14 weeks - well almost!

Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.

Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches - about the size of a lemon— and weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilists hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active. The amount of amniotic fluid that your baby is floating in increases dramatically this week, to about a quart.

My guess is our baby’s feet are probably bigger than ½ an inch – just considering our big feet. Sorry baby, but I think you are stuck with it!

We are officially in the second trimester – depending on what you read that started last week at 13 weeks or now at 14 weeks. Overall I’m feeling good – still not as much energy as I’d like. I had some edema when I ate popcorn and sat too long at the movies and then at dinner and in the car– so I guess that’s (salty popcorn) out for a while. The morning sickness has pretty much stopped completely except for a few little blips here or there but they don’t last long. I have little bursts of more energy but they seem to be followed by the extreme tiredness that has become par for the course for the last few weeks.

There is much discussion on the gender of the baby – most are thinking a boy but we will be happy either way. We’ve been talking a lot about baby names – and we seem to be going back to the same names so I sometimes think that we are closer to having names than we thought we were. But we reserve the right to change our mind at the last minute.

Maybe we’ll start posting the reject (or good name for a dog) names!

Here’s one: Shamus – which is the Irish version of James…I love it but I can’t do it!

I’ve been tivo'ing baby story – which causes many tears when I watch them. And has prompted many discussions of what we think we want in terms of a birth. LOL. If only we could skip that part of the deal! It's kind of scary. Oh well we have time for all of this but we are having fun imagining the future!