Week 9

 Hey baby - This has been a bit of a rough week......Maybe TMI - but I am going to document here anyway  - I have been SUPER congested all week - which drains down my throat at night and makes me cough and sneeze and now I have a wretched scratchy throat. I actually pretty much lost my voice the last several days. Plus - I have been getting ripping headaches every afternoon. I also still feel like a total zombie by the afternoons.....napping is not normal for me ~ until now. Everything I read says that these are all typical symptoms.......Ugh. I basically spent this entire weekend in bed, resting and trying to recoup for the upcoming week. Your Dad has been a superstar. He has been really patient and helpful and sweet. Luckily there are no major hunting, fishing or other important sporting events these days, so staying close to home has not be too torturous for him. :)

 Check out this amazing fruit plate your dad made for me.

I have an appointment later this week with a nurse in my Doc's office ~ Just a routine checkup ~ but I will update here with any interesting news.  I think about you basically ALL THE TIME. I love learning about how you are growing and developing ~ human development is pretty amazing. Here are some more details about where you are at this week: 

(keep in mind we have no idea if you are a HE or a SHE - that's just the way the website is written)

 

Your baby has grown to the size of a grape, weighs a fraction of an ounce, and is almost 1 inch long

  

She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.

Pretty cool baby! 

         Love you lots, me

Week 8

Hey baby ~ This week the nausea has really kicked in - luckily no actual barfing yet - but I feel like it pretty much all the time, except a few hours in the mornings - weird. I have been eating very healthy foods, lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, fish, cheese, etc. You Dad is an AMAZING cook and has prepared some ridiculously good food for us lately. I feel really lucky to have him as a partner :). My only guilty pleasure has been one cup of coffee in the morning. Sorry baby - of all the bad habits to have - I feel like that one isn't SO bad. 

We made some oatmeal cookies with fresh huckleberries this weekend. I picked the berries last summer up in McCall. A momma and baby moose walked right by me as I was sitting neck-deep in the bushes. Yea, it could have been a little dangerous, but they didn't even notice me. I ended up with only about 2 cups of berries after several hours of picking. But it was worth it - they are soooooo yummy. 

Let's see other ramblings about you......I randomly throw out baby names at your Dad. They tend to be girl names these days.....but who knows! No hints on that news yet. We will certainly find out when we have the option to. That is just WAY too big of a secret to keep. I am starting to read lots of different books about how you are developing and how I can be the best vessel for you. There is a plethora of information out there. It's all about balance I suppose. 
 

Here is the weekly entry from the Pregnant Chicken Blog - Its just too funny to not share!

Shark baby has webbed fingers and toes now making it more bad-ass than ever even thought its tail is pretty much gone. It’s starting to move but you won’t be able to feel it so ignore those lunatics that told you they felt the baby move just after they missed their period – they are exaggerating and have no sense of time. Even though this kid is about the size of a jelly bean, you may feel like you’re busting at the seams.

Remember how I told you about progesterone and how important it is to relax your uterus so it doesn’t contract this kiddo out? Well it has a buddy called relaxin and it does just that, it relaxes your muscles and joints so your body can unhinge like the jaws of a snake come labour time. Good stuff, right? Absolutely, except along with the birthing muscles, it relaxes the gastrointestinal muscles, which slows down your digestion, which forms gas. That gas turns into deadly farts that could take down a flock of birds in mid-flight.

That’s right, you are a beautiful vessel of life right now.
Toot. Pfft. ‘Scuse me.

A jellybean size shark baby.  That's worth sharing.

Love you Baby - Me.

Week 7

Hey baby! Today we had visual confirmation of you!!!!

I think about you almost every waking moment - so getting some good news really made my day.

Check you out:

The bottom X is your head and the top X is your tailbone.

      This shows your yolk sac and your heartbeat - going strong a 137 bpm!

There is soooo much information out there to help me know what is going on inside and how you are developing....Here are a couple of cool things I have read over the last few days:

This week starts a period of rapid cellular development for your baby-to-be, who looks like a mini tadpole, with a tiny head and tail. His or her eyes, ears and mouth have begun to form (though they're a little more Discovery Channel "creatures of the sea" documentary than Gerber Baby at this point) Technically, your baby is still considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of her tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. Your baby has doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry.

I love blueberries!

If you could see inside your womb, you'd spot eyelid folds partially covering her peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of her nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your baby's brain are growing, and her liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and takes over this role. She also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in your baby's growing intestines is bulging into her umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body.

 

Ok one more - this is from a blog called The Pregnant Chicken - I was laughing really hard last night as I read it   :)

 

Hooray, your baby has paddles and a tail! No, that’s a good thing because the paddles become arms and legs and the tail becomes a tailbone. Your baby’s skeletal structure is almost fully formed and made up of cartilage – like a shark. So you’re carrying a bad-ass shark baby right now. Cool.

What isn’t cool are the pregnancy symptoms you may be experiencing.

You have extra progesterone pumping through you right now. It’s pretty important (hence the name that essentially means “pro gestating”) because it helps maintain the lining of your uterus, suppresses ovulation during pregnancy, stimulates the growth of breast tissue, and relaxes your uterus muscles so you don’t have early contractions, just to name a few.

The downside is that it also makes you retain water so you look puffy, it helps relax all your muscles so you get heartburn and constipated easily, it makes your gums bleed, and it kicks your sweat gland into overdrive so you sweat like a fat man in August which may also lead to zits.

Good times.

Just keep thinking about your wicked, cool shark baby!

Love you baby - Me

Hooray, your baby has paddles and a tail! No, that’s a good thing because the paddles become arms and legs and the tail becomes a tailbone. Your baby’s skeletal structure is almost fully formed and made up of cartilage – like a shark. So you’re carrying a bad-ass shark baby right now. Cool.

What isn’t cool are the pregnancy symptoms you may be experiencing.

You have extra progesterone pumping through you right now. It’s pretty important (hence the name that essentially means “pro gestating”) because it helps maintain the lining of your uterus, suppresses ovulation during pregnancy, stimulates the growth of breast tissue, and relaxes your uterus muscles so you don’t have early contractions, just to name a few.

The downside is that it also makes you retain water so you look puffy, it helps relax all your muscles so you get heartburn and constipated easily, it makes your gums bleed, and it kicks your sweat gland into overdrive so you sweat like a fat man in August which may also lead to zits.

Good times.

Just keep thinking about your wicked, cool shark baby!
- See more at: http://www.pregnantchicken.com/pregnant?tag=Week+07#sthash.1nU3nB4E.dpuf

Hooray, your baby has paddles and a tail! No, that’s a good thing because the paddles become arms and legs and the tail becomes a tailbone. Your baby’s skeletal structure is almost fully formed and made up of cartilage – like a shark. So you’re carrying a bad-ass shark baby right now. Cool.

What isn’t cool are the pregnancy symptoms you may be experiencing.

You have extra progesterone pumping through you right now. It’s pretty important (hence the name that essentially means “pro gestating”) because it helps maintain the lining of your uterus, suppresses ovulation during pregnancy, stimulates the growth of breast tissue, and relaxes your uterus muscles so you don’t have early contractions, just to name a few.

The downside is that it also makes you retain water so you look puffy, it helps relax all your muscles so you get heartburn and constipated easily, it makes your gums bleed, and it kicks your sweat gland into overdrive so you sweat like a fat man in August which may also lead to zits.

Good times.

Just keep thinking about your wicked, cool shark baby!
- See more at: http://www.pregnantchicken.com/pregnant?tag=Week+07#sthash.1nU3nB4E.dpuf

Hooray, your baby has paddles and a tail! No, that’s a good thing because the paddles become arms and legs and the tail becomes a tailbone. Your baby’s skeletal structure is almost fully formed and made up of cartilage – like a shark. So you’re carrying a bad-ass shark baby right now. Cool.

What isn’t cool are the pregnancy symptoms you may be experiencing.

You have extra progesterone pumping through you right now. It’s pretty important (hence the name that essentially means “pro gestating”) because it helps maintain the lining of your uterus, suppresses ovulation during pregnancy, stimulates the growth of breast tissue, and relaxes your uterus muscles so you don’t have early contractions, just to name a few.

The downside is that it also makes you retain water so you look puffy, it helps relax all your muscles so you get heartburn and constipated easily, it makes your gums bleed, and it kicks your sweat gland into overdrive so you sweat like a fat man in August which may also lead to zits.

Good times.

Just keep thinking about your wicked, cool shark baby!
- See more at: http://www.pregnantchicken.com/pregnant?tag=Week+07#sthash.1nU3nB4E.dpuf