Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (or no one, I have no idea who reads this)! I have my turkey in the oven and am regretting stuffing it with garlic and onions because it smells so damn good. There is so much to be thankful for this year it is almost ridiculous. The baby puts everything in perspective and makes me thankful for such mundane things like health insurance and clean water. I have no idea how people in underdeveloped countries deal with pregnancy when there is cholera and dysentery. I am just so thankful for my family and Mike, the baby, a job, a warm place to live and the luxury and privilege that comes along with being American. Not in a patriotic way, but in a "holy shit, life really could suck if I was born a thousand miles away" sort of way.

The baby and I are doing well. My dad has taken up the nickname fatso since I don't actually look pregnant, just chubby. I have always had a peculiarly flat stomach--peculiar since I do NOTHING to maintain it--but now it is gone and the baby is a muffin top. I have either a beer gut or some extra donuts floating around my middle. Ick. Oh well, eventually I will be nice and round and dislike that too :) The pregnancy is much better. I feel better, I am much less exhausted and I seem to have at least a balanced share of control with the baby over my body. For a while the baby was definitely winning.

The hardest thing right now is waiting for the gender. I really want to know. I never thought I would want to know that much, but I do. We don't find out until January and I am cursing myself daily for forgoing on the genetics testing since we may have found out the gender at the NT screen. Oh well, I am still happy not knowing anything about the genetic risks. I really hope the baby is cooperative at the anatomy scan in January. If we can't see anything because it is prude, belly and I are going to have a discussion.

As far as baby progression, this is what we get week 14:
Baby is a lemon, measuring 3.4 inches. Your adorable little fetus is busy with thumb sucking, toe wiggling, and (not so cute but equally amazing) making urine and breathing amniotic fluid as the liver, kidneys and spleen continue to develop. Lanugo (thin, downy hair) is growing all over the body for warmth.
By weeks 14-17, your baby's bone marrow is producing blood cells; his liver is secreting bile; his pancreas is producing insulin; and he will be covered in a layer of downy hair called lanugo. Around week 16, you may get your first ultrasound, but don't count on learning your baby's sex quite yet. Between weeks 14 and 18, you can opt to have a Quad Screen or amniocentesis, tests that can detect a neural-tube defect, such as spina bifida, Down syndrome or other genetic disorders. Discuss these tests with your doctor to help you decide.

2 comments:

Carmella said...

haha, that baby will always be winning when it comes to controlling your body. That's how I felt anyway. It was weird when my gut got huge and I realized I could no longer actualy feel anything in there (like when I used to get stomach aches or weird stabs of pain in my intestinal area...it all just started to feel like there was a big alien inside of me, taking over my body). I could feel hear moving on the inside (bumping into organs I suppose), otherwise the whole middle part of my body belonged to her. Now my boobs are hers. Which is also a little weird. I will never look at boobs the same again. Women wearing shirts that show them off just make me think about having to feed Jane, and how they probably would produce more milk than I do.

Carmella said...

oh, and I hated pregnancy and I HATED labor so I was a little afraid I would hate breastfeeding but it is AMAZING. I don't think I would have nearly the same relationship with her as I do if I was formula feeding.

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