called to get set up as a new patient with Dr. Bost was that his nurse, Emily is the nicest most thorough nurse ever.  She asked me sooo many questions and took time to listen to all of my concerns.  The biggest concern of course was being on my Zoloft.  She that with Zoloft I do not risk harming the baby until I am well into my third trimester.  That was a relief but then she also said that I needed to go ahead and come off of it.  Talk about putting me into a tail spin!   For the first two days of being Zoloft free I felt like my world had turned upside down.  I have spent most of my time crying (over nothing) and my anxiety has soared.  I'm pretty sure I could snap someone in half with a simple glare and I dare anything to drop, make a loud sound, break, or just plain go wrong.  I ended up calling Nurse Emily and begged her to tell me there was light at the end of the tunnel.  She said I would need to be off of it for at least 2 weeks in order for it to be completely out of my system.  At that time if I'm still feeling this way then we can reevaluate and decide where to go from there.  She said there are two options.  The better option would be to give me something I could take only on days I'm having a bad episode day.  The other option would be to put me back on the Zoloft.  Since EVERY day is a bad day, I was really concerned of the harm I could cause to the baby if I ended up having to go back on the Zoloft.  She said that she is sure I have seen all the birth defect advertisements on tv (yes, every day) but that most of them are false accusations.  In fact, she explained to me that I am putting a greater risk on the baby by being stressed out and falling to pieces then I would if I was on the Zoloft and cool as a cucumber.  So right now I have to get through these first 2 weeks of not being on it and then we can see where I'm at.

After reviewing all my previous pregnancy records, including my miscarriage, Nurse Emily called back and said that I would need to come in immediately for blood work that would determine where all my hormone levels were at.  Ugh!  The worse part about being pregnant is all the blood work!  I really am worse than a child when it comes to needles.  But, I was brave and got all my blood drawn without crying.  A few hours after I left the office they called with my results.  My HcG levels were climbing through the roof (definitely pregnant), but my progesterone was very low.  She said that a normal progesterone level is a 20 and mine was a 12.  She explained that this causes the placenta to pull away (exactly why I went into preterm labor with Brylie and was hospitalized followed by bed rest) and can also cause me to miscarry again.  Two things I did not want to hear.  I was immediately classified as a "high risk pregnancy" and they put me on 200mg of Prometrium a progesterone supplement that I have to take twice a day.  This should bring my levels back to where they need to be and help try to prevent me from any complications.

I'm a Google guru so I immediately researched the causes, symptoms, and ways to prevent low progesterone.  I was surprised to find out that symptoms include anxiety, irritability, fatigue, and migraines....hmmm this sounds familiar.  I'm hoping that maybe this supplement will actually balance out all my emotions and prevent me from having to be put back on my Zoloft.  Maybe....

Ok, so now on to the being pregnant and drunk part.  I took my Prometrium just before I went to bed on Wednesday and again after breakfast on Thursday.  About an hour after taking it on Thursday I started to feel really funny.  I started out light headed and dizzy and blamed it on morning sickness.  I then suddenly began to cry (of course for no reason) and couldn't stop.  I decided to just sit down for a few minutes and recollect myself.  After sitting for probably 20 minutes just watching the kiddos play I decided to get up and continue my day.  I stood up and nearly fell over I was so woozy.  My head was spinning and it took everything I had just to walk across the room without running into something.  I tried to shake it off and thought I must be loosing my mind.  There's no way I could feel...drunk!?!  I went about making the kids their snack.  It wasn't until I tried to pour them all their drinks and couldn't even aim into their cups that I knew something was really wrong.  I called my mom who of course told me to call the doctor.  I called the doctor's office and left a message for Emily who called me back in less than 5 minutes (love her).  She said that this was a very rare side effect to the medication and I was one of the lucky ones to have it.  She said it would have to get out of my system before I felt sober again and that the best thing for me to do was to sleep it off.  Sounded good to me considering I could barely keep my drunken eyes open anyways.  The only problem was that I had a house full of daycare kids and their provider was WASTED!  I called Mitchell and he immediately left work to come home and run the newly titled Daddy Daycare.  I slept for nearly 4 hours!  I woke up feeling a lot more stable but had a massive headache.....hangover maybe lol?  Nurse Emily told me that I would have to either take 1 pill an hour before bed and then wake up a few hours before my alarm goes off to take the other (yeah right like that's going to happen) or I can just take them both just before bed.  She said taking them at the same time would make me feel REALLY drunk but I would just sleep through it.  The only problem would be if I had to get up to go to the bathroom I would probably kill myself trying to walk.  I'll take the risk of a broken bone because this momma is NOT getting up at 3:00 in the morning to take drunk pills!

Well, that has been my CRAZY week in a nut shell!  My first appointment with the nurse is on February 7th and then my first appointment with Dr. Bost is on February 20th at which I will be 10 weeks along.  I cannot wait to see my little peanut that is causing me all this drama!