Week 19

Your baby weighs about 9 ounces (260g) and measures about 5.6 to 6.4 inches (14 to 16cm) from crown to rump.

Her skin is thickening and developing multiple layers- the epidermis and the dermis, the deeper layer where it will form fat. Your baby is now also developing a waxy protective coating for her skin called vernix caseosa. The vernix protects your baby's skin which is continuously submersed in amniotic fluid. Vernix, which is particularly thick around the eyebrows is held in place by tiny downy hairs called lanugo.

Your baby can now grip with her fists. Toenails and scalp hair are growing.

At this point, it may be possible to determine the baby's sex by ultrasound, if the baby cooperates, but the ultrasound technician will rarely guarantee the sex based on the ultrasound results as mistakes are sometimes made at an early ultrasound.

You can hear the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler ultrasound device or a stethoscope.

18 Weeks

Your baby measures about 5.2 to 6 inches (13-15cm) from crown to rump and weighs about 7 ounces (200g).

The buds for the permanent teeth are forming behind those that have already developed for the first teeth.

Your baby's nervous system and brain development continue at a spectacular pace. By this week, your baby's motor neurons, which connect muscle to the brain, have grown into place so that your baby can consciously direct her movements. Millions of neurons inside your baby's brain are growing and forming connections and the nerves in her body are being covered in a fatty substance called myelin.

Your baby's ears are now placed on the sides of her head and her limbs are now in proportion. Your baby's tiny foot is just one inch long, but is in perfect proportion to the rest of her leg.

Your baby can hear your voice and recognize it.

New Carpet!

Well, it's been a long 3 years, but we finally got new carpet upstairs and along the stairs!  We decided to pull up all of the old stuff ourselves in order to save a couple of hundred bucks, so the furniture all had to be moved to areas that were not getting new carpet.  Many items were pushed into the upstairs bathrooms.  The rest was taken downstairs to the living room.  Our house has been in a state of disrepair for the past 2 weeks, so now I am on a mission to go through all of our stuff and get rid of as much "junk" as I can.  I was able to go though a lot yesterday and threw away 4 large garbage bags full of junk.  I just barely made a dent in the stuff to still go through, but it's looking better already!