5 Weeks and First Appointment

**Actually written 4/25/11

On Thursday, April 21st, I started my 5th week of pregnancy.  I only knew this because on Friday the 22nd, Justin and I had our first doctor appointment.  The Monday after I got a positive test I called my doctor’s office to make an appointment (fully expecting them to not get me in until I was around 8 weeks), however, they wanted to see me that week!  The  nurse wanted to get me in on Wednesday, but Justin was out of town for work, so she said she had something Friday and I took it.  Justin would have been back on Friday plus our firm had that Friday off so no one would be asking me why I was gone for a couple of hours.  It was perfect. 

We got to the doctor around 8:45 for a 9am appointment.  First they took me back to get a urine sample.  That tested positive for my hCG levels so then a nurse brought me into a room and started asking all kinds of questions.  At the end of the day, I think every single person I talked to asked me if I had a cat.  Apparently this is an issue during pregnancy.  Who knew.  Anyway, after my meeting with the nurse, she gave me a baggie full of new mommy info that is COMPLETELY overwhelming, let me tell you.  After I was done with that, they called Justin and I into a room and he met my doctor.  We  didn’t do an ultrasound because it was too early so he told me to come back at 9 weeks for the first ultrasound.  He estimated that  my due date is December 22, 2011.  How’s that for avoiding a Christmas baby??  My 9 week appointment is on May 20th.

So here’s what’s going on at 5 Weeks (also I’m not doing the “bump” pictures until later on…clearly there is no bump right now):

How far along:  5 weeks

Symptoms:  Right now, the predominant symptom is insomnia.  Which is strange because I thought you were supposed to be exhausted during the first trimester.  There are nights where I only sleep a couple of hours tops!  I asked the doc about this and he told me it was safe to take Tylenol PM, though I later read that Unisom is even more safe than that because it’s not medicated like Tylenol PM is.  It’s strictly a sleep aid.  My sister, Jennifer, has taken it almost every day through her pregnancy because she has the same problem, so I’ll probably take Unisom when needed instead of Tylenol PM.

Maternity Clothes:  Nope…don’t want to have to break down for these bad boys for a LONG time if possible.

Weight Gain:  None and I want it to stay this way as long as possible.  I was actually wanting to lose about 3-5 pounds before I got pregnant because busy season caused me to gain a couple of pounds.  Doc said he wants me to gain 25 pounds, I’d prefer that to only happen in the 2nd and 3rd trimester if possible.  I’m not one of those women that desires to be huge immediately.  I want to stay my size for as long as I can.  I do expect, however, that there will be a phase where I will feel like I’m huge, even though I won’t have an obvious baby bump yet.  It’ll be that stage where people that don’t know you’re pregnant just think you’re fat.  I don’t look forward to this stage.  I’m sure that when it rolls around THEN I will desire to be huge so that people don’t think I’m just a fattie.

Sleep:  See above.  I can only sleep when I take Unisom.

Cravings/Aversions:  I haven’t had any of these yet.  The only thing that came close was on Easter when we had ham at Justin’s parent’s house.  For some reason, it upset my stomach pretty bad.  But no cravings yet.

Gender:  No idea.  Won’t know for a while.  I have a feeling, but I’m not mentioning it right now because it may just be me reading too much into stuff.  I’ll wait and see how things go in the next several weeks to see if I still have a strong feeling one way or the other.

What I Miss:  FRIGGIN CAFFEINE!

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Hearing the heartbeat at our ultrasound on May 20th.

Milestone:  Baby is 1/4 of an inch.  His/Her heart began beating this week and eyes, ears, arm and leg buds and mouth are visible.

Side note – you know how women refer to their unborn children as “peanut” or “stinker” or some other cute name?  Well, ours has a name too.  It’s “won ton”.  Justin started calling our unborn child his little “won ton” WAY WAY WAY before we were ever pregnant, so this just kind of stuck, so we’ll be referring to Baby Morris as our little Won Ton in the future :)

**Ok I’m actually writing this part today (May 24th).  I am so completely overwhelmed by the comments I’ve gotten from my sweet little followers.  It makes my day to hear people say that they think I’ll be a great mom because I honestly question it myself constantly so it feels good to hear others have faith in me.  Thank you so much to all of you guys for the sweet words from the past two posts.  I greatly appreciate it and am so thankful for all of you!