35 Week Bump

In the hubbub of finishing up my oral defense, coupled with a week of rain and gloom, we completely missed last week's bumpage post. So to make it up to you, we thought it would be fun to do a little compare and contrast of 12 weeks of growth. Especially for those of you on the East Coast who last saw me in early July.

On the LEFT: me at 23 weeks, during our 4th of July trip to Shenandoah.
On the RIGHT: me today, at 35+ weeks.

The good news about this comparison: the weather here in St. Louis is now very much like that pleasant afternoon in the mountains.
The funny news: I can still (sort of) fit into that T-shirt.
And the not-at-all-surprising bad news: there's no way I could hike those 5 miles anymore!

24 Weeks

An exciting week indeed! Not only did it begin with a fabulous camping trip, but our friends Noel and Elissa brought new life into this world with Zeke, future friend of Short Stranger. But this week was important in other ways as well, because I had my 24 week appointment on Wednesday--the last of the 2nd trimester!

Needless to say, all went well at the Dr.'s office. The little guy is measuring just right for his age, though he seems to be developing an attitude. He gave the doc a kick when she was taking his heartbeat. The doc chuckled and said, "even I felt that one."

What makes this week especially important, though, is that the Short Stranger has reached the stage of "viability." Which basically means that if he decided to come out today, they'd try to save him because for the first time, there's a chance he'd survive. Momentous but terrifying at the same time! We've told him he needs to stay put until autumn.

The Short Stranger is now the length of a cob of corn, which happens to be what we're having for dinner (seriously). And he weighs a bit more than a pound. Just to give you some perspective on this, the shouldn't-be-famous Octo-Mom's smallest child weighed 1.5 pounds when it was born. Luckily, I'm not carrying 7 other peeps in there with the Short Stranger, so he should keep on growing just fine.

And here's the weekly babycenter.com post:

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound. Since he's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), he cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but his body is filling out proportionally and he'll soon start to plump up. His brain is also growing quickly now, and his taste buds are continuing to develop. His lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he hits the outside world. His skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon.


By the way, my uterus is apparently the size of a soccer ball.

sometimes, pregnant women just plain rock!

I mean, take for example, my wife Bryna. We went on a weekend camping at Shenandoah National Park this past weekend (for the 4th of July, you know, to celebrate patriotism and all), and she freakin' hiked more than 5 miles in the mountains . . . and being 23+ weeks pregnant. How awesome is that?!?! Sorry to gloat, but I'm very proud of her. Must be all the yoga or something. Hopefully, Mr. Short Stranger will enter this world just rearin' to get to the woods and do some camping (right?).

While on our camping trip, I also was able to play a little back-and-forth game with Short Stranger. I tapped a couple times on Bryna's bump, and he'd punch back . . . and we did this about 5-6 times in a row (he was probably thinking "hey man, cut that out"). Very cool, though.

While I'm thinking about camping and friends, I wanted to share our re-visit to the beloved Rose River Trail in Shenandoah. Such a great trail, lingering along the river with several nice spots to just sit and chill as the stream rushes by. We hiked there in 2006 during our last group trip to Shenandoah, and returned to get another group picture this time. While life's events have changed the group slightly (and will perhaps soon lead to fewer of us being able to make the trek), I thought it was worth making the historical comparison for memory's sake. Here goes:

One final lesson learned from camping that related to quality parenting (due to our friends Jen and Jeremy and their adorable daughter Zoe) -- MUST BUY LARGER TENT WITH MULTIPLE ROOMS!

And a picture in honor of our friend Becca . . . the only person I know who owns fire gloves and brings them camping (maybe because she works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and knows more than we do about what catastrophic events are in store for us in the future -- just kidding : )