What Baby Is Up to:

“Your baby is waiting to greet the world!  The average baby is about 51cm (20in) long from head to toe and weighs about 3.4kg (7lbs 8oz) at birth.  Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls but if your baby is anywhere between 2.5kg and 3.8kg (5lbs 8oz to 8lbs 6oz), that’s a healthy weight.  Your amniotic fluid, once clear, is now pale and milky. This is because your baby has been shedding the greasy, white substance (vernix caseosa) which has been protecting her skin.  The outer layers if skin are also sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

And if the week passes and there’s still no baby? Don’t panic — only 5 per cent of babies are born on their scheduled due date. Most doctors wait another two weeks before considering a pregnancy overdue.” From Baby Center

How I Am Feeling:

Physically: Exhausted, heavy and sore.  Thank goodness I am able to nap whenever I want these days because I’d be a complete wreck if I were still working. The physical state I am in now makes me SO look forward to getting back into shape once the baby gets here. I never thought it would be THIS HARD to carry around all of this extra weight.

Emotionally: SO VERY READY.  It’s becoming harder and harder to relax and be patient at this point.  I’ve been off work for just over a week now and have finished the majority of my ‘to-do’ list.  I just want to hold the wee one in my arms now vs. feel her banging around in my belly.

How My Body Is Changing:

Although it’s not completely evident in the photo, my belly has definitely begun to drop in the past week.  I can feel this mostly when trying to walk around as the belly seems to be hanging lower and putting more pressure on my pelvis.  I’ve definitely got a waddle going on here. LOL  I’m also getting a bit puffier all around.  I did take my rings off a few weeks ago and was noticing some swelling in my legs/feet during my last few weeks of work, but these days, I tend to stay puffier most of the time. Hopefully this all means labour isn’t too far away!

Weekly Stats:

Weight Gained: As of now, it’s 33.2 lbs so far— (starting = 122.8 lbs/current = 156 lbs) Right on target!!!

Baby Items Purchased This Week: I bought a pair of baby nail scissors in preparation for some potential newborn claws!   We were also gifted a beautiful basket filled of goodies from Chris’ work. SO amazing!!!

Workouts/Activity This Week: Let’s start counting walking around running errands and working outdoors the workouts these days.

Appointments: Had an easy peasy midwife appointment last Wednesday. Baby is still head down with her head pressing deep into my pelvis.  Her heart rate is still perfect and she’s measuring dead-on.  As for me, blood pressure is perfect, urine test perfect, and I got my GBS results — they came back Negative!!!! This means that I will not need any sort of antibiotics in labour.. which also means, my hope to labour at home for as long as possible has become more of a reality providing nothing else goes on. Good News!!!

Chris and I are really hoping that our girl decides to meet us this coming weekend, but we all know that this isn’t something you can really plan for.  She’ll be here when she’s ready, so there may or may not be a 40wk update in a week!  On that note… time for me to have a nap.

This nursery was a pure labour of love filled with some items that we hold so very near and dear to our hearts and I really can’t wait to bring the wee one home into this space.

The whole reason that it took so long was that I am a HUGE fan of DIY’ing and my projects tended to take a little longer than expected.  You already know that I refinished the dresser, but I also made each and every one of those pom poms, the pillows and the butterfly mobile.  As for the gorgeous pouff, I thank my mom (or should I say Baby girl’s Nana) for that one.  I simply purchased the fabric from Etsy and my mom sewed up the pouff.

The smaller coloured art prints on the shelves and the walls came from Ikea, but I printed off the bigger ones myself.  I saw a print with the saying “Dream Big Little One” on Pinterest a while back, so I created my own print which is hung on the same wall as the pom poms.  As for the Mickey Mouse one, I found and printed it off of Pinterest.  We went to Disney World as a family the week after we found out about the pregnancy, so I thought it was only fitting to include some Disney stuff into the room.  The quote on the print is one from Mr Walt Disney himself – “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” I love it.  Oh and you’ll see a horse shoe hanging on the wall near her closet.  That shoe belonged to Chelsea and I hung it up for good luck.

In terms of the more special touches in the room, you will see those on the shelf above the dresser/change table.  The My Little Pony statue was a gift from my cousin many years ago.  It had actually been a fixture on my desk at work, but I thought it would be better in the nursery.  I had to include something horse-related!!!  The Cinderella statue was actually one that I had gotten on my very first trip to Disney World when I was only 6 years old.  When my mom handed to me a few weeks ago, I knew it needed to be on the shelf.  There’s also a nice classic piggy bank which was a gift from my grandmother.  She gave baby that piggy bank the day after I told her about the pregnancy and we’ve been adding change to it ever since!

And then there’s the fancy gold purse…  That purse is probably THE MOST SPECIAL thing in this entire room and that is because it belonged to my sister-in-law Katie who passed back in December.  A couple of months ago my brother had asked if I wanted any of her purses and when I said yes, I knew right away that I would be putting one in the nursery.  In my mind, the nursery would not have been complete without a touch of Katie in it.  This way I can smile and think of her every time I go into the room.

I’m not sure what else to say about this room except for the fact that I am SO glad it’s finally done.

The only thing I really have left to do now is get my hospital bag packed and then I’ll be all ready for this little one to FINALLY arrive!!!!

What Baby Is Up To:

“Your baby is now ready to greet the world. At this point, the average full term newborn is still building a layer of fat to help control body temperature after birth. Most babies are between 2.7 and 4.3kg/6 and 9 1/2lb at birth and boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls. All your baby’s organs are developed and in place though her lungs will be the last to reach full maturity.

Wondering what colour your baby’s eyes will be? Most Caucasian babies are born with dark blue eyes and their true eye colour — be it brown, green or blue — may not reveal itself for weeks or months. The colour of your baby’s eyes in the first minutes after birth won’t last — exposure to light changes a baby’s initial eye colour.” From Baby Center

How I Am Feeling:

Physically – Still pretty tired and sore.  The fact that I am off work now is beneficial for the sleep department – as in I’m not really making any plans and am napping when I feel like it.  Yesterday, my first nap happened at 7:30 .. today it was at 7:50 LOL.  My hips and legs are starting to get much more sore though, but that is to be expected this close to the end.

Emotionally – After a few more days of rest, I will be SO ready to meet this little one.  I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little scared about the whole unkown of labour and delivery, BUT overall I am READY. The classes helped IMMENSELY and I pretty much feel fairly relaxed and excited for the whole thing. Bring it on baby!

How My Body Is Changing:

As soon as I think my belly can’t stretch out anymore, it seems to continue to grow.  I spoke too soon a little while ago when I said I didn’t have any stretch marks yet, because some very faint ones have begun to show this week on the lower part of my belly. I can’t say that I am surprised though. I’d honestly be shocked if I ended up with none because my skin just keeps on stretching!! I continue to slather on the lotion though so hopefully they won’t be too bad once baby is born and I’m back into shape.

And now, are you ready for what’s coming next?????

I haven’t spoken about this much yet, but if you’ve been following my blog long enough, it shouldn’t come to a surprise that I obviously have a post-pregnancy workout plan to get back into shape once I get the go-ahead to do so.  With the help of Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred and Ripped In 30, I was able to get myself in the best shape of my life before becoming pregnant.  Since the combination of those programs worked SO well for me, my current plan is to do those programs this summer in attempt to get my new mommy body back as close as I possibly can to how I had it before pregnancy.

So with that being said…… Since the baby could really come at any time now, we decided to snap a weekly belly shot with my workout gear on to use as part of my before/after series post baby. (You didn’t think I was going to tackle a post-pregnancy workout plan without blogging about it did you?)

Here’s where I am now.  It makes me laugh to see how huge my belly really is!

Weekly Stats:

Weight Gained: No weigh in since last week. So as of now, it’s 32.4 lbs so far— (starting = 122.8 lbs/current = 155.2 lbs)

Food Cravings: Cookies. So I made some yesterday.

Food Likes/Dislikes: Only thing that sounds bad to me is a filet of salmon… everything else is fair game!

Baby Items Purchased This Week: Thanks to a clearance sale at Well.ca, we purchased a high chair this weekend! Yes, we won’t be needing it until the fall, but we figured that we might as well take advantage of the sale! It will just sit in storage until required.  I just LOVE the modern look to this!

Clothes For Me: When it comes to clothes, it’s pretty slim pickings in my closet these days.  There’s NO WAY I’m buying any more maternity clothes at this point though!

Workouts/Activity This Week: Let’s start counting walking around running errands and working outdoors the workouts these days.

Sleep: Sleeping at night seems to be getting worse and worse. I am up pretty much almost every hour… peeing 5-6 times in the night. We’re almost there though!

Movements: Baby is still exactly where she should be — head down. And has also remained in her comfy position of back/butt to my left and feet/hands kicking/poking to my right.   She squirms around on a regular basis and just LOOOOOVES when I eat.  Here’s hoping that I’m baking another little foodie here!

Appointments: Another uneventful midwife appointment last week.  As mentioned, baby’s head is still down, her heart is great and she’s measuring right on track.  My blood pressure is still text book perfect and now we just wait for my GBS results.  They didn’t have the results back as of last Wednesday, so I should be finding that out tomorrow.

Nursery Progress: Well, I can finally say that the nursery will be done this week!! Well.. pretty much done.  I did want to wait to get our diaper pail before posting my final nursery photos, but I’m too impatient to wait as I probably won’t be getting it until next week.  So stay tuned!  The final nursery reveal will come tomorrow or Thursday. In the meantime, if you missed it yesterday, here’s a sneak peak of my mobile! I made this sucker all by myself! It was a very long and tedious project, but I am SO happy with the final results!

I wanted COOKIES!

Of course, we never actually have any cookies on hand. If I want cookies, I have to make cookies.  My automatic reaction when it comes to making cookies is to simply go with my standard oatmeal chocolate chip recipe, but today I wanted something different.  I saw that we had a ton of bananas on hand and I do love me some peanut butter, so I figured why not try my own version of a chunky monkey cookie!

Needless to say, the recipe worked, and I may have already eaten 3 or 4.. or maybe even 5 of these little gems.

Chunky Monkey Cookies

What You Need:

• 1 C soft whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 1/4 C rolled oats
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 banana
• 1 egg
• 1/2 C loosely packed brown sugar
• 1/3 C peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp milk
• 1/2 C mini chocolate chips

What You Do:

- Mix together the flour, oats, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large bowl. Set aside.

- In a smaller bowl, mash the banana, then whisk in the egg, brown sugar, vanilla, peanut butter and milk.

- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well.

- Stir in the chocolate chips.

- Using a teaspoon, spoon the dough onto a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet.

- Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until slightly golden.

With their slight banana and peanut butter flavour, I dare you to try to eat just one of these in a sitting!

What Baby Is Up To:

How I Am Feeling:

Emotionally – I am excited!  Aside from still needing to finish the nursery (grrr!), I am feeling ready.  All I need is at least 1 week off of work to rest up and then baby girl is free to come whenever her little heart desires.

How My Body Is Changing:

What Baby Is Up To:

How I Am Feeling:

Emotionally – I am excited and almost feel ready.  I’m sure if we actually get the nursery done this weekend, I’ll be feeling much more ready this time next week.

How My Body Is Changing:

Weekly Stats:

Weight Gained: 1.8 lbs in the past week, making it 30.6 lbs so far— (starting = 122.8 lbs/current = 153.4 lbs) 

 

Food Cravings: Extreme Pita’s new Spring Fever pita — craving satisfied.

 

Food Likes/Dislikes: Only thing that sounds bad to me is a filet of salmon… everything else is fair game!

 

Baby Items Purchased This Week: With the two amazing showers done, Chris and I hit up the stores to pick up some of the last things on our list.  We bought 2 crib sheets, a cover for my Boppy pillow, a change pad cover, some wash clothes, laundry detergent and a little baby hair brush. Here’s a shot of the sheets and Boppy cover that we got at Target.

 

Clothes For Me: I’m starting to run out of things to wear!!  My early mornings are definitely spent scrimping through my closet for things to wear to work, so thankfully I only need to worry about that for 8 more days! (yay!)  Also finally bought a couple of nursing bras at Target.  I had been holding out on nursing bras until we could go to Target and am SO glad I waited.  I found some really nice ones for only $19.99/ea which is awesome considering they run closer to the $50 mark at Thyme maternity!!

 

Workouts/Activity This Week: Well I never thought I’d say this, but simply grooming Chelsea seems like a major workout these days… as does a day of shopping.. and going up and down stairs… I get out of breath SO easily now! I can’t wait to feel like myself again in that aspect.

 

Sleep: My sleep SUCKS.  Braxton hicks have gotten stronger the past few weeks and are happening more frequently at night now which wakes me up.  When I wake up due to being uncomfortable, I realize that I need to pee. Last night, I got up to go to the bathroom FOUR TIMES! Ugh… I know I’m not really going to be sleeping much once the baby gets here, but at this point, I’d rather be woken up all the time by her than by my own body being so uncomfortable.

 

Movements: I can really tell that things are starting to get tighter in there for baby girl.  She’s still moving around all the time, but the movements definitely feel more pronounced. Hands and feet often poke right out of my side these days, and I tend to get the occasional kick in the ribs- ouch!!

 

Appointments: Last Wednesday marked the first of my now weekly appointments. (crazy!) Everything is still bang on where it should be. My blood pressure was great, baby’s heart rate was great and she’s measuring right on track.  Since mine and baby’s check-up went so quickly, we had a little discussion with our midwife about her plan to get me through labour and delivery. That discussion alone gave me the ol’ – how crap this is REALLY happening feeling! But in a GOOD way.  I’m finding myself very relaxed and excited about the whole experience right now.  We also finally decided, after wavering back and forth for a few weeks, that I will do the GBS (group b strep) test just so that we have a definite answer and will know more about our actual plan for the big day.  I’m going to be doing that test at my appointment tomorrow.

 

Lamaze Class:  LOVED our Lamaze class this week!! We learned all about the transition stage in labour, pain managing tools, interventions and actual delivery.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this on here, but the whole reason we chose to go with midwives is because I REALLY want to do what I can to have a natural birth.  We actually learned a lot about many negative side effects of pain medication given in labour on Sunday that just helped to solidify the decision even more.  We also got to see an actual epidural kit (needle and all) and well.. HOLY CRAP.. just seeing it gave me more motivation to try my best to avoid it.  Towards the end of the class we also got to do some hands-on newborn care.  Chris got to learn how to put on a diaper (for his first time!) and then we were taught how to properly bathe our newborn.  That hands-on stuff isn’t usually a part of our course due to time restraints, but luckily we’re taking it with only 1 other couple so we get to do some extra stuff which is amazing!  Next week (our final class) will be all about breastfeeding!

 

Nursery Progress: I would be embarrassed to show you a photo of the nursery in its current state.  I am in the middle of doing baby laundry (all blankets, bibs, receiving blankets, and bedding are now washed) and there’s just NO organization in there yet. REALLY REALLY hope we can finish it up this weekend so that I can relax once my mat leave begins!