week 10 - wimpy drinks

i hardly drink, and when i do, it is usually some sparkling wine or moscato. so staying away from alcohol has been really easy for me. EXCEPT that it's the festive season now and gatherings abound. have managed to get away with having wimpy drinks without drawing much raised eyebrows though, given my long standing preference for non alcoholic drinks (yay good track record).
it's ginger ale and mocktails for me this festive season folks!

week 9 - work waiver (riiiight)

told the boss that i was pregnant on friday after the doc's appointment, and the first thing he said after congratulating me was to ask me not to work so much. wow boss, can i send an email telling all that i won't be checking emails after 9pm every night from now on? heh. actually, i wouldn't have let the cat out of the bag so early on if not for an upcoming work trip that i thought it would be better to sit out for largely because i would DREAD staffing such a big delegation given that i'm still feeling under the weather from the nausea that hits any time of day. plus i have already tied down most of the trip arrangements, and it would be quite a breeze for the person covering me for the trip. so there's no guilt in asking to be excused.
for now, i wonder how i'm going to cope with 5-day work weeks from the second week of january. as it is, 3 or 4-day work weeks during this supposedly (i say supposedly because i've been having to cover colleagues who are on leave!) lull period is already draining me.

week 9 - baby waves hi

behold our lumpy baby looking all snuggly in a grainy ultrasound picture! the ultrasound at the doc's today measured baby at 2.7 cm long and 9 weeks 2 days, which is on track (even slightly ahead of the earlier EDD from the first ultrasound). again, we saw baby's heart beating away and his/her little limbs were moving all the while, like he/she was waving to us. i think i said "so cute" quite a number of times during the scan. ps: it was the doc who typed in 'baby' on the ultrasound picture. i will think of more quirky comments for the next visit.
anyhow, the nausea HAS indeed taken its toll. i actually lost 0.5kg from the last appointment. was expecting to maintain my weight if not put on some, as even though my appetite has been quite poor, i haven't really been puking much, plus my tummy's all bloated. nonetheless, the doc said not to worry so long as i was able to keep my liquids down.
signed up to do some "national service" by being a guinea pig for a research study being conducted by the hospital. it just requires me to draw blood 4 times throughout the pregnancy, and do some other tests. which is totally fine by me.

anyway, a healthy baby growing inside of me is probably the best christmas present i could ask for, no? :P

week 9 - second appointment

we go to the doc's in another 2 hours' time to see our baby again on the screen. i hope the blood pressure ain't as sky high as the last appointment! i am quite sure it was the nerves causing it last round. also, pls don't let the weighing scale read some scary number!! i haven't been in mid-60 territory for quite sometime already.
yesterday, baby graduated from being the size of a green olive to a prune (according to the WTE app), and when i told the husband, he went from saying "hello my green olive" to "hello prune" to my tummy. this baby will only have the word "hello" and veggie/fruit words in his/her vocab ....

week 8 - belly photo

the bloated belly *burp*

week 8 - green-faced

one of the nice office aunties sidled up to me at my desk during lunch hour yesterday and asked firstly if i was married (must do background check). when i replied in the positive, she asked me if i was pregnant and when i gave that "???" look, she said i wasn't looking too good these past few days. wow, i can't believe she hit the nail on the head.
either (a) i'm wearing my fat-day dresses too often and she noticed or (b) i REALLY look green and drained every morning for the past week.
i blame the night sickness that's preventing me from getting enough shut-eye ... BAAAAH. and it's true that i've been feeling sub-optimal these past few days in the office - it doesn't help that there is still quite a bit of work and last-minute requests/deadlines to meet even though most bosses are away on leave. there have been a few times this week when i really felt like catching a nap in my cubicle.
thank goodness for many days of leave to clear .... it's a put-my-feet-up-and-relax friday today (yay!)

week 7 - woolly brains

i am sure this is not going to be the only post about how woolly brained i have become now that (according to js) all the blood is going to my belly for baby and not much is feeding my brain.
#1 so, i did an email roll call of the folks who would be at the dinner at tampopo today. listed down 6 names, and then happily concluded that i would make reservations for 7. i'm not good at math, but i am not hopeless at it! i can usually count correctly!!
#2 decided to check off the number of "places to see before you die" places that i had been to using this list that's going around facebook. and after happily posting my result, i realised I missed out 1 place. and so i re-posted. and then when i went through the list again, i found another 3 places i missed out. my score thus went from 33 to 37/100. all this carelessness is baaaaaad.

i should just stop working in case i become a scatterbrained hazard at the office.

week 7 - that pukey feeling

at week 7, the most tiresome aspect of my pregnancy so far has been the nausea. morning sickness in the morning is manageable, but it gets progressively worse as the day goes on. i am almost afraid to eat at mealtimes knowing that almost immediately, i will start burping and feel bloated. when things get really bad, i get to spend quality time with the toilet bowl. i think i may actually lose some weight over the next few weeks if this continues, especially since i'm forced to eat smaller portions than usual. today my jeans felt looser despite all the bloating. WOW.
hanging out with friends (who seem to be flocking back this month from overseas) has also been a challenge as i would dread throwing up at a meal with them. so far, so good. the trick is to separate the solids/carbs from the liquids. for example, if i'm having ramen, i avoid drinking the soup (no matter how tempting it is to slurp down all that rich salty broth) or chugging too much water. i also refrain from drinking too much water immediately before or after a meal.
the only thing that SEEMS to have helped with the nausea so far is drinking M&S' organic caffeine free lemon ginger and ginseng tea. maybe it's a coincidence, but the days when i've had a cuppa are the days where i don't feel so pukish in the day. it's probably the ginger, since i've read that ginger helps with nausea.
i don't think i've developed much food aversions so far (thankfully!). edo sushi's cheese sushi has been a favourite weekend meal option. yes, i still need my sushi fix, but i can only settle for cooked sushi now. the other good thing is that the sushi portions are small, and i don't feel so bloated afterwards.

ps: the boobs are still oooh-la-la big. but they no longer hurt. i can actually sleep without a sports bra now. yay.

for real!

we saw baby and baby's heart beating really fast today. happiness! :)
felt a big wave of terror sweep over me when the ultrasound technician swept the transponder over my abdomen and all i saw was a dark blob ... was thinking "oh no, it's happening again". but then she shifted the transponder and there was our little baby tucked away in a corner with its little heart beating away. awwwww, it was the most amazing sight ever ... a little bean with an even tinier beating heart.
according to the ultrasound scan, baby is 6.8 weeks (what's that? 6 weeks and 6 days?) and 8mm long. we will see baby again in 2 weeks' time ... can't wait to see how much it has grown.

first appointment

our first appointment is on wednesday! my heart is in my mouth just thinking about it. i still remember the appointment in july when the doc took one long look at the ultrasound and said that the baby wasn't growing in the sac. the worst part was that i still felt pregnant then and there was no signs (at least to me) that i was losing the baby. GAAAAAH.
fast forward to this pregnancy ... i'm getting the usual nausea throughout the day, which usually gets set off by smells (e.g. a stuffy car, a humid bathroom, the smell of steamed fish). i've given up on eating too much at meals, since i tend to regret afterwards when the mad burping sets in. i've even puked three times so far after giving into my cravings for cheezels and KFC. bah. and my boobs have grown to crazy proportions. so yes, i'm FEELING pregnant, but as i found out the last time, it doesn't guarantee that the pregnancy is progressing.
positive thoughts, positive thoughts. we will see our baby with a heartbeat this wednesday.