30 Weeks to Go

It is actually a little bit early for this post, baby isn't 10 weeks until tomorrow. Actually, baby isn't 10 weeks until Wednesday or Thursday, but I have Monday stuck in my head. Ever since the first ultrasound tech told me the date of the baby in the ER, and it matched to my assumed ovulation date, I have it my head as Monday. So I actually count the baby as older than the doctor does, but the doctor won't change the due date unless it is actually a week off, and it is only three days, which doesn't matter to anyone but me. Whatever, I am 1/4 of the way there.

Your baby is now about an inch long and weighs five grams, or one-sixth of an ounce, roughly the size of a garden beetle. This end of the two-month mark is a landmark date for your baby. It's looking more human all the time. If you could look inside, you'd see a thumb tip-size translucent creature that's unmistakably human. Kidneys, lungs, genitals, and the gastrointestinal tract are all present, though far from fully formed. Your baby's bones begin to form in his limbs, a process called ossification. The floor plan for your baby's structure has been laid down, and the next thirty weeks will be about expanding and developing on this blueprint. If your baby is a boy, his testes are already producing testosterone. A Doppler handheld device can usually detect a fetal heartbeat by this point. Once the heartbeat is detectable, your chances of miscarrying in the first trimester are immediately lower: between five and ten percent.

Congratulations, your uterus has swollen to the size of a softball! Looking in the mirror, your shape has definitely changed: less waist and more chest. If you're over 35 or have a history of genetic disorders, over the next two weeks, your care provider may offer a test called chorionic villus sampling (CVS) which uses a sample of tissue to screen for hundreds of genetic disorders. This test is highly accurate, but carries a significant risk of miscarriage. Right now, your hormones may be producing emotional effects, that is, making you feel crazy, angry, sad, euphoric, and irritable, sometimes all in the same ten minutes. You may also develop little white bumps on your nipples, called "Montgomerey's tubercles" (named after the Irish obstetrician who "discovered" them.) These bumps secrete a white lubricant, which will help make breastfeeding more comfortable. Your weight gain may be picking up—though don't worry if you haven't gained any by now. Bottom line, if your provider isn't concerned about how much or how little you've gained, you shouldn't be either.

Abating?

Morning sickness--obviously named by a man who was never pregnant, is supposed to get steadily, or not so steadily worse, until week ten. That is when your hormone levels peak. Then it is supposed to get better and nearly vanish by week 13. I am in week nine and it seems SO much better. Like enough better that I would be worried, except I have no pain and that is a good thing. I am still more tired than I though humanly possible even though I sleep 10 hours a night, but I don't feel sick. I can drink water again. I don't have to eat immediately in the morning. I can eat most foods, although I still have some aversions and generally prefer things with less spices than normal. I can eat yogurt and thinking about things doesn't make me puke. Actually eating eggs may be a little rough, but I can think about them at least. Work is much easier. My pants are still tight and my boobs are still sore, but not feeling sick all of the time is sort of miraculous. I even managed to be helpful and do dishes tonight.

Week Nine--We have a fetus!

As you squeeze into your jeans and struggle to button your shirt, try enjoying the gain -- after all, when was the last time putting on the pounds was totally guilt-free? It's also probably time for some new lingerie. Your sore, bigger-by-the-minute boobs will feel so much better in a maternity bra.

Check and check. I can't wear my pants, I can't wear a bra that looks even remotely sexy and all I do is eat and sleep and whine. All of the time. I am even sick of me.

Baby's now the size of a green olive!
Your little embryo has now officially graduated to fetus-hood. Adding to the excitement, a Doppler ultrasound device might be able to pick up the beating heart. With basic physical structures in place and increasingly distinct facial features, baby is kind of starting to look like...well...a baby!

1st Baby Doc

We went to the doctor yesterday to have our first check up and see the baby. The baby is good--a few days later (or newer) than we thought. The doctor said the baby is 7 weeks 6 days instead of 8 weeks. No big deal now, but come May 23rd I may feel different.

The appointment went well. It was sort of review of everything I can and can't do, but it made me feel a lot better. My chances of having a miscarriage are down to 7% according to her, but I have read that they are as low as 2%. Regardless, that is a hell of a lot better than before. They weighed me and checked everything out. I have a fragile cervix, but it poses no problem for the baby, it just means I will bleed a lot more when I give birth and throughout my pregnancy. Awesome. I asked if it was an infection, and she said no, but still, it is scary no matter what. On the bright side I loved her.

On the down side, she will not deliver my baby. In fact, it will be really random who delivers my baby, and that is just how Kaiser does it, so I can't even find a doctor in my insuranace network that will deliver my baby. It is just random. In some ways this makes it better because when I am in labor and panicking I won't freak out that my doctor isn't there, since that is assumed from the start. It is just sort of weird. I am nervous that whatever Mike and I decide to do for our birth plan won't matter at all. I am worried that I will have to have IVs and continuous fetal monitoring and such. Hopefully at 30 weeks when we go to the hospital to preregister they will help explain that, since really it is mostly nurses and the doctor just catches :)

The only thing really on my mind about it is the genetic testing. I won't have an amniocentesis, I already know that, but Kaiser offers a blood test that could detect many defects and at our 24 week ultrasound they can also look for soft signs of Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 18 and Fragile X syndrome. It won't affect me anyway, I would still carry the baby to term. However, the doctor said some people want to know so that they can mentally prepare. I honestly don't think it is possible to mentally prepare for a baby period. The only concern I have is cleft-lip/cleft-palette. 2 of Mike's nieces have it and we would have to talk to a geneticist to find out our risk. I am sure it is pretty low regardless, but it does occur in his family. The only reason I would care is because I would want to find out about feeding. Since a baby who cannot nurse is significantly different than a baby who can, it would be worth it to know that ahead of time. I think. Maybe. Part of me just wants to assume everything is fine and go on from there. We will see how I feel in a few months.

After we went to the doctor we had lunch where I ate more than I have since I got pregnant, which was nice. Then we played mini-golf and went bowling--it was the best day ever. Mike accidentally hit me in the head with a golf club and it hurt like hell. I have a lump. It made me cry, but I was sort of shocked. It DID hurt, and it made my eyes water, but I cried like a kid does. I think it startled me and made my eyes water and then I cried because of hormones. It was so weird. I remembered what it felt like to be a little kid and cry when you get hurt--it was a weird combo of surprise and pain and just like having my feelings hurt that I got hit with a golf club. Ridiculous, but interesting. Our next appointment is 12 weeks, and we get to hear the heartbeat!! I can't wait.

Wow, just wow

So, in the last 24 hours I have completely hit every 1st trimester milestone.

I completely broke down over nothing. Literally nothing. I was so frustrated and so tired that I started crying when Jill asked if Mike and were getting married. I don't even care if we get married. Then I started crying because Mike was going to play golf in the morning. What? Yup. Because I can't clean the bathroom. So he can't play golf. Yeah, I have great math skills--totally hormonally unbalanced. Then I went to bed and woke up feeling emotionally just fine, like it never happened. You should read my text messages from last night though. Idiotic.

So, Mike came home and cleaned like crazy because he is amazing and I had a breakdown. I woke up honestly confused as to why he wasn't playing golf and why the toaster oven and microwave were spotless and the coffee pot disassembled in the dishwasher. Until I read my text messages. God I am crazy. So I had a yogurt drink and started to help clean. About an hour into it I felt awful, so I sat down and drank some water, and then puked. A lot. Including my prenatal vitamins and omega 3 fish oil pill. Yeah, puking obviously made me puke more. Milestone 2 met--I guess everyone pukes their prenatals a few times. So then I ate 1 saltine. Just one. Why you ask? Because it tasted like ass. I didn't know saltines could go bad. They do. Both packets of them. Mike even tried one and spit it out. It was awful. Finally we went to Einstein's to get a bagel. It was lame. There was hardly any cream cheese. So I went to order more just to find out that one little to-go ramekin of cream cheese costs $1.50!! So I just bought a tub for $3.00. It was ridiculous. So I put more cream cheese on my bagel and took the rest home, which I pretended to eat on Ritz, but really just licked off the same one over and over so Mike wouldn't judge me. He went to play golf, so now I am just eating it off the knife. Which I think also counts as a crazy preggo thing.

Finally, I also bought a be band. It is amazing. I love it. I wish I would have known about these years ago, it would have made Thanksgiving so much better. Plus it makes eating cream cheese off a knife feasible for my waistline.

What is up with baby?

As your baby enters its second month of development, weighing no more than a chocolate chip or a berry. It's about five to thirteen millimeters long (less than half an inch), and weighs less than a gram (0.8g), or less than one-twentieth of an ounce. The human blueprints are already visible. Your child still has a tail but is also beginning to form a digestive tract, lungs, nostrils, hands and feet, and a bump of a mouth. The liver, tongue, and lenses of your baby's eyes are forming. There are beds for your baby's fingernails, and the buds of teeth are forming in the gums. If you could take a picture, your baby would look more like a baby and less like a reptile. The baby's nerve channels and muscles are connecting, and the body can wiggle when the cells communicate. In just two days, from days thirty-one to thirty-three, the brain becomes one-quarter larger. If you were to have an ultrasound, it would be able to detect the beating heart, which shows up looking like a tiny flashing light.

Week Seven

Today starts my seventh week--I think. Hopefully the doctor can measure the baby and give me a definite gestational age and a more reliable due date. One more week and we get to hear the heartbeat and see it flutter!!! I am much more confident in my pregnancy than I was two weeks ago, mostly because I feel like shit all the time. Somehow, that is a good, comforting thing. My sciatica is killing me, although I am not entirely convinced it is pregnancy related and I think could just be a coincidence. The morning sickness is here full force (or I hope full force, I don't want it to get worse). Nothing sounds appetizing, I hate ice cream all of the sudden, raw meat and eggs make me puke and cooked veggies do the same. Grocery shopping has also become the bane of my existence. The smells made me gag three times and I don't want to buy anything because I don't want to eat anything. I just went up and down rows (with my butt hurting) looking at food and feeling disgusted. Fun times. All I want is white food. So weird.

Baby's now the size of a blueberry!
Baby's brain -- both hemispheres! -- is growing fast, generating about one hundred new cells every minute. Arms and legs are emerging as joints start to form, and a permanent set of kidneys (baby's third!) is now in place.