38 Weeks

38 weeks!  I'm finally almost done!  I overlapped these three pictures on top of each other so I could compare the bellies and they are actually all pretty close to each other.  With Paige I was a little smaller than I am now, with Lucas I was a little bigger, but overall I guess this is just the size I get when I'm pregnant.

On the one hand I know the baby will be here pretty soon, but on the other hand I don't feel too different than I have for the last month.  With Paige I had braxton hicks contractions all the time for the whole last month.  I've had some this time around but not nearly as often and not as painful either.  I had some pretty bad ones with Paige, and this time I've only had a few that made me stop and think about them.  And I'm hot and tired and feeling huge, but I've been feeling that way for about a month now.  I just don't feel very different than I have been feeling.  I know at some point I have to go into labor, but it doesn't feel like it'll be any time soon.  But I really want it to be soon!!  

I'm trying to not plan on him coming before my due date so I won't be disappointed.  But I am getting everything prepared ahead of time just in case.  I've been cleaning and organizing and making lists.  I LOVE making lists.  And something about having a baby makes me feel like I should deep clean the whole house.  We're talking cleaning baseboards and blinds and stuff.  I'm about 80% done.  I think part of me is hoping that with all this cleaning and being busy I'll put myself into labor.  :)  Once I'm all done with the house I'm not sure what I'll do to distract myself.  I'm thinking a pedicure!

Any guesses as to when I'll go into labor.  My due date is the 23rd.  For some reason I'm thinking the 19th - not sure why.

37 Weeks

I wanted to take a few pictures of my huge belly with the kids.  They weren't really very cooperative, but oh well, there's not a lot you can do about that.  Either Paige was grumpy and Lucas was smiling...

 Or Paige was smiling and Lucas was grumpy...

 There were a lot with both of them being grumpy, and then this one where both were laughing but neither was looking at the camera.

 And this is pretty much as good as it got.

 So we gave up and took one of just me.

I'm feeling very ready to be done being pregnant!!

31 Weeks Belly Comparison

It's getting kinda hard to compare since they are all taken from slightly different angles, but I think I'm not quite as big as I was with Lucas, but still bigger than I was with Paige.  From the picture I look about the same size as I did with Paige, but I just wore that shirt yesterday, and let me tell you it did not cover my belly quite like it did the last time around.  I'm definitely feeling huge lately.  And hot!  It's like 75 degrees outside and I'm dying.  It was a hot summer when I was pregnant with Paige and I was fine, but not so much this time around -- and it's not even hot yet.  I'm getting a little nervous about everything I need to do before the baby comes, but I just keep reminding myself that I have 2 months left and most of it can be done after the baby comes anyway.  Oh well.  Time to take the kids to the park before it gets too hot, and by hot I mean above 70.

28 Weeks

This poor third child is getting very little coverage.  I keep forgetting to take belly pictures and I hardly ever write about him on the blog.  Poor little guy!  So far, this pregnancy has been a lot like my pregnancy with Lucas.  I remember at this point with Paige I was worried that she wasn't kicking enough because I remembered Lucas kicking ALL THE TIME!  This baby is just like his big brother, he kicks me all the time!  Luckily I have no problems sleeping through it.  I'm still up 6-8 times a night going to the bathroom and adjusting my pillows from being uncomfortable, but the kicking is no big deal.

I think I've discovered why I can feel the kicking so much, though.  Lucas was posterior when I was in labor, meaning that his head and back were along my spine and his feet and arms were towards my belly.  I'm starting to think, though, that he may have been posterior the entire time, because when they are turned that way, you can feel all the kicks and wiggles because their feet and hands are always hitting your belly, rather than your back which isn't as sensitive.  This baby is currently posterior and has been for at least the last month since I've started paying attention.  I remember being able to feel Paige's back on one side of my belly or the other when I was pregnant with her, and she stayed like that the whole time and during labor.  She was a very good girl.  Lucas and this baby on the other hand seem to be my naughty ones.  I've started doing some exercises to try to turn this baby the right direction but he seems to be pretty comfortable right where he is.

I've also been gaining weight with this pregnancy just like I did with Lucas.  I've already gained 30 lbs.  It's just so funny because I've been eating and exercising exactly the same with all three pregnancies, and yet with Paige I gained 30 lbs total and was significantly smaller.  I'm not super concerned about it, though.  This is just what my body does with boys apparently.  It gains a ton of weight and turns them the wrong way for super fun labors.  It's a good thing I've been lucky enough to get doctors that don't care too much about how much weight I'm gaining.  I've never been told that I'm gaining too much, even when I put on 50 lbs with Lucas.  I appreciate that.

I tried to find some belly photos from when I was pregnant with Lucas and Paige as a comparison, but apparently I didn't take a belly photo anywhere near 28 weeks with either.  I did at 32, so I guess I'll just need to make sure to remember to take one then.  In the mean time, here's my belly right now.

Overall I'm feeling great right now.  For the most part I have a ton of energy and I'm always looking for some new project to start.  I just wish we could come up with a name for this little guy.  The whole name thing is so stressful for me for some reason.  I feel like I'm not ready to have the baby unless we have a few names picked out.  I'll take any and all suggestions. 

It's a Boy!

Ryan and I went to my ultrasound today and found out that our third baby is going to be a boy!  We really would have been happy either way, but I'm a little more excited about a boy because that's what I thought all along and it feels good to be right.  :)  I love getting ultrasounds, especially anatomy ones where they go around and look at the heart and everything.  I think it's amazing what we can see and how the technicians know what is a stomach and what is a kidney.  And it's pretty incredible seeing the baby move around in there.  This little guy is very active and I feel him moving constantly so I wasn't surprised that he wouldn't cooperate for pictures.  Every time she got ready to take pictures of his spine or head or something, he would wiggle away and she'd have to go find him again.  It was pretty funny.

Everything is always so much clearer when you're in there and then you get out and look at the pictures they print and it's all just a bunch of blobs.  These are some of the least blobby pictures.

I thought this one was pretty cool.  You can see his back, bum, leg, and foot.  His legs looked pretty muscular - I think it's from all that kicking he's been doing.

And for those of you that like this sort of picture, the proof!

We couldn't be more thrilled!  It's exciting to know the gender and be able to start figuring out names and getting all the right color clothes out of the storage tubs.  Lucas is excited about a baby brother and is insistent that we name the baby right away.  Every time I ask him what he wants to name the baby, though, he suggests things like "house" and "chair".  We'll have to think about it a little longer. 

19 Weeks

I'll be 19 weeks on Monday.  Almost halfway!  I've been feeling the baby kick a lot this week which I love.  We find out the gender on February 4th.  Based purely on how this pregnancy compares to both my pregnancies with Paige and Lucas, I think this baby is going to be a boy.  I started gaining weight early on like I did with Lucas.  My belly popped out much sooner like it did with Lucas.  And my nausea has been intermittent since 12 weeks, like it was with Lucas.  With Paige it was done around 14 weeks and never came back.  I felt sick just earlier today.  It's so weird how it comes and goes.  And look at this belly comparison picture.  I mean my belly is pretty much identical to when I was this far along with Lucas.

I was looking back at the old wives tale gender prediction things and how I answered when I was pregnant with Paige, and they are all pretty much the same for all three pregnancies.  My acne has gotten worse every time, I've craved cheese every time, and I sleep on my left side every time.  So I think those are more me than a way to tell the gender.  Oh, and the Chinese gender prediction calendar has said girl every time.  The Mayan calendar however said boy for Lucas and girl for Paige, so that one has been right so far.  It says boy for this one so I guess we shall see.  

An actual scientific study has shown that placenta placement as early as 6 weeks can determine gender with 97% accuracy.  That's pretty dang good!  When the placenta is on the right side of the uterus, it's a boy, and when it's on the left side, it's a girl.  I have ultrasound photos where you can see the placenta, the only problem is when you ultrasound the belly the image you see is reverse the placement in your body so you'd have to reverse it to get which side of your body the placenta is actually on.  BUT, some ultrasound techs will reverse the image that pops up on the screen so that you don't have to reverse it, and some of them don't.  So, there is no way to tell if the image I have is reversed or not, so that leaves us at square one.  But for anyone out there that is pregnant or planning on getting pregnant, just ask your doctor at your first appointment what side the placenta is on.  You're welcome!

Anyway, we're all very excited.  Lucas is always patting and kissing my tummy.  He likes to put his ear up to it and hear the baby swimming.  Paige really has no clue, but I'm sure she'll love poking and sitting on the baby soon enough.

More Pictures and Birth Story

I woke up on Wednesday morning thinking I might be in labor but I wasn't totally sure. This was weird for me cause when I was in labor with Lucas I knew right away, so I kept thinking it must not be the real deal. I'd had a few painful contractions over the two days before this so I figured it was just more of that. Luckily I had a doctor's appointment that morning so I figured we'd just go and see what the doctor said. My appointment was at 9 am and at about 8 am the contractions were getting regular and painful enough that I decided I actually was in labor and it was going to happen today. My mom hopped in the car and headed up to meet us at my doctor's appointment so that she could watch Lucas for us while Ryan and I went to the hospital. The doctor checked me and I was only dilated to 3 cm so she said to take our time getting to the hospital. We went home, made sure we had everything packed, and then we headed up to the hospital.  Here's the family picture before we headed out.

Since, my contractions weren't too bad yet, we decided we better walk around for a while before checking in to the hospital. It was about noon at this point and so we decided to head over to subway and get some lunch. I  tried to go slow so I wouldn't make myself sick, but I was starving so I pretty much just scarfed it down.

After lunch we walked around for a bit to help things along.  Around 1:30 I decided the contractions hurt enough that we could probably go in and see how things were going.  I was still feeling pretty good and the lady who was checking us in didn't charge us our copay because she said I didn't look like I was far enough along for them to admit us.  I was a little worried, but then when the nurse checked me she said I was dilated to 7 cm.  Score!  This labor was already so different from Lucas's and I was pretty happy about that.  While they were admitting us I had couple pretty bad contractions, but I was still thinking I wanted to try and see how long I could go without an epidural.  The hospital we delivered at has a laboring tub so when they asked if I wanted to try it out I said, YES!  I got into the tub and it seemed to help a lot with the contractions.  I was in there for about an hour and then at this point I decided the nurse needed to check me again cause if I wasn't almost done, then I needed some drugs.  The nurse came in to check me and said I was almost ready to go and that we should probably have the doctor come break my water, but that the doctor was busy so I would need to wait.  Two contractions later my water broke on it's own and then I was not a happy camper.  It was at this point that I decided I was not really enjoying this much, but I also realized that there wasn't much I could do about it cause I knew it was time to push.  The nurse had me try a push or two which felt a little better at first, but not so much after that.  The doctor came in, and 4 pushes later, Paige Lee George was born on September 5th at 3:59 pm.  She weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 19.5 inches long.  Her head was in the 33rd percentile - thank you baby girl!

My mom brought Lucas up an hour or so later.  At first he didn't seem too impressed with anything, I think he was a little out of his element.  But after a few minutes he warmed right up to her.  He loves his baby.

And here's the happy family of 4.

Lucas getting some cuddle time with mommy and baby.

Here we are getting ready to go home.  She did not like getting dressed into her coming home outfit.

Lucas likes helping her find her pacifier.

On our way home!

We're home and settling in now.  We're still a little unsure of how exactly this is all supposed to work, but for the most part Paige is just a little angel.  She has just been sleeping and eating and that's about it.  We're all pretty much in love with her.  Here's Lucas reading her a book.

And in case you didn't notice, she's already needed an outfit change and we've only been home for 9 hours.  That's my girl.  One more picture of this cuteness and then I'm off to bed.

38 Weeks and Waiting...

I'm sorry if you're getting bored of pregnancy blog posts. I am too. I feel like I'm so ready to be done with this, even though it really hasn't been that bad. The weather is cooling off and I'm not even that big. I can still put on my socks, I definitely couldn't with Lucas at this point. Me and the baby are definitely running out of room in this belly, though. She seems to think it's okay to kick my ribs and crowd my lungs, two things Lucas never did. Oh well, she will be here soon enough and then I'll miss it. 

I'm really enjoying comparing my belly with Lucas to my belly this time around. Especially since I look so much better this time. I'm holding steady at 30 lbs of weight gain with this one. Pretty good compared to my 50 lbs with Lucas. Look at that face! I think I had an extra 20 lbs just in my face. Some of it was probably in my feet too, but I didn't take pictures of that.

Lucas has been really anxious about getting the baby out too. He asks me all the time if we can go to the doctor and get her out. I had an appointment yesterday and things are progressing, but nothing that suggests I'll go into labor at any moment. Oh well. We're just going to try to enjoy the long weekend and do something non baby related so I have something besides a belly picture or baby crafts to post on next week. Unless I have the baby of course. Lucas was born over Memorial Day weekend so I thought it would be really funny if this baby was born over Labor day weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Baby Crafts

I've made a few crafty things for the baby girl over the last few months but I was kinda saving them up to post about all of them at once.  But then I did the nursery post and half of the things I've made went into the nursery.  Oh well... here are the last few things I've made that I haven't gotten around to posting about yet.  The first one I did was just a quick Boppy cover.  I have one that I used with Lucas and it's gender neutral so I'll probably still use it, but it never hurts to have two.

I just took the old cover and traced it out onto new fabric.  I had to figure stuff out a little bit with the zipper in the back, but it turned out just fine.  It's a pillow case so it doesn't have to be too exact.  I used a 24 inch zipper, and they are surprisingly inexpensive at Joann's.  I think it was maybe 40 cents more than a 7 inch zipper.

The next project I did was to make a car seat cover.  I didn't have one with Lucas (I have no idea why) but they seem like such a genius idea and pretty much everyone has one so I figured I had to make one.  I used this tutorial, but made a couple changes.  I cut my fabric a little bigger because I wanted to make mine symmetric so that I didn't have to figure out which side was the top and which was the bottom when I was attaching it.  Also, I didn't eyeball my corners.  I made a compass with some string and a pen and I drew the curve on there.  My dad will be so proud!  Since I made it symmetric I only had to trace the curve once, and then trim all the edges at the same time.

And I don't have a serger so I just sewed mine with right sides together and then turned it inside out.  Here are the final dimensions just for reference in case you want to make one too.

Then I attached the straps right in the middle so it can be put on either way.  I did not add any embellishments to my straps.  I can't decide if I want them or not.  Sometimes I like things to be simple.

 Look at how cute that fabric is.  I love it!

 I had some left over fabric so I decided to whip up a little applique onesie...

with a ruffle bum!  How cute is that?  I think I will pair it with some tights or those leg warmer things.  I can't wait to play dress up with my baby.

I've been working on making lists of the stuff we need to pack in the hospital bag, a schedule for Lucas for my mom or whoever is lucky enough to get to be our middle of the night phone call, and a couple freezer meals for those first few weeks.  I think I'm pretty much ready; all that's missing is the baby.  You try to make sure you have everything ready early - just in case - but then what do you do for the next few weeks until the baby actually comes?

Baby Shower and 36 Weeks

Some friends in my ward threw me and another pregnant mom a baby shower last week.  Baby showers are so much fun - I love them!  Especially when I'm the one that gets to open the presents.  The decorations were so cute and the food was delicious.  They did such a good job  Here are a few pictures.

 And here's a cheesy picture of me and the other mom.

I got a few more cute outfits for this baby girl and a few packs of diapers.  Yay!  I've been doing laundry this week and getting everything ready for her to come.  I know I still have a ways to go, I just can't help but hope that I go early.  I've been having a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions lately, which apparently happens more and more with each baby, so I'm sure it means nothing.  But I'll keep my fingers crossed that I go into labor a couple weeks early so I don't have to be pregnant in this heat anymore.

Lucas seems to get more and more excited about his baby sister as the due date gets nearer.  He's been going to almost all my doctor appointments with me.  He's such an angel too, he just sits there and waits to hear her heart beat.  He LOVES that.  He comes up to put his ear against my belly all the time and says that he can hear her going "swish swish swish."  The other morning he came in and hugged my belly and said, "Good morning baby sister!"  Almost every day now he asks about her and when she's going to come out, and tells me things that he's going to do like push her in the swing at the park, splash her in the pool, or push her in the stroller at the train museum (not sure what made him think of that one).  We're all excited for this little one to come be a part of our family.

As my due date gets closer I am starting to get a little anxious and wonder how it's all going to work out.  Obviously people have second babies all the time so it can't be that bad, but I've been wondering if any of you have some genius advice that helped you through the first few months, or maybe something you wish you had done.  I was reading something the other day about how you should bring a movie to the hospital for the older child to watch when they come visit you and the baby.  Lucas is probably going to be bored after 10 minutes of staring at a sleeping baby, and I'd like to be able to spend some time and cuddle with him, so I thought this was a brilliant idea.  Anyone else have any advice for either at the hospital or at home?

The Nursery

I feel silly that it has taken me this long to do the nursery post.  I kept thinking I had a bunch of stuff left to do, but then I sat down this morning and realized that all I had to do was hang the pictures and gather some other stuff into the room.  So I did just that and then took pictures.  I've had this room 98% done for like two months now.  Oh well.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.   I wouldn't mind getting a cute rug to go in here eventually but we'll see. Almost all of the stuff in here I made myself.  My first project was this cute butterfly chandelier. 

I can post more details on that later.  It was pretty easy to make, although it did take quite a bit of time to cut out the butterfly shapes and glue everything together.  It was really inexpensive, though.

My next big project for the room was to make the curtains.

They are pretty simple, but I added a cute ruffle at the bottom to make them more girly.

I also made the quilt for the crib.  I did that quite a while ago but it's still one of my favorite parts of the room.

And now onto the room pictures.

Lucas wanted to help show off the room.

That picture doesn't actually say "Baby's Name".  I just wanted to illustrate what it will look like after she's born.  Right now it's just a boring empty frame.  Don't you love that cute little elephant?

And here is another one of my favorite parts of the room.

I'm so excited to finally have a fancy chair to rock the baby in.  Lucas had to make due with the crappy furniture we had as poor college students, but not this little girl.  I'm afraid she will be spoiled.

And of course the baby swing.  Lucas loves to come in and turn on the swing and the music.  He's really excited to put baby sister in there and then play around with it.

I still have to finish up a few things after she's born like put up her name, and maybe do a few pictures of her on some of the walls, but this is pretty much it for now.  I love to come in here and pull out her cute little newborn sized clothes and dream about how adorable and tiny she's going to be.  5 more weeks...

Sycamore Grove Park

We took a hike through Sycamore Grove Park here in Livermore yesterday morning.  The weather was beautiful and it was a pretty area.  We're definitely planning on coming back with bikes next time so we can see the whole park.  Lucas had a great time finding all the fun trees to climb on.

We also found a nice stream to throw rocks and sticks into.

I wasn't fast enough to get the stick in the air, but you can see the splash.

We stopped to have a little picnic by the stream.

Lucas showing daddy an airplane.  I just love these guys!

And throwing one last stick into the stream before we left.  He is definitely a boy.

While we were there I convinced Ryan to take some belly pictures for me.  I took a few maternity pictures when I was pregnant with Lucas, but I did it like a week before I had him and it's hard to tell the different between those pictures and the ones we took of Shamu at Seaworld.  I figured I look so much better this time around and I wanted to get some cute pictures to document it.

Another week down, 6 more to go.