This blog started out as "Baby Dunkelberger", a journey through my pregnancy. After our little one finally arrived, I decided to change the name to "The Dunkelberger Family", the adventures of Tyler, Jami, Lyla, Bella, Cash, Marmaduke and anyone else who should stumble into our crazy family :)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Week 24: Breathe baby, breathe!

Fetal development in pregnancy week 24:

fetus in sixth month This is another big week for your magical growing baby! Just take a look at the checklist for this week: 1) ears: done; 2) fingernails: done; 3) (if you have a boy) testicles: taking their 3-4 day trip from the abdominal wall to the scrotum; and 4) lungs walls: secreting “surfactant”. What’s that? Well, surfactant is sort of what it sounds like: a surface-activated fat whose main purpose is to assist the your baby's little lungs during inflation (as in, filling with air, not getting more expensive). Just in case you’re curious, your submerged baby is still breathing in amniotic fluid, preparing and rehearsing the lungs an oxygen-filled life outside the womb. By the end of this week, your child will be weighing around 2 lbs and 14 inches long. Your cutie-patootie may even be a little more plump, but isn't anywhere near their full baby-fatted cute-self. Most of the “filling out” is coming up in that long awaited (and slightly dreaded?) third trimester. Woo-hoo! Get ready!

Week 23: Dancing Baby Alert

Since we will be out of town when we reach week 23 AND week 24 (at lake of the ozarks :)) I thought I would post the next few weeks' developments...

Fetal development in pregnancy week 23:

At this point you’ve pretty much adjusted to the fact you’ve got a moving little gymnast inside of you, but now they’re going to kick up the party a notch because they can hear and react to sounds from the outside world. Sounds from your alarm clock, a thunder roll, or that darned car honking at you across the intersection can actually jar their little ears enough to elicit a kick or violent bout of squirming. Of course this also means that their little ears are picking up the sounds of your voice and those near you. So go ahead, sing a lullaby to your little angel—if they start kicking, it’s likely they just want you to stop… or maybe it was a kick of approval? You decide. Your baby's tiny taste buds are still growing and their bones are continuing to ossify (harden), their tiny veins are visible through their translucent yet wrinkly skin. (Think of it this way: they’ve been swimming in the equivalent of a long hot bath for the past 23 weeks, so you can’t blame them for being a little prune-like.)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Week 22: Welcome to raisin country!

Fetal development in pregnancy week 22: fetus in fifth month The grow must go on! No wonder you’re getting so big, you’re now housing a wonder-baby who weighs nearly a pound and measures nearly a foot in length. Their perfect little pancreas is now further developed and they’ve also started producing their own hormones! Your baby's future in the circus as a world-famous tight-rope-walker is secure: their inner ear is now developed to the point that they have their own sense of balance. Lucky for your little explorer, balance also promotes physical dexterity, which has them actively feeling out their surroundings where skin, body parts, and the resident umbilical cord are the big sensory experiences. Your foot-long baby, is looking a bit like an oversized raisin right now as more and more wrinkles are showing up each week. Not to worry, all that excessive wrinkling is just their skin’s way of planning ahead for the time when they’ll start piling on that irresistible baby chub.

Sarcastic Journalist - What to accept when you're expecting:

Sarcastic Journalist - What to accept when you’re expecting:

It seems like everyone loves to ask a pregnant woman if she has any weird food cravings. I really think they want you to tell them “Why, yes. I do. I eat a can of sardines every night before I go to bed. Sometimes I cover them with grape jelly.”

Really, I went for “comfort food” (cheeseburgers are comfort food in my book) and sweets. I think I personally kept Betty Crocker in business during both of my pregnancies.

It always started out innocent enough: I wanted a cookie. Next thing I knew, I had gone through an entire bag of Oreos and a gallon of milk. Then two candy bars and a sandwich.

When I first got pregnant (this was during my first pregnancy, when I read those books) I read the “What to eat” chapter in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

These people had what I should or should not be eating down to an exact science. I wanted to get my pregnancy off to a good start, so I’d eat all that “good for you” food while really wanting to high tail it down to the corner store to pick up a cupcake.

I’d pat myself on the back, all high and mighty like, because I made myself delicious meals that would make my baby smart! Those greens? They’re getting my baby into Harvard! All that fruit? She’ll be President!

It didn’t take too many lunches of trying to eat cottage cheese before I gave it all up. I tried. I really wanted to be a good Mom and somehow, that book had me convinced that I wasn’t a good Mom because I chose chocolate over cheese. She’d be lucky if she’d get into community college with the way I was eating!

Get over it. You’ll be a good Mom. Just consider all the eating good practice for when you have a kid and you’re so tired of all the whining that yes, you let him have ice cream for breakfast.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Lyla Jayde Dunkelberger

No one can prepare you for the lifestyle changes a baby can bring. If somebody would have told me a year ago that you could love someone so much, I would have laughed. Just for the record baby girl, you're already my everything...

Friday, June 4, 2010

It's a GIRL!!!!

Well we finally found out that we are having a baby girl!!! The suspense was killing me! As of yesterday, our baby girl weighs 11 oz. (almost a beer as Tyler put it). We got to see her precious little face and tiny toes on the sonogram and got a few pictures to share with everyone.

Face and arms - she's using my placenta as a pillow :)


Side view of her face - her hand is right by her chin


I'm not quite sure what this is...



This is a view if her back - you can see her spine


Look at her little feet and toes!



You can see her long legs and apparently that she is a girl!