Milestones.

I am now 7 weeks pregnant.  I am SO SO blessed to be here.  I never made it to 7 weeks last time, as I miscarried before I reached that point.  It feels so good to be 7 weeks and know things are completely different from last time.  I have seen my little bean's heartbeat and know that my risk of miscarriage is less than 5%!  It is still hard to keep spotting and not worry.  I know my doctor said to expect it, but I don't like it one bit and am just praying that it all resolves itself and isn't going to get worse.


But still - I am so thankful, because here we are at 7 weeks!!  I have started feeling nauseous this past week.  I think that "morning sickness" should be called "whenever-it-feels-like-coming sickness".  The mornings are typically when I feel the best.  Usually come afternoon and evening, I feel totally rotten.  I have a love-hate relationship with food right now as well.  I feel sick when I'm hungry and I feel sick when I eat... and I need to eat, but the food aversions are awful so I am on a diet of string cheese and bananas these days (the only thing that sounds remotely good).  Not really - I am eating more, but only because I know I have to.  And the fatigue!  Usually come 1-2pm I hit a wall and am totally wiped out.  All of this to say, I am not complaining... these are the very symptoms I have been praying for, because I didn't have ANY of this my last pregnancy that ended in miscarriage.  It is a sign that something good is happening and my body is changing like crazy.

What's going on this week:

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.

{I promise the baby will get cuter.}