Wednesday, March 22, 2006

24 weeks

We had our 24 week appointment today and everything looks great! "Phoebe" (as the unnamed li'l one is lovingly called) is doing well and growing as she should. Her heartbeat was lower than normal today (128 as opposed to 135-ish) and Leif asked if that was normal. The Dr. said, "Oh, sure. She's probably just being still in there. We can get her heartrate to go up." and poked at my belly with the doppler. Sure enough, Phoebe's heartrate went up to 150 as she wiggled around, probably to avoid being pushed again! It was really neat, though. She's been kicking more and more and I can feel her consistently through the day. She's even developing what seem to be active/quiet patterns, though she likes to be active when I'm trying to be quiet and sleep, usually!

All in all we are so thankful for a healthy baby and a healthy pregnancy. The Dr. said that now that we've hit the 24 week mark, the baby has a good chance of viability if she were born now. Granted, she still has a lot of developing to do, and I hope she goes full term, but it's amazing to me that in our world, even if she's born now, she has a good chance of survival. That wouldn't have been true 100 years ago.

4 comments:

DREW! said...

I've entertained the thought of naming one of our daughters "Phoebe," but sadly—given the state of our culture—I realized 98% of all people would recognize it as a "Friends" (shutter) reference opposed to its intended Catcher in the Rye allusion.

Of course, I certainly don't mean to offend if you have given her that temporary moniker because of the popular television sitcom, "Friends."

Well, maybe I mean to offend a little.

Elizabeth Wickland said...

I hadn't even thought about the Friends connection. No, if we were going to name her something off a TV show, we would call her "Aeryn" from Farscape.

I don't actually know where "Phoebe" came from... our unborn babe has been "Phoebe" for about 3 years now... I think it was my mother's doing. We called it "Otar" before that.

Anonymous said...

I've never left a comment before, but I must at this time! Drew is right to shutter at the "Friends" reference to Phoebe - even to gag. "Phoebe" got her name from a reference to Phoebe in Romans 16:1,2. I, being the future Grandmother, thought it was much prettier than Otar.

Elizabeth Wickland said...

And right you were, Mom.