Week 24

Each baby is about 1.5 lbs now and almost a foot long ($5 footlong?). They will pack on about 6 oz. a week. This mostly consists of fat deposits, but also of growing organs, bones, and tissue. Along with loud noises, the baby can also hear Carrie's breathing, Carrie's heart beat, and my voice when I yell at Carrie's belly.  The inner ears are fully developed now. The babies can tell if they are right side up or up side down. They can also tell when Carrie is moving.


They can also smell fear.

Week 23

This week the babies will....

Practice breathing by sucking in and blowing out amniotic fluid with their lungs. 
Fat production is in over drive. Over the next 3 to 4 weeks the babies will double in weight. 
Finger nails are now fully formed
Their skin will become less see through as fat continues to collect over the next few weeks.
Each baby is about 11 inches long and weighs 18 to 19 ounces. 


With this being such a weight gaining and growing phase, we are hoping for each baby to be around the 2.5 pound mark at our next ultrasound in 2 1/2 weeks.

What starts with "T" and ends with "Holy Crap, We're Having Twins"

If any of you didn't know, Carrie is pregnant.  Today, we had our first ultrasound and found out that we are not having a boy OR a girl.  We're having a boy AND a girl.  Fraternal TWINS!

No one (literally none of you) are more shocked than I was at this news.  We are super-excited and terrified, simultaneously.

Hot Potato (baby boy) and Sweet Potato (baby girl) are due March 28th.

Stuart (and Carrie)

P.S.  Hot Potato and Sweet Potato are not their actual names (not yet, at least).  We are still accepting name suggestions.

Hiccups

Here is a list of what Hot Potato can do/is going through this week:

• It's neck is developed and the head is no longer resting on its chest or shoulders
• It is growing eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair on its head this week
• Its eye are closed but it can sense light 
• It can suck, swallow, and get the hiccups
• It is now a whopping 4 inches long

It still looks like an alien, but I love this particular alien.

Peachy

So, this week Hot Potato is the size of a peach, or you might say a potato.  Its vocal cords will finish developing, and it can also suck its thumb. Its intestines are fully developed and the skeletal system is well underway.

Unbelievable...

...Seriously.

Heartbeat

So, they tell me that I get to hear my baby's heartbeat today.  That is blowing my mind.  I am strangely nervous.  But more so, I'm excited.  What a beautiful, little, alien-parasite miracle!!!  I don't know how, but I already love my child.

not my actual baby
just some stranger baby from the internet
maybe it's you

Guess what?

Carrie's pregnant.

Due date: March 28th, 2011

Embryo/Fetus name: Hot Potato

Please post comments with your birth name suggestions.

Tomorrow - A Day to Remember

I turn 27 tomorrow.  I would like a new electric shaver and a uni-lazy.  A uni-lazy is basically a onesie for adults with a hood.  I really want one.  I've outgrown my last one.  I don't mean this as a joke meaning I haven't had one since I was a child.  I mean I had a red fleece onesie in college, but after going through the wash it shrunk.

These amazing, practical and fashionable adult onesies can be found at www.foreverlazy.com.

INVICTUS

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley