It’s time to ossify, baby! How many times in your life do you get to use a word like that? Anyway, that’s exactly what’s starting to happen in babylyman’s life. Until now, baby’s bones had been developing but were still soft. This week, they begin to harden, or ossify. Some of the first bones to ossify are those in the clavicles and the legs.

In other news, the ears move to their final position and they stand out from the head. And it’s time for us to start brushing up on our lullabies in the coming weeks, the baby will probably be able to hear! The bones of the middle ear and the nerve endings from the brain are developing so that the baby will hear sounds such as Meg’s heartbeat and blood moving through the umbilical cord. He or she may even be startled by loud noises! Babylyman’s eyes are also developing, they’re now facing forward rather than to the sides. Thank goodness!

Well, we finally made the effort to go out and buy a seamstress’ tape measure so that we can wrap it around Meg’s belly. As we approach the 18-week mark, she measures in at about 36.5 inches around.

I realize that it’s unfortunate that we don’t have a measurement from before Meg got pregnant, but at least we have something to go on at this point. It’s only been recently that her belly has started to show, and only those who are acquainted with her would be able to tell that she’s pregnant at this point. Anyway, it should be lots of fun to update this new feature of the blog.

Brian and I went on our first significant maternity clothes shopping trip (I don’t count one pair of shorts and one pair of pants “significant”) last night. We returned some jeans I got from Target, which I hated. They had a natural looking waist and elastic in the back. They didn’t fit and I got the impression that they never would. I find I’m a panel type of girl. So we went over to Old Navy, where I found an abundance of adorable shirts for reasonable prices, though only one was on sale. I am not a smart shopper. The above picture is the couture of an Old Navy shirt (the one that was on sale) and H&M pants, which I love and would wear every day if it were cooler. We also bought some panel jeans which are slightly baggier than my normal jeans, but the mediums were way too tight. I hope I don’t grow into the butt, but I fear I might.

In other news, I am definitely feeling the baby move. It’s been a progressive revelation from “I think that’s it!” to “I can feel it!” My suspicions were confirmed when I spoke to a woman who is 6 months along and she said she described it exactly as I did (like a small poking or muscle spasm). The baby has been really active this evening, which is fun. I still can’t feel it from the outside, but I check all the time in case Brian will be able to feel it too.

WARNING: what follows might sound preachy. It’s not meant to be. Carry on…

So Meg is pretty sure that she has begun to feel the baby move. Our doctor said that she should start feeling it right around this stage, and Meg thinks that the previously unidentifiable twinge that she occasionally feels in her tummy must be the baby.

The advent of this particular development is an enjoyable one for Meg, as it seems to be increasing the connection between her and the baby. Interestingly, however, it seems to have the opposite effect on me. From the moment that the second dark line showed up on the pregnancy test all the way through the past 17 weeks, the fact that there is a human being growing inside my wife has seemed like science-fiction at best. Even now, as she is just beginning to show (but only in a way that someone intimately familiar with her stomach could tell), it’s still hard for me to grasp the concept that we are going to be parents, that I am going to be a Father.

Given how it feels at these early stages, it’s no surprise that men often end up isolated from their children during the years of infancy. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, most men want very little to do with home life, and their wives often keep them from having anything to do with home life (because they just end up making a mess of things anyway…). Combine these cultural tendencies with the fact that there is a very clear and tangible connection between mother and child, while the connection between father and child can be a little hazy, and we seem to have a recipe for frustrated fatherhood on our hands.

In order to combat such tendencies, Meg and I hope to “fight the man” and lead our lives differently than the nefarious IR would have us lead them. Avoid the 9-5 whenever possible, even if it means less money. Make sure that both of us have roles in and outside of the home, so that our identities don’t get wrapped up exclusively in either sphere. It could be very challenging to make choices such as these, but thank God for the academic calendar! It’s totally oriented towards children and families, and for obvious reasons. Time off for major holidays, summer vacations, and if you pick your neighborhoods right, you can even get the Jewish holidays off too. So if the kids are going to be on the academic calendar until they’re at least 18, why shouldn’t we live on it as well?

So the academic calendar is one solution. Anybody out there have other “fight the man” methods?

Well, there’s not really too much new information to share at this point. The kiddo is still somewhere between five and six inches long, depending on where you get your information. I’m wondering, though, if the six inch crowd is taking their measurements from crown to rump, as the five inchers clearly are. Maybe there really are some people out there who aren’t discounting the legs. How exciting!

Anyway, nothing else new to report. We’re going to go pick up one of those long, flexible seamstress’ measuring tape so that we can start taking belly measurements and posting them. What fun!

Well, we just had another doctor’s appointment, and everything seems to be progressing well. We were excited to schedule our next sonogram appointment, because that’s when we’ll find out the gender of the baby. Sadly, we have to wait until August 15th for that. They won’t do the sonogram until you’re at 20 weeks, and Meg hits the 20 week mark just before or during our vacation to Emerald Isle. So we’ll have to wait it out.

Anyway, babylyman is just about 5 inches long (again, from “crown to rump”) at this point, and is developing lots of facial expressions, apparently. How in the world can they tell such a thing? It would be fascinating to study the baby’s reactions to various stimuli, and see how the facial expression stacks up against how adults react to stuff. Would the baby grimace at something uncomfortable? Smile at something pleasant? Roll its eyes at a bad joke?

Babylyman’s skin has been continuously developing, and it is so thin and translucent that you can see the blood vessels through it. Hair growth continues on the eyebrows and the head. Babylyman’s ears are almost in position now, although they are still set a bit low on the head.

Internally, the skeletal system continues to develop. Muscle development continues too, and the baby is probably making lots of movements with his or her head, mouth, arms, wrists, hands, legs, and feet.