We have now passed
the six month point, and this week marks the end of the second trimester! The time seems to be flying by. I still have so much to do in order to have
everything ready for your arrival! It
will be here before we know it.
You just keep
growing! You now weigh about two pounds,
which is double what you weighed just four weeks ago. From head to toe, you measure about 14.5
inches long. Your head is about 2.5
inches in diameter, which is still so little for a full-term baby, but so big
compared to just a few short months ago.
When you were twelve weeks along (just three months ago), your entire
body was 2.5 inches long!
This Sunday at
church, your cousin Aidan leaned over, leaned his face just outside your house,
and whispered, “I love you, Beta. You’re
getting SO BIG!” Then he wanted me to
whisper in his ear that HE was getting so big (he is; he seems to be taller
every time I see him!). When you are
little, getting SO BIG is quite the joyful occasion!
Your aunts
Priscilla and Mercy are in town for the Christmas holidays, on break from
university. The night they arrived home,
your Aunt Priscilla, or “Tia P” as your cousins call her, sat with me for a
long time while we chatted. The whole
time we were talking, she held her hand on my belly, and got to feel you swim
and slide and bump around. After this
Christmas season, the next time I see her will be when you are expected to
arrive, so it was special for her to spend time with you while you are still in
hiding.
Twenty Seven 27 Weeks Pregnant
Twenty Seven 27 Weeks Pregnant
Your hearing
continues to sharpen as nerves to your ears mature. Sounds you hear may still be a bit muffled though,
since creamy vernix still coats your skin, including your ears, to protect them
from getting too much water inside. Your
lungs and nervous system continue maturing, preparing you for the world outside
the womb.
Your taste buds are
fully developed, and you can already distinguish sweet, salty, and spicy
flavors in the amniotic fluid you swallow and breathe. Your mealtime is about two hours after mine,
since my body has to digest what I eat and send it into my bloodstream before
it gets to you.
A couple months
ago, I asked our midwife to describe the physiological process by which you eat
(or rather, receive nutrients). Here’s
my summary of her answer. I eat food
(hopefully nutritious for both of us), which passes into my stomach and later,
intestines. My intestines process food
as they would for my own body, sending waste down and out, and nutrients back into
the bloodstream where my body can use them.
A layer of tissue surrounding my uterus draws nutrients into the lining,
pushing them into the placenta. The
placenta has little “pockets” so to speak. Into those pockets, my body deposits
nutrients (food), and your body deposits waste.
Then we trade. My body takes your
waste and disposes of it, and nutrients get pulled into your bloodstream and into
your body through the umbilical cord.
In this process, my
blood and your blood never mix. These
pockets in the placenta make the translation between my blood type and your
blood type, leaving your body to absorb the deposited nutrients through the umbilical
cord. We may or may not have different
blood types, and we would not share blood borne diseases such as HIV (if I was
positive). Your blood courses through
your body, through the umbilical cord, and into and back out of, the placenta,
for nourishment and cleansing.
When you are born,
in a matter of seconds, arteries in your heart will open and close. The ones that allow your blood and
nourishment to pass to and from the placenta will close. In less than two minutes, your supply of
nutrition through the umbilical cord will disconnect, and shift to your
stomach. Your supply of oxygen will
cease to be blood passed through my body and into the placenta, and instead
will become your own lungs.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living
being.” (Genesis 2:7)
Our life, our
breath, this miracle of time where you will breathe oxygen into your lungs for
the very first time….all of this is a gift from the Lord. His very breath will enter you, call you into
a new existence, and sustain you as long as your lungs continue to breathe.
“The Spirit of God has
made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33:4)
Because of that gift, we
praise Him. I have no idea what state of
mind I will be in the moment I first lay eyes on you, but I hope some of the
first words out of my mouth are, “Thank you, Jesus.”
“Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary; praise Him in
his mighty heavens.
Praise Him for His acts
of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness….
Let everything that has
breath praise the LORD.
Praise
the LORD.” (Psalm 150:1,2,6)
In one of the most
powerful Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, it is declared that God gives breath to his
people. Because of that breath, because of His call on our lives,
Jesus was called to bring freedom to the earth.
And as we were called to follow Him, so are we.
“This is what God the
LORD says—
the Creator of the
heavens, who stretches them out,
who
spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who
gives breath to its people,
and
life to those who walk on it:
“I, the LORD, have called
you in righteousness;
I will
take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will
make you to be a covenant for the people
and a
light for the Gentiles,
To open eyes that are
blind, to free captives from prison
and to
release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” (Isaiah 42:5-7)
As Jesus left the earth,
after rising from the dead and visiting His apostles, he breathed on them to send them their second
life – the life of the Holy Spirit.
They, we, are now to not only have the breath
of earthly life, which is temporary, but also the breath of the Holy Spirit life, which is
eternal.
“On the evening of that
first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked
for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace
be with you!” After he said this, he
showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the
Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace
be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And with that he breathed
on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ “
(John 20:19-22)
We can never forget that it is not by accident we
were created. It is not by accident that
every human was formed in its mothers womb, and entered the world with cries
that filled its lungs with breath. The breath
of God. His life, His breath, is in us for a purpose. I pray that you will use the breath in your
body to live that purpose.
