Update on Serena - 39 Weeks Pregnant

We've made it another week!!! There's been some contractions, but obviously nothing exciting enough to send us packing to the hospital! ;)

Our little Serena is waiting to greet the world! After nine months of growth and development, she is ready to be born, or nearly so. She is fully developed and is probably anywhere from 17-23 inches long and weighs 6-10 pounds. She continues to build a layer of fat to help control her body temperature after birth. The outer layers of her skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath. Serena's lungs continue to mature as more and more surfactant is secreted. (Surfactant helps prevent the lungs from sticking to each other when a baby begins to breathe). Serena is still adding neural connections and growing hair. Researchers have theorized that when babies are ready to be born, they send a chemical signal of androgens to the placenta, which increases the production of estrogen and leads to labor. If so, it's proof of the old saying that "only a baby knows when it's ready to be born."