At seven weeks....

So during the seventh week of pregnancy it seems like quite a bit is going on. First, the baby (still called an embryo) is going through a growth spurt. Before this week, the baby was .52 cm long. By the end of this week, the average length of the embryo is 1.3 cm long. Since baby books seem to love comparing embryos to food, the baby will grow from about the size of a grain of rice to about the size of a blueberry. Developmentally speaking, the arm and leg buds will form slightly more sophisticated forms of hands and feet. Eyelids are beginning to partially form over the baby's eyes (and will be only a half cover for the next week). The baby's brain will continue to grow and the liver will start putting out red blood cells. Also, the umbilical cord, which is apparently a part of the baby's intestines, will pop of the belly and refine itself a bit to resemble what we think of when we hear "umbilical cord".

Told Welita

We told Welita tonight that Becka is pregnant. We might as well of just sent her a text message or something because she finished my sentence telling her that we are pregnant, then said that she knew that we were...she could tell. Geez. So yeah, that was easy since she was evidently fully aware that we are pregnant even though we never told her anything. Going to tell Pop and Grandma tomorrow I think, providing that we see them.

Weight Gain

Over the last few weeks I have become growingly concerned about the amount of weight I will be gaining over the coming months. Despite what I hear, I am not eating for two. As of now, the baby is .52 cm (that's centimeters, not inches) long - just smaller than a grain of rice. Any mammal smaller than a grain of rice does not need its own meal. I am proud to say that six weeks into pregnancy, I am eating much healthier than I ever have before. I have put on a whopping 1.6 pounds. Having seen this, I feel much better about the decisions I've made with my food and exercise. And now with the good habits I feel I've established, I'm less worried that I'll actually become as big as a boat.

Introducing......

Our Baby! This is the first image that we have of our baby, and his/her initial stats are that he/she is 0.52 centimeters long and is due on November 18, 2008. Becka is six weeks and one day pregnant according to what they see. I assume the due date may change as the baby grows, but for now that is what they are saying.

Risk of miscarriage low according to Australian study

Have not seen the original study so who knows if this reporter knows what they are talking about, but they say that risk of miscarriage among mothers who are asymptomatic (and otherwise healthy) was less than 1% after the pregnancy had progressed beyond 8 weeks. So that is good. We find out today if our embryo is healthy and implanted correctly. I am really excited. We may even be further along than 8 weeks by now.

Laaaaaaaaame!!!

So I just realized like yesterday that I will be in Texas for our next baby appointment, which is the one where we are going to (hopefully) see our kid for the first time. Do not want to reschedule because we need to make sure that everyone is safe, but really wish that I could be there... especially if there is bad news of any kind. I'll have to ask Becka.

My Reading so Far

i am really diggin' this book. the one thing that keeps throwing me off is this disclaimer at the beginning of each new chapter (new week): "If you just found out you are pregnant, you may want to start with the earlier chapters". I've read ahead a bit, about to start week 7 - which is not where i'm at - and it still has this disclaimer. I wonder when they'll stop putting that in there. In the meantime, I think I might read ahead to the weekly exercise they put at the end of the chapter. They (exercises) seem to work out parts of my body that will be put under pressure in the later months. So that's this afternoon: reading and exercising.

At five weeks...

Becka found this figure from these guys. Thought it was a pretty good one so I put it up for her.

We are at the tail end of five weeks, so the whole neural tube thing has happened over the past couple of days. Now, the little buds that run along the edge of our babies body, will start pushing out to form limbs. Meanwhile, all kinds of cell differentiation is happening throughout the torso and everywhere else from those stem cell populations that migrated earlier in the week. See below for more details.

New Book

I have a new book to read, it's called "Your Pregnancy, Week by Week". I like it so far, keeping in mind that I have made through all of one chapter. I like the way it is written, it is easy to read and understand. It has some pictures, but because I'm so early still, the pictures aren't really that neat. It does have good information about what I can and can't eat and what type of exercises I can do now (and later on) to prepare for birth - which is still weird to think about.

Nothin Doin

We haven't posted in a few days and that is because nothing has happened. Becka feels the same (sleepy) and nothing else is going on. Which is good news.

Today we are going to immerse ourselves full on into a baby store. Just gonna go see what they try to sell you in a baby store and get a feel for what we need. I am sure we will be overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of crap that are in these baby stores. I am imagining baby stores to be full of gimmicks and completely unnecessary things. Like a golf or hunting store. I guess we'll see.

Not bad at all, but a little less than what we were expecting

So we went to the doctor yesterday morning to see if we are pregnant. All they really did was just say "sure you are", but other than that there is nothing more that we know. Mainly this is because they couldn't find anything to look at on the ultrasound. There was just nothing to see. They reasoned that we must be really early in the pregnancy and things are just still too small, and that is why everything looks empty. At five weeks the kid should be easily picked up, so we must be somewhere less than five weeks pregnant. Fair enough.

So, all that we have to report is that the doctors say we are pregnant, but are saying that because of Becka's hormones. Other than that we don't really have anything to report. Oh well. So we go back in two weeks to do another ultrasound. Maybe this time there will be something there.

Told our immediate family last night - parents and brothers and sisters. We had planned to do it in person in a few weeks but changed our minds. Don't know when we are going to tell everyone else.

Tomorrow's Visit

So tomorrow Eric and I will have the first of several prenatal visits. I keep having this feeling that the doctor lady will tell me that I'm not actually pregnant. That would kinda suck. I don't really have any reason. Pregnancy tests are pretty accurate, especially two of them. Its just nerves. If they can actually do an ultrasound and I can see some kind of picture, it becomes much more real than two little pink stripes on a plastic wand.

Well, it might have a neural tube...

OK, well we still don't know exactly where we are at in development. We go to the doctor tomorrow and will find out then. We know that it is implanted, and we know that it has been implanted for probably about a week. So, we might be at 5 weeks. If we are, then we got a neural tube!



A neural tube is not an actual backbone, but is something close to it, and is a precursor to lots of things besides just the backbone / spinal cord. The neural tube is an actual tube that forms along the kid's back. It starts out looking like a ditch. It is a channel, and has little hills on both sides. The channel will become the neural tube, and the little hills are collectively called the neural crest. The neural tube is a by-product of coordinated cell division and gene regulation in the neural crest cells, which are very important.



The neural crest cells are characterized by their location alongside the neural tube and their gene expression, but other than that they look pretty much like all the other cells in the embryo (while they are next to the neural tube and still in the neural crest). However, this does not lost long. Shortly after they have formed, they actually leave the neural crest and migrate throughout the entire embryo. They move the way that amoebas do (our cells regularly migrate around our bodies using this mechanism of locomotion that was inherited from our single-celled ancestors), and slither around the embryo until they arrive at a pre-specified location. Once they get to their designated spot on the embryo, they begin to divide and differentiate, and produce all sorts of things like neurons, skin cells, cartilage and bones within the face.

You can see the neural tube in this preserved human embryo (from here):



The neural crest and neural tube are only formed in vertebrates, and are a distinguishing features of our group. All animals that have a backbone also produce a neural tube and neural crest, and it was a key evolutionary innovation that led to the origin of chordates (animals with backbones). Oscar our dog and the birds outside had a neural tube when they were an embryo. No ones knows what the first animals that had backbones may have looked like, but the closest thing that is still around today is this little guy.



This is an animal from the genus Amphioxus. Early development of animals like Amphioxus (prior to the development of a notochord) is essentially identical to development in all of us and our kid. Eventually, animals like Amphioxus will form something very similar to the backbone that you find in us, but it really is not the same. In either case, the common ancestor that gave rise to all animals with backbones (including our kid) is believed to have looked something like Amphioxus. Could be completely wrong, but that is what the fossils say for now. It is so cool!!!

So yeah! We might have a neural tube! Tomorrow when we see the ultrasound we will know for sure. Until then, we'll just be happy that Becka has the ability to produce a full-on vertebrate. All this stuff is going on right now under her skin. So cool. Word.

Side Effects

I'm really freakin' tired all the time! So far, I have taken a nearly one hour nap every single day for about a week. It kinda sucks. I don't know if I'd rather have sore boobs. I definately take being tired over being sick to my stomache.

Visual confirmation scheduled

So, right now all that we know is that HCG is present. Usually this means we have an embryo, but it could also mean that Becka has a tumor in her uterus. Hopefully that is not the case. The next method to establish if we do in fact have an embryo is an ultrasound. We do that Wednesday!!!!!

Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG)

There it is, HCG. This badboy promotes the continued expression of progesterone by the ovaries which in turn activate the growth of a huge number of blood vessels and capillaries in the uterus that nourish the baby throughout pregnancy. Right now, HCG is being emitted by the embryo itself, but after things get further along, the placenta will begin to chuck out HCG. Do not know if the placenta emitts HCG because the placenta is comprised of cells that are presently a part of the embryo , or if non-derivative placental cells just start expressing the protein in response to other signaling pathways. HCG also protects the embryo right now because it is super negatively charged, and will repel Becka's immune system until the embryo becomes larger. In either case, it is there, it activates continued expression of progesterone, and it also protects the embryo.

Second at-home confirmation

Took another test yesterday on the second pee of the day (so as to dilute the hormones), and pregnancy test was still positive!

Hormone cycle

You know how long it took to find this stupid graph again? More for my own reference, I was thinking about some medications and vitamins today and needed a graph. When I first learned about this in high school I was given extra credit because of my especially good essay that described how the female menstrual cycle worked on an exam.

Scratch that, we are actually here...

Got it wrong. Pregnancy tests are looking for human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). That is what the second line on a pregnancy test means - HCG is in your body. This
hormone is produced by the embryo, but only after it has become implanted within the uterus, and lets your body know that you are pregnant and that you need to stop ovulating. It also maintains the uterine lining so
that the embryo does not get flushed out every month.

In any case, since we have a positive pregnancy test, HCG is present, indicating that an embryo is present and has become implanted. So right now it looks like this.

Where we are at

OK, according to kidshealth.org, this is where we are at as of two weeks.

Not Yet

Not big as a boat yet but I am pregnant. Today, I weigh 145. Eric and I estimated that I am two weeks pregnant. I'll call my doctor lady and see what' next.

Baby books

So far from quick look around at Borders some books we should maybe get are What to Expect when you are Expecting, Pregnancy week-by-week or something like that, and My Boys can Swim. They were too pricey at Borders but maybe we can find something cheaper on Amazon.

She's PREGNANT!!!!

Well, we think. According to the one grocery store test she took this morning we are with child, but we'll need to confirm it somehow before we can be totally sure. All for now, just getting rolling.