31 weeks pregnant - started painting the nursery, lots of clothes purchases, and my niece's 3rd bday party

So I am 31 weeks pregnant. I am so excited to be in the single digits in terms of weeks remaining until we get to meet our little man. Similar to previous weeks, my back sometimes hurts by the end of the day if I have been out and about all day. I also noticed it hurts if I am not sitting up straight. Luckily, my chair at work is pretty firm and upright so I am usually fine at work but we went out to a nice restaurant last Friday and the booth was very soft and cushiony and I was so uncomfortable. I actually had to switch seats with Mitch. 

Otherwise, I think my insomnia has been better this week so I have been sleeping better but I caught a bad cold that I have been trying to overcome the last two days. You can't take too much for a cold when you are pregnant but I usually don't take anything anyway. I have been increasing my dose of vitamin C and probiotics. I have also added some eucalyptus oil to my humidifier/air cleaner which is somewhat helping.

The big excitement for this past week was that we started painting the nursery. The nursery is going to be in what was our spare bedroom. This room was painted a dark burgundy colour by the previous owners and since we didn't really use it too much, we never repainted it until now. I am planning to do a nursery reveal post once everything is all done so I don't want to reveal the theme of the nursery just yet but I will say that it is going from a very dark burgundy to a light greyish colour and white so we just primed it so far. We put two coats of primer on the walls but no wall colour yet. It's still a work in progress but at least it has been started. I will post a couple pics below:

As you can see, all the furniture is still in boxes. We don't plan to set up any of the furniture until the room is painted which will hopefully be done in the next week or so.

It was my niece's 3rd birthday this past week and my sister threw her a "Teddy Bear Picnic" themed birthday party. It was at my mom's house with teddy bear themed games outside, teddy bear hats, and a cute homemade teddy bear cake! She even had gummy bears for party favors! She did a really good job with all of the decorations. I helped out a bit with the party hats which I think turned out pretty cute! My niece was pretty spoiled with all her gifts and it looked like she really liked her party which is the most important thing! Here are a couple pics: 

As far as baby purchases go this week, I bought a nursing cover which can be worn like a scarf and then unfolds into a pasmina. It is grey and very light weight so it looks stylish and would be perfect even in the summer. 

I also bought a cloth diaper pail and reusable pail liner which is quite popular if you are choosing to cloth diaper. My diaper pail is actually just a plain white garbage pail from Walmart. I made sure it was a good size and has a lid. Then I bought a light blue "KangaCare" pail liner from Belly Laughs. The liner has a coating to absorb wetness and odours and can be thrown right into the washing machine with your cloth diapers. I will let you know how I like it once I put it in use for a bit but based on reviews, it should do the trick.

I also bought a lot more clothes and sleepers. I received a lot of short sleeved summer items as gifts so I needed long sleeve onsies and sleepers as well as pants and sweaters to wear over the short sleeved onsies. I got a lot of good deals at Walmart. Some stuff was only $2-$3 so I couldn't pass it up. I also got some really good deals and cute stuff from Belly Laughs like some Tommy Hilfiger jeans and shirts. I then came home and sorted it all out so now I know how much of each type of clothing I have and what sizes. I have a lot of sleepers for 0-3 months but I hardly have any other fall clothes. 

On the other hand, I have a lot of cute pants and sweaters for 3-6 months but not many sleepers in this size. I made a list on my phone so now when I am shopping I can refer to it. Right now I am only worrying about clothes for 0-6 months unless I see something for a really good price in a bigger size. 

Lastly I purchased a few more books for baby Spiegelman as well as two parenting books. I got Alicia Silverstone's "The Kind Mama" which is about natural pregnancy and I also got "Intro to Baby Led Weaning". I just got these books yesterday so I haven't read too much of them yet. 

Baby bump measurement: 37.5 inches
Weigh in: 135 lbs (up a total of 8 lbs this pregnancy)

30 Weeks Pregnant - Glucose Test, Midwife Appointment, Baby Shower Haul and other new purchases

So I am 30 weeks pregnant. I am officially 3/4 of the way done this pregnancy. I am definitely excited to be in the home stretch now. However, I feel like this pregnancy has been pretty good and I am glad that I am still feeling great at this point (knock on wood). The main symptom I have noticed this week is a bit of insomnia. I am having a hard time falling asleep which is totally not like me. I am not sure if it is completely related to the pregnancy or if it is because I have been really busy the last couple weeks and my mind is racing all the time with things I have to do but either way it is annoying. Especially since I have to limit my caffeine since I am pregnant. Its not like I can just get a few Venti coffees to get me through the day...I also still feel like my back is sore by the end of the day.

I had my glucose test last Friday. Overall it went pretty well. I went pretty early in the morning. I got there, I handed in my requisition and then I had to wait a couple minutes before they gave me the orange drink. You are supposed to drink the orange drink within 5 minutes, wait an hour and then they do a blood test. Apparently they go by the time that you hand in the requisition because that was the time on the paper. However, it was only about 50 minutes between when I finished the orange drink and when they took the blood test instead of the full hour. I was really worried that this would affect my results. The blood test also tested my iron. 

I had my midwife appointment today and I got the results of my glucose and iron tests. My glucose level was 5 and I think they said anything under 7.5 was "normal" so those results were fine. My iron was 107 and "normal" is above 115 so it was a bit low but she wasn't too concerned. She said if it was below 100 then I would have to have a hospital birth but at 107 I can still deliver in a birth centre if I choose. She also said that it wasn't so low taht she would recommend an iron supplement but rather I should just increase my intake of iron rich foods. I really should take my prenatal vitamins everyday. Some days I just take the folic acid, along with my probiotics, vitamin D and Omega cause I find that my prenatal can make me sick if I don't take it on a full stomach. I am also going to be cautious of having spinach in my smoothies every morning. 

Other than getting my test results, my midwife appointment consisted of getting my blood pressure taken, listening to the heartbeat (which was 140 today), and discussing post-partum care. I also asked about visitors coming to the hospital. If all goes well, I plan to leave the hospital around 3 hours after birth so she explained that most people in midwifery care just have family come over to the house afterwards instead of the hospital. She stated that there are lots of tests and other stuff that needs to be done within the 1st 3 hours so there really isn't time for visitors at that time. If I happen to stay in the hospital longer, I would definitely invite family to come and visit.

So my baby shower was this past Saturday and I had a great time. My mom and sister did a great job organizing it so I would like to thank them for all their hard work. It wasn't a huge shower in terms of the amount of guests but there was a decent amount of people which is why it was held at my house since there is a bit of extra room. Children were welcome at the shower and it was great to see everyone's cute babies and kids. 

We were blessed to get so many great gifts from our family and friends. I will post some pictures below from the shower itself as well as some pictures of the great gifts we got:

One of my favorite things at the shower was the Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme book that people signed and left well wishes for baby Spiegelman in and since it will probably be read often, we can look back and read what people wrote. I also really loved the "Advice" book that was created. We had a plain notebook on the table and different tabs for people to leave advice on different topics such as "best products", "tips for teething", and even a "general advice" section. There were definitely a lot of great tips in there so I want to keep this book handy for future reference. 

As far as new purchases made this week, we made a ton even on top of the shower gifts because after the shower we knew what was still left to buy. I was very excited to go shopping afterwards because I held out buying a bunch of stuff for so long. On Sunday after the shower we bought the crib mattress, the dresser, change pad, change pad covers, crib sheets, pacifiers, bottles (for bottle feeding pumped breast milk on occasion), a couple of blankets, some books, bath towels and bath toys, our cloth diaper stash and a few other small things. Now we have most of our major items except for our video monitor, the glider for the nursery, and a breast pump if we decide to purchase one. To be honest I am torn in between buying a breast pump or renting one. There are pros and cons to both depending on how long you intend to use it and if you plan on having multiple kids...It is something I still need to think about so I will update you guys on what I decide to do in a future post. However, if you have any opinions on this matter, I would love to hear them...

Oh one last thing...I found an awesome baby store called "Belly Laughs". It has a lot of stuff for cloth diapering, slings, and even a consignment section. We went there to buy our cloth diapers and I was in a rush so I didn't get to look at the consignment racks too closely but it looked like they had some great stuff. Most importantly the staff was so knowledgeable and helpful. Definitely a great shopping experience and I can't wait to go back! Check it out if you have babies or toddlers!


baby bump measurement: 37.25 inches
Weigh in: N/A
Fundal Height: 30 (right on track)

We plan to start painting the nursery this weekend so I will update you guys on that next week!

29 weeks Pregnant - Some house projects and online discussion forums

So I am 29 weeks pregnant. My symptoms are still pretty much the same but I have noticed that my back has been getting sore lately. I am not sure if it is just due to pushing myself a bit too hard or more to due with the pregnancy itself and because I am getting bigger. I have been pretty busy with house projects the last few days and some of which were labour intensive. 

Our main project that we were trying to get done was our deck. We had a contractor build it starting June but we finally got around to staining it this past weekend. My dad did the staining but Mitch and I had to clean and scrub the deck which was actually more labour intensive than I originally thought. Then on Saturday we were out doing errands all day in the heat of 35 degrees C and putting together furniture from Ikea plus I have still been going to the gym. After all that, my back has been sore at night. However I am happy to say that our deck looks awesome and our living room furniture looks great too! We also were able to paint the bed frame white so hopefully I can put together the bed this week and clear out the room where the nursery is going to be. 

So I wanted to talk about what people's opinion was in regards to online pregnancy discussion groups and other online resources. One of my favourite online resources has been babycentre.ca. I joined the October 2014 due date group quite early on in my pregnancy and there is a discussion group where people can post questions and other people comment based on their own experiences. For the most part it is all pregnancy related and I do find that its pretty helpful because these women are going through similar experiences at the same time as you. I found it helpful when people are discussing various prenatal tests and pregnancy symptoms. It seems to be people across Canada so it is also interesting to see how the prenatal testing varies across Canada. There are also people from various walks of life that have very different approaches on various topics. Some pregnant women are very "by the book" and follow all the pregnancy guidelines strictly while others seem to be more lenient in certain areas. 

A great website for natural parenting is Mothering.com. They have some interesting articles there too!

Another resource I like is just asking questions on my personal Facebook page. I have done this a few times and have gotten plenty of advice from my Facebook friends. One advantage from using your own Facebook page is that the advice is coming from friends so it might be more trustworthy. However, I also find it depends if your friends and family have the same parenting outlook as you. On the parenting spectrum I feel that I am leaning towards "natural parenting" whereas a lot of the people I know have more of a "mainstream" parenting style. However, I do feel that everyone knows something so it is still great to get advice from a wide range of people. I was kinda annoyed because one certain acquaintance told me that I should be careful asking for opinions on my Facebook because people may give me "mainstream" advice. I thought that this was ridiculous. I think new moms always have instances where they get annoying unsolicited advice from people but I also think if you ask someone for advice, then you should be open to their opinion even if its different from yours...

One of my other favourite online resources is YouTube. I follow a couple of YouTube moms. Some do daily vlogs, others do pregnancy vlogs and then I watch vlogs on different topics such as cloth diapering. I like watching their journey through pregnancy and their life with their kids. They are real moms so it is very relateable. My favourite channel was "The Moms Choice" which was a discussion on various topics with three moms who were friends. The moms themselves had different parenting styles and family situations so it was great to get all the different perspectives. This channel in particular hasn't been updated in a long time but each of them have their own YouTube channel which I watch. 

At one point I was thinking of starting my own YouTube channel but I don't have a good video camera so I just decided to start this blog instead in order to document our pregnancy journey.

Here are a list of the YouTube Channels I like:

• Plus1please
• Someday Mama
• momwithsparklyheels
• DevonRobertsFamily
• MandD627
• Maddie B
• CarahsLife

Do any of you have any other favorite Youtube channels or other Online resources you like??? Please let me know!!!

29 week bump measurement: 37 inches

29 week weigh in: N/A

At 29 weeks, baby Spiegelman is the size of a large cabbage:

I am so excited for my shower which is coming up this weekend and I plan to do a shower haul as part of my 30 week update so keep you eyes open for that!!!

28 weeks pregnant - Mitch's 34th birthday and Midwife Appointment

So I am 28 weeks pregnant. I have kept to my goal this week of working out at least 3 times and I think it has become easier and easier. I find that my cardio has greatly improved in the last couple weeks since I have have increased my workouts which is great. The only exercise that I have tried and I have found that I can't do right now is push-ups. I tried one push-up from my knees the other day and I felt pain in my stomach so I stopped right away. Everything else seems fine as long as I use a lower weight.

This past weekend was Mitch's 34th birthday. We celebrated just the two of us a couple weeks ago when we went to the baseball game in Toronto so this past weekend we had a family dinner for his birthday at our house. I made some homemade meatballs, fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, a ravioli appetizer, and people brought salad and garlic bread. I also made this basketball cake that I found on Pinterest. It was the first time I ever baked a cake believe it or not. I just made a marble cake with vanilla icing and then decorated like a basketball using Reese's Pieces. I think it turned out ok for my first attempt. It took a bit longer than I expected to decorate it and I ended up buying way too much Reese's Pieces. I bought $20 worth in bulk at the grocery store because I knew I needed a lot of the brown and orange and I wasn't about to sift through all the yellow that I wouldn't need. 

The ravioli appetizer was also something I found on Pinterest but it didn't turn out great. You were supposed to bake the fresh ravioli and serve it with marinara sauce but I found that they didn't really get crispy enough. I won't make that recipe again. Overall, I think his birthday dinner turned out pretty well. I will post a pic of my cake below:

There was a day or so last week where I didn't feel the baby move which was freaking me out. I looked on forums on babycenter.ca to see if anyone else experienced this. Apparently it was quite normal but I was still a bit freaked out. I tried the "drinking juice" trick and I still didn't feel the baby move. Anyway, the day after and since then I have been feeling the baby move quite a bit so I am feeling better now.

I had my midwife appointment today and everything seemed to be great and right on track. I got my requisition for the glucose test which I plan to have next week. I have decided that I am going to take the glucose test. We discussed it more today and she brought up a valid point. She explained that those that have gestational diabetes may be at a higher risk to develop diabetes later on and if this is discovered during the routine glucose test in pregnancy, your family doctor can test for it earlier and in turn treat it earlier. 

We also discussed the option of the birth centre and she explained that she needs to send in the paper work at 36 weeks to register there but we can decide during labour if we would prefer to go to the birth centre or the hospital depending on how the labour is going. As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, we are already registered at the civic but I want to have the option to deliver at the birth centre so I plan to register there as well. 

My midwife also checked my blood pressure and listened to the heartbeat on the doppler which was 150 today. That is a lot higher than before. Usually it is in the 130's but she explained if the baby was just pretty active, then his heart rate would be higher. Also when she was feeling my belly to see the baby's position, she mentioned that I was having a Braxton Hicks contraction but I couldn't really feel it. She explained it as a feeling like the baby is pushing outwards and the belly tightening. Now that she pointed it out, I felt like I had a lot of them tonight. I googled it and as long as it is not more than 4-6 an hour, then it is normal. I just thought it was really weird that she noticed me having the Braxton Hicks contraction and I didn't really notice it. My next appointment is in 2 weeks. Starting now, I will be seeing my midwife every 2 weeks until 36 weeks and then it will be once per week.

As far as new baby purchases go, I haven't really bought much this week. I bought a Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book which I think will be a classic. It is a nice hardcover book. I also registered for a few books at Chapters. It never occured to me to put books on my registry but there are some really nice ones that are relatively cheap so hopefully I get some at my shower. I think the book was my only baby purchase this week.

28 Week belly (waist) measurement: 36.5 inches
28 week weigh in: N/A (still haven't weighed myself)