Billy has made some impressive leaps lately. As I type this, he's approximately 9.5 inches crown to rump, which means from the top of his head to the bottom of his butt, he's about as long as my foot. If you stretched him out to get a head to toe measurement, he's over 15 inches long, which is about the length of my thigh. Weird to imagine him all cramped in there, but in this picture, you can see that he's folded up pretty good. He's well over 2 lbs. now and his growth is about to explode. Billy has to nearly quadruple in weight in 3 months.
If the little guy were born today, he would have an 85% survival rate, but would need to spend significant time in an incubator due to the low levels of baby fat on him right now. He's adding that fat at a rapid pace, which is a huge part of that rapid change in weight. He would also be placed on a respirator to help his little lungs breath as the lack of surfactant, a chemical compound that reduces surface tension, prevents the lung from working efficiently without medical assistance. You would also want to see the brain, liver, and immune system continue to develop a bit more prior to delivery. Even though he is not fully developed by any measure, he's well within the limits of premature viability.
At this stage of development, Billy is waking and sleeping at specific intervals. His eyes are opening and closing with regularity and he spends more time sucking his fingers/thumb. As his brain tissue has expanded to this point, significant neural activity can be detected. Baby hiccups increase in frequency, and while there are many theories as to why this is, nobody is really sure 100% why it occurs. And finally, since he's one of the fellas, his equipment has officially descended into place.
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