By the end of the day my feet and hands are swelled... my feet are just getting ridiculous.
I've decided to devote a whole page in baby's memory book to a montage of my swelled feet and the places we've gone.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
swelling feet
I hope this is just a summer thing with pregnancy. Because now I plan to just have winter babies.
By the end of the day my feet and hands are swelled... my feet are just getting ridiculous.
I've decided to devote a whole page in baby's memory book to a montage of my swelled feet and the places we've gone.
By the end of the day my feet and hands are swelled... my feet are just getting ridiculous.
I've decided to devote a whole page in baby's memory book to a montage of my swelled feet and the places we've gone.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
baby bear - week 29
Hello third trimester, I can't believe we've made it this far.
I have a feeling you're going to make me pay for the easiness of the first 6 months. The no throwing up, the no food aversions, the ability to still work out.... I enjoyed that.
But now, I've spent more nights tossing and turning than the whole first 6 months combined.
One night I spent a few hours sitting up in bed just to stop the nausea, my hips are starting to hurt when I walk fast and for a long distance... and even more so when I sleep on my side. Oh, the side sleeping pain. I'm even using my pillow between my knees and ankles to no relief.
But this week also had a lot of amazing to it, too.
I have a feeling you're going to make me pay for the easiness of the first 6 months. The no throwing up, the no food aversions, the ability to still work out.... I enjoyed that.
But now, I've spent more nights tossing and turning than the whole first 6 months combined.
One night I spent a few hours sitting up in bed just to stop the nausea, my hips are starting to hurt when I walk fast and for a long distance... and even more so when I sleep on my side. Oh, the side sleeping pain. I'm even using my pillow between my knees and ankles to no relief.
But this week also had a lot of amazing to it, too.
- Ben felt baby move for the first time, and every day since I call him over when I feel her starting to dance. One time he even said, "okay baby, move if you love me" - and she moved and danced and he just about felt like the king of the world. I don't think baby will stop amazing us anytime soon.
- We also started looking at getting a doula for our birth and postpartum care. At first I thought only getting the postpartum care would work for us, as I'm pretty confident in birthing and zero confident in actually caring (and breastfeeding) a child. But as Ben and I talked longer about it, it just seemed to make sense to have her there for the birth. She'll be able to help me in so many ways - and I don't want to put that burden on Ben. I want him to enjoy the birth and not be stressed about doing things right or if he has time to take a bathroom break. I also wanted a doula for the hopefully-not-the-case case I need to have a hospital birth. I want an advocate for the birth plan I believe in. We contacted a handful of doulas last week and plan to "interview" them over the next two.
- I started my prenatal yoga class last weekend. It was everything I needed. I didn't realize how much I wanted a community of pregnant women until I was there and we were all introducing ourselves and how far along we are. I imagine it will be a similar feeling for when we start our childbirth classes next month. I felt wiser than the 19 week-ers and in awe of the 38 week-ers. And felt like bff's to all the mamas in the 28th week. What a special feeling.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Baby Bear - Week 25
Well, it's definitely been a while since my last update... and now I'm past halfway (yay!) and only have 3.5 months left!
I'm so very obviously showing now. I grew out of my non-stretch pants and moved into the luxurious (seriously!) life of maternity pants around week 18. It was annoying, since I was still in the "is she chubs or pregnant" stage, so I felt much like the chubs state. And now, 6 weeks later, I'm thinking I'll have to move to the full-paneled maternity pants since the demi/short paneled pants are starting to fold over under my growing belly.
And it's going to grow so-much-bigger. Everything is going to get so much bigger.
I finally started to feel baby bear kick and move around week 19. It happens about every other day, not all the time, and at first I was convinced they weren't kicks. They feel like little bubbles of pressure - pretty cool. I'm excited for when Ben will be able to feel her move.
Her nursery is starting to fill in too! We finally put up crown molding a week or two ago, bought a crib we love, and moved the dresser up to the room. We still need to get a rocker, hang the art, and finish the mobile.
I also wanted to touch on something I was panicking about at my week 16 update - getting the every other week invasive ultrasound. I talked to my midwife before my week 19 ultrasound and asked why this would be necessary, and she explained, that while it's probably not necessary, it's a precaution because up until 24 weeks if my cervix were to start shortening (getting ready for labor), they could put a stitch in there to help prevent pre-term labor. Easy as that. I was so peeved the doctor never explained something so simple like that to me. The next day, at the ultrasound, I confirmed this with the doctor and made sure that if everything looked great and long that I could stop with the additional ultrasound requirement - to which she agreed. And I'm happy to confirm that indeed, everything is looking perfect!
Finally, I am still working out about 3x a week, but am officially not jumping or doing any deep squats or lunges anymore. I talked to my trainer and worked out a plan to add some more variety into the workout for me, since everything was turning into either do a plank option or full body extensions. My legs have been fatiguing pretty fast lately (all this extra weight! swelling!) so I wanted to do more upper body/arm work outs. It was a great talk, and now when I get to class I go through each circuit exercise and figure out the modification or do a completely different exercise (tricep extension, bicep curl, dumbbell lateral raises, pushups, etc.). So far I feel like i'm getting so much more out of my workout! I'm going to continue going to the gym class until the beginning of May (about week 27) before transitioning to prenatal Pilates (at home) and prenatal yoga in a studio (1-2x a week). I think this will work out great and still keep me in shape for labor and delivery. The yoga studio I found also does a mommy and me yoga for new mothers (nursing baby and any baby that isn't crawling yet are welcome!) - what a great environment to reconnect with your body and not have to make arrangements for baby.
Also, pregnancy hair isn't a joke - I've never had fuller, more luscious hair!
 |
| the cutest little baby feet |
I'm so very obviously showing now. I grew out of my non-stretch pants and moved into the luxurious (seriously!) life of maternity pants around week 18. It was annoying, since I was still in the "is she chubs or pregnant" stage, so I felt much like the chubs state. And now, 6 weeks later, I'm thinking I'll have to move to the full-paneled maternity pants since the demi/short paneled pants are starting to fold over under my growing belly.
And it's going to grow so-much-bigger. Everything is going to get so much bigger.
I finally started to feel baby bear kick and move around week 19. It happens about every other day, not all the time, and at first I was convinced they weren't kicks. They feel like little bubbles of pressure - pretty cool. I'm excited for when Ben will be able to feel her move.
Her nursery is starting to fill in too! We finally put up crown molding a week or two ago, bought a crib we love, and moved the dresser up to the room. We still need to get a rocker, hang the art, and finish the mobile.
I also wanted to touch on something I was panicking about at my week 16 update - getting the every other week invasive ultrasound. I talked to my midwife before my week 19 ultrasound and asked why this would be necessary, and she explained, that while it's probably not necessary, it's a precaution because up until 24 weeks if my cervix were to start shortening (getting ready for labor), they could put a stitch in there to help prevent pre-term labor. Easy as that. I was so peeved the doctor never explained something so simple like that to me. The next day, at the ultrasound, I confirmed this with the doctor and made sure that if everything looked great and long that I could stop with the additional ultrasound requirement - to which she agreed. And I'm happy to confirm that indeed, everything is looking perfect!
Finally, I am still working out about 3x a week, but am officially not jumping or doing any deep squats or lunges anymore. I talked to my trainer and worked out a plan to add some more variety into the workout for me, since everything was turning into either do a plank option or full body extensions. My legs have been fatiguing pretty fast lately (all this extra weight! swelling!) so I wanted to do more upper body/arm work outs. It was a great talk, and now when I get to class I go through each circuit exercise and figure out the modification or do a completely different exercise (tricep extension, bicep curl, dumbbell lateral raises, pushups, etc.). So far I feel like i'm getting so much more out of my workout! I'm going to continue going to the gym class until the beginning of May (about week 27) before transitioning to prenatal Pilates (at home) and prenatal yoga in a studio (1-2x a week). I think this will work out great and still keep me in shape for labor and delivery. The yoga studio I found also does a mommy and me yoga for new mothers (nursing baby and any baby that isn't crawling yet are welcome!) - what a great environment to reconnect with your body and not have to make arrangements for baby.
Also, pregnancy hair isn't a joke - I've never had fuller, more luscious hair!
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Spring cleaning (& ThredUp Review)
Now that I'm not 20... 23... or even 25 anymore, I have learned so much about about the value of money vs. the value of material items.
When I got my first engineering job, as a co-op student, I all of a sudden had this huge income of money (going from $0 to $30/hr as a 20 y/o). In return, I saved about half and spent the rest on clothes. Unfortunately this is before I really valued material and make over quantity. So while I should have invested in a suit to wear for interviews, I bought party dresses and tons of jeans and shirts - because I could... and I was 20. Oh, and was totally dedicated to the idea of "I have to buy this, it's on sale!"
When I was 23, I hit my next wave of "ooo income, must spend!" - I got hired full time, and moved to Seattle. This is the phase where I decided to buy every dress imaginable. And join every members-only site out there.
Then, by 25, Ben had moved in - but my habits were hard to die. This is about when I tore my ACL too, and was on bed rest while I recovered. I gained a ton of weight, but still had access to shop online in my old "I'll get there again" sizes. (we all have those clothes in our closet, amiright!).
When I got married, Ben and I decided to really start taking finances seriously. And more so when we were considering getting pregnant. I looked in my closet and found that I had pants that still had tags, and were 4 sizes too small. I had half my dresses still with tags, and equally not in my size.
The first step was to follow the moto "if I don't love it, don't buy it." and "only buy items that fit now." These steps helped to refine how I was shopping.
The next, huge step was to clean out my closet, and start new. I hated having so many unused and totally new clothes in my closet. I just never found an outlet for these items. There was a lot of equity in them, many were designer or quality name brand items. Then I stumbled on this post - and because I don't have an instagram following, I decided to go use ThredUp.
The first Bag, in which you order from them and is free, I filled up to the brim with about 20% gently used clothes and 80% still has tags. They go through the bag and list what they kept and my profit of it. The rest of the unused items go to a charity or a textile recycling factory - or you can pay like $13 to have them send your items back to you. They ended up using a lot of my items, which gave me an awesome, almost $100 payout. Of course I realize this is a FRACTION of what I actually spent on my items, but I wasn't using these items and was not earning interest by having them in my closet. They also send you an email after you items are sold. Here's a small snapshot of how my items are doing.
I just got done stuffing my next bag, which has about 30% new with tags items and more business-esque items - I even threw in a few pairs of barely used shoes. We'll see how I do, but it feels so good getting rid of BAGS of items.
If you sign up using my referral link, I win and you win!
 |
| my new favorite artist - found here |
When I got my first engineering job, as a co-op student, I all of a sudden had this huge income of money (going from $0 to $30/hr as a 20 y/o). In return, I saved about half and spent the rest on clothes. Unfortunately this is before I really valued material and make over quantity. So while I should have invested in a suit to wear for interviews, I bought party dresses and tons of jeans and shirts - because I could... and I was 20. Oh, and was totally dedicated to the idea of "I have to buy this, it's on sale!"
When I was 23, I hit my next wave of "ooo income, must spend!" - I got hired full time, and moved to Seattle. This is the phase where I decided to buy every dress imaginable. And join every members-only site out there.
Then, by 25, Ben had moved in - but my habits were hard to die. This is about when I tore my ACL too, and was on bed rest while I recovered. I gained a ton of weight, but still had access to shop online in my old "I'll get there again" sizes. (we all have those clothes in our closet, amiright!).
When I got married, Ben and I decided to really start taking finances seriously. And more so when we were considering getting pregnant. I looked in my closet and found that I had pants that still had tags, and were 4 sizes too small. I had half my dresses still with tags, and equally not in my size.
The first step was to follow the moto "if I don't love it, don't buy it." and "only buy items that fit now." These steps helped to refine how I was shopping.
The next, huge step was to clean out my closet, and start new. I hated having so many unused and totally new clothes in my closet. I just never found an outlet for these items. There was a lot of equity in them, many were designer or quality name brand items. Then I stumbled on this post - and because I don't have an instagram following, I decided to go use ThredUp.
The first Bag, in which you order from them and is free, I filled up to the brim with about 20% gently used clothes and 80% still has tags. They go through the bag and list what they kept and my profit of it. The rest of the unused items go to a charity or a textile recycling factory - or you can pay like $13 to have them send your items back to you. They ended up using a lot of my items, which gave me an awesome, almost $100 payout. Of course I realize this is a FRACTION of what I actually spent on my items, but I wasn't using these items and was not earning interest by having them in my closet. They also send you an email after you items are sold. Here's a small snapshot of how my items are doing.
I just got done stuffing my next bag, which has about 30% new with tags items and more business-esque items - I even threw in a few pairs of barely used shoes. We'll see how I do, but it feels so good getting rid of BAGS of items.
If you sign up using my referral link, I win and you win!
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