Coming Soon: Baby Blackburn & 9 Weeks!

Surprise! We're pregnant!

After a missed period, countless NEGATIVE pregnancy tests, blood work and a longer than normal wait. We FINALLY found out we were expecting by phone call from the doctor while we were in Maine for a friends wedding. Needless to say we are very excited to welcome baby Blackburn next February!

I naively thought I was going to be one of those women who skate through pregnancy unscathed. Then the nausea hit, and it hit hard. I spent the majority of 2 weeks (weeks 5 and 6) laying on the bathroom floor, bed, break room floor...etc with a garbage can and the worst feeling I've ever had that I was going to vomit at any minute. Everything you read says nausea peaks at week nine and usually disappears around week 13. Which might as well have been 5 years from now, since there was no way I was going to survive that long. Alas, week seven hit and the nausea subsided! Praise the Lord! I guess my body started tolerating my high hormone levels and decided, in fact, I would not have survived so it starting doing something about it.

The nausea is gone now. I do get frequent tummy aches but that is nothing like the nausea I experienced and I don't even feel nauseous when I get them, more like a belly ache. I have had trouble eating a large amount of food. I try to eat frequent small meals to stay full but sometimes nothing sounds good. I get really full after eating only a little bit of food and I've had a minor weight loss, which is completely normal my doctor says. The most recent symptoms I've been battling are exhaustion and lightheaded/dizziness. The exhaustion is like nothing I've felt before. I literally could sleep all day every day. I take 2 hour naps often and when I don't, I'm passed out asleep by 8:30pm. The lightheaded/dizziness is due to low blood pressure from the changes in my blood volume and supporting baby's blood volume. These two symptoms are WELCOMED as long as that nausea doesn't comeback (I can handle anything after that!). They are also completely normal and just a sign that, indeed, baby is growing! Yay!

We had our first ultrasound at week 6.5 and we got to see the little nugget (looks more like a blob but it's a baby I promise). We got to see the blood pumping and even got to hear the heartbeat! It was very cool and exciting. Here is the first look at baby!

Ultrasound 6.5 weeks

We just got home from our second doctors visit and we got to hear baby's heartbeat again on the Doppler. Definitely they best moment of the week! =) I am 9 weeks 4 days as of today. 

I plan to do weekly updates with my chalkboard (Inspiration here and here). I don't have much of a bump yet so for week 9 I just have the announcement board! I will start next week with bump pictures (hopefully I have a mini bump) and a weekly questionnaire so I can track my bump and how I'm feeling over the next 7 month! Wow I can't believe 2 months have already past!