8 weeks

How far along? 8 weeks
Baby's size? Raspberry
Total weight gain: 7 lbs. (145lbs) I've pretty much just given up and excepted that I'm going to gain weight and there's nothing I can do about it. I try to eat healthy but for me the first trimester I'm hungry all the time that I gain weight.
Bellybutton: In
Stretchmarks: I never got rid of the stretchmarks from pregnancies 1 and 2!
Maternity Clothes: No
Gender: Don't think we'll find out
Movement: None, even on the ultrasound this it wasn't jumping around anywhere.
Sleep: Getting better. I have to wake up in the middle of night to take my thyroid pill and pee
Symptoms: Occasional nausea, tired
Food Aversions: None
Food Cravings: Salad and chips, particuarly sour cream and onion
Best Moments this week: Seeing the baby through ultrasound
What I miss: Nothing
What I am looking forward to: Our holidays in a few weeks

Ultrasound

I had my ultrasound appointment this afternoon. It was nice and quick, which for me is always a good sign. She asked the reason for the ultrasound and I said it was to double check dates but mainly to make sure there's a heartbeat. She asked if this was my second pregnancy (the form mentioned previous missed abortion) I said no 4th. I told her that my first daughter had a heart defect which also worried me about finding a heart beat. She asked if she was ok and I said no, it was fatal and explained that she had no left ventricle and a very small aorta so they couldn't do surgeries or a transplant. She then asked when we found out and I said 23 weeks. She told me there was a heartbeat (160 something) and that my dates were pretty spot on. She then asked me a lot of questions about Hailey and our pregnancies. I'm so ok with people asking questions. I'd rather them ask questions because I want people to be more aware of heart defects and what families go through. She asked about what the likelyhood of it happening again and how this pregnancy and my last are different then "normal" pregnancies. I told her that we'd have an echo done at BC women's at 20 weeks because they say our chances are 5-10% of the same defect but really they have no idea because they don't know what caused it. She was very nice and sweet and even printed out 2 pictures (that really look like nothing to me but still was a nice thought since I'd gone by myself and could then show my husband.)

I'm still finding it hard to believe everything's going well with this pregnancy. I've had no vomiting and very little nausea that I'd pretty much convinced myself it was another missed abortion. I know finding a heart beat at 8 weeks doesn't mean that there will be at 12 weeks or and so on but I'm feeling much more hopeful and know that our odds of miscarriage just dramatically dropped. I still can't get excited or even really think of planning for this pregnancy. When we get back from Australia (14 weeks) I'll start to get excited, believe this is actually happening again and tell work.

midwife appointment

I had my midwife appointment last week. It was moved up from the 24th due to a cancelation. The appointment was a get to know me and my history. We went over it all and she even checked for the baby's heartbeat, although at 6 weeks it's way too early and said if she did find it she'd want to send me for a dating ultrasound as it's super early. Of course we didn't.

She asked me a few times during my appointment if I wanted an ultrasound. She kept asking me more about a dating one and if I was sure about  my dates. I said yes that I was. I didn't push for a viability scan as I've had bad experiences with early ultrasounds in the past. I left happy and my next appointment will be when we get back from Australia at 14 weeks.

Ever since I've started to get super anxious about this baby and the possibility of miscarriage. I have nightmares of miscarrying on the plane during our 16 hour flight to Australia. Then I went back and did a calculation of when I miscarried last time.......exactly 10 weeks. Well with this pregnancy exactly 10 weeks is when we leave. It was my understanding that the reason I miscarried when I did was that the placenta had started to take over and of course there was very little to no placenta since the baby stopped growing before 5 weeks. I'd known since the 8 week ultrasound that it didn't look good and just waited for nature to take it's course. This time I don't have that luxury. I get out of country medical insurance through work but it's a one time use only and when it gets used it's gone and we have to get our own for future trips. I don't want to have to use it for a miscarriage and anyone who's experienced a miscarriage (or if you haven't go back and read my post of the miscarriage) knows that being out of the country or worse on a plane is not where you want it to happen. So I called the office Monday and she told me no one was there that day but a midwife would call me Tuesday. When I got home from work Monday Dan told me that my doctor called and asked to speak with me. I called her back and she told me that she was getting my chart ready to send to the midwives and noticed my Thyroid was high. Well it was within a normal range but was high for a pregnant range (3.49 and they want it under 2.99). I've since picked up a prescription and standing order requisition for monthly tsh checks.

The midwife called on Tuesday afternoon around 12:30 and said they'd had a cancellation and would I be able to come in at 1:30. Of course I said yes and after discussing the situation with her she told me she'd try to set up an ultrasound but that they often get backed up and since there was no bleeding or cause for concern it wasn't likely I'd get an appointment before we left in 2 weeks. She also wanted to finish my chart so she listened to my lungs and heart. After checking my heart she asked if I'd ever had any heart problems or shortness of breath. I said no except the occasional palpitations which I've never gotten checked out. She noticed that my heart was adding an extra beat sometimes and said that as long as I wasn't having any other symptoms it was ok and sometimes happens in pregnancy but they're going to keep an eye on it and watch for symptoms.

When I got home from work today  there was a message on my answering machine for me the call the hospital. When I called they told me I had an ultrasound booked for 1pm tomorrow! I'm assuming we really lucked out and they had a cancellation because I was expecting to have to go on a cancelation list. Please keep us in your thoughts/prayers tomorrow afternoon and I'll update (hopefully with how many bpm) as soon as I can.

Lauren's spending the night as my mum's because I've suddenly become extremely tired. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a cold and plan on going to bed super early tonight.

6 weeks

I had my doctors appointment yesterday and thought I'd give an update. I'd scheduled the appointment mid cycle last month for my yearly physical and when I found out I was pregnant I decided to just keep the appointment since I have to have yearly paps done anyway. When she did the internal exam she said that it appeared my uterus was measuring correct for 6 weeks. I mentioned that I a little worried about the lack of morning sickness so she ordered an HCG with the rest of my blood work which I did this morning. Of course the nausea hit me hard this morning and I nearly threw up a few times on my way to work this morning. I'm patiently trying to wait for the results to come up online. I worked it out that if my HCG level of 262 doubled every 48 hours my levels should be somewhere around 8300. I'm not sure if this was a good thing to work out because I know it will worry me if they're under 8000. I'll add the HCG level at the end. As long as the HCG levels are consistent with where I should be there isn't a need to do an early ultrasound, which I'm ok with.

How far along? 6 weeks
Baby's size? sweet pea (I don't really feel these are always accurate)
Total Weight Gain: 141.2 (I gained 3 pounds which isn't bad considering I had 3 turkey dinner with lots of pie and birthday cake in the past 2 weeks
Bellybutton:  obviously in
Stretchmarks: I never got rid of my stretchmarks with pregnancies 1 and 2!
Maternity Clothes: no
Gender: don't think we'll find out
Movement: no
Sleep: sleeping's been getting better. It's hard since Lauren rarely sleep through the night.
Symptoms: nausea, don't think it'll be long before I'm vomiting! And of course frequently peeing.
Food Aversions: nothing really
Food Cravings: nothing
Best Moments this week: first doctor's visit
What I miss: nothing
What I am Looking forward to: HCG results

HCG level came back at 11652! It's right where it should be (in my opinion) and means that I'm definitely in my 6th week (week 5 only goes to 7138) although I should be exactly 6 weeks.