16 Weeks

Today is my sixteenth week of pregnancy. I don't quite know how to describe this, but it seems that 16 weeks isn't that long a period of time (especially when it comes to 40 weeks of pregnancy), but it does almost feel like a long time, too. This may also sound weird, and I'm sure I'll eat my words in another few months, but I'd like to just be "showing" already to get that over with. What my body (or baby) has decided to do so far is to push everything up, rather than out. As a result, my upper abs muscles are starting to separate so that my stomach - and other accompanying organs - have someplace to go, which is out. Which means people are still looking and longing to pet my stomach, not the baby. From what I have read, the baby is spending quite a bit of his/her time just chillin' out. The drastic developmental milestones seem to have mostly passed. During this week, though, the baby will reach about 4 1/2 inches long (crown to rump) and 3 1/2 oz; famous food analogy: the baby is about the size of an avocado. His/her head is more erect and the legs are developing more, including growing toenails. Moving back up towards the head, though, eyes and ears are moving closer to a more recognizable position (like eyes in the front of the baby's head, rather than on the side of the baby's head), and "scalp patterning" is happening. That means that, while we wouldn't be able to tell what color hair the baby will have, whether or not the baby has a widow's peak or any other weird stuff like that is being figured out. Whats likely most critical is that right now the baby is pumping nearly 25 quarts of blood through his/her system. Pretty impressive.