Photo from Mount Royal, Frisco, Colorado.

"That is happiness; to be disolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." - Willa Cather

Sunday 21 November 2010

Signs and Symptoms

I started writing this a week ago and I am really, really glad I get to post it. I had wanted to post what had been going on a lot earlier, but...

1. The mind is quite good at producing symptoms when there is no disease/condition.
2. A lot of things can go wrong between fertilization and a positive pregnancy test.

But here is the chronicle of events:

1. Fri 22 Oct - 1st day of LMP
2. Sat 30th Oct - 6 hour race
3. Tues 9th of November - suspected day of ovulation based on vaginal secretions (sexy, I know)
4. Friday the 12th - fainted when grocery shopping. I bent down to look at cars with The Lorax and when I stood back up, all went black, and I fell to my knees. Thought this was quite odd, and suspected it was a sign of already expanding blood volume. Resting pulse was also increased approx 10 bpm.
5. Sat 13th of November - for the first time in spinning class, I achieved over 90% max pulse, without much effort, in the warm up. The instructor told me I should hold back while we were warming up, but I wasn't even starting to sweat. I previously have had trouble getting over 90% when I push the absolute hardest I can. Max pulse set at 185.
6. Sun 14th of November - unable to run marathon at relatively slow tempo due to nausea and fatigue. Take preg test (way early, I know) - negative. But I was already convinced.
7. Wed 17th of November - Had to cut tempo run short after 2.5 miles due to general feeling of unwellness (mostly unrelated to the man running 1 foot behind me trying to grab my mammary glands - unrelated breast tenderness begins same day :)). Take preg. test #2 - neg.
8. Thur and Fri - very uninspired runs & stair running (up the stairs at Rigshospital) with noticeable shortness of breath.
9. Fri night - after dehydration with running, zumba and a train ride, faintly positive pregnancy test, drink lots of water, negative test two hours later.
10. Sat. morning - faintly positive preg. test. Bear in mind, both of these faint positives came after 15 minutes.
11. Sun- spinning again. Instructor has to increase my max pulse (which I had again at 185) since I came up to 95% max during the warm up and he could see I looked like I wasn't even working. After the change, I couldn't come over 90% again - I tried to explain to him that I was pregnant and my max pulse wasn't higher, I just got close to my max pulse easier. He sort of bought it. (A lot of time people think because I'm young and have an accent that I am full of bs. And maybe I am.). Come home from spinning - positive pregnancy test and after about 6 minutes, it was quite clear.
12. FUTURE: This coming Tues: day of expected period.

Needless to say, I am extremely grateful to get to write this post. And I have to thank Piccola Pinecone for providing me with 5 Canadian $1 pregnancy tests. I then bought the 6th pregnancy test here in Denmark today for $8.

Here are pregnancy tests 2-6 (the results, I don't think, are easy to see, but trust me):


Take note of our beautiful Italian marble counter top (actually, it's Danish plastic). I know the lines are faint, but #3, #5 and #6 are the positives.

What did I learn?

One can fairly easily tell if one is pregnant before positive pregnancy tests if one is aware of their exercise norms. Resting pulse is also reliable. I have been told that one does not have sympomts before the test is positive, but this is far from true!

Running a 6 hour race as hard as possible did not adversely affect my fertility. And, honestly, I didn't think it would, otherwise I wouldn't have done it!

Finally, I am adjusting my goal for the half marathon in Florida in two weeks. I don't think I can run a PR with this shortness of breath. I'll just see how it goes, though I wouldn't be surprised if I could run it in under 1:40.

Running Song of the Day: Block After Block by Matt & Kim

19 comments:

mmmonyka said...

Good luck!!!! It's friiiiiiiiiiiiking awesome!

(seems you don't have to buy a bundle of 43cents test sticks)

PiccolaPineCone said...

Darn, beat to the first comment by the girl in California (who clearly should be focusing on her RACE right now AHEM!).
Congratulations! Those are beautiful looking pee sticks my dear! I am totally psyched for you, SR & the Lorax. Also it is really sweet to have all that detailed information. One thing I have to point out though, implantation likely happened on the 16th-18th (correct me if I am wrong, I know you will) and you were taking it easy on those days. I do think it is important to "take it easy" that being a VERY relative term, at or near implantation.
But whatever..... YOU'RE PREGNANT!
YAY YOU!

sea legs girl said...

Good point, PPC, about implantation. But pulse and body temp rise during ovulation and stay risen. Blood volume expansion also begins before implantation due to increased progestrone, which results from signals from the fertilized egg. So all of the symptoms can be explained by fertilization and not implantation. I worded it wrong and the beginning and will change it now.

cherelli said...

yippidy-do-dah! Congratulations!! And a great run-down on symptoms pre-positive.... :)

Danni said...

Good luck! Your OCDness cracks me up.

Julie said...

Woohoooo!! Congratulations!! That's awesome news. : ) I've been reading your blog for a while and love it. Good luck in your upcoming half marathon!

JKL said...

Woot Congrats! Florida is beautiful right now! Sunny and mid 70's!! So happy for you--you are such an inspiration to me, I am a novice runner and I plan on running all the way through my next pregnancy! Love your blog, keep posting :-)

sea legs girl said...

Thanks everyone. And good luck mmmonyka!

SteveQ said...

Again, I'll wait a bit for the congratulations.

Why, after two positives would you keep testing? I can understand thinking one could be a false positive (though that's pretty rare; false negatives are the norm), but to keep testing.. I don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Hey congratulations :-)Looking forward to see you in December.
Big hugs

sea legs girl said...

Good question, Steve. The second positive was slightly less positive than the first and that worried me. Luckily the third was the most positive.

PiccolaPineCone said...

you're doing a 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks in Florida? are you staying on in North America after that for Christmas?
Nosy blog readers want to know!

Brianne said...

It seems those cheap tests are all about the faint positives - with my second (and last ) baby, I got only faint positives for a few days with 1$ tests before my missed period and it wasn't until I took a digital test on the day of my missed period that I got a clear "pregnant." Second baby is now 6 weeks old so was/is very real!

Mapp said...

It's late so I'll keep it short: very happy for you!

Ewa said...

This is awesome! Trust me, I know what it is to wait and do teen number of p-tests. I am very happy for you.

sea legs girl said...

Piccola- we are actually coming back for the wonderful American Thanksgiving :). So that means we are flying to the US this Wednesday and leaving Sat. Dec. 4th after the race. Otherwise, I think we would have loved at holiday season trip to Montreal :).

Coach Jen said...

I love your run down of syptoms, it is so true that the changes can be felt early. I remember the fatigue, shortness of breath, etc a few days before my faint + test. Congrats and good luck!! Hope you're avoiding the wonderful midwest weather on your trip back to the US.

Kirsten said...

Oh Tracey, I really hope for you that you are pregnant and just be careful with yourself - yeah yeah, run as much as you want, I was talking about all the other things pregnant women have to be careful of. Whatever they are...???? I used to climb on the slides in the the playgrounds with a huge belly and a 2 year-old under my arms....
Thought about you when I passsed Mogenstrup and saw all the hills you are enjoying (åse!) and some forrest that is quite useful. Next time I come to Præstø I'll be lesse lazy and go running there. And you may be so pregnant that I'll actually have a chance of keeping your pace.....Crossing fingers!

Stefanie Schocke said...

It's Tuesday...waiting for a blog update!!!