My love hate relationship with iron.

I have been a die hard blood donor since I was 17. Every 58 days I donate blood - I even have a donor card! This is something I feel really strongly about, and when I found out I was pregnant and (foolishly) tried to continue to donate they shot me down. I was shocked! "But, I'm PREGNANT! I'm making even more blood now... more of a reason for you to want to take it - right?" The woman looked at me in the eye with such...confusion?... and said, "Sweetie, you're donating your blood to a much better candidate now. We'll see you again in December." Due to constantly giving blood, I had always closely monitored my iron - taking supplements when needed. So when I got pregnant I didn't think it would be a big deal. Turns out my prenatal vitamin had 256% of my daily value of iron. JUST THE VITAMIN. Not to mention the iron I was absorbing already from my daily diet. I was receiving WAY too much iron and I believe that's what caused a lot of my first trimester sickness. When I told my midwife that's what I believed the issue was she told me to stop taking it and if I needed to, we would resume taking iron supplements later on.

I went for a few weeks of my first trimester and all of my second trimester not having to go back on the iron. And I felt great! I wasn't feeling deprived or depleted. Then today... I got the call.



"Hi, this is (midwife) do you have a few minutes to talk?"
Shit I bombed my glucose test. "Sure! What's going on?"
"Well, I've called to tell you... Congratulations, you've passed your glucose test!"
Are you kidding me? I thought you guys only called when something was wrong... "Oh! That's great! To be honest I was a little worried when I saw your phone number pop up!"
"Well, there is something else."
FUUUUUUUU--"And that would be?"
"Well, in order for you to give birth in an out of hospital setting your iron needs to be above 10 and 30. You're sitting right now at 10.2 and 30.6."
THAT'S IT?! 

I seriously thought this woman was calling to tell me they found out my baby had cancer or something. And all she could come up with was I'm getting low on my iron?! I know that's a big deal right now but COME ON.

So long story short - I'm going back on the dreaded iron pill and we'll see if it makes me hurl every time like it used to.