24 weeks

Here's me at 24 weeks:


It's definitely starting to be a belly at this point--though still not an unambiguously pregnant one. I tried out a maternity top on my business trip and it worked out very well, but the maternity pants still don't feel like they're going to stay up.

My low blood pressure (which is completely normal at this stage, I understand) tripped me up a little on the trip--I arrived at the airport and met Michelle, the person I was traveling with; she was standing by the gate so I did too. Before long I started getting woozy and there were no chairs around, so I squatted beside my bags. Michelle, naturally, got concerned; I tried to tell her everything was fine, but I couldn't manage to stand back up for more than a few seconds, so she sweet-talked our way onto the plane early and took my bags and walked me to my seat and forced me to take her water. I recovered pretty quickly once I was sitting but had a headache the rest of the day, so she was probably right to be concerned. I thanked her repeatedly and didn't object when she wanted to know whether we knew the sex and what the name would be and how long we'd been trying and so forth. It wasn't a bad price to pay.

Yesterday we visited our friends Courtney and Ryan and got a big bag of baby stuff, a bunch of clothes and a bathtub and announcements and some pacifier tethers (and pacifiers, but I'd rather just buy new ones). And my Aunt Karolyn and Jaime and Bev all sent me things, and Eric's sister and brother-in-law Angie and Matt gave us a swing they'd gotten a good deal on, so we've now got a nice stash of baby stuff in what we're now calling the nurserary (since the books haven't been moved out yet). At this rate, we should be in good shape by the time L.E.O. puts in her appearance--which is starting to feel terrifyingly soon, even though we've got 16 weeks left.