We are at 34 weeks

Your pregnancy: 34 weeks

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How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. His fat layers — which will help regulate his body temperature once he's born — are filling him out, making him rounder. His skin is also smoother than ever. His central nervous system is maturing and His lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

Mommy to be update

The baby wants KFC. There is no arguing, no stopping at GO, or trying to talk the baby out of it. The baby gets what the baby wants and who am I to disappoint. At the beginning of the pregnancy I decided to not give into my cravings and eat whatever the heck I wanted. Unfortunately, I have slipped a few times and had to change the rules just a bit…ok maybe more than just a bit. We decided that I could eat out at each fast food restaurant one time during the pregnancy which turned into just trying to make it without stopping at McDonald’s once a week (two cheeseburgers no onions or mustard please). The baby just won’t give up when he wants a cheeseburger!

Despite my not keeping with my goal of sticking to the healthy dietary plan, we have kept up with a lot of other goals and scheduling benchmarks. This week we painted the baby’s room. Big thanks to my mom and auntie Laura for all of their help. Poor Grandpa missed the painting party, but I am sure we will exploit his abilities sometime down the road for our advantage! We also put the crib together this week...which is really a crib/changing table/hamper storage/shelving unit (from Grandma and Grandpa Maurer). My thought that “we can whip this baby out no problem despite the bible sized manual” was quickly squashed. 2 ½ hours later we finished the bad boy and its baby holding-diaper organizing-clothes wrangling splendor! Two more big accomplishments on getting ready for our little guy to arrive! And believe it or not I have only had one or two freak out moments during all this “getting set up.” I’m pretty proud of that!

We start our baby classes this week. It is just one more thing that I am a bit behind the curve on. Oh well, we are getting all the little things on the baby checklist checked off one by one even if it is a bit behind most new parents schedule. It is a 5 week class so hopefully baby stays put until we are done. After that anytime the Griggster wants to come is alright by me! The BIG DADDY of classes is July 12^th…an all day class where you learn the all important tricks of diapering, bathing and who knows what else you are supposed to know before they allow you to be released into the wild (I know all you veteran professional mothers are giggling to yourselves…yet again). We will never fully be prepared to be parents until we have become parents - It’s a right of passage that many folks have the privilege of blindly going through and it’s our turn next.

One last little note…and this is going to two specific people, who I don’t even know if they read my ramblings or not…but you know who you are and what you did. All I can say is you made my heart so happy and we know that you didn’t do it for recognition, but we thank you from the bottom of our hearts and pray that someday God blesses you in even a small way, the way He did for us through you. (Baby does little flippy kicks in agreement!) Thank you!!

Week 33 Update

Your pregnancy: 33 weeks

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How your baby's growing:

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.

Rollin in style

Grigg will be rollin' in style in his new wheels

week 32 update

Your pregnancy: 32 weeks

See the big picture

How your baby's growing:

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, he'll gain a third to half of his birth weight during the next 7 weeks as he fattens up for survival outside the womb. he now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). His skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

Mommy to be Update June 15 2009

He looks like his Dad!

I love ultrasounds, like all out, over the moon, adore ultrasounds. Who ever thought there would be a machine invented which would allow someone to look inside someone else’s body and see something so important like a human growing? I have to look past the fact that everyone is looking at my uterus, however I have no problem showing the world that specific body part when you get to see a baby too! We had our third ultrasound today and despite feeling a little under the weather it was a joy! Our ultrasound technician was pretty goofy and joked with us the entire time – my kind of technician! Side note, ladies, did you know that the yak snot they goop onto your belly really has a purpose and is not there to just gross you out??? It actually allows the sound waves to travel into you body. I’m sure most everyone knew that but it was something I didn’t know and thought was kind of cool.

Alright…back to the important stuff! This was our second ultrasound to look at the little man’s bones to see how they are progressing. As soon as the little tool thing-a-ma-bobber touched my stomach the screen lit up with our son in, well, all his glory. Warning: the next bit of information will include sensitive material, so anyone under the age of 13 should go through health class before reading. I am so proud of our little guy…and he was definitely proud of his little guy! So, much to the chagrin of Grandma Maurer who desperately wanted a granddaughter, he is definitely a boy…no doubt. The technician then explained to us that they so gracefully refer to this in their textbooks as the turtle sign. All his boy parts put together on the screen kind of looking like a turtle in black and white. Use your imagination on this one folks…I thought that was pretty much the funniest thing.

Ok, now all of you sensitive folks can resume reading. Grigg has successfully flipped and is in the head down position…prepared for take off. People say that you can feel when they flip and honestly I don’t recall a specific time that I know he flipped…but let me tell you since he is getting bigger the movements are not just the cute mini kicks and bumps. They are the full out summersaults and karate chops of a black belt Martial-Artist. Maybe he isn’t the hockey player I was hoping for but maybe the next Bruce Lee…or my luck Chuck Norris. Anyways, I digress. He’s in launch mode and being the overachiever that I am, I have cooked him 2 whole days ahead of schedule! What a good little man…must be all that spaghetti and potato chips!

So, the important stuff…all the organs look fantastic and his heart is beating at 140! Way to go buddy. He is 4 pounds and 1 ounce and like I said before about 2 days ahead of schedule. As he gets bigger and bigger it is harder to see everything, however the bone report is GOOD! All of his larger bones are straight and calcified perfectly. When looking at the spine we were only able to see half of it…which is what we want. If you could see the entire spine from front to back that would be a bad sign that things are not calcifying properly! So, we are very happy to report NO FRACTURES to be seen! The doctor said we have a very healthy boy. And last but not least, there is no doubt that this little man is his father’s son. After all the big head jokes, we have formal and official news that his head is….”fairly decent sized” as our technician put it. We didn’t get a measurement but she was pretty impressed and said he has a large head. (Oh so excited about that!)

Check out the photos below…all you skeptics who thought we would never get around to posting them! The ultrasound pictures are great and you can even kind of see his face. Chubby Cheeks is all I can say about that.

Baby Grigg Pictures

We had an ultrasound this morning and got some awesome pictures. The ultrasound tech said he had a "reasonably sized head" while smiling :) and he passed the "Turtle Marker" test so yes he is definitely a boy....sorry grandma.... but here are some pictures we got of the little man

New Baby Blog

We have had our family blog for so long that we have exceeded the number of allowed posts so we will be starting a new blog and this is it. We have much information about the baby to share with you and this is how we will do it !! Bookmark this page because the use of our old blog will be minimal.

Love

Mike, Ronda and Baby G