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2005-11-01 - 9.06pm��previous entry��next entry
8 weeks, 6 days - ultrasound movie link!
Feeling sooooooooooo gross right now (it's evening) so this will be pretty quick, but it's an important day! I have been waiting to write about two things at 8 weeks and 6 days pregnant!
Firstly, today is the day that brainwaves can be detected for the first time! Wow. Sprout is 2.2cm long from crown to rump and has an average heartrate of 187 - so fast!! This is the last day for my stats source on heartrates. Jemma posted my doppler back to me yesterday and I absolutely cannot WAIT to get it so I can see if I can hear Sprout's heart beating! It didn't arrive today so I'm sure it will tomorrow! I'll be 9 weeks pregnant tomorrow so that's a nice Happy 9 Weeks present! :)
Sprout has reached Carnegie stage 19 of embryonic development (which occurs at 47-48DPO - I'm 48DPO today!). The main thing at stage 19 is the brainwaves, but also, the inner ear is beginning to form which will give the baby a sense of balance and body position! Sprout's head is starting to be more upright now - it has been folded right down onto the chest for a long while so far. The trunk elongates and straightens too. Sprout is really starting to look like a human baby!
The critical period for the lower limbs is about to end, yay! Sprout's legs are now at their proper location, in proportion to his/her body. The toes are almost completely notched and toenails begin to appear! How amazing is this?! The joints grow more distinct. The fingers are clear and seperate now, but are still webbed. Also at this stage, bone cartilage begins to form a more solid structure and the muscles are developing and getting stronger.
Sprout can MOVE!!! Little wiggly squiggly movements! I was looking at my entries for Arthur's pregnancy around this time, and I found a link I had forgotten about, to an ultrasound of an embryo at 8 weeks, 6 days - exactly my gestation today! The link is broken now, but I found the ultrasound movie again and I wanted to post it here. It's so amazing to me because the little baby in this movie is moving and making cute little jerky movements with its arms and head and things. It boggles my brain to think that I have a baby in my body doing just exactly that! Here is the link:
http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Movies/usound/Hum8w.htm
I hope you find it as lovely as I did! :)
Anyway, those are the two things I wanted to mention - the brainwaves and the movie, because they are both specific to today!
I have a little mound of firmness instead of the caving-inny bit right above my pubic bone! I am so amazed every time I put my hand on it. It's not a womb yet, but it's familiar to me as the part that I felt shortly before I felt the ridge of the top of my womb for the first time. That is where I am going to put the doppler when it arrives tomorrow! I don't know if I'll be able to hear Sprout this early, but I have a good feeling that I will. I don't know if my placenta might be anterior yet though, so if it is then I won't be able to hear Sprout through it for a long time. I hope it's not!
We had one group of trick-or-treaters last night so we are left with a HUGE bowl of sweeties! Last night I decided to nibble a white chocolate button and see what I thought. It made me feel gaggy but I kept at it for some reason. After a few I found they were going down really easily! And I nibbled sweeties while I watched a thing about surrogacy which made me CRY, and felt really quite well afterwards! I don't know if it was because it was getting late in the evening by then, because my nausea peaks from between about 5pm to 9 or 10pm. After that it can get a little better. Sometimes even a lot better. So it could have been that. But otherwise it had to be the sugar!
Today during Arthur's afternoon nap I had my usual lunch (which is baked potato and cottage cheese still, every day! It's the only thing I feel like and I REALLY enjoy it!), and then I ate waaaay too many sweets. But the weird thing was, I felt so much better than I have for ages after a while, so much so that me and Arthur went OUT this afternoon - into town, no less, to do a little shopping!! Yay! I feel grim now, and the sweets have given me a yucky gassy tummy now, of course. But I am amazed at how much better I felt for eating them. I know they are really not a good thing to eat, but I don't care! I just want to feel better. Anything that helps is gooooooood!
I have lost weight. Ugh. Not like last time though, but then I have managed to keep eating this time. I have lost 3 or 4lbs in the last week or two. That puts me at 8st 3lbs. I really don't want to get below 8.5 stone! But oh well. I know I'll more than make up for it after the morning sickness goes away. I put on soooooooooooo much weight last time, even though I lost nearly a stone with morning sickness. I'm not worried about my weight at all. I just didn't need to get lighter right now. I need my strength!
At the moment I eat toast and marmite for breakfast, queasily. Neil has to make it and spread it for me. He's wonderful! I need to eat lunch when Arthur eats his, at around 11.30. I am famished and really nauseated by then. I always have baked potato and cottage cheese. It's the only thing I can eat no matter how nauseous I have become at lunch time, and feel better for it instantly. I drink milk with that. Then I need to snack in the afternoon, as I get more nauseous as the day goes on. I usually have more toast or something, but today I had sweeties (tsk!). Lately I have stopped having a proper evening meal. I know that's bad but the only thing I can physically swallow down in the evening is a Dairylea sandwich and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. Soooo many nights I have sat with a plate of good food in front of me, unable to eat it, and having to keep putting it out of sight and pacing the room because I feel nauseous enough to throw up. Ugh. One evening I ate what I felt like - the Dairylea and crisps, and managed the evening WAY better. So that's what I do now. Right now it's anything that makes the nausea more bearable. I hardly get any fruit and veg, and my fluid intake is pathetic, but at least I'm taking my prenatal vitamins each day. As soon as I am not so nauseated, I will definitely eat better.
Tonight I am going to try baked potato with minced lamb done with herbs and stock. It smells fabulous but I am not sure if I will be able to eat it. I am going to try my best, but it's weird how totally UNABLE I become, when it comes to eating anything in the evenings, especially good food. Still, 9 weeks down (almost!) and that only leaves 3 before the end of the first trimester!! Boy do I hope this nausea leaves quicker than last pregnancy! In any case, it's just nicer to know I'm nearer to that time than before.
Okay I have to go. I feel bleurghy. Will update tomorrow hopefully.
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