bump in the snow

I've been so mesmerized with this pregnancy.  Having a life growing inside of you is so incredible.  Each week (really every day) I am so thankful for the chance to be pregnant and to be carrying this baby to full-term.  I was back and forth on getting maternity pictures taken and now I am SO glad that we did.  What a cool part in our lives to be able to look back on!

My good friend, Jamie, offered to take newborn pictures of the baby once he arrives so I asked how she felt about doing some maternity pictures too.  I am so so glad she did! She is amazingly talented and we are so happy with how everything turned out. We took a couple pictures of just me when I was around 30 weeks pregnant and then got together again when I was 34 weeks and did an awesome session out in the snow with Matt too.  It was freezing cold and windy that day, but we all braved it to get good shots :)

Sorry if you're freaked out by bare belly shots...scroll quickly past the next few if you are :) I just love the way they turned out!

this furry blanket is in baby's room :)

See you soon baby boy!

weeks 35-37

week 35

I am still just in shock that we are nearing the end of this pregnancy!  I have enjoyed it so much.  Even when I'm having aches and pains (and he's shoving his head up into my ribs), I am still so thankful for the chance to even be pregnant and to be carrying this baby closer and closer to full-term.

Speaking of aches and pains, I have been having crazy rib pain.  I thought it was just from him pushing his head up into my ribs, but I think it's mostly sore from my ribs expanding and making more room for this growing belly.  It feels like you did a way-too-hard ab workout.  My hips and pelvis have been pretty sore too, some days way worse than others.  I guess everything is just stretching and making more room!  Baby is still super active.

I was busy organizing his room with all of the gifts we had gotten at our showers (thank you all again!) and when I felt my belly I couldn't find his hard noggin! For a split second I thought maybe he had flipped, but when I sat down there was no denying his head was still up top :).  I really am becoming more at peace with him being breech and needing a c-section.  Of course it's not exactly what I envisioned or the way anyone would necessarily choose, but I just want to do what's best for him.  No matter how he comes out, we get our baby at the end and that is all that matters.  He still has time to flip, but there's definitely not a lot of room left in there!

We had our appointment for the week and now we start going to the doctor every week!  My blood pressure was high again, but went down a little after I sat for a minute.  Everything else checked out ok (labs from last week all ok), so she is just going to watch it.  My doctor wanted me to start taking it at least once a day and to call if it got above a certain number.  Weight was up another pound which puts total gain at 22.5 lbs, we measured right on at 35 weeks, and baby's heart rate sounded great!  We have a follow-up ultrasound next week to confirm his breech position.

Thursday will be my last day teaching BodyPump.  Kind of sad, but I know it's time.  I will miss everyone, but hopefully I'll recover quickly and be back at it! (not earlier than cleared by my doc of course :) ).  We went to Buy Buy Baby this weekend and got the rest of the stuff we needed.  It's all becoming so real!

Baby is the size of a coconut weighing in at 5 1/2 lbs (although he probably weighs more than the average) and 18 inches long!

week 36

9 months pregnant?!  Whoa! This is getting so real.  It's funny all the stages (mentally and emotionally) you go through during a pregnancy.  If you would've asked me 2 months ago if I was ready for him to arrive I don't think I could've said yes, but now I really am starting to feel ready!  Now we are just so excited and anxious for him to get here!

Still feeling pretty good-hips and pelvis still pretty sore and tender.  I'm officially waddling (although if you ask Matt I've been waddling for awhile now) and having trouble getting up and getting started walking.  Rib pain a little better, but still present.  At night, it hurts too much to lay all the way over on my side.  It's like my belly is too heavy and everything is pulling too much, especially up into my ribs.  

Matt's mom came this weekend to do a deep clean of the house before the baby comes.  That was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders!  We are ready to bring this baby home to a clean house! 

Baby boy was super active at work this week.  I started feeling him a ton on my upper right side.  Over and over, he would shove a sharp body part out of my side, sometimes so hard I couldn't help but say "OW!" out loud.  Sometimes he'd go back in if I'd gently push back at him, but other times he just kept pushing it out.  We found out at our ultrasound that he was frank breech (feet up by his face) so that was his legs and feet he was pushing out at me all weekend!  I hope his hips are ok once he comes out.  I just want them to pull him out, he cries really loud, and everything is ok and we get to keep him with us!  I want him to be here just so I know he is ok.  But I am totally ok with him cooking a little bit longer!

We had our appointment this week and had our ultrasound which confirmed he is definitely still breech in there!  The tech didn't do measurements this time, so we don't know how big he is.  I was really hoping she would!  He looked great on the scan, practicing his swallowing again.  I gained another pound which puts us at a total of 24 lbs for this pregnancy.  My blood pressure was way better!  Much lower than the previous week.  We aren't dilated at all yet, which is good since he's breech.  

Baby is the size of honeydew melon weighing in at 6 lbs and 18.5 inches long.

week 37

37 weeks! Baby is full-term!  He could come anytime now and hopefully be fully developed and ready to live on the outside world.  Crazy!

Like hip pain wasn't enough, now I'm getting these weird shooting pains into my upper thighs that sometimes make my legs go numb for a second.  It's really weird! I had to keep stopping at the store today because I was afraid my legs were going to give out and then I'd fall.  Matt's back-rubs always feel great, but they feel even better right now.  Baby is still super active-moving his arms and legs around like crazy and stretching out in there.  Still working my normal 12 hour shifts at work, which is getting tougher and tougher every week.  The walking around is what's getting me the most! Nothing I can't power through though, so the plan is still to work all the way up until delivery.

We had our CHAMP baby shower this past weekend!  It was so so nice.  A bunch of the "regulars" came and most all of the instructors were there too!  It was a joint shower for Rachel and I so we all got to meet baby Duke!  He is absolutely adorable and made me even more excited to see this little boy. Everyone is so generous! I love my CHAMP family :).

We are getting so close! Only big things left to do is pack our hospital bag (which I really can't until closer) and put the car seat in the car!  

We had a good appointment today.  Weight up another 1.5 lbs (total at 25.5 lbs so far) which I'm totally calling out the awesome Mexican fiesta dinner at the May's on Sunday night for contributing to that nice weight again :).  Blood pressure was still good, baby still breech, measuring right at 37 weeks, and baby HR 138.

Baby is the size of a winter melon (what is that really?) weighing in at 6-9 pounds and 19-21 inches long!

nursery

The nursery is finally complete! Well, for the most part.  There are little things that need to be added here and there, but it's pretty much done and ready for baby boy!  We LOVE how it turned out! Honestly, I had absolutely no vision until we started piecing it all together.  I was getting so stressed looking at nursery ideas on Pinterest and trying to figure out how they did it, that I ended up just simplifying what I thought I wanted.  I envisioned his room being cozy and fresh and I think we nailed it!

When people asked me what I was doing for his room I would list the couple things I knew I wanted:

-grey walls

-white furniture

-fur rug (so random, but this was literally the first thing I knew I wanted for his room)

-awesome light fixture

-neutral colors (grey, white, tan, brown) with a pop of color somehow (probably from a quilt my mom was going to make)

So we went from there!  I knew I wanted to make a trip to IKEA to look for a dresser and the light fixture.  Matt's mom bought us his crib and I just wanted something white and simple and convertible (which pretty much all of them are now it seems like).  I figured everything else would just come together.  SO not like me!

We actually found our comfy recliner before any of the other furniture.  We came across an awesome deal at a furniture store by our house and couldn't pass it up! It is such a comfy chair.  They only had it in this color which wasn't exactly what I had imagined, but it ended up working well!

My mom and I went to Joann Fabric one night and spent entirely too long looking at quilt patterns and fabric.  My mom is amazingly talented and crafty, but she had never made a quilt before.  We eventually found a pattern we liked that she felt like she could whip up and then we started stacking piles of fabric on the cart to decide.  It took forever.  We were so back and forth and then I randomly saw these couple things of fabric and they just jumped out at me.  We decided to do grey, teal, and a limey chartreuse green.  Not only did we get that fabric for the quilt, but we also got extra and other patterns that matched for pillows, little quilted animals, the bedskirt (which ALL were made by my mom.  It means so much for all of those little accents to have been made by her. I love that she handmade all of it and we get to see it every time we walk in his room...which is a lot).  She started working right away and got it all done in no time at all.  For a first-time quilter, I'd say she did a pretty dang good job!

Little knit dog made by my friend Ashley

For the walls, we used the same grey color that we used in our living room and master bedroom.  It's my favorite wall color in the house (close second is the purple in the laundry room :) ) so I went with it because I knew it worked.  (Is that lazy?) We made our trip to IKEA at the beginning of December.  We got his dresser (which is awesome! it's so solid and sturdy and the perfect color.  We decided to use the dresser top as a changing station instead of buying a specific changing table), light fixture (it took me about 27 years to finally decide on this one.  It was my favorite one by far that I had seen, but I was worried it wouldn't put out enough light), lamp (which helps tremendously with the low lighting issue!), storage cube (in the corner of his room), and some little accent pieces.  

We spent a weekend putting everything together.  Ok, I take that back.  Not we.  I was there for moral support and to put a couple pieces together, but Matt basically did it all.  I know he's thankful it's all done now so I don't have anything to nag him about :).   He is incredible.  He is always incredible, but watching him put together all of the baby's furniture was just crazy.  He worked so hard to make the room what we wanted and it turned out much better than I ever even imagined!

I found a storage cube at Target that would fit perfectly in the closet.  Matt took down the old closet fixtures and the door and put in a new closet rack.  I knew his little clothes wouldn't hang down very far so to not waste space I thought the cube would work perfectly! And we can use that storage for the loads of baby stuff :). We hung some curtains to cover instead of a door.  Both of the curtains are a light linen/burlap looking material.

Next was the hanging the stuff on the walls.  Matt's least favorite pastime.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to hang things.  We actually JUST finished hanging stuff late last night after much begging :).  I made a little gallery wall with frames and mirrors for above his bed.  We used prints from our maternity session with my friend Jamie, extra fabric from his quilt and other little pieces, and a Dave Matthews Band lyric.  Matt and I are huge DMB fans.  We've been listening to his music since our very first date. It was only suitable for our son to have my favorite Dave lyric in his room :).  

I knew I needed some sort of object to hold his diapers on his changing table.  I looked all over for some caddy that would work, but nothing seemed to jive.  I had bought this teal crate at Home Goods and planned on using it on the floor to store his blankets in, but one day I randomly set it up on top of the dresser and realized I could totally use it for diaper and other essentials.  It works!

Love the little Harley.  I found that stashed away in one of our drawers and thought it'd be perfect to set up on his shelves. The shelves aren't really finished yet.  I still have some work to do to decide what's actually going to go up there.

I think the fur rug is a hit :)

Now we just need the little guy to get here so we can show him the new digs!