My Pregnancy Journal: Week 29

About the Baby

How Far Along: 29 weeks.  Holy Moly!

Size of baby: Baby Rudiger is now a little longer than 15  inches long and about 2 1/2 pounds now.  Baby Rudiger is now being compared to a butternut squash.  

Gender: Baby Rudiger is a boy!

Movement: All the time.  Especially from 3/4pm on.

How I'm Changing: Well my belly now really looks like a pregnant belly.  I am pretty exhausted by 8pm most days.  I have also been getting pretty winded while walking upstairs and whatnot.  

Total Weight Gain/Loss:   Up 24 lbs at my doctors appointment last week. I have not weighed myself this week.  

Maternity Clothes: Of course.  I am excited about having more than 3 shirts to choose from.  

How I'm Feeling:  Tired a lot. Exhausted a lot. I have to pee a lot. I am hungry a lot.  But overall healthy and happy. Yup... Still the same.

Sleep: Sleep has been going pretty good lately.  I finally figured out how to stay on my side during the night.  Still getting up a few times to pee. 

What I miss: Energy!

What I'm Eating: Apples and Apple Cider.  Still!

Cravings: Although I did really want chicken wings this week and ended up ordering out on Friday.  I wouldn't call it a craving but a want that was satisfied. 

Best Moment this week: Working on the nursery.  We installed the wall decal and some paper lanterns.  

Gestational Diabetes?

Well last Friday, I had my gestational diabetes test.  According to my male Doctor the orange drink was tasty.  Yeah, he has never actually drank it.  I asked.

Anyways, after my Doctor's appointment (where everything was a okay),  I headed over to the lab for the gestational diabetes test.  Fun.  After what seemed like forever and 7,000 questions later.  I headed back where they gave me this tasty drink.  Well, when I say tasty, I mean eh.

Yeah, the orange drink was okay.  It wasn't great or horrible but tasted like orange soda minus the carbonation.  Well an hour later was blood draw time.  The ever so gentle nurse was so gentle with the needle that I ended up with a bruise.

Fast forward to Monday when I was supposed to know if I failed.  Yeah, they only call if you fail.  There was no call Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday, or all week.  I guess that means that I passed!  Yay!

Book Review: Who Loves You Best

Another quick read while traveling for work.  

According to goodreads... An unforgettable story about the complex choices women make for love, motherhood, and family—and the unexpected events that open our hearts to what really matters in life.  

Clare Elias feels more than ready to conquer being a parent. She’s already mastered the business world, running a flourishing chain of boutique flower shops. Her husband, Marc, is handsome, successful, supportive—and nearly a decade her junior. Clare is at the top of her game, so how hard can motherhood be?

Then the babies come—both of them. And Clare finds herself in the midst of the crisis faced by every woman who’s ever tried to Have It All.  She’s sworn she won’t have her children raised by nannies the way her inattentive mother did, but when help arrives in the form of pretty, young, hyperefficient Jenna, Clare has no idea that bringing this stranger into her family will change everything. As Marc becomes distant and secretive and, worst of all, one of her babies gets sick, Clare—and Jenna—must make the kinds of heartwrenching decisions that no woman wants to face.

 Wise, witty, and powerfully emotional, Who Loves You Best captures the working mother’s joys and frustrations—as well as the guilty secrets of nannies—in a tale that is surprising to the very end.

Who Loves You Best by Tess Stimson was an interesting read.  We have not considered a nanny for our little guy on the way but this book made me wish we could afford one.  The book shows the love and caring that the nannies have for the children.  All in all the book was an easy read with an interesting end.  Rating: 4 out of 5.

Check out all my book reviews here.

To Do List

I am feeling overwhelmed with things to do during these last 12 weeks of my pregnancy... So a list has formed:

1. Refinance our home mortgage
2. Tour the maternity ward of our hospital
3. Take a breastfeeding class
4. Put up the wall decal in the nursery
5. Purchase a breast pump
6. Purchase all the remaining baby items we need
7. Tour several daycares near us
8. Pick a daycare for the baby
9. Iron out the details of my maternity leave
10. Figure out how to add the baby to Neil's health insurance
11. Read the breast feeding book I have at home
12. Install the paper lanterns in the nursery
13. Enjoy time with Neil
14. Install the car seat base in both cars.  
15. Have the car seats checked
16. Have all (okay, most) of my Christmas shopping done by the beginning of December
17. Make the name blocks for the baby's room
18. Finish the repair of the kitchen ceiling
19. Paint around the new thermostat
20. Sand, finish and paint around the light switch in the basement stairwell
21. Paint the skylight in the bathroom
22. Finish and order the photo books for Alaska
23. Make and freeze several meals in December
24. Create an alphabet wall in the nursery
25. Clean out kitchen cabinet(s)... Make room for bottles!

My Pregnancy Journal: Week 28

About the Baby

How Far Along: 28 weeks

Size of baby: Baby Rudiger is now 14 .8 inches long and about 2 1/4 pounds now.  Apparently he is the weight of a chinese cabbage according to BabyCenter.  What?  These are weird comparisons. 

Gender: Baby Rudiger is a boy!

Movement: All the time.  Especially from 3/4pm on.

 How I'm Changing: The belly is growing.  I am hungry a lot more than usual and head to bed a lot earlier than I used to

Total Weight Gain/Loss:   Up 24 lbs at my doctors appointment on Friday or around 20 lbs according to me.

Maternity Clothes: Of course.  I actually had to order a few more maternity shirts.  I could not find any plain maternity t-shirts or long sleeve t-shirts.  I found a great sale at oldnavy.com and gap.com and ended up ordering 9 shirts total for under $70.  Score!

How I'm Feeling:  Tired a lot. Exhausted a lot. I have to pee a lot. I am hungry a lot.  But overall healthy and happy. Yup... Same as last week.

Sleep: Sleep has been going pretty good lately.  I finally figured out how to stay on my side during the night.  Still getting up a few times to pee. 

What I miss: Running and staying up past 10pm.

What I'm Eating: Apples and Apple Cider.  I love fall!

Cravings: Nope. 

Symptoms: Still pretty exhausted lately and a baby bump.

Best Moment this week: Spending time with my family and seeing the Lion King musical with my sister.

Dog Sledding!

Well in Alaska I was determined to mark another item off my bucket list.  Dog Sledding!

Okay so were not in Alaska during the winter so we lacked the snow.  However, those tricky Alaskans take advantage of the tourist season and offer summer dog sledding with carts.  Not only are we silly tourist paying to come play with and socialize their dogs, we are paying to train their dogs too.

Anyways, you can read all about our dog sledding experience here.  I should note that there are really cute pictures of husky puppies on that post too.

So with this experience, I crossed number 28 of 113 items off my bucket list.

Alaska - Day 13 - Wasilla and Palmer

Thursday September 22nd - Exploring Wasilla and Palmer

Today was a perfectly planned day.  We left the comforts of our hotel in Anchorage for the 1 hour drive to Wasilla.    Along the way we saw some snow on the mountains.

Some sand and bridges.

And some more marshy fields with little pine trees. 

Once we arrived in Wasilla, we headed to the Museum of Transportation and Industry.  Neil was so excited about this.  I was actually kind of excited about it as well.   However, there was one problem.  Apparently, it was closed for the season.  Just to note, it does not say anything about being closed for the season on their website.  Ugh.  

So stop #1 was out.  Our next plan was to head to Palmer and tour the Independence Mine.  Well, the original plan was to take the highway for 20 miles.  However, now that we had the extra time to spare I found us a new route on a little map I had.  

To start I will say that the road looked like a main road and all was okay until about 10/15 miles in and we saw this....

In true Alaska style the sign was all shot up.  

The "main road" was now a dirt road and I had no idea how much longer it was.  So we continued on.

The views were awesome and we climbed and descended lots and lots of mountains.

The only other vehicles we saw driving on the road was a camper and another small car.  

We did see a lot of trucks, campers and 4-wheelers parked along the road.  I guess these men were either fishing or hunting.  We saw some doing both.  

Eventually, we saw a mine in the side of the mountain.  We made it!

But soon we realized that it was not the mine we were looking for.  Indeed we were only about half way down the road. 

So we continued on.  Until we saw this huge ole rodent in the road.  Picture opt!

Finally, as in 3 hours later, we made it to the other end of the road and pavement.   Too bad the Independence Mine Site was also closed for the season.  Really?  Talk about bad planning by me. 

So after some lunch, we headed back to Anchorage.  

We ended up spending the rest of the day walking around downtown Anchorage.   There were a few cute little shops to look through.

Book Review: Take It Like A Mom

 I read Take It Like A Mom by Stephanie Stiles recently on a work trip.

According to goodreads... One thing sets her apart from other modern-day superheroes: mom genes. 


Annie Fingardt Forster used to be a lawyer who wore dry-clean only and shaved both legs. But things have changed. Now a stay-at-home mom, she wears cargo pants and ponytails and harbors a nearly pathological hatred towards hipster parents. 


With a three-year-old and a baby on the way, Annie knows what to expect...at least, she thought she did. Faced with her husband's job loss, pre-school politics, and a playground throwdown with her arch nemesis, Annie realizes that even with her husband and friends by her side, what she really needs is to learn to suck it up-and take it like a mom.


It was a quick and interesting read that did not require that much thinking.   Overall I enjoyed this book.  Rating: 4 out of 5.
 

Alaska - Day 12 - Homer to Anchorage

It is taking me forever to write up these posts from Alaska.  Ultimately we took over 3,000 pictures for me to sort through.  Then I edited up the best pictures from each day.  Then I had to select the most interesting from those for a blog post.  So, yeah it is taking me a while.

Wednesday - September 21st - Homer to Anchorage

We woke up this morning in our cute little cabin.  The view from the patio was awesome.

I had Neil take a baby bump picture from the patio.  So this picture is from when I was 23 weeks along.  Almost a month ago.

Anyways, we were up for another long day of driving.  I think it took us around 5 hours to drive from the little town of Homer all the way to Anchorage.

We stayed on the highway for most of the drive.  But we did occasionally turn into some of the state parks and drive around.  Our poor little rental car... It took the pothole and dirt roads so well.

So, some pictures....

As we were leaving Homer...

We saw a lot of areas that looked like this... marshy areas with small pine trees.

Most of the drive outside Homer was along the coast, which resulted in pictures like this.

There was also a lot of creeks/rivers that we crossed.

The water in Alaska was such a pretty shade teal.  We learned that it was because of the algae in the water.  I just liked the color.

Most of the pictures from today were taken from the passengers side of rental car.  Sometimes Neil would stop for me to take a picture, but most of the time we were driving along with the window open and me snapping some pictures.  Like this one

I think once this whole day, we stopped and got out of the car.  Well at least Neil got our of the car.

I hung out in the car and admired the view.

Some more pictures while in the car.  Looking out the front window while driving along.

And here is what happens while driving.  Neil drinks some coke.

And apparently drives without any hands on the steering wheel.  (No wonder I have some much gray hair!)

Some more pictures while driving.

I really like this next picture.  I think it shows off a lot of what Alaska has to offer. 

Finally, we made our way to the edge of Anchorage.  

Where we saw swans....

Tick One Off the Bucket List

Well an item on my bucket list was to take an Alaska Cruise.  We took a week long cruise to Alaska leaving from Vancouver and heading to Seward, AK from September 11th through the 18th.

With our cruise that means I have crossed 27 of the 113 items on my bucket list.

You can read about our cruise in the post below.

• Vancouver, BC - 9/11/2011 - Downtown Vancouver and the Seawall
• Alaska - 9/12/2011 - Just Cruising Along
• Ketchikan, Alaska - 9/13/2011 - Exploring the City
• Juneau, Alaska - 9/14/2011 - Exploring the City
• Skagway, AK - 9/15/2011 - Exploring the City
• Glacier Bay, AK - 9/16/2011- Cruising Along with the Glaciers and Animals
• College Fjord, AK - 9/17/2011 - Cruising Along
• Seward, AK - 9/18/2011 - SeaLife Center and Dog Sledding

Baby Room Update

Well my last baby room update was at the beginning of September.  You can see the pictures here.  Basically we had carpet installed, a crib and dresser in the room.  That was it.  Well a lot has changed.  Check it out.

Well I we have a chair in the room.  I opted out of a glider/rocker for a cute little comfy chair. 

Okay, yeah the chair is full of new projects for the room.  A rod for the new closet, a new blind for the window, a new curtain rod and new blackout curtains.  I am not sold on the black blackout curtains yet, so they probably will not be going in for a while.  

We also bought this shelf at Ikea and some cute colorful bins at target.  I wanted a place for books and toys to be stored.  

I think this will work. 

We also got a small lamp for the dresser that will hopefully work for those middle of the night wakings.  

The plan is to have a changing pad on the other end of the dresser (where the pile of books are). 

So here is a look into the room from the doorway.  You can see that we moved the crib (which is currently lacking a mattress but is full of baby clothes).

You can see from that picture why we needed new blinds.  

And finally a picture from the window looking out of the room.

We still need to get a lot of baby goodies before Baby Rudiger makes his appearance.  Only 3 more months to get stuff in order!