Increased Heart Rate

On Monday morning around 10:00am I found myself out of breath and ready to faint. I quickly sat down at my desk and noticed that I my heart was racing. My heart was beating so fast that I could see my shirt moving from my beating heart. I had eaten a good breakfast earlier and didn't know why I was feeling the way I was. I decided to call my OB to let her know and see if there was anything I needed to do. After talking with the nurse I was told that the doctor wanted me to go to the ER just to be on the safe side. I have never heard of a person going to the ER and not waiting for ever so I was not looking forward to the visit. Luckily I discovered that if your pregnant and go in for a "heart issue" they get you right in. When I checked in my heart rate had slowed down a lot but was still at 149 bpm. Jason and I were in the ER for 7 hours Monday while I had an EKG, blood tests, ultra sound of the baby, and and echo cardiogram. The ER doctor originally thought it was a heart deformity or a thyroid disorder but both of those were ruled out after testing. The ER doctor did call my OB and told about the tests and she felt that I needed to stay over night to be monitored. So after 7 long hours in the ER I was admitted and moved to Labor and Delivery. Once I was settled in Labor and Delivery they put me on a continuous IV of fluids and also an IV of Magnesium. Evidently my Magnesium level came back low in my tests and can affect the heart. Throughout the night my heart rate dropped back down to the 80s and everything was looking good. Jason and I were hopeful that first thing in the morning we would be able to go home. Boy were we naive! On Tuesday morning my heart rate had gone back up to the 120s (not bad but still not a normal heart rate). The doctor came in around 10:30am and said that she wanted to do another test and we would need to wait on the results for that. After a few more hours I had an ultrasound on my legs. The doctor wanted to make sure that there weren't any small blood clots in my legs which could have caused the heart rate. Luckily the results came back normal and I was discharged around 3:00pm.

The doctors aren't sure why my heart rate jumped so high and why it is still higher than they would like. Pregnancy can do weird things to a persons body and i'm thinking this is just one of those. I was told to take it easy for a while so i've spent the past 24 hours at home and resting. My brother came in from Arlington yesterday to help take care of the dogs and to stay at the house while Jason is at work today and has been such a big help! Hopefully i'll be back at work tomorrow and life will go back to normal.

Oh I almost forgot to mention that baby Reagan is doing amazingly well. Her heart rate has been normal during all of this and we couldn't be happier. We had a 3D/4D sonogram on Saturday and were able to get a little glimpse of her. I can already tell that we are going to have our work cut out for ourselves. During the 3D sonogram she covered her face with her hands and feet and didn't want to cooperate. While we were at the hospital the nurses would hook me up to a Doppler every 3 hours to check the baby's heart rate. The way that they would find her exact position is by placing the Doppler on my belly and wait for her to kick it off.