31.5 Weeks Pregnant-Painting the Nursery

Well this weekend I decided to start to conquer the "junk room" soon to be "baby's room." The rather small but adequate 3rd bedroom in our house (8*9 ft plus closet), was full of things like our old desk, my wedding dress, piles of my clothes, a baby swing, carseats and various baby items I've been given or have been collecting off of ebay. I emptied the room so I could clean and paint it---but where to put the stuff? So I put everything in our bedroom (also not a large room) piles up around our bed. Then I put a giant pile of clothes on our desk chair in our office. F and I went to Home Depot and tried to compromise on a paint choice. F likes bright vibrant colors, I like more subdued earth tones. I really didn't feel as though I needed to compromise because I'm the pregnant one who has been doing all the work for the room anyway, and I was going to be the one painting! Why should he even get a choice? Ah, but it technically is his house and 1/2 his baby, so my sagy green and his chartruice compromised to a nice "key lime." Then we realized that we had lent all of our painting supplies to my friend Grace, including roller handles, pans, extension, they happen to be painting too. So we bought all new stuff.

I painted the ceiling, trim, and door, now I am moving on to masking off the white from what will soon be KEY LIME! I was supposed to wait until Friday when my mother comes to visit and help me paint, but part of me wants to finish it because I can't stand all the displaced crap piled around our tiny house and the other part of me in controlling and wants to get it done my way without having to argue with my mother!

So it's coming along, I'm trying to not let the clutter around the house get to me while I paint at a leisurely pace, considering my feet have been swollen for 3 days now. I need to learn to take it easy now that it is so late in my pregnancy, my poor body is just having to bear a little too much.

Our shower is this weekend, I'm really excited to see everyone and have a good time. After that I think time will fly until we have the baby---or not, who knows.

Have a great week, hopefully I will too.

We Have a Crib!

Hey everyone,

Hopefully everyone is doing well. Yesterday I picked up the crib from the lady I babysit for. She worked for potterybarn and william and sonoma when she was pregnant for her daughter a few years ago and had purchased all here baby furniture from potterybarn kids. She had saved the crib after he daughter outgrew it and decided to give it to me as a gift. I'm really thrilled. It's a $700 dollar crib! I don't care if it's used either, for one it's made of wood and there a clean nice family. I feel so lucky to be acquainted with such giving people. This really helps F and I out with getting our nursery together. I know our friends and parents will want to buy some things, but I never expected them to buy us expensive furniture or anything. I want to put it together now because i'm so excited but I am going to wait until my Mom is here in two weeks and we get the nursery painted and cleaned. I also have to buy a mattress. I'll wait until after my shower to by anything.

Today I walked 3.3 miles with Grace, boy was it HOT! Holy cow, I made it the entire way though. I had to stop a few times to take a drink in the shade and catch my breath. I hope to be able to run again after I have the baby. I miss the runners high! I have kept off 3 of the 4 lbs I lost this week, so i'm still at about 17 or 18 lbs gained so far. Not bad for almost 31 weeks! I have an appointment this Wednesday to see the midwives, hopefully they will say "good job on not packing on the lbs!" Everything else feels great! F and I are getting really excited, we only have 2 months left!

I'm really enjoying my prenatal yoga and swim classes. I've met some really nice ladies with some really helpful information on pediatricians, insurance, etc. I don't know if I can stomach another prepared childbirth class (see previous post about that), but we paid for it, so we might as well go. I'll post later.

TERRIBLE Prepared Childbirth Class

Today is 30 weeks! Congrats to me. I took a picture yesterday but I hated it. I am feeling gigantic these days. I had gotten up to 21 lbs gained on Sunday, but by today I've lost 4 of those, now I'm only at 17 lbs gained. Is it strange to lose 4 lbs in 5 days? I have been eating upwards of 2000 calories and drinking at least 70-90 fl oz of water a day. The only thing I have changed is that I started drinking 1 espresso shot in the morning again with my husband. I tried to call the midwife to ask her, but she's out of the office today and I don't think it's any kind of emergency. I have an apt. next Wednesday also, if I don't lose anymore I'll ask then, if I lose more weight before then I think I'll call. The baby seems fine, plenty of movement and kicking and I haven't' been losing fluid or anything.

We took our first prepared childbirth class last night. IT WAS AWFUL. This women said "like" and "um" so many times I wanted to shake her. It was so distracting listening to her talk because all I could concentrate on were like and um. She really didn't answer anyone's question, she was all over the place in topics, and she kept having to ask the other Doula in the back for answers to questions, which I find very unprofessional. We paid 60 dollars for the 4 week course, but on the ride home we seriously considered no even going back, that's how bad it was! It's 2.5 hours for the next 3 Wednesday evenings, I think I knew more about stuff than this crack pot lady. Anyway...I guess we'll go because I hate to waste the 60 bucks. F says he wasn't disappointed like me because it was exactly as bad as he expected! lol. I was really disappointed, because everyone says, even if you read all the pregnancy books, go to the class because it's helpful and you will learn something. I highly doubt it, but I guess we'll see. I don't really feel like meeting other preggos either from the class, I already meet so many at the prenatal yoga and mothers in motion swim class. I almost dread telling Grace how bad it was, she'll probably say I told you so, her OB told her that birth classes are a waste of time because things never go as you expect anyway.

I'll post a new picture soon, I hate the ones I took yesterday.

Holy Crap Diapers are Expensive

Just a quick note to say I think we may go broke buying diapers "when the kid comes" as F says. I was in Target today doing some household shopping, and I said to myself, let's just take a quick walk through the baby aisle and see how much diapers are going to run us. HOLY CRAP. I found a 36 pack of diapers (pampers) on sale for 8.50, but even on sale or with a coupon, that's only enough diapers for about 4 days! So even with sales or coupons, name brand diapers are going to run us about 70 a month. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but come on, I'm in grad school! It's not like I rake in the big ones! Thank god we don't have to pay for daycare. I think our budget will have to revisted "when the kid comes."

Coming up on Week 29....

Hey Everyone!

Just got back last night from a weekend trip to the beach. My friend Grace and her daughter Dahlia came with me to Destin for the weekend. I had to travel there for a one-day conference, so we all just stayed the weekend and enjoyed the beach. We stayed with my friend Julie, who has a house up there. We got to eat seafood and lay at the beach and swim in her nicely heated pool :-) It was Dahlia's (Graces' daughter) first time in a pool, she loved it. Grace even dunked her a couple of times and she didn't' even cry. My friend Julie has a 7 year-old daughter as well that played with us at the beach and pool. She loved playing with the baby too. I can't wait until next spring when i'll have my own baby to bring along. I took a picture of me at the beach (see the beached whale above), I had to prove to F that I let my belly see the sunshine!

I think F missed me a little while I was gone. We got back late last night and I had to get up at 5am to drop him at the airport for a week long business trip. He seemed sad that just as I got back he had to leave. I'm not too bothered by it just because I have so much work to get done in the next two weeks. Is is bad that it makes me feel good that he is sad that we're not together? I mean i"m not happy he's sad, it just makes me feel loved and needed.

On a pregnancy note...this week has been pretty good. The baby kicks so hard that I can see little parts poking out when he/she kicks. I haven't been sleeping the best, but I've been sticking to my 11pm-7am schedule, which I'm pretty thrilled about. Normally grad students don't' roll into work until 10am, by 10am my house is clean, I've done 5 loads of laundry, walked the dog and prepped dinner and am on my way out the door to work. I've started nesting I think, I have this uncontrollable urge to organize and clean things. Mostly to organize things. I don't go for another apt. until May 20th, which is a long stretch from the last apt, but then after that I have to go every two weeks. I think that's all on the pregnancy news...I gained a little bit too much weight last week, gotta do my walking this week!

When I was in Destin, Grace and I hit up the outlets and go some cute baby stuff. I was able to find two affordable nursing bras that actually fit and were comfortable, and I got a bunch of stuff at the Carters and Osh Kosh outlets. F seemed to be happy with my savings savy purchases of unisex sleepers. I did manage to get a smile when I showed him the osh kosh overalls, we both LOVE kids in denim overalls. Girl or boy, our kid will be dressed in denim overalls a lot I bet.

Well have a great week!