Week 12

It’s hard to believe I’m already 12 weeks along! Bronce and I were freaking out this weekend when we realized that gave us only six more months to plan for this little baby to enter our world. Here’s an image from thebump.com showing how big the Lima Bean is now… she’s (he’s?) getting bigger! 

Baby's now the size of a plum!
As you move into the second trimester, baby shifts into the growth and maturation stage. After weeks in the critical development stage, almost all of her systems are fully formed.

 

 

Last week she was a lime. Truly, I think those fruits are about the same size so I guess not much of a difference.

Nieces

Well, I mentioned in my first pregnancy post that we had some shirts made for our nieces. I didn’t have photos at the time of that post, but we got to spend some time with them this weekend and snapped a few pictures. The wording is “This little monkey is going to be a big cousin!”

Jim and Jewel, my brother and his wife, had a busy summer so Mom and Dad watched Kathryn this week. Bronce and I got to spend a lot of time with her Saturday and before we got in the lake Bronce snapped this picture of us:

Kathryn is 20 months old and full of spunk. Love that kid!

And here’s a picture of us with Spencer and Melissa’s daughter, Nonavea. She is the sweetest little girl ever! She’s 4 months old and is incredibly good-natured.

 

Ideal Weight

Annoyingly (for you, maybe, not for me!), I’m at my ideal “I’m on a diet and reached my goal!” weight. In fact, since the day I found out I was pregnant… I’m currently down 6 pounds. Yep, I’ve lost 6 pounds in the last 7 weeks. Go figure. Lest you worry, rest assured this is fairly typical for the first trimester. I’m sure I’ll gain it all back (and then some… and some more…) fairly soon.

I have had two family members comment in the last four days that they can see the baby growing. This did not come as happy news. My stomach is still as flat as it has been, unless I’m forgetting to suck in. It’s not “hard” yet, like I’ve heard it could be around this point. I’ve heard that tends to change really suddenly, so it could be any time. I do find myself super bloated by the end of the day and rather uncomfortable.

Symptoms

Weird cravings… strange nausea… it’s all coming and going. The good thing about my cravings is that I’ll desire something really awful (like my recent Cup O’Noodles incident) but then I want to give that same item a 20-mile berth from that point on.

When I first got pregnant one of the strangest symptoms was a rapid heart beat and strong palpitations. I searched online, I talked to my doctor, and no one could assure me that this was normal. I wore a heart monitor for 24 hours, had an Echo done, and my primary care doc told me to start taking Tums regularly in case the palpitations and chest pain were caused by reflux. The Tums have helped… a lot… and the reflux is more pronounced in the mornings now (tho I know how to handle it), but I still have some of the strange heart symptoms. With a history of mitral valve prolapse, this isn’t a complete surprise, but it is frustrating. Finally while talking to my sister-in-law, Melissa, (who is a doctor) she mentioned having that problem during her pregnancy. She also told me it gets worse – ugh! :) At least I know it’s normal now.