Week 5 to 8

To week 1 to 4

0.8"
The brains, stomach and liver start working. Also the skeleton starts developing, from soft bone tissue.

A few days after my period was due, I still did not have it and I still did not feel like I would have it any time soon. Because it had been so long since I had a regular one, I doubted if I even remembered correctly how I had always felt and I bought myself a pregnancy test, just to make sure. I found out that these are being sold per pair and the same night I used one. I was not completely surprised that - however very thinly - a stripe appeared. I indeed was pregnant!

I was happy and shocked at the same time, because I did not expect it this quickly. Immediately a lot of questions came to my mind and most of them were about which reactions I could expect from people around us. These confused me the most. Because we did not really have a 'smooth' end on the pregnancy of Bram, I expected remarks like "probably they just exaggerated the story at the time" or remarks that could hurt Bram. Together with Erik I decided not to tell anybody yet. A few days later (I still felt unreal) I discovered that the tests were not to be kept for long, so I used the other one, for the fun of it. This time no one could have any doubts about the result: the stripe became so blue tha there was hardly enough colouring in the test to also colour the control window. ;-) Slowly but surely I got used to the idea of being pregnant again and with that my trust in my own body grew. The remarks that I feared had passed my mind and I felt stronger about dealing with these too.

Also with this pregnancy I have been very sick regularly and I did not have any appetite. Until we went on our trip to the Netherlands Bram offered a good opportunity not to think too much about how I felt, which actually helped. In opposite of the pregnancy of Bram, it was very easy for me to keep my mouth shut, also because I simply wasn't able to think about it all the time now. On February 13 we left for the Netherlands, I was relieved that during the flight I was at least not more sick than normal. When we arrived in Hoeven, I suddenly got a good feeling about telling our parents and so we did.

I had doubted very much if it would be a good thing to do, but Erik also felt positive about it. With the news we immediately mentioned that it was for their ears only and that they should keep it top secret for the time being. All of our parents were happy for us and of course they are also somewhat worried, but they trust that we will be having the best medical attention possible.

One night during this vacation we visited one of my best friends, also called Wilma. When we were undoing Bram's coat, her husband could no longer keep his mouth shut and blurted out that by the end of the year Bram would have a playmate with them. Wilma was about 8 weeks pregnant at the time, so she's one week ahead of me. We were so very happy for them, but of course could not keep our secret at that point. Luckily they also promised not to tell anyone else.

About our trip back home on February 21st: I did not feel well at all and this time I was unlucky. Just before we landed I had to empty my stomach, this way filling up a couple of garbage bags ;-) I hated myself for that, but since we were just in time to pick up Bas en Bert (cats) from the boarding house, I soon forgot about that. Today it's February 23, I have to keep my stomach from getting empty and it seems that the tight pants that used to make me feel okay, now don't fit that comfortably any more. I'll try a stretchy one in a minute. Other than that I am sooooo tired, well, I guess I'll just have to take it easy.

To week 9 to 12