Hi and welcome back to BabyNames.co.uk.
This week I have been lucky enough to spend some quality time with my wife’s nephews, Jacob, 6, and Aiden, 4. Jacob, a boy beyond his years, resolved to call me ‘Brian’ all weekend because he knows it winds me up, whilst Aidan has been shouting “crapbagcrapbagcrapbag” following a slip of my tongue. Boys…who’d have ‘em?
Up until this time, I didn’t think I had really grasped that Ana was growing a baby. It was a grey afternoon as I sat on the edge of our bed and a storm was brewing before my eyes. I watched as the skinny jeans were being milked onto Ana‘s legs from the ankle up. Several Houdini twists later and the waistband was over the hips. The next seven seconds seemed to last a lifetime. With Ana grimacing, I awaited the volcanic eruption. But then, PING! Ana had an idea. She reached over to the dresser for a hair band, threaded it through the eyelet and back over the button. Crisis averted.
With Ana ‘dressed’, we headed over to the radiology centre for our twenty-week scan. I was amazed to see how much more the baby had developed. A fifteen-minute appointment lasted forty. There seemed to be a dance party going on in the womb, and it took the radiologist a while to crackdown on the rave.
The radiologist navigated the cursor with such agility that the all necessary measurements were recorded, and we were given a thumbs up.
I did not comprehend the importance of the scan prior to it. I just assumed the baby would be developing as it should. Similarly, during our first appointment with the radiologist, he was gliding the receiver over Ana’s belly and watching the screen.
“Yes, just the one baby in there.”
Of course there is only one baby in there! How many did you think we wanted?
Now that Ana had reached a size (and shape) unmistakable of pregnancy, we all breathed a sigh of relief. She was tired of people thinking she was just getting fat, whilst I was tired of hearing about it. She wasn’t getting fat. She was growing a baby and her body was trying to be as accommodating as possible. Unfortunately, it meant getting fat.
Fact attack!
On average, 1 pound per week is gained throughout the second and third trimester, reaching a total average of 30 pounds for a full term pregnancy. The weight is roughly divided up as follows:
- Baby: 7.5 pounds
- Placenta: 1.5 pounds
- Amniotic fluid: 2 pounds
- Uterine enlargement: 2 pounds
- Maternal breast tissue: 2 pounds
- Maternal blood volume: 4 pounds
- Fluids in maternal tissue: 4 pounds
- Maternal fat stores: 7 pounds
I echoed this information to Ana who summarised:
So there is as much fat as there is baby.
This pregnancy would show that all she really wanted was for me to listen and, moreover, she definitely did not want to listen to reason.
