So, at 29 weeks pregnant, I passed out. I just fainted.
It scared me.
At the time, Ben and I had just started moving items between our old apartment and our new dream home. We were living in the new apartment, but all my hair products were still at the old one. I still had long hair then, and I was planning to do my hair across Tuesday and Wednesday.
It was a Wednesday in May. I was heading to the old apartment from the new one to start day two of the hair process. The old apartment is approximately 0.8 miles from the new one. It takes about 18 minutes to walk it. However, being 7+ months pregnant, I always took the bus the two stops between the apartments.
Before going to the old apartment, I had breakfast. I then packed a few snacks to eat throughout the day, and I went on my way. The walk to the bus stop from my apartment is not very long, and the May days in Kunshan are not very hot. However, when I finished crossing the street to go to the bus stop, I could feel an increase in my heart rate, and I thought, “I better sit down on something.” There was nothing to sit down on, though, so I perched myself a little bit on the nearby public bike rack to catch my breath.
Now, you know that state between sleeping and waking, where you don’t realize you’ve fallen asleep until you wake up? You’re still kind of conscious of where you are and what’s happening, but also unconscious at the same time? In some part of my brain, I could feel my right hand sliding into the dirt and my scarf being pulled off my head as I fell to the ground. The more dominant part of my brain though thought that was an illusion or a dream, and it kept its focus on what I wanted to do with my hair that day.
I don’t know how long I was down for or in that dream-like state before getting up, brushing the dirt off myself, and finally becoming conscious again. My husband, my friends, and my doctors asked me how I fell and what I hit. How was I lying down when I regained consciousness? But I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know. I don’t remember. I was already standing away from the bike rack when I became conscious again of my surroundings. My bag and scarf were on the ground, my phone was held tightly in my palm, and I was dusting dirt off of myself.
Funnily, my first reaction after becoming conscious again was vanity. I focused on brushing the dirt off of me, and I rushed to tie the scarf back on my head since my hair was in a “not-yet-styled” state. I was like, “nothing to see here! Nothing to see here. Just a very pregnant foreigner passing out on the sidewalk.”
Then it really sunk in what had just happened, and I started to freak out. I noticed my right wrist hurt really bad. My right butt cheek also hurt. Nothing around my stomach hurt, however, and I tried to focus on whether or not I could feel the baby move. I also did a body scan to see if there was anywhere else that hurt. As I did, I realized my whole right arm hurt really badly, so my guess is that I fell on it. It was clear that day 2 of my hair regime was not going to happen.
I looked around to see if there was a cab that would take me to my old apartment, but I saw none. A couple minutes later, the bus came, and I took it the two stops. I then called my friend Zain and talked to her the short walk to the old apartment. I wanted to be on the phone with someone should anything else happen while I was walking. I made it, quite breathlessly to the apartment, where I then called Ben.
Ben came home with lunch, and we contacted my OB. She suggested I have my blood pressure checked and do an EKG. The closest place we could think of to do that was at the school clinic. So, we ate lunch and went back to school. My blood pressure was low, and my heart rate was high, but I was primarily fine by that point. I took a 90-minute nap in my office, and then wrote this all down.
It was quite the day.
As it would happen, I was already scheduled for a prenatal appointment that Friday as well as an appointment to see a cardiologist. On Friday, on my way to Shanghai, I had another episode, though this was different. This time I knew that I could and maybe would faint. So, as Ben and I waited for the train on the platform, I had just enough time to say, “I’m falling” before going completely slack in Ben’s arms. That time, I didn’t completely lose consciousness, though it came in and out. After falling into Ben, a friend of ours that we had been speaking to—he just happened to be on the same train to Shanghai as ours—was suddenly on my left side helping Ben to hold me up. When had that happened? I wasn’t like that for very long, though you can imagine that I attracted quite a bit of attention as people slowly got on and off the train. The pregnant foreigner, again, was falling down.
At this point, I’d like to answer a question that people frequently ask about the first fainting episode. Was anyone around? Did anyone help you? No one came and helped me. I don’t know if anyone saw. Every time I go out, I’m constantly stared at it seems, except in this one moment when the constant gaze may have been helpful. I know there were other people on the sidewalk that morning walking this way and that. Did anyone see me? Did anyone think about helping? I don’t know.
I ended up spending 5 days in the hospital when I met with the cardiologist later that afternoon. She was concerned that the fainting spells might be a sign of a heart problem that could complicate the pregnancy. Believe it or not, despite how common it is to see pregnant women faint in the media and many women do experience dizziness during pregnancy, the occurrence of actual fainting in pregnancies is only about 1 in 100.[I] Women who do faint, though, are more likely to do so again. While in the hospital I had several tests done on my arteries, veins, heart, and so on to see if there were any issues that would warrant an immediate C-section. In other words, if my heart could not handle the pregnancy, they would take the baby early since the baby could survive at 30 weeks. It was all a little scary at the beginning, but as each test came back normal, I began to relax.
So, what caused me to faint? I’m not sure. Here’s the theory from a doctor at the hospital, and it sounds reasonable enough to me. He explained that a woman’s blood glucose regulation is quite extreme during pregnancy. You have higher highs and lower lows. When you eat something, your body lowers your blood sugar to account for the fact that you are currently putting calories into your system. Since I had eaten breakfast not long before I had left home and had been having tachycardia episodes in the mornings after breakfast before and throughout the pregnancy, it’s possible that my blood sugar levels were related to the issue.
On this particular Wednesday, after my blood sugar levels plummeted, my heart rate increased to try to off-set the extreme drop. That’s what I noticed. I can’t detect a drop in blood sugar levels, but I can tell when my heart is beating faster and may assume that it’s a heart problem.
When your heart beats faster, it’s not as effective at pumping blood and oxygen to your brain, and your body’s first priority is the baby. Add in the adrenaline rush that comes when you’re not feeling well, and you will naturally start breathing faster, which again negatively impacts your body’s intake of sufficient oxygen. When you add all this up, I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain, so I lost consciousness. My body’s engagement in a rapid series of checks and balances put my brain offline for a short period of time.
The good news is that it didn’t happen in the middle of the road, and I didn’t fall in a way that hurt the baby. I was not seriously injured either.
Since the hospital visit, I’ve had two more episodes where my vision starts going in and out, and Ben has to hold me up to keep me from simply passing out. The doctors have recommended that I be accompanied for the remainder of my pregnancy in order to avoid a repeat of the first episode—that is, passing out alone, outside, for an unknown period of time. I was lucky the first time that I and baby were not seriously injured. I may not be so fortunate a second time.
As such, Ben’s parents came to live with us as soon as I left the hospital. It’s been great having them help with the move, cooking, cleaning, and much more. Living in Kunshan is pretty boring for them, though, so it’s been an interesting month together, but I’ll tell you more about that in future blogs.
**The featured image is a picture of the bump at 29-weeks pregnant.
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