Hello. My name is Tori and this is my pregnancy blog.
My husband is insistent that I should keep a pregnancy blog because he thinks it could be a good resource for other people.
You see I have had Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) since I was 2. It was diagnosed back in 1987. And doesn’t that make me feel old to type!
The RA is in every joint, with the exception of my hips and knees which were replaced 9 and 7 years ago respectively.
So this blog will be about two things the pregnancy and how arthritis impacts on my experience.
I am due in July, I’m approximately 15 weeks pregnant tomorrow, so I’ve known for a couple of months.
I guess the big question is where to begin?
I guess my first big worry with pregnancy and arthritis was if we’d even be able to fall pregnant in the first place. With a life time in the X-Ray department I was (I think understandably) concerned that my eggs had been ‘fried’ and that it would be a long hard journey to conception.
All I’ll say on that matter is that I was (thankfully) very wrong! There were no troubles at all in that department and I am so very lucky/grateful to be able to say that journey was non-existent.
We were very surprised indeed to find out that I was pregnant 3 days after returning for our honeymoon (Paris or Phuket is the answer to the question that I get asked after saying it’s a honeymoon baby... either Paris or Phuket).
We saw my GP asap and I tell you the first five minutes after telling him were quite scary! I don’t think he was convinced that our little embryo would be viable because I was still taking Enbrel at that stage. Luckily he got on to my Rheumatologist who was very upbeat about the whole thing and was not as worried about the impact on Enbrel. I think research is currently showing that is does minimal damage to the baby in the womb. (PHEW).
This was at five weeks, and my GP had me stop pretty much whatever I was still taking for pain or my arthritis (which was only Enbrel at that stage) and I was left on Nexium, Keflex and Celebrex. Plus pregnancy vitamins and calcium with vitamin D.
I stayed off Enbrel until week 12 of the pregnancy at which point I just could no longer take the pain. I was trying to work full time, was exhausted from lack of sleep due to pain and I felt I just had to take the risk and hope the emerging literature is right on the issue!
My two big pain killers of choice before pregnancy were Valium and Endone. I current am only taking Panadol, which you can imagine does close to nothing for my pain. The other thing I enjoyed for pain relief was a nice hot bath, which I have stopped doing as well.
I find pregnancy books and websites very annoying! There are a complete lack of solutions or compromises for pregnant women! When I went to look up what to do instead of having a hot bath there is nothing! When I looked up hot packs, all the advice ‘What to Expect’ would give me was ‘don’t risk it.’
I have full faith that my body can regulate the heat of a heat pack on my neck before it reaches the baby.
I guess there is a point when all you can do is use your best judgement. It seems that no one wants to be the one to tell pregnant women to do something radical like using a heat pack.
What I’ll do with the blog I think is two types of posts, ‘pregnancy’ and ‘arthritis’ posts. The arthritis ones will probably be very dull for those without arthritis!
Wish me luck.
This will be my first post that I will tag as a 'pregnancy' one, so it'll be more lighthearted and about the baby.