What Spot is up to this week

(cartoon from babygaga.com)

Happy hump day to all! In middle school whenever we would hear that phrase all the girls would burst into giggles. I have a secret confession to make - I still giggle like a 10 year old girl when I hear it sometime, or at least break out in a smile!

Well Spot is doing some more growing and activity during his or her 18th week:
* The fetus is now 6 inches long and weighs 7 ounces.
* They can hear sounds and may be startled by loud noises.
* Recognizable active and rest periods.
* The skin is building a protective wax layer (vernix)
Vernix (a white cheese like protective material) forms on baby's skin with the lanugo, a soft lightly pigmented hair covering the body and limbs, both help to protect your baby's skin during the months in water. This is a big week for their baby skin. There are now two distinct layers—the epidermis (or the surface skin) and dermis. Currently, their skin is covered Your baby may hear your heart beating, your stomach rumbling or blood moving through the umbilical cord. He or she may even be startled by loud noises.

Tiny air sacs called alveoli begin to form in lungs and the vocal chords are formed. Baby goes through the motions of crying but without air doesn't make a sound; yet.

Your baby may have the same awake and sleep patterns of a newborn. Baby will have a favorite position for sleep and recognizable active and rest periods.

Fun fact for momma’s with baby girls: it’s a uterus within a uterus! Your little girl will have developed a uterus and vagina canal by the end of this week.
Your baby measures about 6 inches (15cm) crown to rump and weighs about 7 ounces (200gm).

I had to giggle (again!) when I read about Spot being startled by loud noises - I wonder if my evening gas sessions count? It's crazy that Spot practices crying and has a favorite sleep position. I wonder if Spot will take after my husband who is a stomach sleeper or me who likes to sleep on her back. (I miss sleeping on my back the last few weeks - the whole side thing just isn't the same.)

As far as the changes that occur in the mom side of things this weeks are:

And how's mom doing? POP! If you haven’t yet, you will soon be seeing the last of your inn-y belly button—until after you’ve pushed your little monkey out. If it’s getting difficult to breathe, you can thank your not-so-small belly for squishing your lungs—which will be more and more cramped for space as the pregnancy progresses. Not that this is surprising as everything else in your mid-section is getting properly squooshed as well. Keep in mind that as you grow (and grow and grow) in size you produce more blood (for both of you), which lowers your blood pressure. So standing up quickly and/or occasional fast movements may cause slight dizziness or lightheadedness. This is totally normal, but means you shouldn’t be too quick to jump to your feet when your team scores a goal. It's better to just punch the air in excitement or clap gleefully. One more fun pregnancy symptom to add to the list: you are producing more melanin, which can cause dark patches of skin to occur on random parts of your body. Don’t worry—these dark spots (unlike your parent’s age spots) will retreat soon after birth.

Well, I definitely don't think that belly button has popped yet (oopps - I almost wrote pooped, LOL!), but it definitely has changed in appearance and shape. I've already become somewhat lopsided due to my unicornuate uterus. My bump is more to the left than the right (I have a left UU). Also, the vertical slit that is in inside my belly button looks more like a 45 degree peace sign line tilted to the left since Spot is sitting mostly on my left side in my left sided uterus. I'm hoping that the bigger I get and the uterus expands, that things shift a bit more midline.

As I'm typing this on my laptop a commercial for the Honda CR-V has come on. It's the one where they start out mentioning the word "crave" and they show a soft baked chocolate chip cookie baking and as it gets more formed it turns into a chocolate chip cookie car that is the Honda CR-V. Genius - anything that can combine a yummy chocolate chip cookie and tie it in with a boring car commercial sure grabs my attention! I think all commercials should either contain pictures of vacation spots, puppies, or dessert food aka chocolate chip cookies. But that's just my opinion!

Late this afternoon I have my next OB appointment and anatomy/ growth scan. We have a late day appointment so that my husband can come especially for the ultrasound appointment. I'm hoping that traffic isn't too bad because even though my OB's office is only about 9 or 10 miles away - it'll take a good 45 minutes to get through the city that time of day. Thank you for guessing whether Spot will be a boy or girl - it looks like most people think that there is a lot of blue in our future (my hunch all along as well)! The great thing is that my husband and I don't have a preference either way. As long as my cervix continues to hold Spot in for several more weeks and doesn't try to pull any shenanigans, I don't have a care in the world when it comes to the gender.

So until later this afternoon I will be keeping my fingers crossed for a good cervix measurement and to see that Spot is measuring close to where they should be size wise. I'm interested to see exactly what my cervix is measuring because my last exact measurement by ultrasound of it was two weeks ago. Last week my OB looked at my cerclage and did an internal digit examine of my cervix to see how it was doing - and they can tell pretty well how things are, but they don't have exact numbers like a transvag ultrasound produces. The gender I'm excited about, but not worried about. Now what I am worried about is seeing if I can come up with something that resembles a chocolate chip cookie in my kitchen!