Moving Corn

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound. 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.

I definitely am feeling a lot of movement starting a couple weeks ago, Taylor has even felt it three times but has to wait for the baby to be really active and sit there with her hand on my belly for awhile. I believe she described it as "cool and creepy". I would say I think about the same, I am loving feeling the movement but it is a little creepy to have something you know is separate from you moving inside your body! I am really enjoying being pregnant though. I am taking a pregnancy yoga class and we are starting a hypnobirthing class in October, I think we will end up taking two childbirth classes but haven't decided on what the other one will be yet.

The 22 week ultrasound was fine although they did see an echogenic foci. I have copied the wikipedia definition of that here.Echogenic intracardiac focus (EIF) is a small bright spot seen in the baby’s heart on an ultrasound exam. This is thought to represent mineralization, or small deposits of calcium, in the muscle of the heart. EIFs are found in about 3-5% of normal pregnancies and cause no health problems. EIFs themselves have no impact on health or heart function. Often the EIF is gone by the third trimester. If there are no problems or chromosome abnormalities, EIFs are considered normal changes, or variants.

We have no other risk factors and may have another ultrasound later in the pregnancy but after talking to a number of people we feel really confident that everything is as it should be.

Our prenatal appointment last week was good with my uterus measuring as it should and my blood pressure was good (I had a little ankle swelling but not much yet). I also got a 20 minute leg massage....gotta love midwives! :)

Megan