How your baby's growing? Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound (Trey was over 1 pound 3 weeks ago at the ultrasound). Since he's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), he cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but his body is filling out proportionally and he'll soon start to plump up.
His brain is also growing quickly now, and his taste buds are continuing to develop. His lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he hits the outside world. His skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon. See what your baby looks like this week: 
How your life's changing?
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. Most women have a glucose screening test (also called a glucose challenge test or GCT) between now and 28 weeks. This test checks for gestational diabetes, a pregnancy-related high-blood-sugar condition. Untreated diabetes increases your risk of having a difficult vaginal delivery or needing a cesarean section because it causes your baby to grow too large, especially in his upper body. It also raises your baby's odds for other complications like low blood sugar right after birth. A positive result on your GCT doesn't mean you have gestational diabetes, but it does mean that you'll need to take the glucose tolerance test (GTT) to find out for sure.
Update for Colleen:
The pups now realize that something is different. I think it took this long because they have a TERRIBLE sense of smell. I know it sounds kinda cooky, but I was putting Dagny’s paw on my stomach the other day, and she felt the angry moth inside of me kick. Baby kicked right where her paw was; then, Dagny jumped a little, looked up at me with that shocked dog look, doggie smiled, starting feverishly licking right where the kick was, and then starting bouncing around (and stepped on the bump - oops). Hank, on the other hand, is now terrified to come anywhere near the belly and does not like it when I put his paw on it. He is, however, very into smelling my bellybutton. I'm not sure if it just spells interesting because there is lint in there or if he really thinks it is the magical portal to this new thing. 
2 comments:
This post is full of amazing things! Corn, puppies, monkey, portal! Love it!
Heh, well Dagny has demonstrated maternal instincts in the past, and Hank... well, I think a lot of things confuse Hank.
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