34 Weeks: The Countdown!

Only 6 more weeks until my due date!

How crazy is that??

Summer is here and being out of school

has never felt so good!

The weather is heating up fast 

and our poor little apartment

has no air conditioning or swamp cooler.

There have been days I'm dying of heat 

and it's only going to get worse :(

So we are going to get creative

and make our own cooling system!

We will see how it works out.

We have had some really fun days outside

having BBQs and playing bocce ball with friends.

I LOVE springtime!

Our amazing friends :)

Since my last post I have had 2 amazing baby showers.

I have nothing but gratitude for all the amazing

women in my life that care so much for me

and my family.

Thank you to everyone!

Being on a tight newlywed/college student budget,

every gift helps :)

We have been spoiled to receive everything

we NEED for our little girl on the way.

I'm not sure how we would have done it without you all :)

Here are a few fun pictures from both my showers:

At my shower in Utah, 

I had two cousins and an aunt

who were also pregnant. 

Here is a picture of us,

and then how we really felt :)

It was awesome.

I also had Matt's cousin there who is also expecting!

It was a room full of expecting mommies :)

After we brought all of our gifts home, 

our nursery looked like this.

Quite amazing :)

Then after organizing and separating all the clothes by size,

and figuring out what we still need,

the nursery looked much better.

Now we just need to get a dresser

so that we can really get the room organized

and ready for our girl :)

We got a lot of gift cards from our showers,

that we were able to go and pick out a fun travel system!

It took us a while to figure out the one we wanted,

but once we saw the sale, 

we jumped on it and finally got it yesterday!

I'm so excited to put it together!

We are finally crossing things off of our to-do-list

of things to do and buy before she gets here.

It feels good :)

We also get to start our birth class finally.

I'm nervous and excited 

and I don't know what to expect.

I'll update on how that goes :)

So some updates on what has changed since my last post

about how I have been feeling.

It's routine now to be tossing and turning

all throughout the night

since my belly just keeps getting bigger!

The heat doesn't help me sleep either,

but it's not too bad yet :)

The secret to getting a good nights sleep

is a good size bed,

lots of pillows, 

and a fan.

A recipe for success ;)

At my last midwife appointment,

our little girl is big enough 

that I could actually feel where her head and bottom were!

I could bobble them back and forth and it was so fun!

Matt also got to feel and the smile on his face was priceless :)

Watching him get excited about our baby girl

brings me such happiness and excitement

for her to arrive.

Our little girl was also head down and sitting low enough

that there is less than a 3% chance she will turn.

Such good and relieving news :)

She is getting quite big 

and loves to hang out in mom's ribs.

I'm also starting to get that "hunger for air".

It's happening more and more now 

where I will be sitting down and cannot breath. 

Whatever she is doing in there

cuts off my air supply once and a while.

She is just up to no good ;)

Matt is going to be such a good dad.

We had the opportunity to watch my friend's 5 month old son,

and it gave us a little taste of being parents.

He was so cute with this little boy :)

He helped him go to sleep

and calmed him down when he cried.

Matt also talks to our little girl

even though she isn't here yet.

It is so cute!

I'm so ready to bring this little girl into the world,

and grow our little family by 2 feet :)

So here is my 34 week baby bump picture.

Matt's blog post and pregnancy picture definitely trumps mine,

but here it is :)

We have gained a total of 23 pounds so far.

She is the size of a cantaloupe,

which is just under 5 pounds.

I have around a 5 pound baby inside of me :)

It's so fun to think about.

32 Weeks: The Husband's Turn

While supporting

a pregnant wife, we the husbands tend

to struggle with questions like:

When will my opinion stop being the

source of all emotional breakdowns?

Why would we ever want to 

keep the placenta? (and then do

what with it!?!)

Why are the assigned produce for the size of

 our baby getting more exotic as 

the weeks go on?

Can I make it through this pregnancy

without seeing a birthing video that's

supposed to "prepare" me for

the "real thing"?

Do birthing classes HAVE to 

be three hours long. . . on a Saturday. . .

for six weeks?? (can't there

be an online course, for reals!?)

Despite our strong appearances,

you might be surprised to hear that we husbands

 fear the powerful hormones who

seemed to have taken control of our wives. 

So these questions commonly (and safely)

 go unanswered ;)

So without further ado, 

Here is our 32 week blog post

of a bunch of random thoughts I

have about our experiences with this

pregnancy. I am doing this completely on my

own, no questions asked! No pressure

on this "honey do" item from my beautiful wife! Nope,

not at all!

The Husband in all his splendor!

Now, normally we would spend about a

half an hour taking this picture

and then making sure it was just right. 

But, in the spirit of "being a man", 

I decided to go with the first picture

taken :)

Our amazing, active, healthy baby

girl is the size of a. . . Jicama. I think. 

Do we know what this is? Google it

and you'll find this!

Somebody's having triplets!

So she's pretty much vegetable size

from what we have to compare to.

Britt and I spend the majority of our

free time setting up her room

and picking out furniture for our little

Jicama. She will definitely have more drawer 

space for her clothes than Brittany and I combined

after her mother is done shopping, but better

safe then... well actually, we'll probably have

more drawer space then needed...

Still a work in progress

Brittany used to be a picky eater

but now she's a hungry picky eater.

The majority of our fights usually contain

the words "I don't feel like eating.." and 

"we had mac n' cheese yesterday". . . Needless

to say, we don't have crazy fights ;)

Back near week 28 or so I wasn't 

talking enough about baby stuff. I understand

Brittany's concerns, I had been pretty mute

about my feelings because I didn't know

how to express them! However, it's 

important to note that prior to Britt being Pregnant,

my emotional sound box hadn't been turned

up very high to begin with!

Brittany left to go to California for her

baby shower and from what I've seen and heard

it couldn't have gone better. Thank you to

all the wonderful women who helped my wife

feel special that day. 

I love my wife so much, but

when she left I thought all this free time

would mean freedom!

It turns out it sucks not to have your

wife home longer then 8 hours... It's been

six days and I have two more left and I'm

going to go crazy! Or suffer medical problems!

 I miss her so much!

Brittany will often forget simple

common sense things while we're talking. 

Bless her heart, she can't help it! She hates it, 

but I look forward to it. 

Brittany recently lost her voice from

a sickness that seemed to come and go

quickly thank goodness. Her voice was so low

and scratchy it was hard for me to pick it out among others.

Brittany thought it was weird, but I

loved it.

Confession: I've talked to our baby

when Brittany is asleep. Mostly small talk

and it gets a little one-sided, but I think it's

good for us both.

In all seriousness, Brittany and I have

been so blessed with the baby's health

and all of the support we've received from

friends and family. I can't help but feel like

God intended for us to be parents. We both

feel like it's a sacred privilege and I don't

think we could be more excited to have this

little girl come into the world. 

With Brittany being the trooper that she

is, she often won't ask for help. But I 

get to see what she really goes through and

it's humbling to me.

So to all her friends and

family who love her so perfectly and support

her so compassionately; I have nothing

but love and gratitude for you!

Some husbands are scared to have kids and some 

don't like to think about it. I think it's safe to say I'm

confident in mine and Brittany's combined abilities to

parent our children. We are weird sometimes and we

disagree sometimes, but man are we a team. 

I love you Britt! I hope this post makes the cut!

30 Weeks: Starting Her Nursery

30 Weeks!

Only 10 weeks left!

Many new things to share that have happened
these past 2 weeks!
It's pretty exciting 
and scary
how fast our lives are changing.

First, we finished off the school semester!
It was such a relief to get finals over with, 
but man what stress it was!
It feels SO good to be done with school 
and not have to worry about homework every night
or upcoming tests to study for.
Now when I get home from work,
I can just nap or do whatever I want :)

I will admit though, as soon as the 3rd trimester hit,
my energy levels have started to decrease.
And the To-Do list
just keeps getting bigger.
Funny how that works ;)

So I was laying down in bed last Saturday,

and I felt our little girl do one big movement in my stomach.

It kind of freaked me out

because after it happened I didn't feel her move for a little bit.

I was afraid she did a somersault

and was no longer on the head down position

and had gone breech.

So when I went to work on Monday,

I had the midwives check to see where she was at,

and to my relief she was still head down :)

She just had rolled over instead of doing a full somersault.

I also have been fighting a really bad UTI these past couple days.

I have gotten UTIs frequently throughout my life,

but the scary thing about getting one in pregnancy

is that is can mean pre-term labor.

Not good.

I had none of the usual signs or symptoms,

and so it came on fast and hard.

I woke up one morning with really bad lower cramping

and my body felt weak.

I did a urine test and

was sent to the Urgent Care.

There was all sorts of bad things

(including blood)

in my urine. 

So they gave me an antibiotic

and I have been closely monitored since.

I have done plenty of resting,

keeping hydrated,

little to no sugar,

lots of cranberry,

and my antibiotics.

I'm feeling much better thankfully,

but I need to kick my butt into gear

and start eating better and keeping hydrated.

It's hard when I don't really like water!

But this little girl is worth it and I need to be better :)

So, I think we can all agree that babies are expensive.
RIGHT?
Even with our budget we put together 
of roughly what would be needed to get ready for our little girl,
things are still tight and it forced me to be creative.
This is where my proud moment comes in!

Since baby furniture is expensive to buy brand new,
I thought I would look around KSL.com
and go garage sale hunting to try and find used things
that were in good shape.
I became a member of the Facebook local yard sale groups,
and that has been so much fun for me!
I hunted around to find something that was a good price
and the look we wanted.
Let me tell you, that is HARD.

HOWEVER,
I found much joy and excitement in hunting these down :)
First we wanted a rocking chair,
but realized it was not a NEED in our budget.
I wanted one really bad and hunted down the PERFECT one!
This was my KSL.com find.

It looks small, but it's the perfect size!

The ottoman rocks with the chair,

it had the dark wood look we love,

and is has side pockets to put books or burp rags in :)

PLUS, it is SOO comfy!

The guy we bought it from never really used it.

The fabric didn't need cleaning

and the wood had NO scratches on it.

We got it for only $70,

and it's like brand new :)

My second want was a changing table.

Once again when thinking of NEEDS,

this could have been cut from the list.

But as I searched, I found one that I liked :)

She was asking a little higher than we could have paid,

so I waited and talked her down to a price we could agree on.

When we went to go pick it up,

it was already disassembled 

so it was hard to actually see if something was wrong

or even missing.

It wasn't in it's original box,

it had scratches on it, 

and we took her word for it that all the pieces were there.

We took a BIG risk actually buying it

and walking away.

When we got home, we had to put it together.

We took out all the pieces and screws from the box,

and there was no instructions on how to put it together!

We got pretty discouraged.

Luckily, there is Google and we found the instructions by pure luck.

We put it together and luckily only one little metal piece

was missing.

We were much happier once it was put together

and we saw the final product.

So this was our Facebook yard sale find :)

Cute huh? :)

I loved the hamper and the little drawers,

and again the dark wood color.

We just need to clean it a little

and try to fix the bigger scratches!

Not as good of a find as the rocking chair,

but for $45, I'm not complaining :)

With both of these in her room,

it's finally starting to come together :)

I can't wait to keep adding little things here and there.

We have loved the color combination 

of turquoise, carnation pink, and white,

and have decided to have that be the color scheme of her nursery!

We found this really awesome picture on pinterest

that helped us fall in love with these colors.

We had a huge canvas (2ft x 4ft)

that we have been meaning to do something with,

and we decided to paint that picture on that canvas to put above her crib.

We went to Home Depot and picked out the colors,

and my wonderful artist husband made the magic happen :)

These are some pictures of the progress...

.

And then the final product :)

We are so IN LOVE with how it turned out :)

I'm sure one lucky girl to marry a guy

with such an eye and skill for art!

And how sweet that he would make this for his daughter's room.

It melts my heart.

Our sweet little girl is about 3 pounds now,

and is about the size of a head of cabbage.

Mom has gained a total of 20lbs so far,

and measuring right on for the due date :)

I'm definitely starting to feel the weight and pressure

of my belly growing.

She is moving around a ton

and can feel her little feet and knees poking out

once and a while :)

We are so excited and blessed

and can't wait to meet her in a little over 2 months!