Week 17

I can't believe I'm nearly halfway done being pregnant already! I've gained one whole pound, finally. Baby weight has officially started. My weekly email thingy said that I'm scooting into the time frame where I should be finding a pound a week. Funny to look at a scale and not mind the number getting bigger...

The beach was a good family time. Storms, gale-force winds, and SNOW kept us inside most of the time. Daddy O taught us how to make kites from notebook paper - we flew them on the beach for a bit, dressed in muck boots, layers, and Gore-Tex. Power outages from the storm, fences blew down, good stuff!

Baby O, head to toe (poet, I know it :D) is about 9.5" long, 5.5" head to booty and weighs as much as a chicken breast. The baby also started accumulating poop, meconium, this week. Knew y'all wanted to know about that! Haven't felt any movements, or would dismiss it as gas if I did - but I'm sure it will all come in due time. My uterus is the size of a cantaloupe this week, crazy how much extra space I have in my abdominal cavity...

A week from today we get our big 18 week scan, including finding out the gender!

• Right now, your baby is about 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches long, or about the length of a large orange.
• Little hiccups continue and you might feel them!
• When you’re around 17 weeks pregnant, a necessary fat called brown fat developsunder your baby's skin. This will help keep her warm after birth. Later in your pregnancy, additional layers of fat develop.
• Air passages in your baby's lungs finish branching.
• By your 17th week of pregnancy, your baby's lungs prepare to take in oxygen.