Just Under 25 Weeks

Tomorrow we cross over 25 weeks in this pregnancy. There are 15 weeks left until my due date, and at most 17 weeks until we meet the little kickboxer that I've been growing for the past 5 and a half months!

I'll go back to 3dpregnancy.com for this week's baby update:

Get ready for pat-a-cake! Baby's hands are now fully developed and he spends most of his awake time groping around in the darkness of your uterus. Brain and nerve endings are developed enough now so that your baby can feel the sensation of touch. That doesn't mean he can feel it when his father pokes your stomach, however, so tell him to knock it off. Other highlights include:

Your baby's arms and legs have grown to almost the proportions they will be at birth, which is still sort of short. So don't be alarmed when your newborn's arms barely clear his waist. Baby's nostrils, which have been plugged up until now, clear out (like he's taken a super-dose of Sudafed) and he can practice breathing through the nose. The structures of your baby's spine are now made up of 150 joints, 33 rings and some 1,000 ligaments. Can you believe you're growing something that complicated inside of you?

The capillaries, the teeniest blood vessels, are now forming in your baby's body, giving his formerly translucent skin a pink glow. The blood vessels in the lungs also develop this week. You'll see how well that worked out when your baby gives those lungs a workout while you're on line at the bank in a few months.

Your baby weighs about a pound and a half and is about 13½ inches long—roughly the length of one of those recorders you played in elementary school music class. Who's up for a round of "Hot Cross Buns?"

Crazy, huh? Oh, and I've also read that my uterus is now the size of a soccer ball. Woah! He's getting so big now, and his movements are so routine. I still get startled occasionally after a small period of non-movement when his first jab to the bladder comes, but other than that I'm getting pretty used to it. Now I can't imagine what it will be like when he's born and I don't feel him all the time! It's amazing how perspective changes.