No signs a good sign?

Welcome to my baby blog! Stay tuned for updates on my doctor's visits and everything happening with my belly and Baby Bennett (who is now about the size of a grape), what I'm reading, and interesting observations about pregnancy, birth and babies. I hope it will get our little circle of friends having some good girl talk about girly stuff, not just fun stuff but concerns that will be important to all of us at one time or another. Thank you for everyone's excitement so far about our news! It is really special to me to know we have friends who are looking forward to what's to come. It helps me to be more accepting of what seems like an insane thing to do. Of course we know it will be wonderful too, but even so, slightly insane.

As to the title of my entry, most of you know that I haven't experienced any morning sickness. No nausea at all really...nothing a little ginger ale can't cure. So I'm really wondering about what you hear doctors telling women: that the sicker the mother, the healthier the pregnancy. How can that be true? I've always heard it sort of weakly explained that it's nature's way of signaling to the mother that there are things in her environment that may be unhealthy to the baby so it's good to expel whatever it is from your system, or in other words, that aversion to certain foods or smells is a defense mechanism. If anything, wouldn't that mean that a) exposure to bad stuff is not good in the first place and throwing up isn't necessarily going to rid your body of it? and b) the mother's system might not be as strong as someone who doesn't experience morning sickness?

I have no idea if any of this has any bearing on reality, but that's just my point: when doctors say that, I just question whether there's any actual research to back it up. It seems to me just something that happens to some women and not to others, and that it doesn't necessarily mean anything. I do know that it's good to gain a couple of pounds in your first trimester so if you're throwing up the whole time, how can that be healthy?

Okay, this just in...I read that it has to do with healthy placenta development. I'm still not sure why that is, but I also read that if you have a lower body mass index pre-pregnancy, that you'd be less likely to experience nausea. But does this mean that thin women in general have more unhealthy babies? Doubtful. My next doctor's appointment is Tuesday so I will ask her and see what she says. Stay tuned...