13 weeks and b-vites

Thirteen weeks came and went on Sunday.  Not much to report, except for expansion of my midsection.

Wow!  Excuse my pre-makeup, early morning "look."  Also, my husband thinks every photo looks "fine" after he takes it.  I don't think he even looked at it twice.

Everyone says things stretch a lot faster the second time around . . . seems to be true.

At my last visit with the midwife, my blood pressure was a bit higher than I'd like it to be.  130/80.  Certainly not in the "danger zone" of anything over 140/90, but just a little high.  I am not chronically hypertensive - my non-pregnant BP is usually solidly in the 120s/70s.  But after doing a bit of reading, I found that blood pressures in the 110s/60s is more "normal" for the end of the first trimester.

Starting at about week 10 of pregnancy, and continuing for the next 12 or 14 weeks, a woman's body kicks into overdrive producing more blood.  To adequately supply the placenta and the pregnant body, blood volume doubles for a singleton, and grows even larger for multiples!  It takes a lot of water and nutrients for your body to do this well.

When your body is making and circulating all this blood, it does not develop new blood vessels (other than those between your body and the placenta).  So the blood vessels you have need to relax a bit to allow all this blood through.  Thus, the normal drop in blood pressure that goes along with this expansion.

When I went to the midwife at nearly 12 weeks, I was hoping for my BP to be depressed a bit to reflect this change.  Getting back 130/80 was not very encouraging for me!  I'm certainly not freaking out, but I'd like to head off the creeping BP I experienced at the end of my pregnancy with Vicki Jo.

We talked it over at the visit, and Bobbi recommended that I add a B-vitamin supplement to my regular prenatal vitamin.  Didn't seem like it would hurt anything (B-vitamins are water-soluble and you shed any excess in your urine).  They were also pretty cheap at the health food store:  $7.99 for 50.

The one thing Bobbi mentioned was to be sure that the brand I picked had at least 50 micrograms of all 8 B vitamins, along with choline, inositol, and PABA (which are sort of like pseudo-B-vitamins, I gather).

Check!

Can I just tell you, these things are like happy pills!  I wish I knew about them long ago.  They really stabilize my mood and give me a fantastic sense of well-being.  I can notice if I forget to take them.

I think that Bobbi suggested I take them because they help boost mood and reduce stress, which will indirectly help to lower my blood pressure.  How much do I love working with a health professional who does not rush to prescribe something, but instead works on the causes behind my symptoms!?  Really love it.