Week 27 and I'm on the grow.

Every once in a while, Steve attends an event inviting enough (read: the food is guaranteed to be awesome and abundant)for me to put my big belly and swollen ankles into something somewhat swanky. Mind you I wear a dress just about 5 days out of every week because it's easier and less constricting. However that usually entails a jersey knit of some sort and flat strappy sandals. These here and there events usually require a little more glitz and they always seem to start after 7pm. Steve knows 6pm is my cutoff time for leaving the house. If I am not out of the house by 6 chances are, I am not leaving. Well unless I am getting food and often in those cases I just ask Steven to go.

Anywho, I got a little dressed up last night. A jersey knit dress, yes but a little more refined, along with real shoes, jewelry and a little makeup. Well the infamous waist cincher in me decided to put a belt above the basketball writhing around my midsection at the time. The belt goes on and OH MY LORD I screamed. It's huge. I know I live with this belly and I should never be shocked but it seems like it grew in exponentially in the last few days.



I am realizing a theme here. Every other post I talk about unbelievable growth in my belly. Maybe I should drop the un and just call it believable because at this point, this is the pattern. Some people ask me if I am sure there is only one baby in there....I always say yeah there is just one but maybe he is the size of two babies. I am just ready for my gestational diabetes test to be sure he is not indeed going to be the biggest baby on earth. I am doing better with my weight, so I am know that it's not me.

I'm watching this.

8 days till the shower!!

Eat Without Ceasing

Ok so I meant to mention the progress I have made with this commitment to a new way of eating and exercising. Since I gained 10 lbs in 5 weeks, I put the brakes on eating whatever I wanted (even though I never got completely out of control). As of 25 weeks I had gained a total of 17lbs throughout this pregnancy. Since I had hoped to cap my weight gain at 25 lbs, I was terribly disappointed in this news. This only left me 8 lbs to gain over the remaining 15 weeks. My doctor convinced me that it would be perfectly normal for me to gain 40 lbs. We met in the middle and set a 30 lb cap.

Now at 27 weeks, I am still at the 17 lb mark with 13 weeks to go and 13 lbs left to gain. At first I felt kinda bad for even thinking about limiting myself but that is a healthy pace 1 lb a week. So I am going to stick with that.

The newest problem I have is my desire to eat consistently.

Today I started the day with a protein based smoothie.

For a snack I had hummus and pita chips 2 hours later.

Then I had an orange, a serving of walnuts and a few dried cranberries 1 hour later.

I am pretty sure I will be ready for lunch promptly at 12 even though I ate all of that food just a few hours before.

I don't know what to do about this. I will keep trying to choose healthy low calorie foods or at least foods that pack a powerful punch, like walnuts but in small quantities.

I have an apple and bag of carrots lined up for my afternoon snack. We shall see.

Counting Down the Days Till My Baby Shower

I have to admit, I am so excited about this shower I can barely take it. Something about these showers bring out the kid in me. It's like Christmas or a birthday where you eat cake or other sweets and then you get to unwrap all of these presents in pretty packaging.LOL I can't help it, I'm excited.

I am also excited about just going home in general. I know this will be my final visit home of the year and I plan to making the most of it. I am trying to be sure I visit my favorite restaurants (I am sure I will enjoy it even more as a 3 trimester preggo), my favorite shops, my old church, my college (gotta see if I can find some baby gear represented my school) and more importantly loads of family and friends to see.

Fortunately, I will see most of my female family members and friends at my baby shower. I will see everyone else throughout the remaining time.

So in preparation for the shower, I am trying to perfect this mess of a baby registry situation I have. It seems as if every time I turn around, I read there is something I must have that I haven't purchased or registered for and then I find out something is overrated and will only collect dust in my already cramped living space. What help are these baby sites and magazines if they can't ever reach a firm decision about what is essential. So I guess I will be pruning the registries up until Friday and then I will leave it alone.Hopefully I haven't asked people to spend money on useless items especially in these tough economic times. Maybe I will spend today checking my list again.

10 days to go.

Creepy Thoughts

Today I was reading through some posts on a hair forum I frequent. While browsing the Pregnancy and Parenting section I came upon a thread titled Labour and Delivery 4things you never thought you would need. The poster listed some items that seemed to would scare even the bravest souls.

Here is her post

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Okay this is for all you ladies who are facing Labor and Delivery for the first time... or not.

Aside from the regular things you pack for the hospital you may find the following helpful after labor:

1.Depends underwear ... yes the ones older people use for incontinence... after you finish laboring there will be quite a bit of lochia/blood; the Depends works better than sanitary napkins because it catches EVERYTHING and is also disposable.

2. Adult wipes ( found in the same isle as Depends )it may be a while until you can take a shower and these help you to freshen up all over until.

3. A grabber tool to help you reach things without having to get up

4. Colgate Wisp or something similar ( again until you can get to the bathroom)

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I'm thinking OMG. Depends???? I know I will need pads but will it really come down to me wearing an adult diaper. Wipes, I kinda get that but how long will it be before I shower again? A grabber tool? Really??

Am I having a baby or am I having an organ removed? I guess I am completely disconnected from what this experience really is. It only got more strange as the people started responding to what she said. Other items mentioned were

Peri Bottles for rinsing down there in case of tears (ouch)
Donut seat in case of tears or just because (ouch)
A silt seat ( I still have no idea what that is)
Someone mentioned freezing the pads or depends (really????)

Ok so I have 13 weeks to go and at this point a world of growing and maturing to do surrounding this subject. I just thought I would have my baby, if I tore they would stitch it. The worse I was worried about is trying to get him to latch. I know there are epidural headaches but I rather take the edge off the pain with IV drugs and skip the spinal situation. I know things are achey down there but pillows and flowing streams of water never entered the picture. Wowsers. Now the reality starts to hit me. I have to pass this baby through my body and it will probably be a little traumatic.

I will begin the mantra, my body was divinely created to nurture and deliver this baby. Labor is miraculous and natural...whatever happens is part of my journey to motherhood. I can do this.

I will repeat this every time I imagine my husband having to help me in an adult diaper. Also when I imagine how difficult it will be to delete that image from his memory.

More to love.

So I have not been doing well with weight gain. I managed to make it though 20 weeks only gaining 7lbs. But since then all bets have been off. I gained 10 lbs in 5 weeks and who knows what happened in the last 2 weeks. So by 25 weeks I gained 17 lbs. I shudder to think about what will happen over the next 15 weeks.

I have analyzed the possible causes. I taught art at a summer camp which caused me to be on my feet for 4 hours or more everyday. I did that until 20 weeks. Then I spent 2.5 weeks completely out of commission because of terrible sciatic nerve pain, which was corrected by a chiropractor(chiropractors are amazing), so I was in the bed or on the couch not moving. I did not alter my diet, infact this was the time when my appetite finally took a hike and I started battling cravings. In retrospect, I practiced some terrible habits.

I am really trying to cap it off at 35 lbs but I feel like I am out pacing that or in dager of outpacing that. I just keep telling myself just a pound a week and all will be well but something is not connecting. I have made some major changes since week 25 but I am still gaining like crazy.

Here is the evidence



I am all over this now. Trying to eat large volumes of low calorie high nutrient foods and take Zumba 4 times a week. We will see what that does for me.

Nursery In Progress...well kinda.

We are using a jungle theme for the nursery but without all of the jungle animals. Elephants and trees will be the predominant feature in the nursery. When I first made this choice, I figured it should be fairly easy to accomplish. How wrong could one be. Not only did I not like much of what I found but what I did like was on another continent, so I couldn't see it in person and it was super expensive to purchase and ship.

I wanted the mod elephant look, which is much softer than a real elephant. It will be softer but not hokey. I don't want the nursery to look too cartoony because adults will have to spend plenty of time in the nursery as well. So it needs to be comfy for everyone, I am sure my mom will need to say it should be all about TJ. Anyway, I found some really cute things online but the prices were outrageous,so I decided to purchase the materials try my hand at it.

Here are the results





I think it worked out well and I saved about $250 doing this myself. I think I paid $5 for the stool, $8 for the canvas, $3 for the brushes and less than $12 for the paint.

I am now looking for a huge stencil for the wall mural. I want the mod elephant look and one of those safari trees. Like the trees from The Lion King but I don't know what they are called. In the meantime,I will be working on additional items for the nursery as well as getting the walls painted before the baby shower.... 3 weeks from now. Start the countdown!

Other Stuff

It took us little to no time to choose a name for our son because,well I don't know why. It just happened. We are naming him Thomas Joseph. Thomas is my mother's maiden name and my grandfather in-law's first name. Joseph is my father in law's first name. We feel it's only right to give our children complete family names or at the very least have the names inspired by family members.

So Thomas Joseph it is. I love it because it sounds serious and somewhat stately but we can call him TJ which is as sweet as it gets. So from the date of the ultrasound and beyond he has been TJ or baby TJ. I am so in love! LOL.

Once we got through the 20 weeks scan, I started focusing on the birth and beyond. The best way I could do that was by seeking information about the unavoidable....fears about the following;
childbirth
breastfeeding
loss of sleep
marital changes.

For me the only way to combat fear is to trust God and seek information. I am doing both.

I have used the following books as sources of information about all of these topics. While I don't agree with everything in them and one of them I'm not so crazy about at all. Each has provided some useful tips, insights and encouragement.







I absolutely love the childbirth books,though I don't think they are for the faint of heart. There are a lot of hair raising statistics about the child birthing industry. So I would warn anyone to proceed with caution if you are planning on having a C-section or a medically induced birth. Well I think it's good info but it will scare you. I personally like to know what I am dealing with and I don't like anything to be sugar coated. I am never afraid of the truth but I am spooked by the unknown.

Anywho, I have head my head in a book for the last 5 weeks and I am feeling better about this entire process. While I know there are some problems that can not be avoided, I am sure my faith and God's plan for my life will ultimately yield the best results.