Baby at 24 weeks gestational age - image courtesy BabyCenter.com
This week marks our family’s 24th week of pregnancy with our third child – Junior Constantino.
Technically, my wife is shouldering the bulk of the pregnancy duty via her uterus, but we’re consciously making it a family event to ensure our two daughters are fully engaged in the entire experience.
As you may know, we are expecting a boy which I wrote about a few weeks ago when we were trying to predict the baby’s gender.
When we first found out that we were pregnant we signed up for weekly updates from a fantastic web site, BabyCenter.com – here’s the latest:
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.
BabyCenter also uses various fruits and vegetables to estimate our son’s growth – here’s the salad assemblage during the past several weeks:
Weed 24 – Ear of corn
Week 23 – Mango
Week 22 – Spaghetti Squash
Week 21 – Carrot
Week 20 – Banana
(NOTE: At this stage the measurements change from “head-to-rump” to another standard of “head-to-toe”)
Week 19 – Heirloom Tomato
Week 18 – Bell Pepper
Week 17 – Turnip
Week 16 – Avocado
Week 15 – Apple
Week 14 – Lemon
Week 13 – Medium Shrimp
Week 12 – Lime
Week 11 – Fig
Week 10 – Kumqut
Week 9 – Grape
We’re still considering the option of collecting and storing a supply of the blood and tissue from the umbilical cord, just in case the baby needs it in years to come.
Question: Has anyone else done umbilical blood storage? Just curious….
