7 weeks, 3 days

Hello! :)

Just a few things to "report" right now. I love being 7 weeks pregnant! Usually 7 weeks is a grim grim grim time with morning sickness, and I keep myself going by getting to the next week and the next. This time:

* Very minimal morning sickness! I thought it was really kicking in the last time I posted - it was much worse for a few days. It was getting to be about as bad as my "normal" level of morning sickness when I'm pregnant, all of my other pregnancies. It meant that I felt sick pretty much all the time from lunch time until bedtime, and in that time nothing I ate would make it any better. It distracted me completely and felt like a blanket over me, and made the usual things of the day seem way harder to deal with. In all my other pregnancies, that was my normal level, at the mildest it ever got. I would also have "bad days" or runs of bad days in a row, I suppose with hormone changes and such? Anyway, on THOSE days I would not be able to function to do anything for the weight of the constant feeling that I was going to be sick. Thank the Lord I never was! But it's a horrible feeling! Everything tasted bitter, especially carbs, and made my mouth water excessively. That added to the nausea. I had to eat or it would get worse, and when I did, ugggghhh! Forcing food down whilst that nauseous was awful. And it didn't really help much but at least I didn't get worse like I might if I did NOT eat. Occasionally I would find a food or drink that would take the very edge off the nausea, but that would usually only work for a few days or maybe a week, and then become a food aversion, so I would try to find a new one that worked. I had a lot of foods, drinks and smells that I absolutely could not tolerate. I couldn't stomach fluids, especially water, and with my very best efforts would maybe consume half a pint of fluids in a whole day. Sometimes I felt so sick that I could not bear to move my facial muscles even to smile at my baby, and that used to make me so sad! :(

One or two of my pregnancies were slightly worse so that this level of nausea was more like the normal level (Matthew's particularly, in the evenings, but his was the earliest to disappear! :) ). But basically all 5 of my previous pregnancies have been pretty much identical in terms of morning sickness, give or take a couple of days on the start time, a week or few on the finish time, and maybe whether I was blessed with part of the morning nausea-free or not. The feeling of nausea was exactly the same.

Not this time! :) It's sooooo different! I don't know what to think! I have nausea which is so reassuring - I am so grateful! I hope it means everything will be okay with my little one(s). I am hugely blessed with the entire morning free of "morning" sickness - although first thing when I get up I do feel slightly yeurghy in my stomach, but that is more like a feeling that I might get when I haven't had nearly enough sleep, and then got up too suddenly and tried to stuff breakfast in it, you know? It wears off pretty quickly, and the rest of the morning is fine, not the slightest queasiness. After lunch, or around lunchtime (noon - 1pm here), I might start to notice it, especially if I'm very hungry, creeping in. Just queasiness at first, and then nausea if I don't go and eat. Once it's arrived, it tends to stay to some degree. But it's so mild and manageable. I wonder if those few days where it got worse were just "bad" days for this pregnancy? I hope so! It went back to what I had previously been experiencing, after the few days.

I can TOTALLY function normally! I've never known this in pregnancy before, and I can't tell you how grateful to God I am. I actually prayed for this, and He is so faithful. I NEED to continue school, and last time I was just incapacitated by the nausea and had to stop for a while. Quite a while, as it turned out to be, since Samuel's morning sickness lasted until 20 weeks - my longest yet! But ohhhh the joy of just getting on with life as normal, and just being somewhat distracted or inconvenienced by nagging nausea or mild queasiness! :) Late afternoon/early evening is my worst time as usual. It's there until bedtime, and always gone when I wake in the night with Samuel. Such a relief! I can eat ANYTHING. I have no food aversions, and I am drinking normally. Biting my nails (naughty!) usually is impossible during my first trimester, and I am still biting away (unfortunately!). It does make me a bit queasy but not enough to really deter me. That's the only real downside to the mildness this time, lol! ;)

Some foods do help, especially when I was feeling worse. I discovered nibbling dark chocolate almost completely eased my nausea on the third evening of feeling worse, just by chance! My nausea doesn't always go when I eat, and I generally feel yucky and distracted and would like it to go away, just for the feeling of nausea not to be present any more, but otherwise I am able to deal with it just fine. Sometimes in the afternoon and evening, especially when I'm distracted with a ton of stuff going on (quite often these days!), I suddenly realise I don't feel sick at ALL, and worry that something is not right! ;) But when I think about it again, there it is - slight queasiness waaaay in the background, and I am reassured. I asked God to please bless me with just a little morning sickness, enough for reassurance, but mild enough to be completely manageable. I am so overjoyed to have my prayer answered! Faithful God! :)

When it has been a couple of hours since I ate something, I get hungry quickly, and with that comes nausea. So it ebbs and flows a bit. But in general, so very very different to all my other pregnancies!

* I can feel my uterus! I thought I could feel it above my pubic bone juuuuust about, at 6 weeks and 5 days. I absolutely did NOT plan on saying anything at that early stage when I wasn't sure, in case I was prodding a constipated bowel (sorry, lol!) and ended up looking stupid! ;) By yesterday, 7 weeks and 2 days, I was sure as sure that I can feel my uterus an INCH above my pubic bone. It's pretty flat and small, and not really obvious, but by pressing around gently I can be sure it's my uterus. I was nutty enough to dust off my doppler last night, haha! Of course, nothing to hear except for a lot of whooshing blood vessels. I feel my uterus just above my pubic bone at 8 weeks usually, every pregnancy. That is early, but that's just me. THIS is reeeeally early. Early enough to be twins? I remember reading on a multiples board once, a bunch of frequently asked questions there. The twin mamas basically answered by saying that not much predicted twins universally, for most of them they had greater exhaustion and hunger than their singleton pregnancies, NOT necessarily morning sickness, and that for many of them, their first clue was feeling the uterus above the pubic bone at 7 weeks. So that makes me wonder. It IS only a week earlier than I usually feel it there, but earlier all the same.

I'm not sure I can truly believe it's twins, partly because I am so much LESS nauseous than usual, partly because the sonographer did say that she's fairly sure there's only one baby, but also because I'm still trying to protect myself over the possibilities that it might mean if it IS twins. I will just have to wait for Thursday to find out. It's coming up quite fast, and the days are going quickly, so sooner or later I will find myself actually at the scan and then I will know. In some ways I am not feeling all that able to move on to things like plans and thinking of names (other than the one that popped in my head earlier) until I know what is what with this baby. I occasionally start to, absent-mindedly, and then stop myself. I just want to know first, and then I can relax about the baby and continue on. I already love this little one so very much! But my usual patterns of thought are a little bit on hold until I know what is going on in there.

There's not much else really. I am very very tired this past week. I am not going to bed early enough though, and I have had a sore throat for a few days so maybe I've been fighting something off? Anyway, tiiiiiired! We have managed school every day though, I am proud of myself! :)

My spotting has finally GONE - well, the slightest tint is left, but that's it. Normal CM otherwise. HOORAY! Long may it stay GONE! I do not like bleeding during pregnancy, never mind how common it might be!

Jemma, I forgot to say in my last entry that they did find yet another subchorionic haematoma around the gestational sac. I seem awfully prone to those, even though they are meant to be "one of those things" and totally random! My bleeding always seems to be due to a SCH in my pregnancies. It was small so although she said I might spot for a while, it should go away quickly enough. I think I must have had a few or something, because I have had several seperate red bleeds. But anyway. I hope I don't have any more of them! Interesting theory about the lost twin! I wonder if there's a possibility that a twin "start" to the pregnancy has caused an early increase in size, uterus-wise, even if the twin is lost shortly afterwards? Interesting...

Well, I am feeling sick so I should go and eat something. I ate cereal an hour ago but it hasn't really made it better so I'll try something else and then go to bed. I will update again soon! :)