23 Weeks

Your baby is still making remarkable changes. Her skin is still quite red and heavily wrinkled by the end of pregnancy week 23. Your baby can often hear loud noises in the womb from now and as you continue your pregnancy week by week, so don't be surprised if your baby seems to move around a bit when you are vacuuming or in an environment where loud noises are quite common.

The bones located in your baby's middle ear are starting to form and your baby is continuing to fill out and look more and more proportional.

If your baby were born this week there is a small chance your baby would survive, however it is best that your baby stay put for a number of weeks! Many women start to wonder what might happen if their baby is born prematurely. A baby born between 23and 24 weeks would have a 10 to 70 percent chance of survival. It truly depends on a number of factors that have to be taken into consideration.

Every day your baby stays in the womb increases their survival rate approximately 3 percent during weeks 23 and 26.

Generally after 26 weeks the survival rate jumps to 80-90%.

Many things can affect your baby's chances of survival if she is born prematurely. If your membranes rupture prior to 24 weeks your baby has less of a chance than if they stay intact. Male infants are considered more at risk because they are less mature than female babies when born prematurely. Other factors such as diabetes or high blood pressure can place added stress on the baby during delivery, increasing the chances of complication.

Your uterus is continuing to grow and expand, and by now is about 1.5 inches above your bellybutton. You are probably feeling less and less graceful 23 weeks pregnant as your belly continues to expand.

Your baby has lots of room to move in your uterus now, so her movements are probably quite strong at this point. You probably feel lots of flipping and flopping, and may even notice your stomach moving about!

Update

We are scheduled to meet with Dr. Roten, the pediatric cardiologist, on Jan. 6th. She will do an echocardiogram on Laiken and determine from there the extent of her heart defect. The defect they think she has is called atrioventricular canal defect. I don't really know too much about it since I have decided not to scour the internet like a mad woman...and I was told by family and friends that it is best to hear from the Dr. rather than try to make my own assessment of the situation. Besides, I don't want to read something that scares me for the next two weeks.

I also wanted to add that our annual Girl's Christmas party was this past week and I just wanted to thank all of you girls for your support and prayers as we go through this. You will never know how much it means to us to have so many wonderful people in our lives that care so much for our precious baby girl!! Thank you all again, and it was great to see all of you.

22 Weeks!!

At 11 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash) and almost 1 pound, your baby is starting to look like a miniature newborn. His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and he's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums. His eyes have formed, but his irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment. If you could see inside your womb, you'd be able to spot the fine hair (lanugo) that covers his body and the deep wrinkles on his skin, which he'll sport until he adds a padding of fat to fill them in. Inside his belly, his pancreas — essential for the production of some important hormones — is developing steadily.

Huh?!? Part 2

Yesterday we went in for another, and what we thought would be our final, appt. with the specialist that we had gone to for the Down's testing. We both fully expected everything to be fine but to our shock it is not.

Laiken has a heart defect that is going to require surgery and lifetime care with a cardiologist. Basically, the four chambers of her heart are not all closing like they are supposed to so the oxygen-rich blood and the oxygen-poor (because it has already gone through the body) blood are not staying separate like they normally would, instead they are mixing which will not give her enough oxygen to grow and thrive like she should. They will have to put patches in to create the four chambers. We are not quite sure all the details at the moment, we should receive a call sometime today from the pediatric cardiologist at Cook Childrens to schedule a consult. Once we know more about what we are facing I will let everyone know but until then please keep our baby girl in your prayers.

Also, because half of all babies with Down's have heart defects as well, this puts her at more of a 50% chance of having Down's instead of the original 1.4%. Our specialist checked again for any soft markers and still sees nothing else of concern. We are still choosing not to do an amnio at this time and will not unless it will help the doctor's to be better prepared upon her arrival, either way I don't want to know the results. We were told that I would be induced early in order for her to be born into a more controlled environment, with a "team" standing by for her. This is what we know for now, I will keep updating as we know more. If anyone has any experience with things of this nature that you may want to share but don't really want to post as a comment my personal email is lem1146@yahoo.com.

21 Weeks!!

Your baby is still pretty active and continues to move all over in the amniotic fluid. However, towards the end of this trimester the baby will begin to settle, usually in a head down position. Your baby is beginning to show evidence of eyebrows and eyelashes and the hair on his scalp is much more visible. He wakes and sleeps in regular intervals, similar to what a newborn would do. This may be apparent to you by his movement patterns. He regularly ingests and absorbs large quantities of the amniotic fluid and excretes urine. Your baby is approximately 27-30 cm (11 inches) and weighs about three quarters of a pound.

You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now, and if you're having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.

Our big news for this week...Roddy felt little Laiken doing gymnastics!!! She completely rolled over and so he felt her flipping!!! It was such an awesome moment!! That happened Wednesday night and then the next day he felt her practicing tae-bo...Billy Blanks style!! =)

We had a doctor's appt. this week as well, everything is fine, we are measuring right where we should be. I have gained three pounds so far and although no woman ever likes to gain weight it's nice to know it's from Laiken rather than too much Casa or fries. =)

Painting is about to start on her room this weekend and hopefully we will have some pictures to post of that soon...speaking of pictures I think I owe you all a few!!

Halfway There!!!!!!!

No little monkey's life is complete without bananas!! It still amazes me to finally be pregnant with this precious baby girl and now to know that we are actually at the halfway mark. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were announcing our news to everyone and now we are just inching closer and closer to her being here!! We are so excited to finally be parents and hold her in our arms and the wait is driving us both crazy. There were times when we never thought we would get to this point and now to know that come April, just a few short months away we will be on this amazing new journey together as a family. Anyhow, I have been taking belly shots but I keep forgetting to upload so I will get to that very soon!!