Pregnancy 8 and 9 weeks

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to go ahead and document them.

Pregnancy 8 Weeks:

At 8 weeks I have started wearing the "belly band." My belly is just big enough that I cannot button up my regular pants. I am measuring several weeks ahead (which is normal for a second pregnancy). I also started getting sick this week. I never got sick with Caroline so this was quite unexpected. We had another ultrasound. The doctor said everything looked perfect and the heartbeat was strong.






Pregnancy 9 Weeks:

Since I've been growing faster, I've had a lot of ligament pain and back pain. Thankfully I'm at home during this prenancy so I can rest when I need to. I still have my energy, which is great! By this time when I was pregnant with C, I could hardly keep my eyes open past lunch time. I was so worried that I would be tired and not able to keep with with my energetic toddler but so far, so good. I'm sure it's coming, but I'm enjoying this time while I have it. We had another ultrasound (the one perk to being in the high risk clinic - you get tons of ultrasounds! I've had 4 already.) and once again, everything looked great. The heartbeat was very high - 182!! (Last week it was one the low side) According to the old wives tale, this would mean girl. The doctor said that she's seen tons of boys with high heart rates and girls with low heart rates so I'm just going to have to wait. She also reminded me that Caroline's heartrate never got close to the "girl range" and she is clearly a girl. Fetal heartrates change every day during the first several weeks before tapering off. Our baby's heartrate was the in the "perfect" range which means they have a strong heart and is growing exactly as they should. Music to a mother's ears...



The doctor said that I look perfect as well! I normally go for my clinic visit every 2 weeks but since everything was great, I don't have to go back for another 4 weeks!! Although I do have a cardiology appointment and we've decided to do the genetic screening so my weeks will still be filled with doctor visits. We were very encouraged by how well the doctor said that I was. We are feeling mighty blessed these days!

Now we're at 10 weeks and are anxiously awaiting the end of the first trimester!!! We have another ultrasound in 2 weeks (and it's a long one so we'll have lots of pictures) and we cannot wait to see our sweet baby again!!