10 more weeks!

I looked at my bump ticker this morning, and realized that I'm 30 weeks pregnant! 10 weeks left until this baby gets here. :) Every day this little meatloaf is bouncing around in there, and the kicks and jabs are becoming more defined. I love watching my belly move around, I could sit here and watch it all day long... of course.. I'd never get anything done that way, and there is LOTS left to do!

DH spent some time this weekend touching up the paint in the nursery. We just need to put some shelves in the closet, and slap the baseboards on, then we can finally put the crib together, and put some of the clothing away too (after I wash it all of course). He put the glider together last weekend. I think it's funny that I'm the one who is pregnant, but it seems like DH is the one that is going through the "nesting" phase. :) Granted, I have these major moments of needing to clean and organize, so I guess we're going through it together.

I'm getting more and more excited and nervous about what's to come as the weeks start to zip by. Excited of course to meet the little one, and terrified about what labour will be like. :)

28 weeks and a day

Yesterday, I was at 28 weeks and a day. :)

On Monday, I had an ultrasound to check on this low-lying placenta thing, and am happy to say that it has moved up! My doctor should be able to confirm that at my appointment on the 20th, which is a relief because it means I won't need a c-section. Woohoo!

I had a great appointment. It was awesome to see baby look so much like a little person since she's so much bigger now and has some weight on her. She had her eyes open too! (Which was actually kind of scary looking on an ultrasound, lol) I did get the ultrasound tech to confirm once more that she is in fact a girl... and she still is! I'm getting more and more excited and anxious every day to meet her.

Yesterday, she must have been making up for the quiet day she had the day before. I know that she's head down, and so I feel where her hands are moving, and where her knees and feet end up hitting. She was up for most of the night last night trying to drive me bananas since sleep is already hard enough these days with the constant bone throbbing pains in my legs... but even though it's hard to sleep with all her movement, you can't help but smile at how funny it all is.

Hard to believe I'm in the home stretch! I find myself starting to get pangs of anxiety over thinking about what labour is going to be like. I'd managed to completely tuck that part of pregnancy somewhere wayyyyy in the back of my mind this entire pregnancy, but it becomes hard to ignore when you start to get close to "the day". I can only hope that I'll be one of those lucky ladies that just has a kid that falls right out.... wishful thinking, huh? hahaha Hey.. it happened to my sister in law, her girl was born in 20 minutes... so it happens. Ah, delusions...

This belly's thumpin!

Despite the drabness of outside, and the strong desire for this day to just be over already (!!!!!) I can't help but smile and be amused by this baby. My belly is bouncing all over the place, and it feels so weird and wonderful at the same time. I absolutely love the kicks, punches, jabs, rolls, and even the head butts. I could just stare at this belly of mine all day long. :)

Three fun things are happening this weekend starting today. The first is that DH is getting the guitar that he bought me for my birthday today! When he picks me up from work he'll have it, so I guess I know what I'll be doing for most of my free time this weekend.

The second thing is that tomorrow, DH and I are doing a Christmas date thing, and this is where we set up our tree, put up decorations, watch a few Christmas movies, and eat hors d'oeuvres and do a fancy little dinner for just us two. We're celebrating it fully this year, since it will be our last Christmas together as just the two of us. :)

And, the third thing is that I'm going to my parent's place to hang out with my mom and watch a movie and knit on Sunday. It's been a while since we've done that, they've been pretty busy since they moved, so I'm definitely just looking forward to chilling out with the parents. :)

Oh, and I guess there's a fourth fun thing about this weekend, it's snowing right now! There's a nice powdering of snow on the ground, and I hope it stays through the weekend since it will add to the festive feel of things. I have so much to look forward to this weekend, and this and next year in general. :)

Thirty One

Today, I turn 31. Am I where I wanted to be at 31? Not exactly... but I do have a lot to be grateful for. This year is going to be great. I'm going to be a mom for the first time, and I get to experience that with the best husband, dog and two cats on the planet. :)

Everyone keeps asking me what I want for my birthday this year, and after thinking about it, I want a guitar. I used to have one, and I had taught myself to play a bit, but I never really got anywhere with it. The reason I want to learn how to play guitar is that I LOVE to sing. I would love to be able to sing, and be able to play along with that. I don't have the best voice in the world, but I do have a pretty good voice, and I think I'm creative enough that I could write my own songs. I don't want to be a rock star or anything, but I find singing comforting.

Well, the good news is, DH found me a guitar today for $30 that someone was selling at his work. It's just a simple acoustic guitar, but that's all I really need to learn on. I also want to take guitar lessons. There's a lot that I can learn on my own with books and internet, but would really like someone to teach me hands on, as I generally learn a lot faster that way.

So this year, I will have a baby and begin raising a family... and I will learn the guitar, and sing my freakin' heart out.

And if I ever get good enough... I would totally post songs on my blog. :)

3rd Tri!

Depending on which website you look at, I am in 3rd trimester today. I'm going to go with the one that says I am anyway. :)

I'm starting to feel like I'm in 3rd trimester, that's for sure! I'm starting to waddle because my pelvic joints hurt a lot, and sleeping at night has gone back to being a disaster because my legs ache all night long... but I know it will allllll be worth it when I get to meet this little girl in February!!

I scheduled an u/s for next week to check on the low placenta thing, and I certainly feel lucky that I get to see her again before she's born. While they're there, I'm also going to have them try to confirm once again that our baby girl is in fact a baby girl. :) I haven't really bought anything, because I've still got a bit of doubt that's she's a she.

Let's fast forward through this week, okay? :)

Update on baby

26 weeks, 3 days

I had an appointment with my OB on Monday for a regular checkup. I learned a few things. :)

For the most part, everything with baby is looking fantastic. She's measuring 2-3 weeks ahead, so my doctor said "No 6lb babies for you!" lol And I passed my GD test much to my surprise! I felt so crappy after drinking the glucose drink, I had thought "great, I'll probably fail right past the 3-hour".... but nope!

The only "wait and see" news I got was that I have a low-lying placenta. They checked the placenta at 20 weeks, and it was low, but my doctor said that 95% of the time, the problem will correct itself and move out of the way later on. I have to go back for another ultrasound at 28 weeks, and they will check then that it has moved up, and if it hasn't, then I will be scheduled in for a c-section.

All in all, it was a short, sweet, and pretty good appointment. :) Oh, and it was quick this time! Less than an hour! (I usually spend 1-2 hours in the waiting room before my 5 minute checkup with the doctor :P)

No motivation

Since finding out last week that my job term where I work (and have worked for the last 2.5 years) will not be renewed (in April), therefore leaving me with no job to go back to after mat leave... I have absolutely NO MOTIVATION to work. The only thing that keeps me going is that in order to receive employment insurance payments while I'm on maternity leave, I have to work up to the day I go on leave to qualify.

I'm sad and disappointed that I will not be able to keep this job. After this term is over, I would have been only 6 months away from becoming a permanent employee. After two and a half years of putting your hard work in to something only to have it ripped from you right at the end.. it's hard to focus on continuing to do a good job for nothing. I'm only working towards the end now. It's tough... as of last week, I really just don't give a crap about what I'm doing anymore. My boss is sad that he wasn't able to get my term renewed. He really liked me as an employee and he is pissed off at upper management for being such idiots. They are claiming they don't need my position anymore (to save $$$), yet when I'm gone, they are replacing me with a permanent employee... I find this hilarious, as they are cutting me to save money, when I make less than this person will. *eyeroll* I will be going to the union with this, because some of it is fishy.. and I'll see if there's anything I can do.. but honestly, I don't expect that anything with the union will go very far.

The good news last week (after I received my shitty news) is that DH's term was made permanent. :) With all the cut backs going on, this is amazing news! At least one of our jobs is safe, and it's the one that can sustain us, so despite being really bummed about my job, at least I don't have to have a heart attack wondering if we'll stay afloat if DH got on the chopping block too!

I don't know what this job loss will mean for my future. I'll be on maternity leave for 11 months, so I have some time to think about it, but it's scary to think that after leave, I'll have to jump back in to job searching. It's going to be tough, because I really love the job I currently have, and it's going to be hard to find something that's equally as exciting and has the same benefits and salary.

I've been trying to put this all out of my mind for now and just focus on the baby DH and I are about to bring in to the world. My boss keeps wanting me to send my CV out to people, but I just keep wondering.. What's the point? They're going to take one look at me, see that I'm clearly nearing the end of my pregnancy, and will know that I will be gone for a year on leave.... I'm not a very promising employee at the moment. I'm going to send my CV's out anyway. I don't fully expect to hear anything as no one is hiring right now anyway, and the departments within the organization that I work for are all experiencing cut backs and hiring freezes. I'm hoping that if I give out my CV now, it will likely take them a year to get back to me anyway (it took me 7 months to get this job).

I guess I can say is that another good thing is timing. At least I'm pregnant now, and will be working up until leave to get benefits. I have my job until April, which is much better than them having laid me off before my term was over, which would put me up shit creek for $$$.

Life is so frustrating sometimes. I know it could be much worse, but I'm just so sad when I think about how I was just beginning to love my career, and now I feel like I'll have to start all over again at the bottom a year from now. I'm scared, and I'm overwhelmed. It really sucks.

Timing is everything though. I will need a break from thinking about job crap soon, and it will come when Ash gets here, so I'll focus on being a good mommy for a while, and worry about my own personal career future later.

Portfolio :)

It's been a while since I put up any of my knitting on here, and I've just taken a ton of pics of all the stuff I have for a craft show that I'll be doing in my hometown in a couple of weeks, so I figured I'd share them here. It's mostly baby stuff. :)

Baby longies in pink with white stripes

Baby soaker

Blue and grey baby longies

Child's blue cabley hat

3 month hat and thumbless mitt set

1 year + baby striped cable hat

3 month baby stripey hat and mitt set

Baby earflap hat - "Swirl" - 1 year +

Baby earflap hat - "Bright Stripes" - 1 year +

Thrummed mittens - Fleece lined - Extra toasty :)

Simple grey hat

Large loops knit cowl

Leg warmers - 6 years

Child's pink cabley hat

Adult Cabled Hat

Adult Button Tab Hat

Thumbless Toddler mitts - 1 year

Cabled Earflap hat - 1 year +

Cabled earflap hat and mitts - 1 year +

Stripey gloves - Adult

Baby thumbless mitts - 3 months

Baby booties - newborn

Christmas wine bottle cozy

Baby doll - newborn

Baby doll - newborn

Baby leg warmers - 6 mos +

Christmas wine bottle cozy

Wow.

It's a good thing that I didn't get my blood pressure tested today, because I'm certain that it would have shot right through the roof!

Are they sure that the leading cause of heart attacks isn't car dealerships? Because I'm pretty sure if I can't find a way to control my outrage at the screw job that our car dealership has given us today than I may just have one, or two.

25 weeks, 1 day. :)

24 weeks, 3 days!

Just a Thursday thought.....

~~*~~

Some people say that a pregnancy just flies by.... I don't know about that. Maybe it's different for someone who had trouble trying to get pregnant, and a scary start to their pregnancy. You don't want to miss out on the fun parts of being pregnant, but you also just want to get to the end of it all so that you can have that little baby safe in your arms, and start being the mom that you've waited so long to become!

~~*~~

Though I've been enjoying certain parts of being pregnant, I can't wait until February gets here. Truth be told, I have been so cautious with this pregnancy that I haven't done nearly as much exercise as I should have for fear of knocking my baby loose or something. I realize how stupid that sounds... but you do worry, whether you want to or not.

I'm really looking forward to having little Ashley, and recovering just in time for spring. I am CRAVING getting back in to jogging again, and I'm going to get a baby jogger so that Ash and I can spend time outdoors getting fit again. :) I know it's going to be hard at first, so I'm thinking of joining a running group to get me started again. I want to be a fit mom. 

Before I was pregnant, I was at the heaviest that I've ever been in my life, which was about 40lbs over my ideal weight. I was always really athletic and slender in my twenties, and in the last few years before becoming pregnant, I'd just ballooned... kind of like my metabolism just gave up! I want to get back to my ideal weight, and be the healthiest mom I can be. :)

I do have to give myself a little lovin' though, because I think that I'm doing fairly well with weight gain over this pregnancy so far. At 24 weeks, I have gained 10lbs overall, and I'm pretty happy with that. I'm expecting that if I continue the way I have, then I'll likely gain another 10-15lbs by the time Ashley makes her arrival, and I'm very comfortable with that. I could gain more, and honestly... whatever happens happens, but I'm hoping that I can keep it minimal so that it's easier to get back in to jogging and exercising once the baby gets here. :)

Unexpected anger

I've been pretty happy with myself for not being a pregzilla for the first half of this pregnancy. And by pregzilla, I mean a hormonal bitch. Even DH had commented on how he had half expected that I'd be like Lois from family guy.... all crying one minute and tearing someone's head off the next. Well, the crying did happen, but the tearing off of heads had so far not come in to play.

Well, fast forward to this week.

A co-worker was crumpling paper today... I wanted to rip his head off.

I passed a sign on the way to work that said $2/15 minutes for parking (Ludicrous!)... I wanted to rip someone's head off.

My boss so much as looks at me to assign me another project... I want to rip heads off!!

I feel bad, because I know it's only a matter of time before DH does something that I'll want to rip his head off for. :(

This pregnant lady should come with a warning label.

I have heard that hormones can make women more grumpy in later pregnancy.. hopefully I'm not a psychopath by the time I hit 3rd tri!

V-day!

I've been waiting to reach the v-day milestone (viability day), and I'm so glad it's here. :) It seems like a morbid thing to think about, but when you worry as much as I do, it's a nice little reassuring milestone to hit.

Ashley is celebrating v-day by having a dance party on my bladder.... awwwwww.... :) lol

What a week!

Thank god it's almost over.

Last weekend was less than desirable when I took a trip to labour and delivery at the hospital on Sunday. It all turned out to be okay, but it was a scary day. I had been cleaning out my bedroom closet, putting away all the plethora of clothing that no longer fits this pregnant body and lifting heavy baskets of clothes. All of a sudden I get a gush of fluid down below, and it scared the crap right out of me. I didn't know if it was just normal discharge, pee, or water.. so instead of freaking out, I called the triage line... AND THEN I freaked out, when they told me to go to L&D to make sure it wasn't amniotic fluid.

I waited 6 hours to find out that everything looked okay. Dr. checked the area, and cervix was closed, and I hadn't had any more fluid, so they sent me on my way. I'm happy to report that I've fortunately been okay since then, and Ashley reassures me she's okay in there each day that passes as she kicks and punches my big belly.

And speaking of big bellies... here's me, 23 weeks and 3 day pregnant. :) I am beginning to refer to myself as preggasaurus.

So in love..

With this big 21 week, 4 day belly!

I definitely feel bigger than before, but I also feel great! I'm starting to get sluggish in the afternoons now, and I'm gasping for air when I go up any stairs. I also have trouble rolling over at night sometimes! LOL But I guess it all comes with the territory, and for carrying around a big belly, I feel pretty darn good! :)

All things a-girl!

Since finding out on Friday that we're having a girl, we just get more and more excited about meeting her each day. We've settled on Ashley Margaret for her name, instead of Ashley Erin. Margaret is DH's grandmother on his mother's side's name, so it had more meaning than Erin (which we just liked).

On Sunday, I went out and by chance caught a crib that I liked on sale at Sears, so I decided to just go ahead and buy it. It's a Storkcraft Holly 4-in-1 crib, so it should last us through this kid and the next one should we decide to have a second child. :)

This is the crib (crib only, not bedding):

We should have it in about a month, which works out perfect because we will want to paint he nursery first anyway. :)

DH and I had already settled on a stroller (travel system), but it was more than we were looking to spend, so I suggested that we go and just take a look at some cheaper travel systems just to make sure we didn't find something we liked in a better price range. We tried a lot of them, but we're still stuck on the original one we liked, so I guess that's that! This is the stroller we'll buy in another couple of months. I was tempted to buy it now, but I figured that we should wait in case it goes down in price. I think it's kind of funny that stollers have MSRP's. LOL

For the nursery, we haven't exactly settled on a theme, but I've been really in to giraffes. We're thinking of going with something like this for the bedding:

DH found the cutest lamp to go with this set too. We really like the browns and pinks. The only problem is that we have this painting/reprint that my parents gave us to go in the nursery, and it really doesn't go with the whole pink/brown motif. The painting itself is of children playing musical instruments, and there's a lot of red in it, and it's in a forest green frame. We probably won't have one of those nurseries that you see featured on those famous nursery websites, so I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm just not sure how to work around it yet. :) I thought I had our nursery colour schemes for the pain all picked out, but now I'm really not sure!

Okay.... and now about the baby! LOL

I had an OB appointment on Monday, and things are looking great! I have to do the 1 hour glucose test in a couple of weeks, and doc wants to do some additional bloodwork to make sure all is good with my blood pressure, so that's up next. For now, we wait... and we shop! :)

Well, I can forget this morning...

BECAUSE I'VE 360'd (and DH has too)...

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today will get better.

I have 2 ultrasounds today, and at least one of them should be able to reveal what the sex of this baby is. That will be the good part of today, and if it doesn't work out.. well, at least I still get to see my baby so that should brighten me up.

But I've got to say that this morning has been trying so far.

I woke up early to drive DH to work because I needed the car for the first u/s at 11:20 this morning. As I'm getting ready to leave, DH tells me that the dog has puked downstairs. The dog ate a 5 dollar bill and two balls of yarn apparently, so I'm sure he's fine now that he's got that all out of his system... I finish getting ready, and go downstairs having expected that DH would have cleaned it up.... NOOoo.. Instead he went downstairs and effed around on his computer for a 1/2 hour while I was getting ready and left it all for me to clean up. Gee... thanks dear.

Well, since it took me extra time to clean up the mess while DH sat on his ass.. we couldn't leave on time, so I couldn't drive him in.. and he had to drive me in instead.. which means that he has to come pick me up and drive me to the appointment.

So then, he's all pissy while driving me in because he now has to go out of his way... Like I didn't have to go out of my way to clean up the dog puke you so kindly left for me a-hole???

Anyway, I ignore him, and I start talking to him about the appointment today, and asked if he had any guesses as to whether or not we'll get to see anything today.. just to start conversation. His answer? "I don't care."

Well.. that's nice. Then you know what DH? If you don't care... then I don't care that you have to go out of your way to drive me around! He knew we had to leave and couldn't even be considerate enough to clean up the mess he found this morning.. He does this whenever any animal in our house leaves a mess somewhere... He just takes a look at it, and then ignores that it's there.. and when I find it, he pretends that he didn't see it, then he effs off while i clean it up because it "makes him sick".

Normally, I would just tell him to get off his ass and clean it up, but we didn't have time for his BS this morning.

I could have murdered him for having an attitude with me this morning. Where does he get the right to be grumpy? He's not the one who had to clean it up... and driving me in shouldn't be an inconvenience, especially when it's his fault we had to leave late!!!!

I think this is the first time this whole pregnancy that I want to whisk him off to his parents place just so I can get him out of my hair for the weekend.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.... MENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN............

Now... that was a long and angry rant.

Things should get better and keep getting better at 9am, starting with a pancake breakfast at work.

I hope this working part of the day just flies by, or I may not make it.

My 20 week belly!

 

Just look at this half-baked belly! I realized in taking this picture (at work in the bathroom) that my shirt is a lot shorter than I thought it was when I put it on this morning. I currently don't have any long-sleeved maternity clothes, but it looks like it's about time for me to do some shopping. I'm excited about this bump, it's so big in comparison to two weeks ago! I think I popped (again) somewhere at the end of 19 weeks.

We have 2 upcoming ultrasounds on Friday. I got a call from my doctor's office yesterday, and they need me to go back so they can re-scan baby's spine. They said they only got a limited view of it the first time. I'll admit, it concerns me a little that they want a second scan even if it is for a seemingly valid and benign reason, but I'm trying to ignore my paranoia. 

The second u/s we have on Friday is the re-do of our 3D ultrasound. They couldn't figure out baby's gender because the umbilical cord was in the way, so we get to retry it once more for free. Here's to hoping that everything with baby is great, and that we will finally get to know if this baby is a boy or a girl!

Baby's been kicking up a storm this week. DH felt it for the first time on Friday night. It was only one kick (or possibly head butt), but he felt it, and it was really cool. Since then, I've been seeing baby moving around from the outside. Different parts of my tummy move at different times. It's a strange and wonderful thing to see. :)

Admittedly, I'm also getting a little nervous about things. I can't believe that I'm already halfway through this pregnancy. I've been having dreams or even daydreams about what labour and delivery will be like, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't scare the living daylights out of me. haha

I hope to be able to update this blog with the sex this week, and I still have to scan my 3D pic of baby and put it up here, so I will get busy!!

Tricky little baby!!

We had the elective 3D ultrasound this afternoon to try and see if we could get an answer on gender. Well... NO DICE!

Baby's umbilical cord is up between its legs, so yesterday's gender prediction was likely inaccurate and today we got nothing! :) The 3D tech said that sometimes it can take a couple of days for baby to move enough to get the cord out of the way, so likely what we saw yesterday was cord, and not girl parts.

Oh, and I didn't know this, but apparently when the cord is up between the legs, it can look like girl parts! I guess that's how mistakes get made! LOL

The clinic policy is if they can't get the gender, they will try again for free, so we're going to go back and try one more time next Friday. I hope little one shows us the money shot then! :) If not, then I guess we're going team green!

It's a possible girl!!

We went in for the 20 week ultrasound (at 19 weeks) yesterday, and everything with baby looked great! Baby was floating around, and moving all over... it's such a beautiful and reassuring thing to see. Baby was being cute and a little tricky for the technician as every time the tech tried to measure the baby's head, baby would turn around so that her bum would always get in the way. Sounds like she's a little trouble maker like DH ;)

After looking at the baby for about 20 minutes, the tech tried to determine the baby's sex. She didn't tell us for sure that baby was a girl. All she said was that she couldn't see boy parts anywhere, and she thinks that baby might be a girl, but couldn't say for sure because it's still possible that baby was hiding the goods.

DH and I really want to be able to tell both sets of parents the sex this weekend (which is Thanksgiving here in Canada), but we really don't want to tell them if we can't be sure it's a girl, so we've opted to go for an elective 3D ultrasound today at 2:45pm!

The lady at the 3D place said that they should be able to get it as long as baby doesn't have her legs crossed or anything, and if they can't get it, then they'll check again for free at a later date. Here's to hoping they can give us confirmation today. I have confidence that if they say it's a girl, it is... This particular 3D ultrasound clinic prides itself on the fact that they have NEVER been wrong on gender, so I think our chances our pretty good. :)

Oh, and we'll get a 3D pic of our LO, which would be awesome to show the grandparents at Thanksgiving!!

If this baby truly is a girl, DH's mom is going to go CRAZY!!! She had two boys herself, and currently has no grandchildren, so this would just be heaven for her. She's always wanted a girl. :)

Of course, my mom would be ecstatic with another girl for a grandchild (my brother had his little girl 11 years ago), so I know she's just waiting to hold another little grandchild again. :)

I am super excited that this baby is possibly a girl. With every fiber of my being, I thought it was a boy. I could still be wrong, but a girl would be such a wonderfully unexpected surprise. I am completely happy with whatever we get, but was a little saddened yesterday to find out that DH is actually disappointed that it's a girl. I told him that it won't matter, when LO gets here, that will be the furthest thing on his mind. He says he's happy for a girl too, but he really wanted a boy. This is a far cry from his original "I don't care if it's a boy or a girl, girls wear team jerseys too!"... but I digress.. at the end of the day, I know he'll get over it, and welcome his daughter in to the world with a pink Toronto Maple Leafs onesie. ;)

After the ultrasound today, if they confirm girl, then I think I'll take DH to the NHL store so we can buy the first onesie, and I'm sure that will get him girl happy! :)

My baby sling came today!!

And what better way to test it:

 

Noodles loves being the baby. :)

Just have to get through today!!

Ultrasound is tomorrow! I can't express how excited DH and I are to find out what sex this baby is, and to see this baby again! Last time we saw him/her, baby was only a bean.. so I think it will be extremely surreal to see something that actually fully looks like a baby. :) We're both praying for a happy healthy little guy or girl tomorrow. I will update for sure... I'll need to get it out somewhere if we're going to keep this a secret from the family until Saturday! ;)

Baby Names

DH and I have come to a final decision about what our baby names will be. :)

If we have a boy:

Evan William R.

And if we have a girl:

Ashley Erin R.

The name Evan we've had in our minds since before we even started TTC, and it stuck. We added William, because that is DH's brother's name, and we wanted to honor him in some way. My brother and his wife will be the godparents. :)

As for Ashley Erin... Ashley just kind of came up, and we've always liked Erin. Neither name is associated to anyone in our family, and has no other meaning other than that we like the name.

So that's that! Can't wait to find out of this baby is Evan or Ashley!! :)

First Adventure in Baby Shopping

Saturday was a really good day.  There was a huge consignment sale for baby/kids stuff around where I live, and a friend and I went to check it out. She bought a bunch of stuff for her son, and I only brought home one thing, but that's mainly because we don't know the sex of our baby yet. I'm sure there will be a little shopping spree in my near future though. :)

I ended up buying one of those little vibrating chairs for ten bucks. Hopefully when baby is born, he/she will love it as much as I'm told that babies do... But if not, then the chair will go to good use anyway because one of my cats, Noodles, has decided that he really likes it as a lounger:

It's a strange feeling to walk in to my house and see that baby chair sitting there... It's like I have to do a double take when I walk in just to make sure I'm in the right house! But it's also exciting. :)

When I got home from the sale, DH and I decided to go to Babies R Us for the first time just to look around for strollers. DH has been obsessed with the stroller from the get-go, claiming that it has to tiny, and it can't be a van etc.. etc... He's been looking at strollers on the Bugaboo website. He likes them because they are small..... He can like them all he wants, but there's no way we are ever going to pay $1500ish for a stroller!!!! Sooooooooo.... LOL We took a look at what they had at BRU, and we found one that we both liked. It's not inexpensive either, but at least it's under $500. We liked the Evenflow Eurotrek Travel system - Sunningdale. From this pic, it looks like it's vomit colour, but in person, it's actually a nice sporty looking green. :) We're not actually going to buy this until a bit later, but at least we have agreed on something we like.

I have to say that I really enjoyed shopping with DH. I thought he might be a bit weirded out by the baby store, but honestly, he was so cute looking at the clothes and diaper bags and stuff that were there. I think it was the first time I really saw him get excited about baby things. :)

Hormones + lack of sleep = MONSTER

I'm trying very hard not to get fired today. I'm cranky, moody, exhausted, and work is busier than it has been in the last 2+ years I've worked here! People keep asking me things, and I'm trying very hard not to just snap at every one. I think this has been the longest week of possibly my life, and I am just counting down the hours until it ends!

On the bright side, I do have an epicure party to go to tonight that my cousin is throwing, so it should be a nice way to just have fun and RELAX!!

Saturday, my friend invited me to some consignment sale thing for kids/babies.. I'm looking forward to getting a first glimpse in to shopping as a mom. :)

Only 4 and a half more hours left to my work day! PLEASE LET THEM FLY BY!!

My first baby purchase!

I was on my birth month board (on thebump) today, and someone put up a promo code for a baby sling. The sling is free, you just have to pay the shipping. I live in Canada, and the company is in the states, so it cost me $16 to ship it, but that's still much cheaper than what I've seen slings go for here in stores, and I love it, so why not? :)

I bought this one (Autumn Blaze) from https://www.sevenslings.com/index.php:

Also, in other news....

Our original appointment for our 20 week scan was scheduled for October 11th, which is one day AFTER Thanksgiving (here in Canada). DH kind of pointed out that it would have been nice to have found out before the weekend when everyone is over for turkey.

I called the clinic, not really expecting them to actually accommodate my request to move my appointment 1 week earlier, but they did!!! So now my appointment is October 4th. I can't wait!!!

I'm thinking of copying some of the ladies on my birth month board by making a little 'gender reveal' cake. Basically, we make a cake with question marks on the outside and non sex-specific icing on the outside, but the inside of it would either be pink or blue. I think it's fun... DH thinks I'm nuts. Meh.. whatever, I'm going to have fun!

Baby longies! (& soaker)

2 posts ago, I posted that I was knitting baby longies and promised to get some pictures up here of what I was talking about. So without further ado, here is the long and the short of them. :)

 Starting with the short (should fit newborn-6 months):

Then the long. These should fit newborn-3 months, possibly a little bit more than that. :)

And last, but not least, same as the ones above, but slightly different colour of yarn, and these ones are bigger to fit 3-6 months. They stretch pretty big though, so they might fit longer than 6 months.

17 Weeks, 1 Day

It's beginning to look a lot like a baby... (sung to the tune of It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas) ;)

I can't believe that in only 3 weeks, baby will be half-baked and we'll finally (hopefully) be able to find out the sex!! I'm pretty sure as soon as I know what baby is, I'll get right to shopping! So far, we haven't made any baby purchases yet.

People have asked me if I have any 'intuition' as to what the sex of the baby could be. I truthfully don't think I have any, but I guess I've had some form of leaning towards baby being a boy. I'm not sure if that's just because we refer to the baby as 'he' most of the time just to avoid calling it 'it' though. I really don't care what the sex of the baby is, I'm just so excited to finally know. October 11th is the day of the scan. :) Let's hope baby cooperates!! :)

Little ninja!

Baby's been kicking up a storm this morning! :) I've been feeling little movements here and there, but this morning, I definitely felt some kicks! They were hard enough that I could see them from the outside (though oddly enough, can't feel them from the outside). Just little flicks about 3 or 4 inches below my belly button. Baby made my Monday :)

Longies. :)

My friend came over last night to keep me company while DH worked super late. We're both knitters, and both expecting babies around the same time. (She is 4 weeks ahead of me). We've been knitting baby soakers. My friend cloth diapers her kid and intends to do so with the next one, and though I think cloth diapers are cute and everything, DH and I have decided it's not the way we want to go.... BUT... the soakers can be useful whether you are cloth diapering or not, and they're really cute, so I've been knitting a bunch of them. I will take pictures and post them on here at some point... I've been lazy.

In case you're wondering what a baby soaker (or longies) is/are (I had no idea what they were until my friend told me about them), they're basically just knit pants. They have to be knit out of 100% pure wool, because the wool serves as an absorbent layer. If baby pees or poops in the middle of the night, then the soaker kind of keeps it from getting on the bed, or anywhere else for that matter (like DH's shirt.. LOL).

They are often called soakers, baby longies or shorties. All the names just describe the styles. Soakers typically don't have legs, they just look like a diaper cover, longies have longer legs like pants, and shorties are basically the same as longies, just with shorter legs.

Okay... seriously, all this explaining now seems silly without pictures, so my next post will be the pics of the ones I've made so far. :)

Baby's still in there... :)

After a rather stressful morning (we had our standup meeting at work today, which ended up being inconclusive until October.... blah)... I was looking forward to hearing baby's heartbeat at my Dr.'s appointment today. :)

Dr. scared me a little when it took him FOREVER to find baby's heartbeat. He was even starting to get a strange look on his face, but he kept searching, and eventually found it. He said that the baby was being "sneaky". :) lol

I told that to DH, and DH's response was "greaaaaaat.... our baby's going to be a little troublemaker like me." haha

Oh probably. :)

Think happy thoughts

I will not worry about this, I will not worry about this....

The big guy where I work is calling a standup meeting on Monday for our entire branch. Last time we had a standup meeting, about 40 people got laid off.

I want to think that maybe they could tell us something positive on Monday, but we already know that our department has been told to cut another 5%. At this point, it won't happen through attrition, because most of the cut backs happened that way last time. They cut 80 positions, 40 of which were filled with people.

There's a good chance that I will not be affected by the cutbacks, but it's not impossible, which leaves me with a little doubt, and a lot of fear with a baby on the way!!

It really sucks. I got out of working in the private sector because they tell you that your job is secure in the government.... but since I've been here, all I've witness is insecurity, people losing their jobs, and I'm still on term after almost 2 1/2 years.

The best I can hope for is that I get to work out this term so that when I go on maternity leave I will get a top up on top of EI.

At least this way, they wouldn't be able to touch my position for a year.

Okay, now that this is out of my system, I will give no more thought to it until I actually find out what's happening!!!!

Growing. :)

Baby is the size of a navel orange this week, I'm apparently the size of half a watermelon, LOL Oh well, I adore my bump. :) I'm fully rocking out the maternity clothes now. I can't fit in to any of my normal pants, and all of my shirts have seemingly shrunk up my belly. The changes are exciting. :) Even DH seems to have more of a connection to the pregnancy, now that he can visibly see that there is a baby there.

I'm not sure what I'm feeling in there. Every once in a while, it feels like I'm having muscle spasms in my uterus. I'm assuming that it -could- be baby moving at this point, but I'm really not sure. I hope it is!! :)

I'm feeling a lot better now than before. I have more energy, I seemed to have nipped the overnight heartburn by propping my head up on pillows, and I generally feel pretty good! Only 5 more weeks until we find out the gender! I can't wait!!!! First stop when we figure out what it is is Carters! LOL I really just want to buy one little outfit just for fun. :)

14 weeks, 2 days

Belly looks a little less round this week, but that's probably just the maternity clothing. :) I find it makes me look a little thinner, and for that, I can't complain! ;)

13 weeks, 4 days!!!!!

I am officially out of 1rst tri, and I am undeniably pregnant. Just look at this freakin' belly!!!

Nursery colours :)

In two more days, I will officially be considered out of 1rst tri. To celebrate, I'm starting to think about how I want to decorate the nursery. We're not going to start decorating it until we find out what we're having, but I have at least a colour palette in mind.

I don't like the traditional all pink for girls, all blue for boys sort of thing, so I figured I would keep in pink or blue, but in a minimal way.

For a boy, this is what I'm thinking:

So there's still blue, but the main colours of the room would be the green and brown, and the accent colour would be the blue. The furniture would be white, the walls would be brown on the bottom, green on top, or brown/white... or just one brown accent wall or something... then any little accents would be blue. :)

For a girl, it's pretty much the same, but incorporating the pink as the accent colour:

I can't wait to find out what we're having, but in the meantime, since my colour palettes are so similar, we'll start to buy some of the furniture, and leave the painting/bedding and anything gender specific until we know the gender. :)

To give some idea of how I'd bring it all together, it would be something like this (then add in some blue or pink items - blankets, toys, picture frames - later when we find out the gender): (this is an image from google)