hanging in

11 weeks, 4 days

babycenter tells me that at 11 weeks, the baby is about the size of a fig. it cracks me up how it's like a fruit-of-the-week comparison. so the baby right now should be about an inch and a half long and basically be fully formed. ie, everything that's going to be there is there, although still developing, even its little teeth. how cool is that?

i am still feeling nauseous, although the periods of ick are getting a little further apart now. and i am still getting tired easily. of cousre, some of that is the wear and tear of the holidays, which i love and the hippie hates. it's always a bit of a whirlwind, and i am always grateful to have the week after christmas off. i am planning to hope up, clean the house, and hang out.

this pregnancy is so different than kieran's was. for one thing, my bp meds, which worked beautifully with k up until the last month, are just not doing a lot. they have added a second drug to my daily regimen, which i now have to take twice a day. it's this drug called labetalol, and reading about it on the internet is NOT a comfort to me. everything says it "may be harmful to a developing fetus," but alyce assures me that this is a CYA statement because of the lack of research on it (again, not that comforting), and not because of Bad Things Happening. the bottom line is that the risks to the baby from an elevated BP are much higher than the risks from the controlling drug, so there you go. so i'm taking it, and it's giving me a stuffy nose. yay for side effects. oddly enough, i am now taking the same bp medication as my father. this makes me feel oddly old.

yesterday i manned up, got my butt off the couch, and went for a walk with the hippie and the critter. i have been irrationally afraid of walking much during this pregnancy, even though with kieran, i went for a walk every day. when i was pregnant in august, i went for a long walk, and then started bleeding, so i know i am having some association thing there. and i know it's insane to think that it somehow caused anything to happen--i know better. and yet, the fear remains. working on that, and many other fears as well.

is this baby the Right Thing? i sure hope so. and i know it's kind of too late to ask that question, right? but i still wonder it sometimes, especially when i look at k and his lovely laid back personality and our good dynamic as a family of 3. this is such a gamble, and i just hope to god it's the right one. please let this second baby be normal, happy, and healthy. please let it not be an utter hellion. life is so uncertain.