Baby furniture

Can I just say that the price of baby furniture is ridiculous!

Gliders just make you want to cry when you see the prices.  Dutailier gliders are some of the best there are and they're made in Canada (Quebec).  The problem is that all the other manufacturers make really inferior products full of defects.  I haven't found another glider that reclines and has an ottoman that is well reviewed and under $500.  Completely insane! 

Finally, I found the glider and ottoman I wanted at Costco for way cheaper than anywhere else.  It's about $300-$400 less.  Nice!  Now, I just have to find the stroller (Baby Jogger) and other stuff for cheap 'cause they're crazy expensive!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Costco can have amazing deals!

4 months have flown by

I’m now in Week 16.  It means that I get my anatomy scan in a mere 2 weeks…I’m so excited about that! 

Dre and I took another shot at emptying more of the office out yesterday.  I never really realized how much stuff we had in there.  Now, I have no idea where to put some of the stuff I want to keep like the printer, wrapping paper, or office supplies.  It’s a good thing I bought a huge plastic drawer unit some months ago.  I’ll probably stuff most of that stuff (minus the printer) in there, but I’m not sure where I should put the unit.  We’ve already put our massive 4-drawer filing cabinet in the closet of the guest bedroom so I don’t think I can stick it in there and there’s not space in our bedroom.  Maybe, I’ll just leave it in the closet of the baby room.

Dre and I are narrowing the choices down for the baby furniture.  I believe I’m going to go with an ebony (almost black) crib and white dresser and hope that works.  We’ve also decided that we want the Chicco Keyfit Infant Car Seat.  It’s a great seat and it’s really easy to take off the base whereas the Gracco Snugride which was our other choice is a pain to yank out of the base.  The only problem is that the Gracco has a million patterns while the Chicco barely has any.  I would just buy one in the States, but that is illegal for some unknown reason that only the government can figure out since we have pretty much the same transport/traffic laws as the states.  Also, they’re much cheaper in the States.  I guess that’s one thing I’ll have to find somewhere in Canada and hope I can get an OK price on it. 

The other thing is that I’m looking at gliders for the nursery.  Dutailier is a Quebec-based line that is very well-known and which basically makes the best gliders out there.  OMG, they are so expensive!  Maybe, they’d like my newborn in exchange too.   Of course their more “affordable” options have no extras that most people said they liked.  So I want a model that reclines…I could care less if it locks in place or not, but I want to be able to recline with a fussy baby.  That means that I’m looking in the $500-$600 range for the glider only with NO ottoman included.  Panic attack!  I’ve found one that Costco sells, but they seem to be out of the beige one and the other one is a beige and green corduroy fabric which is not great seeing as my nursery is arctic blue and my furniture will be black and white.  Ughhh!  Maybe, I’ll call them to see if they’ll be restocking this.

Week 15

16 weeks 2 days

So back to my favourite subject…the scale!  I’m a little obsessive about it.  So let’s say I started this pregnancy at 153 lbs.  I was on a weight loss diet at the time and my weight was going up and down so to make it easier on me to track I’m picking 153 as my starting weight.  So on Sunday, the scale said 160 and today it said 156…it’s possessed!  I’ll go with the Sunday weight since this is what I usually use for this blog so that makes my weight gain total to be 7 lbs.  Not bad.

Nausea has disappeared over the last week.  I haven’t had any in about 6 days so it might be gone for good finally!  However, my old friend Mr. Indigestion has come back with a vengeance and has brought Mrs. Heartburn along too.  Lovely!  I’ve also started to notice that I can’t stretch or twist sometimes without my uterus complaining.  I’ve also had some Round Ligament Pain.  It takes some getting used to the fact that my body can’t twist into the same positions that I used to just do without thinking twice about it.

Maternity clothes are definitely in and with the arrival of much cooler weather I’ve been thinking that I’ll need to go buy a few more pairs of work pants.  Stretch marks are nowhere to be seen and Dre is still faithfully rubbing my belly with belly butter every night to make sure that my skin is nice and moisturized.  I’m still getting up once a night to go pee…since that hasn’t gone away I think it’ll keep going until the baby gets here.

I haven’t had any labour signs, but I did have a really unpleasant pain in my right side on Saturday night that wouldn’t go away.  Those types of pains that I used to just ignore freak me out now since I usually don’t know what they mean.  Belly button is still about 1/4 to a 1/3 of the way out.

The best moment this week was going to look at baby stuff with Dre!  He didn’t even complain about me dragging him to baby stores just to go look at the stuff they have.

I’m really looking forward to my anatomy scan in 2 weeks.  After that I can start my baby registries and buying stuff for the little one.  Exciting!

Weekly wisdom this week is to beware of food!  It hates me so I can’t wait until I can eat normally again once the baby gets here. 

I should probably mention that Dre has taken to rubbing my belly to extremes.  He does it a lot!  He also kisses and talks to the baby a lot!  It’s really cute.  I just wanted to make sure that I’d remember this when I look back.

Baby this week is the size of an avocado!  Dre was very excited since he loves avocados.

Baby Room Ideas

Ok, so I'm a little torn about the baby's room.  Last time I was pregnant, I had everything picked out including the crib and dresser and now I've changed my mind about everything.  Blah!

This is the crib I originally wanted to use.  I still like it a lot, but it's American and I'd have to go to the States to pick it up to avoid crazy shipping fees to Canada.  That's not the end of the world though.

This is the Davinci Emily 4 in 1 Convertible Crib

I always planned on getting dark furniture for the nursery because that's what I like, but white has been growing on me lately.  Dre still dislikes white furniture though.  Also, I think white is adorable for a girl, but not really great for a boy.

So I went to visit one of my friends on Monday and they just replaced their daughters crib because her drop-side crib broke.  They got her this one...

Aldi Loft Crib

I love this crib.  It's so square and it just speaks to me for some reason. I also find it funny that my design tastes have really been changing and maturing in the last few years.  This crib style is totally not something I would have gone for before.

So anothre option is an IKEA crib.  They are so cheap which appeals to me.  They don't convert, but I figure we'll need to buy furniture for the kids at some point anyways.  I like this one...

IKEA Gulliver Crib

So now I have too many choices!  What to do?

Anyways, I found this dresser I LOVE at IKEA and it only comes in white.  It's also much cheaper than the one that matches the crib above. It's this dresser...

IKEA Birkland 3-drawer dresser

So the options I have are to have a white dresser and an ebony crib and work that into my decor or just get white baby furniture.  I'm so torn!

I haven't even started trying to look for a glider or bed set yet.  My mom just told me she wants to pay for my glider which is really nice of her!  My parents bought all the baby furniture for my 2 nieces, but since my Dad died my mom doesn't have that much money to spare so she's been feeling guilty that she's not buying the baby furniture. 

Anyways, I just wanted to put all my options down so I could look at them another day and debate colors and styles! 

Week 15 is here

I can’t believe I’ve reached Week 15! 

Dre and I are really starting to organize and empty out the office so that I can’t turn it into the baby’s room.  Once we know if we’re having a boy or a girl then I can start planning décor and all that stuff. 

We’re also starting to seriously look at the nursery furniture.  I found the dresser I want at IKEA.  The only thing is that the dresser is white and I was planning on a cherry or ebony crib.  So either I change the crib color or I incorporate different furniture colors in my design.  Anyways, I think I’ll make a post soon about the options I have running through my head.  Since we have to order the furniture soon, we don’t have that much time to think about it left.

So after thinking about it, Dre and I decided to start stocking up on organic disposable diapers when they’re on sale since the organic ones are so much more expensive than everything else.  For now, we’re going with the Huggies Care & Nature (or something like that) since they have less dyes and chemicals in their diapers.  This is also the kind that my CD friend uses when she puts her daughter in disposables.

I had an appointment with my doctor this Monday.  Everything was great!  Baby’s HB on Doppler was very strong and he kept kicking the crap out of the Doppler...so funny!  She also gave me the order to schedule my Anatomy U/S next month.  I’m scheduled for it on September 13^th…I cannot wait since we’re going to be finding out if it’s a boy or a girl then!  This is all so exciting!

Week 14

15 weeks 3 days

I definitely have a noticeable bump all the time now.  In some clothes, I look really pregnant.

I think my scale is on crack, but that’s ok.  This week it has me as gaining 5 lbs, but since I lost 2-3 lbs. at the beginning that puts me at 2-3 gain overall so it’s not too bad and when I mentioned this to the doctor she didn’t seem concerned at all.  I’m still doing Body Pump for now since I can still lie on my back until I’m 20 weeks, but I’ll have to stop in 4.5 wks even though my gym membership won’t have expired yet by then. 

Nausea is still lurking around.  Mostly, it comes when I’m at work which reinforces my belief that the baby’s just allergic to work.  I’ve had massively bad heartburn for the first time this week.  I’ve always suffered from indigestion so I’m used to that.  I’m not really used to having acid burn up my throat! 

I’m definitely wearing almost all maternity clothes by now.  I don’t fit in any of my pre-pregnancy clothes.  Stretch marks are still staying far, far away which makes me really glad!  I’m still waking up once a night, every night.

I think my best moment this week was my doctor’s appointment.  I love those because they reassure me that everything is ok and I get to ask tons of questions.  

We still don’t know baby’s gender, but we’re anxiously waiting to find out.  There’s been no labor signs which is a very good thing.  My belly button is actually about ¼ of the way out already.  Crazy, eh? 

I’m looking forward to finally looking really pregnant so I don’t keep getting sideways glances as if I’ve been eating boxes of ho-hos or something.  

So my weekly wisdom this week is that you should enjoy every moment of pregnancy even when it makes you feel like crap because pretty soon the baby’ll be here and it’s going to be a different ballgame!

This week the baby is the size of a navel orange which is huge!  He’s growing so fast!

Stuff, stuff, and stuff

Yup, I stole this from Google Images. 

Lately, I’ve had a major shortage on things to write for this blog.  I’ve never been the blog every day type, but I can usually do better than this.  It just doesn’t seem as if very much is happening in my life right now.  

I just spend my time making lists of things I need to do soon because time is going by fast and February is going to be here before we know it.  I just realized that I need to order the baby furniture ASAP if I want to be able to pick it up in September.  So, Dre and I need to break out the tape measure this weekend and measure the office to make sure that everything we want to get will fit and not look too crowded.

Dre’s parents are supposed to come down for the weekend.  We’re planning on spending Saturday at the beach with the in-laws and maybe go walking at a park for Sunday morning.  On top of that, Dre and I want to have some friends over for some drinks and munchies.  I’m not sure if one of the couples can make it yet, but that should be fun.  I wonder if I’ll make it to Sunday though…I might be too exhausted to get up by then.  

Of course after the weekend, it will be Monday!  And on Monday, I have a doctor’s appointment!  I love those because I get to hear baby’s HB, ask a million questions, and get to schedule my Anatomy u/s where we will hopefully find out baby’s gender.  Yeah!  I can’t wait!  On the downside, my boss just told me he’s taking next week off which means that I’ll be slammed at work all week.  Booh!

So that’s pretty much what’s going on in our lives right now.  I’m working some overtime every day to make up for the fact that I’m taking all my Fridays off this summer and going to doctor’s appointment every 4 weeks.  This makes for very long days without too much to do.

In other news, I got on the scale this morning and the POS told me I weighed 158.4 lbs.  That would be a 7 lb. gain in 10 days and a 5 lbs gain from my pre-pregnancy weight.  How is that even possible?  I’m not eating everything I see…I swear!  So, either my scale is broken (maybe I should replace the batteries, but I’ll have to re-mortgage the house to afford the batteries this thing needs) or I’m putting on serious muscle weight from my Body Pump class twice a week.  I know I’ve been getting stronger since I’m lifting slightly more for it, but I really didn’t think it would affect my weight quite this drastically.  I wonder what the doctor will have to say about this oneJ 

Week 14

Welcome to Week 14!  I can’t believe I’ve reached 14 weeks…it just seems to have gone by horribly slowly and really quickly all at onceJ  In just 26 weeks this baby is due!  

People keep telling us not to wait until the last minute to do and buy everything, but I find even making a list of what we need a daunting task.  Another thing I’ve seen on TB is to start buying essentials now a little at a time.  That’s a really good idea, but I don’t know if CD is going to totally suck and I’ll quit and need tons of diapers.  I don’t know if I want to use disposable wipes or make my own.  Ughh! 

I do know that I want to start the baby in disposables.  Yes, I’ve read all about the nasty chemicals that are in those, but I don’t want to buy Newborn sized CD.  Also, if I end up with a big baby (my mom only had big babies) then I’ll have a stash of newborn diapers that the baby will use for like 2 weeks.  Blah!  So I’ll probably buy 2-3 newborn diapers to practice with and then just buy CD for 15lbs babies and up either in One-Size or Sized.  Don’t even get me started on the array of CD out there.  I’ve read a gazillion blogs about them and I’m still confused which is mostly because mom’s opinions of diapers seem to be very subjective.  So I’m back to the question of what kind of disposables should I buy for my newborn?  Expensive Organic Brands?  Cheap Kirkland brand?  Pampers?  Pamper Natural?  So confused!

Anyways, Dre and I have started doing the filing that we just let accumulate in the office usually.  Once that’s done, we’re going to be going through the boxes in the office and clearing out the closet.  I’m going to have to decide what to do with several pieces of furniture that I “could” use in the baby’s room, but will be the wrong color (furniture is pine colored and I’m getting ebony baby furniture).  We’ll obviously take down the computer desk and give that away, but what to do with the futon?  Obviously, I’m not giving it away because it was really expensive, but maybe we should put it in the basement now instead of in the baby’s room.   If we do that, it’s going where all of Dre’s workout bench and gear is in the basement.  Also, I’ll have to decide what to do with my wedding dress.  It’s been 2.5 years and it’s still hanging in the closet.  I haven’t even had it dry cleaned!  I LOVE that dress and I don’t know if I can bear to part with it, but should I pay $200-300 to get it cleaned and boxed?  Really?

Maybe we should just buy a bigger houseJ.  For some reason Dre didn’t think that was a good solution…

That’s what has been going on in our house in the last week. 

13 Weeks

14 Weeks 2 Days

Baby’s HB on Doppler has been good this week…hovering between 160-170 BPM.  It’s also been much easier to find on Doppler than when I first started.  I got on the scale this morning and I swear it’s broken or defective.  Damn thing insists I gained 5 lbs in the last week. Really!  Hmmmm, I think not!  Either my scale is broken or I’m also putting on muscle weight from my Body Pump class.

Nausea was well and alive all last week and then on Thursday it miraculously disappeared for the whole weekend just to make a timely reappearance this morning.  I think I’m allergic to work and getting up early.  That’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it!  Indigestion is mostly gone and when it does surface drinking some fresh ginger tea, flat Ginger Ale, or chewing gum usually clears it up.

Since realizing that my bloated self will never fit into any of my fall coats, I bought a nice raincoat at Costco for pretty cheap.  I got a large and I’m not sure that will fit through all of the fall, but I tried on the XL coat and it looked like I stole my mom’s coat and was trying to play dress up.  Bad look!  I’m also already sick of trying to figure out what to wear for work.  Friends from work came and are coming to my rescue though!  One friend gave me 4 bags full of clothes and another friend who is my size and height is supposed to lend me some of her stuff.  That is going to help me out a ton!

This week, I’ve woken up 1-3 times a night to pee.  Lovely times!  In other news, 4 more weeks before we can officially have out anatomy scan and hopefully find if it’s a girl or a boy.  We’re really excited about this!  No stretch marks in sight and I wish for them to stay far, far away. 

Overall, most pregnancy symptoms have either totally disappeared or gotten much better over the last few weeks.  Hurray! 

Also, I know I’ve been pretty lazy about posting lately.  I think it’s because I’ve been pretty lazy with most things in my life in the last few months.  I’m hoping to start posting a lot more regularly now that I’m feeling better. 

2nd Trimester has arrived...finally!

I’m going to skip Week 12 since I didn’t take a picture and was on vacation and feeling pretty good.

Here we are in Week 13…the official start of the 2^nd trimester!  Yeah, we've made it! 



Week 11



Week 13 and 2 days
I actually seem bigger in my 11 week picture.  I think it's because I was either standing straighter than yesterday or I was more bloated.

Here's a picture of my belly without clothes.  I wasn't sure if I was going to post these, but since I have them why not.  I probably won't post these every week...just every now and then.

Definitely blubbery looking.  Can't wait till my tummy gets all hard and "pops".

At the end of last week just before we came back from our vacation, I posted my “I’ve contracted pregnancy” picture on my Facebook. 

That was fun!  That means that I’m officially out to the world.  The idea gives me panic attacks and hives because of my experience with the last miscarriage.  While I know that at this point I have less than a 2-3% chance of a miscarriage, I also know that anything could happen so I have to keep doing deep breathing exercises and run to get my Doppler every other minute to check that the baby is still there.  Yes, I know that makes me extremely neurotic and paranoid, but that’s how I’m coping. 

I did buy a Doppler while away on vacation.  I got the Hibebe 2 Mghz Doppler.  Love it!  Since I have a retroverted uterus, it’s a little hard to get the HB and hold it so that I get an accurate reading of the HB, but I can definitely find it.  Of course, Dre thinks that the baby is running away from the sound waves and thinks we should leave it alone more often and not listen too much.  Blah!  I’m too paranoid for that!

Anyways, back to my 13^th week stuff.  The scale yesterday said that I was still holding at a 2 lbs loss overall.  I find this hard to believe because I ate like a pig while on vacation and definitely watched zero of the stuff I ate.  Maybe, I’ll change the batteries in my scale.  I expect to start putting on 1-2 lbs a week from now on and I’m going to have to start counting my calories to make sure I’m getting between 2100-2300 calories per day if my weight doesn’t start to go up by next week.

Nausea has been blessedly absent for all of my 10 day vacation and on Sunday it reappeared.  I thought that it might just be because I was in the car a lot on Sunday, but then I had it all day yesterday, Monday, and today it’s been coming and going and I almost threw up on my couch this morning…fun times!  I thought m/s was supposed to go away and stay gone by the 2^nd trimester.  Blah!  If it keeps up, I’m going to start taking Diclactin when I go to bed so that it heads off the m/s in the morning.  The indigestion stuff is mostly gone, but I’m now drinking flat Ginger Ale with most of my meals to make sure that it stays gone.

I’m still in skirts and dresses for work along with my one, lonely pair of maternity capris.  I’ve also just realized that there’s no way my pregnancy self is going to fit into my nice, snazzy fall coat and much less any of my dressy winter coats.  This is why it’s more expensive to have a baby in the winter than the summer. In the summer, we don’t tend to wear all that many clothes anyways.  So, I’m thinking about buying a fall coat I saw at Costco last month in a bigger size.  For the winter coat, I have one ski jacket that is quite roomy and will most likely fit until the end, but it also happens to be my light winter coat which is not very warm at all.  Who knows, I might just steal Dre’s winter coat and get him to buy himself a new one.

No stretch marks in sight.  Sunburn and subsequent fun, peeling skin are gone.  My SPF 60 protected me really well on vacation, but I didn’t get a chance to test it in water and at the beach. 

Still waking up once a night, every night to go and pee, but I just read that as my uterus migrates upwards that that should stop until the 3^rd trimester.  Can’t wait!  Also, there’s 5 more weeks until we know if we’re having a little girl or a little boy and then I can start picking out baby names.  So exciting!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on here before, but the reason I started this blog and want to record every week of pregnancy is so that I have something to look at down the road and something to show my children when they want to know how my pregnancy went and what they were like as kids.  They won’t get the faded memories related through the rose colored glasses that time brings, but instead they’ll be able to read exactly what I thought and felt like at a specific moment in time.  I would love to have that from my mom now.  Whenever, I ask her about her pregnancies I get random crazy stuff like she could feel the baby moving at 12 weeks for her first one…right!  I call that pregnancy amnesia!  Don’t worry; I won’t be scarring my kids with my descriptions of morning sickness until they’re adultsJ

Tomorrow, I think I’ll post about our trip and put up a few pictures of our trip…

I'm Back!

I'm sure you were all wondering if I had died or something since I disappeared without a word...but I'm back!!!

I got wrapped up in packing for the trip and totally forgot to put up my Goodbye!  I'm on vacation! post.

I did think I might post during my trip, but lack of access to a computer and my iPhone deciding that it didn't like connecting to the 3G network conspired to keep me from posting.  Anyways, I'll post all about the vaca and stuff later on today or tomorrow.

Bye now...