18 Weeks

Thumb-sucking at 18 weeks....

By week 18 of your pregnancy, your baby's crown-to-rump length is 5 to 5.5 inches long. Your baby continues to develop fat layers and weighs about 5.25-6.25 ounces. Your baby will continue to grow and develop, but the rapid growth will slow down for a little while. You will be able to feel your uterus just below your bellybutton. If you put your fingers sideways to measure, you can feel your uterus about two finger-widths below your bellybutton. At this point of your pregnancy, your uterus is approximately the size of a cantaloupe. Although weight gain varies from woman to woman, your total weight gain at this point should be 10 to 13 pounds.

There is still space available in your uterus and your baby will be active for periods at a time. Your baby may sit cross legged or turn somersaults.

Around this time, your baby becomes more sensitive to the outside world and shows her presence through powerful kicks and prods. The bones through which sound is passed to the inner ear have hardened and the parts of the brain that receives and processes nerve signals from the ears are developing. This means that your baby can hear now. Your baby will get used to familiar sounds, such as your heart beating, familiar voices, blood rushing through the umbilical cord and other daily routine sounds. Your baby will become startled if he hears a loud sound.

If you have a stethoscope at home, you can now hear the baby's heartbeat yourself.

This is a picture of Peevy. He has been labled as the stubborn/standoffish cat who only wants attention when he demands it. The last month or so hasn't been the case. He has been on me like white on rice and hops on my lab at every chance he gets. Actually both kittys have been that way. Almost all the time I will have at least one kitty if not both laying on my lap or trying to lay on my belly when ever I am sitting or laying down. Last night, Peevy gets comfortable on my belly and starts to purr really loudly. I think the baby can hear or feel the vibration from the purring because it had a hay day. I was feeling kick after kick. I mean, I have felt some flutters before but no movement from the little bean like this. It was actually kinda cool. Usually Peevy will stop purring if you stop petting him but not this time. I think he could feel the little kicks coming from inside because he kept purring. Its amazing how cats/dogs can sense things like that. It was quite the experience and I am sure there will be more to come.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks should be quite busy. I start pre-natal yoga on thursday, Joey and I are off on our "babymoon" to the mountains in Idaho this weekend, Monday we hopefully find out the sex of the baby and will start buying/registering for the essentials, and next weekend I am off to Arizona to see Elysia and the babe. It all should be very eventful and exciting

I have started to slowly clean out the babies room. Its taking longer than I thought. Just have to get rid of the furniture and get everything organized. And maybe throw more crap away (I have already filled a freakin dumpster). Wish us luck!!