Update at 24 weeks - Fifth's Disease scare

I hit the magically mark of 24 weeks yesterday. I think this is called the "week of viability." My husband keeps reminding me that if something happened and our baby was born today, he actually has a chance to survive. I'm not going to lie...this scares the heck out of me!

But it is nice to know that we are getting closer and closer to May 22nd.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a student in my school came down with Fifth's Disease/Parvovirus. During my first pregnancy this summer, my OB ordered a blood test to see if I had the antibodies for this virus, and I did not. This surprised many of us since I have worked with children all day, everyday for the last 8+ years. But since I wasn't immune to it, I was told to wash my hands frequently and do my best to avoid any students that get sick with Fifth's Disease. So when I was sitting at the lunch table two weeks ago and heard one of the teachers say that she had a student that had been absent for 4 days because she had Fifth's Disease, I panicked! I did not have any contact with this student, but I am in and out of her classroom and have other students in her class that I work with directly. I called my OB and told them this story, and they recommended that I get blood work done to see if I had been exposed. And guess what...I had been exposed! The risks to the baby are much smaller since I was past 20 weeks when I was exposed (I was 21 weeks), but they still wanted me to follow-up with a Perinatologist. We did that last Friday. She has recommended weekly level II ultrasounds for six weeks so that we can monitor the blood flow to the baby's brain. Fifth's Disease can cause Anemia to unborn babies. If this happens, the blood flow to his brain will increase. The good news is that I have had two ultrasounds with the Perinatologist and, so far, he is not showing any signs of Anemia! In fact, everything about him has been right on track and he seems to be very healthy. There are no concerns!

As far as everything else is concerned, we are doing great! I am feeling him wiggle more and more. I am getting better and being able to tell him I am feeling arms or legs and what position he is in based on his movement (and I'm getting this verified with our weekly ultrasounds!). I am still not feeling him much during the day, maybe just a 3 to 5 times, but once I get home and lay down on the couch, he gets much more active. I've been told that my "anterior placenta" is probably what is preventing me from feeling his little movements while I am more active during the day. I get anxious during the day when I haven't felt him for a few hours, but he makes up for it at night. He moves all night long! You can see my belly bounce around so I just lay on the couch with my belly hanging out, waiting for the next bounce. And we aren't having any difficulty feeling him move from the outside anymore.

We bought his crib and dresser this week. It won't be delivered for 6 weeks, but that gives us time to get our house organized and make some room for him and all of his STUFF.

Here are my latest two belly pics...

This was taken at 20 weeks, 6 days.

And this was 23 weeks, 4 days.


I am fighting with my scanner right now, so I don't have my ultrasound pictures loaded onto my computer yet. I will work on that this weekend and get them posted.