Gallstones

I think I've mentioned a few times here that I've had pain in my upper abdomen for a month or so. I thought it was baby pressing on my ribs, but when I mentioned it to my doctor at my prenatal appointment last week she said it's actually gallstones.

This is apparently common during pregnancy due to all the extra estrogen in your body - my gallbladder isn't processing fat correctly (Note: The simple explanation that follows is just my basic understanding, and is likely to be partially incorrect).

So my gallbladder isn't able to digest fat as it normally does, and this causes me pain on my right side, under my breast (...in my gallbladder). It feels like a lot of pressure, not quite painful but pretty uncomfortable. My doctor told me to eat a very low fat diet and also ordered an array of blood tests related to my liver and gallbladder.

Good: All tests came back normal, and since I've been eating very little fat I've felt a lot better. It still bothers me at times, but the best part is that it's not bad for the baby... just uncomfortable for the mom.

Bad: This can be a predecessor of preeclampsia (When a pregnant woman's blood pressure is dangerously high). My blood pressure has been a little high at my last few appointments - nothing alarming, just on the high side of normal. My urine has been fine - no protein so that's a good sign (FYI if you've never been pregnant... they have you bring a pee sample in for every appointment and they test it for protein and maybe something else... I'm not sure).

I'm just going to continue eating well and exercising as best I can, and hope my pregnancy continues to be as normal and low-risk as possible. On the fun side, because this problem is caused by extra estrogen I'm now speculating that maybe I'm carrying a girl and our combined estrogen is too much ;) We shall see!