26 weeks 1 day

I have been so busy at work (and at home) that I have simply not had a chance to post anything for a while. I'm grateful for the distraction that a busy workday can provide. I still can't honestly say that the weeks are flying by, but I'm definitely feeling a little pressure to get things done and I don't feel like time has stopped like I did in my first trimester.

I ordered our nursery furniture last week, and we were able to pick up the crib right from the store. This was a very big step for us because I have always felt that a purchase like that was way too significant to do if we weren't actually going to be bringing a baby home. I guess I'm starting to believe it's actually going to happen. Of course, said furniture will not arrive for 8-10 weeks, so by the time it actually arrives, it's really going to be time. I wish we hadn't waited so long. The crib is assembled and in the nursery now. We also were able to get our glider this past weekend and that was assembled yesterday. I set that up in our living room, so I could enjoy it while watching tv and hanging out with hubby before the baby comes. I absolutely love it and I'm dreaming about sitting in it later today as I power through the last hour or so of work.

I am starting to feel the nesting instinct kick in. I've been cleaning closets (a chore I absolutely dread when not nesting), and I'm making little purchases each week to fulfill our enormous baby needs in time. We were actually very lucky to receive several large items from my sister. She sent an infant car seat, a convertible car seat, a breast pump, a Baby Bjorn, a bouncy chair, a crib mattress, several crib sheets and playard sheets, and a pretty good sized box of clothes. My sister's baby was a girl, so much of her stuff is girly, but everything she sent was unisex or neutral and there were enough boy clothes to really put a dent in my list of things I need, so I'm feeling extremely blessed.

I don't believe I will be having a shower at all because my family and friends are all out of state and I don't want to travel, so other than a few things here and there, we won't be receiving big gifts from people. That being said, my parents bought us our pack n play, my in-laws bought us the glider, a friend of my mother-in-law was extremely generous and bought us a pack n play as well (the registry update was delayed just enough to cause that duplication), which I exchanged for the bedding we picked for the crib (they'll never know the pack n play we have isn't the one they bought). Generally, I feel that we have a good start and if I spread the remaining purchases over the next 14 weeks, we should be able to fairly painlessly get all the stuff we need.

I also have had a compelling urge to prepare my diaper bag and the changing area for the baby. This makes little sense right now, because I don't even have a changing table yet, but I just feel like I want to get all that stuff ready. I'm trying to redirect that odd desire to more practical things like freezing some meals for my first couple of weeks with the baby. I am not one of those people who enjoys a weekend full of cooking and freezing. I would much rather make double dinners every weekend between now and delivery and freeze those instead. My biggest challenge is finding food we will want in August that also freezes well. August temps where I live are typically 100-105, so a lot of good freezable meals like soups and lasagna may not be good choices.

I start my third trimester either this Sunday or the next Sunday (depending on which method you use to calculate it), and I'm so excited. I've finally, finally graduated to the point where perfect strangers feel comfortable asking me when I'm due instead of curiously eyeing my bump not sure what to say. I'm sort of looking forward to them seeing me in the next few weeks as I get bigger than ever. I will say though, whenever I comment on another pregnant woman's body or bump in the future, I will be very careful about how I word it, so as not to offend, because it's amazing the things people will say.

Baby Movement

This post got delayed from being published, so the dates are off, but it was still an exciting discovery, so I decided to post it anyway.

Sunday night for the first time (23 weeks exactly) I SAW the baby kicking from the outside! I had been on my feet all day long doing various things around the house and out side and I literally had not taken any time to sit down. I finally got dinner ready around 8pm and sat down on the couch in front of the TV with my husband (I know…bad) and all of a sudden someone was up and ready to move around. It was the longest and hardest activity session I have felt so far. I just could not believe some of the sucker punches I was getting. I pulled up my shirt to look and sure enough, my belly was popping up when he would kick me. I tried to get my husband in on this action, and he did feel a couple small taps, but he missed all the big kicks. It was amazing and just makes this experience even more real.

Shopping for Baby

Now that we’ve hit the second half of the pregnancy, I feel like there are hundreds of things that we need to get done before I get too big to be interested in doing anything. I also can’t help but be worried about having this baby early (even though deep down I think I’m more likely to go late). I just want to make sure everything is ready. I’m a planner, so I do not want to wait until the last minute for any of these items.

I have several priorities right now that need to be addressed in the next couple of weeks. We need to get carpet in the baby’s room, but before we do that, I suppose we should paint, so we can be sloppy about it if we want to. We also need to make a decision on furniture for the nursery. It is so hard to do this without being able to devote a lot of time to shopping, and right now with our jobs and our weekend responsibilities around the house, we just haven’t had much time. Once we get the nursery under control, I feel that I could move forward on buying all the other million things that this tiny person is going to need.

We have also spent quite a bit of time searching for some of our bigger items and trying to make decisions on them. I think we are finally decided on our stroller and our infant seat. I still need to research and decide on our pack n play/playyard, rocker/glider, baby monitor and camera system as well as a breast pump. I think those are the big items. I know that all the little items may actually be more overwhelming and when combined still add up to quite a sum of money, but since they aren’t as expensive, making the perfect decision doesn’t seem as stressful.

For our stroller, after a long process, I think we’ve decided on the City Mini. I really wanted the City Elite because of it’s smooth ride, shocks, larger tires, more upscale look, etc, but ultimately I think that the City Mini will be more practical for our life. It is 10lbs less, (16lbs vs 26lbs), it is generally smaller and I think the ease of use will win out over the more luxurious ride of the Elite.

I think we have also decided on the Chicco Keyfit 30 for our infant seat. This decision was based on consumer reports research, user reviews and ease of use. It seems the Chicco is the easiest seat to just plop down into the base. I am somewhat disappointed that it often will not fit on the grocery cart, but I think all the other good things about it make it a good choice despite that one flaw although I hear people say that perching your infant on top of a grocery cart isn’t exactly safe anyway, so I guess maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we can’t do it.

It was exhausting just making these two decisions final, so I’m very eager to get the other bigger items out of the way. The nursery furniture is the next thing on the list and it simply must be figured out in the next couple of weeks. I’m giving myself a goal of having the entire nursery selected (paint, carpet and furniture) by April 24th. I would like everything to be in the nursery assembled by mid-May. That should be plenty of time before baby is due to arrive.