I am 3.5 months away from giving birth. 15 weeks. Just gonna let that sink in a little bit.
Alright, I lied. I'm gonna ignore the fact that this baby is going to have to come out at some point. We'll just stay in comfortable denial for now.
4th of July was an absolute blast! Not literally, as we didn't see any fireworks other than on TV, but James and I spent the day cooking. I started the morning making the pastry dough for pasties, and have decided that the best smell in the world is the smell of butter and flour combining into dough. The kitchen and my hands smelled wonderful. We also made a vanilla bean cheesecake, although I think it needs to be a bit heavier on the vanilla and grilled some hot dogs for lunch. We ended the night with the pasties which turned out pretty well. I added some extra seasonings, remembering how bland it was last time, and have decided that I need to find a different dough recipe, but it was an overall success. While we were finishing, the fireworks started going off. Living so close to Disneyland and hearing the fireworks every night, I thought the dogs would be fine. They were, until the jerk in the apartments next door lit off a bottle rocket right as the dogs were walking past. Pippin spent the entire night shaking at every little pop and literally climbed up James' legs into his arms (he got some pretty bad scratches) and would not leave our sides all night. The only silver lining to this is that being scared wore her out so thoroughly that she slept through the night instead of barking every 30 minutes like the past two nights.
I found a recipe for prosciutto wrapped nectarines that were grilled and sounded fantastic and automatically instigated a craving. I must have researched "prosciutto while pregnant" for at least an hour online, and getting no answer resorted to calling Blue Shields' Prenatal Nurse line. This nurse line is advertised as only employing nurses who have at least 10 years' worth of experience in prenatal care but both times I've called it, it's been completely useless. This time, the nurse told me that because she didn't know the type of meat I was referring to and my doctor hadn't specifically told me I could eat it (though he never said I couldn't) I should just avoid it. Regardless of the fact that she said cooked/heated lunch meats are considered safe to consume. Instead of actually looking into it and seeing if it's considered safe, she just went with her "gut feeling" on the matter; very scientific I'm sure. Of course, the nurse at the doctor's office didn't know what prosciutto was when I called the next day either. (How is this even possible?! They're totally missing out!!) When I brought it up with the nurse practitioner at my doctor's appointment, she couldn't believe that they wanted her to specifically list the items I could eat--just confirming my belief that nurse lines (everywhere) are completely useless. Most of the time, they tell me to go to the ER when I call...I've pretty much stopped calling them. Then I got pregnant and thought it would be nice not to have to bother my doctor's office about little questions like lunch meat, but I still get horrible advice. PS: James totally bought me nectarines and prosciutto to have on Monday (and OMG SO GOOD)
I've mentioned before about reading posts online and hearing stories that people don't seem to have a filter when it comes to pregnant women. This includes not only comments about how big someone is, but about how small someone is. I was at the gas station, getting a propane tank refilled for my boss, and it came up that I was 6 months pregnant (has it really been half a year already?!) The attendant's response was "6 months?! And that's all the belly you've got?" I'm sure she meant it as a nice comment, but there are two things these kinds of comments (and this is the 4th I've gotten in the past 2 weeks) make me think of: 1) I don't look pregnant, just fat. There's no doubt my waistline is gone. So when you tell me I barely look pregnant, it makes me think you just think I'm fat. Thanks. 2) Something is wrong with my child because I'm not as big as I'm "supposed" to be. Now I'll spend the night worrying about my baby. Thanks. How about a "6 months? You look great!" That's a good choice...then I neither feel fat nor like I'm doing something wrong. And oddly enough, while you may not be able to tell, I feel enormous, thank you very much.
A whole bunch of symptoms just cropped up this week: I woke up Saturday with a cramp in my leg! Woke myself (and James) up by screaming at 5 am...I've never had a leg cramp. I get cramps in my feet sometimes, but nothing that makes me scream. This was horrible. I could still feel it a day later--right below my knee, in the center of the calf. It felt like a rock and it's still sore when I stretch out my leg and flex my foot. Cravings are also back--I fell into the stereotypical pregnancy craving of a pickle one night. We had gone to Albertson's to pick up a DVD from the RedBox and all of a sudden, I thought a pickle sounded great. Not a jar, not with ice cream, just a single pickle. (They sell them individually wrapped!!!) It was delicious. Every day I work, I slip my flats on in the morning and have to wedge my feet inside them. It seems like my sweet are swollen in the mornings...or maybe little gremlins are making my flats tighter each night. Yeah, I'll go with that explanation instead :) The tightening feeling I've been getting in my lower abdomen for the past few weeks has been confirmed as Braxton Hicks contractions, which is crazy. It kinda drives it home that we only have 15 weeks left to go!
The realization of how quickly time is going by really sunk in when I realized how soon October would be here. My boss' wife has offered to throw me a baby shower, and I realized that we probably needed more than one crib sheet and a Raffi cd on our registry. We ended up spending over 2 hours in Babies R Us on Friday, scanning things, then going home to look at reviews and reconsider some of the things. We're slowly working through those lists of "Register for these things!" and making our own list of what we feel we need to register for. There's not much that we truly need aside from a place for him to sleep and a car seat and a way to carry him (like a sling), but there's so much fun, cute stuff out there that would be useful. We found some really cute nursery decorations that include sheets, wall appliques and even a valance, all in an adorable under the sea motif (the even had a lamp!). And there's this adorable mat that looks like a lamb!!! (I have a deep love of a few things: miniature items, gimmicky items and items that look like something else). So we had fun with that and are finalizing it all--we're registered on Amazon and Babies R Us if you're interested in seeing what we found and it's under Emmi (there's another Emily Lawrence in Orange having a baby--caused some confusion when I was searching for it).
I did finish a craft for the nursery this week! I tried to make the mobile, but failed miserably. I'm not great at felt crafts I guess. I'm not giving up, but I needed a positive experience that could provide closure (ie: something I could finish!) I found the cutest pin on Pinterest: a three panel painting of a whale and its spout. The pin took me to an Etsy store selling the paintings for $150; quite a bit out of our price range. Despite my severe lack of artistic ability, I thought I might be able to pull off something similar. I changed the shape of the whale to something I thought was cuter and added some dots on the spray painting. I did at least two coats of each colour, even the white to cover my freehand pencil drawings. The turquoise took 5 coats however (luckily that was the least complicated painting). I think it turned out pretty cute and will look adorable in the nursery--and considering my normally horrid art skills, I'm really happy with it. And it was nice to do a project that I actually completed. I have an extra canvas and think I might do a seahorse silhouette on it--I found a shape I like a lot and I might do a blue on white instead of white on blue. I'm not sure. Or maybe a sand dollar. Or maybe a sea star. Either could be cute. Maybe I'll divide it into four parts and do each! Anyways, it was great to have a finished project. We'll keep working on the nursery until it looks like an actual bedroom instead of a storage unit, but it'll take time since my hip is preventing me from doing anything and James has a normal 9-5 (or 8-6) work schedule.
Weekly update:
Alright, I lied. I'm gonna ignore the fact that this baby is going to have to come out at some point. We'll just stay in comfortable denial for now.
4th of July was an absolute blast! Not literally, as we didn't see any fireworks other than on TV, but James and I spent the day cooking. I started the morning making the pastry dough for pasties, and have decided that the best smell in the world is the smell of butter and flour combining into dough. The kitchen and my hands smelled wonderful. We also made a vanilla bean cheesecake, although I think it needs to be a bit heavier on the vanilla and grilled some hot dogs for lunch. We ended the night with the pasties which turned out pretty well. I added some extra seasonings, remembering how bland it was last time, and have decided that I need to find a different dough recipe, but it was an overall success. While we were finishing, the fireworks started going off. Living so close to Disneyland and hearing the fireworks every night, I thought the dogs would be fine. They were, until the jerk in the apartments next door lit off a bottle rocket right as the dogs were walking past. Pippin spent the entire night shaking at every little pop and literally climbed up James' legs into his arms (he got some pretty bad scratches) and would not leave our sides all night. The only silver lining to this is that being scared wore her out so thoroughly that she slept through the night instead of barking every 30 minutes like the past two nights.
I found a recipe for prosciutto wrapped nectarines that were grilled and sounded fantastic and automatically instigated a craving. I must have researched "prosciutto while pregnant" for at least an hour online, and getting no answer resorted to calling Blue Shields' Prenatal Nurse line. This nurse line is advertised as only employing nurses who have at least 10 years' worth of experience in prenatal care but both times I've called it, it's been completely useless. This time, the nurse told me that because she didn't know the type of meat I was referring to and my doctor hadn't specifically told me I could eat it (though he never said I couldn't) I should just avoid it. Regardless of the fact that she said cooked/heated lunch meats are considered safe to consume. Instead of actually looking into it and seeing if it's considered safe, she just went with her "gut feeling" on the matter; very scientific I'm sure. Of course, the nurse at the doctor's office didn't know what prosciutto was when I called the next day either. (How is this even possible?! They're totally missing out!!) When I brought it up with the nurse practitioner at my doctor's appointment, she couldn't believe that they wanted her to specifically list the items I could eat--just confirming my belief that nurse lines (everywhere) are completely useless. Most of the time, they tell me to go to the ER when I call...I've pretty much stopped calling them. Then I got pregnant and thought it would be nice not to have to bother my doctor's office about little questions like lunch meat, but I still get horrible advice. PS: James totally bought me nectarines and prosciutto to have on Monday (and OMG SO GOOD)
I've mentioned before about reading posts online and hearing stories that people don't seem to have a filter when it comes to pregnant women. This includes not only comments about how big someone is, but about how small someone is. I was at the gas station, getting a propane tank refilled for my boss, and it came up that I was 6 months pregnant (has it really been half a year already?!) The attendant's response was "6 months?! And that's all the belly you've got?" I'm sure she meant it as a nice comment, but there are two things these kinds of comments (and this is the 4th I've gotten in the past 2 weeks) make me think of: 1) I don't look pregnant, just fat. There's no doubt my waistline is gone. So when you tell me I barely look pregnant, it makes me think you just think I'm fat. Thanks. 2) Something is wrong with my child because I'm not as big as I'm "supposed" to be. Now I'll spend the night worrying about my baby. Thanks. How about a "6 months? You look great!" That's a good choice...then I neither feel fat nor like I'm doing something wrong. And oddly enough, while you may not be able to tell, I feel enormous, thank you very much.
A whole bunch of symptoms just cropped up this week: I woke up Saturday with a cramp in my leg! Woke myself (and James) up by screaming at 5 am...I've never had a leg cramp. I get cramps in my feet sometimes, but nothing that makes me scream. This was horrible. I could still feel it a day later--right below my knee, in the center of the calf. It felt like a rock and it's still sore when I stretch out my leg and flex my foot. Cravings are also back--I fell into the stereotypical pregnancy craving of a pickle one night. We had gone to Albertson's to pick up a DVD from the RedBox and all of a sudden, I thought a pickle sounded great. Not a jar, not with ice cream, just a single pickle. (They sell them individually wrapped!!!) It was delicious. Every day I work, I slip my flats on in the morning and have to wedge my feet inside them. It seems like my sweet are swollen in the mornings...or maybe little gremlins are making my flats tighter each night. Yeah, I'll go with that explanation instead :) The tightening feeling I've been getting in my lower abdomen for the past few weeks has been confirmed as Braxton Hicks contractions, which is crazy. It kinda drives it home that we only have 15 weeks left to go!
The realization of how quickly time is going by really sunk in when I realized how soon October would be here. My boss' wife has offered to throw me a baby shower, and I realized that we probably needed more than one crib sheet and a Raffi cd on our registry. We ended up spending over 2 hours in Babies R Us on Friday, scanning things, then going home to look at reviews and reconsider some of the things. We're slowly working through those lists of "Register for these things!" and making our own list of what we feel we need to register for. There's not much that we truly need aside from a place for him to sleep and a car seat and a way to carry him (like a sling), but there's so much fun, cute stuff out there that would be useful. We found some really cute nursery decorations that include sheets, wall appliques and even a valance, all in an adorable under the sea motif (the even had a lamp!). And there's this adorable mat that looks like a lamb!!! (I have a deep love of a few things: miniature items, gimmicky items and items that look like something else). So we had fun with that and are finalizing it all--we're registered on Amazon and Babies R Us if you're interested in seeing what we found and it's under Emmi (there's another Emily Lawrence in Orange having a baby--caused some confusion when I was searching for it).
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| Whale triptych! |
Weekly update:
How far along: 25 weeks (Now less than 100 days left!)
Total weight gain: +14 (Doc said I was good though it kinda shocked me)
Favourite clothes: Flip flops--my trusty flats are cutting off circulation because my feet are so swollen...
Sleeping: Late. I blame James for putting the puppies in bed with me in the mornings, which makes me snuggle up even more.
Best moment: Every time I feel him kick. I love that feeling.
Worst moment: Waking up with the leg cramp---seriously?!
Miss anything: Cider. And cold prosciutto.
Cravings: Prosciutto-wrapped grilled nectarines, apple slices and gouda, dill pickle
New symptoms: Leg cramps!! Braxton Hicks (confirmed as such!) Swollen feet.
Looking forward to: This weekend in Coronado with Peggy
Pregnancy brain moments: I totally started sobbing in the middle of target after reading "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.
Listening to: American Beauty by the Lost Trailers and Christian Kane's album "The House Rules"
Crafting: Started on the felt mobile. Hopefully it'll look as nice as I imagine it to
Baby projects: We're finishing up the registry as someone up here has offered to throw me a shower and worked on the nursery over the weekend. It's starting to come together!
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| We had to move the profile shots due to lack of room in the nursery and the shot glass shelves in the living room |
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| Can I still see my feet? Kinda...If I lean over... |
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| There it is! |
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| 25 weeks: Less than 100 days left! Wooo! |
Take lots of magnesium! I've got it when pregnant with Jonas - helped a lot!
ReplyDeleteSo excited for you! Take the time to enjoy it now. 40 weeks blows by WAY too quickly. I hope you are doing well. Call me anytime if you need anything. For the leg cramps, try eating a banana a day. The potassium helps them from happening and they hurt less when they do happen. Propping up your feet for a half hour for every 4 hours that you were sitting or standing helps with the swelling (although, only to a certain extent!) Good luck lady. Thinking about you!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys!
ReplyDeleteDanielle--I had a really bad experience with banana flavoured medicine when I was young, and now the flavour of bananas gets to me a bit. Luckily, they've been getting better lately.
I'll try propping my feet up more, but it's too late for my rings, which are getting sized up now lol.Thinking about you too and can't wait to see pictures of your little guy when he gets here! So exciting!