Week 8, Take 2

I won't be posting my usual baby questions this week, but I thought I'd still give a pregnancy update. Last Tuesday was my toughest day yet. I spent most of the day gripping my trash can and heaving up anything that I put into my system. On Wednesday I woke up feeling exhausted and dehydrated. I noticed some cramping, but I chalked it up to dehydration and drank some Gatorade to help get fluids back into my system.

After Mark left for work that night, I started noticing blood when I went to the bathroom. It wasn't much, but based on the bleeding scares my sister has had during her pregnancy, I knew it wasn't something I should ignore. Kathy encouraged me to go to the hospital to get it checked out and I read online that bleeding paired with cramps needed to be checked out immediately. I called Mark and he came home from work to take me to the ER. 

One of the great things about living in the middle of nowhere was that we were the only ones in the ER and there was absolutely no wait. That has NEVER happened to me before! While there they drew 5 tubes of my blood, gave me a pelvic exam (pleasant), gave me a shot in my butt (also pleasant--yay for having a negative blood type!), and most importantly, we had our very first ultrasound. 

I was SO glad that I wasn't feeling nauseous at the hospital. The pushed my bed to the ultrasound department and had it been the day before, those twists and turns through the hallways would have turned me into a vomit monster. However, I luckily felt fine and it was actually kinda fun. I felt like I was in an episode of some medical drama. :)

Anyways, I was really nervous for the ultrasound. What if there was nothing there? What if there was no heartbeat? I swear I was squeezing Mark's hand so tight that he's probably scared for when I actually go into labor. But no worries, we saw our little tiny human (ok, our little tiny blob) and we saw its itty bitty rapid heartbeat. 161 perfect beats per minute. 

We measured at 7 weeks instead of 8 like we thought. But, I mean, come on, is anyone really surprised that the offspring of Mark and I is measuring small? ;) Therefore, there will be no bump day photo today and we'll just pick up with week 9 next week! 

In the end, I was diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage. However, from what I read, that's what they call it whenever there's blood this early in pregnancy, whether there was any serious issue or not. Since blood flow increases during pregnancy, your blood vessels are extremely sensitive. For example, my nose bleeds nearly every time I vomit. Bleeding can be caused by irritation (say, from sex) or even from straining while going to the bathroom. Since everything looks ok and I'm doing much better, I'm thinking my cramps were probably caused by dehydration and the blood could possibly be from my extreme dry heaving the day before straining my blood vessels. I was put on bed rest for a few days, but at least I've had the Olympics to entertain me (although, are we really letting canada beat us in the medal count?!?)! On an unrelated note, I'm now totally loving that my phone doesn't auto-capitalize canada. :) 

Alright, without further ado, I present Baby Kimball's first photo ever. I see a future career in modeling, don't you?