Shopping Frenzy

Dre and I went to visit my aunt and uncle for the weekend partly because I hadn’t seen them in a while and partly to shop for baby stuff.

We had amazing food while we were there and I ate way too much. 

On Saturday, Dre and I ventured out by ourselves to visit all the baby/maternity stores we could think of.  Dre planned the route out…it was really cute.

We stopped at the Carter’s baby clothes outlet first.  My aunt had given us a coupon they had that was for 20% off your order and when we went everything in the store was 50% off!  We got $200 worth of baby clothes for $60!  Score!  We quickly glanced at the Osh K Osh and Gymboree outlets, but they mainly focus on outfits for kids and I personally don’t think that babies wear that many clothes in the first 6 months.  

Then we headed for Best Buy to check out their video cameras.  They had a few good ones, but Dre and I decided to wait until after Christmas sales and see if we still want to get one then.  I think that filming with our iPhones will work as well.  Up next we stopped at Old Navy.  Yes, we have Old Navy here in Canada, but all the stores that have maternity lines in the states don’t have them in Canada.  So for $50, I got leggings, 2 sweaters, and 3 undershirts.  That would have cost me $200 over here at our maternity store. 

After that, I was starving so we stopped at this little pizza joint which had the best pizza EVER!  It was thin crusted pizza which I don’t usually like, but it was amazing.  Then we headed over to this consignment store my uncle had mentioned.  I’ve had bad luck with consignment stores.  I find them crowded and they make me claustrophobic.  This one was gold though!  We got 10 sleepers and 10 onesies for $30.  Some of the PJs still had the original tags on it.

After that, we went to Baby R Us.  I hate the Baby R Us in Burlington, VT!  It’s worse than the one over here!  This Toys R Us apparently decided that baby stuff didn’t sell and used 80% of the store for toys and the 20% that had baby stuff was crammed full.  We couldn’t find everything we were looking for, but we still saved money compared to how much stuff costs in our BRU.  They didn’t really have any good sales either.  Dre had also decided that he wasn’t waiting on IKEA to stock our crib anymore so he wanted to get one while we were down there since they’re cheaper in the US.  We needed one that was in stock though.  So BRU had a total of 6 cribs jammed together and setup (ours has at least 12 setup).  After seeing that, we paid for our stuff using about 10 gift cards (the cashier LOVED me) and decided to keep going.  

We made a brief stop at Walmart.  We found out that Walmart sells the Bumbo for $20 cheaper than BRU, but there was no way in hell that I was going back into that BRU to get a refund so we just kept the one we’d gotten.  I found a larger winter coat that didn’t make me look like a homeless person there for $20. Didn’t find anything else here.

Our last stop was at this baby boutique we’d visited the last time we were in Vermont.  They have great stuff, but it’s a little expensive since it’s geared towards the higher end stuff.  I started looking at their cribs and was getting discouraged because all they had were Pali cribs (which are actually really good cribs, but too expensive for me) that would take 12 weeks to order.  Then I found our crib!  The floor model was white, but it said it came in dark brown too so Dre goes and asks the sales lady if they have it in stock and they actually did in the dark color!  How perfect is that?

So we found everything we needed, we spent a small fortune this weekend, and getting through customs with all the stuff was a breeze which is not what I’d expected.  

On the way back home, we stopped at a BRU to get the crib bedding set we like.  It was on special in the Canadian stores this weekend only.  At the same time, we picked up almost everything else we needed and returned the 4 items I got in double at my shower.  

After all of that, I don’t think Dre ever wants to see a BRU again!  I might have to bring my SIL with me when I go visit a few of the specialty boutiques we have in town to get the last few knick knacks that I haven’t found anywhere else.

Our trip was a definite success!

Week 29

The weeks seem to be blending together now.  I’m really glad that they’re going by, but I seem to be focusing a lot more on the fact that I still have 11 weeks left and OMG I am uncomfortable most of the time!

When baby boy flipped to a head down position last Monday, he landed head down in my right hip and pressing on the ligament that goes under the uterus.  SO MUCH PAIN!  Dre likes to tell me unhelpful stuff like, “Move slowly.”  Doesn’t really matter how slow or fast I move since any movement aggravates the ligament and causes me pain.   Thankfully, this weekend baby boy decided that my hip sucked and has shifted over slightly.  It’s amazing to be able to move without pain!  He does flip flop back and forth between digging into my hip and being in a better position.  I’m really hoping that he doesn’t decide he likes my hip too much because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to walk if he keeps getting bigger and heavier and pressing on that particular spot.

This weekend we went to visit some of my relatives in Vermont which meant we were just in time to participate in some of the awesome Black Friday deals.  I’ll write about all the awesome stuff Dre and I found while we were over there later on.  I just want to mention that we did end up buying a crib.  We got it from a Baby Boutique store so we paid a little more than if we’d bought it from Amazon.com or Baby R Us, but we wanted a particular style of crib for a reasonable price and we needed it to be in stock since we were only in the States for the weekend.  On this side of the border, cribs are consistently at least $200 over the US prices.  Overall, we ended up paying a lot less for that crib than if we’d bought it over here. 

Let’s talk about my weight.  I guess that baby boy is really concentrating on putting on weight because mine has been climbing very steadily in the last few weeks.  I’ve also had a lot of problems with the slow down of my digestive system which means that I tend to be constipated a lot.  I guess I’ll have to start eating prunes or something to keep things regular.

Week 28

Week 29

My average weight this week is 173.3 lbs. which is a 1.3 lb gain over the last week.  My total weight gain so far is 20.3 lbs.  That’s pretty reasonable so I’m happy.  I didn’t have Saturday’s weight in there and next week won’t have Sunday’s weight in there since my aunt does not have a scale at her house.  Overall, it really won’t change anything.

I’ve started taking my Zantac a little more regularly to combat against the heartburn and acid reflux that 90% of food seems to give me.  This weekend I noticed that I really can’t eat as much as I used to.  It seems like I fill up so fast now.  On Friday night shortly after I’d gone to sleep I woke up throwing up in my mouth.  This was not the little acid coming back up which is annoying.  This was so much acid coming back up that I was afraid to get back into bed after I got up to rinse my mouth.  By that time, Dre had woken up and he insisted I take a Zantac.  I also took a Tums.  I couldn’t lie down in bed though.  Every time I lied back I could feel the acid coming back up and being really close to throwing up.  I had to go back to sleep sitting up propped by 3 pillows. I had been sleeping on 2 pillows when this happened.  That was so much fun that on Saturday I took my 2 prescribed Zantac to make sure that it didn’t happen again the next night.

I’ve only had one BH this week.  Like I mentioned above the ligament pain is pretty bad, but right now baby boy is not resting on it so I’m good.  No other stretch marks to report.  My belly button is almost completely flat though!  I’ve thought that I would have an outie by Week 20 since the beginning because my belly button started getting so much shallower so early, but for now it’s still an innie.

Sciatic pain and leg pain have vanished for now. 

I’m really looking forward to setting up the crib and arranging the baby room.  We’re still missing the dresser which we’ll get around Dec. 7^th, but apart from that we have almost everything else we need.  The only thing I still need to order is the wall decal for the baby’s room and to do that Dre and I have to figure out the name since most of the decals have the baby’s name on them.  Also, I’m decorating the house for the holidays next weekend which is huge deal for me since I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Christmas!

Baby is the size of a squash!  Yay!  He’s getting so big!

Hospital Bag, Baby Classes, and Hospital Tours...Oh My!

Dre still wants to pack a hospital bag and keeps reminding me of this.

However my hospital bag is still not packed because I like to procrastinate.  I’ll probably be yelling the list to Dre as I go into labor instead of packing it early and having it in the car.  I’m sure he’ll love that!  I just can’t seem to find the energy to think of what needs to be in that bag and then actually pack it.

Dre has also decided to start obsessing about what happens if I go into labor while I’m at work.  It’s cute because I’ve been worried about that, but I didn’t know that he’d even thought about the possibility since I’ve never mentioned it to him.  He hasn’t seemed too worried about the labor part up until now.  When I asked him what he would do if there was a snowstorm when I go into labor, his answer was to gleefully rub his hands together and say “4 wheel drive.  Oh yeah!”  Men are so weird sometimes.

By the way, I have no idea what I’ll do if I go into labor at work since I take the bus to work and most of the people who drive into work are not people I want around me when I’m in pain.  I’ll figure it out eventually.

We had the 1^st of 4 baby classes last night.  While it gave tons of useful information, the teacher (a registered nurse, lactation consultant, and doula) was the most boring person ever.  She read the slides and played videos without really getting our input about different things.  They went over a lot of the labor stuff and showed us this video of the baby’s head descending into the cervix and dilating the cervix about 8 or 9 times.  We also got to see several videos of women having the babies.  It was a little scaring.  I know what happens during labor, but I guess I don’t really want to see it in that much detail so I don’t freak myself out too much.  I’d rather get the tools I need to successfully handle pain and breastfeed.

We’ll have to see if these classes get more interesting in the coming weeks.  It’s disappointing because the 1^st series of 3 classes had such an awesome nurse as a teacher.   Another disappointing thing is that they don’t actually let your tour the hospital’s (the course is in the hospital) labor and delivery floor.  That is just so weird!  Instead we have to attend an Information Night where they’ll show up pictures of the rooms and all that.  Ughhhhh!  I deal better with things when they aren’t unknown and not having seen where I’ll end up really won’t help my anxiety and stress levels.  Apparently the all-knowing hospital staff can’t figure out that pregnant women (especially first time moms) might have a lot of anxiety and stress.  

I’m off to get reimbursed for my yoga classes that I’m missing because of the baby classes also being on Tuesdays.  Wish me luck!

All is Good!

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday.  This was my last monthly visit.  From now on, I see her every other week until 36 weeks and then every week.  So she had me schedule all of my remaining appointments until she goes on maternity leave. 

***Side note, she’s pregnant and due 7 days after me.  She’s working until I’m 36 weeks and then my care is being transferred to her OB.  Have never met this OB so I hope I like her since I think it’s too late to find a new one at 37 weeks which is when I’ll meet her.***

I am going to be seeing my doctor a lot in the next 2 months!  It’s funny because I feel like I really don’t have many questions for her anymore.  She just measures my uterus height and listen’s to baby’s heart and then we’re done.  Uterus was measuring at 29 cm yesterday.  Normally at 28 weeks you would expect me to measure 28 cm, but doctors aren’t too concerned by a +/-2 cm variance. 

She also poked all around my uterus trying to figure out where baby’s head was.  She thinks he’s head down.  He hasn’t been until yesterday though.  He did this major flip and exercise routine midday yesterday and I guess he decide to get in place.  That’s good because I didn’t want him staying breech.  I know he could flip back around just as easily since he still has quite a bit of room to move right now, but he doesn’t do the big major somersaults very often so we’ll see.

I did pass my gestational diabetes test with no problems.  The CBC panel run on the extra blood drawn didn’t show anything bad and it showed that I’m not anemic.  Yay!  No extra iron pills for me.

I did have to pee in a cup yesterday.  This isn’t exactly news since they make you pee in the damn cup every time you go to the office when you’re pregnant.  I’ve recently noticed that I cannot see my lady bits anymore which makes peeing in a small container is really, really hard.  It’s hard to aim for something that you can barely see!  I have no idea what I’ll do at the end since I won’t be able to see anything by then.  I ended up peeing all over that damn container.  It’s a good thing that the nurses wear gloves!

So everything is going well.  Next appointment is coming up in just 2 weeks!

Week 28

In the news today, I PASSED MY GD TEST!  Oh yeah!  Since there was no way in hell that I was taking that 3 hour test with multiple blood draws, this is a very, very good thing.

I also didn’t make it to IKEA last Wednesday.  SIL and I just didn’t feel like driving to the store.  I’m so lazy during the week.  It would have been good to go and get the dresser though since I had my baby shower on Saturday.  Now I have a room full of stuff and nowhere to put it.  My mom who LOVES to clean and organize has decided that all the baby stuff simply can’t lie around until I get to it so she hung everything up and started organizing it.  She also decided my kitchen floor was dirty and hand scrubbed it.  Meh!  I don’t really care since I was never going to get on my knees to wash it anyways.  Now it’s all nice, sparkly, and clean.

Dre and I start the second part of our baby classes this week.  It’s so exciting because we get to tour the hospital and have discussions about that particular hospital’s ideas on labour and delivery.  I’m sure Dre is less excited than me, but since he’s really obsessed with my belly he gets to come and learn all about breastfeeding and pushing a watermelon out of a donut hole.  I’m sure this will not scar him at all!  Hehe! 

Dre probably kisses my belly more than he kisses me.  The man has a serious obsession with babies!  It’s very cute though.  He’s started playing classical music to the baby at night which is fine with me.  I refuse to play music and put headphones on my belly though.  I don’t want to scare the little guy to death when his nice quiet, floaty environment is invaded by this crazy orchestra music.

Whoa, weight gain!  This week played havoc on my weight.  I started to freak out a little, but I realized that I’ve been constipated.  I’m not someone who tracks whether or not I’ve pooed on a particular day.  Because of that it usually takes me a while to realize that I’m constipated and maybe I should eat something to get me all cleared up.  The problem is that the most effective things for me are green tea or coffee which are things I’m trying not to drink while pregnant.  Green tea because it blocks the absorption of folic acid into your system and caffeine because I think that giving the baby caffeine jolts every day is stressful to his tiny body.  I’ve limited my caffeine to chocolate because there is no way I’m giving up chocolate.  No way!  Want to know how I got rid of Mr. Constipation?  Popcorn!  That’s right, I went to see Breaking Dawn with SIL and I had a huge bag of popcorn.  I’m addicted to movie theatre popcorn…yes, I’m aware that it’s about a million calories and 12 times my daily salt intake, but do you know what else popcorn has?  Fiber!  So next time I’m all stopped up, I’m going to see a movie and eating my body weight in popcorn!

Week 27

Week 28

So my average weight this week is 172.0 lbs.  Yeah, that would be a 2.7 lbs gain in one week!  Lovely!  The baby is either packing on the weight or my poo weighs a lot.  My total weight gain so far is 19 lbs in 28 weeks.  Hopefully, baby boy doesn’t decide to add almost 3 lbs of weight to mommy’s butt every week or I’ll be rolling into the hospital at 40 weeks. 

Heartburn, acid reflux, and indigestion like to hang around.  I figure it’s because the baby has started taking up so much space.  I just need to get the hang of eating less at meals and snacking more often.  Easier said than done.

No BH in sight.  Instead I have this weird pain in my pelvis.  Doctor says it’s ligament pain so most likely round ligament pain (RLP).  It hurts a lot more than the ligament pain I had in the 1^st trimester.  I still only have one stretch mark and my goal is to make sure he stays an orphan. 

Sciatic pain is there.  Back pain has also flared up.  I think it’s because of how I need to sit at work now to make my belly comfortable.  I still need to remember to stretch every day.  The leg pains seem to have vanished for now so I’m happy. 

I’m really looking forward to visiting my aunt in Vermont on Friday!  Black Friday shopping here I come!  I’ve really missed you over these last 5 years.  Of course, the first year I decide to go to the States for Black Friday Canadian stores decide that they’ll get in on some of the action and start advertising Black Friday deals.  WTF!  Whatever baby stuff is still cheaper in the States since our dollar has been at par for the last year.  I plan on scouring all the baby and maternity stores.  Poor Dre!  I might have to buy him boy toys to reward him for spending a day shopping among the crazy deal hunters.

Baby is the size of an eggplant again according to the ticker I have on the sidebar.  Really!  It’s been 4 freaking weeks and they haven’t figured out what other type of fruit or vegetable could be about the same size so we could have a variety.  Hold on…according to another website baby is the size of a CHINESE CABBAGE!  Yay!  Although I have no idea what that is…

Shower Time

I had the best shower on Saturday!
Lots of amazing people showed up and we had tons of fun.  My SIL who hosted the shower put tons of work into making it the best shower ever.  Several people commented about the fact that the shower was very impressive, well planned, and well though out.  They were impressed with how SIL had thought of everything! 

So a huge thank you to my SIL!  (I didn't just put that on there 'cause she reads this though:-)

My mom, brother's girlfriend, and myself all headed to my SIL's house about 30 minutes before the guests were supposed to show up.  SIL thought it would be a good idea for me to be there and greet everyone as they came in.  For showers, I would usually be the last to arrive which is what happened for my wedding shower, but I much preferred doing it this way.  At my wedding shower, I felt like the center of attention and like I didn't have time to talk to everyone for a few minutes.  Since I saw everyone come in, I had the time to take a few minutes with everyone and chat which was really nice. 

I mean I like attention, but I don't necessarily like being the center of attention for a group of 30 women.  That part can be a little daunting.

Anyways...when we arrived I spotted the awesome diaper cake that SIL made for me. 

Diaper Cake

Isn't it gorgeous?  She has lots of talent people!  The best thing is that when SIL asked me what color I wanted for the shower I told her blue and green.  I didn't specify any shades of blue and green or anything.  She found the exact blue and green that I LOVE and even got ribbon with polka dots on them.  AWESOME!  I really wish I could have found crib bedding with these 2 colors for our baby boy, but whenever these 2 colors are combined they tend to be for girls.  Apparently boys only like pastel blue, brown, and red because those are the predominant colors in boy bedding sets...oh and navy blue.  Blech!  I love bright colors!

SIL had several games setup on the main floor of her house as well as a table full of appetizers to tide guest over.  She had diapers full of melted chocolate which were revolting looking.  She had baby food jars without the labels so we could guess what kind of baby food it was.  Then, she had a baby BINGO where you guessed what I would receive as a gift and as I opened them they crossed them out until they had a BINGO.  The games list went on and on, but they were all fun and not the kind of games that are all like.  LOOK AT ME!  WE'RE PLAYING A GAME!  There were plenty of games. but they were unobstrusive.

Games and my presents (pack and play) from SIL and MIL!

After that we got herded downstairs and I got to open presents!  Yay!  Presents for the baby!  There were so many presents...it was overwhelming.   Halfway through opening the presents I was done.  If someone had told me a few months ago that I would get tired sitting in a lazy boy and opening presents I would have laughed at them.  I love presents so I love opening them = not a chore.  Apparently when you're pregnant and in your 3rd trimester, ripping prettty, sparkling paper out of gift bags and off of boxes is really hard work.  Who would have guessed?

This picture doesn't do justice to how pretty everything was downstairs!

Dre and I got tons of stuff for the baby and tons of gift cards for Baby R Us so we can go get the stuff we're missing.  We were truly blessed by our friends and families!

Presents!

After presents, SIL rolled out the food.  There was soooooo much food and it was soooo good!  She even made the shower cake from scratch and decorated it herself.  Isn't it cute?  Yah, cutting into a cake that looks like a baby is a little creepy at first, but it was so good that we got over that one rather quickly.

Baby Cake.  It was so yummy!

This was the most creative fruit salad I've ever seen.

Overall, I think that everyone had an amazing time.  I had a great time even though I was exhausted by the end.  When we got home, I just sat surrounded by all the gifts and organized everything from the couch. 

It was the perfect shower!  I couldn't have asked for more.

Today...

I had an awesome shower today!

Now I'm totally exhausted. It's surprising that the only thing I did today was eat and open presents and it totally drained me.

So I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Goodnight!