Week 24 - A Very Important Week

Today marks an important week in Baby Girl's development - viability! If something were to happen and I was to go into labor (God forbid) the NICU would try to save her and Baby Girl would have a chance for life outside the womb. There are A LOT of concerns that come with a baby being born that early (and something we don't want to happen) but there are plenty of success stories out there. It's just another milestone that allows me to breath a little bit easier.

I was explaining to a friend that pregnancy, for me, has been surrounded by milestones and at each one I get to breath a little bit easier:

• 6 weeks - first doctor's appointment and seeing the heartbeat. Sigh of relief.


• 8 weeks - second doctor's appointment and second sonogram, heart is still beating and baby is growing right on track. Sigh of relief.


• 12 week mark and doctor's appointment - heard the heartbeat and reached a much "safer" place in the pregnancy. Sigh of relief.


• Initial screen for preeclampsia - comes back normal. Sigh of relief.
  And I continue to tell the doctors that my blood pressure is only high because I'm in their office and are making a big deal out of my blood pressure being high (are you seeing the nasty cycle?). They don't believe me.....no sigh of relief.


• 16 week blood work (quad screen to check for development abnormalities) comes back normal - no further testing required. Sigh of relief.


• 20 week sonogram. This was a HUGE milestone for me. This is where we would learn if everything was progressing as normal. Was this baby developing and growing properly? Were there any problems or concerns? As a bonus we would find out the gender. What most people don't know is that I was so scared for this sonogram. I was scared something wasn't going to be right. I decided to cover my fear with excitment in finding out the gender. Well, everything with the baby was just fine (measuring a few days ahead) and we found it's a girl. HUGE Sigh of relief.


• 22 week appointment. MY doctor is back in the office (she was on maternity leave) and I was so happy to have her back. She went over previous test results in more detail, wasn't concerned with my weight gain (at a previous appointment one of the other doctor's mentioned I had gained 3lbs and she would have liked it if I gain 2lbs?!?!) and wasn't concerned about my blood pressure at this point (finally, someone understands!). Sigh of relief.


• Now here we are at another, very important milestone in this pregnancy journey. 24 weeks. I can't explain to you how important this day is to me. I know it doesn't guarantee anything - but it means there is a real chance. Sigh of relief.

There are many, many more moments to come - test for Gestational Diabetes (coming soon) and reaching my third trimester, among others.

Ok, ok, ok - enough about me - on to Baby Girl. She gained over 4 ounces in the last week and is the length of an ear of corn, about 12 inches. Her brain is starting to grow quickly and taste buds are developing. Her lungs are slowing starting to develop and her body is filling out more and more each day. Check the Baby Center update for more details.

And to answer some very popular questions:
- I'm feeling fine. Up to this point I've been very lucky and feeling good (can we please keep it that way?).
- I'm not sure how much weight I've gained. I really stopped caring after the strange doctor was concerned about 1 lbs (bite me!).
- No, we don't have a name for Baby Girl. Brad and I haven't talked about it yet. But I promise you - when we settle on something I'll tell you. We do need to come up with something soon. My co-workers have named her Female (think tamale).

Later this week I'll post pictures I've been meaning to post in a long time!