12 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

You are 10 weeks old and I am 12 weeks pregnant. (That's three months, little bean! We made it!) You are the size of a lime. You now have reflexes: you can open and close your fists, kick, curl your toes, suck, and squirm around in response to being poked and prodded. Your brain is furiously building synapses and your face now looks unquestionably human. (More good news for Shane!)

This week has been more of the same, little bean: woozy mornings, late evenings at work, baby bump expansion, lots of cold cereal, and lots of mac 'n cheese. (I've added Gatorade to the list of foods I can eat without wanting to die, so at least we're hydrated, little bean.)

Yesterday I heard your heartbeat. It was a strong and loud 160 bmp, just what it should be. The doctor couldn't find it at first (which induced maybe the shortest panic attack I've ever had) because it was higher than he thought. Which might explain the abnormally early baby bump... you're just riding high, little bean!

We are not keeping you a secret any longer, little bean. This has garnered many congratulations, and also many (useless) (and annoying) suggestions to help with morning sickness. If I'm told one more time to eat Saltines before I get out of bed in the morning, I will punch that person in the nose. And I won't even blame it on the pregnancy hormones.

Love,
Suzanne

11 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

Today I turn eleven weeks pregnant and you turn nine weeks old. You are just over an inch and a half long, as big as a fig. Your bones are beginning to harden and tiny tooth buds are forming underneath your gums. Soon you will be able to open and close your fists. Your skin is transparent, and if we could see you, we'd also be able to see all your teeny blood vessels. You are hiccuping and kicking and stretching and performing all kind of other underwater acrobatics, but I can't feel you yet. (What a happy day that will be, little bean!)

This week has been the roughest yet, little bean. I have felt so very nauseated almost every morning. For the past few days I have not been able to make it into work until sometime between 10 and noon, which means I have to stay later into the evening. The only things I've been able to stand eating are cold cereal and mac 'n cheese. I worry that I'm not providing you with proper nutrition, but all the books and Dr. Google say just to make it through the first trimester as best you can, and worry about all that later. So that's what I'm doing.

(Also, the books lie. They say I should be starting to feel better and have more energy right about now, but it's been just the opposite. Things have been declining rapidly...)

I think I have decided that the baby bump is indeed a baby bump. I don't know how or why it got so noticeable so fast and so early, but there it is. I am down to just a few wardrobe choices and it will be to the maternity section of Target with me very soon. I think this also means we'll have to make this pregnancy completely public very soon, because there isn't any hiding it for very much longer.

Shane has been very patient with me and my pregnancy woes. He has been a champion about meeting my every food-whim, rubbing my belly when I feel like throwing-up, and playing with my hair/stroking my arm/massaging my back when I can't get comfortable enough to fall asleep at night. He has also been a good sport about handling the dog/cat food and loading the dirty dishes, two things that make me woozy 100% of the time. I think you'll like Shane, little bean. He takes good care of us.

Love,
Suzanne

P.S. When Dad heard how nauseated I was this week, and that I was cutting lemons in half and licking them as a last resort in relief, he quickly made me this:

I think you'll like your grandpa, too, little bean. We are very lucky ducks, aren't we?

10 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

Congratulations, little bean! You have graduated from the embryonic stage to the fetal stage! Next step, gen-u-ine baby! But for now, you are eight weeks old and the size of a kumquat. You have all your teeny tiny parts, and for the rest of the pregnancy they will grow rapidly and mature. Some of your vital organs -- kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver -- have started to function. Your spinal cord is forming and your head accounts for half your body length. (That's because it holds your huge, burgeoning brain, little bean.)

This weekend Shane and I worked at the Viva el Mariachi! Workshops and Festival. If you want to know how to make me the crankiest I've ever been, get me 9 1/2 weeks pregnant and then make me get up at 5:30 am and work for 13 hours. It was a long, exhausting weekend, and I'm glad it's over. (Shane is glad it's over, too. I'm not kidding when I say I was cranky, little bean!) I had Monday off and I slept for 18 HOURS! I had no idea a human being was capable of such a thing! I think even as a sleepy-headed teenager the longest I pulled was 12 hours. My body must be doing very important things if it's using so much energy!

Nausea continues, on and off with no rhyme or reason. My only reliable tactic remains eating whatever sounds whenever it sounds good, and Shane remains a good sport with emergency trips to the grocery store. If the cashiers at SaveMart haven't figured out by now that his wife is pregnant, they are very dumb indeed.

Jury's still out as to whether I'm sporting an actual baby bump. I haven't gained any weight but my belly remains stubbornly pooched. I maintain that it's a migration/rearrangement of fat, but Shane insists that it's you. (I have explained to him 57 times that neither you nor my uterus are anywhere near the protrusion, but he remains unconvinced.) It would make me feel better if I could feel my uterus through my belly like all the books and Jacquie says I should be able to, but let's be honest, little bean, I have no idea what I'm feeling for or exactly where I should be feeling for it. It just feels like I'm massaging and squishing my belly fat all around, which is not a good feeling, so I haven't tried for very hard or very long. I'll just wait till you make my uterus a little bigger and more pronounced. Okay, little bean?

Love,
Suzanne

9 weeks.

Dear bean in my belly,

Yesterday I turned nine weeks pregnant and you turned seven weeks old. You are the size of a grape. All your essential body parts are accounted for, although they will need to ripen up quite a bit yet. (That's what the next 6 months, 3 weeks are for.) You have external sex organs, but we won't be able to see them for another few months. So your whether you are a little girl bean or a little boy bean remains shrouded in mystery. Your little face is starting to take shape: you have eyes underneath eyelids that are fused shut, you have tiny earlobes (my favorite part!), and your mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. But the best news yet: your embryonic tail is completely gone! Shane will be so happy! (He was not a fan of the tail.)

This week was a bit easier than last. A bit -- a few bad days, a few good days, a few bad days instead of seven bad days. This weekend Shane and I will be working at the Viva el Mariachi! Festival, and the preparations already have me exhausted. I don't have as much responsibility as past years, but right now, any responsibility feels like too much responsibility. I am inexpressibly grateful that Shane will be there throughout the weekend to carry me along, figuratively and perhaps literally. It wouldn't happen otherwise, and the workshops would have to organize themselves.

This week my body began to let me know that perhaps something is going on inside of it. My breasts have not yet quadrupled in size, but they are definitely not the breasts of 9 weeks ago. This Sunday I wore a favorite skirt of mine, and I discovered that: a) it was uncomfortably snug and b) I have the first inklings of a baby bump. Not big enough to make anyone thing I'm pregnant, but probably big enough to make everyone think I've gained a few pounds. That's what makes me wonder, though... I haven't gained any weight. Yet. My body is just shifting and morphing and making room for you, little bean. It amazes me that such a small little life could change my body so much already.

Tuesday I had my first appointment with my regular ob/gyn. After our last ultrasound with Nurse Practitioner Missy, she told us that she has done her job and it's time to treat this pregnancy like any other. Since the first appointment with the ob/gyn is to "confirm pregnancy" (for them, I guess... I'm already pretty certain you're there, little bean), they performed another ultrasound. You still don't look human, although you are less blob-like than two weeks ago. You are changing so rapidly, soon I won't even be able to call you my little bean.


Love,
Suzanne