How we told

This is how we told our family. Background: I had just finished renovating an investment property and since our whole family was together, I made a slideshow of the befores and afters so that my out of town family could see what has been keeping me busy for the past several months. It's a pretty quick video - only about 4 minutes long.

8 week ultrasound!

What a relief to finally "see" the baby for the first time! I'm measuring a day behind where I thought I was so my new due date is August 6th, 2008. The heart rate was strong at 167 beats per minute and it was the most amazing thing to see it and hear it beating through the ultrasound! Wow, this really makes it feel real!

Check out this short video of the ultrasound. The baby is facing straight on and if you look at the center of it's chest, you can see the heart beating! So amazing!

Back to sleep!

About four or five days ago, I noticed that it was no longer comfortable to sleep on my side. It feels like there is this huge weight on my back and that when I sleep on my side, every vertebrae is out of alignment. So I've been sleeping on my back. I know there has to be an easy fix - maybe a body pillow against my back when I'm sleeping on my side to help provide support? Sounds like a good excuse to go shopping...

Six Weeks & My Starting Stats

I'm six weeks today and here's what a typical day consists of for me:

Go to bed at 9:30pm

Get up at 8am - yes, that's almost 11 hours of sleep

Go strong until noon

Fight to keep eyes open until 3 or 4pm

Afternoon "second wind" from dinner until about 8pm

Struggle to keep from falling asleep on couch and drag self up into bed around 9pm.

Rinse, wash, repeat!

Since I didn't bother taking a picture of my belly the second I found out that I was pregnant, I'm going to use six weeks as my starting point.

Weight: 148

Belly Shot:

First doctor's appointment

I had my first doctor's appointment at 5 weeks, 3 days on Friday, December 7th. They drew 8 or 9 vials of blood and the doctor did an internal exam. Not sure what you can tell this early on, but everything looked and felt normal! Also, I was concerned about my progersterone level since I had issues with my cycles that were due to low progesterone. However, it appears that my progesterone has corrected itself with the pregnancy. They were looking for anything above 15 and mine was at 30.1. A range of first trimester pregnancies show progesterone levels from 10 to 47 so I'm right in the middle! I'll take average!

Thirty

The number thirty represents two things to me.

1. The maximum number of pounds I would like to gain with my pregnancy (keep my fingers crossed on this one because I'm not good at denying myself of cravings).

2. The maximum number of pounds I'm supposed to lift while being pregnant.

I'm shocked that I'm not supposed to lift more than 30 pounds! I broke that rule twice today as I carried the air compressor to the truck and then again when I carried a 55 gallon trash bag full of scraps of drywall and other trash from the investment property. Don't get me wrong, I definitely watch myself now, but 30 pounds?! This is a bit ridiculous for my line of work!