Week 29 of Pregnancy: Baby Fat

At 29 weeks pregnant, your baby is almost 17 inches tall now (nearly as tall as he or she will be at birth), and close to three pounds (a weight that will likely more than double — and may even come close to tripling — by delivery time). His or her wrinkled skin is smoothing out as more fat is deposited under the skin surface. This fat, called white fat, is different from the earlier brown fat that your developing fetus accumulated. Brown fat is necessary for body temperature regulation while white fat (the fat you have, Mom) actually serves as an energy source.

Which explains why your energizer baby feels so…well…energized! Space in your baby's living quarters is now at a premium, so you'll be feeling jabs and pokes from elbows and knees mostly. But those kicks will be more vigorous than before (and also less erratic) because your baby is stronger and excitedly responding to all sorts of stimuli — movement, sounds, light, and that candy bar you ate half an hour ago.

Luckily, your baby doesn't have teeth yet that would need a brushing after that sugary treat, but it won't be long before you'll need to buy that first baby toothbrush! You'll recall that your baby's baby-teeth buds formed weeks ago, but now the buds for permanent teeth are forming in his or her gums as well.

And back to those kicks, who's counting? Actually, you should be. Now's a good time to start doing a kick count twice a day to make sure baby's doing just fine (plus, it's a good excuse for a rest). Lie down (preferably after a snack) and keep track of your baby's movements. You're looking for at least ten movements in an hour's time (don't forget to count movements of any kind — kicks, flutters, swishes, rolls, and so on).





NOTE FROM THE NEW MOM:

We had our Doctor's appointment today and everything is good. We heard the heartbeat again but I forgot to ask how many beats per minute so I can't update that but she was pleased. Our little one is still measuring about two weeks early and when I jokingly said to the baby that it should be shooting for 6 pounds our midwife retorted with oh Honey that ship has sailed! Oh well. I guess I am in for a big baby after all. I had my glucose test today and should hopefully not get the results for two weeks. (Normal results come via snail mail in two weeks- abnormal results will come by phone and sooner.) For those of you who don't know. . . The glucose test is a standard test to check for gestational diabetes and I certainly do not want that! I also scheduled my next (and hopefully final) ultrasound appointment for December 9.

On non-medical news- The nursery is coming along nicely. We have the walls painted and the floors sanded and stained. We moved the dresser in last Tuesday and on Wednesday and Thursday I assembled the crib and the changing table respectively. Yesterday I put all of the closet shelving back in to the closet and the doors just need to be put up. Rob spent a lot of time last week sketching out the various sea creatures that will be adorning the walls and as I type this I am scanning them all into the computer so that he can project them onto the walls to paint them as opposed to free-handing them all over again. There are about 30 pages of pictures! I will post pictures of the nursery when they are all done. It is going to be amazing.

That's it here. The bean has been kicking up a storm and his/her various dance moves can make my belly move in ways I never thought possible. This is so fun!! And now with the final picture scanning I am off to make some dinner! I just wanted to add one of the images that will not be making onto the wall: