26 weeks

our sweet kitten is now comparable to a lettuce or an english hothouse cucumber, whatever the hell that is!  babycenter says she's 14 inches long and weighs 1 and 2/3 lbs, but she was already 1lb 1oz at the last ultrasound and had crazy long legs like her dad, so i have a sneaking suspicion that our tiny cat is bigger than other 26 week babies, although my belly wouldn't lead you to that conclusion at all.  i have no idea where i'm keeping something that big, but i'm not complaining.  i do feel a little stretching and expect stretch marks any day now, but i'm going to keep drinking water like there's no tomorrow and applying cocoa butter every chance i get and maybe i'll grow slowly enough that i'll escape unscathed.

what we do know for sure is that her hearing is becoming more developed and she's inhaling amniotic fluid to practice breathing.  she's hearing a lot of colby's voice, sebastian's barks, and waves hitting the beach. she's also hearing a little too much CNN, but we have plenty of time to correct that.  the fact that so little new development is happening this week is actually very exciting because it means she's almost reached the point where she just bakes for a few more months putting on fat and then we get to meet her and love her more than anyone has ever been loved!

we're pretty settled on the name catherine amory.  i liked the other spellings originally, but i do agree with colby that the C is a smidge classier than the K spellings.  after all, the duchess of cambridge is named catherine and she might be the queen some day.  there were a lot of names we didn't get to use, but this isn't our last baby, so i feel confident i'll get my little mary elizabeth or at least my super pro athlete nolan emery some day soon.  although colby really had his heart set on d'qwell.