Saying Goodbye to the First Trimester

Hi everyone! I am 12 weeks along today which means it's the last week of being in the first trimester!! I can't believe the pregnancy is already 1/3 over!

Baby makes some exciting improvements this week. He or she is just over 2.5" and has nearly doubled in size in the last three weeks! Little baby weighs half an ounce now too! By now most of the body systems have formed and now baby is just in the maintenance phase. The digestive system is beginning to practice contraction movements and the urinary system starts producing urine this week. The pituitary gland has started producing hormones and bone marrow is making white blood cells. One of the coolest features of this week is that baby is learning reflexes! Fingers are opening and closing, the mouth makes sucking movements, toes will curl and eyes will clench. They say if I poke my belly that baby would move in response to it by now, but I still won't be able to feel it for a while. It's hard to believe that baby pretty much has all of his or her body systems and is now just going to grow and mature for the rest of the 28 weeks inside my belly.

My symptoms are beginning to calm down. Although, I'm still really tired/exhausted all the time. Also, my sense of smell is still very strong and I start gagging when I open up the trash can to throw something away. I've got these cool new chewable prenatal vitamins that taste like gummy bears! They make taking the vitamins much easier because I still have a hard time swallowing pills.

They say in about 4 weeks baby will begin to hear my voice! Even though I read to baby now, sometimes I'm sure he doesn't like to hear about medical assisting, I just want him to know the sound of my voice and for it to be soothing to him.

Here's the 12 week pic. It looks so similar to the 10 week pic, I have no idea what happened week 11...I deflated some. But I think this is the true beginning of a bump though and not just bloating (that's what I'm blaming the big 10 week pic on)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! Another week closer to seeing everyone!

Love,

Mommy, Daddy and Baby L