Tilt your head all the way to the left and squint. Soften your gaze & use your baby ultrasound imagination (hint: this is a close-up of her face). If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make out 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth with 2 little fists on each side of her chin. That’s Zoe!

We had our 32 week checkup last week, and we’re excited to report that we got great news all around :)

YES, we just finished week 32 today – ONLY 7 weeks to go!!!

But back to the checkup… First of all, there’s a real baby in there! AND she’s still a girl (thank goodness), and according to the doc, she has Bart’s nose, which he found reassuring. She’s also right on track for birth weight (between 4-5 pounds, though apparently 3rd trimester weight “guestimates” are notoriously wrong). In fact, we learned something: baby weight is gauged through ultrasound by measuring head, abdomen and femur length. They also check size by seeing where those measurements lie in number of weeks of development…

Zoe’s head = 32 weeks (right on track)

Zoe’s abdomen = 31.5 weeks (also AOK)

Zoe’s femur length = 35 weeks (WOWZA!)

Yes, that femur length is very unusual (google “long femur fetus” and you’ll see what I mean). Of course, I googled it immediately, but then, I’m a big nerd. According to the doctor, that just means she might be tall – and very likely at least she’ll be a long baby at birth. Good news is that femur length does NOT make birth any more difficult – whew! If her HEAD had measured 35 weeks, I’d be in tears… The BBC even seems to think that long femur length equals lower blood pressure as an adult!

Best news is that Bart Johnson believes he’s going to have a star volleyball player on his hands ;) Let’s hope both he AND the BBC are right!