It seems that the nausea plans to hang around for a while. I feel good for about 2 to 3 hours per day. Other than that, I feel as though I could erupt at any moment. Fortunately, I don't actually get to that point very often. I've been listening to all of the advice from also pregnant friends and am trying to eat little snacks often so my stomach is never empty. It seems to help a bit but if I have to keep this up for too long, I think I may be 300 pounds by December.
I'm learning to cope with the nausea. It's still difficult to concentrate during the day and I am exhausted. The ironic thing is that I'm most exhausted when the nausea is at it's lowest point. Maybe the nausea wears me out or maybe it keeps me alert. Who knows?
I've been reading up on the development of the baby. In the eighth week, the baby should be about the size of a kidney bean. It's growing fingers, toes and eyelids this week. Our baby's arms are lengthening and knee joints have formed. Now that the baby is bigger than a lentil, Eric has officially given him or her a nick-name. We'll refer our baby as "Peanut", at least for a while anyway.
Here's the Pregnancy Symptom Tracker update:
Week Nine
The nausea is a bit better this week than the last one. It's still there, but the intensity seems to have lessened a bit. I'm feeling more fatigued though. However, I much prefer the fatigue to the nausea. I can work through the fatigue. Work is a bit better too. We successfully hit our milestone so maybe the drop in nausea is associated with the lower level of stress.
We're only half way though, but we've had an exciting week already. We made our first visit to the midwife on Monday. It was a good visit, but there's not too much to report. We're right on target for where we should be. We re-calculated my due date twice and so it turns out that now I have four different due dates: Nov 30, Dec 1, Dec 3, and Dec 5. So we decided that I really have a due week, instead of a due date. But for all who want to know our due date, we're going with December 1. I was shocked to hear that I will probably gain 30 pounds throughout my pregnancy. I was thinking it would be more like 20, but I guess 30 isn't too abnormal. It just sounds like A LOT.
We didn't get to hear a heartbeat or see an ultrasound this time. We're going to have an ultrasound screening test in the 11th week, so that will be our first chance to see the baby. It sounds like we'll get three chances to see our little peanut before we actually meet him or her. The midwife told us that standard of care ultrasound tests occur at 11, 16 and 20 weeks. We'll probably have to wait until 20 weeks to find out the gender. We're looking forward to the first ultrasound because we both still feel like it's all a bit surreal. The ultrasound will allow us the chance to see that there is actually a little peanut growing in there and we'll finally feel like it is real.
Out next appointment with the midwife is scheduled for May 19. One that day, we should be able to hear the baby's heartbeat. Another exciting moment!!!
