The Pregnancy Scoop

I definitely feel as if I have slightly abandoned you over the last 3 months, but if you will let me explain myself. To put it simply, I don't do pregnancy gracefully. If you will recall my post-op issues after hip arthroscopy #3, you will get a better sense of what I have been going through (I tried to add a link to one of those posts but it seems that they are either too graphic or don't capture the full picture adequately, if you so desire, read up on posts from Nov 13-21 2007). Basically, I have been REALLY nauseous. It started around 6 weeks of pregnancy, way before I was sharing the news. J went away for the weekend with L, and Jk and I stayed home. I luckily had a few Zofran (my super duper anti-nausea meds I convinced Dr Kelly to prescribe for surgery #2 and 3 after a bad experience with #1), but like the "junkie" that I am, I was nervous they would not last the whole weekend and I would be screwed. Plus, I didn't really want to bother my OB-gyn over the weekend. Luckily, I have a friend who just the week before mentioned she had Zofran left from her last pregnancy, with refills! She happened to be at the park that day and I casually pulled her aside and explained my"situation". She was wonderful, dropped off the "goods" that night plus refilled it for me. I was feeling a lot more confident about venturing out of the house and not causing a really embarrassing scene for myself.





Tuesday morning I put in a call to my doc for more drugs, plus, I was having awful acid issues in my stomach, so I needed something for that as well.Acid+nausea=terrible feeling, wishing you might die, reconsidering the whole pregnancy thing (although it was a little too late). So, a few calls to my insurance company (by me and the docs office), I was able to take 4 Zofran a day plus 2 Prevacid. It made my life manageable but by no means enjoyably or pleasant. I kept saying that this was definitely the worst pregnancy yet.





Then, by the middle of week 11, I made it until 3PM on one Zofran, this was record breaking for me. And since then, I have been down to 2 Zofran/day, still with 1-2 Prevacid/day, and feeling much more human,most of the time.





The real question is how have the hips been? Given that pregnancy is a time of hormonal fluctuation, one of which is the hormone Relaxin (I can go on and on about this as I wrote my thesis on orthopaedic issues and pregnancy)....My SI joint has been a little cranky.

A. ilium
B. sacrum
C. acetabulum
D. pubis
E. pubic symphysis
F. ischium

What has been happenning is that my ilium (A) will rotate ever so slightly due to ligamentous laxity.As you can see, the acetabulum is at the bottom (C), so when the ilium shifts, so does the acetabulum, making me one very unhappy camper. In the past, the SI issues used to only cause unilateral back pain. On really bad days, it also causes hip pain.

Another issue I have been having is that the right hip has been feeling extremely tight. I am not sure if it is because I have dropped my activity level drastically (see above), or I am having a build up of scar tissue. Whatever the reason, I need to do something about it, but am usually too tired at the end of the day for any self assessment, and much less stretching or the like.

Another issue that the pregnancy seems to be exacerbating is the nerve pain I have had all along, remember the invisible bruise on the front of my leg. At times it becomes pretty painful, and even more tender to the touch, and then a little while later, it will be all gone. Strange.

Other than that, the hips have fared pretty well so far. My biggest concern (which I will probably mention a million times from now until I actually give birth) is the actual delivery. Epidural+weird hip positions= me really nervous. I don't want to opt for a c-section bc of this, bc, to be quite frank, if I had a choice,I would much rather have a hip scope than a c-section (meaning, if the delivery somehow screwed up my hip), not that it would, but I REALLY don't want a c-section, been there, done that. You will get so sick of hearing about this but it is what plays on my mind all the time!