Things are a'changin

I made a promise to myself that if my wife ever got pregnant that I would quit smoking. I know I needed to regardless. That reason alone seemed like the best reason, for the baby's health, and mine. So a few days have passed and I usually do okay with the nicotine fits when I'm around others. It's when I'm by myself that the urge to smoke is strongest. I am persevering however, and doing everything in my power to resist. It's a difficult battle though.

My wife has entered her sixth week of pregnancy now. I still find myself on all these different websites looking at what to expect, what the baby would be doing now, and analyzing my wife's symptoms. The website I like most is BabyCenter.com, as it seems to be the most informative. We have our first doctors appt on August 21st and it still seems so far away. It was a week ago today when we found out we were pregnant, but it feels like it was 7 months ago... Now we still have to wait for another 11 days til we see the doctor. Might as well be 11 months. I'm anxious, but I don't find myself worrying as much as I did in the first few days. Maybe that's a sign everything is going to be okay?

Yesterday, my wife and I window shopped and browsed for baby furniture. It's still early for that, but I foresee us asking for lots of baby items for Christmas this year!

According to babycenter.com, the nose, mouth and ears are beginning to take shape. The head is larger compared to the rest of the body, and dark spots are forming where the eyes and nostrils will be. Small depressions on the side of the baby's head will soon become ears. Arm and leg buds are also starting to protrude. The heart is beating at 100 to 160 times a minute - twice as fast as a grown adult - and blood is starting to circulate throughout their body. The intestines and buds of tissue that will be lungs are forming too this week. The baby's pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of their brain, muscles and bones. Right now the baby is about a quarter inch long, or about the size of a lentil bean.