The Next 9 Months

[MelissaGreen 2]

Hello everyone,

I am writing this post because I need support from women going through the same thing as me right now.

This is my story, I was banded in June of 2010, so just 6 months ago. I am down 60lbs and still have 80lbs to go WOOT WOOT!!!

4 months ago I had to have my Mirena (birth control) taken out do to it embedding into my cervics and causing sever infections. My doctor advised me not to go back onto birth control right away, he wanted my system to be able to calm down and in 3 months I would start a new birth control. My husband and I have been using condoms, and guess what I got pregnant we must have fallen into that 1% catagory. This will be our first child, and I am scared espescially since I only had surgery 6 months ago, and I was told by my doctor that you are to wait for over a YEAR. Children were not in my future anytime soon I wanted to get down to my goal wait, I wanted my husband to finish college, my carrer has just started for me I was just made a partner in our office things were moving forward for us. Now dont get me wrong I am getting excited about a baby on the way, but I am also feeling very selfish, I just started my weight loss journey and now I have to basically put it on hold for 9 months. I am still going to be eating healthy, watching my weight so I dont gain to much, but hey everyone knows you dont loose weight when your pregnant.

I found out I was pregnant on Thanksgiving day, I haven't been to a doctor yet but from what we have calculated I am around 8 weeks pregnant. So this puts my due date around the first of August, which is not going to be fun I live in Arizona and we are up in the 100+ during August.

Now with pregnancy symptoms I think I have been doing ok, I have had nausea but not bad vommiting I am averaging on once or twice a day, it makes me nervous because of band slippage but what can you do to stop yourself from having morning sickness? Now another thing is I AM HUNGRY ALL THE TIME, and I mean all the time, and if I dont eat when my body is telling me I am hungry I get very sick. This is a weird feeling for me because I was at my sweet spot on my band, I have an 11cc band and I am at a 6cc fill and I would eat Breakfast at 10, lunch at 1, dinner at 7 and be fine in between meals not even feel a hunger pain. But now 9am hits and if I dont eat I get nauseous, by 12pm if I dont eat I get nauseous, 5pm hits its the same thing, then I have to do a snack at 7 or 8. I am getting sick of my body being controlled by hunger, people tell me to eat healthy Snacks througout the day, but my nutritionist 6 months ago told me not to snack at all and I am out of the habbit, I know I know I am pregnant but the little fat girl in me is telling me your just gonna make yourself fatter if you snack throughout the day.

I dont plan on getting an unfill throughout this pregnancy unless I absolutly have to but as of right now I still feel good with my fill its not to tight, and I am still eating smaller portions, and feeling full right after eating.

Now for the past 2 weeks I have had some tenderness at my port, it comes and goes throughout the day is this normal?

I haven't had my first OBGYN visit yet, I have schedualed it for Jan 10th. I live in a very small town where we only have 2 OBGYN's and neither one of them know anything about the lap band so I am going to be the one informing them about the band. My only problem is, I have no idea what happens with the band during pregnancy. I have called my band surgeon but have not received a call back yet, and I have a million questions floating around in my mind for him, I am getting inpatient for his call back I want answers now to helo calm my nerves.

Can you have a normal child birth with the band? Is it safe to push with such force? Is it safer to just go through the process of a C section?

I would love for you women to join me in this discussion so we can bounce stories, ideas, experiences off of each other. I know I am not the only one out there going through this and I thought we could band (funny little pun) together, to tell our journey and experience with pregnancy with the band. So if you are going through pregnancy with the band, or have already had a band baby and have some advice for us expecting mothers, or even women who are still in the process of getting pregnant with the band come talk to me so I dont feel sooo lost.

Melissa

[TracyW2 137]

Just wanted to wish you good luck throughout your pregnancy. I got pregnant after loosing 83 pounds in just 4 short months. It was hard to no longer be losing weight. I now have a few days left before my c/s and I have gained 28 pounds, which i dont think is too bad.

And my second son was born on Aug 1st.

[aSpen 0]

First I wanted to say congrats Also wanted to let you know that your concerns are normal, I felt the same way when I got pregnant. Just to answer a few of your questions from my experience..

Ok where to start I would saying getting pregnant so soon after your ban is fine, they make you wait to get your eating habits under control and to heal..I started trying to get pregnant about 8 months however I didn't get pregnant for a year after that. As far as losing weight while being pregnant I guess I was one of the lucky ones, I didn't gain a pound..I went through the morning sickness and took Zofran which an amazing drug. I would suggest asking your obgyn for some, it is safe to take while pregnant. As far as gaining weight and being hungry, I would say the hunger goes away it won't stay your entire pregnancy..just make sure your eating healthy for you and your baby..I think the most scary part that I find on this board is women are so scared to gain weight well it is normal to gain weight and trust me when you have your baby you will lose a lot of it..I would suggest keeping your fill in as long as you can, I did and had zero issues with having it in my entire pregnancy and I just got a fill in Nov and got pregnant in Dec.

As far as your obgyn not knowing anything about your lapband neither did mine, although the most important thing with having a lapband is to keep your Water intake high and to eat a lot of Protein. I used to drink Protein shakes every morning for the extra Protein and it helped. I used to get the generic slim fast ultra shakes from Walmart in chocolate and they really helped with the morning sickness and the hunger pains. I wouldn't be worried about your obgyn not knowing, just make sure you express to your obgyn any concerns you have and trust me if your obgyn is good he/she will educate themselves on lapbands..

When getting into your 3rd trimester I had a little bit of pain in my port but it was only due to my daughter kicking me, however the kicking to my ribs hurt more..giving birth was probably the worst experience I had, my daughter basically ripped me front to back and side to side coming all the way down the birth canal..I pushed for 6 hours and had zero issues with my band or port, I am not trying to scare you I am just saying even with the worse outcome that I had I had no issues. I wouldn't be concerned about going through labor with the band...

I hope I have answered all your questions, if you have anymore please feel free to contact me at xaspenx@hotmail.com Good luck and keep us posted on your progress