Baby's face is looking more human as his eyes have moved to the front of his head and his ears are in place. Hooray! Other amazing fetal highlights this week: Your baby is able to swallow this week and practices on the amniotic fluid he or she floats in. (And you thought baby food was kind of nasty!) And in case you're wondering how your kid can breathe in all that fluid, here's your answer: Fetuses get oxygen from the blood pumped into their bodies by the placenta and don't breathe with their lungs. Mystery solved! This is kind of gross, albeit fascinating, so feel free to skip ahead: Your baby's intestines are well under way, but they aren't all where you'd expect them to be. Instead of all being locked away in the body cavity, some are dangling on the outside, in the umbilical cord. Ewwww. Don't forget to put a baby nail file on your registry—your little nugget's finger- and toenails are forming this week. The chin and nose are also becoming more defined. Junior has doubled in size over the past two weeks and now weighs almost ½ ounce. He's also now around 2 ½ inches long, about the length of your pinky finger or a Vienna sausage, which, in a few months, will be indistinguishable from one another.
Right now we have two foster babies, Diamond and Knight. Diamond is our Boxer foster, she's a young white girl who is deaf and also has a natural tail. For those of you who didn't know, Boxers are born with long tails and have them docked at 2-3 days old. Many times when a Boxer's tail is left long they hit it on doors, walls, furniture, and other things that cause it to break open and bleed so it has to be amputated eventually anyway. It's much more humane to dock the tail right after birth than when the dog is older, kind of like circumcision. (I know, gross!). Diamond and I are working on learning some new hand signals, so far she knows little to nothing but is soaking everything in little by little. She's absolutely gorgeous and I know someone is going to fall in love with her quickly, but I'm hoping for an experienced owner who works from home and will have lots of time to teach her new signs and give her lots of snuggles. Here she is with Scott last night, I think he likes her, don't you? :)
Knight is our Boston Terrier foster, though he's mixed with another breed of some kind. A couple weeks ago I got a phone call about a puppy in Oklahoma with mange that needed a foster home, so of course I scooped him right up. When he first came to us he was naked, smelly, his skin was infected, and he literally felt like a rubber tire to the touch. Poor guy was in SO much pain and didn't want you to even think about touching him, but after two weeks of treatment and special baths he's starting to make a come-back. There is new hair sprouting out of his chest and front legs and he's wanting to play and snuggle with our other dogs. Unfortunately the stink is still present, but once his skin starts to heal and the infection gets under control that will go away too. We should have Knight for another couple of months, but eventually he will be healthy and ready to find a new home just like all of our other fosters! :)
Now that we have Little Bean on the way, I have every intention of keeping this thing updated regularly so I can remember this pregnancy. I so regret not keeping a blog while I was pregnant with Deacon, but I won't make the same mistake with this baby. Stay tuned for lots of exciting things going on here at the Hensley House!
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