First, thanks to so many of you who’ve reached out with notes of congratulations! I still can’t believe after all this time we were finally able to make this announcement and so glad that so many of you are still following our journey!
Sundays are my week-marker for pregnancy. As this past Sunday was the big pregnancy announcement, I didn’t make a “week” update post. Rather than wait until next week, I wanted to go ahead and fill everyone in where I am for now.
Yesterday I went in for my third blood test to monitor hCG levels (the hormone produced by pregnant women). I was at 9211!! According to the “What to Expect” book, upward of 7000 is normal. So I am raging over here!!!
Thus far I feel fantastic. That’s not to say I’m not feeling a few things I’d rather not, but in the grand scheme, five weeks pregnant isn’t treating me too badly. I tend to “crash” every day around 3pm and don’t really make a recovery. If it weren’t for my sister and new baby niece visiting this week, I think I’d head to bed before 10pm every night. I’ve had heartburn since before the pregnancy test. I’m have two or three Tums at a time once or twice a day. My breasts are enormous and as I explained in this post – reacquainting with my breasts – I’m completely fascinated by this growth spurt, and also completely over the itchiness, soreness and not fitting into any bras.
I also pee ALL THE TIME! You can count on me to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night between 2 and 4 every night. Now I’m going three times each night, which is quite disruptive to the REM patterns. And I pee all day everyday. I thought this part was supposed to wait until you had a seven pound mass sleeping on your bladder!
Finally, I’m ravenous. I could eat three families out of house and home and then ask for dessert. I’m maintaining my usual healthy, balanced diet. I’ve also given in a few times to a few things that I probably shouldn’t have. I had an orange soda the other day, have been to Chipotle twice, chips and queso, and some cheesecake/fudge brownie concoction (because it was my mom’s birthday!!). But seriously, I’m maintaining my typical ration of egg white veggie omelets, whole grain sandwiches with turkey and veggies, fresh fruits for snacks, Greek yogurt, lean proteins, skim milk every morning and buckets of water. Jillian Michaels’ pregnancy advice is that you only need to increase calories by about 200-300 per day and if you do this, and stay safely and moderately active, you shouldn’t have much of a baby belly to work off later. This is my goal. I don’t need Cheetos. The baby(s) doesn’t need Cheetos. My ass doesn’t need Cheetos.
I don’t want to jinx this – but I haven’t puked once. Not a single sign of morning sickness. Maybe this is what I get for having already gone through more than six weeks of shots, fatigue, nausea, pain, etc., maybe I’m just one of the 25 percent who won’t get it, and maybe it’s just waiting patiently for me.
The next big step from here is finding out if both embryos stuck around or if we’ve got a single. The ultrasound is next week and I’m growing more and more anxious every single day.