Week 7, Day 6: Vivian's symptoms have been on and off over the past couple of days. A few days ago, her lack of pregnancy symptoms worried her enough to get another ultrasound. After having a miscarriage, it's just reassuring to see that the heart is beating and the baby is continuing to develop. Today her symptoms were back in in full force with dizzyness and nausea. I don't like to see Vivian so sick. I'm proud of how strong she has been. I'm barely strong enough to get through all the worrying, but she has been going through all the physical challenges as well.

Week 7, Day 3: Prenatal vitamins help give the mother all her essential nutrients and protect against birth defects.  It doesn't help though if the pill gets stuck in Vivian's throat and is thrown up several minutes later.  She can't tolerate the smell of the pills.  The doctor gave us a sample of about ten different kinds, but the are either too big or too smelly.  She even tried the chewable kind, but couldn't stand the taste.  We ended up buying Folic Acid tablets at Trader Joe's, which are very tiny, dissolve under the tongue, and have very little taste.  She gets her other vitamins by the chewable Flintstone's gummy bears, which were recommended by our doctor.        

Week 7, Day 1:  The baby has made it seven weeks and two days!  Vivian has been keeping a blog to document the pregnancy.  As the father, I don't experience all the bodily changes that the mother has to go through.  The physical role of the father in pregnancy is just to help get it started.  Then it's the mother's job to deal with everything else.  I have no morning sickness or nausea.  Nonetheless, I want to keep a blog to record all the things that I'm going to experience.  I made it my responsibility to do everything I can do help Vivian.  We always share responsibilities around the house, but for the nine months of pregnancy I will do almost all of them.  I'm going to run up and down the stairs as much as I can to bring food, cups of water, crackers, vitamins, empty the garbage, clean the floor, make the bed, and hopefully get work up enough calories to balance the over eating I experience with Vivian's strange eating habits.  Her recent cravings are Chinese rice soup, chips and guacamole, and tomatoes, waffle fries.  I'm just going to sleep, as I likely have a lot of work to do tomorrow.  

Week 6: About a month after Vivian's miscarriage we found out that she was pregnant again.  We were very excited, but equally worried.  We know that all our hopes of having a family can just disappear.  The more we plan and think about life with a baby, the sadder we may be if this pregnancy ends again.  Luckily our odds are good.  The chance of us having a miscarriage is not higher, even if we had already had one.  In fact, the chances aren't higher until there are three or more previous miscarriages.  Still, we don't want to experience the sadness of another loss and we worry because we have no way of controlling the outcome.  We can only pray that everything turns out okay.  It's week seven right now and the good news is that Vivian is still pregnant.  We had always feared going into the week six ultrasound and seeing an empty sack, but this time we saw a yolk sack, fetal pole, and even heard a heartbeat!  This is always an emotional moment for parents, but for us it was a confirmation that there is now an embryo, the size of a grain of rice, and there is really hope that will one day he/she will get a chance at life!

Vivian and I always wanted to start a family together.  We immediately started trying after we got married this January.  We know it's not always easy to get pregnant and thought it would take at least several months until it happens.  After a couple of weeks Vivian missed her period and began taking pregnancy tests.  She got a faint line and immediately went to the doctor to confirm that she was pregnant.  Over the next couple of days, the faint line got darker and darker until it was a solid-dark positive result.  During our first doctor's visit Vivian convinced the doctor to show an ultrasound of the baby, which turned out to be a small dot.  We were so happy!  We started reading pregnancy books and learned about so many of the changes that Vivian's body will incur throughout the pregnancy.  We just assumed that the baby was going to develop according to books we read.  But around the 6th week of the pregnancy, Vivian started bleeding.  When she went for the next ultrasound, we saw the little dot grew a little, but there was nothing inside.  Over the next few days Vivian did some blood work confirming that her HCG levels were rising, which is a good sign, but unfortunately the next ultrasound confirmed that nothing grew and the doctor scheduled a D&C for the miscarriage.  Our plans of being parents were put on hold.  Vivian was in her 6th week of pregnancy, but the yolk sak and fetal tube never developed as it should have between the 5th and 6th week.  The doctor explained that this type of miscarriage is called a Blighted Ovum and it's just something that happens.  In fact, about 30% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage.  Most people don't really talk about them and some people don't even know when they had one.  We realized that there is a miracle that takes place every day in pregnancy.  The little dot never developed into a baby, but it taught us lessons we will never forget.