"This baby is huge!"

Baby Brother Updates

"This baby is huge!" -- Those were the words of Dr. Martin after this week's sonogram.  At 26 weeks, 1 day, Baby Brother was measuring two weeks ahead and estimated to weigh 2 lbs, 12.8 ounces.  To put that in perspective, Truman weighed only 1 lb, 12 ounces the first time I held him at one month of age and 2 lbs, 15.6 ounces the first time I nursed him at 10 weeks of age (or the equivalent of 33 week gestation).  It's pretty cool to realize I've already held a baby even larger than the one I'm currently carrying.  I'm on my way to a very large baby, which is fabulous in my opinion.

Everything was still looking good at this week's appointment.  My gestational diabetes test looks great, my weight gain is good, the amniotic fluid looks good, and my cervical measurement is OK.  It went down to 3.2 because I had a more active weekend.  That's still a safe range, but also a reminder to take a little easier next weekend.

26 weeks marks a huge milestone in terms of infant mortality and postnatal outcomes.  Although it is still far too soon for Baby Brother to be born, he would be in exponentially better shape than Truman were he to come at this point.

Ben has been working diligently on the nursery so that I can organize all the boxes of baby clothes and baby gear filling up the nursery and figure out what else we need to replace before Baby Brother's arrival.  I'm so ready to get his room prepared, even though he won't use it for a long time.

Truman Updates

I forgot to report that Truman earned MVP for the two-week period in his mainstream class a couple of weeks.  We still get lots of reports of naughty days from his PPCD class, but he seems to do OK in his mainstream class most days.

He weighed in at 35 pounds at his most recent weight check about six weeks ago, finally hitting a mark we've been working toward for a while.  He's still not filling out at all, but he is getting taller and although he's still the shortest kid in his class, he's not so short that he's out of place among most of his peers anymore.

He's still learning like a sponge, regularly sharing facts with me that I didn't know and reminding me of things I had long ago forgotten.  He's starting to show some reading readiness signs like spelling, identifying how words start and end, and sounding out a few short words on rare occasion.  He impresses me all the time with his intelligence and level of understanding of things I would never have expected him to understand at this age, like his understanding of how some of the changes in my body may be affecting me.  He asks me regularly about whether the stretching of my belly hurts me or makes me sore.