Viability!

24w1d today*. We have reached the elusive viability status. I beg gummy not to think this means it's time to make an appearance. But this was the next big milestone in my mind and now I've reached it. At the last OB appointment, I asked specifically about it. I thought that being in a smaller town, viability would be later, since there is no NICU at Pleasantville General Hospital. But the OB said viability is the same as it is everywhere, just that any babies looking to be born before 32 weeks will buy their mamas a ride in an ambulance to the university hospital 45 minutes away, or to the big city, or west to Fertility Treatment Town, my old haunt. Well I'm not planning on making the ambulance trip, but it's good to have the notion in mind of what would happen, and that gummy could live at this point.

At work today, I had the two extremes on a continuum of reactions to pregnant bodies. One colleague guffawed loudly and said "Wow Augusta, you have grown so much in the last few days! You have really popped!" And then later on, my boss stopped me in the hall and said "Augusta, I have to say I was looking at you in the kitchen and you can barely tell you are pregnant!" It just makes me laugh, since you know, I'm not feeling a tremendous amount of control over this. It's nothing I'm doing or not doing. I'm just growing a baby and I look the way I look. But it is a bit intense how much people are commenting on my body.

Speaking of work, it has continued to be super busy. I'm thankful for it, but it leaves me with less time to blog. At the beginning of December, I will be taking my final licensing exam. This one is an oral exam in front of a panel of three. I'm imagining it as nerve wracking as the Ph.D. defense, except this time, everyone in the room will be strangers. If I pass, it means I get my license and I won't have to worry about it while on mat leave. It also helps with looking for work after mat leave, since a job candidate with a license is preferable to one in the process of getting a license. Now if I can only start convincing myself that weekends are meant for preparing and not eating out and watching episodes of House.

Chicken thanks you for your sweet comments. She is well aware of how beautiful she is, but never tires of hearing it. She's a cat, after all. 


* I put a substandard bump pic on the gummy bear page of what my torso looks like at this point.