Week 37 - A Progress Report

Hello everyone! Welcome to week 37. There's big news this week so let's get right to it.

First of all, week 37 is a huge benchmark in a baby's life. This is the point where a baby is considered to be "full term". Why is that important? Who knows? I guess a long time ago, some doctor saw a baby that was born at 37 weeks and said, "Aw what the heck, that's close enough I guess". It doesn't really mean anything as far as development because to be honest. My Baby Brother could've been born a few weeks ago and still be fine. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, we're breaking out the party hats for week 37. Let's hear it for being full term!

So, we had another trip to the doctor this week to check on little man's progress. Yes, I got the chance to spy on him because they whipped out the ultrasound and gave us a peek. He's still moving around a lot, and we caught him opening and closing his mouth. In just a few short weeks, I can finally kick these ultrasound pictures to the curb and I can see him in person! Do you know what the first thing I'm going to do when I see him? Funny hat. I've gotta make sure he's wearing a funny hat. Its almost like tradition at this point. I wore one when I was born, and I'm pretty sure they had invented hats back when my dad was born (not 100% sure though, I'll need to look that up later), so why not Baby Brother?

I'm getting off-subject though. Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble. The doctor estimated that Baby Brother weighs 6 pounds, 11 ounces right now and is about 19" tall. How did she do that? No idea. It looked like she was drawing lines on the screen, and then she suddenly has a weight for us. Hey lady, how do you correlate one to the other? How do lines = weight? I'm calling B.S. on this one. I draw lines all of the time, but you don't see me guessing my daddy's weight or my mommy's weight from them. This drawing system is about as accurate as tea leaves in my opinion. I have no idea how they come up with this stuff.

So what else did I see when I was watching the ultrasound? Not much. Baby Brother's life is pretty boring in comparison to mine. I can go to school, the park, karate class, swimming, stealing daddy's food….and what can he do? He practices breathing, making sucking motions, sleeping a lot, looking around, and of course peeing. That's pretty much it. I think I just started appreciating my freedom a lot more. 

He is also starting to get a lot of hiccups. This is from breathing in all of that amniotic fluid/goo in there. Its considered a "positive growth indicator" by the doctors, but who ever looked at hiccups and thought THAT? Somebody needs to tell the doctor I consider them a "bothersome reaction to my dad's bad jokes". Being the good brother that I am, I've been trying to think of ways to get rid of the hiccups for him. I've heard that scaring someone works. Should I just run up to mommy's tummy and yell "BOO!"? Would that work? Or should I do something scarier, like hold up a picture of daddy and say, "You're gonna look like THIS when you get older!!!" On second thought that might be too mean. Maybe I should just sit this one out and let nature take its course.

There was one thing that he was up to that I couldn't see - he's making a lot of cortisone right now. Whats that for, you ask? Well its just his way of giving his lungs a little help when he takes those first couple of breaths. Now "a lot" may be a bit of an exaggeration, but right now he's got that extra little boost ready to go. 

This is it, the home stretch is in front of us! He could arrive at any time! When do YOU think he'll make his grand appearance? Be sure to vote over on the right side of the screen and tell us. The winner gets to buy me a Happy Meal. Awesome.

Gotta potty. Seeya later!

Andrew Joiner, Big Brother