14 weeks

How your baby's growing: This week's big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.

In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.

Wahoo! Second trimester here I come! It feels good to have made it to trimester number two. I'm feeling quite good. I definitely count myself as landing on the luckier end of the sickness spectrum. It hasn't been too bad. Now my pants are just getting tighter. I've been unbuttoning the top button on some. I also had Jared take pictures of my now growing belly for the first time. Nicki, this is for you:

I mostly just look fat unless you know I'm pregnant. And at the end of day (when this was taken) I do feel like my belly needs more room. It feels so good to let it hang out there. I can totally stick it out far too. This picture is just me trying to remain neutral.

As all you moms out there know, when you are pregnant it's really wonderful to have friends going through pregnancy with you. I have been quite blessed to have 3 friends all due within days of myself. Rachel, my dear college friend/cousin-in-law, is due July 31st. Emily, who I've known since age four, is due August 2nd. I am due August 3rd. And Katie, another college friend, is due August 4th. Any takers for August 1st? Apparently November was a very fertile month.