As a first time to-be-mother, pregnancy was a completely new experience for me. I had a lot of questions and was fondling to understand the changes taking place in my body. I was equally worried about the growth of my baby inside my womb.
With this blog series, “Pregnancy Week By Week”, I hope to extend a helping hand to all expecting parents by telling you about my journey.
There might be some things that you would be able to relate to and would even give you solace to know that someone went through the exact same thing as you. Hope I’m able to help!
Disclaimer – This is entirely my personal experience. The intent of the blog is not to advice but only to share. Any medication, medical examinations, dietary intake or exercise, mentioned in this blog, were prescribed as per my pregnancy and my body. Please do not perform these without consulting your medical adviser.
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Week 8 Pregnancy Symptoms – A Force of Nature
Week 8 has started with morning sickness at full swing. It comes as a force of nature, strong and unstoppable. You might be on the toilet seat or having a sip of water, doesn’t matter, morning sickness comes when it has to come, much like the quintessential Bollywood movie Hero. A grand appearance that doesn’t wait for anything or anybody!
This week brought with itself even newer wonders. Apart from vomiting and nausea I have been feeling extremely weak. I am also running a very slight fever around 99.3° Fahrenheit. Though this is not high, I need to monitor it so as to ensure that it doesn’t go above 100° Fahrenheit.
Within this week I have lost an additional kilo. Here is a photograph of my weight at the beginning of the week and end of he week, both taken early morning, after the vomiting ritual and before having anything.
8 Weeks Pregnant Ultrasound
Middle of this week we got some good news. I was scheduled for my dating scan this week, which is basically the first scan that the doctors perform to gauge the development of the baby. It can be performed anytime between the 8th and 12th week of pregnancy.
In this scan, the radiologist will also be able to detect the heartbeat of the baby. And touchwood, we did hear the heartbeat of the baby. This is when my pregnancy was medically confirmed.
Initially, the fertilized egg is just an embryo and there is no heartbeat. But by the 8th week or after, heartbeat appears and the doctors are able to tell you if there is a baby.
In my case an ultrasound took place in the 6th week as well, followed by my vaginal bleeding incident but for most people, Dating Scan is the first ultrasound.
It also tells you if you are expecting one baby or more My dating scan also confirmed a single live embryo, which meant that there is a single baby growing inside my womb (and not twins or triplets or more).
This scan will also confirm if the baby is growing in the right place. It might happen that the pregnancy stick shows a positive result but the pregnancy is ectopic.
In an ectopic pregnancy, fertilized egg plants itself outside the uterus. In such a case the pregnancy would need to be terminated. If left untreated and allowed to be grown it will damage the surrounding organs.
Given that I had vaginal beating in week 6 we were told that there is a 50-50 chance of a normal pregnancy. So to have heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time was very very reassuring for us.
Way Forward
Since we got positive results on our pregnancy the doctor continued the two hormonal injections that were given to me, these were, HUCOG 5000 IU and Proluton. Also, there was another hormonal medicine called Duphaston which I had been having twice a day, which has also continued.
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My OB-GYN also told me that HUCOG injection would be given till 10 weeks of pregnancy and Proluton injection till 11 weeks of pregnancy.
Next, I have been called towards the end of my first trimester for another ultrasound and for certain tests that will check the probability of the baby being born with down syndrome. These tests are called NIPT and Double marker tests. We will discuss more about these in the weeks to follow.