weight: 105 pounds
waist: 28 inches
Your baby is growing rapidly! Its crown-to-rump length is 2.6 to 3.1 inches (65 to 78 mm), and it weighs between 0.5 and 0.7 ounce (13 to 20 g). It is about the size of a peach.
Fetal growth is particularly striking from now through about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The baby has doubled in length since the 7th week. Changes in fetal weight have also been tremendous during the last 8 to 10 weeks of your pregnancy.
One interesting change is the relative slowdown in the growth of your baby's head compared to the rest of its body. In week 13, the head is about half the crown-to-rump length. By week 21, the head will be about one-third of the baby's body. At birth, the head will be only one-forth the size of its body. Fetal body growth accelerates as fetal head growth slows.
Your baby's face is beginning to look more humanlike. Eyes, which started out on the side of the head, move closer togetheron the face. The ears come to lie in their normal position on the sides of the head. External genitalia have developed enough so that a male can be distinguished from a female if examined outside the womb.
Intestines initially develop within a large swelling in the umbilical cord outside the fetal body. About this time, they withdraw into the fetal abdominal cavity. If this doesn't occur and the intestines remain outside the fetal abdomen at birth, a condition called omphalocele occurs. It is rare (occurs in 1 of 10,000 births). The condition can usually be repaired with surgery, and babies do well afterward.
I am now officially in my second trimester which is pretty cool. I remember that I really loved everything about the second trimester last time around. I can no longer wear any of my old pants. I mean I probably could but I would be on the verge of tears all the live long day. Christmas eve I finally broke down and pulled my maternity jeans (normal low rise waist - no stretchy stuff) out of the closet and put them on ... pure bliss. It is nice to be able to sit down again without wanting to cry. This weekend I am going to the mall to see if I can find another pair of pants like these so I can be comfortable more than a couple days/week. :)
Here is my very first belly picture which was taken at 13 weeks. There really hasn't been much to see up until this point. It is very strange ... it seems my belly just suddenly popped out ... almost overnight. My waist is thicker and bulging. I can now feel the top of my uterus and it is just slightly below my belly button. I am about 3 weeks ahead of where I was at this point with Jaida. I guess everything does happen a little bit sooner the second time around.
I feel the baby moving around a lot these days. Usually it is very active in three big chunks throughout the day and then pretty quiet the rest of the time. The active periods are from about 3-6 am, 1-2 pm and 6-7 pm. Kind of interesting.
Joe told his mom and brother about the firecracker last week so that was nice. I have told a few people also. All in all not many though. I am sure the cat will be out of the bag soon enough. ;)
Here are some neat little factoids I found on the internet yesterday. Apparently, this week the baby's vocal cords have begun to develop and by the end of the week they will be pretty well developed (according to my pregnancy calendar). In fact, one site I found said that sometimes a fetus cries in the womb - it is of course silent do to the fluid environement. But isn't that a bit strange to think the baby could be testing out its vocal cords in there. Also, more and more of the organs are functioning every day. The liver has begun to secrete bile and the pancreas produces insulin.This seems like a very good thing. All twenty baby teeth are formed and waiting beneath his gums until well after birth. The baby's bone marrow, liver and spleen have taken over the production of red blood cells. I guess the yolk sac was responsible for this function up until this point and now the sac goes away. Although the baby's intestines were originally formed inside the umbilical cord, they are now moving into the abdomen. This was talked about up above. Fuzzy hair is beginning to form on the little one's head. Regardless of what color that hair will eventually be, it is white (unpigmented) right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment