According to the sure baby website, this week of pregnancy, you are about 20 - 20 1/2 inches long and weigh about 6 pounds. During this finishing period of your development, fat is being laid down under the surface of your skin, which will help you maintain an even body temperature and which can be burned as energy. Your growth has slowed, perhaps to conserve energy for the birth process. Your arms and legs are beginning to dimple at the elbows and knees, and creases are forming around the wrists and neck as fat deposit continues. You kick all the time and it’s wonderful. Our doctor has instructed us to do “kick counts.” That’s the exercise of counting to make sure I feel you move in some way at least 4 times an hour. You move that much in about 4 minutes. Your toes rarely penetrate my ribs anymore, which I simultaneously appreciate and miss. Weird.

I've lost my appetite, which I’m glad for because I had gotten pretty nervous about weight gain. I weighed myself at Katie and Scott’s the other day and I weighed 160.8lbs, which is exactly a pound a week. That’s what the doctors like to see, so I’m pleased with it. I continue to have strange painful sensations that might be Braxton Hicks contractions, might be ligament pain, or might be just the weirdness of pregnancy. Again, I’m sometimes grateful for them because I think of them as my body’s preparatory process, but sometimes they make me nervous because I don’t know what they are. I have become chronically short of breath, and found myself really wanting to sit down during the Christmas Eve service at Bethel UMC the other night, but still, that’s totally normal and it doesn’t bother me much. Mostly, I still feel good.

In case you’re wondering why I’m not calling you Jonah these last couple of posts, your dad and I are back on the naming search. As of last night, we think Joshua may win the spot as your first name. I still don’t know. I really like Jeremiah, too. Still, nothing feels “right.” It’s very strange to name a person you’ve never met. We’re pretty sure we’re not going to be able to settle on anything until we meet you.