Dear Baby Pacheco,

You are almost 9 weeks along now, about the size of an olive! I love the fruit/veggie size comparison… every week when I go to the grocery store I’ll stop and stare at your current fruit (you’ll remember this past week it was raspberries) for a few minutes and think “WOW, how awesome is that?!” Truly amazing, this little life we’re creating. 🙂

Last week when I spoke of smooth sailing I’m pretty sure I jinxed myself. Tuesday morning I had the most awful nausea, and chalked it up to morning sickness getting worse… but by the afternoon & evening I started to develop a fever, congestion, and other such symptoms. Soon it was evident that I’d somehow come down with the flu, at the end of June for heaven’s sake! Dad was sick with a bit of a cold the previous weekend, but it was not nearly as bad as this. I think what made it even worse for me was that I really didn’t want to take any medications unless absolutely necessary, to protect your health. At the same time, I was terrified of how my being sick was affecting you (especially the fever). By the end of the day on Wednesday I finally broke down and took some Tylenol (which is on my list of approved meds from the doctor) to bring down the fever, and that helped tremendously. Things gradually improved after that, and now I feel almost back to normal. All that’s left today is some congestion. Dad took really great care of me while I was sick, even though he was still getting over his cold as well.

Still I worry a bit about how this week’s events might have harmed you. This early stage of pregnancy is tough that way– you are still so small that I can’t really see or feel anything that would help me confirm that you’re doing well in there. My next appointment is July 2, and I can’t wait for the doctor to confirm you are progressing normally. I have no reason to believe otherwise, so in the mean time I will have faith that you’re trucking along!

This weekend should be a busy one, so I’m really glad that the flu is more or less behind me. Dad & I are going to a baseball game tonight, then Grandma & Papa are coming to visit and help us start building a new shed in the backyard. While they’re down, Grandma & I are going to a concert also. Should be a lot of fun! Until next time, little olive.

All my love,
Mom

Dear Baby Pacheco,

Today you are 8 weeks along, and the size of a raspberry! Time is really flying by. On Monday we went to the doctor for our follow-up ultrasound to make sure you are developing properly… and everything looked great!

You measured right on schedule, and your heartbeat was nice & strong. Dad & I agree that your heartbeat is one of the sweetest sounds we’ve ever heard. 🙂 It was so cool to see how much you’d changed over the course of just one week as well! You look more like a bean with little stubby appendages now… a tadpole no longer! It is such a blessing and such a miracle. We couldn’t be more thrilled. Unfortunately that is the last time we’ll get to see you until early September when we go to find out whether you’re a boy or a girl. We’ve been tossing name ideas around and at the moment have settled on Jaxon Todd if you’re a boy, and Emma Jean if you’re a girl. But who knows, we may change our minds a million times between now & January.

I’m feeling about the same as I was last week, with bouts of slight nausea that come & go (particularly when I’m hungry), constant exhaustion, and various levels of all the other symptoms I’ve mentioned. A new one to come up is food aversion– even when I’m starving nothing sounds very good to me (especially nothing healthy), so I have to force myself to eat something whenever I get hungry (which is every couple of hours) to keep the nausea away. No particular cravings yet either, sometimes I’ll want a particular thing to eat but nothing has ever sounded good more than once. I’m also making sure to get in some form of exercise for at least a few minutes every day, no matter how exhausted I feel.

And actually that’s about all that’s going on when it comes to the pregnancy! I guess for once no news is good news. Hopefully it will be smoother sailing from here on out. Starting around 10 weeks I’m going to start taking a weekly belly picture so we can watch your progress, although since I already have a bit of a belly just from being fat (:-\) it will probably be quite awhile until the “baby bump” is noticeable. Time will tell!

All my love,
Mom

Dear Baby Pacheco,

You are 7 weeks along already! I can’t believe how quickly time is flying by. Last Sunday (the day before our scheduled departure for vacation & just a couple hours after I last wrote you), we had a bit of a scare regarding your health… I started bleeding rather heavily around 10:30 that morning. It tapered off throughout the day, but when it was still spotting around 5 that evening we decided to go to the ER and make sure everything was okay. Dad & I were both absolutely terrified. Here I am in the hospital while they were running a variety of blood & urine tests:

Those tests all came back with positive/normal results, so they sent us to another part of the hospital to get an ultrasound. They wheeled me around in my bed, which is such an odd feeling! Prior to this I’d never actually been in the hospital as a patient before. The ultrasound tech was a very nice lady who measured you at 6 weeks exactly (one day off of what we’d originally thought based on my ovulation), and said that she did not see anything wrong. We got to see you hanging out in there, and the little flickerings which are the start of your heartbeat! It was so exciting! I couldn’t see the screen very well from where I was laying, so I spent most of this time watching Dad’s face. He was staring at you with such awe, smiling and crying tears of joy. It was quite an emotional moment for us both. We were able to take a picture of the ultrasound home with us:

You look like a little tadpole! 🙂 So that is what we’ve been calling you this week: “our little tadpole.” Haha. Anyway, the doctor said that because the heartbeat wasn’t strong enough for them to measure with the machine yet, they wanted us to follow up in a few days for another ultrasound to make sure things are developing as they should, and also to check in at our regular OB-GYN’s office the next day. We delayed leaving the next morning for the follow-up with my OB-GYN, where they took yet another blood & urine sample and did a pelvic exam. My doc said that based on the results of the tests/ultrasound in the ER and her own exam, everything looked great for being so early on. She was very reassuring and said that the bleeding could have been any number of minor things. She told us not to worry & enjoy our vacation, and to keep our original ultrasound appointment for next Monday (June 11th) so that they could check on your progress. After speaking with her Dad & I felt much better about the whole thing…. but let me tell you, that 24 hour span was quite the rollercoaster of emotions!

So then we went on our trip and had an AWESOME time in Atlantic City, New York, and Niagara Falls. Dad & I especially enjoyed Niagara Falls. There was so much to do there & the falls are really beautiful!

Since this was a roadtrip, a lot of time was spent talking in the car about our excitement that you’re on your way, our hopes and dreams for you and discussions about the kind of parents we’d like to be. It was really nice to have that time together to reflect on things like that, & to just enjoy some “us” time away from the hustle & bustle of our daily life. Overall an excellent “babymoon.” We also made our first purchase for you at the Disney store in Atlantic City: a Tigger outfit! Gender neutral of course. 😉 Anyway, now we are home safe & sound… resting up for the week ahead and anxiously awaiting our chance to see you again on Monday afternoon. I have started to get nauseous more & more frequently which I’m hoping is a good sign. Usually I can keep it at bay as long as I have at least a little food in my stomach (getting hungry exacerbates it). I’m feeling extremely tired all the time as well. When we weren’t chatting on the road, I was taking a nap! Dad was kind enough to do all the driving.

This post is getting kind of long (well it WAS quite a week, after all)… so I’ll wrap it up. Just know that Dad & I love you SO MUCH. And we all (me, Dad, Grandma, Papa, Nana, Grump, and many other friends and family who love you) are praying for your health and happiness. Keep growing little tadpole! 🙂

All my love,
Mom

Dear Baby Pacheco,

You are a little over six weeks along today! My trusted sources (the interwebs, haha) say that you’re now the size of a sweet pea. It’s hard to believe that just 2 weeks ago, you were the size of a poppyseed… and 2 weeks from now, you’ll be the size of a raspberry! Time is flying by, but it still seems like an eternity until our sonogram appointment. Dad & I are impatiently waiting for that chance to see you for the first time, and to know that you are safe and healthy in there. The appointment is actually a week from tomorrow, so perhaps “eternity” was a dramatic choice of words. 😉 But sometimes it feels that way to me!

Luckily Dad & I have something to take our minds off of the wait over the next week– we are leaving to go on vacation tomorrow! This will be our first real vacation together since our honeymoon 3 years ago. “Babymoon” is a term used to describe a couple’s last hurrah before they become parents, which I think is appropriate here. Our budget is a little tight since we’ve been fixing up the house & saving for your arrival, so we are taking a road trip with stops in Atlantic City, New York, and Niagara Falls. We are both excited to get out & have some adventures together! We are staying with my cousin Gretchen (perhaps you will call her Auntie Gretchen?) while we’re in NYC so we plan to share the news of your impending arrival with her while we’re there. I’ll try to post a few pictures of the trip after we get back.

Other than that, the last week or so has been largely uneventful. Most of my symptoms went away a little over a week ago with one exception (I apologize in advance for yet another bit of TMI): painful gas! Ugh! The last two days or so I’ve also had a couple of brief bouts of nausea. Hoping the morning sickness won’t hit full-force while we’re on the babymoon… Anyway, overall I’ve been feeling pretty good. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe there is a baby growing inside of me. At the same time, Dad & I are constantly elated and giddy at the thought of having you in our arms come January. We love you SO much already, little sweet pea! 🙂

All my love,
Mom