Week 37 begins...and ends.

Here's some exciting news: if your baby were born today (ha!), he or she would be considered full term. Mind you, that doesn't mean that he or she is finished growing - or getting ready for life on the outside. Still gaining weight at about half a pound per week, the average fetus this age weighs about 6.5 pounds (though size varies quite a bit from fetus to fetus, as it does from newborn to newborn). Fat continues to accumulate on your baby, forming kissable dimples in those cute elbows, knees, and shoulders, and adorable creases and folds in the neck and wrists. To keep busy until the big debut, your baby is practice to make perfect: inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid (to get the lungs ready for that first breath), sucking on his or her thumb (to prepare for that first suckle), blinking, pivoting from sided to sided (which explains why yesterday you felt that sweet little butt on the left side and today it's taken a turn to the right).