9 WEEKS

By
Elena @ Every Avenue Life
-
42
1017

I’m 9 weeks today! Starting my 10th week.

9 Weeks

How can I be double the size in waist area and not gain a single pound on the scale? Even if it’s water weight, shouldn’t it be showing on the scale?

STATS:

How far along: 9 weeks.

How big is baby: It’s a GREEN OLIVE.

What’s the baby up to:

Your baby is now about 1 ½ inches long and weighs about 5 grams, it resembles the shape and size of a peapod. Even though it is very difficult to discern the sex of your baby by ultrasound at this point, the genitals are forming. Your baby’s brain is forming 250,000 neurons every minute. Brain development is very rapid at this time. The head is upright and your baby can turn their head, open their mouth, smile and practice breathing. The outer ear is completely formed and the inner ear is nearly complete. The intestines begin moving from the umbilical cord to the abdomen and all the vital organs are formed and starting to work together. The lungs are continuing to develop. The arms and legs are well formed and fingers and toes are not webbed any longer. All of your baby’s joints are formed, so they can bend their fingers and make a fist. They can kick and curl up their toes.

Total weight gain: Well, for the past few days I seemed to have slowly lost the weight I had gained, since I relaxed a little bit with making sure I eat a lot. I just ate when I was hungry and always healthy. Obviously, that was not working, so I’ve picked up my eating and started adding whole grain bread to everything I eat, as well as eat more often and try to get closer to that goal of 2000 calories. Since I started doing that again, I’ve gained some of the weight back yesterday, so this morning it showed 1.5lb.

Maternity clothes: Not yet, but pants are definitely hard to button

Sleep: I have to say sleep has been “ugh”. I get more nauseous and crampy towards the evening and going to sleep is so uncomfortable, because I don’t want to sleep on my back as I approach 2nd trimester, and boobs are too sore and big to sleep on my stomach. So sides are the only option. I have to pee three times a night and every time I wake up, I feel anxious for some weird reason. So we started doing a routine before bed to help me relax a bit and it’s been working wonders. I don’t hurt anymore, I fall asleep easier andI don’t have anxiety waking up. Basically, right before bed, hubby gives me a short light gentle back massage with a relaxing lavender massage oil while I listen to the greatest  iPhone app ever invented for preggo women called POSITIVE PREGNANCY. It’s sort of a hypnosis app, where a guy with an Irish accent talks in a super soothing voice, sending positive messages to you and your “bebe” while “programming” your body to fall asleep. Wow, I’ve had the best nights of sleep after this routine.

Best moment of the week: Listening to the baby’s heartbeat on the doppler. We got the doppler and did exactly what we decided to do: listen once and put it away. I’ll write a separate post about that experience, but it was really cool.

Food cravings: I haven’t been having any cravings recently. There are foods that I will eat more willingly than others, but I don’t really crave them. The easiest meals to eat have been cucumber and tomato salad and veggie burgers.

Food aversions: Food in general. I don’t enjoy eating and have honestly forgotten what it feels like have a normal appetite. It feels like I will never be able to enjoy food the way I did before. You do go back to liking food after pregnancy, right? I have trouble eating fish, beans, eggs, anything oily or fatty, cheeses, nuts, lettuce. I still eat it all for nutrition, but it’s a struggle. Except for fish, that I just can’t stomach.

Symptoms:

Nausea: My nausea has subsided for a week, where I almost felt normal! But it seems today has taken a turn for the worse. We’ll see… I still don’t enjoy food and feel sick-ish between meals and at night, but it’s bearable. I guess I can consider myself lucky because the worst of it lasted only 3 weeks. Hope today was just a fluke and it doesn’t really come back.
Cramps: Have been cramping a bit, just very light aches that radiate into my right leg, which make me think that it could be just my muscles hurting from working out ( i work out inner thigh muscles, because they are important in labor and delivery)
Fatigue: It’s up a notch this week. I get tired just going up in the stairs in the house. It makes sense though, because this week and next the baby is almost doubling in size.
Other: sore boobies, an unpleasantly full stomach after eating even a small meal, breakouts, some heightened emotions.

Gender: Hoping that the 12th week ultrasound will give us a guess as to what gender our baby is.

What I’m looking forward to: The end of the first trimester and feeling normal again.

Next appt: July 8th.

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42 COMMENTS

  1. It’s because you’re so skinny! Skinny people show faster! I’m pregnant too only 4 weeks and with my 3rd so I will probably show faster then I did with my other two! Congrats!

  2. You’ll get your appetite back, eventually. I remember feeling that way. I thought I would be eating caesar salad and popcorn for the rest of my life. While it is important to eat very healthy, remember that the baby will get all the nutrients first and you’ll get the seconds, so if you slack on your diet a bit, your baby will likely still be perfectly fine.

  3. I had all the same things, waking up to pee with anxiety etc in the first trimester. It’s strange how these things are symptomatic and common. Love that you found a way to help relax and sleep! Love your belly, it’s your organs moving around! Weird, right? It’s because you are so tiny. And you will end up loving maternity pants. hahaha. They seem so awful but after a while the tightness around the belly gets so brutal. Once you get into maternity jeans you will never want to go back. 🙂

    • You had anxiety when you would wake up to pee too? Oh good to know! It’s so weird And formless. I’m not worried about anything but when I first wake up it’s like smth else takes over.
      And yeah you’re right about organs reshuffling. That explains no weight gain but big stomach. Poor intestines 🙂 lol

  4. I love your cute little belly!! Don’t worry the scale will go up soon enough! ; ) I don’t think you need to stuff yourself just to get the “right” number of calories. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. You’ll be hungry if the baby needs more, your body will tell you what it needs.

    I know you’re trying to avoid maternity clothes, and some of them are super ugly, but I LOVE my maternity pants! I got them out as soon as I found out I was pregnant again, they are so comfy!!

    • Yeah I figured that I better concentrate on good nutrition and how hungry I am than number of calories. It’s just it’s hard to judge the hunger when you’re also nauseous.

      Oh and I have nothing against maternity pants. Those are obviously gonna be a must and they look like normal clothes too. So I’ll be buying those for sure. When’s the best time to buy maternity pants? And do you have to buy new ones as you get bigger?

      • It’s up to you when you decide to get them. With both pregnancies I started showing VERY early, by 12 weeks, so I bought maternity clothes super early. My regular clothes didn’t fit comfortably. Maternity clothes were a lot more comfortable for me, so I started wearing them really early. Some people don’t like buying maternity clothes and stuff into their regular clothes as long as possible.

        Depending on where you gain your weight, you might have to buy bigger ones later on. With my son, I gained everywhere. Apparently my butt, and thighs didn’t get the memo that they weren’t pregnant also, by the end I was the size of a small house (ugh). ; ) I ended up with several different sizes in maternity pants! This time, I’m gaining mostly in my belly. The maternity clothes I’ve bought so far, I’ve gotten a little bigger, just so they will hopefully fit the whole time. I haven’t gained as much weight so most of it’s still really baggy (yay!).

        Sorry this got so long! ; )

  5. Between my 8-wk and 12-wk appointments I actually lost a pound, but at 8-wks I was still fitting in regular clothes at 12…not so much. Seems crazy to LOSE a pound yet have your clothes become tighter. I think it has to do with your uterus lifting up and out from behind the pelvic bone, so you may not be gaining wait, but everything around/above the uterus is shifting up and out which is what puts the strain on zippers and buttons!!

    Have you looked into one of those belly bands?? I’ve never tried them, but I have friends who swear by them…they allow you to wear your regular pants/shorts for a longer time, but cover up the fact that they’re unbottoned 🙂

  6. I just wanted to ask why you don’t want to sleep on your back? I’m guessing it’s the danger of the baby pressing on your inferior vena cava and constricting blood flow. If it is indeed for that reason, i just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about that for a long time. I’m most comfortable sleeping on my back and when I was pregnant, I was really scared and careful about it at first. I did a lot of research on it. and I concluded that I needed to sleep how I was comfortable. My body would tell me when I needed to start sleeping on my side or propped up on pillows, and at about 27 weeks it began to get uncomfortable.

      • From what I have been told through each pregnancy is my body will let me know when I can’t sleep on my back anymore and for each pregnancy that has been true. Usually for me it’s right around 22-23 weeks when it just starts to feel too heavy to lay on my back. With my 1st I was all about the rules and would freak out if I woke up on my back but I have learned that my body is much smarter than that and it will give me pretty clear signs of when I need to move.

        • I feel slightly uncomfortable sleeping on my back. I’m not sure whether it’s due to my stomach and nausea or I’m possibly just worried about it. Most likely the first. i’ve never been a back sleeper really. I sleep on my stomach. BTW, do you have any idea how safe it is to sleep on your stomach and till when?

          • I’m a stomach sleeper too. I’ve read that you can’t hurt the baby by sleeping on your stomach and you can continue until it is no longer comfortable. I sort of sleep half on my stomach but my right side turned up a little, with a body pillow, now. Not too much pressure on my belly (or boobs), but still much more comfortable.

          • Right now your uterus isn’t really heavy enough to cause discomfort from sleeping on your back so it’s probably 1 of your other 2 scenarios. It’s not a matter of uncomfortable necessarily but a matter of “Man, I can’t really breathe when I lay on my back anymore.” Stomach sleeping is safe until you can’t anymore, as in you lay on your stomach and you kind of roll over to your side because you are basically laying on a basketball. I tend to sleep on my side but kind of partially rolled to my stomach where half of my stomach is under me and I’m well into my 3rd trimester right now.

            A lot of pregnancy is just feeling it out and different for everyone. But your body is smart, it will protect you and the baby and if you listen to it then you’ll know what you need to do/not do. All the books and reading in the world cannot prepare you. Just remember that your body and your baby don’t know anything about the books and you just have to listen to what your body is telling you. I think the knowledge can be great sometimes but when it comes down to it sometimes it does more harm than good. We get so wrapped up in what we are supposed to do or not supposed to do we forget to really listen to what our body is telling us. I was definitely guilty of it with my first and even more so after she was born and I was reading all these books about what your baby should be doing this week or month and then I realized my baby had no idea what that book said and I needed to just put it down and step away, I haven’t picked up another pregnancy, birth or baby book since. Women have been having healthy babies and pregnancies for many many years without reading every detail on what to expect :).

  7. Now that’s the belly I’ve never seen on you! 🙂
    Speaking of calories, I believe it’s more important to hit 100% on all the necessary nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and eat at least 1700 cals which is ok I guess 🙂

  8. The reason you are showing but not gaining is because of it’s bloat! I had the same thing and I actually lost weight until I was almost 20 weeks. Also, you’re probably hearing your own heartbeat on the Doppler because it’s SUPER early to hear the baby–doctors usually can’t even get the heart beat until at least 11 weeks. It’s such an awesome feeling though 🙂

    • Oh come on, you don’t think I can differentiate my heartbeat, placenta and the baby’s heartbeat 🙂 lol
      It was definitely the baby at 167 bpm, there’s nothing else that sounds as awesome as that 🙂 like a freight train lol

      As far as bloat, I think a more likely explanation is intestines shifting, because I’ve been bloated before and it’s just completely different. This is just extreme in my opinion, I’ve never had a stomach like that even on my worst bloaty days.

    • It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between mom’s heartbeat and the baby. Adult BMP is average 60-80. Certainly not the thundering stampede heartbeat of a fetus, lol.

  9. oh my gosh I totally understand the not wanting to eat anything or not having an appetite at all. I think that was how I felt for the first 16 weeks but, it can be very different for everyone. Will you be getting your first ultrasound done at your next appointment?? That is such a priceless experience! Happy 9 weeks!

  10. If it helps at all, i might not with the eating healthy bit so much, but for me I only got terribly sick when I hadn’t eaten. I found with me, if I didn’t eat something every hour and a half I would get nasty nauseous, I know a few other lady’s that were this way too. And my mom suggested to me for early morning nausea keep some soda crackers buy your bed and much on a couple before you start moving around so much. Just thoughts 🙂 yay for your pregnancy going so well:)

    • I’ve been doing all those things, so my nausea hasn’t been horrible. I usually have a banana by my bed and that’s what really does it for me. And i try to stay in bed for about 20 minutes after i eat my banana and morning fruit. Now it seems my nausea has changed a bit. I’ll write about that in my next post. Thanks for the tips, though! It’s always nice to hear from other people who went through this.

  11. oh and the cramp thing, if its in your lower back and going down your leg it could be sciatica. Nothing big:) just your back saying WHAT THE CRAP! (you can prolly WebMD it) and it hurts the nerves that run down your legs. I started getting when I got prego :/

    • I googled it. that’s not it. My pain is different. And it’s only there when I get stomach cramps… I haven’t felt it in a while since I stopped working out due to my nausea coming back, so I think it was just my muscles cramping from the exercise. 🙂

  12. I really wonder if you might be carrying twins… your tummy has definitely grown! I have a couple of friends who are similar in height/weight to you, and they didn’t start showing until much later. Hmmm… 🙂

  13. When you say the diagnostic ultrasound, do you mean what is done at 20 weeks? Because that’s simply impossible. The baby has not and will not develop specific markers until that time. Also, I have to agree (my sister is an U/S tech), that unless you have an interal ultrasound, you cannot hear the heartbeat at 6 weeks. My midwives wouldn’t even look for a heartbeat with a dopler before 14 weeks to avoid the emotional issues that come with not hearing it. It was likely your own heartbeat and the flow of fluids.

    • I meant the NT scan, not the anatomy scan.
      And I’m sorry but it’s quite impossible to mistaken a hearbeat at 165-170 bpm with my own 60-70 bpm heartbeat, or placental flow. The three sound nothing alike.
      You know, you left three comments and all of them are completely wrong, as if you didn’t even bother to read the posts before leaving snide comments. Heartbeat on doppler was heard at 8.5 weeks, not 6 like you seem to think, I stayed away from any smoke at the party, and I am open to an epidural, not necessarily planning on it, not that it’s anyone’s business, since I can pick and choose what I am careful about or what I let slide, based on things I am or am not willing to do or take. Hope that answers all your questions, Miss Tanya.

  14. I know what I said and how many posts I left. You don’t have to get snappy, you posted this stuff for the world to see, not everyone is going to support it.

    • Tanya, I have absolutely no problems with you or anyone else disagreeing with my approach or methods ( or leaving as many comments as they’d like as long as they’re respecfully written), but I would ask that you read the whole post and when commenting refer to the correct facts. I already mentioned the things that you got wrong in my posts, and I would have accepted your comments gladly had they not been based on half-read posts.

      On a nicer note, I know that normally the heartbeat isn’t heard on doppler until at least 12th week ( though rarely you can hear one as early as 8 weeks), so it was a very pleasant surprise to find it at 8.5 weeks. We’ve listened to it three time over the last 3 weeks (couldn’t help it) and each time it’s there, going at it like a little train at around 167 bpm. If you (or your U/S sister) have an idea for why we’d hear the heartbeat so early and would like to be helpful, I’d love to know what that might mean, besides the fact that I must have very little “insulation” 🙂 lol

      • Because sometimes you CAN hear it that early, depending on where the baby is, placenta placement, and how much muscle or fat you do or don’t have.

        I heard my baby’s heartbeat during an internal U/S at 7.5 weeks, and via doppler with the Midwife at 9 weeks. It was pretty difficult to find, considering where the baby seems to be based on the u/s, but she let me hear my heartbeat and slowly went over everything til she found the baby’s heartbeat. She also told me it may be more difficult for me to find it on my own, and that her being able to find it consistently wasn’t a guarantee for at least another month or so.

        It is definitely very distinctive from the sound of my own.

        I’ll be 15 weeks monday, so I am a bit behind you. I have barely begun to “show” but if I suck it in, you can see it creeping up from the pelvic bone. My bloat is gone, but it seems like my innards have done some rearranging because my stomach (the part that is not the emerging baby bump) is not the same as it used to be lol.

  15. Anterior placement of the placenta. The fact that you are quite slim and fit does work in your favour as well. The placement of the placenta is a favourable one. It also explains why you’re showing early. Twins is a possibility but unlikely unless one is hiding, based on your pic.
    I’m sorry if I came across as confrontational it wasn’t my intention. In a moment of honesty I’m jealous that you are able to do what I had hoped I would, and didn’t. I had a wonderful, healthy pregnancy but I was a disgusting level of lazy. I regret it. My apologies.

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