40 weeks

Well here we are!  I thought for this update I would go back to the updates I used to do with Elle and fill in the blanks :)

Today I wanted to do something special and fun - so I took the kids to the zoo!  I wasn't sure how it would go, it could have been a disaster but it was soo nice!  The kids were perfectly behaved, we saw a few animals including the baby elephant.  There's a little sand pit there so the kids played in there and we had a treat of chocolate milk and a big chocolate chip cookie.  There's also a big playground so the kids played there awhile, and there's a little kids inside zone with a table they can stand up at and play with animal figurines and trees and stuff.  It was great!

Anyways, here's my 40 week update with Elle if you're interested!

How far along: 40 weeks

Size of baby: Watermelon (19-22 inches, 6-9 lbs)

Total weight gain/loss: Going by the doctors scales I'm up to 79.8 kgs (175.6lbs) as of Friday - so that's a gain of about 11.3 kgs (just under 25 pounds)

Maternity Clothes: Yep pretty  much only wearing maternity clothes except zip up hoodies are my regular ones, just not zipped up. And actually around the house I wear big sweat pants or yoga pants that I bought a size larger, so not technically maternity clothes.

Gender: IT'S A GIRL!!!

Movement: Much more muted I guess you could say, not feeling as many kicks or jabs so much as just general shifting in there.  She goes crazy at night, like around 9pm just dancing on my bladder and constantly squirming around.

Sleep: The last few days I haven't been able to nap like I had been - my brain won't shut off!  And I have to pee at least once in the night - I never was like that with the other two kids.

Cravings: Um, baby? haha, I wanna meet her :)

Symptoms: This is a silly question - obviously feeling a baby move around inside you is a symptom of pregnancy... but no sickness or weird food cravings or anything.

Best moment of the week: Going to the zoo with the kids today - and getting to say "today!" when someone there asked me when I was due :)

Sleep child!

I feel like I end up blogging about this every few months... but here we go again.

When Finn was a toddler, I felt like it was the END OF THE WORLD if I saw even a minute before 7am on the clock. It didn't happen a lot, and if it did it was just a day here or there or maybe a short phase.  Elle on the other hand is an early riser.

But they are VERY different sleepers, and I guess I have to decide which I prefer.

Finn did not nap consistently at 21 months, and if he did it was maybe 2 hours max VERY RARELY, probably more 1-1.5 hours.  He went to bed at around 8pm if I remember correctly, and he wasn't very easy to put to bed, it involved laying in bed with him, or rocking him (actually I think by 21 months we weren't having to rock him anymore, thank goodness!), having to be absolutely silent until we knew he was asleep and even then we were terrified of being too loud and waking him.  And he woke up constantly in the night, and not just for a quick pat on the back or anything, but with gas problems and crying and screaming... it was awful!  So yeah, if I didn't get to sleep until 7am I was a grumpy mess.

Elle on the other hand naps nearly 3 hours EVERYDAY.  The only times she doesn't nap that long are because of us, not her... and we almost always have to wake her up from her naps, otherwise she would sleep even longer.  She goes to bed at 730 and doesn't need us at all after that before she falls asleep.  I don't know if she actually falls asleep right away or not, but she doesn't need us to help her, the only time we might have to lay her back down or something is if Finn is calling for us before they have fallen asleep.  After she falls asleep, she sometimes will cry in the night.  Conor gives her a small bottle of milk and that's that, she goes back to sleep and we don't have to rock or pat her or anything.  BUT she wakes up early.  630am seems to be sleeping in for her lately.  Sometimes (a few days last week) she was awake and singing at 5am in her crib.  And even though we don't normally bring her into our bed until 6, if she's awake in her crib and I can hear her, then I'm not sleeping, I can't sleep through that (unlike the two males in our house!)

So in general I MUCH prefer Elle's sleeping habits... but its just sooo darn early... and there's a newborn coming soon that's going to be keeping me up all hours of the night.

So I'm changing things up slightly in hopes of at least getting Elle's wake ups to stick between 6-630, but hopefully closer to 7 would be nice!

She normally starts her nap at 1 - I'm pushing that to 1:30 and still making sure she's awake by 4 at the very latest... so that's a half hour there.

And we're changing their bedtime to 8 instead of 7:30... so that's another half hour.

The baby will probably throw a wrench in EVERYONES sleeping habits, but I hope to do that with Elle for a couple weeks and see what happens.

Yesterday (Sunday) Elle was awake at 5, and we had planned to go to a church luncheon which started at 12:30.  So we went to mass at 9 instead of 10:30 and let her have a 45 minute early nap before we headed to lunch.  Then we started the new 8pm bedtime... and this morning we all slept straight through (other than pee breaks - darn pregnant bladder!) until 630!  I don't expect that every morning right now, but it was a nice change from 5am!

Still here

Yup, still no baby.

After naptime today we all went for a long walk, it was awful! Haha, I'm so sore now...and haven't had a single contraction yet, so who knows.

But the thing is, my original due date was May 6th... So maybe I'm not due in 3 days.

I'm not "over" pregnancy exactly, but just the anticipation and how long we have been anxious about her coming, plus the fact that the other two were born before now just makes me want to start this whole labor thing!

Well, that's about all I have to report.

Here's a picture of monkey girl at the park today

On our own again

I keep having the tune "on the road again" in my head, but singing "on our own again".

Yesterday morning we drove my mom to the airport :(

So sad that she didn't get to meet the baby, but so happy she got to be here and got to see the kids at the stage they are now.

And now we wait for baby.  Today I went out for the first time with both of the kids - Conor is going golfing tomorrow and it might rain so he wanted me to see if I could find a rain jacket for him.  The little outting went better than I thought it would - other than Elle trying to make a runner a few times! haha.

When we got home Mom was back home in Canada so we did a little facetime with her, Elle kept kissing the screen - so cute!

Then we had some lunch, I got hit with a "nesting" bug and moped the kitchen and bathroom floors as well as cleaned the toilet and sink!

After that I was utterly exhausted and glad that Finn was too, because he let me nap from 2-4! haha.  I'll get to keep napping like that after the baby comes, right?? Hehe

Time for an attitude change

Okay - so after my "woe is me" posts the last couple days I've decided that I need an attitude change.

You know what - things could be A LOT worse. I'm gonna blame hormones on some of my attitude, but the rest is all on me.

Mom leaves in a few days, yes that sucks, but I am so so so grateful that she came all this way to be with us and help us. The last few weeks would have been really hard without her help with the kids - so I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful just in general that I got to spend time with her and that she got to see the kids at this stage in their lives.

I'm learning how to sort of deal with this sciatica. Some days are worse than others, but certain stretches are helping and just avoiding things like sitting on a hard chair for too long is making a big difference... so I can get through this.

If the kids have to watch TV all day long once mom is gone for us to get through to labor than so be it!

As much as it would be ideal for me to deliver while mom is here so there's no disruption to the kids, we have people we can call and it will be one day or night at most - it's not the end of the world!

So there you go - I'm just going to keep re-reading this post whenever I feel overwhelmed or "woe is me" and we will survive - and soon enough I'll be holding a squishy little girl in my arms!!

A little girl who will eventually join these two cuties :)

The reality

It's not pretty but it's real.

- Mom leaves on Sunday. I just know that this baby is going to make her debut minutes after mom gets on the plane, just to be ironic.

- If not then she's going to wait until she's past her due date, I'm gonna be with the kids by myself everyday going crazy because my sciatica is killing me and all I want to do is lay in bed.

- I'm getting so tired of just laying in bed!! No books are holding my interest and you can only play so many games before you get sick of them all!

- I can tell the kids are also getting sick of this. But there's nothing I can do about it. They both are way too accustomed to having me either stuck in bed and therefor available at all times, or having one of our many nannies or grandparents at their beckon call. In short, they are getting spoiled with attention and are behaving like they are spoiled.

- I know it's going to be a HUGE adjustment for them when the baby comes, and especially when it's just me and the 3 of them at home starting a new routine, but it's got to happen, which is why I just want this baby to come now so we can get on with it already!

- my mind is just so restless right now.

38 weeks

Yay and Nay

I feel torn today, I want this baby to come while my mom is here!!  I don't have much to say because I just feel a bit blah having no control over this.

So that's my update for today, I just don't have the energy right at this moment to write more... maybe tomorrow.

Switching sides

For the first time in our almost 7 years of marriage (minus a couple months when Finn was 6ish months), Conor and I are switching sides of the bed!

Neither of us is really looking forward to it, but we do what we gotta do for our expectant baby.

Our issue is that I obviously need to be right next to the baby, and our room is kind of awkward for having a bassinet in there.  We have ONE power point, so the bed HAS so be on the wall it's on.  Then there's only enough room at the end of the bed to walk through, when you walk in the door the wall to the right is basically all window (single paned - so it will be cold in winter), and the wall to the left is all closet.  1/4 is my closet, 1/4 is Conors and the other half is all kids stuff (mainly shelves with the baby's stuff, and then the other kids nice hanging clothes).

Pictured below is how we set it up originally, with me sleeping on the side with the nightstand/dresser/bassinet.  This is the side I have always slept on.  When Finn was about 6 months and we were living at the in-laws and wanted our own room we moved our bed into our living space and moved the couch into the bedroom, it worked out well except that where the power point was meant we had to switch bedsides, and neither of us really liked it, but it was just for a few months until we moved to Italy.

Anyways, I didn't want to stay this way for two reasons.  1) Where I'm standing taking the picture ia the door way, and I didn't want the bassinet right as you walk in the door.  2) it's right beside the window, which would mean that the baby would be right next to a cool draft since its a big single pane window - not to mention being right next to that extra light source.

This is how it would be if I was on the right side of the bed - but the bassinet would then be right beside a  full wall  window (single pane - going into winter - not ideal)

So tonight we did the big switch. It's going to take some getting used to!  My OCD self prefers Conor having his side so that he has to go around the bed, because he likes to just keep a pile of clothes that have been worn but don't need to be washed on the ground or a chair - and I HATE walking into a room and seeing clothes on the floor!  So I'm just gonna have to deal with that tiny aspect.  Then of course we have the bassinet right in front of the closet.  It's a really light playpen, and has wheels, so it's easy to move when I need to get in there, the main issue will be if I need to change the baby's clothes in the middle of the night - I don't want to have to be "faffing around" (Conor's favorite term), so I think I'll probably clear out a drawer on my nightstand and have baby stuff in there (clothes, diapers, wipes, etc)

Me on the left side of the bed - bassinet - in front of half of our closet (the side with all the baby clothes and the kids nice hanging clothes - so will be interesting)

Anyways. we'll see how we go!  If it's really not working having the bassinet up against the closet then we can move our dresser into the hallway (the kids dresser is already there, we have a great wide hallway) and move the bed even farther away from the closets.

Alright - I think my "nesting" is officially complete!

36 weeks!

I'm 36 weeks  and SOOOO happy!

This means I'm officially off bedrest, I don't have to take the expensive progesterone pills anymore, and I don't have to worry about baby coming early!  Obviously I want baby to have at least another week, but if I had her right now there's a possibility she wouldn't have to go into special care at all, so I'm so relieved!

Now I want to take mom out to see things, but I don't know if I have the energy! haha.  If I have the baby early then mom won't get to see much of Melbourne because we'll all be busy with the baby, so we'll see.  It's a gross day today anyways, so we wouldn't be doing the zoo or anything.  Maybe we'll do the market this week if it's nice.  The weekend is supposed to be nice, highs of 25, so we'll have to pack stuff in!

I just need to say THANK YOU again to everyone who has been praying!  We've almost made it to term now and we are sooo thankful!