7 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

I am 7 weeks pregnant today. You are a 5 week-old bean. You are the size of a small blueberry. You have arms and legs and soon will have hands and feet. Your brain is growing, your eyes have color, and you have an appendix, a pancreas, and intestines. You have lots of human parts, little bean, but you still look like an alien. Or a manatee.

You doubled in size this week, little bean. And I could tell. To say I have been "tired" would be like saying the ocean is "big." I feel as if I could sleep for three weeks. I fight to keep my eyes open at work, and sometimes I loose that fight. I go to bed before 10:00 pm and have a hard time getting up by 8:00 am. I spent the weekend with your Aunt Lyndsey in Sacramento, and felt terribly that the only thing I could muster the energy to do was recline on her couch and watch movies. (But I also partially blame this on the fact that your Aunt Lyndsey has the most comfortable couch my bum has ever sat upon.)

New this week were the first inklings of morning sickness. If my stomach gets all the way empty, I feel nauseated. But if I eat a full-sized meal, I feel nauseated. So if I can manage to keep a slow, steady stream of food entering my body throughout the day, I pretty much feel normal. Also new this week: ADVENTURES IN HEARTBURN! I have never suffered from heartburn before, and so I had no idea just how annoying it is! Eating makes it worse, of course, but I have to eat to keep from feeling sick. And it mostly hits at night, just as I'm laying down to sleep, of course. I try to sleep on an incline, but that hasn't happened yet. I suppose this is when overwhelming fatigue comes in handy, because thus far I have been so tired that I can fall asleep despite the heartburn.

But by far the most exciting occurrence this week: yesterday Shane and I saw your heartbeat. Tiny and fast. Like a gnat flapping its wings. We also confirmed that you are a "you" and not a "them." (We breathed a collective sigh of relief about this; I was terrified you were three beans, we would have been okay with two, but one was our number of choice.) I no longer think you are a figment of my imagination, little bean, because I have seen you. You are real. And although the following image shows nothing even remotely baby-like, Nurse Practitioner Missy assured us it is indeed a picture of the bean in my belly.


Love,
Suzanne