2 Weeks Old: What's Happening

Your womb was a warm and cozy environment, and it takes time for your baby to adjust to the various sights, sounds, and sensations of life outside your body. You may not be able to detect much of a personality just yet as your baby spends his time moving in and out of several different states of sleepiness, quiet alertness, and active alertness. The only way your baby knows to communicate is by crying, but you can communicate with her through your voice and your touch (she can now recognize your voice and pick it out among others). Your baby probably loves to be held, caressed, kissed, stroked, massaged, and carried. She may even make an "ah" sound when she hears your voice or sees your face, and she'll be eager to find you in a crowd.

Here's the last of the belly pics! I got this idea from a friend, and have been wanting to take the picture for two weeks now...just got around to it :).

38 Weeks: What's Happening

Only two more weeks before your baby makes her appearance. And what an adorable appearance that will be! Your little one isn't so little anymore — weighing in at close to seven pounds and hitting the height charts at the 21-inch mark (or less). As you prepare (best you can) for baby's ETA, she is also getting ready, big time. Vernix and lanugo continue to shed from your baby's body into the amniotic fluid. Your baby swallows that amniotic fluid and some of it winds up in her intestines where it — along with other shed cells, bile, and other waste products — will turn into your baby's first bowel movement (meconium) and perhaps your first diaper change.

Your baby's lungs continue to mature as more and more surfactant is secreted (remember — it helps prevent the lungs from sticking to each other when your baby begins to breathe…definitely a good thing). At 38 weeks pregnant, all systems, almost go!

See what your baby looks like this week.

37 Weeks (Full Term!): What's Happening

With just three more weeks to go and at about six and a half pounds (though weight and height vary from fetus to fetus), your baby is doing just fine. You can expect weight gain to be about half an ounce per day. Since your little one is considered full-term at 37 weeks pregnant, if your baby was to leave the wet nest this week, she would likely thrive. So what's keeping your little one busy while waiting it out until D-day? Practice, practice, practice. Your baby is simulating breathing by inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, sucking on her thumb, blinking, and pivoting from side to side (one day you feel the tushy on the left side, another day it has swung around to the right side). All these are skills needed for her next gig — starring as newborn.

Here's an interesting fact: Your baby's head (which, by the way, is still growing) will, at birth, be the same size circumference as her hips, abdomen, and shoulders. And guess what's making an impression (literally) these days on those shoulders and hips: fat — causing little dimples in those cute elbows and knees, shoulders and hip, and creases and folds in the neck and wrists.

36 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement. At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term (full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term)!

35 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that she's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew melon for comparison). Because it's so snug in your womb, she isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times she kicks should remain about the same. Her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

This was a busy weekend with lots of people in town, and we're exhausted. I'll have lots of pictures to share from the baby shower in the next couple of days!

34 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her arms and legs are continuing to fill out from fat accumulation. She's dimpling at her elbows and knees and forming creases around her wrists and neck. The percentage of fat on her body is 8%, compared with only 1% of her body weight at 20 weeks. At birth, her body fat will be about 15%, helping her to keep warm. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine.

It's hard to believe there's only 6 more short weeks until Emily Claire makes her big debut!

33 Weeks: What's Happening

This week your baby is rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and her skeleton is hardening. The bones in her skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for her to fit through the birth canal. These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as her brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood. She is beginning to run out of space to move in the uterus and is tucked into the fetal position. Her movements in the womb may be less frequent as a result of cramped space, but she is growing and delivering stronger punches and kicks. She will have periods of deep sleep and periods of being actively awake, much like a newborn baby.

32 Weeks: What's Happening

By now, your baby weighs 4 to 5 pounds and is between 16 and 18 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She is beginning to develop her own immunity to mild infections. If she were born now, she could survive outside the womb and resist some disease. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth. She may also be positioning for birth with her head turned down toward the pelvis.

31 Weeks: What's Happening

As far as growth goes, your baby's still on a roll, measuring an impressive 18 inches and weighing in at more than three pounds. At 31 weeks pregnant, you can still expect your baby to gain at least three to five pounds, possibly more, before you two meet. Your baby's brain is working overtime these days, developing faster than ever. Connections between individual nerve cells are growing at a frenetic clip, and she can now perceive information from all five senses. Sure, your baby can't smell anything right now, but that's only because she is still submerged in amniotic fluid and needs to be breathing air to get a whiff of anything. Lucky for you — and your baby — yours will be one of the very first scents she breathes in, a scent that will quickly become her very favorite.

So what's your little dove doing all day while you're busy feathering your nest for her arrival? Making faces, hiccupping, swallowing, breathing, pedaling with little hands and feet along your uterine wall, and even sucking her thumb. In fact, some babies suck their thumbs so vigorously while in the womb that they're born with a callus on their thumb (what a little sucker!). Your baby is also putting in longer stretches of sleep, which is why you're probably noticing more defined patterns of awake (and moving) periods and sleeping (pretty still) periods.

30 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby's between 17-18 inches long now, and she weighs over 3 pounds. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face (normal adult vision is 20/20).

Even though your baby's height and weight haven't changed much in the past week, the big news is her brain gain. Until now, the surface of your baby's brain was smooth. Now, her brain is taking on those characteristic grooves and indentations. Those wrinkles allow for an increased amount of brain tissue — a necessary change as your developing baby prepares for life outside your womb, and the street smarts she will need.

29 Weeks: What's Happening

At 29 weeks pregnant, your baby is almost 17 inches tall now (nearly as tall as she will be at birth), and close to three pounds (a weight that will likely more than double — and may even come close to tripling — by delivery time). Her wrinkled skin is smoothing out as more fat is deposited under the skin surface. This fat, called white fat, is different from the earlier brown fat that your developing fetus accumulated. Brown fat is necessary for body temperature regulation while white fat (the fat you have, Mom) actually serves as an energy source. Which explains why your energizer baby feels so…well…energized! Space in your baby's living quarters is now at a premium, so you'll be feeling jabs and pokes from elbows and knees mostly. But those kicks will be more vigorous than before (and also less erratic) because your baby is stronger and excitedly responding to all sorts of stimuli — movement, sounds, light, and that candy bar you ate half an hour ago. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day!

Luckily, your baby doesn't have teeth yet that would need a brushing after that sugary treat, but it won't be long before you'll need to buy that first baby toothbrush! You'll recall that your baby's baby-teeth buds formed weeks ago, but now the buds for permanent teeth are forming in his or her gums as well.

And back to those kicks, who's counting? Actually, you should be. Now's a good time to start doing a kick count twice a day to make sure baby's doing just fine (plus, it's a good excuse for a rest). Lie down (preferably after a snack) and keep track of your baby's movements. You're looking for at least ten movements in an hour's time (don't forget to count movements of any kind — kicks, flutters, swishes, rolls, and so on).

28 Weeks (Hello, Third Trimester!): What's Happening

Are you dreaming about your baby? At 28 weeks pregnant, your baby may be dreaming about you, too. Brain wave activity measured in a developing fetus shows different sleep cycles, including the rapid eye movement phase, the stage when dreaming occurs. By now, your baby, who weighs in at about two and a half pounds and stands — or rather lies — at almost 16 inches (measured head to toe) has added blinking to her growing bag of tricks. (Outside in the real world, blinking is necessary to help keep foreign objects out of the eyes.) Other impressive new talents being added to your baby's roster in the womb include coughing, more intense sucking, and, perhaps most important, better breathing. The good news is that babies born this week, though premature, have an excellent prognosis because their lungs have reached the point (for the most part) of maturity — so you too can breathe a little easier now. Of course, it's still best if a baby doesn't check out of that uterine hotel just yet — there's still a lot of growing and maturing to do over the next 12 weeks.

27 Weeks: What's Happening

This week, your baby weighs just over 2 pounds and is about 15 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. With more brain tissue developing, your 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 to be born now. Your baby also now has eyelashes on her eyelids, her eyes can move in their sockets, and she can tell light and dark, but she cannot discern specific objects yet. Her senses are becoming fine-tuned and more responsive to light, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Her skin is becoming smoother as body fat accumulates beneath the skin. Since her brain is developing further, she now can direct breathing movements. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.

26 Weeks: What's Happening

Look who's looking. Your baby's eyes — which have been closed for the past few months (so that the retina, the part of the eye that allows images to come into focus, could develop) — are beginning to open at 26 weeks pregnant. What this means is that she is able to see what's going on now (unfortunately the view in your uterus isn't all that exciting). But do try this at home for kicks (baby's that is): shine a flashlight at your stomach. Your baby might kick in response (as in: "Get that light out of my eyes!"). The iris, the colored part of the eye, still doesn't have much pigmentation (that'll fill in over the next month or two), so it's too early to start guessing your baby's eye color. Even the color your baby will be born with might not be the permanent shade; so you may be kept guessing until she's close to six months old.
Look what else is going on this week: Your baby's brain-wave activity is kicking in at this stage in fetal development, which means your little one can not only hear noises but can now also respond to them. Not in so many words, of course, but with an increase in pulse rate or activity. Her lungs are now capable of breathing in air. The alveoli begin secreting "surfactant," which keeps them from collapsing. At this point, she is only taking in small breaths of fluid in the womb, but she could probably survive and breathe outside the womb with medical assistance.
At your baby's current height and weight (about 14 inches tall and two pounds), and at the rate she's growing, she will soon be feeling a little cramped in your uterus. Not to worry, there's still plenty of room for her to grow. It just means your gymnast will have less room for those somersaults, cartwheels, and other Olympic feats.

25 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby is about 13 1/2 inches and more than a pound and a half in weight this week. Don't look now (as if you could), but your baby's skin is turning pinker. No, not because she's getting overheated (in fact, the amniotic fluid is perfectly climate controlled, keeping your baby at an always comfortable temperature), but because small blood vessels, called capillaries, are forming under the skin and filling with blood. She's also beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

Later this week, blood vessels will also develop in your baby's lungs, bringing them one step closer to full maturity — and one step closer to taking that first breath of fresh air. But at 25 weeks pregnant, those lungs are still very much works in progress. Though they are already beginning to develop surfactant, a substance that will help the lungs expand after the baby is born, the lungs are still too undeveloped to sufficiently send oxygen to the bloodstream and release carbon dioxide when she exhales.

The lungs aren't the only system that's gearing up for air intake. Your baby's nostrils, which have been plugged up until now, are starting to open this week. This actually allows your little one to begin taking practice breaths (Of course since there's no air in there, your baby is really only "breathing" amniotic fluid, but it's the practice that counts, right?).

24 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby's growing steadily, and weighs more than a pound and a half right now . Since she's about a foot long, she cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon start to plump up. At this point in fetal development, that beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed. Her brain is also growing quickly now, and her taste buds are continuing to develop. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world. Her skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon. Your baby is also starting to produce white blood cells, which will help fight infection after she leaves your body and enters the world. You may be surprised to notice that your baby responds to the sound of your voice or even the touch of your hand on your tummy by quieting down or occasionally increasing activity as a way of communicating with you! In the past few weeks, the top of your uterus has risen above your belly button and is now about the size of a soccer ball.

23 Weeks: What's Happening

Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound, you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes (I haven't yet seen her move, but am feeling her more often, so hopefully Mick will be able to feel her any day now!). She'll more than double her weight by the end of this month! Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb.

We've already decided that Emily will know Bella's voice very well by the time she's born! Bella is our resident loudmouth.

22 Weeks: What's Happening

At 22 weeks pregnant, your baby has finally broken the one-pound mark, and is about 8 inches long from crown to rump. This week, your sweetie is making more sense of the world as she develops the sense of touch. In fact, your little one's grip is quite developed by now — and since there's nothing else to grab in utero, she may sometimes hold on tight to that umbilical cord (don't worry — it's tough enough to handle it). The sense of sight is also getting more developed. She can now perceive light and dark much better than before (even with those fused eyelids). But remember — unless you're shining a flashlight over your belly (which you can do, by the way), it'll be mostly dark for your baby inside that cozy womb of yours. Moving up from the eyes, the eyelashes and eyebrows are well formed now — and even more hair is sprouting atop that cute little head. You'd be quite surprised, though, if you could see your little one up close and in color. Hair at this stage of fetal development has no pigment, so it's bright white.

21 Weeks: What's Happening

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot! The rapid growth phase has slowed, but organs and other body systems continue to mature. The swallowing reflex is in full swing and your baby will begin to "drink" amniotic fluid, which helps her digestive system to develop. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now.

I was just telling Mick the other day that I think I've figured out her schedule--she's definitely not ready for action when we get up around 5:00 or 5:30 every morning, but by 9:00 am or so, she's moving around a lot, and usually keeps going most of the day and night.

20 Weeks (Halfway There!): What's Happening

Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now! She's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. (For the first 20 weeks, when a baby's legs are curled up against her torso and hard to measure, measurements are taken from the top of her head to her bottom — the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, she's measured from head to toe.) She's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for her digestive system. You're officially at the midpoint of your pregnancy! Keeping pace, your fast-ballooning uterus has also reached the midway point, just about even with your belly button now.

Your baby is aware of all kinds of sounds, from the beating of your heart and growling of your tummy, to songs on the radio and the buzzing of your alarm clock. If you feel a "bounce" in your tummy when you hear a loud noise, it's because your baby hears it, too! This is the start of her active phase. You'll feel every twist, turn, and wiggle.