24 Weeks

Gestational Age: 24 weeks, 2 days

Weight Gain: 8 lbs (again! eek!)

Blood Pressure: 102/63

Fetal Heartrate: 141 BPM

Last Friday we had our "big" prenatal appointment of this journey - our 24 week ultrasound. I was concerned about my weight gain this month, but I'm very happy that I'm feeling better, so I'm trying to focus on that rather than the weight itself. Also, I'm super pleased that my blood pressure has gone down again. I don't think anyone else was worried about it, but I was concerned that it just kept creeping up and up.

At this stage in pregnancy, I'm feeling big, tired and happy. I'm hoping I can get back into a really consistent exercise routine and can make some good adjustments to my diet. I'm excited to report that I haven't thrown up for a month! And, the acid reflux I was having such trouble with last month seems to be under control - if I'm careful about what I eat and when I eat it. I have had several headaches again recently, but I'm feeling pretty good about that, too. I'm still holding to my wheat/gluten-free, dairy-free diet, but I've done horribly with the sugar-free part. That is my biggest goal this next month - lay off the sweets. :)

This month marked the beginning of real maternity clothes, not exclusively, but mostly. I'm still struggling with maternity clothes feeling way too big, but regular clothes are definitely feeling too small now. This morning I pulled out the ol' rubber band for my regular jeans and wondered why I had forgotten that trick before now...

Having our ultrasound was wonderful and helped me return to a place of greater peace regarding this child. For some reason, I'm had a lot of fears surrounding this kiddo - probably because I've been so sick and therefore haven't felt like I've "enjoyed" Baby quite as much. I also realized I was having trouble conceptualizing this child because of my lack of quiet time during the day and my physical distress. It was a blessing to watch the ultrasound carefully and marvel at each vertebrae in the spine, the way Baby's brain is formed, all those perfect fingers and toes and that beautiful beating heart. Our OB did the ultrasound this time (instead of a ultrasound tech) and that was really fun, too. It was nice to have a lot of the measurements explained in detail and to have a lot of commentary on each body part. The only bummer of the day was that Baby was "hiding" so we didn't get a good picture of Baby's face. We could kind of see one eye, half a nose and part of a mouth. This also means we didn't get any good "photos" of the session since Baby is too big to have a body shot at this point and was not cooperating for a face shot or profile.

Baby is already comfortably positioned head down, facing my spine with Baby's spine lined up with my belly button. Before moving to this position, I was feeling a lot of really violent kicks, punches and bumps, but now things have quieted down a bit. I feel a lot of movement still, but it is usually down pretty low now and I imagine it is elbows and fingers.

Baby is measuring just bigger than average at this point. The ultrasound machine guessed 1 lb, 9 oz. In terms of leg length, head circumference, torso circumference, etc, Baby is measuring about a week ahead of our projected due date. Eleanor always measured a little bit ahead, too, so I assume I just grow them big. :) The interesting thing this time was our OB talked about the Baby being "bigger than average" rather than my due date being off. This actually makes way more sense to my brain now than our experience with Ella - when she measured big they kind of wondered if our dates were off or something - so we have no sense that Baby will come earlier than expected, I just have to be careful about my sugar intake so as not to end up with a 10 pounder!

So, I will leave you with this picture, taken right at 24 weeks. Seth and I got all dressed up and went out for a nice dinner for his birthday (thanks, Ruthie!).