2 More Weeks!

This blog is mainly a picture update, which includes the promised belly shot.... Sorry it's only of my belly, but my hair was just not appropriately styled for a picture. I spent the day cleaning the kitchen - which felt like a sauna - and wasn't really feeling like putting up pictures of myself after that.

As far as the weird "under-belly" pain goes, I am doing much better. Even though I feel better, Gordie and Janna haven't been letting me go to AquaFit, which is somewhat frustrating. My amazing sister (who I love even though she won't let me swim) has been helping me out here and putting up with my extremely anal "nesting" the last little while... I don't really think it's nesting though, it's just me being my normal, freaky self. I don't feel like buying little baby clothes and folding them, I feel like disinfecting things. Yesterday, we cleaned out my kitchen cupboards and finally organized the million little bags of gluten free flours I had stuffed in there (you would appreciate it Sarah). I've been telling myself that I will have to let things go in the organization/cleaning department once the baby comes, but for now I will continue to clean with a vengeance.

We also finally got our crib mattress today, so the baby room is officially complete! I'm not going to post pictures of that today because Gordie has committed to doing a post about the baby room. Someone keep him accountable... I'm glad to have the room done though, because I have a weird feeling the baby will either be early or right on time. Anyone else have any guesses??? After all my tests last week, I'm apparently right on schedule as far as what my body is supposed to be doing to prepare for labor... Hopefully we won't have any baby news until next month!




My latest craigslist find... I'm tempted to just use these baby food trays for ice cubes.
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Two of my favorite people, making dinner... I was probably laying on the couch craigslisting at the time.

Baby Drama

I've been stuck sitting/laying on the couch for 3 days so I thought I'd post a little update for all our blog followers (does anyone actually read this?) I feel extremely narcissistic writing blog posts but maybe that will change when there is an actual baby to blog about. Regardless, I will share with you our adventure of the last few days...

It all started on Wednesday, which for the most part was a great day. I've really started enjoying my maternity leave and finally feel like I've started to unwind from work... I've been going to AquaFit in the mornings (where I'm the youngest person by about 30 years), hanging out with friends I haven't seen for a while, doing as much shopping for the baby as I can handle (shopping is not my forte), having naps every day and slowly starting to organize the house before baby comes. Wednesday was pretty low key until about 11PM when I got out of bed to use the bathroom (for the hundredth time) and had a severe pain under my belly. At first we just thought it was round ligament pain, which is the stretching of ligaments around the uterus as it grows. This pain is usually sharp and quite painful, but only lasts a minute or two. Unfortunately, the pain I was experiencing wasn't leaving. So after a shower (no help), a call to our midwife and some extra strength Tylenol (not much help either) we finally had a restless night of a few hours of sleep. By 6AM on Thursday we had both given up on sleeping anymore. I tried to take a bath to ease the pain a bit, which didn't do much and Gordie decided to phone our midwife again. She wanted to meet us at the hospital to check me over, but the maternity ward in Langley was full, so she came over. It's great when your midwife comes to you, you don't have to put on pants or get out of bed....

After being examined by the midwife, we didn't have many answers. The baby's heartbeat was great, it was moving around a lot, all my vitals were fine and it didn't look like the start of labor, which was a bit of a relief after a night of panic thinking we might be going into labor totally unprepared. We figured it was really strong Braxton Hicks (practice contractions) that would either go away eventually or turn into real labor. When we realized the pain was not going away, Gordie called my sister (who I now owe my life to) to come help out and get stuff ready in the house just in case the baby was on it's way. By 9PM, after a full day of extreme pain and not being able to even walk to the bathroom, I decided to call my midwife again and give her an update. She told us to meet her at the hospital so she could check me out more thoroughly and consult with an OB. So Gordie, Janna and I headed to the hospital. It felt like we were going for the real thing, except that we had no carseat, baby clothes or hospital bag packed. It was a good dry run though...

We ended up at the hospital for 3 hours and I was checked by both my midwife and an OB. They couldn't find anything so an ultrasound was ordered for the next day. Luckily I got a shot of Morphine and some other drugs to take home and we all had a good sleep. Yesterday was a better day, thanks to the drugs, but I was still in a lot of pain. We went back to the hospital for the ultrasound, which didn't give us any answers. The OB set me up with more painkillers and figured that the baby is just putting pressure on something they can't see. So now I'm just waiting for the baby to get off whatever it's laying on.

Luckily for us, we have amazing family and friends around us who helped us out... While we were at the hospital yesterday, my brother and his wife came over - Janna was still here, acting as my personal slave - and the three of them finished getting the baby room ready and made dinner. We also had friends drop dinner off the night before, which is seriously the greatest thing ever. Making meals and doing laundry are the last things you want to think about when you're in pain, and having people just come and take care of things for you is amazing. We feel lucky to have such great support...

So there it is.... the long drawn out story of our "we thought we might be in labor but it's just the baby being annoying" adventure. I'm hoping that by tomorrow I won't need painkillers and I'll be back to normal. Once I can stand normally, I'll post another belly shot and a picture of the now pretty much finished baby room....

Maternity Leave!!!

Today is unofficially my first day of maternity leave. Since today is a stat holiday (Happy BC Day) tomorrow will be the first day I can sit at home and think about how I'm not at work. I'm sure it will be fantastic. My plan was actually to work a bit longer, but my midwife's advice was to take as much time as I could and to rest as much as possible before the big day. And after a week of extreme weather and cranky, sweaty kids I'm so glad to be done. Of course, my idea of "resting & relaxing" usually includes a "To Do" list but I'm not letting myself work on that until tomorrow....

Anyway, here is a picture of the approximate size of our baby, as well as a nice fruit visual... One of the baby websites has produce comparisons for each month of fetal growth - who knew the baby is the size of a honeydew melon? I find this somewhat humorous and slightly creepy. Enjoy!

I think this baby looks a little annoyed...

I return..

Adrianne has stepped up to the plate for the last few entries and has left me feeling like I could be pulling my blogging weight a little more faithfully - so here goes.

We are just coming through the week of 35+ degree weather that has undoubtedly dominated the conversations of every soul in the lower mainland. It was quite the week. Our house sat at around the same balmy temperature as outside, and needless to say, Adrianne had a blast managing trying to sleep through the night. Our daily ritual consisted of the following:

- up at 5:30, have the first of 3-4 showers of the day
- breakfast (usually a cold smoothie)
- Take Age to work, stopping for an iced S.bucks to maintain the cooler body temp.
- Pick up Age for an Air Conditioned lunch break (as her work is more of a sauna than our house :)
- Home from work, shower
- Age off to AC (Starbucks or the Library)
- Out for dinner / AC.
- Stay out as long as possible.
- Home as late as possible and then another shower
- Age to bed with the following: fan cranking full tilt 2 feet from bed//3 ice packs wedged in between pillows//2 cold, wet towels acting as a blanket :)
- Then up the next morning @ 5:30.

That my friends, was our week. With all of the heat records recently shattered, it looks like the days ahead will be a few degrees closer to normal, so we may not cave on the Air Conditioner just yet..

Gordie

Picture Update

Baby bassinet I just bought on craigslist (don't worry, every fabric part comes off and will be properly sanitized).

This is the outfit I bought to bring home baby in, hopefully the baby's not too chunky because this kimono is pretty tiny.

Golden Ears picnic with Brody & Jodie... My first attempt with the maternity bathing suit. I thought I would float in the lake because of my belly, but I am definitely still a sinker.

Granville Island - 6.5 weeks to go...

Belly Shot

I know we are not that great at updating the blog, but there isn't really much to post except that I am getting huge.... Posting pictures of this is only something I can bring myself to do every month or so. So here is an updated belly shot, as well as a picture of the beginnings of a baby room (which is more of a guest room right now). I promise to update more when there's a cute baby to post pictures of.

Just wanted to give everyone a visual of the little furnace living in my tummy. I get pictures emailed to me weekly from a baby site and this one is supposed to be at 26 weeks. I've been feeling lots of kicks and Gordie's even been able to feel a few. As of today, we are 95 days away from our due date.... Crazy!

It's been really hot here for the last week and I am definitely feeling it. Gordie bought a fan last night which seems to help a little but still... I've been daydreaming about air conditioning. Today I went for my gestational diabetes screen so hopefully I won't be getting a call back. I actually enjoyed waiting for the hour between drinking the orange potion and getting my blood drawn, mainly because the building was air conditioned.

Tummy and baby room pictures to come soon! We promise...