A Womb with a View, Part 3

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalm 127:3

Since March 8, there has been an event called 40 Days for Life (http://www.40daysforlife.com/) - a pro-life prayer vigil going on all over the world. Today marks the half-way point and they are reporting that 178 women have chosen life for their babies as a result of those individuals praying in the vicinity of abortion clinics around the world. When you look at the statistics, that 3,000 to 4,000 babies are aborted daily in our country, 178 seems a small percentage of the 80,000 babies that statistically are would have been aborted during these 20 days, but that’s 178 lives that were saved and THAT is a victory! We still need to fight for the other babies’ lives and praying for the mothers and fathers of these children and for those who are working in the abortion clinics.

This post, I will continue with my own pregnancy experience. The next ultrasound I experienced was the typical one that most women go through during the course of a normal pregnancy. It is the 20 week ultrasound. During this examination, the tech checks all the organs to make sure they are present and functioning, looks for proper brain development, measures the head circumference (for Down’s Syndrome) as well as many other vital functions for the baby. Parents are also able to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. We had a great experience with ours. The tech we had didn’t actually work at this particular clinic, but was filling in for someone who was out. We were so blessed to have her! She was thorough and obviously loved her job. We were in our appointment for nearly an hour and a half.

The development of the baby continues to be miraculous. By 12 weeks, the baby is peeing, producing insulin and digestive fluids. The brain is fully developed (though still growing and specializing) and the pituitary gland is producing hormones. By 14 weeks, the baby is practicing breathing by drawing amniotic fluid into the lungs, the prostate gland is forming in males and ovaries are descending to the pelvis in girls. By 18 weeks, the baby can hear and sense touch, can swallow and in females, all of the reproductive organs are formed. At the time of the 20 week ultrasound, the baby is about 6 to 8 inches long and 9 to 12 ounces. He or she has hair and nails, is developing all five senses, and a heartbeat is detectable with instruments outside the mother’s body.

I had started feeling my son move at about 16 weeks. That’s earlier than usual, but it felt like little flutters. By the time I got to the ultrasound, I could really feel him move. He had quite the personality, apparently not enjoying the ultrasound. He kicked at the wand, giving us a great shot of his foot, hid his face, put his hands over his heart as the tech was trying to look at it and moved all over the place. We got to see him yawn, swallow and use his hands to feel around. At one point , we saw that he had his legs crossed at the ankle. He did that all through infancy and even does it sometimes now at nearly two years old. It was a really fun experience topped off with finding out that we were having a boy ( I convinced myself I was having a girl). We got a lot of pictures, so I will try to post as many as I can.
Here is my beautiful baby boy:

Truly Amazing!

Truth

When I was pregnant, I found that there were endless choices of books and websites that would document pregnancy week by week and month by month.  Pregnancy is so predictable, that doctors know exactly what a baby will be doing each day, week and month of pregnancy.  We can know when the heart beats, when the eyes develop, when the baby can suck its thumb.  It was fascinating to me and I read two books and subscribed to two web calendars all telling me essentialy the same thing.  Some show drawings, some pictures, some ultrasounds to show what the baby looked like at each point during the pregnancy.  I looked up 'pregnancy week by week' on amazon.com and it came up with 1038 products.  1038! A search online brought up too many websites to count.  People like Lennart Nilson have brought fetal development to a whole new level with real, live pictures and ultrasounds, both 2D and 4D, give us the opportunity to see a human child at every stage of development.

So, why with all of that information at our fingertips, do people still believe and fight for abortion to be legal? I watched a Planned Parenthood rally video the other day hearing people say how proud they were to have had an abortion, or that they would get one if they found out they were pregnant without a tinge of remorse.  People still believe that a human child is a 'lump of tissue' apparently until the moment of birth and therefore is expendable.  Perhaps it is that there is a divide.  If a child is 'wanted' and a product of a loving relationship within a family that can support its existence, all of those books and websites will show you what to expect.  However, if the child is a 'mistake', a product of a one-night stand, rape or bad relationship or that child will be born into a family that will struggle to support it, it is simply a blob of tissue with no purpose and can be aborted.  Is that true? Goodness, no! People will try to make the 'truth' bend to fit their circumstances.  But what we fail to realize is that truth is fact.  Is is not arbitrary or relative. It just IS.  The truth is that a human being begins as a fertilized egg and develops over an average of 80 to 90 years when he or she will die.  A human being does not begin as a baby.  Being a woman is an honor, a privilege and a blessing to be given the opportunity to nurture a brand new, never to be created again, human being. That opportunity is being squandered.  I'm beginning to believe babies would be safer grown in test tubes so we can see them than in the hidden recesses of a woman's body.

We fight in this country to protect children from all sorts of abuses.  We mourn the loss of children to childhood disease, kidnappings and murders, yet close to 4,000 children die each day in this country at the hand of doctors who swore to protect all of their patients.  We fight more for the rights of animals than we do for the rights of these precious babies.

I recently read that 41% of pregnancies in New York City are aborted.  Nearly half of the children conceived in one city die before birth.  The numbers are similar in DC. What are we doing?! I can't believe that something like this is legal.  I just don't understand. It literally keeps me up at night.

A Womb with a View, Part 2

As I finished the last entry, I was describing the development of a baby at 5 weeks. Between that ultrasound and my next, at ten weeks, so much had changed and developed. The inner ear and external ear has almost completely finished, blood vessels are visible under the skin, legs and arms have lengthened and hands and feet have developed. Facial features begin to show about 6 weeks. At 8 weeks, joints start developing, vertebrae and ribs are forming, and blood is flowing through the body. Muscles, skin and the nervous system are developing to the point that the baby will react to outside stimuli (such as pushing on the uterus) by moving away. Here is a picture of a baby at 10 weeks gestation:

At the beginning of my pregnancy, I was aware that my current OB/GYN was ending her career as an OB. She was going through the first 10 weeks with her patients and then transferring them to other doctors. I’m not sure if that was the reason behind my second ultrasound or if she just wanted another check before she passed me on, but I went in for another ultrasound at the 10 week mark. I had never seen a live ultrasound before my first one, so I was unprepared for how active our son was. He changed position frequently and was difficult to find each time the technician returned with the ultrasound wand. At this point, I couldn’t feel him moving, so it was amazing to see all the movement that was taking place that was undetectable by me. He was, by this time, about the size of a small plum-an amazing amount of growth! I was holding an apple seed in my hand the other day, marveling at how rapidly a baby grows in just 5 weeks time. A baby of this age in gestation has brain activity, tooth buds (which can be seen in the ultrasound pictures), reproductive organs are formed, internal organs are functioning (and all are present), intestines are developing, taste buds are formed, eyelids are formed and the eyes have some color. The upper lip is formed, joints are formed (also visible in the pictures) and the body has distinguishable human characteristics. Fingerprints, unique to this particular individual, are already detectable and his hand, if something were to touch his palm, would curl around the object. Beloware the ultrasound pictures from the 10 week ultrasound.

This one is my favorite.  So much is visible - toth buds, an ankle joint, leg, foot, and spine. Very cool view of him! Until next time!

The white on the baby are where bone cells are beginning to form - in the tooth buds, spine, skull and nose.

 He moved around a lot!