'Alien' Buscher

No worries. I've not gone totally insane yet. The title is just a description of what our baby looks like at almost 9 and a half weeks old. To be quite honest, the baby just doesn't quite look like it's from the human variety just yet. If you've never seen pictures on the Internet or in textbooks of the development at this stage of life in an embryo, which by the way officially becomes a fetus next week, I'd be honored to describe it to you.

1. First, his or her head is half the size of it's body right now. It will even out in the next few weeks as the body begins to catch up. They go through what I like to call the 'big head syndrome' early on and then go through it again likely when they're a toddler.

2. The spine is very curved, and though it naturally will remain somewhat curved, the curvature right now is extreme.

3. He or she still has a tail that looks like a tadpole. Within the next couple of weeks, it's tail will shrink and completely disappear into what we as adults know as our tailbone...a little bit of bone that just hangs out at the base of our spine.

4. It's eyes are now moving into position, but b/c the head is so large, they look like they're close to the sides of the baby's face. Eyelids are now developing and they eyes will remain closed for several months (till about 7 months I think). But even though they are still closed, it's claimed that they still recognize bright lights and will turn away from them when they're shown on the belly.

5. It has little knobby looking things on the sides of it's head that will eventually resemble ears. Not sure if they can hear yet or not.

6. The mouth and nose are both developing quite nicely. Right now, the mouth can open and close already, but it won't have lips for another week or so.

7. It's limbs are now long enough to actually bend at the joints. What will be fingers and toes are webbed right now, but the webbing is disappearing rapidly. Less than two weeks ago, the limbs were tiny buds perched on the sides of the body.

8. It's skin is transparent. If we were to look at the baby right now, we would see through it's tiny 1-2 inch long body. All organs right now are forming and beginning to function. The heart has a beat...a very fast one. The intestines are located outside of it's body right now b/c they're too long to fit inside the body. They'll move completely inside in a month or so.

9. Little girl and boy parts look almost identical right now which is one reason it's way too early for anyone to tell what the sex of the baby is. By the time I have my gender determination ultrasound in another 9-11 weeks, those parts will be formed and easily determined if the baby cooperates appropriately.

10. I'm sure there's something I missed, but I think I covered about all of it. I just put this here to get me to an even ten...part of my anal retentive nature, or obsessive, whatever you call it.

So yesterday was our big day...the first appointment with the OB. They like to wait until closer to the end of the first trimester to make sure that they can actually determine a viable baby inside. Plus, they I'm sure want to wait until closer to the end of the miscarriage vulnerability period. I'm not completely out of the woods, but making it to 12 weeks will pretty much clear me (although they do occur occasionally past that point). Surprisingly, that's been one thing I've not been concerned about this pregnancy. I was on pins and needles when I was carrying Zoe until I was 12 weeks...then of course it became the fear of early labor.

According to the ultrasound we had yesterday, we have a healthy baby with a strong heartbeat. It's amazing watching that little heart just pound away. It was on track with it's development so far. According to the doctor, I should be due on April 27th, 2009. The ultrasound, however detected May 1st. She said it could be as much as 4-5 days off, so I'm using April 27th as the official due date. Here's a picture of Baby Buscher from the ultrasound. I've gone in and identified parts of the body for you shown with arrows so that you wouldn't be cocking your head every which way going, "I wonder if that's the head." ;-)



Same picture but without the words

Just a close-up - you can actually see that it's arm moved in this one.