pregnancy / weeks 9, 10 & 11

**previously scheduled post**

As of today, 3/29, I am almost 11 weeks pregnant with Baby Hudgins #2, who still has no official nickname and at this point probably won't. Suggestions are welcome in the comments!

symptoms

WOAH BABY. All the traditional pregnancy literature says that week nine can often be the worst and I definitely felt it. My nausea ramped up big time, especially while nursing my son. While I haven't felt so unsettled that I need to puke, all of these conflicting hormones are driving me crazy. I don't know if I've gained any weight yet (because I'm lazy and haven't climbed on a scale) but my face appears to be a bit puffy so I'm probably carrying an extra pound or two. I'm peeing ALL THE TIME, even in the middle of the night, if I can roll away from my son without waking him up. Speaking of nighttime, I also seem to be experiencing some insomnia. Unfortunately for my husband I have had some mood swings here and there. Week ten and eleven were much of the same, although the nausea seems to be tapering off.

I look a bit chubbier but still no discernable bump, craving all things sweet and starchy (which isn't really unordinary for me), and nausea / excessive urination / insomnia are the big symptoms.

baby

Baby is fig-sized and is just over 1.5 inches long. He or she has actual hands and feet, with tiny fingernails starting to sprout. At this point, baby looks human, even if his head is as big as the rest of his body. The placenta has begun to circulate blood through my uterus and the baby, and the rest of her organs have formed.

midwife

We decided to stick with the birth center in a neighboring city (not the birth center I went to for my first baby). I met with one of only two midwives at the center on 3/25 for my first appointment at ten weeks and all went well! My experience so far has already been very different from the first birth center. The atmosphere is much more relaxed and it isn't as medicalized, which I prefer. I did NOT have to have a pelvic exam (halleluyer) and other than a urine sample and blood draw, the midwife was very hands off. After about ten minutes of digging into my abdomen with a doppler, she was able to locate the baby's heartbeat, which was hammering away steadily! It only took forever to find because my uterus is anatomically irregular and tilts backwards towards my spine, instead of forward over my bladder like most women.

my next appointment will be at 14 weeks and I'll officially be in the second trimester!