Most Recent Belly Pic

Here's a pic Steve took this morning of my belly. Sorry I look yucky. I don't have make up on yet! So, deal w/ it! :)

Here's how Beans is growing this week...

Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed. Her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under her gums, and some of her bones are beginning to harden. She's already busy kicking and stretching, and her tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as her body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won't feel your baby's acrobatics for another month or two -- nor will you notice the hiccupping that may be happening now that her diaphragm is forming.

Have a great Weekend!!!!

{M}

Beanie's Most Recent Photo

How cute is little Beanie?! Sooo cute & soooo tiny! :) If you look closely, right above the right "x" mark, you can see A FOOT! That's the foot I saw moving during the ultrasound!

Some days when I'm feeling miserable all I have to do is just look at this little picture and everything seems so worth it.

I thought this was almost over?

Just when I thought my tiredness was phasing out as I get closer to week 12, today I sit at work feeling like I've been up all night long.

Yesterday wasn't such a great day either. I stayed home from work. When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt REALLY queasy, and quite honestly, tired. I decided, you know what, I'm pregnant...work isn't that important, giving my body what it needs is important. So I slept in until 10:00. It felt great...but by 3:00 I was ready for another nap. And by 9:00, I was ready for bed.

I've really been looking forward to week 12. It's the end of my first trimester, and the beginning of my second. I hear good things about the second trimester. So, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to having more energy, not feeling queasy, and just enjoying being pregnant. Most days, I am able to enjoy it. I try not to take any little cramp, muscle ache, sore boob, sleepyness, or just plain sickness for granted. I'm thankful that I'm pregnant...some days I just wish it weren't so hard.

Okay, so, I just have to say, I'm REALLY excited about lunch today. I'm craving McDonalds in the worst way. I'm going to get a McChicken, fries, and probably a vanilla shake. I can't wait. It sounds sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. : ) **Licking Lips**

My Most Recent Appointment

Steve & I had an appointment on Tuesday, August 18th. We went in for another ultrasound & just to meet with our doctor and ask her any questions we might have. I was kind of nervous for the ultrasound. I've heard of women having ultrasounds early, seeing at heartbeat and then at their next one, the baby had died. I was afraid that was going to happen to me, but thankfully we heard a really healthy heart beat (170 beats per minute) and our baby had grown sooooo much!

She/He is 2.5 cm long, and looks perfect! I had read at 8 weeks the baby starts to move around. I had been praying I would get to see the baby move on the ultrasound, and sure enough...Beans moved 3 different times! The first time I didn't see because I didn't know what I was looking for really. The 2nd time, I saw it's left foot kick up in the air and the 3rd time, it's whole body moved. It was the weirdest/coolest thing I have ever seen in my whole life. It was weird to know that it was moving around inside of me, but I couldn't feel it. I can't wait until I can start feeling those kicks!

After our ultrasound, we went over to my doctor's office. They weighed me and to be honest, I was sure I'd gained like 5 lbs since my last appointment three weeks ago. Nope, I was wrong. Turns out, I've only gained 2 lbs in 3 weeks and 4 lbs total since I found out I was pregnant. Not too shabby, huh? My belly has gone down a bit, I think it was mostly bloating. I still have one, however, it doesn't seem as big as it was. Maybe it is, I don't know? I need to take a picture and post it. I'll do that tonight.

Anyway, today is officially 10 weeks! HAPPY 10 WEEKS TO ME! :)

Here's what's happening this week.... Though he's barely the size of a kumquat — a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby has now completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature.He's swallowing fluid and kicking up a storm. Vital organs — including his kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver (now making red blood cells in place of the disappearing yolk sac) — are in place and starting to function, though they'll continue to develop throughout your pregnancy.

If you could take a peek inside your womb, you'd spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.In other developments: Your baby's limbs can bend now. His hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. The outline of his spine is clearly visible through translucent skin, and spinal nerves are beginning to stretch out from his spinal cord.

How Beans is Growing: 9 Weeks

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. 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.

Chicken Noodle Soup with a Soda on the Side

Oh my gosh, Chicken Noodle Soup is TOTALLY a God send for me right now.

Some days it's so hard to think about eating, much less getting anything nutritional down. Today was one of those days. Some days I can think of something that will sound KIND OF good to me and while on my way to getting it or making it, I start praying that it won't all of a sudden sound repulsive to me. (It's been known to happen)

Well, today I was wondering what to have for lunch. After reading the menu for the cafeteria downstairs, I started feeling a little queasy. Uh, no thanks. I don't really want to eat Creamed Turkey & Cornbread or a Chili Cheese Dog. I'm already having enough digestive problems as it is. PASS!

I was almost in tears at the thought of lunch. I was so hungry, but yet nothing sounded good to me. Then all of a sudden....chicken noodle soup. I ran over to Gerbes...more like my loving and wonderful husband drove me over there and I picked up some soups to keep at work for days just like today. So, here I'm sittin' eating Campbell's Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup. And oh man, am I lovin' it.

Feelin' Like Crap

Boo for feeling bad.

I'm so tired today. I really don't know how I'm going to make it through the day without falling asleep at my desk. Maybe a mid-day Pepsi will help.

Yesterday I took the day off. I wasn't feeling bad, I just needed to rest. I slept in until 9:30, not nearly as late as I would've liked, but oh well. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I'll wake up and my back will hurt, I'll wake up and my boobs will hurt, I'll wake up and Izzy's paws will be in my lower back, I'll wake up & think WTF kind of dream was that?

My dreams have been super weird lately. Take last night for instance, I dreamt that I was dating Ron Weasley (yes, from Harry Potter) and that we were buying a house. Well, I'm down in the basement and he comes down yelling at me to get in the car. So, we run upstairs to the car (which is a red Audi, by the way) and he starts driving like a madman throughout the neighborhood. Turns out, we were being chased by Muggles (aka humans). They had found out we were wizards & wanted to run us out of the neighborhood. As we're driving around, we get out of the car because we see Harry & Hermoine and we start running w/ them. Everyone else from the Wizard world (all the people I remember from the movies) is suddenly in our neighborhood & we're all running from the Muggles. Ron, Harry & I are hiding behind this wall & one of the Muggle's who's trying to get us, comes around the corner & I try to snap her wand...(even though Muggles don't have wands) well...I accidentally snap Ron's wand instead of hers...but Harry does a quick fix & says "Repairo!" Ron just looks and me and rolls his eyes. Whoops! :)

Eventually someone conjures up Gilderoy Lockheart and that scared the Muggles away. Thank God. I was getting tired of running. : )

And that is only the beginning of my weird dreams.

I think my gag reflex is heightened times 10. Everytime I brush my teeth, I gag. Even when I'm not brushing my tongue. It's like when I'm brushing my front teeth...there I go, gagging all over the place. When I take my vitamins, it's espescially bad. It's so bad that once I threw up water & vitamins. : / Sad. I dread taking them anymore. But I know it's something I need to do.

I had a splitting headache last night. I'm not sure if it's from hormones or from sleeping weird lately. I just know that I was not happy last night. I was miserable. I cried myself to sleep because I was in so much pain. Finally, I got my little flax seed pillow heated up (Thanks, Steve!) and that relieved some of the pain. Not nearly as much as I would've liked, but I'll take what I can get.

Hopefully I'll start feeling better today. And HOPEFULLY my headache won't come back. That would be nice.

{m}

Shopping & Sickness

Last night my mom & I went to the mall to look for some baby stuff. She had heard that Sears was having a sale on their maternity clothes, which they were, but they didn't have anything good.

So, off we went to Motherhood, Target, and JC Pennys. While we were at Pennys, we ran into a sale on some baby clothes. My mom, being the eternial optimist decides I'm going to have a girl and starts picking baby clothes off the rack. She told me she couldn't pass it up since they were on such a great sale. So, we ended up walking out of Pennys with $80 worth of baby girl clothes. Thankfully, they have a 90 day return policy & I should find out before then what I'm having. If I'm having a boy, she'll have plenty of time to return all the little girl clothes she bought. :)

I do have to admit, I think I'm having a boy, but seeing all those little girl clothes really made me want a girl even more now. I've always wanted a girl...3 girls in fact. For some reason I just think it would be fun to have 3 girls. I don't know why. That's just what I've always wanted...ever since I was little.

I ended up finding a maternity jean skirt which I figured would be a good purchase. I can wear it now with sandals, in the fall with my Topsiders, and in the winter with my Uggs. I should get some good use out of it.

I think I've made it to the point of morning sickness. Except for me, it's more like, afternoon until I got to bed sickness. I generally start feeling nautious after lunch & it continues until I go to bed. It comes in waves & let me tell you...it's NOT FUN. I haven't thrown up yet, but some days I wish I could. I think it might make me feel better!

My next ultrasound is August 18th. I can't wait! I'll be 10 weeks along. I'm anxious to see how much Beans will have grown by then. It's amazing how fast they grow.

I took a picture of my belly last night. The sad thing is, none of it is baby. Since my torso is so freaking short and my uterus is growing, it's pushing all my organs up & out...so, that's really what my belly is....organs. Great. Eventually, my lower belly (above my pubic bone) will start to poke out. That's currently where Beans is livin'. So, here's a pic.

Here's a picture that we got from the Ultrasound. I know it's kind of hard to make out, but that big thing that looks like an alien head is not Beans' head. I think it's the amniotic sac that Beans will eventually live in. Right now, he/she isn't connected to me by an umbilical cord just yet. They're still attached to my cervix, which is where implantation occurs. So, Beans is actually that little white smidge underneath the alien head looking thing. And if you can see, the brighter white spot on Beans is his/her heart! :)

Baby of Mine

July 8th, 2009. I'll never forget that evening. That's the evening I found out that Steve and I were expecting. Waves of emotion washed over me. Excitement, disbelief, amazement, worry, fear....

I was excited because of the obvious. We had been trying and finally! We were pregnant!

I was feeling disbelief because I had just told Steve if we didn't get pregnant that month, I wanted to take a break for a couple months then start trying again. I just couldn't believe I was actually pregnant. I kept looking at the test to make sure it said "yes", and sure enough, it kept saying "yes".

I was amazed at how fast I got pregnant after my miscarriage. I thought for sure it would take us a long time afterwards. I was afraid my body would take a while to get back in order again, but apparently, it only took it about a month!

And obviously, I was worried and afraid because of what happened in May. May 5th, 2009. Another date I will never forget. It was the most miserable day of my life. I was 5 weeks pregnant, and ended up losing our baby. It was the most helpless feeling in the world. I just had to lay down on the couch all evening and let it happen. I could hardly get up and walk around because my back hurt so bad, so there I lay....in a ball on the couch crying until my cries became dry heaves because I had no more tears left. That was probably one of the darkest times in my life. 

I was really not myself after it happened. I just kind of withdrew from everything. I couldn't really communicate how I was feeling. I could hardly even talk to Steve about it. I just wanted to pretend like it never happened. Normally, I am one to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I just tried to be tough & act like I wasn't hurting, but in reality, I'd never been hurting so badly.

I thought it would get easier as time went on, but in reality, it got harder. At first, I think I was just in schock. I hadn't really comprehended that I was even pregnant. It was hard for me to grasp that. I just couldn't picture myself as a mom. It just felt like a dream. As time went on, I was just really sad about losing a baby. I mean, I felt like it was my fault. Through my miscarriage, we found out that my blood type is O- RH-, so that means, that since Steve is RH+ then we will have RH+ babies...well, when RH + and RH - blood intermix, the person with RH- blood type (Me) will create antibodies against the RH+ positive baby and "get rid of it" essentially. So, I don't know if the baby wasn't developing right or if our blood mixed and my body fought the baby off. Whatever it is, I just felt like it was my fault.

Eventually, I just got pissed whenever I thought about it. I've never wanted to do anything in the whole world as badly as I've wanted to be a mom. When I was little I played house 24/7. I was always a "stay at home mom". That's all I've ever wanted to do! So, when I was pregnant, it felt like my dreams were coming true...I was close to having my "dream job", but then it just got taken away from me. I was FURIOUS! I would get so mad whenever I would see pregnant girls out in public or hear of teenage moms without husbands to help them raise their child. My thoughts were, "We have the finances to raise a baby, we have a house, I have a loving husband, we WANT this baby!" Why did it get taken away from me? ME OF ALL PEOPLE?! Life just wasn't fair.

But, life took a turn for the better. And I am soooo in love with my little baby. I am so excited about becoming a mom.

Steve and I got to see "Beans" (the baby) last Thursday. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Beans doesn't really look like a baby but more like a tadpole type thing. Haha! It's still adorable. And I can't wait to see him/her and give him/her tons of kisses and lots of hugs! We heard Beans' heart beat. I do have to say, that was one of the most breathtaking things I've ever experienced. Just to know that even though it's only 8 weeks old and the size of a blueberry, it has a heart beat....and that Steve & I MADE it! That's the coolest part! 

I have another ultrasound next week and I'm looking forward to it. I wish I could just have an ultrasound once a week. I just want to spend as much time staring at Beans as I can. I look at my ultrasound pictures a lot.

Tomorrow I will be 8 weeks. I look forward to Wednesdays now since that's when my "week" is. Every Wednesday I'm a week further along. Here's how Baby Beans is growing this week.

New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl. Either way, your baby — about the size of a kidney bean — is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can't feel it.

I can't believe the baby can MOVE!!!!!! How nuts is that?!