Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Baby Helen Update



One of my students said he has missed the fruit and vegetable analogies of Baby Helen's growth on the blog. So, W.D., this is for you. As of yesterday, Baby Helen is now 28 weeks along, now batting her eyelashes, and responding to light. She is approximately the size of a chinese cabbage, about 2.5 pounds (incidentally, NeeNee Porter weighed this much when she was born very premature). She is likely just shy of 15 inches long (her brother was 21.75 inches when he was born). Her little brain neurons are rapidly developing and she's putting on body fat very quickly now.
Baby Helen is making her presence known, and is quite active, especially up under her mama's right bottom rib. She crunks (it's not dancing because dancing wouldn't hurt like this, this little girl crunks) at 10:00 a.m. and at 1:00 p.m. daily. I've started to have those dreaded leg cramps at night, forcing a gimpy walk the next day for the really painful episodes. I'm likely to gain another 11 pounds within these final eleven weeks, which sounds just dreadful considering I've already gained a little over 20. Still, if I gain all 11 pounds, my total weight gain would be about 15 pounds less than I gained with Little Philip. I passed the glucose test yesterday, barely, but still I passed, meaning I don't have to worry about any strict diet associated with gestational diabetes. That's good, since I just ordered six boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
Again, I pray this will all result in a healthy baby weighing anything UNDER nine pounds. We want Little Philip to get the football scholarship, not his sister.

No comments: