So much has happened, it’s hard to remember it all. If I don’t try and write it down now, though, I may forget a lot more so here we go…

Labor Begins…

I was scheduled to be admitted for induction the evening after my due date of September 18th. My body had other ideas, as the morning of the 19th, my water broke while I was lying in bed.

After leisurely (and I do mean leisurely as I lied in bed for another 20 minutes) deciding that I should probably get up and clean up, I called Teresa, my pastor’s wife to let her know that we would not be there that morning. (Yes, I *purposely* did not call my husband first as he was at a work meeting and I knew would leave like a bolt of lightening and possibly rush me to the hospital. I wasn’t quite ready to leave just yet. lol)

Getting Ready…

I quickly took a shower, washed my hair (really – I seriously needed a shower!), and rushed my mom and grandmother through a shower before finally calling Jason. The moment I told him my water broke, he said “Ok, be home shortly” and immediately hung up the phone. That was the exact response I expected, so I was really glad I waited to call him as the main store he works from is only 5 minutes away. When he got home, I was ready to go with hospital bag and pillow in hand.

By 10:30am, I was checked into the hospital, I.V. in hand, getting my antibiotics (I was Strep-B positive), waiting for the petocin to kick in and help me along.

Visitors…

The funny thing about the day was that it was like a party in my hospital room. Surprisingly 12 hours went by rather quickly for laying around in bed so long.

First it was mom, grandma and Jason hanging out with me waiting.

3 hours later, Teresa stopped by to check on me.

An hour after that, my friend Danielle came by with her Brady Bunch (long story). Despite all the busy-ness, it was nice to see everyone there.

So I’m A Wuss a.k.a. Time For An Epidural…

Around that time, the contractions were coming harder and increasingly noticeable, so the nurse gave me a shot that would reduce the pain for about an hour. It left me plenty loopy (I’m not even an avid over-the-counter medication user).

About an hour later, that shot started wearing off and I was more than ready for an epidural. I had kept an open mind as to whether or not I’d be able to deal with the pain of the contractions, but when the time came, I realized I was outmatched. I can take a lot of pain, but childbirth was not something I was ready for… even with a childbirth class.

So, when I finally asked for an epidural, I began to regret not asking sooner as it took the nurse 20 minutes too long to finally get everything setup and the anesthesiologist to make it to my room. The nurse was also of the “bite the stick in your teeth” mentality as there was no mercy from her when she was rushing me to the bathroom during contractions to empty my bladder. (Really could have done with a different nurse right then.) Once the epidural was in, I started feeling better, but was freezing and slightly nauseous all the time.

And Now We Wait…

The next 6 or so hours were probably the longest and seemed to crawl. My grandmother and mom were lucky enough to pop out their 5 and 1 kids, respectively, rather quickly, so after 5 hours of waiting everyone started worrying. I could see it in their faces.

During that time, the petocin was beginning to bother baby girl and making her heartbeat drop, so we had to shut it off 3 different times and switch my position to make sure she was okay and the epi was covering my lower body completely. Through it all I was still plenty freezing, so I tried to get some sleep in between check-ins from the nurse on duty.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that was cold and sleepy. One time I woke up to find grandma wrapped up in one of the warm blankets they keep at the hospital. :)

Change Of Plans…

After stopping the petocin 3 separate times, it was finally 10pm. We’d been there almost a whole 12 hours in labor and 4 of those hours stuck at 7-8 centimeters. The midwife thought the doctor might let us go another 2 hours, as he’s been known to be lenient. However, not even 15 minutes later, he walks in and says “You’ve done great, but I think it’s time to move to a c-section. We know your baby is on the larger side and with no progress made for the last 4 hours on the petocin, not to mention the stress it seems to put her under, I believe this is best.”

Once he gave the ok, it took them all of 20 minutes to get me ready and prepped for surgery. I wasn’t happy about having to deal with all the labor just to end up under the knife, but glad at the same time I got to experience some of the natural childbirth issues.

The C-Section…

Jason was with me through the whole thing. I think that was the one thing that kept me the calmest – just having him hold my hand. He hung out with me on my side of the partition so neither one of us could see the actual operation. (Very grateful for that partition!)

The staff was great and talked us through everything. I remember every one was lighthearted and making jokes, yet very focused on their individual tasks. There was something comforting about seeing no one was overly tense or worried.

When it was time, it seemed the surgery itself took all of 5 minutes. I felt them pull, push and tug, but none of the pain.

I actually heard baby girl before I even saw her. Hearing Jason say “She’s beautiful” was amazing. Seeing her was even better. And if it wasn’t for Jason, I would never have the photo above, which is now my favorite photo of all time.

Baby girl came out with a slight cone head from trying to engage for so long. Not that I would have ever noticed. Jason had to point it out to me. So it seems even if I had dilated enough, she may not have made it through as her head was too big for me.

Post-Op…

After the surgery, I found myself in a haze. Between the epi, nausau meds and some benadryl they gave me for the itching the epidural causes, I was fairly knocked out. I slightly remember being wheeled to the post op area. I have flashes of seeing Jason holding baby girl. I remember being so cold that I had violent shakes with chattering teeth (part of the epidural reaction I was told later) and an urge to vomit that I later acted on. Fortunately, I’d only had juice and water for several hours so it was nothing gross.

After I was “out of the woods” so to say, we were wheeled to the recovery room and the rest of our 4 day stay continued. The stay and I progressed nicely until the last day which resulted in several bad experiences revolving around getting discharged at a decent hour, lack of communication by the hospital staff and several attempts at getting my stitches removed with inappropriate tools – requiring me to take more of the percocet I had managed to stop using by that time. The story of that last day is something for another post and I’d rather just not remember it, so I’m skipping over it. :)

It’s now been 3 weeks since baby girl arrived and I had my surgery. I’m still a little sore and swollen from my inside stitches. If I move a certain way, I can feel them pulling. Other than that, we are doing great… just adjusting.

I’m not disappointed about delivering via c-section. I think the fact I had already had major surgery to remove my one tube took the shock/sadness out of the whole situation. I’m just grateful she is happy and healthy and here with us. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Now, my family is asking for Jason’s hazel eyes and curly black hair, but that’s another story entirely…

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I would write more on all that, but after yesterday’s OB appointment, I think my new news really merits the spotlight.

Mom said that Snickers asked her to get a present for Baby Girl since he couldn’t go out and shop…
Can you guess who these socks are from? ;)

On Monday, we had our next appointment and found out that conditions are favorable for an induction. I’m not sure I mentioned it on the blog, but at Week 34 Baby Girl was weighing 6lbs. 5oz. That’s pretty big!

Our midwives were a little concerned about how much she would weigh for delivery time. We had also talked about what an induction would mean and under what conditions they would perform one… and that it would only be done if all those things were favorable.

Now, Baby Girl isn’t due until this Saturday. But because of the potential weight issue, the doctor decided if she doesn’t come by this weekend, I’ll be checking into the hospital Sunday night for a Monday morning induction.

Of course, you know that means by this time next week, I should hopefully be holding Baby Girl in my arms  - both of us happy and healthy. This all just became that much more real.

So this week is about wrapping up loose ends. We’ll be getting a different baby carrier because we never really tested this one out. (Turns out since we only have two-door cars, we practically have to get in the back set to release the car seat… not an easy feat.) My grandmother is flying into Florida this afternoon and then she and my mom will be flying into Atlanta on Thursday. And I have tons of last minute work to nail down for clients.

Much to do – not a lot of time. I think I can actually hear the clock ticking…

By now you’ve noticed I missed posting my next 52 Weeks post for the week. Sometime this weekend, I decided it was time for me to step back even more. The thought may have formed between the swollen ankles and the mounds of baby clothing I was washing. What I failed to do was make the announcement. Consider it made.

I’ll still be doing the Bump Update, since Baby Girl seems to have no intentions of leaving her apartment any time soon. Plus, I enjoy sharing with you all what is going on as we get ready for her to arrive.

In the meantime, just know I’m sitting on my couch with my feet propped up, desperately trying to keep them from swelling. Oh and you can find me on Twitter, since I’ll also still be working from the couch. Don’t be a stranger!

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By the time he’s ready to head downstairs, Snickers has usually moved to the corner of the bed closest to the bathroom. He likes to keep an eye on the both of us from one spot if he can manage it. Controlling little pup.

As Jason walks out of the bathroom, he will stop to love on Snickers, rubbing his belly and kissing his head. Then he comes over to me, hugs me in bed and tells me he loves me. He then lifts the covers, lays his head on my belly and talks to Baby Girl – wishes her a good morning, let’s her know it’s Dad, gives her kisses and tells her he loves her, too.

Today the good morning wish was “Happy -2 Weeks” and it made me a little sad. I’m always happy to be woken up by my Prince Charming, I can’t deny that. Yet the sadness, I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s because I know a very short, but so emotional chapter of my life is coming to a close.

But something new, something exciting, something wholly scary on its own is just around the corner! (My close friend has 4 girls, 17, 15, 12, and 7… we know what’s in store for us.) And I’m excited, overwhelmed and sometimes I think “Holy cow! Are we insane?” I do, really.

Through it all though, I believe this is our time, this is her time. We weren’t ready for a baby 2 years ago. Are we any more ready now? Who knows. But I trust that God knows ’cause He is “familiar with all [our] ways” (Psalm 139:3) such that “even the very hairs on [our] head[s] are numbered” (Matthew 10:29-31) and He “determined the exact time of [her] birth and where [she] would live.” (Acts 17:26) She’s meant to be with us right here, right now and I can’t argue with that.

So here we are… any day now really, just waiting for our precious gift.

Feeling like a ham… usually my husbands job to act this way…

And once I got going, I felt a little silly this morning, so don’t mind my Week 38 photo. :)

In the meantime, we’ve been busy! Jason and I are still working on the rug, although we’ve already reduced the size of it several times. (Latchhooking fleece strips is work! Even Snickers thinks so…)

We picked up a few more pieces at IKEA last weekend to help with organizing and additional seating in the baby room.

I also found the perfect butterflies to use for the mobile I want to add above the glider. But I’m still looking for frames for another idea I have for the walls. I’ll be hitting Goodwill this afternoon to take a peek at what they have.

I washed the first load of clothing for things we will need immediately. (Our friends have truly blessed us well. We cannot stop gushing with gratefulness.)

And finally, I’ve started packing my hospital bag. I know… such a procrastinator. I think I’m turning into my mom. (Sorry mom!)

Hopefully next week I’ll have everything setup in the nursery like I want so I can show you guys. Can’t wait!

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Come one! Come all! Join the Color Palette Blog Walk over at Catie’s Blue this week! I meant to start yesterday, but had another post to get out, so I’m just picking up with today’s prompt: Inspired by Fashion.

Every Day Bag by Marbled on Etsy

Every Day Bag by Marbled on Etsy

World Traveler Duffle Bag by Studio Cherie on Etsy

Baby Me Weekender Bag – Simone Rose Design by Baby Me Bags on Etsy

I don’t consider myself much of a fashionista, but I’ve spent a lot of time online looking at bags this pregnancy. These are a few of the bags I ran across on Etsy during my search. Diaper bags, tote bags, weekend bags… anything to make the hospital trip and baby transition more fun – easier.

I’m thinking it will be the simple, visual things that put a smile on my face in the hospital until baby girl finally arrives (’cause I don’t anticipate the moments leading up to her arrival as I sit around laboring to be happy ones…)

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This week has been the roughest I remember in a long time. Every creak and pain I got made me wonder and worry baby girl won’t hold out until her due date. My hope is she will, as mom asked me to buy mi abuelita’s plane ticket from Puerto Rico to Orlando last week, followed by buying their tickets to Atlanta, arriving 2 days before the due date. While I wouldn’t mind having her a little sooner (like next weekend would be perfect), I would hate for them to have made plans and miss the birth. And yes, I know, I can’t plan the due date, but I can sure wish for it…

Last week we actually made a ton of progress in regards to the nursery. But I have to share this first – we had our weekly appointment a week from this past Monday and after the doctor measured me, he says “You’ll probably have a big baby, but not monster.” Made me giggle.

Back to the nursery, so after the appointment, we headed out to furniture alley on the other side of town (a side strip off the freeway housing tons of furniture galleries) in search of a dresser/changing table. Our search on Craigslist for the perfect table had proven fruitless and we were honestly impatient. (At the time, we also thought we were going to be taking care of my friend’s two teenagers for the week, so we had to find a home for all the baby stuff we had stashed in the guest bedroom.)

Four stores and a few possibilities later, the best option was out of our price range… or rather more than I wanted to spend for that piece. I was ready to haggle about price (my brother would have been proud at my “cheap-ness”), Jason just thought I was being crazy. (I’m realizing it never hurts to ask, especially if you’re paying cash.) So at almost 2pm, we decided to trek to the other side of Atlanta for a quick walk through IKEA.

We’ve been meaning to pay a visit to IKEA. They had a few pieces we liked, like dressers and wall lamps:

After the visit through furniture alley, spending a little more on brand new, functional, match-everything, long-lasting furniture didn’t seem so bad. We knew we could find all that at IKEA, plus, we could find it at a reasonable price. (I sound like a commercial for them, don’t I?)

So after an hour of walking through the store and pit stops at almost every bathroom there (Baby Girl was riding my bladder hard), we picked up a few items – and absolutely nothing we came to look at. I was still holding out hope for something less expensive. As we’re walking up to checkout, Jason asks me if I have one more stop in me and we head to the As-Is section.

Would you believe the As-Is section had a Hemnes 3-Drawer Chest (photo above) brand new in box? After getting an associate to open the box and inspecting all the parts, we realized there was nothing seriously wrong with the piece, so we taped it back up and purchased it!

We found our dresser for 50% of the retail price, said a little prayer of thanks (’cause we felt God had been telling us to go to IKEA for weeks and we just weren’t listening), checked out and got the heck out of Dodge before the evening traffic jam really picked up. It was a long, exhausting day, but fruitful and we were very happy about it.

As I mentioned, there were other things purchased that day, but I’ll wait to show you more once we’re done with getting them setup.

Oh and I did not forget… here’s my favorite outfit from the one’s Katie sent me last week:

Makes me feel like she should be part of the “Gone with the Wind” set.

And Kristy, Jason’s ever talented sister, sent us this sweet little reversible outfit this week:

I love it so!

Until next time – send me good wishes for Week -3 (Jason’s countdown is catching on)!

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On Hiatus - Sort Of

It’s 5am of Week 36. Baby and I have been up for an hour and a half with… you guessed it… heartburn. It is my recent constant companion. My fault this time – I had dinner way too late last night. Sad thing is I have taken the heartburn pill, tums and even made a glass of warm milk with honey, yet there seems to be no relief in sight. So instead, here I am blogging. Might as well be productive, right?

So the news for this week – last Sunday, our church threw us a baby shower. I have to say it was really nice. It’s amazing how much a group can learn from each other in such a short time.

For example, we got some wonderful board books like Goodnight Moon and The Hungry Caterpillar, but in addition, we got their Spanish counterparts, too: Buenas noches, Luna and La oruga hambrienta. I’m excited about that, as I know they will come in handy when it’s time to really kick in the 1 parent / 1 lanugage tactic for helping baby girl be bilingual. However, I can’t say I really mentioned that to anyone outside of my small circle of friends. The fact that others took time to pick out thoughtful gifts really touches my heart.

28.365 by A Pretty Rock, on Flickr

And some of the baby shower cards were just too sweet, like the one above. It’s my favorite – and not just because a family close to our hearts gave it to us.

Then on Monday, we got the loveliest package from my friend Katie, with some of the cutest little girl dresses ever. I didn’t take a photo of them, ’cause I was too busy being all emotional, but I promise to show you my favorite from the bunch next week. It’s too cute not to show off!

228.365 by A Pretty Rock, on Flickr

This week we also decided to give up on the glider/ottoman mom had found for us. We really put an effort into fixing it up to use it in our nursery. Sadly, after a few coats of white paint, new cushions and reupholstering, we’ve decided it just isn’t the right fit for us.

A shame that we dumped so much money and effort into it, but I’ve put the glider and ottoman on CraigsList. Hopefully it will be the perfect chair for someone else.

As for our new glider, it doesn’t match our furniture at all. However, it is comfortable for both Jason and myself. I think that will make a huge difference come baby time and future snuggling and book readings.

Our baby countdown list continued to get whittled down this week. I successfully reassembled the car seat – yay! I should have taken a photo to commemorate the moment, but I was so happy I finally put it back together and understood how it worked I just plain forgot. My nemesis has been defeated! No, seriously… it’s been staring at me from my office floor for weeks!

232.365 by A Pretty Rock, on Flickr

I am also *almost* finished writing all of our thank you cards for both baby showers. It’s a big feat, let me tell you. I’m not very good about sending cards out for anything. (Just ask Jason how many packages of unopened Christmas cards are floating around the house. He laughs each time I walk the Christmas card clearance aisle after the holidays.) But tell me, how could I not with those cute little diaper shaped cards? It actually made the whole thing fun.

231.365 by A Pretty Rock, on Flickr

And as for my diaper bag? I thought I liked it, but I think I was just settling. So this week, I took advantage of the free shipping and easy store returns that come with Target and I ordered 3 bags: the J.J. Cole bag I thought was all that and a bag of chips and 2 identical Skip Hop bags in different color schemes.

Turns out, I really didn’t like the J.J. Cole bag in person, so it was easy to remove that one from the running. However, I’m really liking the Skip Hop bags (they’re the striped ones in the photo above), I just can’t seem to pick a color. I’m also a little torn about spending the extra money as they’re $20 more than the original bag I settled for on the left.

So they continue to sit like that on our kitchen table. I’m hoping to avoid another bout of buyer’s remorse with diaper bags. Silly, isn’t it? If you have a preference or comments on the bags, let me hear it!

Other than that, baby girl and I are doing just fine! She’s making me feel like a hippo more and more each day. Oh, and if she loosens my hips anymore, I may be shopping for some titanium bolts to keep them in place, but what’s a few more weeks, right?

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5 weeks. Time has flown by. This is how it will be from now on, isn’t it? A day will turn into a week, into a month, into half a year in what feels like a blink of the eye. You don’t have to answer that… I already know what you would say.

So a quick update today, because I spent the morning helping out with the Spanish ministry at church (awesome morning!) and I am pooped! But first, of course, is my weekly update picture:

As you can see, I can no longer fit into our shower without my belly touching both sides of the shower door entrance. Let me say that is slightly depressing, but it does mean the arrival of Baby Girl is just around the corner! A friend mentioned I may want to switch to taking baths, but I find I never quite feel clean enough when I do. Lucky for me, we have a shower in the guest bathroom… woohoo! I may be using it regularly soon.

I was also able to get several things done from last week’s list like finishing the room stencils, picking up baby detergent (which I think we’re going to return now that we’ve thought about it more and realize neither of us has any skin sensitivities) and sending out our mother’s baby presents. Love crossing things off a list. Woot!

Oh and the crib! I mentioned last week that we received the crib. Jason promptly started to assemble it for us that evening, just to find a crack on the front facing leg of the crib. Not being sure if it was completely aesthetic, we decided to follow up with the crib manufacturer to get a replacement part.

Unfortunately, the process can take anywhere from 10 days to 2 1/2 weeks to get a new part. Being the impatient parents we are, we decided to call our local Babies R Us store and explained what happened and how long it would take.

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting it, but the manager was super awesome in solving our dilemma. He ordered a second crib for us, same model, to be delivered to our house. His plan was for us to swap out the defective part and return one of the cribs. We actually got the second crib yesterday and were able to finish setting it up!

Jason wanted to get it dressed a.s.a.p. so he washed the crib bedding last night so here it is:

Don’t mind our nasty carpet. That’s 8+ years of office dust. We have a cleaner coming in sometime soon… Now if we could just find an inexpensive white changing table/dresser on Craigslist! Although, I have to admit, an Ikea dresser is looking awfully good right about now…

And that’s it for this week! Tomorrow our church is holding a baby shower for us. Super nice of them and I’m very grateful we have them in our lives. I’ll make sure to share more next week!

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Week 34… So many things I should be concerned about right now, but can’t seem to get in gear. If I made the list of to-dos for us, it would probably look something like this:

• Finish room stencils – Done!
• Assemble baby crib – Done!
• Clean out baby closet (yes mom, I *still* have not gone back and cleaned it out)
• Create butterfly mobile (still considering whether or not to do this)
• Find inexpensive changing table/dresser
• Pick up baby detergent – Done!
• Wash crib bedding – Done!
• Wash some of the baby clothing (not doing it all since we don’t know how big she will be)
• Reassemble baby car seat
• Write thank you cards for baby shower
• Send out mother’s baby presents (something we picked up for them we thought they would like – will share later) – Done!
• Make hospital bag for Baby Girl, Jason and me
• Make birthing plan (not that I expect to follow it, but there are a few things I’d like to avoid if possible)

And I’m sure I’m missing something else there, but I’m just not going to worry about it right now. Seriously, what have I been doing with all this time? /sigh

On another note, Jason and I did a little shopping this week. We finally ordered our crib last Monday and it just arrived today. Yay! I suspect we will be finishing the stencils this weekend for sure.

I also want to mention Babies-r-Us was kind enough to order the crib from their store (it was an online only item), give us free shipping (the department manager ordered it through his portal) and mention they would honor the 20% off coupon that was running at the time we ordered the crib. We’re excited, because we’re getting a beautiful convertible 4-stage crib for about $180… in white, which has been really hard to do. (We’re picky.) I’ll have a picture for you once we assemble it.

Jason also urged me to pick up our diaper bag. I originally had a super expensive J.J. Cole diaper bag on my Target baby registry that looks just like a handbag with a matching clutch. I was in love, but couldn’t get past the high price, so I removed it. Fortunately, while we were purchasing the crib, we found a messenger style bag I really liked:

I love that this bag doesn’t scream “boy” or “girl”. While it is mostly blue, I think the swirled white dots add a fun feminine touch. Also, it’s not too girly that Jason would feel awkward carrying it around. The interior is all orange with tons of compartments, so I’m thinking nothing should get “lost”. Plus, it looks like it will be easy to wipe down inside. No need to fear spills. Oh, and it clips to the stroller –  Love. It.

DeDee will say we should have put it on the registry, but there were only two left in the store. Sometimes you just have to buy the item… especially if you’ve been looking for just the right one for a while. Wouldn’t you agree? Yea, I thought you would.

We also made our first baby clothing purchase! As I mentioned before… a couple of times, we’ve been blessed by family and friends who have been kind enough to gift us with clothing. However, this weekend starts the clearance sale for a local consignment shop called Kid-to-Kid.

The great thing about Kid-to-Kid is they have a reputation for being extremely picky when it comes to purchasing clothing for their shop. Generally, you can be sure the item you are buying second hand doesn’t have any stains, rips or look overly worn. Considering how quickly babies grow and how expensive their clothing can be, I am all for buying a lot of her baby clothing second-hand.

So, as I mentioned, they’re having a clearance sale. They run it at least once a year and basically, you get to go through their clearance racks and stuff a bag full of clothing for $10. Any additional bags you stuff, they’re only $5.

Walking in 5 minutes past the store opening, I was amazed at how many people were already there with tons of clothing in their hand. Regardless, I am super excited, because I walked away with 2 bags full of clothing for next year, sizes 6-12 months. 13 outfits for $15 bucks. That’s a steal, don’t you think? Here are a few of my favorite outfits I picked up:

Oh and before I forget, one of our traditions is for the mom to pick up the hospital outfit for the baby. On my mom’s last visit to Puerto Rico, she ran afoul of a holiday and found many of the baby related stores closed. She wasn’t able to pick up the outfit then like she wanted to.

However, she lucked out and found a Latino baby store in Orlando carrying products from all over. This cute little home-bound outfit made in Columbia is what she picked out:

I absolutely love it and wanted to share.

So there you have it – our baby bump update for the week. Hopefully next week we will have made progress on the list. Send me good vibes, will ya? ;)

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Mini Goals Clockboard by MaryKateMcDevitt

With that, my goals have clearly changed. The focus with this website/blog is still the same, but I’d really like to continue destashing/using the gemstones and other supplies I already have. In full, I’m aiming to:

1. Build new light box.
2. Select new theme background for photos.
3. Clean and reshoot or repurpose older jewelry pieces.
4. Destash excess supplies once a week.
5. Create at least two new piece a month.
6. Create an organized and compact storage/craft area for my jewelry business.
7. Prep new website for launch after baby girl’s birth when things fall into a routine.
8. Clean up newsletter mailing list.
9. Create mailing list templates for the next 12 months, setup mailing schedule and alerts in calendar to verify and update content.
10. Fix broken back links in blog due to new backend. Done!
11. Catch up on my 52 weeks blog posts.

Sadly, I feel like I’m running out of time to really work on many of these. As one of my twitter peeps pointed out, it’s not long now before baby girl is due and we’re in a single digit week countdown!

But enough about me… how are you doing with your lofty goals?

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion {affiliate link} series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! {affiliate link} You can start at any time.

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Success! One Lofty Goal Complete!

It’s week 33 and the hot flashes have begun! Everything else is perfectly normal. (Yay!) That is… aside from my late baby bump update post. With a baby shower and two birthdays (for another post), our weekend was fairly busy.

But before the business of the weekend, we were lucky to get two packages for Baby Girl Wickham:

The first one was from my mom. She found her discharge outfit, a few other outfits, some way too adorable shoes and sent more burp clothes courtesy of my aunt. Clearly, baby girl will get spoiled by her abuelita. I’ll have to have a talk with her. ;)

The other package came from Jason’s sister, Kristy… a very handy baby journal and this oh so cute baby blanket:

I really love the heart squiggles she added to it.

If you remember last week, I picked out a dress for the baby shower this past Saturday. When it finally came in and I put it on, it was way too hot and I wasn’t even doing anything at the moment. I knew I wouldn’t survive 10 minutes so it was time to go with a different dress. The dress I’m wearing in my bump update photo above is from Target. Super affordable, comfortable and as flattering as something can be on my frame. I was happy.

Our baby shower was fantastic, by the way. It was co-ed so Jason was able to partake in the festivities. I like that a lot, after all, baby girl is also *his* baby and a part of his life.

One of the things I liked a lot about the shower was the level of involvement for the guys. DeDee did an excellent job of choosing active shower games like Guess the Baby Food, Baby Bottle Hot Potato/Drink the Juice and Blindfold Diaper Change. We got a few clips with our waterproof mini video camera (yes waterproof, because it will hang out in our diaper bag) to share with you:

We also saw lots of friends we don’t see often because they live far enough away to make it slightly inconvenient to meet up. It was a really fun time.

Another thing I liked, as we were leaving the church Jason says to me, “That was fun. We should do this every weekend.” Exactly the reaction I wanted.

The one thing we all didn’t like was that our mothers could not be there. With one in Florida and the other in California, there was no real way to plan it so they both could be here with us. So this video of us opening presents is for them. Be warned, it’s a total of 30 minutes long… just us talking about baby presents, so if you don’t *love* us, my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t sit through them:

Once all was said and done, it was amazing to see at all the baby items we received. The back of my Explorer was packed. Even crazier to think this one tiny person coming into our life could use SO MUCH STUFF! I’m trying to be a minimalist when it comes to her, but it’s definitely a challenge I’m failing here and there.

One of the downsides of being an independent contractor is not having paid maternity leave. So most of the extra money we are making right now is going to a baby fund stash meant to help us purchase any other necessities not received after our other baby shower.

The fund is also there to allow me to spend a couple of weeks with baby girl, without having to worry about bringing in an income. I would love for that to be several months, but I have to face reality and am simply grateful I work from home.

And this is why I cannot begin to express how moved I am by our family and friend’s generosity. Their gifts have alleviated much of our financial worries in regards to buying the things we *think* we need for baby girl and in the process allowing us the room to make other purchases that will help me work from home with baby girl. Thank you so very much!

I didn’t cry at the shower, but just writing that makes my eyes misty. :) <3

He responded with, “Soon we’ll be looking at her 1 year birthday, 3 year birthday, first day at kindergarden, middle school photos…it will all go by so quickly.” Made me a little sad (and I’ll admit I’m tearing up at the thought of this right now.)

But back to the present. I know I normally write these posts on Saturday morning, but tomorrow we have plans. I’ll do a photo later tomorrow and post on my Flickr account.

Anyhow, tomorrow we are attending our one-day Childbirth Preparation class here in Cumming, GA. Despite having one of the most distinguished maternity and newborn hospitals in the country (Northside Hospital) just an hour away, I’m excited that we are able to do classes locally. That’s mainly due to the brand new Women’s Center built here at the Northside-Forsyth campus:

How beautiful is this building, right? Inside it’s more like an upscale hotel than a hospital, but more on that some other time.

Tomorrow’s classes won’t be at the Women’s Center, though. Tomorrow we find ourself in the classroom building, just adjacent to the center. I love how all of this is less than 5 minutes away from the house. Despite all the niceness, I guarantee you we will be hanging out here for a while before heading in for our birth. I try to avoid hospitals like the plague.

So what else is new this week? We had a mix up with our bedding a few weeks ago and the piece not ordered finally arrived:

I’m really loving the monkey girl.

Also, the baby shower is next weekend, so DeDee was kind enough to offer to buy me a dress for the shower as my birthday present. I’m loving the colors and print:

Hopefully it will arrive in time… and fit my pregnant belly. I cannot describe how difficult it is to find something nice to wear if you fall into the plus size category.

Right now, it seems like the cute things are only made for regular sizes or if you do find something, it looks like your grandmother should be wearing it, not you. I’m not a fan of muumuus.

After a massive search for something to wear, we’ve decided that if we were seamstresses, we could make a killing in the “plus size maternity wear” department by creating young, stylish clothing for plus size maternity with an affordable price range. Just throwing that out there for those of you who can sew…

Hope you guys have a good weekend!

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We’ve (and again, I mean the awesome Mr. Jason) made a little progress this week in getting things ready for baby girl. With a switch in the amount of people available for service calls at his job, he hasn’t had as much free time to work on projects. I know dealing with people can be stressful, so I try to let him unwind and don’t make demands on his time.

However, he did make progress on a present we got from my mom. When she visited in June, she surprised us with a glider and ottoman that she found at a yard sale. At $10 out-of-pocket, that was an amazing steal. The only thing needed (because surprising to us, we’ve come to realize we’d like things to match in the baby room… if you saw our house now, you might not think so) was a paint job and reupholstered cushions.

My mom and my aunt (the seamstress extraordinaire who made the fabulous burp cloths) took care of making us some new cushions. All that was left was painting the glider and the ottoman. So with two $1 bottles of spray paint, Jason has managed to get the first coat down on the glider:

(Don’t mind our garage mess. We had to start making room for baby girl somehow!) The chair already looks fabulous. I wish I had thought to take before pictures to show you what it looked like when mom brought it home.

Due to certain events, I also found myself babysitting my practice baby girl, Alexa, this week:

(“Practice baby girl” sounds horrible, doesn’t it? lol) It was an interesting eye opener with Jason at one point saying, “I guess we’re going to have to get used to talking over the crying.” Lucky for me, Jason has an entertaining face and was able to take care of her while I got dinner ready.

I love her to bits.

Other than that, there’s nothing new to tell. Maybe next week will bring more activity.

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Holy cow, I’ve hit the big 3 – Oh! It’s funny to think back just two years ago I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have children. I find myself wondering about the why and the how of events. I’m a firm believer you never really know the “why” of an event, but that is the past and I am truly happy in the present. Like Master Oogway of Kung Fu Panda says:

“There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present.’”

So I’ll dwell on that no more.

We picked up a steal this week! Made a trip to the outlets to find me a much needed pair of oh-so-comfy preggo shorts (they really are!) and decided to stop at Pottery Barn. Lo and behold, we found this cute ceramic giraffe bank:

She has a little chip on her ear, which is no biggie really. A quick whisk of nail polish and no one would be the wiser.

Just in case, at checkout I asked if they had anymore. The manager said no, so I thought to myself, what the heck, might as well ask if they would discount more since it was the last one and it had a chip.

Would you believe we got lucky? She gave it to us half off AND gave us the 10% discount the store was running that day if we purchased it as a final sale. I would have bought it without the discount, so of course I was happy. We adore that little giraffe…chip or no chip.

With no rush for anything else this week, we decided to put the stencils on hold and went swimming…a lot! Picked up a floaty noodle for me and some goggles and dive sticks for Jason. Obviously, I’m not much up for diving, but I can still throw them for him. We also practice tons of waterbending. I’m sure the other adults just looked at us like we’re crazy, but it’s so much more fun in the water than out.

We were also able to secure a place for the baby shower. It’s a big relief for my friend Dee, as every place we checked was either not available or simply not returning our calls. Short notice emails have gone out. If you are expecting one and didn’t get it, let me know. I suspect the list I gave her was far from complete.

Oh…almost forgot…more animal cuteness. Our bedding and accessories finally came in:

And the stuffed animals we got for ourselves…er, I mean, baby girl are too adorable:

I have a wall project in mind for them. Very excited to share once I’m done.

Finally, we had our hospital tour. It was nice to see the facilities. I was a bit camera shy, so no photos, but the rooms are great and all private. That’s fantastic, since I wasn’t looking forward to sharing a room, but didn’t want to pay the difference insurance doesn’t cover. We also saw three itty bitty babies in the nursery when we walked by – all with black hair. So very sweet.

Jason is folliclely-challenged. I am clearly not. Maybe we should bet on how much hair baby girl has when born?

This morning I woke up and my belly felt much harder for no other reason than the fact I’m baking a bun in the oven. She’s a pushy kid, she is…

We worked on adding stencils to the room this week…and by “we”, I mean Jason. I just sat up in the room and kept him company. Spent the hours working on another website project while we listened to music as he stenciled away. He really has done a wonderful job, especially when you consider the man has never stenciled a day in his life:

I think this weekend when he starts stenciling again, I’ll work on cleaning out the baby closet like I had planned. We still have tons of stuff in there I want to move out…an old file cabinet, junk boxes, school documents among other things. Being in business for yourself makes you a little paranoid and less willing to part with papers, even if they are already 15+ years old. I have so much stuff to scan it’s ridiculous. Maybe I should consider hiring someone to do that for me this summer.

Other than that, there hasn’t been much more action on the baby front. That is, of course, if you’re not considering how big she’s getting and how much more like an alien she feels every day. Her faint movements are slowly becoming visible through my belly. Last night, I spent our tv time trying to catch her in the act so I could show Jason, but of course, each time I caught her, it was as if she knew and would stop. All it takes is his hand to my belly and she becomes as still as a rabbit. Shame it won’t be that easy once she’s born, I’m sure.

My mom sent me another package today, including pistachio almond thins (so yummy), another onesie and this cheery little dress:

And tonight, we’ll be heading to the outlets. It’s time for me to buy a pair of shorts. Hopefully I’ll find a pair I love immediately. I’ve been eyeing a pair on Motherhood Maternity and a new dress like this cute one here from Cato would be grand:

I think my daughter is slowly making me girlie again. Oh dear.

That’s right…I’m 28 weeks along today! I can’t believe how fast my pregnancy has gone. I feel like I’ve missed a memory making opportunity by not blogging from the beginning. But, if you guys remember, I was so tired that first trimester. I could do nothing but sleep. I’m way past that point now and ready to get back into the groove.

So, incase you didn’t know, I’m pregnant with my first baby, a girl, and we’re just finally starting to get things into gear. While we’ve done a ton of waiting around and practiced much restraint when it comes to cute baby girl clothing, we’ve also made a few giant steps toward getting ready for the bundle of joy.

For instance, hubby dropped our captain’s bed down a level so I could manage to get into it without the acrobatics (I used to lunge myself onto the bed by propelling myself off the window sill.) He seemed to think it was safer for the baby…pssshhh!:

We finally got a good face shot during an ultrasound. (Had to keep going back to get her fully checked out.) She’s feisty, pokes the doppler back and tends to cover her face, except for this one shot:

And just last weekend, we – meaning my husband – painted baby girl’s room:

He keeps saying, “Wow…that is so girlie. I’m gonna have to get used to it sometime.” Makes me laugh every time. I’m not much for girlie either, so I know he’s being a real trooper with the typical boy/girl typecasting. Personally, I probably would have painted her room yellow or green with brown, but since my office downstairs is yellow as well, I thought it might be too much. And hubby is not a fan of green in any shade or color…too much time in the Army, I suppose.

As far as my health, I almost hate to mention it for fears of jealousy, but this has been such an easy pregnancy for me. (Knock on wood!) Aside from some heartburn and exhaustion, I can’t complain for anything. I even had not one, but two blood sugar tests (thanks to mom being a diabetic) and I passed both with flying colors. I had stopped exercising in the first trimester, because of the exhaustion, but I just picked up swimming again this week and am loving the activity.

Oh…and we’ve already started getting tons of beautiful baby girl clothing…so much cuteness. Cannot. Resist. The Cute.:

And thanks to my aunt, some of the sweetest baby burp cloths. That woman can sew with her eyes closed:

So what’s on the baby plate for this weekend? Stencils for the room and painting the glider my mom found. I’ll show you the results next week!

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Lesson: Learn to Step Back and Re-Assess

So happy. We are so happy we cried today. Does my picture say all? I hope so. :) And in case your wondering why the crying, it was from the relief of the weight left by this event.

So freaking happy. Really.

Oh, and seeing a heartbeat…the coolest thing – bar none!

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We’ve got a green light to start trying to get pregnant again! Yay!

I visited my doctor yesterday and he said the tube xray (which by the way, is so freaking painful), showed my tube open, but slightly inflammed. Apparently nothing to worry about at this point.

So we got the O.K. and if we are not pregnant by November, we should pay him a visit. Since we only really started “trying” this year and got pregnant so quickly, he thinks we should have no problems

Can you tell I’m happy? :)

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Last we left off, I was waiting for the okay to get busy with my husband. ;) Basically, I’ve had to wait until one full cycle before they could run a tube xray on me and let me know if we could attempt to get pregnant again. The exam day has finally come and it is today.

So, if I fall off the grid for a few days, don’t be concerned. I’m probably just recovering. :)

See you on the other side…

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Success! One Lofty Goal Complete!

I haven’t written one in a long time, but as you can see, once I got started I couldn’t stop. This week has clearly given me fodder for the art:

Then it was my time
But it was taken from me
For now I must wait

Many hopes dreams gone
Echoes are all that remain
Of what could have been

I wait eagerly
The next opportunity
Time passes slowly

Overwhelmed so much
Hard to break the news to all
How do I move on

One day at a time
No more, no less to survive
Soon it will have passed

So I know all that was a little bit depressing. I am up and down myself. Bear with me a bit…I promise to make an effort to keep my grieving off the blog…mostly. :/

In the meantime, let me leave you with some eye candy lest you run screaming in the opposite direction:

These earrings are called Spice Market. Lovely chandeliers I made sometime last month while inspired by perusing one of my favorite photographer’s Flickr feeds. I enjoyed making these so much, that I think I’m going to start an “Inspired” series based on photographs or whatever else inspires me as I come across them. I expect the series to be really good. :)

I’ll be posting these on the site sometime next week.

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