Just after telling you all in the one of the recent blogs that Antoinette would begin feeling the first lodged foot in her rib cage, this morning I hear this story.
Lately, Antoinette has been feeling a little pressure right under her rib. We have been assuming this was a foot, since we hear so much about the lodged feet and we know a lot of recently pregnant women (many of which receive this blog). Well, last night, Antoinette gets this feeling again, as if something is putting constant increasing pressure under her rib. Kind of like something is pressing on her rib cage from the inside out. So, like she's done in the past, she gives a gentle, constant pressure back to try and dislodge the foot/hand/head and get the little guy to shift positions to something that's a bit more comfortable for both of them. This time, he moves, and follows that up with a thump, as if to say, "hey, quit pushing up there!" A bit later, Antoinette gets the lodged foot again, so once again, she gently presses down. Well, he shifts again, only this time, he's fed up. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump... Like Muhammad Ali working the speed bag in the gym. I guess she upset him. Apparently these two need to need to have a discussion about sharing, only this time its about sharing Antoinette's abdomen and not about a Little Tykes Firetruck or something. I guess its never too early to learn a good life lesson for the little guy.
Speaking of the little guy, he's about 8.8 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about a pound and a half. The long process of adding the insulating brown baby fat is still progressing at a rapid rate, which accounts for much of the baby's rapid weight gain. His rapid increase is size equates to a rapid increase in uterine growth for Antoinette, whose uterus will be about the size of a soccer ball at the end of this week.
If the baby were to be delivered this week, he would have a good chance of surviving, which is much better than a couple weeks ago when we were talking about the only child ever to survive that premature. These odds continue to improve with each passing week he remains inside of the safe, warm uterus of his Mother. Premature babies at this stage will have to spend several months in a hospital and are more susceptible to complications and infections, but this is just another factor that improves as the weeks go by.
This is the first week that parents who own a stethoscope (which we do since Antoinette is a nurse) can often hear the baby's heartbeat. In rare cases, a curious Dad (a category I clearly fit in to) will even be able to hear the heartbeat unaided by pressing his ear to Mom's belly and waiting patiently for the baby to shift into the proper position to allow for it.
Since we are having a baby boy, his "equipment" begins its descent into his proper position this week. He can also make a complete fist, which his Mother may have already begun to feel during his Friday Night Fights episode in her belly last night. Within a week or two, he will be able to grab a hold of his own feet, which is something he'll enjoy doing once born. The right handed or left handedness begins to appear this week. While both Antoinette and I are righties, we both have lefties in our family. I believe Antoinette's little sis is a lefty and so was my Grandmother.
Because its interesting and I was bored the other night, I checked into the likelihood of this. The odds of two right handed parents (which we are) having a left handed child are 9-10%. One right handed and one left handed parent having a left handed child is 10-22%, depending on if the lefty is Mom or Dad (if its Mom, the odds are higher). And two left handed parents having a left handed child is 26-30%. That is from a study of 70,000 people. Also, this trait does not appear to have an isolated gene determining this that we are aware of according to the study I read, and an average of 10% of people are left handed around the world, regardless of culture or race. One more interesting fact: The number of left handed people as a percentage of the global population seems to be increasing and could be as high as 11.2% within the next 50 years. Weird.
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