As of Wednesday Wendy is at 26 weeks gestation. It is at this point I can start to relax a little. If the baby were to have been born before now bad things were much more likely to have happened. It's not that right now would be the greatest but I can deal with it. I think statistically the rate of survival is at 70% although from my personal observations it seems to be a lot higher. Developmental delays can still be a problem but with each passing week it gets to be less and less. My experience in the NICU has made me a bit of a neurotic but the very worst is behind. Now I'm watching for the 28 week milestone. That's when the lungs start to make surfactant and with that we'll all breath a lot better.
By this week, the baby's head-to-bum length is approximately 9.2 inches. Remember that is only from the top of her head to her bottom and does not include her leg measurements! She weighs almost 2 pounds and is beginning to put on weight. Wendy's uterus is about 2.5 inches above her bellybutton and will continue to grow approximately 1 cm each week. Because the baby has moved further up, there can sometimes be an occasional pain under the ribs.
After a month of having her fused eyelids, they will now begin to open since they are almost developed. All babies eyes are blue in the womb but they can and will change colors later. This is true for all races of people since the iris has not fully matured and will not blossom into it's final color until a few months after the baby is born. There is however a variance in the color and shade of blue from baby to baby.
The baby will continue to put on layers of fat until the day she is born. She is still pretty skinny at this point though. It is during the final weeks of pregnancy she will gain the most weight by putting on a lot of fat, and by the time she is born she should have the typical plumpness of a newborn. The skin is just now starting to mature from a thin membrane as the body builds brown fat beneath. She has fingernails and toenails which continue to grow.
Blood vessels and tiny air sacks called alveoli continue to develop within the lungs preparing for the time when oxygen will no longer come from mom's umbilical cord. The cord continues to grow and thicken as blood travels with considerable force through the body to nurture the baby. The placenta is now almost equal in size to the baby.
