Congratulations ma'am, it's a... small pumpkin!

My wife Sandy is pregnant with our second child and we have come across a strange and at times disturbing point of reference being used for the size of the baby as it (he, we think) grows. Each week, Sandy gets an email from babycenter.com that gives her all sorts of information about that week of fetal development and her pregnancy in general. This her 28th week, and the following is an excerpt from the email she got;

"By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world."

It is kind of cool, right? That information was placed next to a drawing of what the child probably looks like. The following paragraph tells her she will probably start seeing her doctor every two weeks (which she will), explains some of the tests and shots she can expect around this time (she has already had them, and lets her know about some other things she may experience. Without me giving it away, you may not have noticed anything strange. Maybe you still didn't, in which case you probably ought to ask for a refund on your schooling to this point. Let me look back at some of the previous weeks to illustrate what I am talking about a bit more.

Week 27: This week your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower)
Week 25: His weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga
Week 22: Your baby now looks like a miniature newborn, checking in at 10.9 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash)
Week 11: Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig,

I think you get the picture. So far the only time our child wasn't likened to a fruit or vegetable was in week 13 when he was roughly the size of a medium shrimp. It seems like they are running out of well known options to reference because a few weeks ago he was an English Hot House Cucumber...

I was curious so I looked ahead at the following weeks and my most interesting finding was that the common reference to childbirth being like "pooping a watermelon" is actually erroneous, unless you give birth a week early. If you give birth when you are actually due, you will be having the rough equivalent of a small pumpkin.