Week 37: Light at the End of the Tunnel

With just three more weeks to go and at about six and a half pounds (though weight and height vary from fetus to fetus), your baby is doing just fine. You can expect weight gain to be about half an ounce per day. (Boys, though, are likely to be heavier at birth than girls. And here's a bit of boy baby trivia to back that one up: Moms carrying boys tend to eat more than moms carrying girls — a foreshadowing of teenage refrigerator raids to come.) Since your little one is considered full-term now, if your baby was to leave the wet nest this week, he or she would likely thrive. That's because Mother Nature and you have done such a fine job.

So what's keeping your little one busy while waiting it out until D-day? Practice, practice, practice. Your baby is simulating breathing by inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, sucking on his or her thumb, blinking, and pivoting from side to side (one day you feel the tushy on the left side, another day it has swung around to the right side). All these are skills needed for his or her next gig — starring as newborn.

Here's an interesting fact: Your baby's head (which, by the way, is still growing) will, at birth, be the same size circumference as his or her hips, abdomen, and shoulders. And guess what's making an impression (literally) these days on those shoulders and hips: fat — causing little dimples in those cute elbows and knees, shoulders and hip, and creases and folds in the neck and wrists.

The Baby's Current Position

We finally have an image we can refer to and its pretty accurate for our baby. We can externally feel his butt under my ribcage and now know its his feet doing all that kicking towards the top.

I'm glad to know its his butt we've been pushing on and not his head / face. :)

Jennifer