28 weeks

Starting to feel heavy. Sleeping lots and getting kicked a bunch. Baby just started doing a bunch of this head/butt pressing into the front of my belly about 2-3 inches above my belly button. No signs of an outie belly button to come yet. Less than 12 weeks until my due date now! I'm getting super excited!

Having lots of fun nesting, although I'm starting to run out of things to do! As soon as we get back from Nevada on the 16th, we'll be putting up pictures, shelves and decals. Super excited!!!!

Organized the top of the dresser. Look back a few posts to see what it looked like before. Second pic, me in a dress I wore non pregnant 3 summers ago. Still fits with a bit of growing room!

How your baby's growing:

By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. I guess I haven't been reading very well lately since last I remember, baby was like 1.5lbs... over 2lbs of baby. That's unreal to me! She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. Flashlights on the belly... must try that!! She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

You're in the home stretch! The third and final trimester starts this week. 2 down, 1 to go and this is the one that starts to get uncomfortable too :( If you're like most women, you'll gain about 11 pounds this trimester. It will probably be more for me but I'm not concerned.

At this point, you'll likely visit your doctor or midwife every two weeks. Then, at 36 weeks, you'll switch to weekly visits. Depending on your risk factors, your practitioner may recommend repeating blood tests for HIV and syphilis now, as well as doing cultures for chlamydia and gonorrhea, to be certain of your status before delivery. Probably gonna request retesting just to be sure, because there are some procedures after birth that I would rather not have done to baby and just retesting for these would reassure me that there's not problems. Also, if your glucose screening test result was high and you haven't yet had follow-up testing, you'll soon be given the 3-hour glucose tolerance test. My glucose levels in Canadian terms were 5.7 which in American terms is like... 103. I think that's within what they want you to be. That orange drink was NASTY!

Around this time, some women feel an unpleasant "creepy-crawly" sensation in their lower legs and an irresistible urge to move them while trying to relax or sleep. If this sensation is at least temporarily relieved when you move, you may have what's known as restless legs syndrome (RLS). No one knows for sure what causes RLS, but it's relatively common among expectant mothers. Try stretching or massaging your legs, and cut down on caffeine, which can make the symptoms worse. Ask your caregiver if you should try iron supplements, which can sometimes relieve RLS. KMFX no RLS. I don't need more problems.

Photo Bomb:

gonna go on the wall like scrabble tiles... cheap paper cut in squares and stencils with sharpie

vowels in turquoise and consonants in green

car seat box covered in fleece blanket to make it look prettier for now :)

car seat in our old snap n go. hoping we'll get our expensive stroller before 

baby comes but this buys us a bit of time if we can't

left side, patterned diapers; right side, plain colours

left side, NB pockets; right side, NB covers

best bottom inserts and pocket inserts

left side, kushies diapers; right side, all covers bigger than NB

fitted diapers

Car seat and nursery progress

Nursery Idea

Given these top two pictures with dimensions of the room and what furniture is there so far, as well as the fact that we wanted the crib on the green wall (shown as the bottom wall) and away from the heater with the window above it, a friend on my facebook came up with the bottom three as ideas for us! Isn't she so clever and artistic! 

If I could do it all over again...

...I'd make the nursery dalmations (or zebra) themed with red, white and black as the colours. It would really stimulate baby as a newborn :)

Stim items I'm LOVING right now (click to see item on amazon):

I found this on CL and the lady will sell it to me for $10 (worth $30 here). So excited!

Holiday Monday

Busy day today! I picked up 2 pairs of maternity pants for $10 total as well as 15 pairs of socks, 11 soft caps, 3 pairs of booties and 1 pair of shoes for $3 total.

baby's closet. we finally cleared out most of the random crap to make room for baby's stuff. we'll have closet doors within 2 weeks.

crib against the green wall. we'll put a rocker or glider in the corner near the heater

change table dresser. to the right is the tall dresser from the first pic and the closet

newborn gown I made today :) not such great sewing but it's functional and I followed a pattern.

The going-ons.... goings-on?

Wishing that I looked a bit more pregnant. I saw a bunch of people this week that I don't often see. Not one of them knew I was pregnant before I told them. What a bummer. C'mon guys, I promise I'm not this fat otherwise... :( Oh well, I'll get there. Let's hope baby has a major growth spurt in the next 3 weeks because I've got another one of those "see people I don't often see" type days coming up :) I'd like for someone who never sees me to know I'm pregnant.

Baby is quite the wiggler now... I'm feeling movements every day and usually at least 5 separate occasions in a day. The exception is if I have a more lazy day, I feel them more often and when I have a super busy day, I feel them less. Movements have severely started up at night time lately... lol

Made 2 registries this week. Got a bunch of free goodies from them, which is cool. BRU gave a bag of items and it contained a playtex drop-ins bottle (now I have 2 to try before opening my sets) as well as a pampers (huggies? idk) NB diaper! It's so TINY!!!! There were many more things too but those were the most exciting things to me. Didn't register for anything really exciting though.

We did a cloth diaper workshop this weekend as well. Didn't learn a lot but got some questions answered and saw some more brands of diapers in person.

The dog was playing fetch with a timbit (aka donut hole) today. It was HILARIOUS!!

Fetching/eating

Aaaaand the big news of the week, we moved a bunch of crap around and painted some stuff. Click the pictures to see them bigger.

FROM MAY 13TH

Cube shelves with storage/view from door

view from window/pack n play and random other things

FROM MAY 20TH

new computer area/hubby setting up crib

CRIB with bedding (not washed yet but we'll wash in august/sept)

painted green wall (in natural light it's less reflecty and the blue on the other walls come out more)/stuffed animal net

And right now I'm having my bladder used as a trampoline, so I'm going to head off to bed and see if laying flat stops this lol.

Nursery Art

So my friend M had a friend of hers make this for the nursery! Isn't it adorable? I'll have to wait and see if I actually get it or if she decides to keep it for her daughter, lol. I think she might be having the lady make some others for her cuz she just loves it so much!

Deals, nesting and doctor

Jackpot on deals for me lately. Below are my 43 microfiber inserts for various diapers (I'll use as doublers for nighttime too), which I paid $10 for. I literally paid about $0.23 for each one. I've seen people selling them for $1.50 to $2.00 each and even more online lately.

The picture below shows my newly acquired 50 burp cloths/receiving blankets. I plan on sewing them into things. For example, I can serge 8x8 squares together (in 2 or 3 layers) to make cloth wipes, I can use some of the bigger ones as flat diapers for the baby while he/she is a newborn, I can sew a few together with some velcro maybe to make a couple swaddles (at $20 each brand new that's ridiculous) or I can make scrappy pants by sewing strips together and then cutting a pants pattern out of the sewn strips to make pants with random patterns in strips all over them. I'm sure there's lots more things to sew out of them but the point is I got a great deal paying $14 for 50 ($0.28 each).

And my last deal is below. it is a 36 inch square mirror worth $90 that DH and I won at a silent auction for $5. For now it's going to stay in the baby room and we'll lean against the wall or lay on the floor for baby to look at while he/she is stationary and then when he/she is mobile, we'll put it on our bedroom wall and bring in a white framed floor length mirror from our bedroom to mount on the baby's wall.

This here is a deal I got a long time ago. It's an old old style snap and go that so far works with a graco carseat. Hopefully we'll get our stroller we want before the baby is born but even if we don't we'll have a stroller frame to use until we get it :) Then when we get our stroller, we'll give the frame away to someone for free, just like we were given it for free and the people before us were given it for free. I'll post more about the stroller we want another time.

As for my nesting, well I came home from buying the inserts this morning and folded the 25 blankets that weren't folded, took some tags off things, sorted clothes and most of the other baby things.

Left: folded burp cloths 2 rows deep

Right: diaper inserts

Left: random freebies (wash cloths, changing pad, toddler feeding set), wall art, soothers

Right: baby pool floatie, nestle diaper bag, bedding

Left: organized coupons and random baby papers

Right: formula freebies that don't expire for a long time after baby is born. I'll donate at least 2 to the food bank or women's shelter once breastfeeding is established.

Left: ikea plastic bag holder (will probably use as a wipes holder)

Right: our 6 freebie avent NB bottles with breast pads

And last but not least (well, I'll probably be back later today so it's not really last lol), my doctor's appointment: CANCELLED. *sad face* The doctor's office cancelled this morning because the Dr. got called in to labour and delivery to deliver someone's baby :) I hope everything is alright with the mom and baby :) and I'll go back next thursday for my appointment instead.