Erika's Style Diary: January 2015

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Pregnancy Update: 40 Weeks

I guess I was just joking when I said I wouldn't have an update for you this week! Haha. Baby girl decided she was just too cozy and didn't want to come out yet. So, today is my original due date and also my induction date - hopefully as you read this, I will be in the hospital getting ready for baby girl's arrival! We are so excited and cannot wait to meet her!

Marty and I both took the day off from work yesterday and enjoyed spending our last baby-free day together. We hung out for part of the day with a couple that is really good friends of ours that are also expecting and getting induced this evening. I have a feeling our babies will be good friends. :)

We also took a few maternity pics yesterday - our last ones with the baby bump! Our next pictures will include our precious baby girl.

Past Pregnancy Posts:
Week 39
The Nursery
Weeks 34 - 38
Weeks 31 - 33
Weeks 29 and 30

Pregnancy Announcement and Weeks 11-14

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Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Pregnancy Update: Week 39

This will probably be my last baby bump picture. By 40 weeks, I will have a baby! It is unreal that I will be holding baby girl in less than a week. It really hasn't hit me yet.

I saw the high-risk doctor to get one last ultrasound done to make sure baby girl was gaining enough weight (since there were those inconsistencies with the ultrasound measurements previously) and she looked good! She was measuring to be about 6 lbs 3 oz. That is a good size if you ask me, but the doctor was a little concerned that she is on the small side. So she recommended that I get induced if baby girl isn't here by her due date. I saw my regular dr today and we set the induction date for January 20th, my original due date.

There is a decent chance baby girl might come before then. At the end of my appointment they put 2 monitors on me. One checked the baby's heartbeat and one measured contractions. From what I could tell, I hadn't felt any contractions, but according to the monitors I was having fairly regular ones! I'm glad they had me sit with the monitors so I could feel the difference in my body when it was going through a contraction. Even though they were happening about every 5 minutes, they weren't nearly as strong as they need to be nor were they lasting very long, so it's not real labor yet! :)

Past Pregnancy Posts:
The Nursery
Weeks 34 - 38
Weeks 31 - 33
Weeks 29 and 30

Pregnancy Announcement and Weeks 11-14

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Thursday, January 8, 2015

The Nursery

I'm so excited to finally share some nursery pictures (and to pretty much be done with setting it up!). I did gray, yellow, and pink as my colors with an elephant and polka dot theme. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

This was my inspiration photo. I loved the bold stripes and how dramatic the overall look was. The final result is quite a bit different (we decided against doing stripes unfortunately) but you can see some elements from the inspiration photo in our nursery.

{Inspiration photo via Pinterest}

And here is our nursery!

As soon as we decide on her name, I'm going to get a white wooden letter of her first initial to put in between the elephant pictures below. On top of the changing pad is a super cute diaper cake that my awesome coworker and friend Christen made for me. She is super talented. She also made these amazing sugar cookies for my work shower. I will share those pics in another post.

At some point I'm going to have to take the cake apart, but it's too cute and I'm putting it off. So it's just hanging out on the changing pad for now.

Since I kinda took over the closet in the baby's room, we decided to get the small wardrobe for extra storage. :) It will be something that she can use as she gets older too.

We found the exact same light fixture in the inspiration photo at Ikea, but Marty didn't think it would provide enough light for the room. We found this similar one at Home Depot and it provides a lot more light. Bonus: it was half the price too!

Past Pregnancy Posts:
Weeks 34 - 38
Weeks 31 - 33
Weeks 29 and 30

Pregnancy Announcement and Weeks 11-14

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Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Pregnancy Update: Weeks 34 - 38

I have been slacking in my update posts! So here is a month's worth of news and photos. At least I have been good about taking the weekly photos. :)

As I mentioned in the last post, I suspected baby girl had moved into a head down position. That was confirmed by the doctor. So now she is in the right position for birth, and I hope she stays that way. My biggest fear is that she'll move into a breech position, but honestly I don't think there is enough room for her to move back.

I had my last 2 baby showers during my 35th week: my Houston family and friends shower and one at work. My dear friend Laura made the wreath below ~ isn't it amazing?! I can't wait to take a picture of baby girl in front of it when she gets here! We got lots of goodies at the showers and I'm still working on organizing them into the nursery. Both showers were beautiful. I am so spoiled by my friends and family. I will post some baby shower pics in a future post.

Basically at this point, baby girl is packing on as much fat as she can and her lungs and brain are finishing their development. Everything else is just about ready to go! It was reassuring to make it to this point since babies have a high survival rate if anything were to happen and she had to be born early.

Over the past 3 weeks we finished all of our baby classes. We took infant CPR, the hospital birthing class, and a breastfeeding class. They were all really informative and we had great instructors. I feel a little bit better about how everything is going to go with this new knowledge! :)

Now that I'm down to the last month, I have to start visiting the doctor every week. It is crazy how often it feels like I have dr appointments. At 36 weeks she checked me and I was not dilated - not surprising.

At my last doctor appointment (37 weeks) the doctor checked again and I am 1 cm dilated! (So exciting, haha.) So technically that means I am in the first stage of labor. From what I learned in birthing class, women can be in this stage of labor for over a month. It really doesn't mean anything until active labor starts. Marty loves the idea of telling people that I am in labor already. He is so silly. :)

I love the shirt I'm wearing above. It says "Tis the season to be pregnant." It would get a good amount of chuckles whenever I wore it. It's a bummer the holidays are over, because it was one of my most comfortable shirts. At 37 weeks, I am technically at full term, although the next 3 weeks are still important for baby girl's brain and lung development.

Eek ~ as of yesterday, I am 38 weeks and only have about 2 weeks left! It is unreal how fast this journey has gone by. I'm still comfortable for the most part and am not in any rush to start labor, ha. I got a labor prep massage last Friday with my doula. It helps open and loosen the hips to facilitate easier passage for the baby. My doula said that my hips are tight and that I really need to work on loosening them before baby comes. So I've been doing different stretches on my exercise ball each night. I have another labor prep massage this Friday, so hopefully I have good news that my stretching has made a difference. Having looser hips will help labor go faster, so I want to get them as loose as possible! :)

I know I promised nursery pics in my last post, but we are not quite done yet and I want to finish up the last couple of things before posting pics. We are going to try to finish it up tonight, and if we do, I will have pics for you tomorrow! I'm so excited to share it with you!

One last thing ~ some of you have asked if we have picked out a name yet. We have a couple that we like, but have not decided on one yet. We are probably going to wait until we see her to make the final decision. So, you will find out her name when she makes her debut!

Past Pregnancy Posts:
Weeks 31 - 33
Weeks 29 and 30

Pregnancy Announcement and Weeks 11-14

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