Seven Weeks

Ah, the emotional roundabout that is early pregnancy. Yesterday I was nearly in tears because I felt so shockingly grim. I hadn't slept; it was too hot and my boobs were too sore and the waves of nausea were disgusting; I had to give a two hour lab stood up and could barely function; and I looked like an extra from Dawn of the Dead. Today I'm feeling loads better; I slept well, the nausea is barely noticable, I have a bit of a glow and it's a long weekend. Obviously the ebb and flow of nausea is nerve-wracking, when it eases up I worry there's been a drop in the hormones, but when it's on the rise it's hard to feel cheerful about it.

At seven weeks the small person should be looking a bit more like a person and less like a prawn. The might be limb buds, dents where the eyes will be and the beginnings of a circulatory system. The tail will begin to shrink and the brain to form this week. The heart cells, which should be beating, form a tube and then twist and fold in a complex dance over the next four weeks. The throat and windpipe start out as one tube and divide into two, the stomach forms separately and somehow grows up to join into the throat. The gut begins as a solid tube and hollows out to a pipe. All this happens in the next three weeks. I really must eat my greens and reds and oranges.

Lovely, beautiful, fabulous Susan has volunteered to come to my scans with me. I would rather have another NICU nurse with me, somebody with the same knowledge base. If it's good or bad news, at least I won't have to explain stuff to her or worry that she'll freak out about something. And Susan is eternally cheerful and smiley, so she'll be good to celebrate with, if there really is a small person in there.

This weekend is three days. I need the extra time to catch up on my housework and shop. Work is OK, I'm managing, but with nodody to help out I'm struggling to keep everything else together at home. I think I'll buy a rice cooker/steamer. I reckon I can sling a bit of fish and veg and rice in one of those and it would be less vile than cooking, which is simply out of the question at the moment. This evening I had frozen pasta, [the nice kind] with sauce from a jar. But there were brussel sprouts in my lunch and lemon cake. Lemons have vitamins, right..?