28 is my new favorite number!

I'm celebrating--balloons, streamers, party hats, and Kool and the Gang--hear it? We are celebrating 28 weeks of pregnancy and a huge developmental milestone. When I arrived, my doctor said we had more of a chance of losing this baby than keeping it. Today we are as hopeful as ever!

At 28 weeks (from babycenter.com):

By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

28 weeks from thebump.com

Baby's now the size of an eggplant! Baby's lungs are mature enough that, if born right now, she has a pretty good chance of surviving (with help from medical technology). Her skin is still pretty wrinkly (one byproduct of living in amniotic fluid) but will smoothen as fat continues to deposit.

We're still praying for more time, but everyone seems to breathe a sign of relief at the 28 week mark. My next big goal will be 30 weeks, but my short term goal is still daily. I enjoy watching the nurses (or Russ) change my weeks/days on the dry erase board in my room. I think they enjoy adding that day as much as I do!

The nurses have noticed baby maturing based on the heartbeat we listen to 3 times a day. When I arrived, I had to push the monitor at an angle into my belly so that we could hear that little (but strong) heartbeat in there. Now I only have to push when it isn't loud enough or baby's moving around. This weekend the nurses explained that they can now see the parasympathetic nervous system developing (fight or flight response) and it is visible in the heartrate--a great sign for neurological development.

Every day is a blessing and I realize that more than ever now!