7 Weeks

Greeting from Whitehall, Michigan! We left Colorado last Friday (7/16/10) and arrived in MI on Saturday evening to start the Voigts' family vacation. The last few days have been relaxing with no major activities planned and plenty of time for naps :) My nausea (which started at about 5 1/2 weeks) has not been too bad this week. But I have been so so so tired!!! Baby V has been taking a lot from me this week and the fact that I have been getting up multiple times a night to go to the bathroom does not help!

We when get back to Colorado, we have our first doctors appointment on Tuesday, July 27th. I never realized that most doctors will not see you until your at least 8 weeks so we are very anxious to see how the first appointment goes. We are going to the Midwifery Group at Swedish for all of our prenatal care so long as my pregnancy remains low risk. This will be the first time we have met the midwives so I am hopeful that we feel comfortable and they are able to give us the experience we are looking for.

And now it's time for Baby V's weekly progress :)

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.

Lindsey