And here we are, in the final hour. To say that I’m done being pregnant is an understatement. Today is officially my due date (remember– all these posts are a week behind, so I’m actually 40 weeks today), and I have no doubt that it will end with me still being pregnant.
Good thing I scheduled an induction for tomorrow morning. But probably the ward will fill up overnight and they won’t have space for me anymore, so I’ll have to continue waiting.
Can you tell that I’m super optimistic?
This week has been downright awful as far as physical discomfort goes. I’m still having irregular, but painful contractions, and Baby Adipose is so big that he/she has been pressing up against my blood vessels, resulting in dizziness and tingling, numb arms and legs. Last Sunday, I was dizzy for 4 hours straight. Luckily the hubby came to the rescue and took the kids so I could go back to sleep. Because of my wonderful husband, I was able to take 2 two hour naps! Sunday was also day 1 of what turned out to be 4 days of diarrhea (Diarrhea has been my version of morning sickness with this pregnancy. Anytime I’ve mentioned ‘morning sickness’, I was talking about diarrhea. Which I prefer to throwing up, if I’d have to choose between the two).
Thursday I had an appointment with my doctor. We decided that due to the level of my discomfort (especially the dizziness and numbness) and the fact that there’s really no reason to keep Baby in anymore, that we’d give it the weekend, but throw in the towel and induce Monday if it doesn’t happen. My main worry with induction was how much more severe the Pictocin makes the pain. I was induced with Eowyn, and it made the pain so much worse. I handled natural childbirth pains with Arya a lot better. There was just something unnatural about the pain when the Pictocin was thrown in the mix. But my doctor is planning on breaking my water to induce, which makes me feel 100% more comfortable. Given that I’m a “generous” 3 cm dilated & 80% effaced already, she’s confident that breaking the water bag alone should do the trick.
I ended up back in the clinic on Friday because the numbness got so bad. It’s always bad at night, but Thursday night was particularly bad. I got hardly any sleep because I kept waking up with limbs that felt thick with numbness. Normally it gets better once I wake up and am able to move around, but it just got worse. No matter how much stretching I did, how much I walked around, or how many times I changed my position, I had constant tingling and numbness stretching from my right shoulder down to my right hand, and all the way from my right hip to my right foot. It was not only persistent, but it got worse as the morning turned to the afternoon. The veins in my right wrist would swell up. I could feel my heart beating, as if it were beating harder. Then, I started getting dizzy.
Unfortunately, my doctor is out of town this weekend, so I saw a midwife I had never seen before. She was nice, but didn’t know me. My blood pressure was fine, as was baby’s heartbeat, so she said it sounded like normal pregnancy symptoms to her. Which they technically are. But the point we brought up was since I was already scheduled for an induction for Monday, was it worth it to wait the extra 2 days when I was having such severe symptoms? “Well there’s nothing indicating an emergency, and your doctor isn’t in town. I think it’s best if you just lay low over the weekend and wait until Monday. Baby might still come on it’s own.” She was also saying stuff like, “The dizziness might be from dehydration if you’ve been feeling under the weather”, and, “When your arm or leg starts feeling numb, just try to change your position”, and, “When you get up, make sure you don’t get up too fast”. All valid points, and all things that I was already conscious of. And I’m not “under the weather” ; diarrhea has been my body’s version of morning sickness. Which I tried to explain to her.
But she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know that I’m not an idiot who needs to be reminded to get up slowly. She doesn’t know that it takes a lot for me to come in to be seen because I hate wasting my time at the clinic and am horribly stubborn. But since my blood pressure was normal and the baby’s heartbeat was fine, we decided to not push it and just tough out the weekend. Because if that visit confirmed anything for me, it is that I want my doctor to deliver this baby. My doctor who knows both me and my husband and who has been on this journey with us from the start. My doctor who actually listens to me, has never once been condescending, and truly trusts my instincts concerning my body and my baby.
The one good thing about this week is that my sister flew out from California. She got here Thursday, and is staying a week. I had said before she came out that if I was still pregnant on Friday that I wanted for the two of us to go get pedicures. So after the impromptu clinic visit, we left Tyler with the girls and headed to a local nail salon. It felt so good to sit in a massage chair and get pampered a bit. The lady even pulled out hot stones and rubbed down my legs and feet with them. Amazing. Since we don’t know the sex of the baby, I went with what I’m dubbing ‘the expecting toes’ : pink and blue.
My sister also painted the girls’ toes so they wouldn’t feel left out.
Baby Stats:
-Baby is continuing to plump up layers of body fat. (Which it can do on the outside AFTER I’ve pushed it out of my who-ha, thank you very much.) There’s literally no reason for it to still be inside. Get out. Now.
Today we’re planning on enjoying the Packer game with our neighbors and relaxing. Hopefully I’ll have a baby in my arms tomorrow. Thank you all for following along on the journey of creating this new life with me.
Cheers to the end of prego updates and to the beginning of the story of this family of FIVE!
I was very excited when I took this picture because it was taken after I realized that despite my 38 week pumpkin bump, I could still zip up my jacket. Mind you the jacket is a crop fit, but still–made me feel good about myself. Here’s a better bump picture, which was taken on Wednesday:
38 Weeks and 3 Days (But who's counting... )
I’m horribly grumpy about this whole pregnant thing now, however. My instinct is to keep this post short and sweet by saying this: I’m still pregnant, I’m not happy about the fact that I’m still pregnant, and my mood will progressively get worse until I am no longer pregnant. But, there was a lot more to the story of this week than my bad mood. So in the name of good story telling, here it goes.
Last Sunday, we had a splendid afternoon outside enjoying the beautiful mid 50’s fall weather. We raked up the few leaves that we had in our yard into a pile and let the girls have at it. They had a blast!
Wednesday was Baby Ary’s 2nd birthday. I figured that I would be tempting fate a bit too much if I tried to plan a big party for her 2 weeks before my due date, so we decided to throw the girls a combination party on Eowyn’s birthday in November. She didn’t get a first birthday party though because it was scheduled 2 weeks before we moved across the country and we all got sick with a stomach flu from hell. We were forced to cancel it and couldn’t reschedule because the next weekend was ‘pack the moving van up’. It was heart breaking and I’m still upset about it to this day. So even though we weren’t planning a party for her actual birthday, we still wanted to make it special for her. We hung some streamers around the house and blew up 30 balloons to fill up the living room. I made chocolate chip Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes from scratch for breakfast, we took her to Denny’s for lunch (her favorite place, tied with McDonald’s), went to a pumpkin patch, had pizza for dinner, and I made her a chocolate with marshmallow buttercream pink Elmo cake (she LOVES marshmallows). On top of all that, we also got her an Elsa dress in her size (she’s been tripping around in Eowyn’s up until now) and a stroller for her dolls, which has been in constant use ever since (and which I also got at Goodwill for $4!). Let me tell you–she was one happy toddler!
Of course it wouldn’t truly be Baby Ary’s cake if she didn’t get into it beforehand.
I was so beat by the end of the day. I am so glad that we didn’t attempt a big party, because it would have been way too much for me right now. By the time we were having our pizza dinner, I started having contractions. They lasted for a full 24 hours, and they were pretty good ones. But they were inconsistent and never grew in intensity; just more prep work. As we were gathering the girls for bed that night though, I felt a distinct pressure. Forgive my bluntness, but I actually turned to Tyler and said, “I swear the baby has it’s foot down my vagina.”
The next day I had an OB appointment, and it turns out that although it wasn’t a foot, it was a head–baby is head down and engaged. I’m also 2-3 cm dilated and 80% effaced. My doctor said the water bag is really low as well. She was really surprised by the progress that was made in a week. She doesn’t expect me to make it to my appointment next week, but I’ve heard that before.
All this really means is that I am thoroughly uncomfortable. Having a baby’s head stuck in your pelvis feels exactly like it sounds–awful. There is no such thing as a comfortable position for me at this point. I managed to somehow gain 4 pounds since last week, which I chalk up to water retention because I have had major swelling problems out of nowhere. Suddenly my wedding ring is too tight on my sausage fingers and cankles are a daily occurrence. Sitting for longer than 30 minutes makes my arms tingle and my hips tighten up, standing for longer than 30 minutes flares up the cankles and makes my feet tingle, and laying down is just about the most painful position for my hips (baby’s head probably to blame).
This is the hard part. I’ve never been good at waiting; especially when I’m in so much discomfort. Even though this is my 3rd go around, I still feel just as confused and frustrated as I did the first time. Friday evening I had contractions every 1:45 minutes for 2 1/2 hours. They were stronger than Braxton-Hicks; I could even feel the top of my uterus tighten with each one. I’ve had timeable contractions twice before, and both times I was in active labor. My practice pre-labor contractions have always been inconsistent. So naturally, I was inclined to think that I was in the early stages of active labor. Especially since I had had a 24 hour marathon of good contractions the day before. Obviously, I was wrong. It makes you feel stupid, which is frustrating. I guess just like every pregnancy is different, so is every labor. This one will be different than the other two, which means that all my experience is completely useless.
I want to be able to do something to help it along. To feel like I have some sort of control over what’s happening. I nearly drove myself and everyone around me mad when I got to this point with Eowyn. I tried every labor inducing trick there was to try and ended up just making myself miserable because none of it worked. When I was pregnant with Arya, I made the decision to give it up to God and not try to take matters into my own hands, but let things happen the way they were supposed to. I’ve wisely made the same decision this time around as well. There’s no use trying to control something that is completely out of your hands. You’ll just drive yourself crazy trying. The baby will come when it’s time for it to come. This part of having children has been the ultimate lesson in patience and humility. I know that God is with me and that He sees my frustration, for He gives me encouragement just when I need it. Like in the ‘Verse of the Day’ that’s now on my white board:
And in my devotional:
Every day, I will fight the urge to be frustrated and upset and will instead wait patiently for God’s perfect timing to unfold.
I will focus on my awesome girls that bless me with love every day.
I will focus on my husband, who is the best support and is the only one who can get me to laugh despite my grumpy mood.
I will focus on the beauty that God has painted all around me.
And I will focus on the promise of a tomorrow that is full of wonderful surprises that have been carefully laid out for me by the Creator.
Baby Stats:
-Baby is about 6.8 pounds and around 19 1/2 inches long (about the length of a leak)
-Organs are mature and ready for life outside of the womb (in other words–you can get out of me now)
My sister’s coming out from California on Thursday and will be staying with us for a week. I am so excited to see her! And hopefully, Henderson will make his/her debut 🙂
Since I wasn’t blogging when I had my first two kiddlets, I’ve decided to dedicate a post to each of them, where I go through what I can remember of my pregnancy and birth experiences. I thought it fitting to release them around their birthdays, which is why Ary is first.
From the very beginning, Arya was completely different from her sister. I got really sick with her; 6 weeks of non-stop nausea. I only threw up a handful of times, but the nausea was so intense that I lived off of ginger ale and club crackers. I ended up losing 4 pounds because I couldn’t eat hardly anything. I was still nursing Eowyn at the time (just at bed time and nap time to put her to sleep), but one day I woke up and was completely dry. As if my body was saying, “This is too much! Something’s gotta give–this milk factory is shutting down!” Luckily, Eowyn handled being cut off cold turkey remarkably well. Then began the hell of getting her to fall asleep with just a binky, but that’s a different story.
After the first 6 weeks though, I was fine. Exhausted, but not sick. Except of course when it came to coffee. I could not stand the smell of my formerly beloved coffee. Tyler had to switch to instant coffee and drink it in a travel mug with a lid because brewing it would have me nauseous for a good hour afterwards. I could smell it from a mile away too, so if I was out shopping and came across a Starbucks I had to hold my breath and run past. Eating out was difficult too because you never know what the surrounding tables are going to order.When I was pregnant with Eowyn, this coffee aversion lasted through the whole pregnancy and magically disappeared after she was born. With Arya, it magically disappeared in my 6th month of pregnancy. Since I spent my days chasing a 1 year old Eowyn, I was glad to have my coffee back!
I didn’t really have any strong cravings with either of the girls. I do remember craving Fall cakes from Little Debbie and craving pears. I would go through whole bags of pears on my own. Considering all of the fatty things I could have been craving, I’m glad that it was pears. But it was kind of a weird thing to crave; aren’t pregnant women supposed to want ice cream with pickles or something?
Me using my Ary bump as a table for my ice cream (sans pickles)
I had a nerve thing in my left hip through most of this pregnancy that was quite uncomfortable. Sometimes when I would take a step, I would get a shooting numbness/pain down my leg. It lasted throughout the whole pregnancy and then went away after she was born. I also got dizzy spells in my last month. Some of them where so bad that I would lose my balance and run into walls. I would just have to lay down until they stopped; sometimes they lasted for over an hour.
Ary was a very active baby! She still is a very active baby. She loved to twist and turn; it was like she was doing somersaults in there. Her head didn’t engage until the bitter end (like days before I delivered), so she continued her gymnastics far after she was small enough to do it. I remember doubling over in pain in the 9th month because her twisting was so painful. Her movements made my stomach look like I was carrying an alien that was about to burst out of me at any moment. From the very beginning, she was set on doing what she wanted to do.
I had gained 50 pounds with Eowyn, and had only lost 19 pounds of it before getting pregnant again with Arya. I hate exercising and was not prepared for my metabolism to slow down after giving birth. I naively thought that I was going to be able to manage my weight the same way I always had: mainly by diet. Let me tell you–your body is never the same after having kids. Just like the little baby that is placed in your arms at the hospital, your body is suddenly a complete stranger. I had finally joined an exercise class to start firming up, and halfway through it I got pregnant (of course). I was determined to not allow myself to gain a bunch of weight the second time around, and was much better about staying away from fatty foods and staying active (having a toddler to chase helps the second part). I am very proud to say that I only gained 17 pounds with Arya. 12 pounds came off with the delivery, leaving me only 5 pounds to shed, which I did by Halloween (3 weeks).
My husband and I like to be surprised as far as the baby’s sex goes, so we never find out ahead of time. We figure that this is life’s greatest surprise, so why ruin it? We knew in our gut that Eowyn was a girl when I was pregnant with her. Since this pregnancy was so different from my pregnancy with Eowyn, we both thought with 100% certainty that Arya was a boy. I second guessed this once about a week before she was born, but then dismissed it. Everything felt different about this baby–it had to be a boy. WRONG! It was just a very different little girl.
My body likes to be super prepared for the big day, and therefore starts prep work way earlier than any of the books say is “normal”. (By the way– there is no such thing as “normal” when it comes to pregnancy. It is different every time for every person. Throw your baby books away and just go with it!) My due date was October 5th, yet I started having Braxton-Hicks contractions at the beginning of August. I’m talking all day contractions for 6 out of 7 days a week. For 2 full months. I was 2-3 cm dilated and 90% effaced by mid September. My mid-wife was positive that the baby was going to come before we got to October. Yet my due date came and went and I was still pregnant.
I only went to get checked for a false alarm once; I thought that my water had broken. I know what you’re thinking, “How do you mess that up, lady?” From too much reading, that’s how. My water had to be broken by the doctors with Eowyn, so I had no idea what it felt like to have it break naturally. I read in my stupid baby book that it can be a huge gush like you see in the movies or it can be more of a little trickle if the baby’s head is low, because in the latter case, the baby’s head is kind of acting like a cork. I had been sitting on my yoga ball (the only thing that relieved the pressure) and felt a small gush. Then I continued to leak a small trickle for the next hour. Turns out that once you get towards the end, normal vaginal discharge can thin out and feel more liquid-y than usual. I felt really stupid and cried the whole way home.
The day before I was scheduled to be induced, one of my best friends came over to catch up on Dexter with me. I had been having more of those stupid practice contractions all day and was looking forward to a distraction. My in-laws (who had flown in from out of state for the birth) took Eowyn to the park and Tyler was out, so my friend and I parked on the couch and started our Dexter-a-thon. Somewhere during the second episode, I began to notice something different about these contractions: there seemed to be a rhythm to them. I noticed my friend kept looking over at me, because she was putting that together as well. The contractions were more painful once the episode was over, so we decided to try to time them. Sure enough, they were about 9 minutes apart.
Being the skeptic that I am, I still was not sure that I was finally in active labor, so I didn’t allow her to call Tyler or my in-laws back home. The last thing I wanted was another false alarm. But the contractions kept coming at regular intervals and increased intensity. Eventually everyone came back and by then I was confident in saying that I was probably in active labor. We waited until they were 5 minutes apart, and then headed to the hospital, which was a 45 minute drive. There was a whole caravan: us, my in-laws, my mom, my sister and her boyfriend, and my friend. Even though all signs pointed to this really being it, there was still a part of me that was paranoid that it was going to be false labor again. I was dreading the embarrassment of showing up to the hospital with a butt load of people just to be sent home again.
But the pain was getting worse; by the time we got to the hospital, it was difficult for me to talk through the contractions. They got me back into a room and hooked me up to a monitor and the proof was on the screen–wavy lines going up and down in a pattern; never ceasing or stopping this time. Next they checked my cervix–5 centimeters dilated. This was it! I was actually in labor! Real, active labor!
Kaiser has this policy where they force you to answer ridiculous questions such as, “After being discharged, do you intend on taking your baby home with you?” before they admit you. I wasn’t going to give the nurses a hard time about it because they were just doing their job, but that’s the last thing I wanted to do while I was gritting through intense contractions. I let them know right away that I wanted an epidural so that we could get the paperwork ball rolling for that immediately after the bureaucratic nonsense, and even though they wasted no time with any of the admission stuff, by the time I finally got the epidural I was at 7 centimeters. The anesthesiologist was awesome and hooked me up; honestly the dose was almost a bit too strong! I had handled the pain really well; never screaming or crying or grunting. Just silently breathing through it. More than once the nurses and anesthesiologist asked if I was sure that I wanted the epidural because I was doing so well. I was flattered, but did not want to let it get any worse. I wanted to be able to enjoy the baby once it was out rather than be focused on the pain.
Once the medicine kicked in, I was able to relax for an hour or so, which was nice because it was midnight. The next time they checked me I was 10 centimeters and ready to push! However, my water still had not broken. The doctor said she could actually see the water bag! I’ve come to the conclusion that my uterus is built like a tank because I don’t understand how the water bag could withstand so much pressure and stubbornly hold tight regardless. The doctor popped the bag and I pushed for 2 minutes and the baby was out!
When the doctor announced that it was a girl, Tyler and I were shocked. I couldn’t see her completely because my belly was in the way, so I asked the doctor to hold her up so I could see for myself. Sure enough–girl!
Arya came into this world angry and screaming. I remember looking at Tyler and exchanging looks of, “Oh boy–this one is different!” She screamed until they put her on my chest. Then after 10 seconds, she calmed down and instantly stopped crying. Already, our bond was strong.
Tyler and I are not the type to come up with a list of names beforehand. We just find it too difficult to come up with names for someone we’ve never met. The first name that popped into my head after the shock of realizing that she was a girl, was ‘Arya’. We are big Game of Thrones fans, and anyone else who is familiar with the story can laugh at the irony with us: she had succeeded in tricking us into thinking she was a boy. As perfect as it was, we weren’t going to set it in stone until researching the meaning of the name, because I’m really big into the meaning behind a name. It doesn’t matter how pretty sounding a name is; you have to make sure it really means something. A name sets up a child’s destiny, and it’s not something we take lightly. Thanks to smart phones, Tyler was able to Google the name ‘Arya’ while the nurses were cleaning her off. Now typically, the name is spelled ‘Aria’, which means ‘melody’. The Sanskirt version is spelled with a ‘y’ instead, and has a completely different meaning:
“Arya (Sanskrit, also ārya; Pāli: ariya) is a term frequently used in Buddhism that can be translated as “noble”, “not ordinary”, “valuable”, “precious”,[a] “pure”,[2] etc. Arya in the sense of “noble” or “exalted” is frequently used in Buddhist texts to designate a spiritual warrior or hero.”
When we read that, we knew that that was the name for our little girl.
Her middle name, ‘Kinlie’, is a different story. One of our friends got pregnant with her first baby a month after me. Unfortunately, they lost their little girl at 12 weeks. They named her Kinlie Marie. We asked our friends if they would allow us to name Arya after her, so that her memory would live on. And so, Arya Kinlie came into the world, already no ordinary girl. At every one of her birthday parties, we’re going to display this picture in honor of Kinlie Marie.
Even though Arya was born at 1:45 in the morning, a very excited 23 month old Eowyn was still wide awake and waiting with the rest of the family for her baby. She had gotten very attached to the baby throughout the pregnancy, and despite her age, seemed to know exactly what was going on. Tyler brought her to the room alone first, so we could be a family of four for the first time.
She was completely in awe over Arya.
She just wanted to hold her all the time.
These two bring to life Jane Austin’s famous words,
“There is no greater companion than one’s own sister. “
Despite the fact that I have brown eyes and Tyler has hazel, Arya defied the odds and ended up getting Tyler’s grandpa’s blue eyes. Regardless of both of our dark brown hair, Ary has somehow ended up with strawberry blonde hair. There are relatives who have blonde hair, but no one on either side has the red note that Ary does. The name ‘Kinlie’ means, “fair haired viking”. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that God gave her strawberry blonde hair.
Arya is passionate, energetic, and certainly no ordinary girl. Although she takes a bit to warm up to new people, she loves fiercely once she lets you in. She has brought never ending excitement and happiness to our family.
We love you, Arya Kinlie! Happy 2nd Birthday, you little butt!
This week started with a birthday party for a friend’s daughter. She turned 4 and had a princess themed party, so of course I offered to do the cake as a gift. They wanted a cupcake cake that looked like Rapunzel’s dress. I had so much fun with this cake! They needed 4 dozen, so I used 2 dozen for the cupcake cake and decorated the other 2 dozen to match the Rapunzel “theme” of the cake.
Of course I had to make things complicated and do the separate cupcakes in pink and purple. But I really got into it and allowed myself to get creative. When I asked Eowyn if the cake looked like Rapunzel’s dress, she said, “Um, a little bit.” The little perfectionist supervised the whole process, popping into the kitchen to make sure that I was using the right colors in the right spots. She’s going to make quite the artist one day…
The girls dressed up in their princess dresses for the party and had a lot of fun! It was a shocking 80 degrees that weekend; probably the last time we’ll get anywhere near those temperatures until next summer.
The rest of this week saw 3 cold, rainy days in a row, and then brisk Autumn weather. The first day that it stopped raining it was rather chilly out; around 40 degrees with the wind chill (and the wind was blowing pretty hard). But the girls and I were so stir crazy that we bundled up and still headed outside for some fresh, albeit cold, air. They didn’t seem to mind much.
Thursday I had an OB appointment, so Tyler’s parents took the girls for the day. I’m 2 centimeters dilated, and at the time of the appointment, the baby was head down-ish but not engaged. Henderson Adipose has since moved, preferring to lay almost diagonally across my stomach, with his/her head facing my hip. I’ve actually felt fingers digging around that far corner of my uterus. It’s not painful, but is really uncomfortable. I’ve asked Henderson to stop, but like my other children, he/she is not listening… I am certainly not holding my breath about being dilated to 2 cm; my Timehop from 2 weeks ago was me posting on Facebook that I was dilated to 2-3 cm with Arya and that my midwife had said it would be any day now. Too bad Arya decided to be late by 3 days. My children have their own agendas; I’ve come to terms with that. This one will be late just like the other 2 were. Or, it will come early just to spite me since I’m expecting it to be late this time around. I did lose my mucus plug, so maybe it will be early. But probably it will be late.
After the appointment Tyler and I took advantage of the empty house and did some baby prepping. He got the bassinet and swing set up while I searched for bibs and receiving blankets. I found what I think are all of the bibs, but if Henderson is a boy, even those will have to be replaced–90% of them are pink. I only found half of the receiving blankets, but I’m pretty sure I know which box the others are in. I thought we would never use all 30 receiving blankets when we got them for our first baby shower, but it there’s one thing I’ve learned as a parent, it’s that you can never have too many of those things laying around! Babies puke. A lot. Receiving blankets are invaluable. Although we still have yet to retrieve it, we at least know where the bin of newborn clothes is–it’s in the most inaccessible corner of our ceiling storage in the garage. The only way we’re going to be able to get it down is if someone climbs on top of the rafter. That’s Tyler’s project for this coming Thursday. I then will really only have one more problem to sort out, which I just barely thought of last night–where to put my rocking chair for night time feedings. Our bedroom is small and already full of furniture; there really isn’t any space for it in there. We have a guest room, which will eventually be turned into the baby’s room, but my family is going to be occupying it from October 16-November 1. I can’t very well put it in there and wake them up every 2 hours when I need to feed the baby. I could go all the way downstairs and sit in the recliner, but I don’t trust myself to be able to safely navigate the stairs and baby gate while holding a newborn and basically sleep walking. I could bring the baby in bed with us for the time being, but co-sleeping kind of freaks me out when they’re so ity-bity (although I had Ary in bed with me within hours of her being born because she nursed for 8 hours straight that first night). We’ll figure something out. But it’s stuff like this that we would have had worked out weeks ago when I was pregnant with the girls. You really do grow more lax with each kid.
I was expecting it to be a nightmare to have the baby swing out, because I was anticipating that Ary would try to climb in it every chance she got. But to my great surprise, she has been really good with it. All she really does is put her baby dolls in it. Or, her movies (which she’s not supposed to touch):
We threw her in the bassinet to mess with her, and she didn’t seem to like it much. Probably brought back memories of her crib days when she was a confined prisoner at bedtime, unable to escape at her own free will as she does now (oh how I miss the crib days!)
I can’t believe how big this kid is getting. She’s going to be 2 on Wednesday, and I want to cry every time I think about it. They grow up too fast.
Baby Stats:
-Henderson is about 6 1/3 pounds and around 19 inches long, about the length of a bunch of swiss chard
-Babies aren’t considered ‘full term’ until 39 weeks, because baby needs these next 2 weeks to fully mature the brain and lungs
As you can see from this week’s picture, this week started off with the girls and I baking. Although the fungal infection is still growing out of my nails, the new nail is healthy, so I decided to give into my sugar cravings a bit. Beautiful fall weather just begs to be accompanied by the smell of homemade soup and baked goods. I’m still cutting back on sugar in my every day diet (like in my coffee, my oatmeal, and snacks), but I just can’t live a life that doesn’t involve baking. And I’m not talking about the healthy substitute-sugar-with-friggin-unsweetned-applesauce kind of baking. It makes me sad just thinking of it. Sorry if this makes me a horrible person, but I’m just going to come out and say it–a sugar free lifestyle is just not how I want to live my life. At least I’m honest. But I do want to continue to be more conscious of cutting sugar out of every day things that it doesn’t need to be in (Like in canned stewed tomatoes and canned kidney beans. Seriously had no idea they threw sugar in those things. And for what purpose?? Now I’m going to have to start stewing my own tomatoes… Because I totally have time for that…)
Anyways, the girls and I decided to try out this recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal pumpkin cookies that I found on Pinterest. So. Good. If you try it out for yourself, be warned–this recipe makes 5 dozen cookies! Mind you, they were on the smaller side, but that’s still a lot of cookies.
As you can also see from this week’s bump picture, we bought pumpkins. I know that it’s ridiculously early to be buying pumpkins, but they had them at the grocery store for $5 and the girls were so excited that I just couldn’t say no. I let them paint and glitterfy them, which was ungodly messy, but a lot of fun.
I think they’re a lovely addition to our front porch 🙂
We also made autumn tree pictures using real leaves and pine cones that we collected from our own yard. The girls had so much fun searching for leaves and making their trees.
It was also a welcome keep-the-kids busy craft because I was sick with a cold. Eowyn had it first, and then Ary and I came down with it once she was getting over it, and then it was Tyler’s turn once Ary and I were perking up. It’s so miserable when a sickness runs it’s course through the household and knocks us down one after the other. It got in my chest a bit and aggravated my asthma, sending me to the ER one morning to get a breathing treatment to help open everything up. I have a nebulizer (the machine used to give breathing treatments), but the medicine for it had expired back in 2010 because I don’t use it often at all. I’m totally fine; just needed more than my rescue inhaler. They sent me home with a fresh prescription for nebulizer medicine, so I’m set in case I need it again.
I started feeling better just in time to get a Rapunzel dress cupcake cake done for a birthday party that we went to on Sunday. I’ll share more about that next week since technically the party was on the start of my 37th week.
P. S. Did I mention that I am now officially 9 months pregnant? This one has seriously flown by! Tyler and I have decided to make this Thursday our “get our life together” day and finally clean the infant car seat and find the mystery bin of newborn clothes. Not that we’re worried that the baby is going to come tomorrow or something; our babies are notoriously late. More like we’re worried that we’ll procrastinate the next 3 weeks away and have to bring the baby home in hospital clothes and a car seat with old puffs stuck to the fabric and be forced to co-sleep because the bassinet is still sitting in the box in the basement.
At least the baby will be coming into the world at it’s finest hour. The fall colors are just breathtaking! I love that this is the way the world will be introduced to our little one:
Henderson is not in a head down position yet, so there’s still a lot of gymnastics going on. Here’s a YouTube video to creep you out.
I wish I could have recorded Tyler’s reaction while watching this video, because it was priceless. He was genuinely disturbed and I was laughing so hard that I almost peed myself! But if I have to live through it, then he’s got to watch it.
He is the absolute best though–he surprised me with Little Debbie Fall Party Cakes. Along with my coffee aversion, my craving for these cakes are the only consistent factors between all 3 pregnancies. I felt absolutely no guilt digging into those!
Baby Stats:
-Baby is almost 6 pounds and a bit over 18 1/2 inches long (about the length of a head of romaine lettuce)
-Henderson Adipose is gaining about an ounce a day at this point
-With all the fat accumulation, baby is shedding most of the downy hair that had covered him/her
Notice my adorable Fall sweater top? The weather here has been absolutely GORGEOUS! I’ve been ready for fall since the beginning of August. Let’s just say that being in your third trimester during summer sucks… Although I have to admit that we did have a really nice summer. I think the hottest it ever got was 90 degrees, and we only had like 2 of those days. The humidity was not as bad as I was anticipating it to be either. The natives say that they normally get more humidity, so this was another weather abnormality. But for once it was in our favor.
This week’s been tough physically for me; lots of contractions and the pelvic pressure is intensifying. I can waddle with the best of them now.
Actually, these guys are definitely faster than me.
Speaking of faster than me–it is getting more difficult to keep up with Ary. I mean if I’m being honest with myself, she’s been 2 steps ahead of me since I got pregnant with her. But now that I’m-GASP!-in the last week of my 8th month of pregnancy, she’s like 20 steps ahead of me. Literally. All the time. I have to sneak up on her to grab her for a diaper change, because if she sees me coming, she runs behind the couch which I’ve been too big to squeeze behind for months now. I’m seriously considering buying one of those kid leash things. Not really. But I mean, I think she would like it (hypothetically of course). I could tell her it was a game; she could pretend to be a puppy. All day long.
Despite my body slowing down and being a pain to live in, I’ve still been doing my best to get the kids outside as much as I can.
Having popsicles with their neighbor friends
We turned away for 1 minute and she climbed on the four wheeler
Mind you, we have not made it outside every day. Friday for instance, I would get contractions every time I was on my feet longer than a minute. They would only go away if I sat down. So we watched movies (including, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is one of my favorite fall traditions) and read books and they played with their toys when they were bored of sitting. Of course it was the end of the world to Eowyn that she couldn’t go outside, but I wasn’t about to chase after them in my state and Tyler’s been swamped with work this week, so what are you going to do? We’ve definitely had fast food for dinner twice this week, because I just didn’t have the stamina to cook through contractions after I’d been having them all day.
Ary has decided that naps are dumb again, so I’ve been dealing with that frustration this week. They haven’t taken naps for the majority of this last week and it has really pushed me to my limit to fight with them for an hour over something that has always been a part of our routine. I don’t understand how one day they can be with the program and the next day go back 10 steps and need bed training all over again. You would think that once you set up a routine that that would be it, but they will change on you and the fight begins again.
Saturday was particularly hard. I had taken the girls outside to play for about an hour in between lunch and nap time even though I was uncomfortable and only wanted to sit down, in the hopes that it would tire them out enough to ensure a nap. None of Eowyn’s friends could play, but after she pouted about that, we had a nice time together. They rode bikes/princess cars; went on the swings; and then we walked around our entire 1 acre lot collecting leaves that have changed color. But despite all of the physical activity, Ary still was getting out of her bed during nap. I lost count of how many times I had to go in there to put her back in bed. The thing with Ary is that she can be very difficult to discipline because when she sets her mind to something, no amount of time outs or spankings will detour her. This is the case with bed training–I’ve tried time outs and spankings and scary Mommy voice, but she still stubbornly continues to try to sneak into her sister’s bed once she’s stopped crying. So I spent an hour putting her back in her bed repeatedly and all for not. They ended up not taking a nap. Also–it hurts to pick Ary up. For the past 3 months I’ve had pain in my right elbow. My doctor says it’s tennis elbow; probably a side effect of things loosening due to the pregnancy. It wasn’t too bad at first, but it’s gotten pretty bad. I’m taking magnesium/potassium supplements for it and stretching it, both of which seem to help. So not only was I extremely frustrated, my elbow was killing me and my pelvic muscles were burning from all of the pressure.
I threw my maternity brace on and then had to jump right into making dinner, but first I had to wash a bunch of dishes that had piled up because of my increased discomfort and Tyler’s increased work load. I had taken away TV and dessert for not napping (it wasn’t just Ary who had been acting up; Eowyn was sassing me too), so the kids were left to their own devices while I got to work. They were both nagging me the whole time about when dinner was going to be ready because apparently they were starving to death, and kept running around the kitchen island despite me yelling at them not to. Then Eowyn comes into the kitchen to ask if she can help me make dinner. I tell her no because if I let her come and help then I also have to let Ary come and help. Anyone who has cooked with toddlers will tell you that you have to be in a patient mood going into it because it’s stressful and the exact opposite of helpful. Given what they had already put me through, I knew that I was not in a state to cook with them as well. Eowyn didn’t take hearing ‘no’ very well and started throwing a fit. She then retreated to her play room and came back 5 minutes later with a sweet-as-pie smile on her face. “Mom, I have a surprise for you! I cleaned up my special room.” I go look in her special room and find this:
Hell hath no fury like a pissed off 3 year old. I literally started crying when I saw this because I was already so stressed and worn out. It all went down hill from there. I went back into the kitchen to find Ary standing in a puddle of water. She can now reach the water dispenser that’s on the outside of our freezer door, and plays with it whenever she gets a chance. After I cleaned that up, she started climbing everything imaginable: up her bookcase to get to the window above it, on the kitchen table, on the coffee table, on the kitchen counters. She also kept trying to touch the oven while the biscuits were baking, completely ignoring me yelling, “NO!” at her. Somehow dinner got made, and after we ate, I sat on the couch with my feet up and supervised Eowyn’s clean up job to make sure she put everything back where it belonged. It took her almost an hour and a half to pick everything up, but she did it. Then they got put down for bed right afterwards. Ary only got out of her bed twice, and then they gave in to their delirium and passed out.
With how miserable I’ve been feeling physically, having this added stress of fighting over nap time has really pushed me to my limits. Sometimes I wonder what would be more stressful: to continue being pregnant and uncomfortable with the stress of the girls or to have the stress of the girls plus a newborn but not be so uncomfortable physically. I genuinely don’t know which I would prefer. For the first time, I’m actually scared to have the baby out because I honestly don’t know how and if I’m going to cope with 3 kids. But I know that God never puts us in situations that are beyond our ability to handle (though they may push us to our breaking point). I know that God has a plan for good for our family. I know that He is taking every step with me. Therefore even though I don’t understand how it’s going to work out, I know that we will be just fine.
And I know that He holds every one of my tears in His hands, because things like this keep happening: this is my Timehop for today…
Baby Stats:
-Baby is about 18 inches long and around 5 1/4 pounds, about the size of a honeydew melon
-Baby is starting to run out of space because of his/her size (although he/she is not head down yet and is still swimming around to my discomfort)
-The kidneys are fully developed now
-The liver can process some waste products
-Most of the physical development is now complete. The next month is all about putting on the fat and maturing the lungs
It kicked off with a new season of dance class for Eowyn. This kid LOVES dance. It’s actually how we potty trained her; she wanted to take dance class but they wouldn’t take her until she was potty trained. So we hung up a princess tutu in the bathroom and told her that she had to go a whole month with no accidents before she could wear it and take classes. It took her 10 weeks, but she did it! This was her on her first day of dance, March 23, 2013:
In her princess tutu that she worked so hard for
This was her first day of dance class picture from this last Monday:
How do they change so much in just a year and a half??? I know every parent says this, but it seriously goes by so fast.
To celebrate the start of a new season, and to help her break the ice with her new dance friends (none of the girls from her last class are in this one), I decided to make ballerina cake pops for all of them (click the link for the detailed post of the process of making them). The girls were so happy, and Eowyn said, “Thanks Mom for making my dance class so special!” Like I said–it goes by in the blink of an eye. So I try to savor every single moment and celebrate as often as I can, because I know that soon I will blink and she’ll be all grown up and leaving me.
It is officially Fall here in Wisconsin, and I am loving it! It’s been nothing but mid 50’s since Wednesday. I can’t wait for the leaves to start changing colors. Fall is my absolute favorite time of year! When we woke up to a cold house Thursday morning, I was so happy that I made the girls pumpkin spice pancakes for breakfast (in the shape of pumpkins, of course). Remember–celebrate the little things.
This is a link to my favorite pancake recipe. To make them into a Fall edition, I simply swapped brown sugar for the white sugar, added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, and held the blueberries. Oh, and I always add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Of course, I couldn’t have any because I’m still avoiding sugar, but the kids loved them. Eowyn ate 5! She must be growing again.
I also made a Fall inspired wreath. I originally set out to make this wreath that I saw on pinterest, but ended up doing my own thing (naturally). I’m really happy with the result! The best part–I bought all of the supplies at the Dollar Store, so this project cost a total of $6.
I also hung up a decor piece that Eowyn picked out at the Dollar Store:
Our garage door in our mud room, which we use way more often than the front door
I’m telling you guys–the Dollar Store has some awesome finds!
Eowyn was totally into all of the home decor stuff. She wanted to buy everything, claiming, “This would look so nice in the house!” I’ll have to set her up with her own Pinterest account soon at the rate she’s going.
We also decked out our mantle:
The girls and I also did some apple printing. Eowyn only used the apple 3 times before digging in with her bare hands, and Ary used the apple to spread the paint around the paper instead of making apple prints. And of course, they started painting themselves… But they had fun, and that’s all that matters.
Our apple printing art
Since the temperatures went down so quickly, the girls needed warm pajamas and long sleeved shirts. You would think that since we have two girls who were both born in the Fall months that Ary would never need any clothes, because she could just have all of Eowyn’s hand-me-downs. But since the very beginning, she has made it her mission in life to stand out in defiance of only ever getting her sister’s stuff, and has been set on growing at a different rate than Eowyn. Her whole life it’s always been a gamble as to whether or not Eowyn’s old stuff would work, because more often than not, the seasons don’t match up. So it was on Thursday when I was riffling through the 24 month bin–chuck full of summer wear. Besides, Ary seems to be stuck at the 18 months size for the time being, so even if the 24 month stuff had been fall/winter clothes, it probably would have all been too big for her to wear right now. But the kids needed some warmer clothes, so I took them to Target on Friday morning and $200 later, they each have 4 sets of warm pajamas and 5 long sleeved shirts. Thank God they both already have pants that still fit. I know what I’m going to tell people to get them for their birthdays–WINTER CLOTHES! This is getting expensive now that we have to multiply it by 2. Don’t know what we’re going to do if Henderson is a boy; poor thing will only have girl clothes at his disposal… But thank you God for always providing what we need when we need it.
My nail infection seems to be doing much better. I finished the bottle of oregano pills and don’t need to take any more, thank God. The stuff was starting to seep through my pores; my sweat smelled like oregano! Gross. But not as gross as having a fungal nail infection. Luckily my nails are growing fast, so hopefully it’ll clear up by the time Henderson is here and we’re taking a bunch of pictures of me holding him/her.
This baby isn’t as active as Ary was, but he/ she kicks downwards a lot, which is quite uncomfortable. The girls both did that from time to time, but this kid does it all day, every day. The doctors had to break my water both times before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this one ruptured it all on it’s own at the rate it’s going.
One of my neighbor friends had her baby on Thursday, and we got to meet her yesterday. You forget how small newborns are! I came home and instantly started thinking about all of the things we still need to do/find in the next 5 weeks to prepare for our baby. I have no idea if the infant car seat is clean; no clue as to the whereabouts of my Baby Bjorn or milk storage containers or bottles; no idea where to put the baby swing or my rocker; and the bassinet is still sitting disassembled in a box. And there’s still the main floor toilet that needs to be fixed (because you know, a newborn needs an operational toilet in order to come home). Nesting makes you panic about every little thing that’s wrong with your house. At least we have an operational baby monitor again, thanks to my best friend Maleia. (Ary decided to wash our old one in the dog’s water. It lasted for about 8 months after that until it finally stopped working). Despite my crazy prego mind wanting to panic and organize and prepare everything, I know that if the baby came tomorrow that everyone would survive. All a baby really needs is a lot of love. And food; lots of food.
Baby Stats:
-Baby is about 4 3/4 pounds and almost 18 inches, about the size of a cantaloupe
-The fat layers are continuing to fill out (which is good because Baby it’s cold outside!)
-Baby’s skin is the smoothest it’s been
-The central nervous system and lungs are continuing to mature
I actually have 2 prego pictures this week, because the girls wanted to be in it with me. Here’s the group shot:
They are so excited about the new baby, and it is just too cute.
Labor Day was spent almost entirely outside, as the girls were playing with their friend next door. They ran through the sprinklers for a good 30 minutes; had water gun fights; played on the play set; fought monsters in the bushes; and of course, had a picnic.
Good times all around.
Then it rained for three days straight so we were all stuck inside. But once the sun came out again, we were back outside every day playing with the neighbors. I have had such a great time getting to know our neighbors this summer. Especially since our oldest kids are all the same age. They’re already thick as thieves : ) This is the kind of childhood that I wanted for my kids to have. I am so grateful to have the life that I have.
As much as I hate to admit that all of the uber healthy people are right, I have to admit they are right about the sugar thing. I’ve felt a boost in energy this last week, and I have to attribute it to the major decrease of sugar in my diet because Lord knows I’m not getting extra sleep. Since I’m still getting used to the taste of my coffee with just unsweetened almond milk, my caffeine consumption has been cut down to a quarter of what it was previously. Yet, I have more energy than I did before. Less contractions too, although that might just be a coincidence. Although I do miss my sweet treats, I realize now that they really need to be exactly that–a treat. As in occasionally had, instead of consumed on a daily basis. Mind you, I wasn’t eating candy everyday before. I think a lot of the sugar was coming from juice, granola bars, and cereal. But now that I’m more aware of just how much sugar is in those things and how much it impacts my body, I’m definitely going to be more conscious of how much I intake once this infection clears. I’m also going to start weaning the girls off of those things too so that we can all be healthier.
When the girls and I went to get Eowyn new dance shoes the other day, we ran into her dance teacher who was sporting a tiny little prego bump. She’s a very slender person, so I was 99.9% sure that the bump was a baby and not food, and I took the risk and asked the question: “Are you pregnant?” She looked at me like I was crazy because it was the most obvious thing to her, “Oh yeah! I’m 20 weeks; halfway there. I feel huge.” She looked like she had an apple under her shirt! I couldn’t believe that she was already 20 weeks! I also couldn’t believe that she had the guts to complain about how huge she felt to the 33 weeks pregnant woman. I see your apple and raise you a friggin pumpkin. You think you feel huge now? Just wait sweetheart…
The woman who checked me out at Hobby Lobby the next day greeted me by saying “jokingly”, “Oh please don’t tell me you’re going to go into labor any minute!” Don’t worry woman-I’ve-never-met, you won’t be delivering any babies today–I’ve still got 6 weeks to go. But thank you for letting me know that you don’t think I could possibly get any bigger… I hate this part of pregnancy for a number of reasons, but stuff like this is reason #1. Once you hit 8 months, strangers will go out of their way to tell you how huge you are. “Oh look at you–you’re ready to pop!”, “Oh, should you be out shopping? Looks like it’ll be any day now”, and so on and so forth. Mind you, they have no idea that they’re being rude. But THEY’RE BEING REALLY RUDE. I’m able to handle these comments much better this time around. When people started saying stuff like that to me when I was pregnant with Eowyn, my face looked like this:
Now it looks more like this:
But seriously guys–don’t go out of your way to make a pregnant lady feel bigger than she already is. Just say things like, “Oh, when are you due?” or “Congratulations!” or “Do you know what you’re having?” You know, nice things.
Baby Stats:
-Adipose is a bit over 4 pounds now and a little over 17 inches long, about the size of a pineapple
-Rapidly losing the wrinkled alien look (which is good, because that is so last month), and continuing to fill out
-Bones in the skeleton are still hardening, but the skull bones are still not fused together. They need to be adjustable, so to speak, so that the baby can squeeze through the birth canal.
Eesh, I am pregnant. Like really pregnant. I know–I’ve been pregnant the whole time. But I really feel pregnant now. Probably because I’m so friggin pregnant.
Did I mention that this is the part where I become miserable and unbearable?
I’ll attempt to move on to something other than mentioning over and over how pregnant I am.
There’s a phenomenon that occurs inside households that have been infiltrated by children (especially small ones): you are constantly cleaning your house, yet said house is in a constant state of utter desolation. It’s quite frustrating. Especially when you’re nesting and trying to get the house ready for a new baby to come in and destroy things. So for the past 2 Tuesdays, Tyler’s parents have taken the girls off our hands for 6 hours so that we could clean and unpack stuff that’s been in our basement since we moved last October, and squeeze in some Mommy and Daddy time. It’s amazing all that we can get done when we don’t have 2 tornadoes undoing everything we just did. This last Tuesday, I went to Goodwill and found a media cabinet that was on sale for a dollar. I brought it home with some Goodwill bins and a shower rod from Target, and I turned it into the perfect storage solution for the girls’ dress up clothes and accessories.
Take that, Pinterest!
Before, all of the dress up clothes were upstairs in their bedroom closet and all of the accessories were in a pile on the floor of their playroom. They hardly ever wore their dress up clothes because they were out of sight, and therefore out of mind. The pile of accessories was the bane of my existence. Since putting together this dress up cabinet, the girls have practically lived in their costumes. The whole thing cost a total of $42! One of these days I’ll paint it, because the current paint job is in dire distress. But for now, this will do. Mommy win!
Just when I was going to label this as my easiest pregnancy, Henderson Adipose orchestrated the ultimate sneak attack: the elevated yeast levels in my system from the hormones have caused a fungal infection on my nails. So now I’m on a regiment of soaking my nails in vinegar every day and taking oregano oil pills 3 times a day. Oh, and since yeast feeds off of sugar, I’ve had to cut that out of my diet. I’ve got a sweet tooth and I’m really pregnant, so I was not happy to hear that last bit. The oregano pills have multiplied my already increased stomach acid by 100%, giving me burning oregano burps. But I’ve figured out that taking 4 Tums immediately before choking down the oregano pills makes all the difference in the world. No one warned me about sugar withdrawals though. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but let me tell you–it’s legit! For the first 3 days, I felt completely horrible. I was even more exhausted than I was before. I literally couldn’t stay awake; I was involuntarily falling asleep on the couch during the day. I had horrible headaches, and my whole body just felt so heavy. I felt like I was just dragging myself through the days. So although I am NOT happy about this fungal infection thing, it did make me realize that my sugar intake is too high. Although I am not planning on permanently eliminating sugar from my diet, I am definitely going to continue cutting back after the infection has cleared. It turns out that oatmeal tastes good sweetened with honey and banana, coffee with only unsweetened almond milk is not disgusting, and unsweetened applesauce sprinkled with ground cinnamon is a satisfying dessert.
Still not a cool move Henderson Adipose. I will remember this.
I think Ary subconsciously knows that New Baby is coming soon, because she’s been really clingy lately. Or maybe it’s because she’s teething AGAIN! I mean, seriously–look at all of these teeth!
So color us surprised when she’s starts getting irritable, suddenly loses her appetite (when normally she eats twice as much as her older sister), and gets diarrhea. It wasn’t until I caught her with her hands in her mouth crying in pain that I put 2 and 2 together. I asked her what was hurting and she said, “TEEF! TEEF!” Sure enough, she’s cutting her final set of molars. Poor thing does not handle pain well at all (can’t say as I blame her). This week has been challenging because she’s super grumpy and wants me to hold her all the time, which is almost physically impossible with the size of Adipose.
I don’t know if Eowyn is acting up because she senses the arrival of the New Baby or if it’s just the Terrible 3’s hitting really late, but this kid has been in rare form. Normally, Eowyn’s my little angel; sweet and caring and very rarely in trouble. But lately she’s been throwing tantrums at the drop of a hat, not playing nicely with her sister, and has decided that she doesn’t like her bed anymore, so she throws massive fits at every nap time and bed time. Not to mention this sassy attitude she’s evolved out of thin air. All. Month. Long. She’s really been trying our patience. I am desperately hoping that this horrible phase will end soon, because I am getting too pregnant to deal with this toddler nonsense.
Baby is still really active. He/she has been doing this really fun thing where he/she kicks directly down. Nothing like being kicked in the netherlands from the inside. Have I mentioned that I’m done being pregnant?
Baby Stats:
-Adipose is about the size of a jicama, weighing around 3 3/4 pounds and measuring 16.7″
-I’m supposed to be gaining about a pound a week at this point, half of which goes right to Adipose (thank God)
-The main goal is still fattening up (Adipose, not me)
Sorry I went MIA again last week. My tiny humans have been more demanding than usual lately, and I had a lot of Doctor Who to watch before the season premiere, which was yesterday. Well ok, I didn’t have to watch Doctor Who. But I wanted to. Being a mom, I very rarely do anything for myself. As silly as it may sound to anyone who isn’t a nerd, slamming through 7 seasons in a month with my hubby was a lot of fun. It was something that we could do together and involved a world we both have come to love. Life is all about the little things; the happy things, which are usually stupid things. I had a lot of fun wasting time with my best friend, and I will never apologize for it.
I forgot to take a picture for week 30, so here’s the one for week 31:
31 Weeks
One of Tyler’s cousins got married in Wyoming the week beforehand and were having a local reception for people (like us) who weren’t able to make it for the destination wedding. Their wedding had a rustic/western feel, so most people wore cowboy boots, including the girls. They rocked it!
Other than that, we’ve been laying low the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a hard time with my pregnancy symptoms and have slowed down quite a bit. There are days where I have Braxton-Hicks contractions from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. My belly has dropped a bit, increasing my hip pain from all of the pressure and making me pee every 10 minutes. My morning sickness has returned, so I’ve had a lot of nausea. My mouth has also been really dry, which is a random pregnancy symptom I never had with either of the girls. And I’m exhausted all the time. Basically what I’m saying is that I’ve really been enjoying being pregnant these last couple of weeks [insert sarcasm here]. I’ve been having cravings again too. My favorite lunch item is grilled peanut butter and jelly. Peanut Butter and jelly quesadillas are also the bee’s knees. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, people! I’m also quite fond of chips again. And brownies, although I sadly lost my old faithful brownie recipe and haven’t found a comparable one to replace it. Hopefully I don’t gain 20 pounds this month. That’d really be a shame because so far I’ve only gained 15.
I’ve been trying to put my own discomfort aside though and still do fun things with the girls. In an attempt to forget about the nasty heat, I started doing some Halloween crafts with the girls. This mama is done with the heat; bring on Autumn! Unless it was a day where I was having a lot of contractions I’ve also made an effort to get the kids outside every day, even though it means me sweating through my clothes. They have some neighbor friends who they love playing with. I’m so glad that we have kids that are Eowyn’s age right next door. We’re all trying to get our kids outside as much as possible, for we know that winter is coming. Hopefully this winter won’t be awful like last year so the kids can play in the snow.
The Toddler Gang
On the bright side, my mom surprised me with more maternity clothes! Nothing like a few new outfits to lift a girl’s spirits ; )
My main project right now is to dig up all of our baby stuff. Our packing process before moving here last year was hectic and highly disorganized, so there are a lot of MISC boxes in the basement. Time to start rearranging to make space for new baby’s things; no idea where to put the swing, or where best to set up the infant bath tub. Need to find all of the bibs and burp cloths, bottles and breast pump. Even though this is the third time around, it’s still overwhelming trying to figure out how you’re going to make space in the chaos of life for another tiny human. But it will all work out in the end, as it always does.
Baby Stats for Week 30:
-Baby is about 15.7″ long and weighs around 3 pounds, about the size of a large head of cabbage
-Baby’s eyesight is continuing to develop, but the eyes aren’t fully “done” until after birth. Babies are born with 20/400 vision, so they can only see things that are a few inches away from them for the first few weeks
Baby Stats for Week 31:
-Baby is now over 16″ long and around 3 1/3 pounds, about the size of a coconut
-Baby can now move head from side to side (which I’ve definitely been feeling)
-Baby is starting to plump up now, accumulating fat. I think I’ll call Baby ‘Adipose’ from now on
My Own Unexpected Journey 