8 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

This week you are truly a bean! The size of a kidney bean! You are six weeks old and I am eight weeks pregnant. You have webbed fingers and webbed toes poking out of your hands and feet. You have eyelids, breathing tubes connecting throat to lungs, primitive neural pathways, and your tail is just about gone. (Huzzah!) You are constantly moving and shifting around in my uterus, but I can't feel you yet. You will have to get a bit bigger yet for that.

This has been a rough week, little bean. I have officially joined the legions of pregnant women who suffer from morning sickness. Two is the number of times I threw up in my garbage can at work. Countless is the number of times I have gagged and dry heaved all over the greater Fresno area. The only consistent remedy I have found is to eat whatever sounds good whenever it sounds good. And, yes, this resulted in Shane and I making an emergency run to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients for a ham dinner with all the fixings... mustard sauce, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole... it was random and delicious and kept me from feeling sick for two whole days.

Work has been exceptionally busy this week, little bean, and so I have not been as obsessed with you as usual. I was also called to be the Gospel Doctrine co-teacher in our ward, so I don't suppose I will be able to continue pouring over my pregnancy books and consulting Dr. Google on an hourly basis as I have been. I suppose this will be good for you and me in the long run... obsessive compulsive behavior is generally frowned upon and crazy pregnant women are never taken seriously...

Love,
Suzanne