28 Weeks

28 weeks and 1 day, as of today! 83 more to go, and we still have so much to do.

We are officially into the third trimester. Eleanor is approximately 15 inches long and weighs 2.25 lbs. As of this week she is able to open her eyes and perceive light. She is a busy little mover during the day and seems to like to hang out low in my belly, as she has throughout the entire pregnancy.

I had a lovely time back in Phoenix, even though my nephew Atlas did not make an appearance. I really enjoyed spending time with my family and seeing everyone at Bethany's shower. I'll be back soon for my own!

27 Weeks

27 weeks today! 91 days to go.

I'm sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to Phoenix. I'll be back for a week long Phoenix visit to attend my friend's wedding and sister's baby shower. It's looking like my little nephew might be born in the next week. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get to meet him.

This is the last week of my second trimester. I'm lucky that I've had such an easy time of it so far. Although I'm still sleeping well and able to keep up my exercise routine, I'm starting to feel very pregnant and I have a feeling the next three months will be long and tiring.

I spend several hours this weekend browsing children's books on Amazon and creating a list of ones to add to Eleanor's library. I tried to make sure all of the classics are there, like Winnie the Pooh, Madeline, Eloise, Corduroy, Paddington Bear, Good Dog Carl, a selection of Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter, Goodnight Moon, Pat the Bunny, etc. I also stumbled across some titles that I liked when I was a kid but had forgotten about, like Harry the Dirty Dog. I just can’t wait until Eleanor is here and I can I hold her in our rocking chair and read to her.

26 Weeks & First Family Portrait

26 weeks today! 98 days to go - I’m so excited to be into the double digits. It feels like such a big accomplishment.

As of last week, the comments from random strangers have really started rolling in. I’m getting a lot of “How far along? Only 6 months?! You’re huge! Are you having twins?” types of remarks. I know I’m not small for 26 weeks, but I don’t think I’m that huge either. I might have to grunt a little bit when I bend down to pick something up off of the floor, but my belly is still small enough that I forget that it is there from time to time, especially when I’m sitting down. I think that most people who make such comments either have no idea what they are talking about, don’t realize that all pregnant women carry differently, or forget exactly how big they were when they were pregnant themselves. Either way, they don’t really bother me, but it just makes me wonder. Why say anything at all, if it isn’t something positive and encouraging?

Also in the last few weeks Eleanor’s movements have started to really change. Instead of swift kicks and twitches, I’m feel a lot more gentle movements, pressure from where her body is laying, stretching, and pushing. My placenta is right on the back, so I’m able to feel pretty much everything. I’m able to see pretty much everything too. Andrew got a huge kick out of laying in bed and watching my tummy bulge up and down the other night. These new sorts of movements are a lot more frequent than the previous kind and I’m really enjoying them. Constant little reminders that my baby girl in there and doing well.

On Sunday Andrew and I finally found the perfect chair for the nursery. It is modern looking and glides as well as swivels. It is made by the same store, EQ3, that we purchased our couch and armchair from. One of the reasons we love EQ3 is because of their fun upholstery options. We picked out a fabric for the chair that will compliment our living room set and will also look good in our bedroom, so it will definitely have a long life outside of the nursery. The fabric that we liked best, however, did not look good with the lavender palette I had been planning on, so I decided to completely redo everything.

The crib bedding that I love previously only came in two colors, purple and pink, but just in the last month Land of Nod started offering it in two additional colors, light blue and light green. I LOVE the light green, which is sort of a mixture between sage and chartreuse. It will look really cool with the upholstery we picked for the chair, which is a shade called "sour apple." For accent colors we are going to use bright blues, oranges, and reds. Here is my idea sheet for Nursery 2.0:

Also on Sunday we took our first family portrait. I had been wanting to do this since we got our new camera, but we never took the time. Since we were going out I decided to wear a new dress that I bought to wear to my friend Brianna's wedding in a few weeks. Andrew decided that since I looked nice, he would look nice too. I seized the opportunity and snapped this:

25 Weeks

25 weeks today! 15 weeks or 105 days to go.

On Sunday we had our first official meeting with our doula. Maybe it’s my past as a very dedicated student or maybe it’s just my personality, but I’m a planner and a studier. Eleanor’s birth might be 15 weeks away, but I’ve already begun serious preparation, including reading, practicing breathing methods, and doing exercises to strengthen the muscles I will use to deliver her. I finished reading Pregnancy, Childbirth & the Newborn (Penny Simkin) a few weeks ago (I would highly recommend this book, by the way, especially for someone who would plans on reading only one childbirth preparation book) and it has a very detailed birth plan worksheet that is a sort of checklist to help you make sure you’ve thought about everything and have some clear preferences lined up. I spent an afternoon typing up the entire list and providing my answers with some helpful input from Andrew. The entire worksheet ended up being six pages long! Don’t worry, the six page worksheet won’t be what we take with us to the hospital; we will refine it down to one clear page. Along with the worksheet, I made a short bullet list of the most important things that we would like to convey to the hospital staff.

So I had all of this stuff printed out and ready to hand over to the doula. I figured I would either come off as really committed and prepared, or totally anal, opinionated, and maybe a tiny bit crazy. She went over everything, all seven pages, very carefully and provided a lot of useful feedback about the hospital’s policies and her experiences attending other births there. Luckily she didn’t think I’m anal or crazy and she praised us for seeming so calm and well studied. We won’t meet with her again until after our childbirth classes in late April, then we will practice some labor positions and coping strategies together. Until then I’m going to keep up my reading and mental preparations. I'm currently working on Birthing From Within (Pam England) and will move on to The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth (Henci Goer). Trust me, you don't want to see how long my Amazon Wish List is right now.

On Monday Andrew turned 29. We celebrated over the weekend with a little dinner and some frostingless cake (he just doesn't like it that sweet). He always told me that he wanted to have children before the age of 30, so I'm happy to report that the goal has been met.

Aside from Andrew's birthday and the leftover cake, the highlight of my week so far has been the purchase of this little dress:

I found out about this brand, Right Bank Babies, a few days ago. I gushed to my friend Morgan about how cute these clothes are (we share an affinity for children's clothes with an Anthropologie aesthetic) and fell absolutely in love with this reversible dress, but it was pretty expensive. This morning the brand was featured on one of the sale sites that I subscribe to, The Mini Social, and there was the dress at half price. I snagged it in a 12m. It will be perfect for next summer. Isn't it lovely when things work out like that?