I am officially preggers – this is huge news! For me I’m barely 5 weeks but I’ll have a visible baby bump when this goes live. I wanted to share my story as my pregnancy is a bit different – I suffer from TBI but very few people have documented their journey with this.

I had a head injury 10 years ago followed by 3 more over the next 5 days. I lost 5 months of memory and a few months later I suffered another head injury.

TBI, or Traumatic Brain Injury is basically the after effects of a head injury. As I have had multiple ones all within 9 months I suffered an issue that my brain would swell up if it got worried, stressed or a light knock in a way to protect its self. November 2014 I quit my job as I could no longer handle the daily travel and stress of such a high level – I was taking strong pain killers everyday and wanted to focus on me. For me this was the best decision I ever made as I started freelancing and helping lots of great businesses but I also had amazing flexibility to go to physio and doctors appointments.

Back in March 2014 I was told about some incredible research that pointed to a possible relief of some and even all of my symptoms by getting pregnant. Basically there are two studies going on at the moment that have really positive results in terms of helping those effected by a traumatic brain injury through pregnancy or related hormones.

Bump diariesOne piece of research is currently at the point where they are testing on people (which means it is pretty far) where  patients are given a progesterone treatment within 8 hours of the initial accident and continued for 5 days. While it won’t cure TBI, it has been proven to help reduce swelling and cell death as well as rebuild the blood brain barrier. This is huge news and if it is effective then it could help reduce disability and death all while increasing the rate of recovery. While my brain injury may be over 10 years old, reducing swelling would be a huge help – my doctors have tried other drugs but I suffer too much from the side effects. In other words getting pregnant could help me with 9 months of reduced swelling with the end result of a the family me and Tother have always wanted.

The other piece of research is at an earlier stage but the results are highly exciting. Basically they are testing the impact of pregnancy on animals with brain injury, IQ and memory. They started with trying to find out if getting pregnant increased intelligence and found that a very high percentage of those with a brain injury completely recovered. Their research has found pregnancy helps fix and improves the body to ensure the best for the mother and baby. This. is. huge.

Basically I was given a 70% chance of a full recovery if I got pregnant along with a very high chance of reduced swelling if it doesn’t.

Me and T’other have talked for years about the family we wanted and I have always wanted a bump before I hit 30. Not only was it the right time to start growing a family but it could help me recover – as you can imagine it wasn’t a hard decision for us.

After a few months of trying and failing we have finally managed to get one to stick and in three days time I’ll be at my first appointment.

I actually thought I had no chance this month – no symptoms or anything but a while I realised that I wasn’t feeling ill at all. In a week I’d had no headaches, no dizziness and I was able to go out in the bright sunshine without sunglasses on – this for me hadn’t been the case in 2 years. That was a week ago, I have hardly had any TBI symptoms.

I have had headaches but they are very different from my TBI ones and no where as painful. The dizziness has gone too. I have only been dizzy once but that was after a day full of my normal triggers not effecting me and then overheating from the oven.

Nausea has been the biggest issue – I have been constantly been feeling either sick, hungry or stuffed. Small meals and healthy snacks has been helping.

It really is amazing – I’m so happy and excited about it all. For years we have always talked about the kids that we wanted and even discussed what we would do if it wasn’t possible for any reason. T’other has always making dad jokes and then quips how he is practising since we started dating – all this week those jokes have increased. I adore the photo that he took when he found out – his smile is amazing and its one of my all time favourite photos of him and probably will be forever now.

Overall things are great and I’ll be sharing my story for anyone else interested. I am so happy and excited and although being pregnant is helping me feel so much better all talk and thoughts are about starting our own little tribe.

Have you found pregnancy help you? Have you heard of progesterone being used to treat those with TBI? How have you felt when you have been 5 weeks pregnant? How did you find out? I would love to hear about your story so leave a comment below!

 



Annabelle

Annabelle has lived in Exeter, Bournemouth and London but now live in Brighton as a freelancer. With a love of baking, sewing and social media, she is now starting her own blog.

12 Comments

Lauren | Belle du Brighton · March 2, 2016 at 8:38 pm

This is so exciting! Congratulations. Having a baby is life changing but even more so when it lessens your symptoms like this! I used to get severe migraines and they stopped when I got pregnant the first time, and although I got some more headaches the second pregnancy they were nowhere near bad enough to even border on migraine territory!

I look forward to reading more about your bump as it grows!

    Annabelle · March 7, 2016 at 11:07 am

    Thanks! It really is amazing what pregnancy can do! This really is our miracle bump with the difference it has made. Great to hear that it helped your migraines.

laura dove · March 6, 2016 at 6:47 pm

Wow what an amazing story, congratulations to you!! I have various health issues and they all seemed to improve when pregnant, probably why I have been pregnant so many times!! Looking forward to hearing more about your pregnancy as it progresses. #justanotherlinky

    Annabelle · March 7, 2016 at 10:52 am

    Thanks! It really is amazing what the human body can do. I’ve been told by so many people how much better their health got when pregnant so I’m not surprised that it helped you.

Something Crunchy Mummy · March 10, 2016 at 9:47 pm

Lovely news, congratulations! Look forward to reading about your journey. Thanks for linking up to #justanotherlinky xx

Lucy Toseland-Bolton · March 15, 2016 at 4:29 pm

Hi, I’d be grateful if you could contact me. I’m the Blog Editor at BabyCentre UK. Thanks in advance.

    Annabelle · March 15, 2016 at 11:05 pm

    Hello Lucy, I have e-mailed you and look forward to hearing from you soon x

Heather N · March 19, 2018 at 2:27 am

Hello,

Congrats on your baby and relieving symptoms. I’m very curious about how you’re feeling now. Have your tbi symptoms increased again since giving birth or have they continued to be manageable? I also have a TBI, it’s been over two years now, and I’m terrified that it will only get worse once I have a child. I’d love to hear how pregnancy/ postpartum has had any effect on your symptoms. Thanks. Best wishes!!

    Annabelle · March 21, 2018 at 4:15 pm

    Honestly it got weird at 4 months as my brain started rewiring. So until then I only felt better but it was 4 months that everything revved up again and it was hard trying to control my handwriting between pre and post head injury clashing.

    I still have the blood brain barrier issues so my reaction to drugs has stayed the same so I don’t remember the labour at all and was “drunk” on just gas and air. Since the birth though it has stayed constant. I am still breastfeeding – my worry is when I stop breastfeeding the hormone that is taking the pain away will go and the pain will come back. So far though it is great to have my life back but it really was a huge gamble.

    It might be worth asking for pregnasone as the artificial hormone and see how you respond to that.

Emma Jaques · July 13, 2019 at 6:34 am

I had TBI from being hit by a car 6 years ago, it started to recover then unfortunately a few years ago I had unsuccessful dental work including a failed root canal, my TBI symptoms went up 100% … it was hell,
I am now 3 months pregnant and some days I feel better some days I have the symptoms back, I can’t take any of the medications so if you can recommend anything natural that may help I would be so grateful… x

    Annabelle · March 28, 2020 at 8:21 pm

    Sorry I have only just seen this. I am guessing you have a little baby now. I couldn’t take anything really as I was sick most of the time. Second one they did give me soon something to help with the nausea but I can by remember what it was called.

    I think it was a lot of dark rooms and rest where possible.

The Bump Diaries Week 7 : Meeting the Midwife - Lillyringlet · March 16, 2016 at 4:58 pm

[…] my daily headaches and dizziness has gone – it seems that the hormones are really helping my TBI symptoms that I still haven’t taken any painkillers. It is so freeing going from most of the week […]

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.