7 weeks 5 days

As evidenced by my posting at 3:40am, yes I'm still suffering from insomnia. I haven't slept a full night in about a week and a half, and I HATE IT! I'm soooooo tired but I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, then I can't quit thinking about how hungry I am. In turn, I can't sleep because my stomach is saying, "GIVE ME FOOOOOOOOOD!"

Ugh.

Anyway, I might as well write about how my day went. I had my first prenatal appointment. Since it's my first visit with this doctor, today just consisted of an interview with the nurse. Russ went with me to my appointment... how sweet of him, huh? :-) The nurse just asked about family history and all that good stuff... THEN after all the million and one questions, she goes, "Ok, I'm going to take you across the hall and weigh you and get your blood pressure.

WELL.

Knowing my ass was about to be stepping on a scale made me nervous as it was... as any girl can attest to, right? (Well, probably 95% of ladies out there... to the other 5% I say "You suck." J/k)

Anyway, after the big weigh in, I was already a little upset knowing I'll be tacking on 20-25 pounds to that number in the next 9 months. So then she sits me down in the chair to get my pressure. I told her, "I just checked my pressure at work about a week and a half ago, and it was 120/72." She then proceeds to check it, and raises her eyebrows when she was done.

"What did you get?" I asked.


"Well, 138/100. Let's try the other arm." (it didn't help that she took my pressure over my sweater, either)

I slipped my arm out of my sweater, and she checked my pressure again. "138/80," she said.

That's still high for me. It made me even more upset. I'm already worried about developing preeclampsia (high BP caused by pregnancy, for anyone who doesn't know that) and gestational diabetes. My dad has high BP and his side of the family (all except for him) are bad diabetics... all his siblings and his parents.

The nurse told me that they take it very seriously when their patients have high BP, so she just told me to rest up for the remainder of the day. Which I did, considering I had about 3 hours of sleep the night before and had no energy at all. I'm just going to keep an eye on my BP at work... I hate to have to go on a leave early in my pregnancy, you know? (Breathe, Betsy.... breathe.... it'll be ok.) lol

After the appointment, Russ goes, "Honey, you know how worried you've been lately. Just try to relax..." He's been so sweet... I'm so lucky to have him. We walked downstairs and registered for me to get bloodwork done. I got all the birth-defect labwork done (cystic fibrosis, spina bifida), a recheck on my blood type, HIV testing, and all that good stuff. The lady took EIGHT tubes of blood. Thank goodness needles don't bother me. I took home a nasty bruise on my left forearm though. The needle blew my vein, so my bruise is now about 1" wide and 2" long on my arm. Thank goodness we're into long-sleeved shirt weather!

After the labwork, we went to the pharmacy and filled my prescriptions. The nurse told me not to take the prenatal vitamins right now, because they'll just increase my morning sickness. She gave me a prescription for "Premesis", which is a form of prenatal vitamin that contains the most important stuff, like folic acid and B vitamins, etc. She said for me to take that until after the first trimester, or until I start noticing the queasy feeling go away. After that, I take the stronger Prenatal vitamin and an iron supplement. Then it's (probably) HELLO CONSTIPATION! Oh, how I'm looking forward to that...

It'll all be worth it in 9 months though... :-)

Have a great day... wish me luck, that I can get some sleep tonight!