Labour

So I thought this early signs of labour thing was going to be a lot more obvious, instead I'm left completely confused about what's going on. I believe I'm starting labour but how do I know?

They tell you all these signs to help you know and make it sound like it'll be so obvious but then things get all muddled so I have no idea what's going on with my body.

Here's what I do know:

1. I feel crappy
2. I've felt crappy since about 11:00 last night
3. I'm hoping to feel significantly more crappy as soon as some sort of signal as to what's going on

Hopefully this is the start of something big.
L

38 weeks

So I'm officially 1 week away from my due date and I'm ready any time!

It seems like in the last two days things have at least started to progress as they should so I'm feeling a little optimistic though I'm not getting my hopes up, I'm still preparing myself to be a week late.

My dreams lately are full of babies, like last night I dreamed we had a boy instead of a girl, it didn't matter though we were thrilled to see him.

So wish me luck and an early baby.
L

Ready

I've been trying really hard to not feel too finished with this pregnancy yet because I still have two weeks left but there are certainly some things I won't miss about pregnancy and some things I'm really looking forward to.

1. Being able to sleep normally (I'm not silly, I do expect some sleepless-ness when Catie comes but at least when I get to sleep I can sleep well. Right now there is not a whole lot that's restful about the sleep I've been getting)
2. I've never been the type of person that enjoys excessive heat but this last week has been pretty bad. Our house gets direct sunlight between 5 and 7 and I become whiny and miserable. Begging Brad to take me somewhere air conditioned. It takes that and a little ice cream to make me feel somewhat normal again.
3. I'm convinced that my wedding rings and shoes will never, ever fit again. Even my slippers are too small!
4. Our house has very few stairs, I think there's only 6 or 7 yet when I get to the top I'm often out of breath. This breathless-ness is annoying.
5. I figure getting up to pee a ridiculous amount of times a night can't be all that much worse than getting up to nurse.

The nursery is ready, her clothes are washed and folded. Diapers at the ready. The only thing left to do is pack a hospital bag and then we're ready. My prediction is that she'll come 3 days late but I sure wouldn't mind being wrong and having her come early.
L

DIY Gone Wrong

Since we've both recently quit our jobs we've tried to acquire as much for this baby as we could while not spending much money so we were thrilled when Mom said she had a crib for us.

We took a look at the crib and decided that it was in sort of rough shape, scratched up and a little battered so we figured we'd do just a little bit of sanding and then give it a fresh coat of paint. No big deal right?

Boy, we were wrong.

The sanding proved that the paint was chipped and flaking all over and a little sanding only led to more and more sanding. I sat on that deck with an electric sander for at least a couple hours. My hand vibrated for a long time after. Feeling pretty satisfied with my sanding job we proceeded to the painting portion. We'd decided spray paint was the way to go and Mom did the job. Turns out my sanding just wasn't quite as thorough as I would have liked so this crib is a bit of a disappointment.

We finally came to the decision that a new crib was in order. Both Brad's co-workers and mine had given us some gift cards to help us get set up in Lethbridge and we decided the best use of this money was a new crib. We picked it up today, assembled the crib and the changing table and they are so beautiful!

I have some awesome crib bedding to go with it but unfortunately it's still in Idaho so you'll have to use your imagination for now, it'll be here in a week-ish, I'll post new pictures then.

Until then here's a preview of Catie's room. Still a work in progress but I'm excited how it's shaping up.
L

Kicking Daddy

One of the things that's been really fun about pregnancy lately is watching my belly move in crazy ways. Catie sure tries to kick her way out occasionally and I love to watch the jerky movements.

Somehow Brad doesn't ever seem to catch these moments though. I'll tell him to look and without fail the movements instantly stop. Today though was an exception, we were lying together on the bed and he had his hand on my belly when Catie kicked in the perfect place and so violently that it startled Brad so he jumped and yelped. We both laughed ourselves to tears after, it was fun for Brad to finally see such a big movement.
L

(I'm still trying to look on the bright side here as I'm getting pretty sick of this pregnancy thing)

Anxiety

I think it's finally starting to hit me just how unprepared for this baby we are.

We have no nursery, no diapers, no burp cloths no receiving blankets. We don't have bottles (you never know how soon you'll need those) or wipes.

We do have a crib (not set up yet of course), a car seat and a few onesies but that's not going to cut it for long.

Let's hope this little girl doesn't decide to surprise us early because she'll be sleeping in a laundry basket wrapped up in a towel (a borrowed towel at that).

I can't wait until next week when I can finally unpack my house and get ready for Catie.
L

The Waddle

You've all seen it, the pregnant waddle.

I never understood what made a pregnant woman walk this way and I was fascinated to find out for myself. I couldn't figure out if it was the weight you're carrying or just what it was that brought on this condition. I was also fairly determined to not be a victim of it, let's admit it, it's not the most flattering.

Well I've figured it out (at least my experience), something no one mentioned to me… these very pregnant woman waddle because their poor feet hurt! It has nothing to do with the weight, the back issues or the exhaustion, it all about the swollen puffy feet and the inability to do anything about them.

I'm doing my best to avoid the waddle, often I catch myself and have to straighten up. I'm sure looking forward to having my feet back again.
L

A Belated 29 Weeks

This is a bit of a belated photo but I was clean out the camera and came across me on my Birthday at 29 weeks.

I'm particularly fond of the lady bug balloon and doesn't that cake look yummy! It's even better than it looks. It made me chuckle that I really didn't have the breath support to blow out all the candles.

L

Q&A's

Another question I'm often asked is, "So do you have the nursery all ready?"

This leads me to scoff and, laugh and say, "I wish" or "Not even a little".

We've had this really frustrating moving situation so for the next week and half we're sort of homeless. All of our stuff has been moved down to Lethbridge to a friends garage (thanks Michelle, it all fit perfectly). We were supposed to move into our new house that weekend but those plans fell through and our new, new house isn't available until August 17th. So until then we store our stuff and we've been living with Brad's parents.

The 17th will include a second U-Haul truck and hopefully some Elder's Quorum moving help since I'll be even more useless.

So do you we have a nursery ready yet? I'd sort of like to have a bed for myself first and then I can focus on the nursery, although we'll be in trouble if this little girl decides to come early.
L

Relief

I've discovered the best temporary relief for every and all uncomfortable pregnancy symptom. Swimming.

I've always really liked to swim so I don't know why we didn't think of it sooner but never have I felt more weightless and graceful and cool and comfortable then when I slipped into that pool this weekend. My feet returned to their natural size, I was able to throw my nephew around a little (at his request of course) and for a little while I could feel like my old self. I did make my Mom a little nervous by jumping off the diving board but what's a trip to the Magrath pool with out it.

The feeling was so great that we recreated it last night with a trip to Cardel and nothing could have snapped me out of my awful mood quicker. I see many return trips in the remaining 7 weeks. The only drawback is how extremely heavy I feel upon exiting the pool, it takes some time to get used to all that weight again.
L

Complaints

A lot of people have started saying things along the line of, "You must be so excited to be done" or "You must be really ready for the baby to come" and everytime I've sort of been surprised how I haven't felt that way at all. I've really enjoyed being pregnant and everything is fun and new. I like my maternity clothes, I like to feel Catie move and I've enjoyed the mental preparation time before she comes.

Well it's suprising how quickly that can all change.

I've become hot and puffy, my shoes don't fit anymore and I miss my wedding rings. I wear flip flops all the time which now hurts the balls of my feet.
I can't sleep on my back because it hurts my back but sleeping on my side hurts my ribs, I have to use 5 pillows just to be comfortable and don't even get me started on how often I have to pee lately.

I'm hoping this is just a phase and I'll go back to enjoying things because otherwise it's going to be a long 7 weeks. I need to start looking on the bright side again.
L

Chocolate

I'd suspected it was true but today I actually confirmed it... chocolate gives me heartburn.

I'm not impressed
L

Exhausted

You know what's not fun to do when you're 7 months pregnant? Move.

This last weekend has involved pretty much nothing but packing and I have not been enjoying it. The bending down and sitting and standing and leaning has been hard on my back and at night I fall into bed an exhausted heap. I can't wait for Saturday night when it's all done (at least until the second leg in August).

Thank goodness I have an awesome husband who does all sorts of lifting, moving boxes and fetching tape and scissors for me, I couldn't do it without him.

The weekend also involved a trip to a random dumpster to get rid of stuff that made us feel guilty and like criminals, I'm not sure we'll do that again.
L

29 Weeks - A Photo for the Memories

Business Casual, or maybe just Casual

I feel so rebellious today.

As mentioned in my last post I've started to be a little puffy, this morning I went to put my shoes on and they were just a little tight and I was unwilling to suffer all day so I'm wearing flip-flops. I'm just waiting for the email from HR to come, we'll see how long I can pull these off (it is Stampede week after all).
L

Puffy

Being slightly advanced in age to be starting a family (I said slightly), I’m surrounded by a lot of women who have gone through this pregnancy process before me. I appreciate being able to hear their experiences and I really feel I’ve learned a lot from these women.

There’s always one story that you hear a lot of, the delivery. Every women needs to tell their story (and I love hearing them), I find it so interesting how different they all are. Since I’ve been pregnant I’ve had some women stop mid story, concerned that I don’t want to hear how long they were in labour, or how much tearing there was or all the other hard parts about delivering a baby. But really, not one of these stories bothers me. Every women is different, my labour won’t be the same as anyone else’s so I can handle their difficult stories, there is one story however that I don’t handle well. One that freaks me out and makes me incredibly nervous every time I hear women talk about it. It leaves me hoping beyond hope that I’ll be the exception but I think today that hope slipped away.

A little background… I have always been really self-conscious about the size of my feet. They’re large and wide and buying shoes is not fun. The same goes for my hands, I need very large size rings because I have these large fingers.

To tie the two together (though you probably know where I’m going with this)... So many women talk about how much their hands and feet would swell during pregnancy. These are the stories I worry about. My feet and hands are big enough, I don’t need them to be any bigger and how will I wear shoes if they get any fatter? I don’t want to stop wearing my rings and I want to have normal feet!

Today, I’m hoping it’s just because I’m a little warm but my rings sure are tight! I’ve actually removed them for a bit. It’s much too early for the swelling to start but this early sign has sure got me concerned. At least my shoes feel the same today.

Sigh, here’s hoping for no more swelling.
L

A Photo for my Mother

I'm not a big fan of "belly pictures" they make me uncomfortable but I am a big fan of my new cute maternity clothes. I was telling Mom about all the cute things I have and she wanted to see so I thought I'd post a picture of one of my cute outfits. The skirt was a real deal and was only $16, the top wasn't such a great deal but it was cute enough to justify the price.

L