According to BabyCenter, this week, my little bambina weighs almost 2 pounds (or significantly more... but more on that later!) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers (hopefully not taking after her mother who sucked her thumb until the very day she got braces... at 12 years old). With more brain tissue developing, baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were born now (though Mom and Dad would NOT be capable of functioning yet so please just keep baking, baby!). Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on (I hear its common at like 3am, awesome).
In addition to the baby developments this week, we had a great doctor visit this past Tuesday. I was scheduled for an ultrasound to address the partial placenta previa issue I had been diagnosed with back at Week 18. I was excited to find out if the placenta had corrected itself but I was even more excited to catch one last glimpse of my little chica on the ultrasound screen. Typically, moms-to-be are not given another ultrasound after the anatomy scan (between weeks 18-22) so I was jazzed to see how much she has grown.
And wow has she grown! I asked the ultrasound technician for an estimate on her size and through some measurements (including around her plump little belly) and calculations, she estimated that baby weighs 2 lbs, 6 oz. That's 6 oz ahead of the curve... I don't know why this excites me so much but it does. I think its just that she is getting close to a weight that is almost like newborn size that has me giddy. Because I certainly don't want her to continue growing ahead of the norm because let's just say OUCH. But hub and I are "above average" sized people so I would expect nothing less than a full sized baby.
In addition to her weight estimate, the ultrasound revealed that she is currently breech. NO need to worry about that right now as she has 13 weeks to flip around and I've learned a bunch of prenatal yoga moves to encourage her to flip if it gets down to the wire and she is still breech. (One such yoga move is a headstand against the wall... can't picture doing that at 9 months preggo!)
And the last bit of news on the ultrasound... the placenta has corrected itself and we are good to go! This is very exciting because it limits the possibility that I'll HAVE to have a c-section. Plenty of other things, during labor, can lead to c-section but if the placenta had remained low, it would've been almost a guaranteed c-section.
Good news all around... and this was before we even got to the actual doctor visit.
In my weight check, I weighed...well, let's not go there. Let's just say I've gained 18 lbs which is right in the normal range and I am okay with that. I am a little nervous about the weight gain because I still have 13 weeks to go and I know the pounds will just keep packing and I just don't want to get out of control. (Please don't misinterpret - weight is not really a concern for me - I am of course more concerned about the baby's health but part of me misses the super duper fitness life and I want to be able to get back into it as soon as I can... and I know the more weight I pack, the harder it will be... not that it stops me from eating for 2!)
My blood pressure is staying strong at 110/62. Rocking!
Also at this appointment I had to go through that 1 hour gestational diabetes test. For those that don't know, they make you drink this high sugar concentration syrupy beverage, wait an hour, and then they draw your blood to test your sugar levels. I had heard horror stories about the actual drink - people kept telling me it was nasty and impossible to get down and blah blah blah (people love to tell their horror stories, don't they?) but seriously, it was NOT bad at all. It tasted like a sweetened and flattened Sprite... honestly. I gulped it down in 10 seconds (I "studied" chugging in college)! And then after an hour, I got my blood drawn. They said that the doctor will call me with 24-48 hours if the results indicated a problem; otherwise, no news is good news. Its been over 48 hours and I haven't heard from them so I THINK I am in the clear. Yahoo!!!!!
You might have noticed I did not include BabyCenter's reference to a vegetable or food product this week. Week 27 is cauliflower and frankly, there is nothing cauliflowerish about my baby so that was an intentional omission!
By the way, have you ever searched Google Images for "pregnancy"? Its like a National Geographic portfolio. (Go ahead, you know you want to.)
We're just about out of the 2nd trimester which also means we now move from monthly OB visits to every two weeks... which is crazy! Time is going WAY too fast.
