We’re 8 Weeks & 3 Days Pregnant.

Athina & I returned to the doctor last night and it turns out that Little Shrimpy is not 7 weeks and some but 8 weeks and 3 days (as of today, Feb 21st).

Confused &, again, thrilled… we got the whole pregnancy thing with a 2-month discount.

Before I share that little story, however, you may want to take a quick look at Athina’s favourite website at the moment: 3DPregnancy.com — I guess it’s more of a portal than anything else but the real hook for us is the rotating 3D image of the foetus on a week by week basis. Cool although possibly slightly creepy.

You can have a rough idea of where we’re at by going to: 3D Illustration: 8 Weeks Pregnant — the foetus really does look like a prawn.

Confused in Bali

Bali is not the greatest place on earth for medicine and medical facilities. In fact, if you’re coming out here, don’t get sick. Or pregnant.

Last year, Athina and I wanted to get started on having a baby but it just wasn’t happening.

So, we asked around, got a few recommendations on Ob/Gyns and ended up at Kasih Ibu for a consultation with Dr. W.

Long story short, we ended up with Athina on a course of hormones that, after a few months, seemed to have little or no effect. Unless you count lots of arguments.

We decided to wait another year before really throwing ourselves into the process — give ourselves time and space to travel and enjoy married life. That was 2007.

2008 kicked off with a conversation about what we wanted from the year — my plan was to get my picture taken on a camel in front of a pyramid in Egypt (no, don’t want to go inside… just want the piccie) but both of us felt this year might be good time to start once more trying for a baby.

Too many Dude Hormones

By the start of January, Athina was going into her 3rd month without a period — her last period was October 14th, 2007. At first, we barely noticed — Athina has never been regular.

She took a pregnancy test; negative.

So, not being super worried but just to be sure, we visited a new Doctor that had been recommended to us — Dr. I. at Merdeka (Freedom) Clinic in Renon, Denpasar.

Dr. I. did his tests and concluded Athina had a certain hormone deficiency and attacked the problem in two steps.

Step 1:  January 15th, 2008 Prescribed Norelut — ostensibly to postpone and then provoke menstruation.

Norelut is commonly prescribed for amenorrhea (Abnormal suppression or absence of menstruation). In other words, he said, after taking this drug for a week, Athina would have her period and then we could test hormone levels in the blood to see how we might bump up our chances of getting pregnant.

You can learn more about Norelut by clicking here.

One week later, no period, and we ran into a Bali public holiday so didn’t get the chance to follow up with Dr. I. until the following week, we saw him January 29th.

Dr. I.’s conclusion on the 29th was that Athina had too many male hormones and put her straight onto a course of Cyclo-progynova (a widely used hormone replacement therapy).

Naturally, I had tons of fun with Athina calling her, “Dude” all night.

You can learn more about Cyclo-progynova by click here.

It’s worth noting that by January 15th (when Dr. I. prescribed Norelut), Athina was already 3 weeks pregnant (Shrimp was conceived somewhere around Christmas Eve according to our very, very rough reckoning).

By the time he told us she had too many DUDE hormones and started her on Cyclo-progynova, she was 5 weeks pregnant.

Both of these drugs are not recommended during pregnancy (but we’re not expecting any problems either).

We’re 7 Weeks & One Day Pregnant

Last Saturday (Feb 16th), Athina was feeling nauseous and weird so, smart lady that she is, picked up an off-the-shelf pregnancy test. Last thing Saturday night (after watching Man U. stuff Arsenal in the FA Cup), I laid the test out in the bathroom where she wouldn’t miss it the next day.

4 hours later, Sunday morning, I’m rudely awakened by my wife boucing up and down on the bed saying odd words like “positive” and “two lines” and “pregnant”. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time.

I dragged myself out of bed while Athina made arrangements to see Dr. I. who was not at the clinic and wanted us to wait until Monday… yeah, right: we’re going to wait.

An hour or so later, we were back at Kasih Ibu with the original Dr. W. listening to heart beats and watching a prawn on TV.

Dr. W. told us the wee bairn was 7 weeks and one day old with a target delivery date of October 4th.

Cue shock, awe and celebration. Or, rather, cue two bleary-eyed peeps making hiccupping noises of happy surprise and later falling asleep together on the sofa.

No, We’re 8 Weeks & 3 Days Pregnant

Last night, we went back to see Dr. I. at the Merdeka Clinic to check everything again and schedule the normal battery of tests required for a pregnant woman.

I confess: I was very interested to see how he’d react to finding out Athina was already pregnant by the time he’d diagnosed (or misdiagnosed) too many DUDE hormones.

But he kind of blew straight past it. Cracked a few silly jokes. Blah, blah, blah & yaddah-yaddahed the whole thing.

He’s a weird guy.

At one point, he kind of suggested Athina could have taken another pregnancy test before starting the Cyclo-progynova.

The Putz.

You might think we’d be better off to stick with Dr. W. and go back to Kasih Ibu but here’s the kicker: Dr. W. was Dr. I.’s student. They’re practically twins.

Anyhoo, another exam with the USG Wand, another beautiful picture of the Little Shrimp (we can now see a little beating heart) and another estimate of the age of the foetus and the due date.

The story now is that Shrimp is 8 weeks and 3 days old (impatient, apparently) and Athina’s due on September 29th.

That’s all for today.

Sean