The little blob in the scan has a strong heartbeat!

Well… the plan was to keep a weekly diary on our little miracle, but life gets busy (or rather lazy) easily. So here is the story in a different format instead.

The 7^th to 14^th week journey wasn’t an easy one for me. But it was definitely not as bad as some other people. And it marks another milestone in this journey.

Morning Sickness

The main reason they call it morning sickness is because nausea hits you on an empty stomach! I had vomited “nothingness” several times in the morning (mostly within 1 hour after waking up), and later in the day day if I do not fuel my tummy repeatedly. And when I say repeatedly – that’s every hour, and sometimes every half hour! I think I was lucky enough to only have vomited (food and stuff) on a filled tummy once. Nauseous was a day-mare for me though! This lasted until Week 12, felt normal for a week then wham, hit again at Week 14 but started to ease off after.

Food Aversion

Almost everything, really. Especially when looking or smelling raw meat! That’s why you don’t see me putting on much weight during the first trimester.  

Food Craving

For me, food craves is because there are too many aversion that leaves me with not much choice. It’s more of what’s left to eat that does not make me nauseous or yuck. My comfort food:

1. Ginger Apple Juice (100% juice, I stay away from concentrate and added stuff) for many weeks and then suddenly I went off it one day (and hubby had to finish off the remaining 1.5 Litres in the fridge)

2. Then moved on to cold Honey Water – absolute comfort! I add chia seeds sometimes to compensate on the Omega-3 bits as I had to avoid fish (with mercury)

3.  Ribena (I try not to have too much of it though)

4. Granny Smith Green Apple (daily basis! With some salt and dried sour plum). Without this, I could not survive the day at work. Never went off this, just got lazy when my food aversion went away.

5. Bread with kaya and butter (I used to like bread with peanut butter and jam but I think bub doesn’t like peanut butter – I hope that is not a sign of future allergy!)

6. Forced myself to have hard boil eggs sometimes, but makes me feel a little yuck at times

7. Roast pork (Chinese style or western style), sometimes the long marinated slow cooked Chinese pork. This is my comfort meat.

8. Twisties. Cheese flavoured twisties. This is probably should be in the no-no category too but no way. Otherwise I would have died! This was my absolutely comfort food during the morning sickness weeks. I read that it’s better to have something than nothing even if means having junk food. At least it is not alcohol or cigarette or drugs (or soil!)!

Food I crave for but is a no-no (based on certain sources)

1. Roast duck! So I had to substitute roast duck with the other fatty roast pork now!

2. Bak kut teh. I did steal a sip or two on a couple of occasion. I’m still craving for it this second

3. Coke – but I succumbed to temptation at times (and the fact that westerners don’t see any issue with soft drinks) and my mum finally approved “a little bit”

4. Frozen Yoghurt and Ice Cream. I have been reducing the intake of these due to health reason, but since pregnancy I need them. The concern is the “soft serve” stuff, just have to feel confident that the equipment they use to soft serve is clean.

5. Longan. There was one day I craved so much for it and got a can but held back from eating them for over 2 weeks. My mum finally said “ok a little bit” and so I had a few on some days and rest went into the bin. 

6. Cold drinks. I did manage to stay away from them initially, but when it’s summer and the bub is heating up, she and I need cold drinks! So… in moderation lah ok?

7. Wine. I can’t wait to complete all the baby(ies) making projects so I can finally enjoy wine like how most Australians.

Scan and DNA test

The post 10 weeks DNA test and 12 weeks scan marked another milestone. Another “reality sinking in" moment. 

I took the Percept NIPT test (you can read about it online if you wish) as I can’t remember the specific details on top of my head. Basically it tests for some common abnormal chromosomes. Fortunately the results came back low risk. And we also found out the gender of the baby – yes it is a SHE! 

And the very first baby thing I bought was this! It’s a gender reveal moment for the hubby (I got the news over the phone from Dr JS).

The scan was surreal. Little miss monkey was moving a lot. Her features were so well defined, for a 7cm length little person and that brought so many different emotions out in us (but no, we did not get teary nor scream in excitement).

 (It's the side view of her face!)

(Lil Ms Hunter waving at us!)

My cute little bump – and when I say little, I literally mean little (in comparison with most women of the same stage).

 
(Week 8 - Week 11 - Week 15 - Week 17 - Week 20)

Bump finally popped up from Week 18 onwards - lots of stretching of skin and belly over that 2 weeks!

What's 2nd trimester like? I will share a little bit of that in the upcoming post! :)