Morning Sickness

illustration: thoughtfulbloke

It has been a couple of weeks since I found out I was pregnant. I was feeling great and was happy, counting that I was going to be one of the lucky ones that just breeze through the morning sickness thing... until a couple of weeks ago. Now I pretty much feel as if I was moderately sea sick the whole day. I don't feel like eating anything but I eating seems make to me feel slightly better for a little while. No throwing up yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if today is the day.

First Ultrasound

This week I had my first ultra-sound. I had booked the doc on the Internet, since all offices seemed to be closed for a Christmas-New Years break so I didn't know when was the best date (now I know a lot of docs book it to week 7 or 8, if there is no history of complications). I had calculated that I was in week 6 (based on online calculators etc.) and during our talk the doctor was casually mentioning week 7 or beyond (which didn't make sense to me, but he just made a casual calculation on his head when I told him about the last day of my period). We were both expecting to possibly see a heart beat at that point, so  I called my husband to come over from work nearby (I wasn't expecting an ultra-sound so I hadn't asked him to come along). When we finally looked, there was only a dark whole, shaped somewhat like an egg. We couldn't see anything inside the dark dot (the gestational sac). The doc calmly told me that it was much earlier than we thought and that the bean measured as 5 weeks. He said to come back in a couple of weeks and that we would be able to see more. 

I was dying to see the little bean, but I wasn't too worried at the doctor's office. I figured I was only one week off and my cycles are long and somewhat irregular, so it is not too unexpected... but the worrying started as soon as I got home... I never knew pregnancy was so worry inducing! It didn't help that I had a little bit of spotting straight away either (thought the doc had warned me about that). Many searches on "5 week ultrasound pictures" and "spotting after ultrasound" and a forum post later, I feel much better. Although there are some people who see more at 5 weeks, my situation seems pretty normal (my picture looked just  like this). Light spotting is totally normal after an internal ultra-sound (mine was light, not red and gone a day a day later). So everything is fine! (Which doesn't stop me from worrying: hopefully it is the hormones or beginnings of maternal instincts or something like that that makes me so worried, rather than impending insanity).

In two weeks, I will be travelling (okayed by the doctor), so I will have to wait for 3 more weeks before my next ultrasound. The wait is killing me, but I think it is for the best. I will be 8 weeks along then and by then one should be able to see a heartbeat.  That way I will be more likely to be able to see if things are going right (or wrong) rather than getting a "it may be too early, come back next week".

I can't wait to see the little bean!

F-is for Folate!

No more brie, no sushi, no hollandaise sauce...  But why focus on the negative?  I just found out that two of my very favorites are loaded with folate: lentils and asparagus! I love asparagus and I could seriously eat lentils everyday, I love them so much! ... and if that wasn't enough good news, I now have a brand new excuse not to eat the alfafa sprouts that my husband loves adding to our food. :-)

To celebrate, I cooked red split lentils (lentils, garlic, onions and olive oil: so easy!) and will cook asparagus tonight (pretty much the same as this, but replacing the butter for olive oil and adding some nuts... yummy!)... as well as taking pictures of them before cooking, of course :-).

For more on what to eat during your pregnancy, check this and this out.

Baby Tickers

If you have poked around pregnancy forums (if you are anything like me, I am guessing you have), you have probably come across those cute little count downs people usually use as signatures for their posts. I've just down some looking around and there is the time line I found to be the cutest tickers I've found so far, from Lily Pie:



They have a lot of options for you to choose from there. I also liked the ones at the  Baby First Site, which also offer a lot of options for you to pick from:



Another one from Baby First: (done before my doc said I was probably one week behind what I expected):

Sure Baby has badges with cute baby pictures, but it is less of a counter (and less informative):

This next one is the opposite: not so cute, but more informative. An option for the less girly/no frills expecting moms out there, from Baby Gaga:



Parents Connect also has an informative, but not cute counter.

Let me know if I missed some nice ones!

***Update: I realized that these counters will keep doing what they are supposed to do and count the way to the end of the pregnancy... so I decided to add some static pics of the counters here, so that you see what they look like early in the pregnancy if you come here in 9 months (click on ticker to see it):

Still there

 :-)

Apparently I am 4 weeks pregnant (the doctor will only see me on Monday). Read about being 4 months pregnant here.

Faint line

This Sunday, I woke up wondering. After some deliberation (it is cold outside./Maybe wait a little longer./It is going to be so long until the next precious morning pee), I put on my many layers and marched to the drugstore. I did a couple of loops covering the whole store, before I finally found them. I did a little pipi dance at the checkouts and read the instructions on my walk home, to save time. I had just enough time to rip the test packet open. Then, I got what looked to me like a faint time. I compared the line with the instruction lines and thought: oh well, maybe next time. Dan woke up, completely oblivious. I explained to him that I had a feeling, but that is was only a faint line and that maybe next time.  Just for good measure, I decided to search for "faint line pregnancy test" to learn more about these things.   It turned out, our line was actually not so faint. In fact, our line could be said to kicks ass. Not wanting to jump into conclusions, we looked for about 5 more minutes, comparing our lines to others in the internet. We said things like "I don't know but..." and reading things like "if there is any line at all, it is a positive" and things of the sort out loud to each other. We got a crash course on "evaporation lines","bfn","bfp" and due date calculators.  Until we could finally say: "Holy Cow! We got a BPF!!!!"

We are so happy and excited! There is a baby (embryo?) in ma belleh!