Weekly Update: 39 weeks

At this point I never know when this will be my last weekly pregnancy post. This might be it, or I could still have another week or two. Anyways, I decided to post a few extra fun things, just in case this is the last one. First off is the comparison pic of the view from the top, 19 weeks apart. You could not really tell a difference week to week but there has definitely been a change.

How far along: 39 weeks (and still very pregnant)

Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: I think this one is obvious at this point

Stretch marks: Same as above, nothing has changed

Sleep: Ben and I thought we would enjoy what might be our last weekend to ourselves to sleep in as late as possible and both days we woke up earlier than we normally do. Weird! Sleeping fine in general though especially not that it is colder.

Best moment this week: It has been pretty good to get my to-do list done and know that there is nothing left hanging over our heads when he comes.

Movement: He can still be super active sometimes but now it is just painful and uncomfortable. I normally sit with one or both of my legs curled up, but now when I do it, he protests and just decides to hurt me.

Food cravings: Nothing specific

Food aversions: Anything that makes my heartburn worse

Gender: As far as I know, still a boy

Labor Signs: Still dilated 1.5cm at my appointment last Wednesday and nothing new. No contractions that I know of.

Belly Button in or out? Still the same. Ben says it looks like I have 3 belly buttons with my stretched out scar.

What I miss: I feel like I am back to the way it was when we were trying to get pregnant, analyzing every little symptom and twinge meaning I might possibly be. This time I am worry that each little thing might be a contraction or another labor sign. It always turns out to be something else. Part of me is worried I will not know when I am in labor.

What I am looking forward to: I am really looking forward to seeing my family when they come to visit us after Pumpkin is born and everyone finally getting to meet him (although I am still a little weary about having to share him).

Weekly Wisdom: Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy being lazy and sleeping right now, but I am bored. I have done everything on my to-do list and am not good with nothing to do. This would be better if Ben was home with me but he is busy at work.

Milestones: We made it to October. Yay!!! I am so excited to know that we will have an October baby.

Measurements: Chest- -.5”, Waist- same, Hips- -.5”, Circumference- -1”

Now to some fun stuff.

When my super friend Heather had her little girl Isla back in January, I had gone with her to get her nails done the day before. It was my turn, so Heather and I went and got pedicures yesterday. Good thing because I can not reach my feet and they needed an updated fall color. In fact, I had to have Ben take off my nail polish for me the night before. I am pretty sure you can tell which feet are mine by the bump that is in the way.

Below I have a progress picture of my belly over the pregnancy. This is just a preview of another project we have had in the works this whole time. Ben always said he wanted to take a picture of me everyday and make a video of my belly growing. Since there were so many things I wanted to do this pregnancy, I gave this one to Ben. I thought it would be a pain to keep up with, and it has been but we never missed a day, 214 pictures, so far!!! I hope to get it all compiled and posted soon after the baby is born.

I have been quite lucky to have an active baby this pregnancy. He was always there wiggling around to assure me that he was happy and healthy. Admittedly, sometimes too active and lately quite painful but I still appreciate it. Every night for most of the pregnancy I put Ben's headphones on my belly and let Pumpkin listen to some music. He loves this and is such a dancer (just like his daddy). Here is just a snippet of him moving around the other night. (Of course the night I decide to film him was the night he decided to be mostly lazy).

Hope you enjoyed the extras this week! Not sure what posts to expect next week. Maybe just another weekly post or maybe a birth story and pics of our little guy.

Octobers of Yesteryear

It is October and for the first time in 5 years, we have no plans (well except to have a baby). I know that Pumpkin is a great thing but I am a little sad that we will not be celebrating our anniversary by going on a trip. Ben and I both have holiday birthdays so we decided when we got married, we would make our anniversary special. Of course (!!!!!!) we get pregnant and due the day before said anniversary. Here is a look back at the Octobers for the past 4 years.

2007

We had just graduated college, gotten engaged and moved to Atlanta. October 26th was my grandparents 50th anniversary and as the family event planner I was put in charge of planning something. We tried to surprise them by not telling them that the factions that live further away were not going to make it, and seeing the look on their faces made it all worth it when they did.

We had 33 of the family members there and at the time we had 35.

Here is the replica of their wedding cake we had made.


On the 11th, two days before the party, Ben and I stepped away from the chaos and went to dinner at my favorite restaurant to celebrate our negative one year anniversary. It seemed silly to some people but that date was going to be special to us the rest of our life, why not start celebrating as soon as we knew that.

We also worked in a little wedding planning while we were there. This is us in the Sunsphere where we had our reception


2008

Our wedding day!!! I will probably do another post about this closer to our anniversary but here are a couple of my favorite shots. (I realize they are all mushy ones of us kissing. Sorry!)


We followed this up with our honeymoon in London. At the time, this was not the smartest idea to end months of stressful, busy planning with an 11 day busy sightseeing trip in chilly London. It did not seem very honeymoony and we both ended up crying about this at some point on the trip. In hindsight, it was an awesome trip with so many great memories!

We actually got a guard to laugh at one point. One of the crowning achievements in our life.

2009

Our first anniversary and we decided to take a trip to New York City. I had been before but I wanted to take Ben. I had everything planned out hoping we would be a little more organized than we were in London, thus less stressed. HAHA, fat chance! The day before we left I acquired the swine flu from babysitting and eventually Ben got it. We were able to do everything we wanted to, it was just at a slow miserable pace.

At the top of the Statue of Liberty. A very cool experience but not fun to climb those stairs when dealing with the flu.

We celebrated our actual anniversary but visiting some of the sites of our favorite movie, "You've Got Mail".

My awesome hubby took me shopping at Tiffany's for my anniversary present.

And I let him look at Legos.


2010

I blogged about Paris last year but I still have to mention it.

Days 1,2 and 3
Days 4 and 5
Days 6, 7 and 8

This trip was a drastic difference from the previous two. While we still kept busy and were exhausted, there was no flu and we were rested up before we went.

This picture reminds me of this perfect autumn afternoon in Paris.

Our last night of the trip, in Amsterdam (sorry it is blurry).

2011

Oh how things have changed! Last year at this time I was desperate to get pregnant and now we sit here and are awaiting the arrival of our little guy any day now. It seems so surreal! Sometimes time seems to take forever to pass and others you wonder where it all has gone. It seems like yesterday Ben and I met, not 5 and half years ago, and I know with a baby it will start going by even faster. I wonder what next October will bring. I am hoping we can start back up on going on our trips. We will see how ready I am to leave Pumpkin.

Here are two pictures from our little date night last night.

Rentervation Update: Nesting Mode- Bedroom

So I posted about re-doing our bedroom back in January and got a little too distracted to finally post the finished pictures. So here it goes.

If you go back and re-read the old post, we pretty much wanted to update our bedroom without spending a lot of money, and making commitments to large purchases that could not later be worked in to a bigger house.

Here is where we started. Just a bed frame. Hand me down side tables, bookshelf, bench and dresser.

The room cleared out. It was nice to have a chance to clean under the bed after 3 and a half years.

The furniture

We had to turn the bed on its side which was really weird looking.

Almost there!

This was the finished project back in January.

Since then, we made a few other changes. The first major one, was that we replaced the crummy bookshelf we had with a brand new one that matched the new bench at the end of the bed. It is nicer, and bigger which is great because we had to add Ben's books that were residing in what is now the nursery, onto this shelf. We also got rid if the standing lamp we had as our main light, with two leftover lanterns from the nursery. The light is a bit softer which is nice but also means it is dimmer. Oh well! You will notice that we did nothing with the hand me down furniture. I would have loved to have stained it, and paint the hardware but with being pregnant, I had a lot of other projects that took priority. Not to mention, we never figured out how we would do the large dresser since it is too big to take outside.

Here is the bookcase

Here are a few overall shots.

Okay, was that worth the 9 month wait? Probably not but thanks for reading anyways.

Weekly Update: 38 weeks

Not much has changed again this week. We are definitely on baby watch but I am hoping he stays put until Saturday at least so I can officially have an October baby. Actually, our ideal date (not that we have a say in it) is either 10/01/11 (lots of ones and zeros), 10/08/11 (our anniversary with the date and year reversed), or 10/10/11 (our lucky numbers are 10 and 11).

This weekend we were able to finish buying everything we needed, get it washed, and put away. The house is somewhat straightened up and fall decor out. I finished two crafts and got started on our Christmas stockings. I feel like we are not only getting our house ready for the baby but for having people over to visit afterward.

How far along: 38 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: Even some of these are starting to get tight despite the fact that I have not grown

Stretch marks: Nothing new

Sleep: Waking up about 6 times to roll myself over, another 2 times to go to the bathroom but all in all, pretty good when I am asleep.

Best moment this week: I was pretty excited to find out that he had dropped because I had suspected that. I have felt like such a moron because I could never tell how he was positioned and for the first time, I was right.

Movement: He has been slowing down which is normal for this point in pregnancy, but sometimes he is back to his active self and now it hurts. On Saturday night, he was going crazy and it took my breath away.

Food cravings: I have been wanting lots of comfort food but I think that is more the season than pregnancy related. In college, I had a kick where I was getting hot chocolate all the time. The other night I had one and now I want one every day, but I am being good.

Food aversions: I have had a few bouts of nausea but not from anything specific

Gender: Still pretty sure he is a boy (sarcasm)

Labor Signs: I am now 1.5cm dilated and he has dropped but nothing exciting

Belly Button in or out? Still the same

What I miss: My normal body. I look at old pictures and never appreciated how cute I was. (BTW, in a week or two I will post a timeline that I made of some milestone belly pics). I have been uncomfortable lately since he dropped and is putting so much pressure on my pelvis. It will be nice to feel like myself again although I will really miss having him inside me and us having our little thing. I am not sure I am ready to share him sometimes.

What I am looking forward to: The suspense of how all this will turn out (or how he will come out) is killing me. I know I could have a baby any day but it is so weird to think that within the next 3 weeks we will have a birth story to tell.

Weekly Wisdom: I have been having some anxiety and my mom has been good at reassuring me that I will be a good mom and she will be here to help. Good thing I have such an awesome mom to look up to!

Milestones: Still excited about being full term for a whole week now. I just want to make it to Saturday so he can be an October baby.

Measurements: Chest- +.5”, Waist- +1”, Hips- +.5”, Circumference- -.5”

My last day of work before maternity leave is tomorrow so I am taking Miss Lily to Zaxby's for lunch. I remember when I started and she was a newborn. Now I will have my hands full with her and my own newborn. Maybe she will help (yeah right!).

I will finally be posting our bedroom rentervation reveal this week so stay tuned.

Rentervation Update: Nesting Mode- Kitchen

Not that this was a big project but it made a big impact for me. Back at the end of 2011 I found these images online of vintage juice labels. I automatically started thinking about how I could use these in my kitchen. I decided to enlarge them, and make them prints to hang on a very bare wall. It took a bit of tweaking and playing in photoshop but I finally got them ready right before Christmas.

Of course my plate was a bit full so we waited until January to go to Ikea and get the picture frames. This is when we went in for 9 $2 picture frames and came out with a while bedroom (which I will finally reveal next week). I got pregnant right after this and the project went on the back burner. A few months ago, I finally came back around to finishing it in order to get the house completely ready.

See my tiny kitchen!!! It is a wonder I manage to bake in there.

Another small project was another picture to frame. If you have not heard of pinterest, then you are not living. It is a website where people pin ideas they find on the internet. The awesome thing is that you can see all these pins and flip through them for projects. One I kept coming back to was this print with important dates. With all these changes with the baby coming up, I want to remember that we are still a couple so I made it for us, with our important dates- Ben's bday, my bday, the day we met, the day we got engaged, and our anniversary. I have seen some where they put the anniversary in the middle in the color but I always think that our life together started the day we met.


There have been so many other small projects and organizational things that have happened around this house while we have been getting ready for this little guy, but none that are super interesting to post about. I was finally able to get Ben to get rid of a lot of junk. We have a dining room that was cleared out (only to be filled with baby stuff but that is what I expected). All our closets have been gone through, stuff thrown out or taken to goodwill and reorganized. One of my proudest moments is that I went through the stockpile of magazines that I had collected over the years, probably about 100 or more. I ripped out all the articles, categorized them and put them in a folder.

Sorry this was not more interesting. Next week I will post our bedroom reveal (FINALLY!!).

Weekly Update: 37 weeks

It is a big week for us. We are officially full term!!! I am 3 weeks from my due date but could go anytime and everything be okay. I am hoping that Pumpkin can hold out until October 1st, which is scary because that is only next weekend. I have a few birthdates that I would like for him but I am sure he will come on our anniversary which is exactly what I do not want. It seems like forever that I have been pregnant and yet it went by so fast. I am starting to get sentimental (I am sure my mom is laughing at that) about things being the last time we do them just the two of us. I am excited to meet the little guy but I am nervous about him integrating into our life (and vice versa).

How far along: 37 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: Duh!

Stretch marks: Still all clear here

Sleep: I sleep pretty good for the most part. There are a few additional trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the fact that getting out of bed is a chore in itself is uncomfortable. I am looking forward to the day when I can sleep on my stomach. The past few days I cannot get my mind to stop racing but that might be nothing and just from stuff that happened those days.

Best moment this week: I found out at my OB appointment that Pumpkin is head down. That makes me happy but I still know he could flip the wrong way again.

Movement: He moves a lot like usual. Lately the kicks (or punches or whatever) can be kind of painful. I know I gasped a few times yesterday and it scared Ben.

Food cravings: It is probably just the season and weather but I have been into anything pumpkin spice. I made cupcakes, hot chocolate, pancakes and ice cream in it this week.

Food aversions: None that I can think of

Gender: Boy!

Labor Signs: Nothing going on down there but my parents keep calling to check. We will see at my appointment on Wednesday if we have made any progress.

Belly Button in or out? I told you it would not budge and it is staying put

What I miss: I have either pulled a muscle or I get a cramp around my left hip when I do certain things and I am really over it. I could not even pull up my shorts without it hurting. Now it is happening in other areas. I swear this kid grew in the past few days and it is wearing me out and hurting my belly.

What I am looking forward to: I am looking forward to getting to meet our little guy. I feel like I know this baby in my belly but after he is born they are going to hand me this kid I don’t know. I am just having a hard time picturing life with him.

Weekly Wisdom: I am just trying to enjoy what might be our last weeks (heck it could be hours) without a little guy to worry about. This is making me nervous and sad!

Milestones: We are full term now!!! I think that is a pretty darn big milestone.

Measurements: Chest- same, Waist- +.5”, Hips- -1”, Circumference- same

So we did a plaster belly cast because I wanted to get a picture of him as a newborn cuddled up in it. Plus I was just curious about them and figured I wanted no regrets when this was all over. I am not going to show the whole thing because I just do not think it is very flattering but here you can see just how messy it got. We were both covered in splatters.

Also, here is a picture of the 1950s version of Ben and I at a "Mad Men" themed birthday party for a friend. Now if we wanted to be super authentic, I would have a drink and cigarette but I was not willing to go that far.