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dear baby,

it's been a scary couple of days.  i left work early on wednesday due to lower back and abdominal pains.  your dad took me to the emergency room where doctors poked me with needles and ran bunches of tests to make sure you're developing well and that i'm healthy, too.

the ultrasound showed your yolk sac (which eventually becomes part of your digestive system -- interesting, yes?), but didn't show YOU. you should be an embryo connected to that yolk sac, but you weren't there.

so i cried, a lot, thinking you were lost or maybe my body was getting ready to reject this pregnancy. and your father and i were really sad. upset. bummed out. disappointed. because as unprepared as we were for the news that you're on the way, we still anticipate you greatly. and we're already attached. and i already love you, dearly. MY baby.

but i hopped on the computer later and did a lot of research on early pregnancies, ultrasounds, and yolk sacs/no embryos, etc. and it turns out that this is a fairly common thing that many women experience in their first weeks of pregnancy, sometimes all the way up into their ninth or tenth week.  according to one website, the yolk sac is always visible before an embryo, and this happens around the fifth week of gestation. so maybe you just haven't grown big enough to be seen. maybe you were hiding! maybe there was too much gas in my tummy, which impeded their view of you.  they had that issue when trying to look at my ovaries.

anyway, baby, YOU ARE LOVED. and wanted. and you're still making me nauseated.

today, when the doctor waves that ridiculous apparatus over my belly again, please come out and say hello. it'd be such a relief, for sure.