10 wks (1d)

It's ten weeks!! I'm a little late (again) but my company excuse still stands. I've had a fabulously full week. Last week I talked about how my cousin and her husband were in town for the weekend, but right after they left my sister, K, came up to spend a few days with me. We mostly hung out at my house since I was (still) getting over my cold but on Tuesday we went to Downtown Disney to meet up with my cousin for dinner and drinks (for everyone but me) , but then she left Wednesday. Which was perfect timing because Wednesday was my first class!! Our doctor's office offers an Early Pregnancy class and signed us up for it and it was really interesting. The Doctor and Nurse who put it on were very informative as well as entertaining. Best of all it served the purpose of (once again) reminding me that I'm pregnant and my jeans aren't fitting for a reason. Since in these days I'm so rarely nauseous that any reminders of all that make me feel pregnant are so welcome. Thursday was also super exciting because I got to meet up with a good friend and former coworker of mine who is in her second trimester and tell her I was pregnant too!! It's really exciting to be pregnant with someone I know and feel comfortable with who lives in the same city as me. She's only about a month and a half ahead of me so it's still close enough that I feel like I have a partner in crime with this all and it was so refreshing to be able to walk around the mall with our caffeine free fraps and compare symptoms and discuss nursery designs and clothes and our inability to get comfortable. I came home feeling really happy - and really pregnant. Then Friday I had my cousin back! We made pizza and played Apples 2 Apples and I had the worst night's sleep of my life.

But I'll get into that later! The important thing is that Bebe is now 1¼", and roughly the size of a kumquat (see side image). A lot of sites say "prune" but I don't want to compare my baby to a prune. Eww. Other people were saying "walnut" but I'm not quite sold on that. You can use walnut if you, like K, have visceral shudders at the name "kumquat" but seeing as I have actually eaten this fruit before (the skin tastes sweet, like inside an orange, and the inside is sour, like a lemon, so it's a neat contrast) I have no qualms with it and will continue to refer to it this week as Kumquat. Moving on! The most exciting thing is Bebe is no longer an embryo!! We are now officially a Fetus. This feels like a big deal to me and I am excited about it since, apparently according to the internet, the most critical period of development has passed. It's also been three weeks since my 7 weeks appointment where I

was diagnosed with the subchorionic hematoma and told it would dissipate in 3-4 weeks! Friday (4 weeks since) I will have my next ultrasound and be able to see for sure if I can breathe again but since these last 3 weeks were so critical for me and I'm feeling fine and have had no sign of bleeding, my hopes are high. Bebe is also a busy little fetus right now! Swallowing is possible, even though it's just fluid, and kicking is the name of the game as it paddles around inside my uterus (which has gone from the size of a small pear to the size of a grapefruit). All of the vital organs (including the kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver [which is now making red blood cells in place of the yolk sack which is slowly but surely disappearing]) are in place and beginning to function, though they still have a long way to go to getting to their full potential. The growing brain is causing Bebe's forehead to bulge for the moment and the head makes up half of the body length! In other physicalities, it's all about the little details that are making up Bebe this week. Peach fuzz is starting to sprout over the skin and teeny tiny fingernails are beginning to form on fingers and toes that aren't webbed anymore! Speaking of unwebbed limbs, they can now bend at the little indents which will turn into knees and elbows!

As for me, symptoms haven't changed much. The smell of fish and smoked meats make me shudder and all I want to eat are yogurt and clementines and the occasional toasted bread with something. I feel exhausted all the time, but naps are apparently the bane of my existence. Whenever I take them I am completely unable to sleep at night. Last night was a fantastic example, for instance. I went to bed around 10:30 and ended up tossing and turning until midnight and then waking up to pee around 2 and finding sleep to be out of the question. So I read a book, ate some yogurt, and finished the book. By the time my cousin and her husband left for the airport and my husband left for work I was finally tired again and fell asleep around 9 but woke up around 1pm and was fully awake. With any luck I'll sleep tonight because I have a pool party to go to at my step-sister's! I got some nausea last night that helped with the not sleeping, but after I ate some yogurt my stomach calmed down. Buttoning my jeans is a far distant memory that I will fondly miss and my waist is quickly losing shape. My boobs? They're bigger. And I finally feel like I'm related to the rest of the girls in my family. Yesterday I was just this pile of bloat and was having the worst gas bubble pains that finally dissipated after drinking three straight glasses of water. Today - aside from being exhausted - I am doing all right. Famished, but that's par for the course these days since I can rarely find foods that are filling and substantial that seem appetizing to me. I'm really crossing my fingers that in 3 weeks when I leave this trimester food will return to being enjoyable to me! But the real thing I'm excited about? Seeing Bebe on Friday.