Week 8 – Heartbeats

  
Okay, no more denial.  There’s really a baby in there.  The first thing I saw when the ultrasound image was put up on the screen was not the baby (honestly there’s just varying degrees of gray waves).  It was the bright white dot in the center of the screen flickering—the heart beating.  My thought process went something like this: Wow, this is very cool to actually see…to heart-warming (no pun) accompanied with a big smile…to thinking how it was just a little creepy.  I mean there is something living inside of me, so weird.  Little Baby Kershaw’s projected date of arrival is August 25^th.  If he/she has a sense of humor, it will time its arrival with the first day of school for Trevor.  Personally the naïve side of me is hoping it will arrive a couple weeks early or even a week late, pushing it to September 1^st…because nobody wants their birthday to be on the first day of school.  How much of a bummer would that be?  We’ll just have to wait and see.  :)

We’re at the end of 8 weeks so developmentally, BK (Baby Kershaw) has already gone from a zygote to a blastocyst to an embryo.  Week 4 it was the size of a poppy seed.  Week 5 it was the size of an orange seed and its heart started to shape along with the circulatory system becoming functional.  Week 6 it was the size of a nail head (apparently the books couldn’t find a suitable food for comparison).  BK’s face started to take shape in this week as well as its organs.  Oh, and there is still a tail.  I guess it’s not an over-exaggeration when people call them “little monsters.” Haha ;)  Week 7 it was the size of a blueberry and started to develop arm and leg buds.  

This week, BK is the size of a large raspberry (take that average-sized raspberries) and has started to look less reptilian.  Yay for being a human!  The heart rate also picked up, BK’s registered at 181 bpm, and it can start to spontaneously move (which I swear I saw in the sonogram).  Eye lids have also started to develop and the beginnings of toes/fingers can be seen.

So far I haven’t really had many of the normal pregnancy symptoms.  Give me a second to go find some wood to knock on.  Shoot, all we have is imitation wood in the house.  I hope that was good enough.  I’ve been extremely tired and have been since probably week 5.  Also in the beginning of January I tweaked a nerve in my lower back and after 3 weeks it’s still torturing me.  I’ll take sciatic pain over nausea & vomiting any day, but I wonder how much longer this is going to hurt.  And why is this happening now?  I thought back pain was a 3^rd trimester sort of thing.  I miss bending down to pick up something and not feel a shooting pain go down my left leg.  Also sleeping for more than a few hours at a time would be pretty cool too.  Waking up every so often because the pain is reminding me to change positions takes its toll after a few weeks.

Trevor's Note:  I noticed the heartbeat first too.  It was pretty incredible and certainly makes this whole thing a lot more real.  The pressure really feels on now to get a house.