Week 39: Progress!

Bags packed and ready to go!

Me & Baby @ 39 weeks

Baby EAD/CJD:

He/she continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it's likely he/she already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds! The outer layers of his/her skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

Still pretty active inside and definitely getting lower and lower with each day. Some days I feel as though he/she is going to fall out!

Momma:

I've had a few new ailments this week, which is a good sign! Beginning on Wednesday morning I've had cramping off and on along with pretty strong but irregular contractions. I know this sounds terrible, but for me it makes me feel like we are getting closer! I am also extremely exhausted by the time afternoon hits. The past month I wasn't napping regularly because my mind would not rest and so I didn't even try to nap. Now it's a must! I can't function unless I nap some days!

Part of that could be that I've overworked myself this week, more than I have in a while. My mom was in town from Tuesday - yesterday and we did so much deep cleaning in our house to finish everything I wanted done!

Thank you Mom, you're such a blessing. You're amazing!

Oh and my swelling has gone up a level! Since Tuesday I've only really seen my ankle bones occasionally. I've never seen my feet and ankles like this. I officially have kankles by evening :)

I've been pretty impatient since the #4 of the 5 of us had her baby. I was just a tad anxious. The past few days I've calmed down a bit. I've been trying to find ways to naturally get our baby to come a few days early (mostly because I have 3 friends leaving town on Tuesday and one of them is from Australia). I've been walking a lot. This morning Ted really pushed me to do 3 laps at the park's trail next to our house. He is pretty anxious too!

Baby will be coming soon, and with every cramp, ache and strong contraction I know we are getting closer! 6 more days until the actual due date. It's hard to believe!

Love,

p.s we arranged our room and moved our crib! I finally gave in after feeling so claustrophobic and it's great and spacious now!

Our Crib!

Looking up instructions on the web.

Cribs are more complicated than we thought. This was our 2nd attempt!

My job was to hand him these little items. 

The final product! So surreal!

Ted wanted to put the "daddy's little alarm clock" onesie on the bed, which I thought was precious!

This makes everything more real!

 Ted said maybe we should push our bed against the wall and I told him it was okay. He was like, "You just want to be as close to the baby as possible huh?" He caught me =)

As we put the crib together it began to hit Ted more than ever before. As we placed the crib sheet set, the bumber and the mobile on Ted was helping and kept saying, "Soon our baby will be in here. Wow." I'm glad we did this now for many reasons but it's so incredible to see his daddy side more and more each day!

'Starry Night' Inspired Room.

These are the 'before' and 'after' shots of our bedroom/babyroom! We bought paint at walmart for incredibly cheap and look at the difference a little colour can do! We wake up early in the mornings now because it's brighter and well, because we don't have a curtain yet.

We are planning on being thrifty in decorating because we really can't afford anything extravagant. You can do simple and still make things look incredible. We found a GREAT deal on curtain rods for our living room and bedroom. $3.25 each and they are black and beautiful. We will be using some of the leftover material used to make our black bridesmaids dresses for fabric for curtains and if we don't have enough, we will be heading to thrift stores on the weekends 'til we find what we need.

After our maternity photoshoot coming up this weekend, we will frame a few pictures in simple black frame and hang them in the room as well. Plus we will add photos of our little one as soon as he or she arrives. Knowing it's momma and daddy- there will be A LOT of pictures of him/her. Poor baby =)

As you can see, I didn't post pics of the entire room yet. Well it's painted, but the cabinets in the corner I am still working on painting black. All but one is finished and then we can hang them. We are also taking down our closet doors (which notoriously fall off the track) and replacing them with a black curtain as well.

Super inexpensive and I am now LOVING our room. Our friends gave us a beautiful crib which we have at home, lying in pieces. A few important pieces were lost in storage so Ted is heading back soon to look for them. The crib will be up soon I hope! Our living room... we are about to tackle. Every weekend in May has something in it, but we are hoping to paint the rest of everything Memorial Day weekend. And from there, it's just baby showers and purchasing things for Baby E/C and then awaiting his/her arrival! 9 weeks out- WHOA!

Our Bedding!

Here is step one of many more to come: getting our baby bedding. This isn't all of it, those pics will come when we paint, then set the crib up. That may still be a few weeks away. Also, in two weeks we will be doing our maternity photo shoot @ 30 weeks! Something to look forward to for you! I am excited, and hoping to not be TOO huge by the time it arrives ;)

Preparation: Finally!

This week we are getting our crib, which is beautiful! Our friend's gave it to us! My mother-in-law recently ordered the bedding for our baby and it should be here this week. I found this bedding around Christmas time, and fell in love with the design (cuz it's elephants).

As you can see, it's the colours we like, minus the teal, so I am going to add the teal in through accessories and being creative. I think I found a crib sheet at Target that is the teal we want. We are heading to register at Target this Sunday. Finally, right?

We also set a date for our first baby shower, for June 7th and I am hoping that it isn't too late! Our weekends are packed from here until the baby is born! We will be having a baby shower with our YWAM friends two weeks after the baby is born, which should be fun, having the baby there at the shower! I am looking forward to that!

I still can't believe we are 12 weeks away (more or less), and you can't tangibly tell we're planning for a baby! I only have one entire section in our room of collected baby items from friends and family and a lot of baby books, but other than that you can't really tell that we're having a baby in 12 weeks!

We did finally picked out the paint type and brand and will be buying that this week as well, and hopefully I will have the bedroom painted by next week, and the crib all set up and ready! I will take before and after pics of the room. It may take a while before I post some pics, because even after painting the room, we will still need to buy curtains and rods, and put the changing table in, etc.

Random note: I <3 polls. I know I keep creating polls and posting them, but I love to see people's views! So please vote! (Even on my silly hair colouring one)! The Day We Meet Our Baby:
I needed to write, because I am actually feeling super antsy and nervous today. In worship this morning, I ended up crying and Ted and I left to walk and talk. It is becoming more and more real, with each new week, and each time I look in the mirror and see my growing belly. I cried because as much as I am so thrilled, excited, ecstatic really... I am nervous too. I've read a lot of books on mothering, parenting, discipline, eating, etc... but to be honest I am more relying on my natural ability to mother, and it hit me today, that I really won't know what that is like until I am a mother.

Another fear that's beginning to rise up in me, is the day of our baby's birth. We've rewritten our birth plan to best fit the hospital, but I am in no way prepared for what is to come. We will be taking our birthing class in May, and I still won't feel prepared. I am afraid of the pain, but I want to go all natural because I want to experience the labor and birthing our baby, I want to be alert and aware but I am nervous.

The moment I look forward to the most, and could even cry about it now, it the moment where our little one comes, and they tell my the "it's a boy or girl" and immediately place him/her on my chest so I can see our beautiful baby. Oh my word, I can't wait.

That is the part that keeps my mind at peace. That is the part that I eagerly await.

More Nesting: COLOURS!

We have made our mind up about our colours for the crib set! Chocolate brown, teal, & spring lime. (Our poor moms) This has been an intense process, especially because we (well I) do not know our baby's sex. ALTHOUGH, I am convinced it's a girl. I will feel awfully silly if I am wrong, but not dissapointed =) The colours are pretty neutral, I mean they will work if we have another baby opposite sex of this one, you know?

Anyways, above is our inspiration. We found this swing online, already in love with elephants, and we loved the colours. We will keep this swing at home and take the matching bouncer seat to work with us, so baby can hang out while we are working.

Now begins the 14 week journey of preparing our home for our baby! YAY! (which doesn't even sum up how excited I am!!)

Week 25: Nesting On the Mind.

Nesting. 6 months and 1 week... it's hard to believe how close we are to meeting our baby! It seems so far away still, but baby needs time to finish developing, and God's still working on Ted and I, not to mention the fact that we are just now able to move into our home again!! We officially move down from our mountain campus friday! AMEN, seriously.

I dream of nesting, I wake up throughout the night sometimes to get myself comfortable, and begin thinking about nesting, I constantly talk to Ted about ideas, things we need to buy or put on our registration... I never go a day without thinking about something to do with nesting. It hit me a while ago actually, but now that I can officially start, it's been on my mind 24/7!

We've decided to not make an entire nursery for the baby and it's things, but instead to have him or her in our room, and a rocker and play things in our living room. The reason being; our second bedroom is the perfect nursery size but it's actually kind of a far walk to get to the baby in a hurry. We just decided that the crib would be next to my side of the bed, and I am going to sand, prime, and paint a low dresser we have for it's changing table, so everything we really need will be in our room.

We are (hopefully) painting our living room red to match our asian theme we've had since being married, the accent colours will be burnt yellow, and black. My mom is going to help make curtains, and Ted is helping me hang all of our wall art! I can't wait. Our room we finally decided, will be painted a burnt yellow. We wanted to make sure when we opened our door to the living room the colours didn't clash, BUT we also wanted to use the Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night wall art as our main focus. We originally thought blue, but I'm not huge on blue anyways. Burnt yellow will work for both rooms.

Now this doesn't sound like much preparation for the baby coming, but this is a start to getting our home to feel more home like, and comfortable! Ted and I are finding ways to save money, be thrifty, and still get what we need before the baby comes. It's hard. We decided, like I said above, to use our low dresser as a changing table. It's the perfect height for me to change the baby on. It will take a lot of work, sanding, priming, and painting it black but it will look amazing, or so I hope! We will then buy a changing pad, and some fun stuff for the baby to look as above it while it's being changed. We are looking for a glider chair on ebay, craigslist, thrift stores, and garage sales... hoping to find a great deal! Okay whoa. I need to write another blog, cause this one is too long. And I didn't even write an update on baby and momma yet! Haha, sorry! I am just so excited!

x!
Jami & Baby