Week 29

When you are 29 weeks pregnant, your baby has also learned to use its brain to control primitive breathing. This means that if your baby is born now, he or she could probably breathe independently. He or she is also a lot better at controlling body temperature at this point in your pregnancy.

Other fetal development that is occurring around week 29 of pregnancy includes the following:

*The baby will be able to turn his or her head to find the source of a bright light. Your baby is continuing to become more sensitive to sounds, tastes, and smells.

*The fat layers will continue to form.

*The head is in proportion to the rest of the body.

*The eyes can move in the sockets.

*The bones are fully developed, but they are still soft and pliable.

*The baby will begin to store iron, calcium, and phosphorus.

Your baby now weighs around 2.5 pounds and measures about 13-15 inches long from head to toe. At this stage a fetus's eyes are almost always blue and can distinguish bright sunlight or artificial light through the uterine wall. Your baby's movements may not be as acrobatic since space has become more cramped, but you will still feel a lot of kicking and stretching. In boys, testicles descend from near the kidneys through the groin en route to the scrotum. Your baby's head is getting bigger, and brain growth is very rapid at this time. Nearly all babies react to sound by 30 weeks.

As for me, I'm doing well. It's be unbearably hot the past couple weeks. Today it was 102 degrees. Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. In fact, it is 10pm and is still 94 with a heat index of 98. Ugh. I'm just thankful that I haven't gained a lot of weight and it hasn't been any harder on me then a normal summer. I try to keep inside as much as possible. In fact, this last Saturday I cancelled my daytime program because of the heat. Plus our visitation is way down because of the heat, so I'm sure I would have been hard-pressed to get any visitors at it anyway.

I have still been feeling good. I get a little short of breath sometimes, and I've had a couple episodes when my pulse races some. But at all my doctor appointments, my blood pressure is always right on, so I'm not too worried. The baby is turned head-down I believe, because I always seem to get kicked in the ribs. But that's a good thing, as long as he doesn't flip back around, we won't have to worry about him being breech. Let's see...other than that, I just have the types of things you'd expect...heartburn, always have to pee, and the ever-constant "baby brain". Which I'm seriously having issues with on some days. It's bad enough to have ADD and be forgetful (and can't take my medicine!), its another to have that AND baby brain on top of it. I'm really surprised I get anything at all done at work sometimes. But I'm sure its partially my fault. If I would get more rest I would probably feel better. But it wouldn't be my life if it wasn't crazy-busy! I leave Sunday for a conference, then the next week I have to go to Jeff City one day for a meeting, when I get back I have to pack, then Stephen is home on the 3rd, then we will move shortly after that. So the next few weeks I will pretty much be catatonic.