Time has flown by,
and I am startled you are now about ten inches long, stretched out from head to
toe. This is the week your measurements change
from crown-to-rump, to head-to-toe. Your
legs are proportionate and can extend sufficiently to be calculated into your overall
measurements.
Your house, my
uterus, is also about half way up my abdomen. The top of it reaches my belly
button. From here, you grow outward and
upward toward my ribs.
On Friday, our
midwife found your heartbeat! We had to
wait this long to hear it since we asked her to use a fetoscope instead of a
doppler. We chose the fetoscope because
it is a manual device, and does not send any kind of signal into your
house. However, unlike a doppler, which
can pick up the sound of your heartbeat from pretty much anywhere outside your
house, the fetoscope has to be placed very close above your chest to pick up
sound.
So first, the
midwife felt around my belly until she found your head! I was in shock. Your head?!
You are big enough she could find and feel your head?! Then it was a short distance to place the
fetoscope over your chest. Unfortunately,
the fetoscope cord is short, and not long enough to reach from my belly to my
ears. The longer the cable, the more signal
is lost; thus the shortest cable delivers the strongest sound. So I didn’t get to listen to your heartbeat,
but your Daddy did!
You weren’t too
thrilled about the fetoscope pressing firmly into your space, so you punched it
four times! I looked at the midwife with
wide eyes, and said, “Beta is punching you!”
She laughed and said, “I know!”
Your movements have
been increasingly stronger and more frequent.
Sometimes you sleep quietly for a while, and awaken suddenly with strong
bumps inside me, and I think to myself, “Oh, that’s right, I’m pregnant!” Then I say out loud, “Hello, Beta!”
Our midwife says we
will probably still call you, “Beta” once you are born, out of habit. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Saturday morning is
our luxurious day of the week where we wake up without an alarm clock. This weekend, you were my alarm clock (already)! About seven in the morning, you started
flipping and bumping around. Oddly
enough, that’s usually when you wake up during the week too, since I’m on the
bus by then. It’s usually the first time
I feel you move each morning. You are
greeted out loud with, “Good morning, Beta!
It’s morning time!”
Saturday when you
woke me, I lay in bed quietly for twenty minutes, my hands resting lightly on
my abdomen, and enjoyed your calisthenics.
It was the longest space of time with the strongest movements I have
felt from you. I imagined you were in a
little amusement park, and I could feel your games and coasters. I lay still, feeling happier than I’ve ever
been.
If you curled up, you
would be about the size of this yellow fall squash (called a “delicata” squash!). However, if you stretched out, you would be
about the size of a banana! You are long
enough that I can sometimes feel your bumps in different areas of my belly at
the same time. A punch and a kick? A head butt and a heel flex?
This week, your
toenails and fingernails take shape, and your skin thickens. Until now, your skin has been as delicate as
tissue paper, and would tear to the touch if you were outside the womb. By the time you are born, it will be normal,
sturdy (and silky soft!) human skin.
Since your skin is growing stronger, the vernix is now very thick over
it, protecting it from the amniotic waters and from the scratching of your own
nails and toenails.
In your bowels,
meconium is present, and will continue to accumulate as you swallow and digest
prior to birth. Some of the immunities
in my body are developing as antibodies, and transferring to you. Once you are born, drinking breast milk will
give you even more of these antibodies!
Ever since your
Daddy and I married, our favorite time of the day is crawling into bed at
night, cuddling up close to each other, and talking a bit before we fall
asleep. Since the early weeks of your
existence, this sweet nightly ritual has included you. Every night, you get to bump your Daddy’s
hands, or face, or whatever he puts close to where you are. He usually talks to you, hums, and even sings
silly tunes that he makes up on the spot.
He loves you so much already. This is his self-portrait this week!
Friday night he and
I took a dinner date to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Hamburgers are in your Daddy’s top five
favorite foods, so this was a big treat for him. That night, when he talked to you before we
fell asleep, he asked, “So Beta, how was your FIRST Five Guys?!” I reminded him we ate there once in my first
trimester, so it was actually your second time.
“That’s TEN GUYS, Beta!”, he responded, “How did you like those ten guys
burgers and fries?!”
He makes me bust up
laughing ALL the time. His silly songs
to you make me laugh hysterically too.
He has recently taking to poking you to see if you will poke back. Sometimes you do!
A friend of mine
from India
speaks a dialect called Punjabi. She
said in her language, “beta” means “baby” or “little child”!
This morning to
celebrate Halloween, my work had a breakfast and party. I asked the face painter to draw candy corn
on my cheek. Then I asked her for a baby
candy corn too. So on my cheek today is
a little candy corn family. Your Daddy,
me, and you.
“For this reason I
kneel before the Father, from whom every
familyin heaven and on earth derives its name.
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s
holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled
to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is
able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power
that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)
I love you,
Your Mommy
P.S. I’m sure that
holding you in my arms will feel even better, but right now, feeling you move
inside me is the best feeling in the whole world. I’ve never been happier.
