33 Weeks

Eek gads, the heft of a pineapple! Oy vey. Look at how small that quarter looks in comparison. That's how small the Short Stranger was at around 9 weeks, in late March. So so long ago...

So this week, first, I have to do a little cyber happy dance in honor of my finished comp exam taken on Tuesday. I had to go to the bathroom 3 times during that 3-hour exam, but I made it! And although I still have an oral follow up portion to go, I feel d*mn good about my finished work. Enough so to finally relax a bit and really take in what comes next. Unfortunately for me though, my body has decided to do what it does everytime I have a big school project and succumb to an illness--this time, thankfully, a cold. I shouldn't complain--at least it consistently has the decency to wait until I'm done with my work. This does, however, make the increasingly persistent last-trimester pregnancy symptoms all the more annoying. Acid-refux and scratchy throat all at once? Wonderful.

In other fun news, the dad-to-be and I got to tour the labor and delivery rooms last night during our birthing class. Being the art dorks that we are, we of course focused mainly on the interior decorating. Soothing decor? Check. Ambient lighting? Check. No nasty hospital white? Check and double check. And...happy little babies in the nursery! (The cutest part of the tour, of course).

On the Short Stranger front, which basically consists of fattening up and strengthening those lungs and muscles at this point in the game, babycenter.com has this to say:

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

By the way, babycenter.com claims that I might "find myself waddling" at this point in the pregnancy. Hmpf. For the record, *I* don't think I waddle yet, but then again, how would I know?