Lucky 29

So this has been a good week for us. We had our monthly OB appointment and we were given the okay to go to Georgia for three weeks! Yippee! Well, she actually said that if it were her having blackouts that she would not go, but since I wasn't being kept under supervision or anything, that it was really my choice... so yeah, that was an easy one for me! If I black out here or if I black out there, does it really make a difference? Not really :-) As long as there is a bed or a comfy chair around, it seems the same to me ~ the view behind my eyelids for me is the same regardless of my global position! So on Saturday I went ahead and reserved tickets for the kids and I to fly home for Thanksgiving and to see my nephew baptized the first weekend in December. Thanksgiving is my mom's favorite holiday, so I think my mom would have built her own plane (had it been necessary) in order to get us out there, but luckily she has a great friend who gave us some buddy passes to use instead. It has been 4 years since I we have had Thanksgiving with my mom and my sister and her family, so this is a great treat for us! Plus, my grandmother is out there visiting and my kids have never met her, so this will be a first for them. So come Thanksgiving, we will be eating Sweet and Sour Ham (we aren't the turkey-eating sort of family!) with my sister and her family, my mom, my granny, my aunt, and even one of my great uncles! We are so excited!! Poor Scottie has to stay here and finish up the semester, so he couldn't come and play, but he is going to be able to spend a week with his family, so he will be able to have a bit of fun on his own as well!

Okay, so on with the update of Hoppy - at this week's appointment I was given some, somewhat disturbing, news. Hoppy is now measuring exactly on schedule. Which isn't the bad news. The bad news was that while he hadn't grown, I had! I mean, if he had a huge growth spurt last month, then I understand my having a "growth spurt" of sorts. But since he took a month off from gaining a lot of body mass, then why did I continue?! Logic would dictate that I would have had a month off from putting on extra body mass as well, right?! Wrong, someone forgot to tell my body about that clause in the pregnancy contract. I think it is on automatic pilot right now..."hey I've done this before, I know what to do...who cares that each kid is different, I am on auto drive!" But that is enough of the complaining...onto the meat of this post.

He just finished his 29th week of cooking. He is about 17" long and is just over 2 and a half pounds in weight - almost 3 pounds. He now has enough body fat to make up about 3.5% of his total weight - which might not sound like a lot, but it is enough to help him start to stay warm and begin to make his own body heat. So hopefully, as we are getting ready for the snow to come, having a built in heater inside me might help me keep warm as well :-)

His brain is making billions of neurons a day, but I don't know who they hired to keep count to prove that one - I think I would have stopped counting long before I made it to one billion, more or less keep going to find out it is "billions".

He is absorbing over 250 milligrams of calcium (my calcium!) a day. To put that into perspective, the daily recommended amount for an adult is 1000 mg - so he is using a fourth of an adults recommended amount - and he's not a fourth the size of an adult. To be fair though, that recommendation does go up to 1,200 mg for pregnant and lactating women, but still, they would be out 50 mg if they only upped their intake by 200! With one of my babies I craved milk like crazy, then with another I went lactose intolerant because he was. So with this one I am really trying to stay on top of this calcium robbing process by giving him his daily prenatal vitamin to steal all the stuff he needs - leave my bones out of it!

His bone marrow is now in complete charge of making his own blood and he is now peeing about half a liter of liquid a day - which is gross to think that that is what he is swimming in and drinking all day long, but it is sterile and is helping him get ready to be able to swallow and digest when he is born. Plus the amniotic fluid gets replaced quite a few times a day, and that makes it seem better. I think I will keep drinking a lot of water to help keep his swimming pool as clean as possible... no one likes swimming in a dirty pool;-)

And that is about it for him. Our little nameless baby is just putting on the final touches these last 11 weeks, so no major developments really took place this past week. We are learning how to get along together better ~ he says as long as I feed him regularly and don't flip flop too many times as I (try to) sleep, then he will not kick me in the ribs too often and will try to leave my lungs adequate breathing room to supply the both of us with the air we need. He doesn't like me changing positions at night, it wakes him up also and disturbs his beauty sleep, so he usually repays me by having to re-adjust himself and find another "comfy spot". I think he might have noticed that I am a short-waisted person that really doesn't have a lot of expansion room on the inside! Go figure, a 5'1" person without a lot of inner leg room! Who'd have thought!

And this week I will leave with a joke ~ I find it funny that in Utah, which is such a family state, that it is rare (like I have yet to hear of one) to have baby showers for any baby that isn't a first. Back in Georgia having another baby was a great reason to get together, have a fun party, and celebrate the wonders of babies. So here is a joke to go along with that thought, it's not directly related, but it made me chuckle:

Pregnancy Questions and Answers
Question: "Do I have have to have a baby shower?
Answer: Not if you change the baby's diaper quickly.