13 September 2004 (Monday)
13 Weeks & 6 Days Pregnant

I have my first pregnancy cold. I would have loved to take some Nyquil the past couple of nights! I started getting a sore throat on Friday afternoon and have had that and a stuffy head since. Today seems better but I did take the day off of TKD to just get more rest.

On Saturday Craig and I drove 3 hours up to Daegu to go to Costco. I decided to wear a pair of my maternity pants up there since we'd be in the car so long--they were so comfortable! However, they are still a little big so I did have to pull them up occasionally. Maybe I'll start wearing them regularly in the next few weeks.

I'm excited that today is the last day of my first trimester! I have been feeling mild bouts of nausea the past few days, but I'm not sure if that's related to my cold or not. I have had a much better appetite anyway which is fantastic!

7 September 2004 (Tuesday)
13 Weeks Pregnant

I am finally in the last week of the first trimester! I have been feeling totally "normal" for the past week--no more nausea (by writing that I'm sure I'll jinx myself and get a few more days of it at least, but it's just to exciting to not make note!)!! I wouldn't say that my appetite is fully back, but I did not lose weight last week, I gained, so I guess I could say things are looking up!

I got my black belt in TKD yesterday which was pretty exciting. However, Sabeamnim wouldn't let me do our warm up jog (even though I was going at a super slow pace) and a couple of other warm up exercises--he said "Rebecca, walking!" I'm still getting a good workout in though with all of the kicks.

Your Pregnancy Week by Week says Baby is about the size of a peach and is 2.6 to 3.1 inches (65 to 78 mm) and weighs between 0.5 and .07 ounce (13 to 20 grams) this week.

30 August 2004 (Monday)
11 Weeks & 6 Days Pregnant

Today I went to the women's clinic in town to see Dr. Lee. He is the doctor that all of the other pregnant foreign ladies have been raving about. It took me a little over 30 minutes to get a copy of my records from the hospital before I headed over to the clinic, but it was worth it! Dr. Lee asked many more questions and, in general, talked to me a lot more than the Dr. at the hospital did the last few times. Craig was also able to come into the examining room with me so he got to see as the doctor pointed out the baby's head, two arms, two legs, stomach, heart, and spine. Dr. Lee said everything looked normal and we got several pictures and a pretty long video. Now the pressure is on Craig to convert the video!!

Dr. Lee said it is fine for me to go to China at the end of September, but he wants me to come back into the office before I leave on our trip. Also, he said that it is OK for me to go to taekwondo until I am 20 weeks along but I shouldn't go after that. I have sent Mijung an email to let her know this so hopefully she and Sabeamnim will be OK with that, too. I asked her today if it is OK to at least come until we get our belts and she said yes. Of course I will take it easier in class than I did before and I will obviously not be sparring! If I decide to go until 20 weeks, my last day of TKD will be October 29. I may decide to stop earlier than that though, depending on how I feel over the next eight weeks!

29 August 2004 (Sunday)
11 Weeks & 5 Days Pregnant

I had a major breakthrough in the food department today: Craig and I went to Pizza Hut and I had a slice of pizza! Melted cheese has been a major nausea trigger for me up until about a week ago. I can't say I'm craving the stuff, but at least I could sit there in the restaurant surrounded by pizzas and not feel like I was going to be sick. Hopefully this means that as the first trimester is winding down I will get my appetite back and will start gaining weight instead of continuing to lose. (According to my home scale, I have lost seven pounds since the first day of my last period in June.)

26 August 2004 (Thursday)
11 Weeks & 2 Days Pregnant

I just arrived back from my trip to the States and am now in the process of readjusting to Korean Standard Time--just when I got used to Mountain Time! Oh well... I had started feeling less nauseous while in Colorado but am feeling it again today--although it is not as bad as before I left. I'm sure my body is just confused. Hopefully it won't take too long to get back on schedule.

My doctor's appointment in TX was pretty uneventful but I did get all of my questions answered which was the important thing. I signed up with an OB/GYN in Texas but also have recommendations for two others. I think I'll compile a list of questions and see if I can get them answered over the phone so I can make a decision and an appointment for December. I do have an appointment on December 20 with the OB my family doctor recommended, so if all else fails I can go to that office.

I am going to the doctor in town next week (instead of the doctor at the hospital) because I feel a little frustrated with the doctor at Daewoo--he didn't weigh me, take my blood pressure, or really give me any information on what blood tests I had done last time. I'll need to go through the joyful process of getting whatever records I have there transferred to the new office, too. Hopefully one of the secretaries at Craig's office can help out with that.

Your Pregnancy Week by Week says Baby is about the size of a large lime and is 1.75 to 2.4 inches (44 to 60 mm) and weighs in at a whopping 0.3 ounce (8 grams) this week.

29 July 2004 (Thursday)
7 Weeks & 2 Days Pregnant

I got to hear Baby's heartbeat today during the sonogram! (Craig is working on converting the video files now so I can post those on the photo & video page for you to hear the heartbeat.) The doctor today finally seemed positive and upbeat about my appointment. He said the heartbeat shows Baby is healthy. Anyway, after much confusion (and 200,000 Won!) I went downstairs to get three vials of blood drawn and give a urine sample. Now Craig & I need to figure out how to get our insurance to cover the monthly appointments...

I am thinking of next month trying the doctor in town that some of the foreign ladies have been going to. It would be a little closer to home and the practice is smaller so I might be happier with the visit. Today I sort of felt like I was rushed in and out of the appointment.

I emailed our family last week to tell them our news. They all seemed surprised and excited. We had been telling them we were going to wait until 2010 to start a family, so I guess they believed us! It will be fun to go home next week and see everyone and stock up on pregnancy supplies while I'm there. I already made giant orders at Old Navy Maternity and Gap Maternity so I can see I might get into some trouble!

So our test went well (we think) on Sunday. It was super hot though which was pretty miserable. Sabeamnim told the referee (?) that I am pregnant so I had to talk to him and he said to make sure to do really well on my poomse (we did # 8)--as if I wasn't nervous enough already! We did do well on our poomses, or so we're told. I don't remember the details b/c I was doing it on autopilot. Minsue and I ran over to get our hos on for sparring and then the referee had me talk to the sparring judge who said something to me (he was speaking in English, but I have no idea what he said!). The ref told me to bow to the judge and say "thank you very much" so I said "kamsamida" and bowed, then went to spar with Minsue. They ended up just telling us to demonstrate a few kicks to the judges (no sparring) and then told us we were done. Apparently a pregnant woman testing for second dan sparred earlier in the day and fell so they didn't want to take any more chances. I feel a little ripped off b/c I told the ref I was willing to spar but just no contact. Anyway, the ref said we should be fine and we should get our black belts. I'll be pretty upset if I don't since I didn't get to do the test properly. I think though that they would have at least had Minsue spar with someone else if they weren't going to pass us. Minsue said the ref told Sabeamnim that he knows Sabeamnim has brought many good foreign women to previous black belt tests and since we both did well on our poomse, he thought we should pass without a problem. We won't find out until the end of August.

Baby is 0.16 to .2 inch (4 to 5mm) at the beginning of this week, but by the end will be about .44 to .52 inch (11 to 13mm)! I had worse nausea last week than I have this week so far. But my appetite doesn't kick in until afternoon/evening. Nothing sounds or tastes really great at the moment, but I'm finding things to eat--like green apples, pineapple, nectarines, carrots, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, raisins, and pretzels. So far, according to my home scale, I have lost four pounds (since the first day of my last period), but I'm sure I'll start gaining soon as my stomach starts feeling more stable.

19 July 2004 (Monday)
5 Weeks & 6 Days Pregnant

Craig and I went to the Dr. today and we got to see the gestational sac! Baby is still too small to show a heart beat, but we will go back in on Tuesday the 27th to see that! This is very exciting news!

I will tell our parents and sisters tomorrow because I just don't think I can wait any longer now that I have something to show. I think I may email an announcement them tonight and they can call when they get it. I would probably jumble up all of the words trying to say it out loud if I called them on the phone!

In TKD today, Sabeamnim was talking to Minsue in Korean again and she translated to the rest of the class that he said he was worried about our sparring and wants us to come in to the afternoon class with the middle schoolers. This really started bugging me later on in the day because I thought, "why wouldn't he address this sooner than the week before the black belt test?!" Later, Minuse told me that what he actually said was that he wants her to be extremely careful to make sure that she didn't even kick me by accident. Anyway, he wouldn't let me do the sit-ups that we always do in class today. Although I've read that it is safe to do them through the first trimester, I didn't argue with him because that meant I could leave and head to the doctor!

14 July 2004 (Wednesday)
5 Weeks & 1 Day Pregnant

Baby is 0.05 inch (1.25mm) long this week--that's still super tiny!!

Craig (or "Pappy" as he says he wants to be called) finally came home from Malaysia on Monday! It has been so nice to have him back home! Too bad he's going to Ulsan for two days next week and then in two and a half weeks I am leaving for the US for three weeks!!

We have decided to go back to the doctor on Monday the 19th (Craig will be gone the 20th & 21st) which I am a little nervous about. I don't want it to still be too soon to see anything (I don't need that disappointment again)! But if we don't see anything then I will ask about getting my hCG levels measured so at least there will be some action instead of just sitting around waiting.

10 July 2004 (Saturday)
4 Weeks & 4 Days Pregnant

Minsue & I went into the dojang today to practice with the students who are going to the black belt test and the kids who are going to the competition next Saturday. It was from 1:30-3 so it was pretty hot, but Sabeamnim made a point to let me rest and cool off once we started sparring which was nice. I brought a Powerade along with my regular bottle of water so I stayed better hydrated than I had in our regular classes. We practiced poomses for a while and then took turns sparring. Minsue fought a high school guy and I fought a high school girl. Sabeamnim must have told her to not kick me, but the first thing she did was kick me (not to worry, she kicked me higher than my abdomen). Sabeamnim yelled at her and she didn't touch me again!

I seriously doubt I'll come back to TKD after I come back to Korea at the end of August. I'm already getting really tired during class and it's only the very beginning of the pregnancy! I'll be eleven weeks by the time I get back, so it's probably best to just stop the Monday before I leave for the States. On the other hand class might be a lot easier (even while pg) when it is less hot and humid out, so I will probably have to wait to decide until I get back.

Otherwise, I'm still feeling OK. I took a nap yesterday and today so that might be more routine--a tiredness just takes over and I must take a nap! It hasn't been a consistent symptom, but one that comes every couple of days.

9 July 2004 (Friday)
4 Weeks & 3 Days Pregnant

Oops! I should have called Minsue last night (she got in from Seoul yesterday after being gone for a week) before she came into TKD this morning because this morning when she came in, I didn't have an opportunity to pull her aside and tell her my news (I had told Mijung that I would tell Minsue and Darcie). So at the beginning of class, Sabeamnim started going on and on to her in Korean about being careful with the pregnant person (and gesturing to me) and Minsue turned to me and said "Are you pregnant?" in front of everyone! I don't know if anyone heard or not b/c no one asked me outright, but they did ask what he was talking about so Minsue & I said it was about us coming in more to practice for the black belt test.

Otherwise, nothing is new. I got another faint line on one of the tests this morning that doesn't indicate what level of hCG it measures--the line came up pretty quickly though. I wish I had asked about getting a blood test yesterday... I think Craig and I will go back on Monday the 19th (I'll be 5 weeks & 6 days then) to try another sonogram unless we decide we don't want to wait that long--I think the earliest I'll go back is Friday the 16th.

I've talked to both of our families in the past two days and told them that "nothing exciting" is going on here. It's really hard to not just blurt it out, but I think it will be so much more fun to to tell them in person! Darcie had a good idea to ask them if they wanted to watch my TKD black belt video and then pop in the sonogram video instead. I might do that with a couple of other "gifty" things, but I'll need to think about it. I'll wait until after a successful trip to the doctor though.

I feel like all I've been doing is waiting for the past two weeks to find out if I'm pregnant and now that I am, I am still waiting for the doctor to confirm it--another two weeks! This is a LOT of waiting! It will just be much better and seem more real when the doctor says "you're pregnant, here's your due date, etc." I think I'll just tell the rest of the TKD class after the doctor's appointment though because it's too hard with such a small group of ladies and my needing to stop for water breaks often to not tell them what's happening.

8 July 2004 (Thursday)
4 Weeks & 2 Days Pregnant

Darcie took me to the Daewoo hospital this morning which turned out to be a disappointing visit to say the least (and it wasn't because the examining table looked like it was from 1940 or that the doctor put a curtain between us when he did the exam so I couldn't see the monitor). He said he was unable to find the gestational sac and that it meant one of two things: either it's too early or it's an ectopic pregnancy. He said to come back in one or two weeks or if I experience any bleeding. After reading up on ectopic pregnancy, I think I'll see if Craig wants to go back with me on the 16th or 19th (this is the nice thing about not having to make an appointment!).

So I'm obviously trying to not worry about it and just hope that it was too early to see anything. I did take another pregnancy test this morning (the "early" test) and got a faint line--that's the one that I was getting a negative on two days ago, so I'm taking that as a step in the right direction. Maybe I'll take another "early" test next week to see if it gets any darker.

7 July 2004 (Wednesday)
4 Weeks & 1 Day Pregnant

I have been taking pregnancy tests for the past couple of days and getting mixed results. My period was officially late yesterday so I started to feel cautiously optimistic about being pregnant!

This morning I got yet another faint line on the pregnancy test (definitely within the 3-5 minute time-frame and definitely faint) and although I felt premature telling Mijung that I *might* be pregnant, I knew I'd feel much better if I didn't have to wear a ho and get kicked in the stomach so I told her today that I think I might be but that I don't want to tell the others yet (obviously I wanted her to tell Sabeamnim so he won't let anyone beat me up!).

After TKD, I bought a different test at a different pharmacy in town, and tested with it after TKD and got an immediate POSITIVE! Our due date will be between March 14-March 16 (depending on which calculator you use), so I'm going to go with the Ides of March (March 15) like Daddy (Craig!!) and Uncle Mat until I'm told otherwise by someone in the medical field. I spent most of my afternoon at Hanne's with Erica, Vanessa, and Noreen so I haven't had much time to digest this information yet.

I called Darcie this afternoon and talked to her about the doctor and TKD. She said she really liked the Dr at the Daewoo hospital and offered to go with me tomorrow if I wanted. I'll talk to Craig tonight to see if he wants to go with me to the first appointment or if I should just go tomorrow with Darcie. If he wants to go, I'll have to wait until Wednesday. One nice thing about going to the doctor here is that you get a sonogram with every visit! That means I should get maybe four sonogram photos of our little one (July, September, October, November, and possibly December) before Baby arrives in March! I'll plan to go to the doctor in TX when I visit in August as well.

I think it will be really fun to tell the family when I'm home in August (when I'll be 8 weeks)--plus I don't want people to worry about me taking my black belt test while pregnant (Darcie did it at a much later stage in pregnancy than I'll be--I'd be at the end of 6 weeks by then). Mijung told Minsue & me last week (without our asking) that we can make contact or not when we spar for the black belt test, it's our choice. Obviously, we'll spar with no contact!

According to "Your Pregnancy Week by Week," Baby is between 0.014 inch to 0.04 (0.36mm to about 1mm) in length! According to BabyCenter, Baby's brain, muscles, and bones are beginning to form by the end of this week! That seems so amazing to me that something so tiny can be doing so much!