The Thomas Family: 31 Weeks

Single digits!!!! I can't believe Emily will be here in 9 weeks!! This week Emily is about 17 inches long and weighs nearly 4 lbs. She's continuing to put on"white" fat that'll give her that cute little chubby baby look. This is different from the Brown fat that is developed and stored mostly between the shoulder blades and on the neck (you can't see it and it doesn't make the baby look any different). Brown fat is essential because since babies are notoriously bad at regulating their own temperature, brown fat can be burned off and turned into heat...keeping the baby warm. This week Emily's lungs are nearly mature, but will continue to grow stronger every week until birth. In fact, all of her organs though fully developed will only continue to grow stronger with each passing day!! These last few weeks of pregnancy are very important and vital to brain development. They have actually found significant differences in brain function between babies born at 37 weeks and babies born at 40-41 weeks. So, the longer Emily stays in, the more her brain will continue to develop...and hopefully she'll get to the point where only Eric can help her with her math homework, lol!!!

Eric and I met with our lawyer again this week to sign more papers. He said right now we stand to have all of the paperwork that we can have done before Emily is born finished and submitted by the end of November. After Emily is born, he will request a court date here in Colorado for sometime in January when they will finalize the adoption. Once that is done, we can get birth certificates with our names on them. So, right now we're just waiting for our background checks to clear, which will take another few weeks. I feel a huge sense of relief knowing the paperwork is under way!!

I took an adoption class yesterday for work. It was centered on how health care providers can better assist birth families and adoptive families while they're with us. It was interesting and I learned a few things. I definitely walked out of there relieved to know that a lawyer facilitated adoption (in the case of kinship adoptions) is 100% legal. It is the only type of adoption in Colorado that doesn't have to be facilitated by an Agency. (WHEW). There was a tiny little part of me that was still nervous that someday somehow we'd find out that we DID need an agency. So, my fears are laid to rest!!

I've been thinking about what things Eric and I will need to bring to CA with us when we drive out there in a few weeks. I've decided to only pull tags off and wash a couple of outfits, That way, if she's miraculously born over 8lbs and skips right over all of the NB stuff, I can still take it back and get some bigger sizes. Both of Lori's other girls were so tiny at birth! Both were under 6 lbs! I'm kind of expecting Emily to be on the smaller side too...but you just never know!!!

Well, that's about it for now. I'm posting some of the pictures from my baby shower my friend Bre from work threw. She did a BEAUTIFUL job!!!

Me and Bre