Or at least there will be three sometime in mid-March. We found out a couple months ago that we were expecting a third child and that Antoinette was about 8-9 weeks along at the time. The exact due date is March 16th, but the boys were all over the map with their due date. Based on the natural progression and this being the third, I'm guessing early March for the birth, but we'll see how it goes. Since this update is 100% about the new baby, let's start with the biggest news of all. We're having a little girl. Or so they tell us. Antoinette and I happen to share a due date with a close friend of ours and one day, when discussing how she was feeling, she asked if I had a date yet to find out the gender. I told her it was a couple months off and that's when she told me about these places that will determine the gender without a doctor's request using 3D and 2D ultrasound.
Of course we immediately looked into this and booked the first date we could find. We went to some clinic in downtown Boston and they set us up in a room with a huge gurney/bed, large flat panel plasma TV's on the walls, a toy area for little kids, and the tech with the ultrasound equipment. The whole visit took about 15 minutes and after some spinning and flipping, belly manipulation to get the kid to do a couple backflips, and some old fashion good luck, our little one positioned herself just right for the tech to feel 100% confident that we were going to get our baby girl.
So that's where we stand. We are working diligently on a name. We had one locked down, but we're not 100% on that any longer. Not exactly back to the drawing board, but now that we know it's a girl, another dozen names have resurfaced for consideration with any number of middle name combinations to go with it. We discuss it every week, but there really isn't a lot of pressure to narrow this down anytime in the near future. We figure we have at least a couple months to narrow it to a couple and probably a couple more months to finalize it. No real rush.
As for the baby herself, she is coming along quite nicely. Antoinette will be 18 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow, so the past 4 weeks have seen a lot of development changes for the little one. In week 15, air sacs began to develop in the lungs with the aid of amniotic fluid being "breathed" through them on a regular basis. Legs finally became longer than her arms and all joints became full functional giving her significant additional range of motion. The baby began to sense light through still fused eyelids, and would likely react to a flashlight shone at Antoinette's belly. Her little taste buds came developed, but it'll be some time before she can put them to good use.
By week 16, her eyes began a dramatic shift to better align with the front of her head and along with her legs growing thicker and more developed, she also improved her overall posture and neck alignment. Ears are pretty much where they will be at birth and her hairline is beginning to form. Her toenails likely to require frequent painting for the rest of her life are now present and her little heart is now efficiently pumping 25 quarts of blood through it a day. Her overall heart rate was right on target during our last couple visits, including the ultrasound.
Last week, her skeleton of cartilage began to harden into solid bone, and her umbilical cord began to fatten up and thicken to provide a growing body with the additional nutrients needed to continue her rapid growth rates. Sweat glands take form here and those previously moveable joints continue to improve the fluidity of their movement.
This week has seen even more development. At this point, she's about 5.5" long, head to rump, and weighs no more than 7 ounces. She's roughly about the size of a bell pepper. As the flexing of the arms and legs becomes more and more fluid each week, Antoinette has begun to feel what she believes are her first little kicks, feeling more like "tap, tap, taps" on the inner wall of her belly, ever so slight. Her ears officially stopped migrating here and her body is covered with blood vessels visible just under her thin skin. As a girl, all of her bits and pieces necessary to one day make us grandparents are now in place. While she only increased her length by about 30% since week 15, her body weight has increased by a staggering 180% of her corresponding week 15 weight.
As for Antoinette, she's thrilled to be through the 1st Trimester as this pregnancy produced a lot more early nausea than the previous two. She's feeling much better, but this little one is certainly stealing a lot of her energy. Her belly is clearly showing at this point and there is no mystery about her situation other than when she's wearing scrubs.
An update video is coming soon...
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