8w6d, 7 & 8 week review

From my weekly email (7 week):  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, your baby is still considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of her tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. Your 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 your womb, you'd spot eyelid folds partially covering her peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of her nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your baby's brain are growing, and her liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and takes over this role. She also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in your baby's growing intestines is bulging into her umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body.

From my weekly email (8 week): New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl. Either way, your baby — about the size of a kidney bean — is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can't feel it.


Hi Momma & Daddy!


How far along? 8w6d
How big is baby? The size of a kidney bean
Symptoms? About the same.  Have to plan pee breaks, nausea when I get an empty stomach.  Still sore and enlarged boobs!
Weight gain/loss(166 starting point - yikes!)? Even.  Have gone up and down a pound or two - not eating very well last week or so.  Better this week.  Love me some mint ice cream
Stretch marks? None
Maternity clothing? Nope, a lot of pants are tight, but they were tight before I was pregnant. 
Sleep?  Good.  Need more!
Exercise? Running in the mornings when I'm not too tired.  Not because of pregnancy, just being lazy!  Need to get in the grove before I'm too big to be comfortable. 
Cravings? Juice/chocolate milk.  Getting sick of only water.
Movement? Not that I can feel!
Belly Button? Looks normal
What are you looking forward to this week? First ultrasound next Wednesday!  can.not.wait!  Trying to catch up on more sleep this weekend.  Slept Sat night from 9pm until 8:30am.  Felt so good.