chloe's nursery so far

I put these on facebook already but wanted to get them here.

Here is the orange wall with cute new lightswitch cover we were given (love it) and her abundance of stuffed animals (all presents!). The drawer is filled with onesies, and these are only from basically 0-3 months, some 3-6 but they still look super tiny to me. I have been very blessed with clothes... as you'll see in next pictures.

This is the shelf in the closet with hooded towels, wash cloths and receiving blankets. I know it won't stay this neat, but I can dream :-)

Here is the beautiful closet! We love it!!! I am so happy, it is like the epitomy of nesting if I ever saw it. Preparing, washing and folding all this has been therapeutic/exhausting for me at the same time.

Here is the wall mural my father and I painted today. It is based off the crib bedding, JJ Cole, PInk Craze. I wanted something big, graphic and fun but still girly and lighthearted. So I just took the flowers on the bedding and worked with them, creating a design in ILlustrator an d projecting on the wall. It was not easy to paint, took at least 3 coats on each of the flowers to get them thick, perfect enough.

Another view of the mural on the wall and her crib/changing table!

I will be 36 weeks on Tuesday. Things are so crazy in my head right now. I feel so ready and so not ready at the same time - but mostly I just can't wait to meet my child!!! It's just around the corner... the pregnant girls from my shower are starting to tick off the list, 2 out of 5 have had their babies, one more then I'm next. Crazy crazy crazy life!

I'm still in pain, no change there - stopped doing chiropractic because it wasn't helping me. Since I stopped I will say my pelvic/groin pain has actually improved. Not sure if the adjustments might have actually been irritating my sensitive bones/muscles instead of helping. I've been working in bed a lot during the day. I really need to get my taxes done and some business things sorted out in the next 2 weeks so I can put it behind me and focus on the baby when she is born. They gave me a sonogram of my upper abdominal organs to see if there was anything weird going on there, but I don't think they will find anything. I didn't get to see the baby in that sono though, so I was thoroughly disappointed. I know in a few weeks it will be a moot point since I"ll be looking at her in person, but still... it's such a mystery!!!

Also, I feel like a whale. Seriously. And people are starting to say "you look like you're going to pop" to me, which is both exciting and insulting at the same time. Oh I also got "she's never going to make it to March 9 with how she's carrying that baby and how she's walking" -- it's so weird... I don't see myself as waddling, etc, but I guess I am...lol.... but people need to understand we as pregnant ladies don't really have much control over how we carry the baby and how big we get (aside from how much we're eating). I seem to be a bit torpedo-ish... and I can't help it! And I still have a month to go till my due date, and she could put on 2 more lbs during that time. hhhollly crap!!!

aaaaah

34 Weeks

How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

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Update on me:

• I've been feeling very energetic and "nesty" in the mornings, and by the evenings completely exhausted and in need of laying down.
• I've been getting a lot of cleaning/organization type household stuff done, but am still having little to no motivation to finish up the few business tasks I have left to check off my list (taxes, burning photos to dvds, new terabyte storage drives to format, clearing memory cards, invoicing my last client, getting settled into gigbooks)
• We have Chloe's playpen set up in the dining room, makes it all seem very real!
• I am still having upper abdominal tension, stretching and rib pain, but I think I'm just learning to cope with it
• I've been sitting on the exercise ball a lot. Good for the body, giving baby enough room to be in the head down position, and good for my core to prepare for birth. I roll off it sometimes though :-)
• We are enjoying our childbirth class with Carol Peterson. I've learned SO much about childbirth that I never knew. I'm so excited that I have a midwife who will subscribe much more to the philosophies I'm learning at my delivery. Carol is also a doula, and it would be really nice to have her or another doula at my delivery, but unfortunately it is a bit costly for us and we are pinching every penny at this point so it's not in the cards.
• I'm starting to wonder how the cats are going to do with the new addition to our family... all we can do is try to prepare them a little. I think in general they will be ok. They are very curious kitties and they think the whole house belongs to them so that will be a shift, but I'm going to trust it's going to be ok.
• I noticed my first stretch mark on my tummy yesterday and it's getting bigger. eek.
• I am getting so excited to hold my baby!!!
• We had an awesome photo shoot with Danielle. I posted my favorite pictures on facebook, and I will post some here soon, too.
  

A glider!!

Brian is so flippin sweet, and always manages to surprise me with SOMETHING at Christmas time. We agreed we weren't getting each other any presents for Christmas - money is tight, and any money we have, we want to put towards baby stuff we needed. We wanted to get the a nice glider/ottoman combo for the nursery, but had put it aside because we didn't think we could afford it. Well, we put some Christmas money we were given back into our budget and walah - a beautiful brand new glider, that matches the nursery furniture so perfectly I want to scream. And he even got it on sale which makes it so much better. He got it home in his car and put it together in an hour so that I could see it. He led me up and played Christmas music in the room and put bows on it. So so adorable.

I also got myself this ring for $13 to replace my wedding rings which have a lot of welding and extra fitting on them that are getting too tight for me. It's fakey but I love it.

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The 3-4 hour glucose test went "eh" this morning. It definitely wasn't fun, but I just hope my results are normal. I got a bit weak about halfway through but it's over now. I just have very bruised up arms from the 4 blood draws. Thank the Lord for my cell phone, twitter and 3G networks. I don't know what I would have done without it! haha.

27 weeks - third trimester!

27 Weeks:

This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were to be born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.

See what your baby looks like this week.

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It's a shock to be entering my third trimester. I'm starting to deal with a new set of fears - what if the baby is born too early, what if something happens to her in the womb, what if I mess something up, how the heck will i get through delivery, the pain, etc. Is my grandpa going to make it to see her born? Just praying for fear control at this point and God's comfort. I have a lot of questions for next weeks appt... Brian and I are also going to start a childbirth class in January and my mom is planning my baby shower. It felt like this point was so far away, and now it's rushing on me. I'm 27 weeks - in a week or two I am going to start doing kick counts --- It is freaking me outttttt.

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Brian and I got our crib in! We were so excited we set it up at 11:00 at night... it was actually super easy to set up. We still need a mattress though. haha. Anyway, here are some pictures of the baby's room so far. I originally didn't want to show until it was done, but it's probably cool to remember the process. Plus we might move the furniture around... not sure.

I plan on putting up pink curtans and removing those blinds with long cords (of course) and putting her name and some art up above the crib. The white wall will have some sort of mural which my dad and I will hopefully paint. I tried to keep the paint colors something that could switch if our sonogram tech was wrong and it happens to be a boy. haha!

So here is the nursery so far!