24 Weeks

Woohoo!! Well, we start off with some good news . . . Kaylee has a freshly painted room of her own! Chris and I finally finished painting over the weekend! It turned out really nice. We are waiting two weeks for the paint to cure before we start hanging the blinds back up and the shelves that will be in her room as well. So we are finally making some progress. Here is the link to updated pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/CJGrau/Nursery.

The bad news is . . . the third time is not the charm. Kaylee has a room but unfortunately she doesn't have any place to sleep! Chris and I headed down to Babies 'R Us once again in search of a crib. We looked around . . . found one we both liked. Inspected it . . . talked about it. Grabbed the little sheet to take over to the desk . . . sat down and told them we want this crib!! . . . Only to be told once again . . . "Sorry . . . we can't order this crib for you." So yes we have been there three times . . . found three different cribs we liked only to be shot down every single time. As Chris says, "It's like they don't even want to sell us a crib!" So once again BACK to square one.

Oh, and I updated all my tickers for my "new" due date of Sept 29th. I will probably try to start updating this blog on Mondays from now on since its the beginning of a new week and it correlates with the new dates. But we shall see if I keep up on it hehe. And I added a baby poll where you can guess Kaylee's arrival date, her weight, height, time of arrival and so on . . . have fun!

Here is the update on Kaylee -

~~~~~~~~

Kaylee now weighs about 1.5 lbs and is getting bigger everyday . . . almost a foot long now at 11.81 inches long. (size compared to 1/2 gal milk) By the end of this week, she will be weighing around 2 lbs and 13.5 inches long. Our cutie-patootie may even be a little more plump, but isn't anywhere near her full baby-fatted cute-self. Most of the "filling out" is coming up in that long awaited third trimester. Woo-hoo!

This is another big week for our magical growing baby! Just take a look at the checklist for this week: 1) ears: done; 2) fingernails: done; 3) lung walls: secreting "surfactant." What's that? Well, surfactant is sort of what it sounds like: a surface-activated fat whose main purpose is to assist Kaylee's little lungs during inflation (as in, filling with air, not getting more expensive). Just in case you're curious, our little submerged baby is still breathing in amniotic fluid, preparing and rehearsing the lungs an oxygen-filled life outside the womb. And 4) the center of her bones are beginning to harden.

By now the doctor should be able to hear her strong heartbeat, using a stethoscope or Doppler ultrasound device. If daddy were to put his ear right on the belly in the right position, he might even be able to hear it unaided if there is no background noise.

She now sleeps and wakes in a more regular pattern. You may notice that she is particularly active when mommy is trying to rest. She is also developing her preference between being right- or left-handed as well!