The joys of 2nd trimester

At the absolute last day of my first trimester, my world changed.  I had an entire day without the urge to throw up.  What's more, I had an entire day when I was productive, energetic, and felt capable!  This was such a joy after over a month of misery.  I felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel.  For anyone who's never experienced a rough first trimester, I'm sure I sound overly dramatic.  For anyone who has, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  I still don't feel as good as I did pre-pregnancy, but I feel SO much better than I had about a week prior. 

Let me be clear for the record-I've heard many times that pregnancy can be tough, and first trimester is the toughest, but I had NO idea how hard it can be!! I have such a deeper respect for moms across the world.  In the end, I dealt with a little over 4 weeks of complete misery, but in those moments of misery, it felt like it was an eternity.

The other joy of second trimester is the peace knowing that your baby is exponentially more safe and your risk of miscarriage has dropped dramatically.  This peace of mind is so amazing.

Lastly, second trimester means it's time for your 12 week ultrasound.  It was so fun to see our baby, now with arms and legs moving about!  We were able to see all 10 fingers and a few toes.  Also, the nurse tech we saw is skilled in early prediction of gender.  So, while she insisted that she's definitely not 100% right, she was pretty quick to say it looks like a girl!  We'll find out for sure at 20 weeks.

Here's a few of our first photos of the baby from our first 3 ultrasounds:

Here's our baby at 6 weeks...just a little tadpole

Here's the baby at 8 weeks (much worse quality as it was on the portable ultrasound machine)

Here's the baby at 12 weeks, over 10X as big as the first picture at 6 weeks!

Here's our little baby legs, all stretched out.  No doubt these will grow into some long baby legs.