Ectopics and gastritis, a match made in pregnancy hell
06.09.16, 2:26 pm

Pregnancy so far has been pretty unpleasant, if I’m absolutely honest. I’ve had to stop taking beta blockers, because apparently they can retard growth, and the adjustment has been pretty hardcore. Suddenly I can’t exercise any more (God I miss my bike so much) and am once again noticing just how many ectopic heartbeats I get. And this is bad, because once you get stuck in a loop of awareness you get anxious about it, and then everything goes to hell. I’m trying my darndest to just let them pass me by and not obsess, but this is a battle I’ve been fighting for over 10 years and it still sucks. And, of course, pregnancy means you get more of everything you already had, so I have extra beats for all sorts of innocuous reasons, like having some lunch for example.

And then I got gastritis. Like, the worst gastritis I’ve ever had, and my heart just went NUTS, because any stomach inflammation irritates the vagus nerve. So I couldn’t eat anything except soup and I thought I was going to die constantly as my heart jumped and fluttered in my chest like a trapped butterfly. Maybe I could’ve coped with it all if James had been home, but as luck had it the day after I fell ill he went on holiday for a week with his parents to try and find his grandad’s war grave in France. After reassuring him that I would be just fine, I managed 2/3 of a day on my own and then got so horribly stressed and upset that I had to actually go to my dad’s for the whole of the Bank Holiday weekend, both for someone to cook me meals and generally look after me, and also because I needed to be around other people to ground myself.

The weekend was awful, just miserable and anxious. And of course you have constant nagging thoughts of, ’maybe this is actually a pregnancy symptom, and you’ll have it for the next 6 weeks, or maybe even for the next 7 months. How can you live like that?’ By the time I got back to Sheffield I was feeling marginally better, but still didn’t get back to work until Thursday. Gastritis seems to have gone now, thank God, and even the simplest of food is currently pleasingly novel and exciting, but I’m still going to leave it a bit before putting away the Gaviscon.

Nausea set in from Sunday, from late afternoon until I go to bed. It’s not horrific, to be honest, and if this is the extent of its power then I’m actually bloody lucky. I can generally ignore it if I distract myself, and I can still eat. It just kind’ve sits there in my stomach, but compared to the gastritis it’s a much more welcome guest.

However, to end on a positive note, I went to the clinic yesterday to see the consultant cardiologist about all the heartbeat nonsense. While I was there, they did an early scan – almost like a bonus scan? As I’m only 7 and a half weeks. Was INCREDIBLY nervous beforehand, because what if the baby had stopped developing, or was in the wrong place again etc etc, but everything was actually fine, great in fact. We saw a big circle, which was the gestational sac, and then a tiny 7mm bean inside that was the baby, and finally a little flickering blob that was the heartbeat. It was awesome, if not a bit indistinct. Also, you have to have a full bladder for the scan, and it is NO JOKE when the tech starts pressing on it with the probe whilst insanely telling you to ‘just relax, now’. Cue usual line about how we’re still taking one week at a time, not out of the woods yet, still risk of miscarriage etc.

Finally, after a big wait, saw the really nice cardiologist and obstetrician, and the great thing is that they’re relatively relaxed about beta blockers and pregnancy. There’s a low risk of retarded growth but they’re going to book me a couple of extra growth check scans to keep an eye on that. We’ve decided to not take any pills until after 12 weeks, just while the major organs are getting formed etc, but after that I think they’ll let me take them, and I’m allowed to take an emergency pill if everything suddenly goes nuts. So only 42 days of horribleness to go.

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