Sorry about the down time, folks. What was supposed to be a fairly routine alteration of our web services turned out to be a major headache. I’ve had to re-create this blog largely from scratch, and I’ll have to do the same for my personal blog as well. But not now.

Anyway, please note that the URL has changed. The baby blog is now hosted at http://www.valestudios.com/baby. If you need to re-subscribe to the RSS feed, that’s available by clicking the link in the sidebar. Plenty more baby updates to come, so keep checking in!

Even though fat is beginning to accumulate on the baby’s body, the skin still hangs loosely, giving her a wrinkled appearance. Her daily workout routine includes moving the muscles in the fingers, toes, arms, and legs regularly. As a result, Meg will probably feel more forceful movements.

By now the baby weighs a little more than 1 pound (454 grams). If preterm labor and delivery were to occur this week, a baby could survive with expert medical care, but might have mild to severe disabilities. With increasing research and knowledge in the field of fetal medicine, the long-term prognosis for premature babies (preemies) improves every year.

Well, we’ve known that it’’s a girl for about a week now, and it’s starting to really sink in. We’re starting to refer to the baby with words like “she” and “her” rather than “it.” As far as development stuff goes, the senses she will use to learn about the world are developing daily. Taste buds have started to form on the tongue, and the brain and nerve endings are formed enough so that the fetus can feel touch. She’ll probably experiment with this newfound sense of touch by stroking her face or sucking on a thumb, as well as feeling other body parts and seeing how they move.

Here’s a shot of Meg in one of her new maternity shirts (it’s one of my favorites). There’s this heart right on the belly, and inside the heart it says “filled with love.” My guess is that the heart is going to stretch and grow along with her belly.

Apparently, though I’m in no position of wisdom on this point, Meg is very fortunate to be pregnant at this particular time in the history of fashion. My understanding is that up until very recently, needing maternity clothes meant shopping in the plus sizes department or wearing sweats for nine months. But Meg has picked up some really cute stuff. So I guess I should count myself lucky that my wife has plenty of great clothes to wear - she won’t be stealing all of my sweats, either.

And in other news, I felt the baby move last night! For the first time I could definitely feel her kicking. It was pretty wild, really. Meg said that the ones I felt weren’t even that strong, so I wonder why I haven’t been able to feel her before. But now I’ve felt her, and it was awesome.

Just wanted to say congratulations to my cousin Dan and his wife Jen - they just had their second baby yesterday, and it’s their second daughter. Her name is Talitha Joy Leman, and she weighed in at 8 lbs, 5 oz, and 20 inches long. In the picture at left you can see the whole family - Dan, Jen, Kit, and Talitha. Talitha’s the little one.

The name is interesting, no? It actually comes from a story in the gospel of Mark, chapter 5. There’s this synagogue official named Jairus who comes to Jesus, hoping that he can heal his sick daughter. After approaching Jesus, who agrees to see his daughter, Jairus finds out that his daughter has already died. Jesus tells him not to worry, goes in to see the girl lying in bed, and says to her “Talitha kum!” I believe the phrase is Aramaic, and when translated, it means “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The little girl wakes up, resurrected from death.

Pretty cool, no? I think so, anyway.

You know what? I’m a sucker for Classic Pooh. I used to love watching and reading Winnie the Pooh stuff when I was little, and I love the look & feel of the Classic Pooh artwork. It’s also great because Pooh is a genderless decorating choice, you know? Boys and Girls both love Pooh. So if you ever feel the urge to send something cute to baby girl Lyman, Classic Pooh is a safe bet. And Meg loves it too because it’s all trimmed out in green.

Man, you’d think that only having to come up with girl names from this point on would make life easier. The opposite has proven true. As far as boy names were concerned, we had it narrowed down to three names before going in for the sonogram, and we felt pretty good about all three of them! But with these girl names….

We actually made another trip to B&N yesterday so we could sit down with a name book again, try for a fresh start. We came up with some good combinations, and I’m glad we went, but we still haven’t settled on a name for baby girl Lyman. It looks like I might have to eat my words and wait until the baby is born to decide on a name for her.

I had to put this picture in of our cousins’ new baby. She’s so beautiful. It’s hard to believe a little girl is growing inside of me, one that is so perfect.

Knowing that she is a girl has started to make things a little bit more real, but I still have a long way to go. Here are my reflections so far on what it will be like:

1. She'’ll like Brian more than me. Let’’s face it, he’’s nicer and cuter.
2. Having a daddy’’s little girl will be amazing, my chance to see a great father in action.
3. I’ll get to cheer her on in soccer, or baseball, or football, or anything.
4. I can dry her tears, I’m the mommy.
5. She will, inevitably love and loathe the color pink for different parts of her life.
6. She will be adorable in, love wearing dresses, then hate wearing dresses.
7. As a teenager, she’ll tell me she hates me, and I’ll cry.
8. She’ll probably go to prom, and I’ll cry.
9. She’ll probably get married, and I’ll cry.
10. She’ll probably have a baby, and I’ll cry.

Wow, what am I getting myself into?! I wanted a girl?! Well, just like my laptop, they’re pretty. (see my xanga blog for the joke).

Seriously though, being a girl is great, so I can’t wait to raise my little girl to love it too. Here’s what I love about being a girl.

1. We can be pretty if we want to, but we’re really tough too.
2. We get to be taken care of and take care of wonderful men.
3. We receive large, sparkling rocks as tokens of love.
4. We get to fulfill many, many different roles throughout our lives (daughter, sister, girlfriend, friend, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, teacher, professional, artist, minister, etc, etc.)
5. We get to make a million wonderful friends.

That’’s just the beginning…

Again, posting retroactively due to vacation. So, the amniotic fluid that has cushioned and supported the baby in the uterus now serves another purpose. The intestines have developed enough that small amounts of sugars can be absorbed from the fluid your baby swallows and will be passed through the digestive system to the large bowel. Almost all of the baby’s nourishment, however, still comes from you through the placenta.

Until now the baby’s liver and spleen have been responsible for the production of blood cells. (The fetal liver stops producing blood cells a few weeks before birth and the spleen stops by week 30.) But now the bone marrow spaces are developed enough to contribute to blood cell formation as well, and bone marrow will become the major site of blood cell production in the third trimester.

Well, our list of names has just been cut in half, because we know it’s a girl! After a lengthy and fascinating ultrasound appointment, we found out that we’ll be having a daughter come December. The ultrasound was really cool, because it was a full anatomy scan. We got to see the brain, eyes, nose, mouth, stomach, kidneys, heart, and the bones of the arms, hands, legs, feet, spine, and ribs. It was super cool. The picture above is the best profile shot we could get, with a little bit of her hand in there as well. How fun - we can say “her” now!