24 weeks

How your baby's growing: Your baby's growing steadily, gaining about a quarter of a pound since last week, when she was just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), that makes a pretty lean figure, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon put on more baby fat. Your baby's skin is thin, translucent, and wrinkled, her brain is growing rapidly, and her taste buds are developing. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" and cells that produce surfactant, a substance **that helps the air sacs inflate easily.

How your life's changing: The top of your uterus is now an inch or so above your belly button, which means it's about the size of a soccer ball. With the skin on your abdomen and breasts stretching, you may feel a little itchy now and then. If your skin is dry, keeping it well moisturized may help. Also, your eyes may be sensitive to light and feel gritty and dry. This is a perfectly normal pregnancy symptom known as dry-eye. To ease your discomfort, use an artificial tears solution to add moisture. Most women will have a glucose screening test (also called a glucose challenge test or GCT) between 24 and 28 weeks. This test checks for gestational diabetes, a high-blood-sugar condition during pregnancy. Untreated, high blood sugar increases your risk for having a difficult vaginal delivery or needing a cesarean section because it causes your baby to grow overly fat, especially in his upper body. It also increases your baby's risk for complications like low blood sugar at birth. A positive result on your GCT test doesn't mean you have gestational diabetes, but it does mean that you should have the more involved glucose tolerance test (GTT) to find out. It's also a good idea to be aware of the signs of preterm labor. Contact your caregiver immediately if you notice an increase in vaginal discharge that is watery, mucus-like, or pink or blood-tinged; any vaginal bleeding or spotting; abdominal pain or menstrual-like cramping or more than four contractions in an hour; an increase in pelvic pressure; or low back pain that you haven't had before.

How I'm doing: I'm doing great. I had a prenatal appointment this morning. Thankfully UCLA Medical Plaza was just letting patients and employees back in the building after a fire drill so I missed the evacuation. I did walk up 3 flights of stairs to the 4th floor so I wouldn't have to wait in a line that looked to be about 200 people long to take the elevator. The baby is doing fine. We briefly listened to her heart beat and everything sounded normal. The midwife said I'm an easy patient because my "problem list" is very short. So we had a nice and quick appointment today.

Our next appointment is scheduled for February 5th. At that time I'll have the glucose screening test mentioned above. I'll have to drink a liter or so of a very sugary orange drink and then get my blood drawn. At the same appointment I'll also get a rhogam shot which I need since my blood type is O- and Scott's is A+. This prevents my body from developing antibodies to the baby's blood if she has a positive blood type. I'll have one more shot at the end of pregnancy and one after delivery. This blood-type incompatibility doesn't present any problems for this baby but it might for future babies.

We picked out the fabric below to use as the starting point for the baby's nursery corner.
We holding out on buying anything pink until after the baby comes in case she turns out to be a he. My mom is going to work on making a window valance and a crib skirt for the baby's area and my maternal grandmother has generously offered to make the baby a quilt. If you've seen any of her quilts you know what a special gift this is for us and the baby.

Scott is pretty sure he felt the baby kick just over a week ago for the first time. She likes to play games with her dad and kick away until he puts his hand on my stomach and then she stops. I was able to see my stomach move from one of her kicks as well. But again, Dad wasn't home.

I'm continuing with prenatal yoga which I enjoy very much. I'm swimming and trying to increase that more as my midwife said it should help with some minor swelling I'm getting in my ankles and hands. We've just signed up for a CSA which means we'll be getting a box of locally grown organic produce every other week automatically. Which should challenge my culinary skills and get more fruits and vegetables into our diet.

Oh, and I got a raise! I asked for, negotiated and received a raise at work. It will take a month and a half to process and receive the first paycheck at my new salary since I'm only paid monthly--but it's coming.