24 weeks (and happy V-Day!)

Today is a big milestone - 24 weeks of pregnancy. As I've mentioned before, this day is sometimes called V-Day (for "Viability Day"), because the earliest of the early micropremies CAN sometimes survive if born at this point. It isn't a certainty by any means, though. I talked about this milestone here. In the time since I wrote that post, I've learned that the little girl who I mentioned as having passed away just before 24 weeks was actually born at exactly 24 weeks of gestation. As I said, it's far from certain that a baby born this early would survive - less than 40% from the research I've done. It isn't until 27 weeks that the survival rate hits 90%, so perhaps that's a better milestone.

All that scary stuff aside, I have to remember that I haven't had any complications. My cervix looked great at my anatomy scan, and I have no reason to believe the rest of the pregnancy won't go well, too. In some ways, you HAVE to be in denial about all of the potential complications of pregnancy, or you'd psych yourself out of every having a child. Things have gone well so far, and I have to assume it's going to continue to go well.

Here's this week's picture:



I'm still feeling great. I still go to the gym five days a week, and I'm still lifting weights on four of those days. Both the midwives and the OB have said that I can continue my gym routine, so I have been (with a few modifications). I had a little bit of a rough time earlier this week, though. I don't fit in one of the glute machines anymore, so I decided to switch to lunges. It's been YEARS since I've done lunges, and I was SO SORE after doing them that first time. And, I couldn't take any Advil for it, which made it worse. I suffered through it, and I've done lunges a couple of times since. I haven't been sore again, so it just took one session of lunges for my body to get used to the new exercise.

I'm also still wearing high heels at work, which has elicited a bunch of comments. Why wouldn't I wear them still? Supposedly, your balance is thrown off during pregnancy. Anyone who knows me in real life, though, will attest to my clumsiness and complete lack of balance when I'm NOT pregnant. It hasn't really gotten worse since I've been pregnant. Besides, I have to wear boots to the office because of the snow, so I'm really only wearing them while I'm in the building. Plus, I sit at a desk all day. My pants are hemmed to the length of high heels (even my maternity pants), and I'm really really hoping I don't have to re-hem them all for flats.

All in all, things are going great!