In all of my pregnancies I have had issues with iron deficient anemia. I haven’t particularly shared it with a whole lot of people so a lot of people don’t know this about me. I’ve been taking iron supplements since my pregnancy with Mark as a result of my slacking in iron. I have continued my usage of iron supplements in between pregnancies as a corrective/preventative measure, which honestly kind of sucks because they taste weird, but I’m picky so ignore me. With two of my three pregnancies I have had to receive iron infusions because my levels have gotten to a dangerously low level. Low iron is fairly common during pregnancy as I’ve learned, to an extent, but my levels as I said get dangerously low. I’m going to share this experience because low iron is way more common during pregnancy than people account for and it takes a lot of women by surprise.
Full disclosure, I don’t eat a lot of iron rich foods. I never really have. I don’t like red meats, have no desire to eat them, and can very rarely even force myself to eat it. It’s a texture thing for me, I’m very texture perceptive and can’t eat something if I don’t like the texture because it makes me puke. (Side note: I once had a piece of brisket and I threw it up almost immediately.) I don’t eat a lot of nuts or spinach, just because I don’t. My point is, I probably should have seen this coming, and I’ve probably had low levels for quite some time and just never realized it until a little parasite was sucking what little I had away from me. (Don’t judge me for saying parasite, by definition babies are parasites and I love them for it.)
When I got pregnant with Mark I couldn’t stomach my prenatal. I’m terrible with pills and prenatals are gigantic, because after all this time we haven’t found a better alternative for pregnant women. What’s better to help nausea than having to swallow a horse pill? I threw up my prenatals every single time I tried to take them, and eventually just stopped trying. Now I’m well aware that nausea and fatigue are normal pregnancy symptoms, but I couldn’t keep anything down, couldn’t keep my eyes open, and kept getting these God awful headaches. I thought this was normal so I wasn’t too concerned, but my doctor gave me a talking to about how not taking my vitamins wasn’t good and that it would affect my iron and other key vitamin levels. So I started trying to take the gummy Flintstones vitamins like the child I am, but they don’t have iron in them so I just sucked it up for a while until I was ultimately prescribed an iron pill. Of course, I had trouble keeping them down because I’m bad with pills (I literally needed liquid Motrin after Mark was born because I couldn’t take adult Motrin), and they taste weird. I continued to try to take them and it wasn’t brought up again for the rest of my pregnancy.
This were things get a little more interesting. Ooo drama.
Shortly after confirming my pregnancy with Rose I began taking iron supplements once a day, when I remembered as a lazy attempt at trying to prevent issues again, because I was, as the kids say (am I old?) “back on my bullshit” and taking Flintstones gummies. I was still having terrible headaches and just getting so incredibly tired. The nurse hotline suggested drinking a cup of coffee a day to deal with the headaches, as she thought maybe it was just caffeine withdrawals. Honestly, made sense though.
When the coffee didn’t help any, I talked to the doctor who decided to do a blood test and ultimately decided I needed to consult a hematologist. This was scary for me having to walk into a cancer center, and I felt very out of place and kind of selfish for being there. I got my blood taken again and then met with the doctor. She asked me if I felt that if I went into labor that day if I thought I’d have the energy to do it. I told her “absolutely not” and she agreed. She set me up for iron infusions and suggested I take my iron three times a day if I could stomach it because my levels were so low I would have bled out or needed an immediate blood transfusion if I had gone into labor at that point.
So I went to the cancer center two times before I hit 36 weeks, to get infusions. Definitely the better option when faced with possible blood transfusion. For those who don’t know, iron infusions are an IV of iron. You get a higher dose of iron and it goes directly into your blood stream so it’s ultimately more effective than the iron pills. The iron I received when pregnant with Rose was a strong dose given in hour and a half intervals not given past 36 weeks because one of the main side effects is cramping that could cause labor. The up side is that when the iron starts it tastes like maple syrup in your mouth, and an hour and a half gave me some time to catch up on some reading. Luckily, after those two infusions and my three pills a day, my levels had risen to a more normal level and my headaches had gone away. An unfortunate side effect however is the cramping and constipation, but at least I wouldn’t need a blood transfusion. After Rose was born I continued my daily usage of my iron pills and upon a postpartum visit with my hematologist she said my levels looked wonderful and I went on my merry way.
By this point I would have been a fool to think I wasn’t going to have low iron when I got pregnant with Joseph. So when I got that positive pregnancy test, I mentally prepared myself and immediately informed my doctor that I did have problems with low iron. They said they would keep an eye on, despite my levels being normal at my 8 week blood work, and then they didn’t continue to monitor it, cool. I had continued to take my iron pills after Rose so I anticipated it being normal at my first blood work, but I didn’t get blood work again until 28 weeks when they performed my glucose test.
When I got into my third trimester the headaches and fatigue had come back with a vengeance so I told the doctor and was referred back to a hematologist. (Insert image of me lazily skipping, because I was happy to have a solution again, but also too tired to be excited.) So I went to the hematologist who told me that I would be getting infusions for the next 4 weeks with the 5th week being a check on my levels (I’d be 38 weeks at that point).
After week 4 of 45 minute long infusions (yay for maple syrup mouth!), I got another blood test. First I want to clarify that the iron I was getting this time was not as strong as last time which is why I had 4 infusions as opposed to 2, and got to continue past 36 weeks. Also, less side effects with this treatment, and safer.
Let me just say how annoyed I was at getting stabbed at this point after the amount of blood tests and IV’s I had gotten. My arms were riddled with tiny little scabs and bruises from all the sticks.
Well the blood test showed that my levels had barely risen at all in the 4 weeks I’d had infusions, despite 2 iron pills daily on top of it. The doctor pulled me aside and explained to me that she was very concerned with the very little progress we had made and wanted me to not only get another infusion that day, but also infusions until my due date (2 weeks) to total 7 infusions. Joseph had other plans and I didn’t make it to either of my last two appointments, but I made it through labor and delivery without needing a blood transfusion. I go back in a few weeks for a check up and possible infusion and thank God for that because my head is killing me and I’m tired, on top of the tired from having a newborn, even though I’m still on iron pills.
Having to get iron infusions is definitely not ideal. It’s also definitely not how I had expected my pregnancies to go, but I am so grateful for the medical opportunities I have been given. I’m grateful that I haven’t had to get a blood transfusion. And I’m grateful that, if only for a few weeks, I got the opportunity to be given some relief. I know a lot of women are scared of hearing they need infusions, or confused on what that means, but it is so worth it and absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
