10 Weeks!

This week actually went by very quickly! My best friend had her baby on Monday and it was my birthday on Tuesday.  Between all of the driving to go see the new baby and meeting friends and family for bday dinners I was suddenly 10 weeks pregnant!  I feel like Im going to jinx myself but so far no spotting this entire week!!!  Im crossing my fingers that it lasts throughout the weekend and if so, maybe its a sign that my body is getting ready to transition in the 2nd tri in the next couple (ok 4 :( ) weeks and is not being so sensitive!  I hope these nexts couple of weeks continue to move quickly as I don't have my next ultrasound/dr's appt till Im 13wks 4 days and that seems forever away, ha!

10 week update - Prune!
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. Your baby's forehead temporarily bulges with his developing brain and sits very high on his head, which measures half the length of his body. From crown to rump, he's about 1 1/4 inches long. In the coming weeks, your baby will again double in size — to nearly 3 inches.

It looks like a baby!

We had our 9 week appt on Friday July 22nd.  This was the first appt Brett was able to attend for both pregnancies so I was pretty excited!  Baby is measuring right on for 9 weeks, has a heartbeat of 182 bpm so everything is looking great!  I like to call the babe "Baby TRex" because of this photo and how disproportionate its arms are to its head :)

We got to see a tiny bit of movement as Baby T waved his arm a bit and did a couple of head nods...or as I told Brett he was practicing his head banging ;).  It still seems a little surreal and I hope that someday soon I can really enjoy this pregnancy and not be worried about what might happen next!

9 week update - Grape!
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.

its got arms and legs!!

I had a scare today, I started having some spotting last night and it continued this morning.  I called the nurse and asked if I could be seen and she set me up for an ultrasound in the afternoon.  I know spotting is "ok" but I had a small clot pass and I completely freaked out.  The ultrasound turned out to be positive.  Little bean has a head and arm/leg buds.  Its little heart was pumping away at 165 bpm and I was actually able to hear it this time!  The u/s tech and my doctor both seemed very positive about such a good scan as development was spot on, but of course if there is any bleeding its considered a "threatened abortion" so I'm trying to take it easy. *Update* The spotting has stopped! Yay!  Im still taking it easy and one day at a time, I just really hope no more spotting occurs!!  My Dr put me on progesteron suppliments so I don't know if that helped at all but I will be on them for the next 4 weeks, hopefully everything will be smooth sailing from here on out!

8 week update - Raspberry!
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.

Updates!

I didn't realized how long its been since I've last updated!  How quickly that time flies, but how in real life weeks drag on and on!  I'll try to update the best I can :)

After the last blood draws, I was a bit disappointed with my numbers so I called my Drs office and spoke with my nurse (who is absolutely great!).  She said I could come in and get another blood draw if I'd like to calm my nerves so I headed in on Wednesday, June 22nd for another HCG draw.  Since it was more than 48 hours I was hoping for my numbers to be somewhere around 400 (133x2 (48 hr double), then 266x1.5 (additional day "doubling") but I got an excellent surprise of a 582 result.  I finally felt relief :)

5 week update - Sesame Seed!
He looks more like a tiny tadpole than a human. He's now made up of three layers — the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm — which will later form all of his organs and tissues.
The neural tube — from which your baby's brain, spinal cord, nerves, and backbone will sprout — is starting to develop in the top layer, called the ectoderm. This layer will also give rise to his skin, hair, nails, mammary and sweat glands, and tooth enamel.
His heart and circulatory system begin to form in the middle layer, or mesoderm. (This week, in fact, his tiny heart begins to divide into chambers and beat and pump blood.) The mesoderm will also form your baby's muscles, cartilage, bone, and subcutaneous (under skin) tissue.
The third layer, or endoderm, will house his lungs, intestines, and rudimentary urinary system, as well as his thyroid, liver, and pancreas. In the meantime, the primitive placenta and umbilical cord, which deliver nourishment and oxygen to your baby, are already on the job (taken from babycenter.com).

Friday, July 1st-  My first ultrasound!!

I took my mom with me to my first ultrasound, 6 weeks based off of my LMP, since Brett wasn't able to get off of work to come with me.  I was so nervous I woke up at 3:30 am and wasn't able to fall back asleep!  Luckily my appt was at 8:45 so I didn't have to sit around anxious the entire day.  We had decided that my mom would just come pick me up and we'd drive to the appt together since she'd have to basically drive past my house on the way to the Drs.  In my mom's true fashion I get a call at 8:15 (the time she was supposed to be arriving at my house) telling me that she's running late and she is just leaving home (about a 1/2 hr away).  The Drs office is luckily pretty close to my house and only takes about 10 min to get to so I decide to just wait for her and we'd still drive together.  Being late for the appt actually cut down a lot of the downtime sitting in the waiting room so we were called back to the u/s room shortly after arriving.  I got all settled in and made sure mom stayed behind my head the entire time (since it was a transvaginal :)) and we started.  Almost immediately I saw a blinking on the screen, little beans heart just pumping away at 105 bpm!  We weren't able to hear it quite yet but were able to measure the sound waves from the doppler.  I felt immediate relief, then I got a little nervous when the tech said that the babe seemed to only be measuring somewhere around 5weeks 2days instead of my 6 weeks.  She kept repeating that this was perfectly normal and not to be concerned but of course I still worry a little bit about it.  During ultrasounds they also look at your ovaries and measure and make sure everything looks good there too...turns out I'm ultra fertile as the tech put it and she said "I can't believe I'm only looking at only 1 baby in there", guess I have a good chance of twins based on how many follicles both of my ovaries have.  I'm going to keep my due date until my next u/s appt July 22nd just in case little bean wants to catchup in growth so I'll provide the 6 week and 7 week information below.

6 week update - Lentil!
This week's major developments: The nose, mouth, and ears that you'll spend so much time kissing in eight months are beginning to take shape. If you could see into your uterus, you'd find an oversize head and dark spots where your baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His emerging ears are marked by small depressions on the sides of the head, and his arms and legs by protruding buds. His heart is beating about 100 to 160 times a minute — almost twice as fast as yours — and blood is beginning to course through his body. His intestines are developing, and the bud of tissue that will give rise to his lungs has appeared. His pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of his brain, muscles, and bones. Right now, your baby is a quarter of an inch long, about the size of a lentil. (babycenter.com)

7 week update - Blueberry!
The big news this week: Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs — although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities you're daydreaming about holding and tickling. 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.
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.(babycenter.com)

I did have some brown spotting on Thurs, July 7th.  But only during the afternoon and it hasn't come back.  I went in to the Drs on Friday to get a blood draw and my HCG was up to 66,606!!  Hopefully it was nothing since it only lasted a couple of hours but still got me pretty worked up.  I cannot wait until the u/s on the 22nd, I want to see a wiggling baby and a strong heartbeat especially since this will be Brett's first one!