Beautiful dreams....

I had such an interesting dream last night! They say that you have really vivid dreams when you're pregnant which I've found to be true and when you are learning Hypnobabies, some people seem to have some of their biggest fears about childbirth to be revealed and sometimes worked through.

I'm not sure if I was completely asleep through the whole dream, so I suppose I could have been manipulating it a bit, but either way it was good! I didn't even listen to my Hypnobabies track last night which was interesting.

So in my dream, I found myself going into labor and needing to go to the hospital for some reason. I don't remember it being life-threatening, but for some reason, I was not getting to have the home birth that I am hoping for. I find myself in the hospital by myself. Waiting for David and other supports to arrive and having to advocate for my experience by myself. I begin to get freaked out and as my anxiety and my stress starts to rise, the pain increases with it. Mid-freak out I stop myself from shrieking in pain and remember that I can still practice Hypnobabies and that I'm still in control of my situation. As I remind myself of that, I begin to lose some of the pain. I begin to focus on my positive affirmations surrounding how amazing and ready my body is for this. There was a bit more around family arriving, sending someone to get my mp3 player so I could listen to the actual tracks etc.

The dream ended before I gave birth and as I woke up, I told myself to start carrying my mp3 player with me always just in case, LOL! I'm so happy with this dream! People have questioned how I will be emotionally if I end up having to the hospital and I have "lied through my teeth" that as long as Maya is safe and healthy that is what is important. I know that I would be disappointed, but it was so wonderful to somehow watch myself embrace this challenge that could be and to make the best of it and to still make it the experience that I'm dreaming (haha, pun intended!) of.

Is it March yet?!

Exercise

So, when I asked my midwife what I could do for exercise, the advice that I got was to "not get winded." This is such a hard concept for me! What's the point if I'm not wheezing and sweating! In reality, I know that's not true and that any activities that I do between now and the birth are going to help with baby's health as well as the ease of my labor. I'm not going to lie though, I miss running!

I never ever thought I'd say that sentence in my entire life.... I'm excited to soon be able to push myself and breathe hard and get into awesome shape. I just need to make sure to focus on doing what I can for now, such as yoga and walking and light weights to prepare my arms and back for lots of baby carrying!

Gift

Um...will someone please make me a set of these that would work well in a baby room? It would make me so happy!

http://www.creaturecomfortsblog.com/home/2009/1/30/valentine-freebie-iron-on-pillowcase-transfers.html

Baby Girl's Nursery

Okay, so David and I had a hard time looking at all the nursery themes out there and finding ones (especially girly ones) that didn't make us want to puke. So one day I was reading my long long list of blogs and came across this post: Hope Valley Quilt Progress. I showed David the quilt and asked him about the colors and what he thought. He really liked them, and my crafty brain started spinning. So first, here are the fabrics/colors:

Okay, so my thought is, I should learn to sew a little at least. Looking at fitted crib sheet patterns, it seemed fairly do-able for this mama who has little to no sewing experience. So that's craft number one. The next few should be do-able I think as well. (I'm not sure I remember where I got these, I'll link to them if I can)

This is from Re-nest and recycles a lace tablecloth!

This one is from Oops, I Craft My Pants

This wall art from Ohdeedoh

And who knows what other projects we could make with the fabric! Maybe even something like these benches!

91 days and counting!

This month is flying by! Soon I'll be in my third trimester, which just seems insane. Apparently I have 91 days until my due date! Not a lot is changing with my body right now. My belly is growing but my back pain has subsided a bit. My lovely best friend joined the gym and has been making which I think has had the most effect on my back.

Life has been insane lately. Work has been crazy, we may be buying a house and of course Christmas is coming! I must say that being prone to anxiety is extra hard when you're pregnant! You get all of these coping skills practiced in life and then pregnancy goes and messes with everything. You have to be careful with how hard you work out, extremely careful about what you put in your body when it's achy and in pain and even resorting to emotional eating is a bad plan! What if you get gestational diabetes or end up trying to deliver a large baby? Obviously neither of these things are the end of the world, but you're supposed to try to avoid them if you can. Needless to say, I've been having to work extra hard to find new ways to cope.

There have been so many fun things going on too! We're having fun planning our little girl's nursery. I think I'm going to do a whole separate post on the nursery ideas though. It's also hard to know how much work we should do because we may end up having our little girl in a whole other house! Stay tuned for ideas for the nursery!!

List making...

So far a lot of this pregnancy has been about to do lists. I'm not so hot at actually writing out to do lists, not to mention completing all of the things that need to be done. I've been brainstorming the things we need, so I've been adding to a baby registry as we go. We've verbally talked through a list of names. Today I came across a great posting on Offbeat Mama's facebook page today that lists all of the things people wish that they had done to in the days leading up to their little one coming home with them. Here's a compilation of some of the suggestions that I like and need to follow through with!

• Sleep! - I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this off with the way my back feels at only 23 weeks..
  
• Have lots of snacks and meals stocked up so we don't have to cook - not to mention figure out how to cram as many in the freezer as possible
  
• Get lots of cleaning done
• Go on some dates with the husband
• Take pictures of belly at it's best
• Relish every moment up to and right after the birth
• Have omega-3's to help with hormones - research this first!
• Create a sign to post on the door: "FEE for entering this house (ideas: food, hugs, cleaning!)" - this is hilarious!
  
• Set up a nursing basket with things like books, water, music etc
• Create a "Welcome to the World" CD - I'll probably delegate this one to David
  

Ideas that I probably won't use (at least not yet):

• Teach toddlers about nursing (I'll keep this in mind for baby #2!)
• Hire a maid and cook for a week

If you have a family, the Offbeat mama website is awesome. I found it after following the Offbeat bride website for a looong time. (I couldn't stop reading it even after the wedding was over!)

23 weeks!

Depending on who you ask, baby is about the size of a mango!

This month has been crazy for being pregnant. Most of it has been insanely good things. But lets get the bad news out of the way first: I've had my first terrible pregnancy symptom so far. Back pain. It has been terrible! I've had achy back all along my upper and lower back, as well as some extreme pain depending on what position I'm sitting or lying in.

I'm trying a myriad of things for both symptoms. I started taking a calcium/magnesium/vitamin D supplement which I believe is also suppose to help me when it comes time for contractions. I've started taking a tincture of Valerian root which is supposed to help my body relax and help me sleep a little bit better. I also went out and bought a body pillow, which helped for a while, but now I'm back to using 2 different pillows to prop up my knee when I'm on my side. I also had a prenatal massage, which was suuuper lovely, but I think it was more for my mental health in dealing with the pain than the actual pain.

I also constantly use what I call a flax sack. I know tons of people have other names for this lovely bag of seeds or rice that you warm up in the microwave. This purple bag with white stars that my grandma made me forever ago has become permanently attached to my body it seems!

Okay, on to the fun stuff! A few weeks ago (I think I was around 19 weeks?) I started feeling what I thought was baby movement. It was fairly sporadic, but I was pretty sure there was nothing else I could contribute these feelings to. Now baby likes to get pretty active around 8 pm and other random times in the day. It's so cool to feel the movements and I can't wait until the kicks are strong enough for David to feel them!

Okay, the bestest part of all!!

We had our ultrasound last Wednesday at 22 weeks + 4 days. That was quite possibly one of the best days of my entire life! We got to find out that we're having a baby GIRL!! Now, truth be told, a little boy would have been awfully cute, but we were kinda hoping for a girl. We could not stop smiling and I'm not going to lie, I teared up quite a bit. She was so cute to look at! We saw her little feel and hands, got a nice shot of her nose and lips and got to watch her move around. The coolest part (other than finding out the gender) was watching her kick me, and feel it at the same time! Now I know for sure that those little pokes in my stomach area are coming from some limb of our daughter.

I knew we were pregnant before and I knew I loved whoever was in there, but seeing her squirming around and finding out that we're having a daughter has changed everything. When I feel her move, I can remember what it looked like. I know that the little body inside of me is completely healthy and growing well and is going to be the cutest little girl you all have ever seen!

We need to scan our ultrasound pictures and then I'll post some of them :)