Baby Shower

Yesterday was my baby shower. It was given by my mother in law who put so much time and effort into it that I feel like I owe her big time. It was a very fun, relaxed day that I got to spend with my family and close friends. It was so nice to be able to sit down and chat with so many ladies who are so dear to me at such a special time in my life. I'm so grateful for them and for the time we had.

Now I'm going to brag about the party because, like I said, my mother in law did an outstanding job and I absolutely loved all of the "owl themed" decorations, games, and yummy treats.

For party favors, there was a pink candy buffet complete with baby spoons for serving that the guests could fill little homemade owl bags with.

There were two trees (one on the candy table and one in the kitchen) that housed adorable little felt owls (also handmade).

Side note: Paul and his brother took Liam and his cousin to Chuck E. Cheese and to feed the ducks at the park for some boy time. While away, Paul learned that Liam interacts totally different with him when I'm not around. There are some more "boy" days being planned for the future and I'm really excited about the two of them bonding more.

But while that was going on, I was opening little pink dresses, blankets and diapers. My mother in law acquired this vintage crib from an estate sale a few days ago and she used it as a "drop off" for the gifts. Is that cute and clever or is that cute and clever?

As you can tell, I had an amazing time and I have now resumed nesting and getting my home ready for Brygit's arrival. This post wouldn't be complete without a belly picture. 4 weeks, 4 days until I'm due. Yay!

Is it too early to be done?

I'm 31 weeks in this photo but I'm pushing 33 weeks at the moment and I feel like I've doubled in size since this picture was taken. However, it's the most recent so that's what you get. I have really enjoyed this pregnancy thus far and my symptoms have been pretty mild or short-lived for the most part. But now that I am 7 weeks away from D Day I feel free to announce that I AM DONE BEING PREGNANT!! I keep telling myself that it's a good thing to feel that way. If I were happy right where I am then I would never last through labor and delivery. It's nice to feel like "bring on the contractions, baby! And not these little Braxton Hicks. The REAL ones!" In all seriousness, I hope she stays in until she's good and ready which isn't now. But I am counting down and trying to give myself little milestones to look forward to so that I don't go completely insane.

At the moment I have heartburn pretty much all the time. Citrus and spicy foods are the worst. They rarely sound good to me anymore. My pelvic pressure has moved down into my legs which cramp up at times. My lower back on my left side near my tailbone has some pain which makes me limp or waddle a lot. Most recently, I slept wrong and woke up with pain that feels like a pulled muscle beneath my ribs on my right side. It hurts when I move wrong or cough (which is awesome since I have a cold at the moment). Brygit is super good at martial arts and she knows just where to kick me to make me double over. I haven't slept through the night due to pain, discomfort, bathroom trips, heartburn and Liam in I don't know how long. You get the picture. I'm ready to get this baby out of me! Not to mention, I am so super excited that I can barely stand it. I can't wait to meet my little girl, hold her in my arms and introduce her to Liam. Becoming a mother the first time was so incredible that I can't even imagine what it's like to be able to experience it a second time. I'm feeling extremely lucky and extremely antsy. Let the countdown begin!

Cookie Cutter Babies

Last week we had a couple of 4D ultrasounds done. The first one didn't quite work out because Brygit kept putting her hands in front of her face and turning her head away. She is very uncooperative when it comes to ultrasounds. Has been this entire pregnancy. They let us come back and try again a couple of days later and although she still preferred her hands in her face we were able to get a much better shot of her. What was so striking was her resemblance to Liam. He also had a 4D ultrasound done but his was about a month earlier so those pictures don't look as similar as pictures of him when he was first born.. or even now. She looks just like him when she sleeps, she's bald like he was, and she has eyelashes for days just like his. The bottom two photos could definitely be of the same baby. I can't wait to meet her in person!

Pregnancy brain



23 weeks and squinting into the sun

I'm here today to talk to you about a serious condition called pregnancy brain. Before I got pregnant with Liam my memory was super good. Paul used to call me his "planner" because I could seriously keep track of everything he had planned without writing a thing down. Pregnancy definitely changed that. When I was pregnant with Liam I would walk into a room to do something and completely forget what I was planning to do by the time I got there. It was so frustrating for me at the time but I'm pretty used to it now. Pregnancy brain turned into mom brain (which makes you late to everything as well) and I have now come full circle back to pregnancy brain. Sometimes I just feel like I'm in a cloud I can't pull myself out of.

Anyway, on Halloween, Liam and I were leaving the library. He had a very sticky sucker in his mouth that was getting all over his hands and mine too. I opened the door to the car, sat him inside, removed his costume, instructed him to get in his chair, then walked around the other side of the car to get wipes out of his bag. I then cleaned our hands, shut the door, got inside, and drove away. I made it about half a mile or so when I came to a yellow light that was going to change red soon so I stopped quickly. I didn't slam on the brakes. I just came to a quick halt. Instinctively, I looked in the rear view mirror to see how Liam reacted to the quick stop only to see him flying forward into the front seat. His chair is in the middle of the back seat so he flew out of the chair and in between the driver and passenger side seats. It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. It was all happening so slowly that I had time to stop the car and catch him next to me. But, I realized I NEVER BUCKLED HIM IN!!! I felt horrible. He looked a little confused but he was totally fine. I put the car in park and turned around to buckle him into his chair. I just kept saying, "Oh my gosh. I can't believe I didn't buckle you in. Oh my gosh. How could I not buckle you in?" But after I drove away I couldn't stop laughing. I guess in situations like that you have to laugh to keep from crying. Liam was giggling and saying, "Sorry," and I kept telling him, "No, I'm sorry," but I just kept on laughing. Moral of the story: If you're pregnant, double check EVERYTHING! You are most likely running 10-15 minutes behind and forgetting something.

A long pregnancy post

I'm 22 weeks exactly in this picture. Like the cowboy hat? I was carrying it around for Liam at the pumpkin patch. Who am I kidding? I thought a red cowboy hat was the perfect accessory for my outfit. :)

It's been a little while since I did a pregnancy update so here goes. I'm in maternity clothes now. I've been in maternity pants for a while since as soon as I found out I was pregnant my hips spread out as if I was going to give birth that very moment. I guess they know what they are doing this time but, really, they had nine months to do that. No need to show off. But I'm now wearing maternity tops as well (or very long pre-preg tops) and they aren't swallowing me whole.

Brygit has been kicking up a storm and you can now feel it and see it from the outside. She likes eating and she likes laying down. Those are the two things that get her moving. She was a little shy of people trying to feel her kick from the outside but she doesn't mind much anymore.

Liam has been asking me to lift my shirt up so he can feel my belly and it has now turned into him laying his face on it and talking into it like a microphone every now and then. He says "it's growing and growing" a lot and just this morning he told me "it's moving." I lay down with him in his room at bedtime until he falls asleep and he now asks to see mommy's belly while I'm there. The last 3 nights or so he falls asleep with his hand on my belly and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world for a few minutes while I lay there with my son's sweaty hand on my belly feeling my daughter kick him repeatedly. It's seriously heavenly.

I went ahead and did the AFP blood draw to screen for any "problems" the baby may have. It was a difficult decision to make, especially because of the large number of false positives and unneeded stress that can come out of it but I decided I would like time to prepare in case something was wrong. Our results came back negative which means she is at a low risk of having something seriously wrong and my anatomy ultrasound results were good too. I just keep thanking God that I have two healthy children. It's absolutely unbelievable and I never want to take it for granted.

Thus far I have gained 14 lbs. What's funny is that, just now, as I typed the word "far" I accidentallly typed "fat." Freudian slip? 7 of those lbs were gained in the last 4 weeks which I think is a bit much but this is how I'm rationalizing it. My doc didn't even mention it, I was underweight to begin with so I should be gaining more than average, I'm eating healthy (minus halloween treats), I gained a lot with Liam and lost it all and more through breastfeeding, big babies run in my family and Liam was 9lbs 7 oz so Brygit may be a little large as well, and if all else fails, after she's born, I'll run. The end.

Nursery Progress

Last week we started working on the new nursery. This room used to be an "office" which really just housed an old desk and computer that we never use along with a bunch of other junk. We painted the room green and tan when we moved in and Paul has been dreading painting it again. It just so happened that the nursery decor that I fell in love with was pink and green so I told him we could leave the room green. The tan had to be changed to pink of course, but that was only an accent wall and it took us about 20 minutes to paint it. We gave Liam his own little area to paint and he was quite the helper.

Paul repaid my generosity about the green paint with an extra effort to "pink" up the green walls. He even went to the craft store with me and picked out ribbon and stencils. He then came home, hot glued some butterflies and ribbon on some letters (complaining the whole time about those hot glue stringy things), nailed them up, free handed some big flowers on the wall in pink and then stenciled a bunch of other flower and bug designs around the room. Liam put his tool belt on and pretended to help and I jumped in every now and then to stencil a few flowers. I love the way it turned out and I'm so thankful my husband was such a good sport about it. We had a great time and it got us excited in anticipation for our new little bundle.

Grumpy, but happy

I have had the worst insomnia this pregnancy. I will go a few days with blissfully peaceful sleep (minus bathroom trips and the occasional hunger pains) and I will think I'm "cured." Then it strikes again and I will be up from dusk til dawn for no apparent reason. Well, there are lots of apparent reasons. I have a hard time getting comfortable, it's too hot then it's too cold, my mind is racing (usually about extremely unimportant things), I have to pee, then I have to blow my nose (I've also been very congested this pregnancy. Thanks, hormones!), then I'll get hungry and have to eat that instant before my body completely rebels. The worst part is that I'll usually fall asleep in the morning minutes before Liam wakes up ready to start the day. Saying that I don't function well without sleep would be an understatement. I feel shaky and sick. My emotions are off the chart. The sound of the television or even people's voices makes me want to jump off a bridge. See, I dont function well.

But deep down I still feel joyful. I'm grumpy, but I'm happy. I realize that, sleep or no sleep, I still have it made. I have an incredibly supportive husband who loves me, an adorable genius of a two year old, and a little girl on the way who nudges me as I toss and turn as if to reassure me that these pregnancy symptoms are well worth it. That, or she's just kicking me when I'm down. I like to imagine that it's the first scenario.

Our first introduction to Baby B

On our third attempt at finding out the gender of our child, we were finally successful. Well, the ultrasound tech was successful and our little bundle was very cooperative. When she told us it was a GIRL my eyes got a bit misty. I was so overjoyed at the prospect of having a little girl and at the fact that we didn't have to wait any longer to know that I told the ultrasound tech that I wanted to hug her then I made her show me what she saw from about 4 different positions to make sure she was positive. It's such a relief to be able to imagine my child more accurately. I think that is what was bugging me so bad about not knowing. I imagined a million different posibilities. Liam playing with a little brother or Liam playing with a little sister, two football players or a football player and a cheerleader (not that they can't choose what they want to be... this is just my imagination), painting the nursery pink or re-using Liam's blue, reusing EVERYTHING or buying some new. You get the point. It just felt like there was a lot up in the air and as exciting as guessing can be, I just really wanted to know. So we found out, called our families and headed straight to Disneyland to celebrate.

We bought her first pair of Minnie ears that day and a few days later I made her first hair bow purchase. I have also decided on crib bedding (I think) and I'm feeling so excited that I can actually plan for these kinds of things. Instead of just looking forward to the fun parts of this pregnancy I can now look forward to holding her in my arms, giving her her own little space in our home and introducing her to Liam. We have decided to name her Brygit Mae (Brygit because we just really like that name and we decided to spell it the Polish way and Mae after my mother's middle name) and Paul coined the nickname Baby B. I love the sound of it and I have just been over the moon since that first introduction.

Let the pregnancy posts begin!

I'm not a huge fan of belly pictures. Well I am but not when it's mine. And, especially not when it's bare. But I must document so that I can remember these days and so I can share these memories with my children someday. Don't get me wrong, I totally took pictures of my bare belly but nobody will see those pictures except for my family and my hard drive. I didn't like showing it off in my pre baby days because I was always a bit modest, I didn't like showing it off when I was pregnant with Liam, and I definitely don't like showing it off now that Liam did a number on my skin. Stretch mark city.

So here ya go! 14 weeks in this picture I believe. I'm almost 16 as I write this. Just starting to pop out and feeling extremely frustrated with my clothing selection. I'm swimming in most of my old maternity clothes and yet most of my regular clothes either won't button or look like they are trying way too hard. Think I can convince my husband to take me "in between" shopping?

Liam wanted to show his belly off too. He doesn't mind me sharing his bare belly pictures with the world wide web.

I'm feeling... okay these days. I have had a very mild pregnancy compared to how sick I was when I was pregnant with Liam. A lot of things make me gag, especially smells, and I feel tired sometimes, and other times I have really bad insomnia. I'm super emotional and cry at every cute little book I read to Liam and every movie I watch, and for you fellow bloggers, I've been known to shed a tear or two reading some of your writing as well. The other side of this emotional roller coaster is that I have a tendency to feel like minor setbacks are the end of the world. I'm working on that and hoping it doesn't last long.

I'm coming to the realization that I have just over 5 months left with my family the way it is. We will never be three ever again and that makes me a little sad. I made a list of all the fun things I want to do with Liam before a baby sibling cramps his style. I'm excited to get started on it and soak up every second I have with my two boys.

We moved all of our baby items into the room that will be the nursery. Liam has discovered his old bumbo seat and he thinks it's a potty chair. He doesn't use it as a potty chair. He just sits in it and talks about going potty. I can't believe how huge he is in it now when we used that thing so much when he was a baby. I better stop talking about it or the emotions will start flowing again.

We have attempted to find the gender out early at a 4d ultrasound place two times now. Both times our little person is sitting with their legs crossed with their little foot right in front of the area we need to see. Luckily, the place we are going to lets us return as many times as possible until they can be 100% sure of the gender. We go back on Tuesday and I fear we may be looking at crossed legs again. We will just have to wait and see. As curious as I am I am kind of enjoying getting a little weekly peak at that little growing body. It makes it very real and has helped me bond with this child. But as much as I enjoy it, they better cooperate on Tuesday. That's all I'm saying.