On Saturday, I picked up another overtime shift in the Blood Gas Lab. Paul went up to Clare to prepare his hunting blind for next weekend. I was bummed because I picked up the afternoon shift before I learned that everyone would be getting together for dinner on Saturday for Grandma’s 88th birthday. No one would trade shifts with me so I ended up missing the party. Instead, we went up to Davison on Sunday to take her out for lunch after church. My mom joined us. We went to Big Boy, her usual after church lunch spot then ended up hanging out at her house for many hours afterward. My cousin, Ashlee, and her husband, Jeremy, came over to the house as well as my dad when he got back from an American Legion meeting in Lansing. I think Grandma had a lot of fun telling us stories about my mom and her siblings when they were little and about her childhood on the farm. We stopped back at my parent’s house to drop off my mom and pick up some stuff and ended up going with them out to dinner at John’s Pizzeria. We then finally headed home to find it snowing in Brighton. We already had accumulation which I took some pictures of.
We had a pretty busy work week which was marred by Paul’s truck having problems with the transmission and clutch. He couldn’t get the car in first gear at all and had a very difficult drive home on Monday. He was in a bad mood that evening but was cheered up when he finally got to feel the baby kick. Since I was at the Brighton Health Center on Tuesday and he was there on Wednesday, whoever was going to the main hospital caught a ride with our gracious coworker, Cate. Paul had an appointment for his truck on Thursday but was very worried that the work would not be done in one day so he would be unable to leave to go hunting on Friday. Luckily the problem was exactly as our neighbor, Jeff, had diagnosed and it was a quick and cheap fix. Paul had Friday off of work and left in the afternoon to head up hunting. I have an exciting weekend of working in the Blood Gas Lab to look forward to so I worked then went to bed early.
I haven’t had any new cravings this week but have been more tired than in the previous few weeks. Lily has been kicking stronger.
News from the womb…
At the beginning of the week, alveoli (air sacs) began to develop in the baby’s lungs. Alveoli will continue to form for about nine more years. By the end of the week, breathing air is usually possible because some of the alveoli have developed at the end of the bronchial tubes and the lung tissue is well supplied with blood. In addition, the membrane that separates the air sacs from the capillaries is thin enough to allow oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange. Lastly, the lungs are secreting surfactant, a substance that keeps the lung tissue from sticking to itself and allows the air sacs to inflate. Brain wave activity began for the baby’s visual and auditory systems. The sensory systems began developing the kinds of connections with the brain that will be useful for interpreting input after birth. While the presence of brain wave activity means that the baby’s eyes have encountered a light source or that the baby’s ears have intercepted a sound message, no comprehension is possible yet. This system needs practice just like all the others. The baby has now been alive in my womb for 6 months now (remember the first two weeks of pregnancy started before conception) and has completed 2/3 of its stay. Over the next few months, the baby will be progressively able to survive without such an intimate attachment. The baby now weights 2 pounds and is about 9-13 inches long.
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