My Pregnancy: Week 24

Baby's now the size of an ear of corn!

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week.  That puts her at just over a pound.  Since she's almost a foot long, she cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon start to plump up.  Her brain is also growing quickly now, and her taste buds are continuing to develop.  Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world.  Her skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon.

This has been a rough week, baby.  For starters, I started a new shift at work that requires me getting up at 5am!  I have never been much of a morning person, even before I was pregnant, so adjusting to that routine has been tough on me.  Hopefully it will continue to get easier though and the pure exhaustion I've felt most of the week will abate.

As if the anticipation (read as dread) of this change wasn't enough to throw me for a loop, I also woke up with heartburn at 2am Sunday night.  Since I'd never experienced heartburn before, I wasn't sure exactly what was going on.  An hour or so later I finally took some Mylanta and was able to get some sleep.  I was hoping it was just a fluke experience, but the heartburn returned the next night.  Granny D says that's how her pregnancies went: exhaustion, heartburn, delivery.  Looks like I'm in line to follow suit.  Thankfully, the heartburn has subsided throughout the week.

Aside from all of that, there was some good to the week too.  You still seem to be doing great.  You kick much more frequently and often forcefully enough to be seen through my shirt.  I also started thinking more seriously about how I want to set up your nursery and entered craft-mode early in the week to create these two plaques for the walls:

Yes, I got your dad to cave on the Mickey & Minnie theme AND we have decided (knock on wood) that your first name will be Leila.  The middle name is still being hashed out though, so it is a good thing we still have time!

24 weeks!