Tuesday, January 8, 2013

16 weeks update


I think starting with this post I am going to be getting into a regular regime of posting weekly updates, which was my original plan to keep track of all the fun changes and experiences occurring during pregnancy :) In addition, of course any specific topics that clearly need a whole post of their own :)

I am 16 weeks and 1 day pregnant today.  4 months, woohoo! And I have to say the one big thing that really caught my eye this week is my belly. I’ve been looking at my belly so much ever since I found out I was pregnant. I’ve been wanting to be “fat” , for so long.  It’s just one of those first things you wait for… to have a bump! So, I’ve been literally looking at my belly  every day, several times a day, taking pictures in different lightings, from different angles, wearing different clothing, hopefully maybe there is SOME physical sign of a bump. And to me, at some points, it did look like I had maybe a “bump” but it wasn’t really obvious and you really had to look and use your imagination to see something, haha! I’ve been taking gradual photos too, even though you can’t see anything, now I’ve put them together side by side and you can see a slight gradual grow, which is pretty cool.
Anyway, this week…I don’t know how…but literally…just one day I woke up and BAM- I suddenly have a bump. This is totally not the way I expected this to happen. :) I was waiting for slow transition of growth, but no (at least it seems to me) I just exploded one day and suddenly look pregnant! And this is great! Finally the day I’ve been waiting for! I made Zhenya take some “professional” photos of me, because all my photos of me and my belly were taking via phone, and I just wanted something of better quality. If you are friends with me on face book  I posted all of them on there and shared a couple here too. I’ll admit it, I’m obsessed. Now that there is a prominent bump, I am looking at it, touching it, poking it, rubbing it  and making Zhenya do all this too, haha) even more!
While still on the topic of my belly, another thing I noticed this week is being uncomfortable while laying down. I read laying on your back is not good during pregnancy( for long periods of time), especially when you get larger, because the extra weight pushes down on some  main artery or something like that, and it could basically interfere with blood flow. Scary thought, especially since you can’t really control how you sleep at night. My issue is just being uncomfortable. Lying on my back helps with the back pain. So, I don’t completely avoid that position. What it feels like to me after a few minutes is like someone is sitting on me, pushing down on me basically and makes me want to go the bathroom most of the time. So I turn over and take turns lying on my side. Lying on my side also kind of feels funky. When I make a shift like from lying on my back to one side, or from one side to another, I feel this weird pressure. It is almost like my stomach weight is shifting from side to another with my change of position. It’s really hard to explain, but it feels very strange. Obviously, I am not huge yet, and can only imagine what is yet to come, ha!
Despite the fact I obviously gained something in my body because I have a belly and feel heavier I still weigh 131 pounds- 9 pounds less than pre-pregnancy. Right now, (this is thanks to all my lovely pregnancy apps I have on my phone giving me daily and weekly updates on changes happening to my body and the baby) baby is the size of an avocado, and my uterus in whole is the size of a melon! WOW! That- right there is pretty amazing! I remember reading all these apps and from the beginning these associations were so small, like a pen tip, or a sesame seed and slowly a raspberry and a blueberry- but this is some big stuff we are talking about! And you would expect some weight gain with that… not me! I know my one friend mentioned (she was pregnant with twins) she did not gain a lot of weight during her pregnancy and she was obviously very, VERY pregnant towards the end of her pregnancy. After she gave birth she weighed less than what she did pre-pregnancy. So she was gaining and losing weight at the same time. Who knows, maybe that’s what’s happening to me?
I still have nausea but it is not an everyday thing. And every time I say “I am better” I end up hugging the toilet at one point during that day. It is definitely not as bad as it was in the beginning, a constant battle with it. It is just random vomiting moments I can’t explain. This week I threw up on the 31st, the 4th and the 6th. So I don’t know what is going on with that and I’m not sure if I should be worried? I’m not worried but considering the fact nausea is supposed to be gone by now and I am still puking and not gaining weight? I’ll talk to my doctor about it I suppose and see what she will say.
My super exhaustion is also improving. I haven’t had any crazy sleeping days anymore. I had one this week but I think it was just my body on overload from not getting enough sleep the night before, I still get tired but not to the point where I am ready to sleep all day. So hopefully this is also a slow transition into this improvement I am supposed to feel during the second trimester.
Back pain is a big one. I can’t stand for long periods of time, that just kills me, I don’t know why I don’t have a basketball belly yet, but I can’t stand or be in certain sitting positions for a long time or else my back just screams with pain! So I am trying to make that work around my daily routine (like church and work and getting stuff done.)
One very strange symptom I was having this week, much stronger and more often (not even sure if it is pregnancy related) is heart pain. This is a kind of heart pain I’ve never had before. I every now and then I would have a sharp stabbing pain in my heart area, very rarely, but it’s a feeling I am familiar with. This pain is much different. The best way to describe it is this squeezing heart muscle pain. I can feel my heart almost squeezing in, feeling pain as it does it, holding that squeeze ( still very painful) and as it releases the squeeze, I can still feel this pain until it completely releases it then the pain goes away. Very uncomfortable and very unpleasant. I had a little bit of this pain in the previous weeks but it was very rare and I didn't make anything of it. This week I have to say for about two days straight I had it almost nonstop, in addition to other days. I had trouble falling asleep Friday night because of the pain. This pain doesn't come when I am doing something specifically. Sometimes it starts when I am trying to fall sleep, laying calmly in bed, sometimes I am sitting, sometimes I am doing something it’s not associated with any specific movement or position of mine. I’ve read that sometimes pregnant women can have heart palpitations due to the large increase of blood in your body. I definitely have not had that, I don’t know if this pain can also be associated with the increase of blood supply, I don’t know.  I really hope this is no big deal, I am going to mention this to my primary care provider with whom I have an appointment with today, see what he says. If that doesn’t do much good I will mention this to my gyn at my first appointment with her next week.

Other than that, that pretty much sums up last week for me. I have my primary care doctor’s appointment today. For no specific reason, he just wants to keep an eye on me during pregnancy due to all my stomach issues before I got pregnant. I have my monthly thyroid appointment tomorrow; they did blood work last week to see how that is going. And of course, I have my long awaited first gyn appointment next week with Cooperstown, which I am totally psyched for. I will be 17 weeks by then, and hoping maybe they will do an ultrasound and can see if it is a boy or girl because I am just DYING to find out!!!  If not, I know at my next appointment I should know for sure… can’t wait! :)

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