Week 10 of pregnancy

You are now going on 10 Weeks Pregnant!

<>WHAT WILL BE HAPPENING WITH YOU
This is an excellent time to schedule a dental appointment. Proper cleaning -- along with an adequate intake of calcium, protein and vitamins B, C and D -- will help keep your teeth and gums healthy.

Moms-to-be should pay special attention to their oral health. The American Academy of Periodontology advises that pregnant women with periodontal disease may be up to seven times more likely to deliver a preterm low birth weight baby. Furthermore, when the disease affects at least 30 percent of the mouth, the risk is even greater.

Hormonal changes occur during pregnancy that can affect the gums. The gums may become swollen and inflamed in response to bacteria along the gum line. This is called "pregnancy gingivitis." It usually appears during the third to ninth month of pregnancy.

I actually have my regular check-up this week. So I guess this is good to hear.

<>WHAT WILL BE HAPPENING WITH YOUR BABY
By the end of this week, your baby will have verifiable fingers and toes. The tadpole appearance diminishes as the tail completely disappears. Eyelids fuse and will stay shut until weeks 25 to 27. Both the external ear and upper lip are complete, and the beginnings of external genitalia appear. The average size of your baby-to-be is 27 to 35 millimeters, crown to rump, or 1.06 to 1.38 inches. Your little one weighs in at a hefty four grams! At the end of the eighth week of gestation your little one is no longer an embryo; from now on he or she is referred to as a fetus.

Awwww, its got wittle fingers and toes now! Sometimes I wish I could have an ultrasound every week to be able to see all these changes.

<>EATING FOR TWO
Your baby needs a great deal of calcium throughout the pregnancy. If you don't get enough, your baby will take it from your body, which may ultimately weaken your bones and teeth. To prevent these problems, plan on doubling your calcium intake. A quart of milk per day or other calcium-rich foods will meet that goal.

A quart of milk a day? Holy cow that's a lot of milk!

<>FACT OF THE WEEK
What exactly is the CVS test and should you consider it? CVS, or chronic villus sampling, is usually done between weeks 10 and 13, and involves the removal of a small amount of chronic villus tissue from the implantation site. This procedure is performed much earlier in the pregnancy than amniocentesis, and results are obtained in a few days. Its diagnostic accuracy rate is 97.8 percent, as compared to an amniocentesis, which is 99.4 percent. It also carries a slightly higher risk of miscarriage -- .8 percent greater than amniocentesis. For women who have an elevated risk of passing along a genetic problem, such as Tay-Sachs, or of carrying a Down's syndrome child, the test may be well worth the small risk. If you are considering this test, choose a center or hospital with a strong safety record and wait until after the tenth week of pregnancy.

Why did no one tell me that being pregnant was such HARD WORK? Huh? Why?

So, I was talking w/ the hubby a few days ago (while I was flat on my back on the couch mind you because as usual I was completely tired) and I was telling him that I had absolutely no idea pregnancy was such hard work. Why don't other women give us a heads up on this fact? I thought... you get a little tired, maybe a little queasy in the beginning, gain some weight...but overall you feel normal and life goes on as normal. NOPE! That's not how it goes at all!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to go about your daily activities when you're so tired you can't even get your butt out of one chair and into another? Well let me tell ya....it's hard! I must admit that the fatigue is starting to get better at this point. I only find myself really tired in the evenings, not like a few weeks ago when it seemed to last from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. Dinner time has pretty much become non-existent in our house. I personally like cereal night myself, LOL! I just don't have the energy for it right now.
Another hard thing about being pregnant is having to make sure that I'm not only eating the right things, but that I'm eating enough. I have always been the kind of person that would go all day w/out eating. You can't do that when your pregnant and now I find myself wondering, "what do normal people eat during the day?" I'm at a loss as to what to pack for a lunch because I usually never eat one. I find myself reaching for the orange juice w/ the 100% vitamin C or the one w/ added Calcium. No longer can I just grab an orange juice and be done w/ it. I have to find creative ways of getting the extra nutrients into my diet. I've never thought so hard about the kind of food I put into my mouth before! It's hard work! I have to make sure I'm eating enough calcium, enough protein, enough folic acid.....the list could go on really. I've even had to change the kind of face soap I use because of a certain ingredient that was in it!
Trying to keep up w/ what is safe and unsafe is a job in of itself! Thank goodness for the internet because there a several things I would not have known had I not read it on any one of several websites I now visit daily.
Finding clothes that fit has become quite a game w/ me lately too. I can't stand tight clothing so now that my current size is starting to feel pretty darn snug I have had to go up a size in pants and undergarments. I wonder, how many bras will I have gone through by the time this is all said and done? Guess I'm gonna have to start figuring out the whole maternity clothes thing....no more putting that off.
All I know is that at the end of the day after dealing w/ all the above, I would love to be able to do what my hubby does and fix myself a nice drink and just relax....but we all know I can't do that. Nope. It really isn't fair. Maybe I should make him stop drinking while I'm pregnant....I shouldn't have to be the only one sacrificing. Hmmmm, I'll have to think about that.
Anyway, I think I'm done having my hormonal rant and as much as I complain about the little nuisance's of being pregnant, I am still very exited and in awe of what is actually happening. It's really quite an amazing feeling knowing that there is a life that was created by you and the person you love more then life itself growing inside you. There is no feeling like it! I just wish I had known ahead of time and been more prepared for all this HARD WORK! Oh well....I'm sure I'll manage.

I get weekly updates on our pregnancy. This is for week 9. I am currently 8 wks and 2 days, so this is what will be going on w/ me for this week.

Getting these weekly updates has become the highlight of my week! They're so great!

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH YOUR BABY

This week, your baby-to-be grows to between 20 and 28 millimeters from crown to rump, or about an inch. Weighing in at one gram, your baby is very active, although you can't feel its movements. He or she now has all the major organs, muscles and nerves. A Doppler may be able to identify the heartbeat. While testes and ovaries are formed, external genitalia appear sexless, which is why it is too early for an ultrasound to reveal gender. Eyelids are beginning to form and the trunk is straightening and elongating.

Our little one is about the size of a cherry, while my uterus it about the size of a tennis ball (tell me about it, I'm going to the bathroom it seems every 20 min.)

<>FACT OF THE WEEK

Women who consume more than three alcoholic drinks per week during the first trimester have double the risk of miscarriage compared to nondrinking women. This news comes from an intensive study based upon more than 5,000 women. Women who drank prior to pregnancy have no increased incidence of miscarriage over the nondrinker. Bottom line? Drinking any amount during pregnancy can be unsafe for the developing fetus.

Well....duh!

Well as of today, according to the ultrasound I had last week, I am 7 weeks and 4 days into this amazing process of creating a little human being. I am in constant amazement at the process and can't seem to get enough information about what is happening inside me. I find it all fascinating...as I'm sure every woman who has experienced this has felt.

I get weekly and monthly updates e-mailed to me on what is happening w/ not only the baby, but w/ me and have found them extremely helpful. Not to mention I have several women around me that have already experienced this and have given me some wonderful advice. I'll probably share some of those e-mails here on occasion.

So far I feel that everything has been going relatively smoothly (knock on wood!). I have had no nausea/morning sickness, I've only had about a week and 1/2 of extreme fatigue, and my body seems to be handling the prenatals very well. There are some other symptoms of pregnancy that I have been feeling almost from the beginning which are easy enough to handle on a daily basis.

One thing that has been happening that I'm sure is not uncommon, is having weird dreams. I have had some wild ones and I hear they become more frequent and vivid the closer to the end you get. So far I've dreamt that I keep forgetting to feed our child (this one seems to be a favorite because I dream it quite frequently). I've dreamt that our baby could talk like us and it kept crying that it wanted a different home. And the other dream was that in our babies room there was doll house and it was possessed and was trying to take our baby away. I told you they were pretty wild!

Well, this is all I have for now. I'll try to update this at least once a week. Thanks for stopping by,
Corie

***This entry has been copied from my other blog. If you would like to read the comments from this post please go here.***


Ohhhh good Lord Almighty am I tired..... Ya know, everyone said, "you'll be really tired for about the first 8 to 12 weeks....but it gets better after that." They said "really tired." I find that to be a complete UNDERSTATEMENT!!!!!!! I have been pretty much useless for the last week. Which has made me very thankful I have such a wonderful husband who has been more then happy to pick up the slack for me...he's so good to me. :) I left work early just about every day last week and once home was on the couch and out by the time my husband made it home from work. How can something the size of a small bean make a grown woman THIS TIRED?! Guess the little bean is just trying to prepare me for what's to come. So really I should just get use to this feeling, huh?

I guess I really shouldn't complain too much. Besides being "dead on the floor" tired, I haven't really had any nausea/morning sickness or weird cravings, which has helped tremendously in keeping my weight steady. At 7 weeks, my clothes are just starting to feel a little snug, but not too bad at all.

Anyway, this is all I have for now. I'm too tired to continue, so.....night, night.

***This entry has been copied from my other blog. If you would like to read the comments from this post please go here.***


Well it's official.....I'm pregnant!

Got the "official" word from the Doc today although I really didn't need the extra confirmation...my body's been telling me for over a month now, actually I knew even before I was able to take a home pregnancy test.

I took the home test on Christmas morning and just walked out of the bathroom and told the hubby, "well, we're pregnant." I'm a woman of few words if you didn't know! Anyway, he was pretty surprised because I kept telling him that I really thought because of my history that it would probably take several months for us to actually get pregnant. But, the good Lord proved me wrong on that big time, which I will be forever thankful for! :)

My mom had stayed the night Christmas Eve (& my dad is still staying w/ us due to his strokes), so Christmas morning I took the positive pregnancy test downstairs where only my mom was up and told her I had a gift for her. I held out the test and she looked at it and wasn't sure what it was a first. She asked me what it was and when I told her it was a positive pregnancy test, she just hugged me and started to cry. Dad came down later and I did the same to him and he thought I was holding a thermometer or something for him, it was quite funny, but he finally got it and started to cry too. No one knew that we had even started trying, so it was quite a surprise.

Anyway, we are very exited and a little nervous too, which I'm told is to be expected. This will be our first and I'm almost certain (yes at only 6 weeks) that we are going to have a girl. My reasons? Because everyone around us is having boys. There have been a total of 14 boys born in the last 5 yrs to family and friends of ours, and only 3 girls. We gotta balance those scales out at some point, right?! We have decided not to learn the sex of our little one ahead of time. I think not knowing will make the whole experience much more exiting especially during labor and delivery. We already have a name if it's a boy, but we are stuck on two names if it's a girl. I like one name and John likes the other, so maybe we'll put a poll up on this blog and ask my readers which name they like best.

So yay! We are pregnant! Now if I can just get past this being tired as heck faze, I'll be good to go! Also, I go for my first ultrasound this week so any and all prayers would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!