Pregnancy at 17 Weeks

Baby is the Size of a Turnip

• Your baby’s skeleton is changing now to bone from soft cartilage
• the umbilical cord is stronger as well as thicker
• he or she weighs in at about 5 ounces and is about 5 inches long
• baby is moving all his/her joints

So many changes…

How is your life moving along at this stage of pregnancy?

• believe it or not your center of gravity is changing because your belly is growing
• you may be a little unsteady on your feet
• try to avoid situations where you could fall, wear low heeled shoes
• a fall could hurt your belly and be dangerous for you and your baby
• your seat belt needs to be belted under your growing belly
• your eyes may feel dry, over the counter lubricating eyedrops may help
• contact lens wearers may have to limit their number of hours of wear.
• you may even want to switch to your glasses while pregnant

“I made a simple chart of the basic food groups and posted it on the refrigerator. At the end of the day, I checked off what I had eaten. Then, for my bedtime snack, I tried to pick something that would fulfill whatever category was lacking — yogurt (or a bowl of ice cream!) if I needed more dairy, for example, or an orange if I needed more fruit.”

– Anna

Dream activity during pregnancy may heighten due to high emotions that may very well range from joy to apprehension on any given day. Pregnant women are known for having shorter REM sleep which is the cycle in which dreams occur but because you may wake up during a dream the memory of the dream is more vivid.

This week’s activity
Start a baby name list. Make a list of ten names you like. Have your partner do the same. Trade lists and each cross out one name on the other’s list that you dislike. Keep taking turns until you have a set of names you can both live with. Talk about why you like and dislike certain names. Many couples even create ground rules, such as no names of former girlfriends or boyfriends and no names that have ever been used for family pets.

via Your pregnancy: 17 weeks | BabyCenter.

As the weeks go by our family anxiously awaits our new little grandbaby. For me, I find myself remembering what it was like being pregnant in the 80’s when there was not all this information available about the growing fetus. Moms communicated with each other on the telephone which was in my case tethered to a very long spiral cord so I could multi-task around my kitchen and watch my 1 year old daughter.

I could not shop online or do too many comparisons when it came to baby gear but I was no slouch when it came to shopping for baby clothes in person whenever I could. I remember one of my favorite shops in Florida, where we were living at the time, was the “Purple Turtle” in Palm Beach. It was a always a treat to stop by and see their beautiful items…it was a shop where many grandparents shopped for their grandkids and now I am that grandparent.

Pregnancy generates many memories and now it is my joy to make new memories by remembering the past but enjoying the present.