Week #19: Baby Heirloom Tomato

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces, and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. The hair on her scalp is sprouting. This is a crucial time for sensory development: Your baby's brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, taking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you

Week #18: Baby Bell Pepper

Your pregnancy: 18 weeks

How your baby's growing:

Head to bottom, your baby is approximately 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and she weighs almost 7 ounces. She's busy flexing her arms and legs — movements that you'll likely start noticing more and more. Her blood vessels are visible through her thin skin and her ears are now in position and stand out from her head. Myelin (a protective covering) is beginning to form around her nerves, a process that will continue for a year after she's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and Fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If your baby is a boy, his genitals are noticeable, though he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.

Week #15: Baby Apple

Gwyneth Paltrow must like this week:)

Your growing baby now measures about 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (about the size of an apple). She's busy moving amniotic fluid through her nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in her lungs begin to develop. Her legs are growing longer than her arms now, and she can move all of her joints and limbs. Although her eyelids are still fused shut, she can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, for instance, she's likely to move away from the beam.

Week #14: Baby Lemon

Welcome to the second trimester! This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb. Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb. In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces.

Week #12: Baby Lime

i was just telling Kris yesterday that this babe is the size of a lime, and his eyes just kind of popped out of his head! i think he wasn't quite sure the sizes of the last two weeks (kumqwat, fig) but he definitely knows how big a lime is. It was cute. He rubbed my belly and said "Hi Lime!"

Your pregnancy: 12 weeks


How your baby's growing:
The most dramatic development this week: Reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over two inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

Week #11: Baby Fig

Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed. Her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under her gums, and some of her bones are beginning to harden. She's already busy kicking and stretching, and her tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as her body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won't feel your baby's acrobatics for another month or two — nor will you notice the hiccupping that may be happening now that her diaphragm is forming.

Week #9

Yay for week 9! Now this baby is grape-sized: a particular favorite embryonic size of mine! Betcha didn't know there are different embryonic sizes i prefer, huh?

i am feeling gross most of the time, but have only thrown up once. If i eat just one bite more than i feel hungry for, i will regret it for the next 3 hours, and then will be ravenously hungry again. My goal is to eat many small meals throughout the day, except actually follow through with it, unlike the last time i had that goal. i was never nauseated with David: another sign this is a girl, right?!

i went for an ultrasound yesterday, and my subchorianic hemorrhaging is gone! So when i went to see the doctor today, he was glad to hear it.

By the way, about my doctor. Remember how he seemed weird and out of it and not very sensitive in his language ("Let's have an ultrasound late next week to make sure the baby is still alive")? i talked to my U/S tech yesterday about it, and she said that was bizarre behavior for him, and she said he was having a really rough day the day i saw him, with scheduling errors and two bad procedures or something. But today, when i went and saw him, he still seemed pretty out of it and looked at my chart, said "Well, the baby's still alive, so we can move on from here." Um, doctor? Please don't use the words baby and alive in the same sentence while walking out the door again. It's bad form.

Anyway, at this point, i'm beginning to weigh some of my options. i'm only 9 weeks along, so i'm by no means married to this doctor. Truthfully, i stayed at this clinic 1/2 hour away because i loved my old nurse. She's not even this doctor's nurse, though, so i don't get to see her. My doctor just, well i don't get him. And i have a pretty good clinic and hospital less than a mile from me. Not as good as Southdale, but it would be nice to only drive 5 minutes to appointments.
i'm seeing my Dr. again on March 19. If he doesn't seem right to me again, i think i might just start going to the clinic here. Anyway, here's this week!

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How your baby's growing:

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.