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!!!