18 Weeks Pregnant!

How your baby's growing:

Head to rump, your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and he weighs almost 7 ounces. He's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that you'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. His blood vessels are visible through his thin skin, and his ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from his head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around his nerves, a process that will continue for a year after he's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If you're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.

I’m a little late in the week to be posting this week’s baby update but I wanted to wait till after my appointment.

My appointment went well this morning. He measured my fundal height, which is my uterus. It’s a lot bigger than I thought. According to Baby Center the top of the uterus isn’t at my belly button till 20 weeks but he said it’s already there & actually a little higher. Maybe that’s because of my shortness but either way he said the baby seems to be measuring perfectly on time. While he was looking for the heartbeat with the Doppler, I noticed he smiled. He said the baby was moving around but I couldn’t feel it. He finally found it & it was in the 150s. So this baby is definitely making it hard to make guesses on its gender based on the heartbeat.

And speaking of gender, we will have the BIG ultrasound NEXT TUESDAY!!! I’m so excited! In only 6 days we will be able to start calling this baby by its name. And then we can start buying clothes & figure out the nursery. It’s just amazing that we’ve come to this point in the pregnancy. We are so thankful & feel so blessed.