12 Weeks

The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

I am out of the first trimester after this week! Something tells me that my body already knows that, because I have had the worst case of not feeling good yesterday and today, and I just hope this nausea passes soon.

Please join me in prayer for the intestines of the baby to move correctly into the abdominal cavity, which is beginning to take place. A friend of mine has a cousin that the intestines did not move correctly into the abdominal cavity and it was a big deal, so I pray that God will manage that down to every last perfect detail.

I know some of you are wondering if we want a boy or a girl, and the answer is: honestly either. It would be nice for Olivia to have a sister close to her age, but I think it would be cool to have a boy, also. So there you have it! We will try to find out at our 20 week ultrasound, but as we know from Little O there, it does not always work out that way. For those that don't know, we couldn't find out what she was, despite three ultrasounds, until the day she made her debut. But that's another story for another time.

I'm going to take a little liberty and add something fun to this post. It will make it long, but if you don't want to read it, then that's okay, I think it will be fun to do it, plus I can't sleep. I am lifting this from a blog I read, who admits to lifting it from another blog, who lifted it from yet another blog. So, to get in the spirit, I thought I would make my own timeline. I will add a decade here and there until I get up to all my 30 years. If you do one of these, make sure you come back and let me know so I can look at it!

My first decade:

Age 1: I was such a laid-back, non-fussy baby that my mom thought I was mentally handicapped.

Age 2: I flush one of Deanna's (my new sister) cloth diapers down the toilet, and stop it up.

Age 3: Deanna continually climbs into the bathtub with me fully clothed. I have the pictures to prove it.

Age 4: We move into our new house, where we will be for the next 8 years, and just before my 5th birthday, my dad died.

Age 5: I fall in love with our neighbor Chuck, and promise him I can marry him when I turn 5 because then I will be old enough. My mom forced me to tell him what I discovered on my 5th birthday.

Age 6: My mom marries the wonderful man who is my step-dad, who will parent me for the rest of my life and love my daughter like nobody's business. Thanks Mom.

Age 7: The Space Shuttle Challenger blew up on my 7th birthday. I got in big trouble with the school for agreeing with a boy who said he wished our teacher was on the shuttle, and also got in trouble for writing another girl a note that said I hated her. I only showed it to the teacher because she had written the 'a' word on the note (then erased it but that doesn't really count.)

Age 8: My mom gets in a terrible accident involving a logging truck and a horse, and we think she will probably die, but thankfully she didn't. This accident was the perfect excuse I needed to get away with not doing my math homework for the night. (I'm almost ashamed to write that, but I really didn't understand the seriousness of the situation!)

Age 9: Mom finally let me get my ears pierced. That was a big deal. I think this is also the year that I got to play Betty Ross in a Gifted play about the Revolutionary War.

Age 10: Was chosen for a part in the 5th grade play featuring songs from Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. I wanted the part of Maria, to sing Do-Re-Mi, but instead got chosen to be one of three girls that sang "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair." Disappointing. But the play was fun, either way. I have good memories of that.

Okay, I think that will do it for the first decade! If I remember anything significant, I will add to it later. Hope that was as fun for you as it was for me!