Week 8

Here's 8 week old Baby Florek!

After many demands/requests for another post on the baby blog, we are finally complying. It has been a busy week for us, but not as busy as for Baby! Here's what Baby has been up to recently and what is coming up on the schedule this week.

Biggest accomplishment: Baby Florek no longer looks like an ape or pig embryo! Past 6 weeks he/she now looks like a human baby!

The head is still very big in relation to the rest of the body, but it is now starting to straighten up instead of being tipped all the way forward. The kidneys are functioning and producing urine (medical students, we expect that you understand every bit of this process after Dr. Severson's lectures Tuesday and Wednesday). The stomach is producing gastric juices. The nerves are now sending impulses from the brain to the skeletal muscle and so Baby is moving and active almost all of the time (though it will be some time before Mom can actually feel this). The liver is producing red blood cells now until the bone marrow takes over later. The pancreas and lungs are developing more. Baby has elbows! Hands are becoming recognizable as hands with individual fingers. Feet and legs develop after hands and arms, so they are still fairly paddle-like. Two weeks from now they will have individual toes! Teeth, bones, and cartilage have begun to form. And here is my favorite news from Baby this week: the tongue is beginning to develop! Baby is now about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch long and weighs 1 gram (0.04 oz). As you can see, Baby has been quite busy this week.

Mom: I'm feeling more pregnant than before, which is both good and bad. I'm glad to have some reassurance that I actually am pregnant and not just faking it (I'm not sure how one would fake being pregnant). But on the other hand I don't especially enjoy feeling nauseous several times a day or being so tired I feel like I have mono. So far no puking, which I am very thankful for. It seems to help to eat small amounts of food often throughout the day. My constant grazing (not to mention the fact that I'm pregnant) has led to a well-deserved 3 lb weight gain! Supposedly I'm supposed to gain about 5 lbs in the first trimester (up to week 12), so I have a few weeks left in which I can gain a couple more pounds. We'll try to post another side profile picture of both of us this week to see if you can tell. Other than looking forward to the end of fatigue and nausea, I can't really complain. I'm happy to be a baby incubator.

Dad: So far all our fears about Dad gaining more weight than Mom during this pregnancy are unjustified. This Thanksgiving was full of sitting and snacking which turns out to be a great way to lose 4 lbs! I think I have a tapeworm. Just a throwback to when we were kids and my dad used to tell my brother he was feeding his tapeworm when we consumed more than should be possible. Kristi is sitting next to me now eating chocolate ice cream and wondering why she is gaining weight... its a mystery I guess. Honestly, shes a healthier snacker than I. We bought our first baby clothes last week. This was a big step for us, but we found almost-new clothes at a thrift store and couldn't pass them up for less than a dollar each! We decided this baby is going to be just as cheap (Kristi wants me to say frugal) as his or her parents. We tried to stay away from the "daddy's girl" and "thank heaven for little boys" pink and blue items since we are going to stay in suspense as to the gender of this little one. So we have lots of greens and yellows. I was sad to be told several times during the last week that any man in his right mind would not be hoping for twins, but I'm going to have to have some more convincing before I let that dream die.

Thanks for keeping up with us. We'd love to hear from you in the comments section!