I have a fish!

While I was going through the infertility process, I had a forbidden book.

This was one of my "National Geographic is having a crazy-awesome book sale" acquisitions, and it's titled "In the Womb." The book follows the progress of a little girl, from conception to birth, giving in depth descriptions of every single stage of growth. It uses a combination of in-the-womb photos and models to make absolutely stunning images of the baby.

The first month we tried, I devoured that book. I read the parts about the first two weeks over and over again, saying, "My baby is a blastocyst!" "My baby is burrowing into the uterine wall!" I started out saying, "If I'm pregnant, my baby is a ball of cells that looks like this picture," but after just a few days the "if" had been completely removed from the equation. Even Carl was sure, reading the book with me, kissing my empty stomach as he left for work.

That really didn't help when it turned out I wasn't pregnant.

After that, I got wiser, and determined that, since I had the first two weeks more or less memorized anyway, I wasn't going to touch the book until I had a positive test result. As the months went on, I got more and more apprehensive - I remembered the false hope the book had given me, and the last thing I wanted was to experience that again.

I put it away, on a low shelf out of easy sight, and did my best not to touch it for the next 20 months.

The same day I got the positive test results, I ran into my library and snatched the baby book off the shelf. Carl and I reread the first two weeks, and started into week three (or, week five if you're counting from the first day of the last cycle like most people do), when my baby was a blob the size of a poppy seed.

Yesterday was the first day of week four (or six), and today we sat down and read all the information about the growing baby.

It's so fascinating! Even before I was pregnant, this process was fascinating to me. Now, well, it's happening inside me, and that's just the most epic thing in the universe.

So, here is where my baby is at.

Baby is no longer a blob. Baby is now a fish. Baby fish has a tail, the place-that-will-become-internal-organs has moved to the inside of it's body, and it has a squishy, vein-filled head.

Baby fish's heart just barely jolted to life, either yesterday or today. Now, that proto-heart is developing chambers, and primitive blood cells are being formed.

Later this week, baby fish will get little proto-eyes, and arm and leg nubs. It will curl up into the fetal position, with its legs (or, what will become legs) actually fairly close to the head.

Baby fish is also growing - and I mean growing. Like, I don't need the book to tell me this; my uterus is screaming it at me as it cramps from the stress. Granted, these cramps are absolutely nothing to the pain of period cramps, so I'm not complaining, but I can definitely feel them, and they're not comfortable. But it means my fish is growing, and slowly turning from a fish to an alien. (Really, six/eight week old embryos kind of look like your traditional aliens with the black eyes and the elongated heads.) A little bit of cramping is WAY worth the trade off.

I have a very demanding baby.

Since I've become pregnant, I am completely content. I don't want anything anymore. Everything I have is more than enough.

But my baby... My baby wants a LOT! 

My baby wants a steak and cheese sub sandwich. 

My baby wants orange juice. 

My baby wishes I didn't have to go to work on Monday. 

My baby is tired and wants to go to bed, and needs Daddy to stop playing on his computer at 11:30 PM. 

Yes, my baby may not even have a spinal cord yet, but my baby definitely wants all these things. 

It's a good thing Daddy is patient. Baby is very demanding.