How to Navigate the Unexpected During Pregnancy




Trish: [00:00:00] Today's episode is a little Shorty Instagram live that I did all about receiving an unexpected diagnosis, maybe when you go to your prenatal appointment or your 20 week scan. And I'm just gonna give you some little pointers and then we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. 


So join me as we chat about these topics. 


So we're gonna talk about what happens if you go to your doctors and you get like unexpected diagnosis or unexpected news. And that can be anything from something smaller. To something really big, like pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes or gestational hypertension. So I wanted to talk about just anything in [00:01:00] general, like if you get any kind of unexpected news. 


And I hear this a lot with my girls in the birth classes and in our membership. So if they go maybe to their 20 week ultrasound to the big scan. And they just find out something just a little different than what they were expected to hear what they were expecting to hear, and they just feel like a letdown or they just feel something. 


And so I just want you guys to. Remember to walk through some steps, so we're gonna talk about just a little bit of a plan of action in case you hear news that you didn't want to hear from smaller news to bigger news. So the first thing I would always say is, no matter what you hear, To make sure that you do your own research, whatever it is, you're gonna wanna research it, you're gonna wanna get in. 


Now, you don't wanna do Wikipedia [00:02:00] research now, do you, but do research more than likely if you get a diagnosis like G D M. Or pre-eclampsia, or you have something else going on, you're gonna be referred to what we call an M F M or a maternal fetal medicine provider. A lot of you guys like me, I was older and pregnant with Grayson, so I had to go to an eem M F M, which just means you're gonna go to more. 


Doctor's appointments during your pregnancy? Fun, bum fun. Lots and lots of doctor's appointments. Okay, so if you get an unexpected diagnosis or news, you're gonna do research on your own, you're gonna do your own research. You're also, I always recommend. If you have something going on, especially something bigger going on during your pregnancy, maybe you got an unexpected diagnosis with the baby. 


Something's going on with the baby. Maybe baby's gonna have to have surgery after [00:03:00] delivery. Maybe baby's got something going on with their heart or their kidneys or something. I'm a big fan of therapy. Talk it out. Work it out during pregnancy. So therapy's another recommendation. Ask a lot of questions. 


You are paying your provider. Ask them questions. Do not leave that room until you feel like your questions have been answered. I know a lot of times from my girls when I'm talking to my students, a lot of them feel like they're dumbfounded when they've been told certain news. And then they sit there, they don't get any questions asked. 


And then they leave and they feel like, oh my gosh, why didn't I ask this, that, or the other? So one of the things that you can do is when you're laying in bed, keep a piece of paper next to you, write down your questions, and then take it with you to your appointment. Otherwise, [00:04:00] when you're sitting in your appointment, make sure that you. 


Ask everything you want to ask. Get all those questions a out do not let them leave the room until you feel that you've asked what you wanna ask. The other thing that I would say is talk to your family members. So a lot of my mamas who have preeclampsia, you might be on bedrest. Or you might been told that you have to decrease your stress. 


Very difficult to do ask for help. You may have other children. Let your family come alongside you and help you. So I would 100% say ask for help. And then the other thing though, I would wanna say, and this goes for even my moms who get diagnosed with G B s, like you find out you're G B s positive. 


A lot of times when we find out that something else is going on that we didn't expect, we feel like. The birth that we envisioned is not possible anymore, but it 100% [00:05:00] is. So even if you find out you, you have preeclampsia or gestational diabetes or g b s positive or cholestasis or whatever, it's gestational hypertension, whatever it is that throws a loop in your your vision of your birth, I want you to remember that you still can create a beautiful. 


Birth. So I don't want you to think that you can't have a beautiful birth. So the two things that I wanted to talk about just a little bit that we're gonna break down a little further today and then I'll take some questions cuz I don't have a ton of time today. But the two things we're gonna talk about, because these are the two that I hear the most inside of my membership, is gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. 


I'm gonna start with gestational diabetes because I'd say there's a lot of mamas who get diagnosed with gestational diabetes. So I'm gonna talk to you guys how I do to my girls inside my membership. So the number one thing that I wanna say to you, [00:06:00] because I know when you're looking at that testing, so the testing is between 24 to 28 weeks. 


You're gonna be tested. And I know a lot of you guys get really freaked out cuz you're like, oh my God, I'm having the test. What if I am, I don't, I don't wanna know. But here's the thing, there's power in knowing because either you are gestational diabetic or you're not, and you need to know. 


So there's power in knowing. The other thing I want to tell you is that you did nothing wrong. So if you are gestational diabetic, Take that thing out of you that's telling you that you did something wrong cuz you didn't. I know mamas who are like 100% like super duper healthy that have gestational diabetes and then I have no, I know moms that are like me that ate crap during pregnancy that didn't get gestational diabetes. So I just want you to know [00:07:00] that you did nothing wrong if you end up with gestational diabetes. So if you've been like telling yourself that you failed or your body failed, you take that and get rid of it, that's a limiting belief. With gestational diabetes, there's power in knowing if you have it because you need to change the way you're eating because control gestational diabetes makes all the difference in the world as far as the negative outcomes because it, if you can control. 


Your diabetes during pregnancy, then you're just like everyone else, right? Because what happens with gestational B diabetes is that your body cannot process the sugar in your blood. And we get the sugar from the sugars and the carbohydrates and the starches that we eat. So if you're not processing it, it's gonna spill into your bloodstream and into your urines. 


It's really something we have to be really on top [00:08:00] of. So if you get diagnosed and you all know we do the testing, you gotta drink that nasty drink. There are alternatives, but we're not gonna go over that right now. There's some great alternatives and we've got a lot of information on that in the content here on Instagram and on the blog that you can look at. 


Gotta take another drink cuz this voice is going away. Which is why I'm cutting this a little short today. Okay. So if you if you are diagnosed, number one, they also don't know what causes it. It's strange, right? They have no idea what causes it. There's some theories, but they really don't 100% know what causes it. 


So if you are diagnosed with gestational diabetes, there's a couple things you should do. Number one, You should see a nutritionist. So if your office does not offer that, you need to push for it. You should be meeting with a nutritionist. They should be offering that, that should be available to you. If you don't [00:09:00] know who Ryan is the prenatal nutritionist. 


I love her and I can link to her when I get off of here. You don't wanna miss your doctor's appointments cuz you wanna stay on top of it. More than likely you're gonna be checking your blood sugars at home. So if that freaks out a little bit by the end of this pregnancy, you're not gonna be freaked out by that. 


You'll be used to it. You're gonna want to eat healthy, which we should all be doing. Really well, especially while we're pregnant, you're gonna want to be getting some daily movements, some exercise staying on top of hydration, which all of you who are pregnant should be doing that anyway. You're gonna wanna if you are being diet, if you're diet controlled, that's what you need to be doing. 


And that's our goal. We wanna keep you diet controlled. If you have to add in some medications, that's a little bit different. So if you do, you wanna stay on top of those medications. Now, from my students and my members, what I've found is that the su, the blood sugar that they have, the hardest[00:10:00] controlling is that fasting at night. 


What they have found is if they add in a high protein, like a protein shake or a protein bar right before bed, that seems to help it. But we have a nice conversation going inside my membership on this because figuring that out can make all the difference in the world. So really just keeping a food diary, meeting with that nutritionist, watching what you're eating, just being as healthy as possible. 


Now that being said, The next thing I wanna talk about if you are g D M, is do you have to be induced? So we have this conversation all the time inside of Call Mama Society, my membership, because I 100% believe that if you are diet controlled and your blood sugars. Are not out of control then, and you're having no other issues. 


You do not need [00:11:00] to be induced because you are no different than the rest of us. So if your provider is saying, because you are G D M, that you need to be induced at 39 weeks, I would fight that. If you are diet controlled, if your numbers are good, if baby's looking good. I would fight it. That is all I'm gonna say right there. 


If you wanna DM me, we could chat about that. If you're coming to fearless birth experience, we can chat about that as well. Okay? So if you are on insulin, if you have anything else going on, then you really need to have a conversation with your provider, cuz you might be a good candidate for an induction because that would become more of a medical reason. 


Okay, so now let's talk about preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is a little scarier. Okay. Because it can lead to some really scary situations. So if you were diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, it's gonna really depend on when you're diagnosed. So the earlier in [00:12:00] pregnancy that you're diagnosed, the kind of more scary it is. 


So if you're diagnosed earlier and it's mild, then the goal is to keep it mild. So you might be put on bedrest. So signs of preeclampsia in pregnant women are blood pressure. That's Creeping up. Now there are different parameters, so I don't exactly want to say what they are, but they, it used to be like if it's over one 40, over 90, but now that's ridiculous because like for me, my blood pressure even pregnant is 80 over 60. 


So one 40 over 90, I would be stroking out. So for me that would be really high. So it really depends on your normal pregnancy blood pressure. Because to get to one 40 over 90, mine would have to be really creeping up. So you're [00:13:00] what they're. They're saying is that it's going to your diastolic, which is the top number, is gonna be creeping up and or your sys systolic, sorry, is the top number is going to be creeping up and I think I think they say by 30 and your diastolic is gonna be creeping up by. 


15. So it's really a rise this steady rise of those numbers along with other signs. So you've got swelling in your face, in your hands. You've got high levels of albumin in your urine and you've got blurred vision and headaches and all these other signs of things that are going on. So we would, we'll be drawing labs and checking your urine and Preeclampsia is more of a scary diagnosis during pregnancy. 


Now, like I said, if you're diagnosed early, the treatment is going to be keeping you pregnant, but keeping those symptoms from getting, More increased or scarier. [00:14:00] So you might be at home and be on bedrest and we're gonna increase fluids, decrease sodium, anything that would raise your blood pressure. 


So that's, if it's early and mild, you're gonna be seeing your provider. A lot and a lot of testing. Now, if it starts to get worse, you may be admitted to the hospital. You might go into the Antipartum Unitin. The Antipartum is a labor and delivery unit, but that's for mamas that are pregnant, that we wanna keep pregnant and. 


If for some reason it gets more serious, we might put you on a medication called magnesium, which is to decrease the chances of having seizures. Because if you go from pre-eclampsia to eclampsia, there's a high chance of having a seizure, and that's very serious. So the more serious your eclampsia comes, becomes. 


Then the goal goes from keeping it mild and keeping mom pregnant to delivering [00:15:00] this baby, because medically there's a point where we say, okay, what is more important? The safe is babies safer. Outside of mom or inside of mom is mom safer pregnant or not pregnant? And in the cla the case of serious preeclampsia, it becomes to a point where baby is much safer and mom is much safer. 


If mom is no longer pregnant. So if you develop serious pre-eclampsia, and again, serious pre-eclampsia, signs are blurred vision, dizziness seen floaters or spots, you have a pain in your upper right side that is sharp pain that won't go away, a headache that won't go away with treatment, a dizziness. 


I think I said blurred vision, but if not, blurred vision. Sudden swelling of your face and your hands. So treatment of that is [00:16:00] delivering the baby. So what that would look like is getting you in the hospital and hopefully doing an induction you would. Definitely be on magnesium. For those of you who have been on magnesium, if you know it's not a fun med medication to be on, it makes you feel very hot and sweaty. 


Always ask for a fan, especially if you're on magnesium. Always use a wet towel. Wet towel and ice tray to put on you if you're on magnesium. So you're gonna have constant fetal monitoring, constant vital signs. You're gonna have a Foley catheter, you're going to have a one-on-one nursing care. You're going, we're gonna have dim lights, we're gonna decrease the stress in your environment. 


Our whole goal is to keep it a stress-free environment, because remember what I said, going from pre-eclampsia to eclampsia, we wanna keep you from having a seizure. That's our goal, and we wanna deliver the baby. So as [00:17:00] far as e clamp pre-eclampsia, The signs and symptoms of serious signs usually go away pretty soon after delivery of baby, but most likely within a few weeks after baby four to six weeks after baby. 


All right, mama. I hope you enjoyed this little shorty. Episode about receiving an unexpected diagnosis. The key point that I want you guys to remember is that your birth can still be incredible. You've got this As always, I'll see you again next Friday. Bye for now.