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I should become so used to these words.

They will penetrate every week of my life from here until the end, or so I suppose. From the moment of conception, I am fixated, at least a few times a day, on my unborn son’s growth and development.

That can be read as fun, annoying and paranoid all at once. It really depends on my mood at the time, and what part of growth and development I’m concerned with.

We’ve had our second sonogram, that’s when we found out we were having a boy. The nut-like object we’d first seen as an embryo is now a fully graduated and thriving fetus.

He could live on his own if he wanted to. His young lungs are still underdeveloped, missing the surfactant fluid that helps pre-expand the alveoli sacs so the first breath of life is much easier.

This has been likened to blowing up a balloon. When you first try to get the balloon started, it’s really tough to inflate it, but once you have even a little air in there, the rest is much easier. The surfactant is that little introductory bit.

While his lungs and body grow, much more exciting observations have been made outside the womb. Namely, my spare time at home is spent feeling for a flurry of kicks and punches or slow rolls around the belly. I call it ‘the belly’ all the time, like it was a person in the room.

I’m concerned with the belly’s feelings and attitudes, its comforts and needs and how its day went. Slightly disturbing, I know. I’m not so enchanted to believe all of the world finds this normal and acceptable. It’s downright embarrassing, but it seems more than natural to do.

I talk to my unborn son all the time. I jokingly scold him for being such a burden on his poor mother and I ask how his day has gone. I tell him I can’t wait for him to be here and I tell him how much he is loved by so many waiting family members.

Kerry swears he calms down when I talk to him – as if he were listening intently on my every word. Sometimes, when I hold my hand in one spot, it seems as if he even moves towards it.

Before I left for work tonight, I held my hand in one spot and he suddenly kicked there repeatedly as if to say hi, or high five me or scold me for not getting him more Mexican food today. Kerry has never been a huge fan of the Mexican food, but now we’re downing it several times a week. It’s the new pizza.

He can hear and he can taste. Fetal babies have more taste buds than we do and he’ll be losing them shortly. His brain is growing millions of neurons a day and his basic reflexes are essentially developed.

There is probably some hair and definitely the first set of fingernails. He’s mostly just getting chubby. His brain and bones are the most active developments from here on out aside from fat.

Maybe on the canoe trip, his possibly open eyes may have detected just the faintest signs of light pouring in through Kerry’s well-rounded belly. The belly.

It’s a good time, this part. I’m more at ease than I have been and Kerry seems to enjoy every minute of kicking and moving. The Belly changes shape depending on where he has moved to. I’d swear he’s already mooned us several times. It’s wonderfully amazing to feel him arching against the side wall, you can almost palpate where a head and shoulders and little baby butt would be.

No one warned me of about a million things that happen through pregnancy. I think it’s because too many happen to remember. The only things there are room for in the end are some really exciting memories and a few tense ones.

Being a sleep tech, I should also toss in that he is developing sleeping rhythms in his brain. They are large amplitude waves, greater than the greatest slow wave sleep adults and adolescents ever receive. When a fetal baby is sleeping, it is profoundly deep.