Development this week (14 weeks):
This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.
In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.
Things to come (for us) in the second trimester:
*More energy!
*Feeling baby kick in 3-6 weeks!
*Others being able to feel baby kick!
*Finding out gender in 3 1/2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!
*20-week scan, where we take a close, in-depth view at all baby's organs and verify gender again!
*I have my last MFM Specialist visit to look at the baby's heart to see if me having had Fifth Disease when I first got pregnant will have any long-lasting effects! - 7/28
*Prenatal Yoga
*Baby Shower - 9/12/09
Development (of baby) in second trimester:
*Lots of weight gain, and ability for me to feel his/her movement
*Completely differentiation of genitalia!
*Baby will grow from 3 1/2 inches (the length of a lemon) to 14 1/2 inches long in the next 14 weeks, and will grow to over two lbs in weight, rather than the mere ounces he/she still is.
*Baby will reach the age of viability, where God forbid something happens and I go into pre-term labor, baby will have a chance of survival.
*By week 27, baby's lungs will be developed enough to work with medical support if born early. Working at CPS, I saw a baby come at 22 weeks who lived, so I am ever-hopeful.
Happy second trimester to me!!!!!!!!!!
PS: Belly pic to come this afternoon!
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