BabyBit's Nursery

So I’m not quite complete on the nursery, but I keep meaning to show it to you. If I wait until it is complete, babybit will be 10 years old by then.

This room was our guest bedroom so fair warning to any future guests, you will now have to sleep on the couch. Due to tax reasons, we have to keep the Den/office an actual work area so that room was off limits for sleeping accommodations.

I don’t really have any before pictures, more just in-progress after we emptied out the room and were trying out paint colors. 

Room prep/progress

I knew I didn’t really want to do pastel pink and blue, or even green and brown (which has become the go-to gender-neutral colors). My goal was to do primary colors without being over the top. Its funny how the mood board originally created looks nothing like the end result. No matter, I’m VERY happy with the results. The baby blanket I made was really the color palatte I tried to stick to.

Baby Blanket Color Pallate


We chose a rich honey butter color to paint the walls. Side note – make sure the home improvement store properly mixes the paint when you buy it. We circled the room before we noticed that all the pigment was at the top of the can. As you can see we had two different colors where the gallon started and finished. A second coat fixed that problem though.

Paint Fail

As soon as I showed Aunt Biscuit my idea for the alphabet letters, she requested that she take on that project. Considering how juvenile my craft projects typically turn out and what great style she has, I was happy to let her take it on. I wasn’t allowed to see the letters until they were complete. They are awesome. It took me too long to hang them on the wall and as you can see I eyeballed it when hanging them. Some are closer together than others and crooked but ce la vie.

Alphabet Wall


I’m actually surprised at how inexpensively we decorated the room, thanks to all the donations. The dresser and mirror were in the room already. I just re purposed them with white paint. The other furniture was all hand-me-downs (rocker from SIL, pillow made by Momma T, crib from co-worker, and changing table from a friend). The lamps were craigslist finds that were painted. The rug was on sale at Menards (where you can save big money, by the way).

Dresser and Mirror


Crib and Alphabet (please ignore all the clutter that I don't know where to store)


Changing table and Rocker (imagine white storage cabinet above the changing table)


As you can tell, space is a premium in the room – already storing things under the crib and where ever we can find room. There are a couple of remaining items, including shelves/storage over the changing table.
 
Only 4 days until the due date - Merry Christmas from BIGbit

Too much time to worry...

With the holidays approaching, work is starting to slow down. Multiply that by the decline in projects due to my looming maternity leave and you’ll understand that I have a little too much time to be impatient, worry about complications and generally stew about motherhood.

That means you all get the joy of reading about every thought that crosses my mind. At least I’ve put it here so you can ignore it without insulting me directly!

Patience – It is a virtue I’ve never been blessed with. I was moving along fine with the idea that it would be January before babybit arrived. I had told myself there was still a lot more waiting to be done. That was until my doctor examined me last week and said I was 80% effaced (google it if you really want to know what that means). I was so caught off guard with the idea that my body was actually progressing toward labor that I rushed through the last of my tasks to get the house baby ready. It took exactly one day. Since then, no more progression, despite all the aches, pains, Braxton Hicks (that hubs has affectionately named Braxton Millers), sore boobs and overall uncomfortableness (pretty sure that isn’t a word). Don’t get me wrong, I KNOW that first time moms typically go past their due date. I KNOW my mom and my sister both went late. I KNOW that there is NO WAY to know when you are going into labor and I keep telling myself that another couple of weeks is NOTHING compared to the 9 months of being pregnant, and the years of trying to get pregnant. But logic hasn’t taught me patience.

Complications – Hubs asked me a question the other day that has been a cloud of a thought in my own mind for months. A thought that I didn’t really want to give shape and texture to, “What if our baby has special needs or isn’t completely healthy?” Well, if you know the Hubs you know the question wasn’t that succinct, but that was the gist of the conversation. With the pending introduction to your new little one, I imagine everyone fears their bambino won’t be perfect. My response, also originally not as succinct, “I can’t worry about it, because the worrying won’t do anyone any good. We’ll handle whatever comes our way the best we can.” But of course now the question is out there. A constant worry than I can’t really ignore.

General anxiety – It is probably naive of me, but my fear of labor hasn’t been about the pain. I guess knowing an epidural is an anesthesiologist away helps put me at ease with that. My fear, grounded completely in infertility struggles, manifests around my body not doing what it is “supposed to”. The uncertainty of being able to breastfeed manifested itself into a dream where Momma T was scorning me for starving my baby. She took matters into her own hands and feed it canned cat food. SOMETHING had to be done. Of course then there is the fear that I’ll have a C-section fear if I don’t dilate. This fear is only compounded by my sister’s disappointment that result for her own labor and her painful recovery process.

But not everything is all doom and gloom of "what if things go wrong". Some of the time spent is thinking about all the cool wonders of pregnancy, like:

There are currently TWO souls in my one body – how crazy is that?

If babybit is a girl, then the eggs have already been created in her little ovaries, and I am carrying not only her but possibly my future grandchildren.

I am more proud of my stomach than I have EVER been in my life (and probably will be again). I am showing it off to anyone that will look. My skin has NEVER been this tight.

I really love feeling him/her move inside of me. I spend so much time with my hands on my belly, trying to discern the shapes of a leg or a butt that I am bordering on the obsessed.

Let the waiting begin

December is here! I am so excited to finally be within THREE WEEKS of my due date. I do think that there is no WORSE time to be pregnant though. I'm totally stressed out about Christmas shopping. I have so much to get done, but I can only stand to be out at the stores, fighting the crowds for short periods. Hubs and I tried to go shopping last weekend and only 30 mins into it, I was leaning over the cart to steal some back ache relief. Last night I had to go to Target and Lowes. I ended up paying WAY too much for stuff at Target because I wanted to skip the trip to Lowes since I was already drained. I guess it's going to be a online shopping kind of year.

Biscuit finally unveiled the finishing touch for the Nursery last weekend. Hopefully this weekend we'll assemble and take pictures for the blog. I'm excited to show the before and after pictures of the room.

Not much else going on. Just trying to keep myself busy, because, you know, a watched pot...

Tick, tock.

Baby Shower and Nursery Assembly

Well I know I haven’t been updating the blog as often as I should but that just means more content when I do get around to it.

Two weekends ago, Biscuit, in collaboration with my Sister In-Law and Step Mother in-Law threw me an awesome baby shower. It was a great Sunday afternoon with family and friends. It was also Baby Q’s first big social outing.


I was overwhelmed by the people that took time out of their schedules to spend the afternoon with me. I’m so very lucky to have such a supportive family and group of friends. Plus, did I mention the food? Biscuit did it up. She even baked Grandma’s famous carrot cake recipe for the occasion.

After the shower, we unloaded our booty into the Nursery, already questioning where we are going to keep/put/store all this baby stuff. Hubs and I have been spending weeknights organizing the room. Unpacking things and trying to find their permanent home. The first major task that Hubs was excited to tackle was putting together the crib. It was a hand-me down but it looks great (even if there is a voluntary recall). I figure it’s nothing compared to the death traps we slept in as babies, right?



Even though I haven’t washed any of the bedding yet, Hubs insisted we had to put it on so you could see the final product and take pictures.

The next night we assembled the stroller car seat travel system. I read the instructions as Hubs assembled. I must admit, they make these things pretty dummy proof now a’days. As he was playing with the new stroller, I added the ‘winter coat’ accessory to the car seat. Think of it as a sleeping bag for the car seat so you don’t have to put a coat on your baby each time you go outside. We surveyed our work and both agreed that 1) our baby will be very warm and 2) that they need to make more things this soft and comfortable for adults!

As we collapsed into the couch once the stroller was wheeled into the already cramped nursery, I asked “What are we going to do when we run out of things to put together?” I guess the answer is, we let the waiting begin

Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t at all “ready”. There is no rug on the floor, nothing on the walls, hubs hasn’t picked up the cradle and Oh yeah, the baby is still pretty content playing soccer with my internal organs. But you all know how good I am with waiting. At least I have the baby blanket to complete. That will keep me busy for another couple of nights.

Updates

On Being Pregnant:
Well only two more months to go! You know what that means for YOU right? Christmas is only a short 8 weeks away. Better start shopping.
For me, it means bending over has become almost impossible. I try to explain it like this - I have a basketball attached to my waist. It's not like fat because that would smush and move to the side. I bend over and the basketball pushes inward on my lungs and internal organs. I've gotten to the point where I get really mad when i drop something. I'm even tempted to just walk away from it, but there is a part of my dad in me that can't stand knowing that paper towel is just cluttering the floor . Side note, leave open a cupboard or closet door at my parents house and see how long it remains unnecessarily ajar.

I'm taking pre-natal yoga, which I love. I'm tired more often but every day is different. Most of the mirrors in the house are from the chest up so my only indication of how pregnant I look is gauged by the number of times strangers ask "When are you due". I know it's a bad outfit when someone says, "Why are you still working". Umm yeah, TWO MONTHS LEFT.

Baby Bit moves all the time, though mostly between 8 and 10 pm. Now that there is limited room for the squirmer, the kick/punch combos tend to land squarely on my bladder, ribs and/or internal organs. While sometimes painful, I love knowing that everything is ok and he/she's moving!

On my new niece and my new sister-momma:
Quinn and Momma are doing good. Meg has been helping set realistic expectations for me of what the first month with a newborn is really like. Quinn is already proving to be a beauty like her mother, wide-eyed and attentive for her first photo shoot. Q's first formal social outing will be my baby shower and I almost can't wait that long to see her again!

On the nursery:
Well the furniture is finally painted and reassembled. This weekend Hubs and I will be painting the room. It will feel much more complete once we have that done. I took some before pictures so once I have all the pieces and parts I can share.The bedding is on its way. I still need to figure out what to do about shelves, a rug and curtains (not sure if the current ones will work or not). I'm glad I have that to keep me busy because I don't have much else to do but wait. And I'm not very good at the waiting.

On the animals:
Both Franklin and Sammy are curious about all the work going on in the old guest bedroom/new nursery. The door remains shut to keep out unwanted animal hair! When the door is opened, sure enough I find Franklin sneaking in to smell everything. He knows he's not supposed to be in there because the minute I say "What are you doing" he looks up at me sheepishly and runs out of the room. Other than the room, they are oblivious. Franklin enjoys my frequent trips to the bathroom, which he considers his room. We've since taken to calling the bathroom the cat's office.

Oh and because we need to make sure we know what we're doing, we did have to test out our diaper skills. .
He puts up with a lot!

Introducing Judith Quinn

It was an eventful week last week as Meg and Jack welcomed my new niece Judith Quinn. Quinn is a beautiful bright-eyed bundle of joy. I think she resembles her dad mostly, but I'm sure we'll see how that changes as she grows.

I've never been one to coo or to be turned immediately to mush when presented with a newborn as are most other women. So blame it on it being my sister's pregnancy, my own hormones, my own anticipation but I LOVE that baby. The hardest part was to leave and know she is going to grow and change so much by the time I see her next. Welcome to the world baby Q!

Letters to Baby Bit

Dear Baby Bit

I guess it make sense that I pick back up writing to you as your kicks and punches demand my attention throughout the day. I smile to myself as I feel you turn over, hopefully finding a cozy position. Most of the time, your movement makes me smile, but sometimes my bladder is full and you poke, poke, poke it. I get that you don't know that I am currently in the car and can’t get to the bathroom.

My belly is getting so big, it's hard to believe its possible. Everyone is anxious to find out if you are a boy or a girl. In the beginning, everyone was convinced you were a boy. Now it seems that people have their money on a girl. Everything I do is analyzed as clues to your gender. I eat sweets, you are a girl. I am irritable, you are a girl. I am carrying in front, you are a girl. I have always thought you would be a boy just because I can imagine a little toe-headed version of your father running around, but then last night I had a dream that you were a baby girl with a head full of hair. We talk about your features. The ultrasound showed that you’ll probably have your dad’s nose (lucky you!). I think you will favor your Dad’s family. Only time will tell.

You cousin is due this month and Uncle Meg is very ready to meet the new baby. There is so much going on right now as the whole family gets ready for your arrival.

Love you,
Mom

Here you are at 27 weeks: