Entering the Home Stretch

I can’t figure out if my belly looks like it dropped in this picture or its the stripes of my shirt throwing off the visual.

As of today, the maximum amount of time I have left carrying this little baby is ten weeks, and I hit full-term in just six weeks. I already feel like those are such small windows of time, but I think they will go even more quickly because the holidays will be in full swing as of tomorrow! Pregnancy is still going fairly smoothly. I have trouble sleeping sometimes because my back or hips ache and I have to constantly flip to my other side. But there are other nights where there is no pain at all, either way I still get up about four times to use the bathroom. My back hurts the most when I sit on our couch, I think because it’s too soft and doesn’t provide enough support for me. I often ended up sitting on the floor. That is until I found this super awesome wearable heat pad.  I warm up the included pack in the microwave and it makes my back feel so much better! I had my glucose test last week and no gestational diabetes here! I was a little nervous. The stretch marks have come in full force, I guess there really is no escaping them. I have two patches of multiple marks on either side of my lower belly, they seem to be low enough to be hidden by my pantline.  Either way I keep hydrating with my oils and creams so hopefully they wont become really severe.  With my preparation time dwindling, my to-do list this weekend involves getting my hospital bag together. I made this list of things I think I may want/need:

chapstick

warm robe

slippers

(3) warm socks

(3) undies

My coming home outfit

premie size baby outfit

newborn size baby outfit

baby beanie

Nikon camera & bag

extra batteries + charger

(2) phone chargers

pads

face wash

face lotion

shampoo, conditioner

hairbrush & hair bands

body soap

lotion

toothbrush

toothpaste

makeup remover wipes

makeup bag with essentials

Any input on things I might be missing? 

This past weekend Michael and I put some more decorative touches on the nursery. It looks done, but I am honest enough with myself to know that no room is ever done being decorated in my house! I have a lot of ideas I’ve been toying with in my head; for now I’ll call it functionally finished and ready for occupancy.

I am thinking about removing the slender door that you can see next to the hippo. Behind that door are some deep built in shelves. I think they would look great exposed with colored baskets for organizing blankies, clothes, books, anything really! I’d also like to get this breathable crib liner.

I also want to put some small book ledges above the glider for easy access to bedtime stories. I love these from Ikea, I have seen them used a lot for books in kid’s rooms although they are made for spices. We just need to make the hour long trip to Ikea to pick some up. Luckily there are some amazing taco trucks that operate right across from Ikea that make the trip totally worthwhile.

We spent all day Saturday making the star baby mobile together. The majority of time was spent painting multiple coats of paint and glitter on each star. After that, the assembly was fairly quick. We used a wooden embroidery hoop (two pieces) and wooden stars from Michaels. Each star is hung with a stretchy jewelry cord instead of fishing line. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to get the kinks out of fishing line since the stars are fairly light and the line wouldn’t really stretch out straight. I plan on tying purple tulle all the way around the embroidery hoop, I got too anxious to hang it up but I think it would look better with full tulle coverage.

Here is a little closeup of the Maddie portrait I talked about months ago. I finished it a long time ago and never posted a picture of it! I love the colors, it’s one of my favorite things in the room.

Here are my stats for this week:

How far along? 31 weeks
How big is baby?  A coconut! 16-18 inches long, weighing in at over 3 pounds
Miss Anything? The ability to zip up sweaters/jackets. Wearing normal clothes.
Sleep: Hit or miss, having to drink water throughout the night or I feel like I’m dying of thirst
Movement: Super strong kicks and punches, she seems to be on a regular sleep/wake schedule
Food cravings: Fresh fruit and yogurt (mixed together)
Anything making you queasy or sick: The smell of garlicky tomato sauce when washing the dishes from dinner.
Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: Had my first non-exercise induced Braxton Hicks, kinda freaked me out
Symptoms: Severe heartburn
Belly Button in or out? I miss my old belly button. This one is looking really strained, it’s also lopsided.
Wedding rings on or off? On
Mood: Happy! Really giggly still, don’t know if I’ll ever be the same…
Looking forward to:  Still awaiting baby’s best friend to be born! Her due date is tomorrow.
Upcoming appointments/events: 32 week checkup next week

Nursery Sneak Peek

I’ve put so much thought on the design of this nursery. From color schemes and art work to more ambitious projects like ruffled crib skirts and baby mobiles, Pinterest has been faithfully by my side providing endless DIY ideas. Some of these I’ve wisely chosen not to go ahead with, not saying I didn’t think about making a ruffled crib skirt myself while constantly thinking about the $140 option that kept rearing its ugly, over-priced head on every nursery decor site I clicked. $140 for a crib skirt, seriously? This may be my first biological child but I am well aware that kids like to employ a cruel and unusual punishment in the form of a poo filled diaper flung across a room which inevitably leaves a spatter of that poo on everything in its path. I’ve even heard stories from my own friends who as babies smeared their own feces all over themselves, their crib and sheets. Pretty sure I would never pick up my dog’s turd with a wad of $100 bills nor will I let my baby smear their poo on the $140 crib skirt I was stupid enough to buy. Enough about poo for today, back to really cute nursery things! By the way, I haven’t even bought a crib skirt yet.

We are not quite finished with the nursery, but one side of it is at least presentable! Minus the fact that the little dresser still needs a changing pad to reach its full functionality potential, you can get a good idea of the direction this little girl’s nursery is headed.

The glider still has a tag on it being that we had just moved it into the room about ten minutes before I took this picture. But, honestly I still haven’t taken the tag off and it’s been like a week. I chose grey for the paint color because I wanted a nice neutral and I might be obsessed with grey overall. The dresser I found on Craigslist, which I posted about here, it was perfect because it was the exact hue of blue I wanted to include in the nursery regardless of if the baby was a boy or girl. We originally didn’t want a lot of pink in the nursery but I’m happy with the pops of pink the art work and some accessories have brought in. That will be the extent of that color though. Michael and I agree that we don’t want our girl drowning in a sea of pale pink that every “girl” baby item is made of. I’m sure you are wondering why the glider has been strategically placed in front of a door. Luckily that is the entry to our attic which we rarely need to access, and the glider is very easy to slide across the carpet if we need to get to the third floor. The real doorway to the nursery is the one to the right of the dresser. The rest of the nursery will be revealed as soon as we have a crib mattress and sheets! That along with a few more accessories and wall art, the space will be ready for move-in day whenever baby wants.

I am officially 7 months along or 28 weeks. I am really excited to be getting closer to my due date but my excitement was abruptly deflated last night when I discovered three tiny stretch marks. I’m still thankful to my Mama Mio tummy oil because I’m positive without it my stomach would be absolutely covered with jagged, red lines. I’m not sure when these marks popped up, I barely noticed them because they are on the bottom part of my belly which is hard to see; sad but so true. They are fairly small so I’m hoping with my continued oil and cream routine their size and overall number will stay minimal. I’m also kicking myself because I knew I hadn’t been staying as hydrated as I should be these past couple weeks. I’m back on track though and peeing five times a night to prove it.

How far along? 28 weeks
How big is baby? Eggplant; roughly 2.5 pounds, measures about 13.6 to 14.8 inches
Miss Anything? Being able to lay on my stomach or flat on my back
Sleep: Sleeping pretty well, just getting up a bunch of times to pee but easily falling back to sleep.
Movement: All the time
Food cravings: Not much of an appetite lately, the only thing that sounds really good is root beer, as usual.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing so far this week.
Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: None this week
Symptoms: Really bad acid reflux, lower back pain
Belly Button in or out? Still in but stretched real tight!
Wedding rings on or off? On
Mood: Happy. Still getting the uncontrollable giggles.
Looking forward to:  Baby’s BFF who may be born any day now!
Upcoming appointments/events: Glucose test next week, 9/22: 30 week (Holy cow!!) checkup

We’re Back! With a Polka Dot Closet

We arrived home from California on Tuesday, the 13th, and after a brief battle with a cold and flu for the both of us we’re finally feeling back on track. During our vacation we were able to see the majority of both sides of extended family which is so rare for us with limited trips home, tight schedules, and relatives dotted throughout the golden state. Thanks to my sister’s wedding I was able to see many aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends; some of whom I hadn’t seen in years! We also were lucky enough to spend time with Michael’s immediate and extended family and see our nieces who are growing up so quickly. On the last day of our trip we were able to squeeze in a day with some old friends, too. It was probably the most successful trip home we’ve had in terms of faces seen. Thanks to Michael’s brother lending us his pickup truck we were able to travel between Sebastapol (wine country), Monterey (central coast), Gilroy and Walnut Creek (SF Bay Area) throughout the course of a week.

My Family (minus one): Me, Dad, sister Nicole, Mom, brother Mario

Friends who made the trip all the way to Monterey! LeeAnn, Me, Michael (husband), Ashley, Michael C.

As I mentioned earlier, after our California trip I wanted to get into full-fledge baby mode. We buttoned up our registry before the trip and now that we are back it’s nursery time! The purchase of our first house gave me the opportunity to discover my personal decorating style which involved a lot of returns to Home Goods and gawking on Pinterest. Now that I am better at making a cohesive looking space, coming up with a nursery design has been much less of a guessing game and way more exciting! In no way does this mean that I have abandoned Pinterest. I am still majorly addicted to pinning DIY projects and ingenious thrift store hacks.

Most recently I found a tutorial for DIY polka dot curtains via Remodelaholic that I absolutely loved. But after having nightmarish visions of a curious baby/toddler pulling down the curtains and thus being smacked in the head with a curtain rod I decided against adding long, beautiful curtains to the baby room design. Before we left for CA I cleaned out the nursery closet which was quite literally filled to the brim with Michael’s military uniforms, no seriously the french-style closet doors would bust open on their own because that thing was so packed. After hauling out SDB’s, khakis, mess dress and luggage, I was faced with the interior of a very tired looking closet covered in black scuff marks. I thought about getting taking a magic eraser to it, then thought to give it a fresh coat of white paint; but THEN I thought, if I’m going to take the time to make the closet look clean why not really make it pop? With POLKA DOTS! This brings us back to the tutorial at Remodelaholic. The genius behind that blog post, Cassity, used a cup as a stencil for her dots and created a “confetti” look by placing the bottom dots densely and gradually spacing them out as the eye moves up.

The main color of our baby girl’s room is purple and luckily we had two shades of purple leftover from painting our main bathroom and shower room. I used the lighter shade of purple for the background and the dark purple for each dot. Again referencing the polka dot curtain tutorial I used a cup as a stencil for each dot, but I chose to use the top rim of the cup (drinking part) versus the bottom of the cup as seen on Remodelaholic. You can see the stencil the cup rim creates below.

I felt the top part of the cup created a more clean looking stencil than using the bottom of the cup. After lightly dipping the cup in paint (I did it straight into the paint can but you can also pour a bit into a paper plate), gently and evenly press it onto the wall. Make sure you don’t get too much paint onto the cup to prevent globs or drips and an uneven stencil. I could get about three dots with one dip of paint before ending up with a partial circle due to lack of paint. After stenciling I simply filled in the circle with a small paintbrush.

Below you can see the small amount of paint covering the cup’s rim and a filled in stenciled circle.

I started out doing an evenly spaced out polka dot design, but Michael liked the idea of having the dots more dense on the bottom and spaced out towards the top, so that’s what we went with! You can see my progress below.

And the finished product!

Maddie was feeling really generous today and helped out by taking a nap in the closet while the first coat of light purple paint was drying. She left her personal signature on the room in the form of tiny black hairs stuck on the wall.

There is so much more going on with the baby room and I’ll follow up soon with detailed posts! As for my pregnancy things are still going smoothly. Here’s a quick rundown on my stats for the week.

How far along? 21 weeks
How big is baby? 10.5 inches long from head to toe, about the size of a big carrot.
Total weight gain/loss: +11 pounds, yikes!
Maternity clothes? I bought my first pair of maternity jeans and HATE them, I’ll continue with the rubberband + belly band trick. Did get a maternity shirt & leggings that are awesome though!
Sleep: Still waking up at 5:30am every morning, sleeping better unless my back starts aching.
Best moment this week: Feeling baby’s kicks get stronger and more frequent.
Movement: Sometimes it feels like there is a baby ninja in my belly.
Food cravings: Cherry Crisp or Strawberry Tart, so I guess craving tart & sweet things!
Food Aversions: None this week!
Gender: GIRL
Labor Signs: None
Pregnancy Symptoms: Been sleepy again this week, but I am attributing it to my body fighting a cold in addition to building a human.
Belly Button in or out: In
What I miss: Sad that I couldn’t go ride roller coasters with Michael at Six Flags.
What I am looking forward to: Completing the baby’s room!
Upcoming appointments/events: 8/27: 22 week checkup, 8/29: echocardiogram

It’s A Girl!

We had our ultrasound on Thursday and as we suspected, our baby is a girl! Sadly I don’t have the pretty much indecipherable sonogram with “ITS A GIRL” printed on it because Michael set them down on a chair while he helped me wipe blue, ultrasound goop off my belly and then we both forgot them, oops! The ultrasound tech actually suspected we had a baby girl at just 12.5 weeks. We had the same tech this time and she was right! The appointment ended up being a full anatomy scan instead of the echocardiogram I thought it was. Baby was completely uncooperative the entire time and both the doctor and ultrasound tech really had to work hard to get each picture they needed. They need pictures of finger bones, organs, skull, brain, leg bones, arm bones, spine, etc. it really is in depth! They were not able to get the profile view of her face because she refused to turn into the right position. We kept seeing her face straight on which actually looked really creepy since the ultrasound was showing the skeleton which resulted in looking her like a tarsier monkey (seen below). I’m sure she’s pretty in real life though….

The entire sonogram baby was laying with legs completely stretched out and switched between having one arm behind her head or both fists under her chin. She really was lounging in there. She is really active which the doctors were happy about, even though it made their job more difficult. Everything looks beautiful and “normal” so far even though they were unable to get the profile view of the head, my doctor (and we) were comfortable enough waiting a few weeks to get that picture during my echocardiogram. Baby is also a little bigger than average, in the 77th percentile so my due date went from 12/31 to 12/26. She already weighs half a pound!

I am so excited to shop! I actually dragged Michael to Target after work on Thursday and said “wouldn’t if be funny if we came for baby stuff and just left with food.” We may or may not have left with only bagel bites, mint chip ice cream and mascara. We were really on the ball that day. But really, our Target has a pitiful baby department. I really wanted to get a baby blanket to somehow solidify more that we are having a girl, but like I said, no cute baby stuff! Did see some cute lamps in the home section though.

Yesterday, I had a girl’s day with a few girlfriends, two of whom are also pregnant; it’s seriously like a hungry, hot (the sweaty kind), hormonal pack of women walking around and it can get really dangerous for bystanders. We ended up going to Babies ‘R Us after our pedicure date and man that store has EVERYTHING! I ended up buying a little hippo blankie/snuggle toy thing but I’m going to return it because guess who changed their mind on colors yet again? I might be the most indecisive person in the world. It’s more the shade of hippo purple that is wrong, because I am really particular about colors, seriously. Today Michael and I are going back to Babies ‘R Us today to nail down our registry items, especially our carseat and stroller combination. On Thursday, Michael decided to test drive some strollers at Target by literally driving them like the baby aisle had just turned into a life or death situation. He deemed them to be cheap and not sturdy enough, so we’ve got our work cut out for us today.

I have a ton of baby projects in mind for the upcoming weeks including: polka dot painted closet, DIY mobile, hand-painted cardboard letters and more wall art. The best part is all of these projects are going to be super cheap which I’m always a fan of.

As usual, I’ll leave you with my weekly update!

How far along? 19 weeks
How big is baby? A mango! Approximately 6 inches long.
Total weight gain/loss: Gained about 7 pounds.
Maternity clothes? Belly band and pant buttons held together with a hair band.
Sleep: Sleep is hit or miss. I wake up at 5:30am every day and usually force myself to go back to sleep. Not today though!
Best moment this week: Finding out baby is a girl!
Movement: A lot more movement these days! I’m pretty sure I felt her do a complete rollover yesterday.
Food cravings: Fruit! Oranges, nectarines, strawberries, and grapes.
Food Aversions: None this week!
Gender: GIRL 🙂
Labor Signs: None
Pregnancy Symptoms: Backaches that come out of nowhere and are horrendous.
Belly Button in or out: In
What I miss: Sushi, really, really miss sushi.
What I am looking forward to: Going home to CA!
Upcoming appointments/events: 8/27: 22 week checkup, 8/29: echocardiogram (for real this time)

3 Month Update + Our First Baby Room Buy

Little Blue Dresser’s Craigslist Ad

This weekend Michael and I made an hour trip to get a dresser that I fell in love with on Craigslist. Most people that witnessed me decorate our first home know that I am a Craigslist junkie. I try my hardest to always buy things cheap, but of good quality. I saw these dressers originally posted at $295, then $245 and finally at $195 I contacted them. I asked if they were willing to sell the dressers separately since we just wanted the short one to double as a changing table. The nice woman offered it to me for only $75, score!

The dresser was located a bit out of the way, about 55 miles. I was originally looking for a dresser to refinish but this one was the color I would have used anyway, so it was worth the trip to me. Unfortunately, our one hour drive to the destination turned into almost two hours one way because I accidentally punched the wrong city into the GPS, at least I got the street address right! Once we finally arrived the little blue dresser was waiting for us outside and it is the exact swatch of blue I had pulled at Home Depot a few weeks ago. It is newly refinished and heavy duty wood, no laminate or particle board here!

3 Month Update

This week also marks the last week of my first trimester! Which means I am out of the woods and am finally comfortable announcing the pregnancy to the world. So far I have only gotten sick in the morning one time, let’s hope it stays that way. I have felt pretty normal for the most part, after reading about so many pregnancy symptoms online I imagined myself crying hysterically while doing laundry or vomiting violently everyday. The worst I have had is taking naps and eating a lot, and I find both of those quite enjoyable.

Today I had an ultrasound done with a specialist in fetal medicine. My OB wanted to make sure that our baby’s heart was developing normally due to my medical history. This is done by looking at a little sac of fluid sitting on the back of baby’s neck; if more fluid than normal is present it may mean that the baby is developing with a heart defect or other abnormality such as Down Syndrome. Luckily, everything looks perfectly normal and our baby was squirming around happily the entire time. The ultrasound was pleasantly long so my friend Stephanie and I were able to watch the baby move for about 15 or 20 minutes total. Michael was on duty at work today so he was unable to come to my appointment. Luckily I’ve got a great support network of friends who are more than happy to accompany me. Here are some pics from today:

Baby Profile View

Baby Waving to the Camera

How far along? 12 weeks

How big is baby? Baby is the size of a plum

Total weight gain/loss: No loss here! +1 pound

Maternity clothes? No official maternity clothes, but I am sticking to empire waist and flowing tops to hide my stomach which looks more like a beer gut right now than a baby bump.

Sleep: Wake up at least three times a night, including a trip to the bathroom.

Best moment this week: Buying a bigger bra that is actually comfortable!

Movement: No feeling of movement, but I did see the little one swimming around in the ultrasound 🙂

Food cravings: Oranges

Food Aversions: No specific aversions, more of a general “nothing sounds good” attitude.

Gender: Had two dreams so far that it’s a boy.

Labor Signs: None

Pregnancy Symptoms: When I’m tired it hits me like a ton of bricks and I must nap. I’m also STARVING every two to three hours. I threw up for the first time on 6/8 and thankfully haven’t had that experience since. I have to pee a lot more than normal including every night which I’ve never done before.

Belly Button in or out: In!

What I miss: sushi and beer, two of my favorite things.

What I am looking forward to: Finding out the sex and decorating the nursery!

Upcoming appointments/events: 7/2, 14 week checkup

Weekly Wisdom: ALWAYS go pee before you leave the house, and bring snacks in your purse.

Milestones: First ultrasound at 10.5 weeks and everything looks great! Officially the owner of a “C” cup bra, woo!