Week 7: Blueberry

I am now officially 7 weeks pregnant. The big news this week: Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs — although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities you're daydreaming about holding and tickling. Technically, our baby is still considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of it's tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. Our baby has doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry.

If you could see inside my uterus, you'd spot eyelid folds partially covering the baby's peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of the baby's nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of our baby's brain are growing, and the baby's liver is churning out red blood cells until bone marrow forms and takes over this role. Baby also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in our baby's growing intestines is bulging into it's umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from the baby's tiny body.

I am feeling good. My m/s has decreased and I only get nauseous if I go too long without eating. I am officially a fruit-a-holic which has been my major "craving". Brad says he is craving tacos...LOL! Poor guy has only been eating meat when he is without me UNTIL today. I made him a hamburger for dinner and even ate 1/3 of one myself! So Baby Daddy is happy too! :)

But the future will roll all away.
Take cheer lonely heart the deep gloom
Will break forth and effulgence of May
Smile over thy beauty and bloom.
-- Colfax Burgoyne Harman. Clouds.