10 Weeks Pregnant - crazy dreams!
Weekly pregnancy updates from a childbirth educator, doula and mum to 2 little girls. Come and join me on my journey as I share how I'm feeling, how baby is developing, what I'm doing to prepare, and some favourite resources!
It’s crazy how pregnancy affects your sleep! I don’t remember it starting so early my other pregnancies, but maybe that’s just my brain blissfully shutting off those memories 😂 If I wake up during the night, I’m wide awake. And what seems like at least half the time I’m sleeping, my brain is going crazy with calculations. Why calculations? Nooooo idea. Maybe this baby is going to love maths? A couple of nights ago my brain was figuring out the right sizes for wedding cake tiers to serve all the guests (an actual thing I was working on during the day in preparation for making a couple of family wedding cakes). All while I was asleep. Last night my we took it up a notch and invented a new client who lives 2 hours and 20 minutes away (yes, I remember looking it up on Google Maps in my dream, and seeing the exact travel time!), and I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to fit in a home visit of an afternoon with all the driving time factored in as well. For the record, I do not take clients that far away, it was just my brain having fun 😂
What symptoms am I feeling?
Besides crazy dreams, I’m still getting a bit of mild nausea on and off, though it’s not too much of an issue if I’m eating regularly. I’m slowly gaining weight, though it is completely normal in first trimester not to gain at all, or even to lose weight if you're struggling a lot with morning sickness or fatigue. My belly is definitely showing now, which I love - I know everyone has a different take on this, but I love it that people can see my baby! 😍
How has baby been developing this week?
Baby is now called a “fetus” in medical terms, and is 2.5cm long. The heart has four chambers and is pumping blood (currently being produced in the liver) through the body. The yolk sac is no longer present. Lungs and muscles are developing as well as joints such as knees, elbows, wrists and ankles. It’s just incredible how much goes on in so short a space of time!!
What am I doing to prepare?
I got the first trimester blood tests this week. I know you can just walk in for them, but I had actually booked an appointment at a Douglass Hanly Moir. I booked online, so had specified what I was going for…only to get there and be told they couldn’t do one of the tests since it was too close to closing time. What beats me is...why do you publish an appointment time that doesn’t give you the time you need to perform the tests??? Anyway, you just have to take it as it comes, so I just did the rest of the tests and went back separately for the last one. But that earlier appointment... I have quite the bruise on the inside of my elbow, and my shoulder is STILL sore on and off. I’ve had bruising before but the shoulder thing is new for me!
A favourite resource:
Following on from last week, another jewel I discovered while googling as a first time mum is She Births Bravely. The specific page I landed on was the article “What Does a Contraction Feel Like?”, which I found super helpful in understanding something of the range of what women experience in the different stages of labour. I mean, I then went on and didn’t even experience transition in my first birth, but it was definitely helpful to be mentally prepared for how things could go! I also loved the pages of birth videos Suzzie shares (such as these), and watched them over and over before my amazing first birth experience at home!
And that’s it for this week! 🌿💛
[Image credit: Pregnancy photo by freestocks on Unsplash]