Diaper Bags

Obviously if you have a baby you will need a diaper bag. My question to anyone and everyone that reads this blog is how important is it? What features must I have? Is it worth spending more to get a nicer bag? If you have a girly diaper bad, how does your husband feel about carry it around? Any insight, recommendations or information would be greatly appreciated.

Pregnancy Brain at its Best

I sent out a bunch of baby shower invites and just realized today that I had typo on the address. It should be 358 North Gateway Dr. instead of 353 North but hopefully it will get everyone close enough to the clubhouse. I will post signs just in case. Sorry...

Mike's Sprint Triathlon

Mike completed the Cache Valley Classic Triathlon-Sprint Distance which is a 750 meter swim in Hyrum dam, 12 mile bike and 5 K run. Here is Mike's race time: 1:19:39.8. He did an awesome job for his first triathlon in open water. Maybe next year Mike and I can do one together.

100 days and counting

Starting tomorrow my official countdown begins. I will have 100 days left but obviously the baby may come early or late. I know I still have quite a bit of time left but with every passing day the reality that I have another human being inside of me becomes more apparent and one day she will be here and Mike and I will be responsible for taking care of another person. Kind of scary.

In the past week or so the baby has become quite an acrobat. At first I was so excited to feel her move and her movement was quite sporadic but now she moves all the time and her most active hours are from 9 pm to midnight. When I am getting ready for bed I feel like a party is taking place in my belly.

I have read quite a few books on pregnancy, taking care of a newborn, nursing and the latest book I finished was Raising Baby Green by Dr. Alan Greene. One section that caught my attention was cloth diapering. I am seriously considering cloth diapering while I am on maternity leave and I am in the process of collecting information so if anyone has tried it or knows of a great forum/discussion board please let me know.

Father's day weekend

Bad news is my sister-in-law had her baby early by an emergency C-section but the good news is the baby is healthy and doing really well. The baby was born on Friday, June 13 around the hours of 10 or 11 pm. She was only 3 lbs 15 ounces. Her name is Adee (not sure of the spelling yet but that is how I heard my niece spell it). I got to see her on Saturday in the NICU and she is so teeny but looks really good. Emily was only 34 weeks when she had her but Adee has been able to breath on her own which is amazing.

Overall the weekend was really good. My mother in law had things pretty much under control so she probably didn't need my help as much as Mike made it sound. Now that I think about it, he probably just wanted me to drive down so we could spend some time together.

The weather really heated up this weekend and to say the least I was pretty miserable. On Tuesday it was snowing in the mountains, two days later it is 80+ degrees. No time for my body to acclimate to the weather. Before I got pregnant Mike and I bought a memory foam pad for our bed and it has been really nice. If I sleep on my side or on my belly the foam hugs my body so I don't have to use pillows to prop my stomach or avoid sleeping on my stomach. This weekend I wasn't sleeping in my own bed and my stomach is a lot bigger and I couldn't sleep at all. I was hot and uncomfortable. When I would try to sleep on my stomach, the baby would kick. She probably felt like she was being smashed. And it doesn't help that Mike is a bed hog. Sorry babe, you really are a bed hog.

I also was weeding the garden on Saturday and that made my pubic bone hurt even worse but I am confident with my daily exercises and icing it will go away. Really I don't want to even imagine how it would feel if it got worse.

A whirlwind of a day...

Mike went to his parents on Thursday to work for his dad and brother-in-law at their concrete coating business. Even though I was a little sad initially when he left I started to make plans and had a huge list of things to do while he was gone.

I started Friday with a follow-up visit to the chiropractor and things went really well. My pain hasn't gone away but the exercises have helped subside the pain to something bearable when walking. Hopefully if I stay persistent the pain will go away in a few days and I can manage it for the rest of the pregnancy. The good news is I only have to go back for treatments if the pain gets worse. So I was pretty excited because I was going to be able to accomplish so much today and tomorrow without experiencing too much pain. Clean the house, go to a garage sale, attend my friend's wedding, hang out with my mom, get the house ready for more baby furniture.

When I was ready to go to work I noticed that Mike had called while I was at the doctor's. I called him back and he said that Emily his sister who is also pregnant and 10 weeks ahead of me went to the hospital this morning to have her baby because the baby's stress test wasn't great. He asked if I could drive to Syracuse after work today and help watch Emily's other kids. She has 4 kids. He asked me to call his mom to offer my help because he thought it would be nice.

So I talked to my mother-in-law Jeannie this morning and Emily went to the hospital and they needed to check to see if Emily could have a vaginal delivery because that might be too stressful for the baby so she might have to have a C-section instead. Jeannie was trying to figure out what to do with the kids so she could go to the hospital and check on Emily. So I offered to drive down after work to help with the kids today and tomorrow.

Honestly I was a little bummed when Mike asked me because I was so ready to be productive and finally have a clean house and hang out with my mom and go to my friend Iris's wedding tomorrow. A bunch of people were coming to the wedding that I haven't seen for awhile and I was looking forward to catching up. Sounds selfish I know. But I sucked it up and will be driving down to Syracuse this evening. I guess it is a blessing in disguise that my pain has decreased so I can have the energy to watch kids.

Another fun adventure: Pubic Bone Pain

Last Thursday my pubic bone was a little sore but nothing bad. As the days progressed the pain got a little worse and it hurt to move at night in bed or walk or put on my pants so I looked it up in my pregnancy books and it said it was a problem for some women. Then I did some research on it online and realized that it was a lot more serious than the books made it seem. I have also been feeling sick to my stomach every since the pain started.

The site (http://www.plus-size-pregnancy.org/pubicpain.htm) I visited stated that a lot of western medicine practices label pubic bone pain as one of the aches and pains of pregnancy so there really was no treatment except taking pain medication. After reading more the explanation for my pain was a misalignment in my pelvic area which makes total sense and the recommendation was to see a chiropractor. From what I have learned in foot zone therapy if my pelvic is out of alignment then my back is out of alignment which is affecting my digestive system. The old Sandy probably would have waited a few days to see how it went but the site I was reading talked about how painful labor and delivery could be if I was out of alignment so I made an appointment to see a chiropractor because I want to labor and deliver without any medication if possible.

The pelvic bone is a circular structure and there is cartilage where the pubic bone fuses. When women are pregnant the bones start to spread in the pelvis and right now the cartilage is carrying a lot of stress. The chiropractor explained that during birth I want my pelvis to expand in the back instead of the pubic area. Since the pubic area is cartilage I don't want that to give because I could have some serious permanent damage.


The chiropractor gave me a list of exercises to do everyday to strengthen my pelvis muscles and he gave me a band to wear around my hips to give extra support. From his assessment the misalignment was affecting my kidneys the most then my spleen and liver. So he adjusted my lower back and my neck (which has been the cause of my sleepless nights) and I did some acupuncture.

Honestly I was a little nervous because I haven't been to a chiropractor before and didn't know what to expect and couldn't believe how much my back and neck could pop. The acupuncture wasn't bad at all. The exercises aren't bad but they will be a little time consuming but worth the time. He said the pain will get worse as the baby gets heavier so that is something I am not looking forward to but hopefully I can strengthening the muscles so it doesn't get unbearable.

All I can say is who knew pregnancy could be so difficult.

Wow! My belly moves.

Last night after I put some lotion on my belly I was admiring how much my belly has grown and I saw my belly pop up. I thought I was hallucinating at first so I waited again and I saw it pop up in the same place. I put my hand right on top of it and I felt the baby kick my hand. It was so amazing and I was so so excited because I thought maybe Mike could feel it too.

The baby was moving all over (she is very active at night starting around 9 pm). She moved and I could feel her kicking against my stomach and against my organs and I had Mike feel and he said it felt like gas. His comment hurt my feelings because I wanted him to be as excited as I was because I knew it wasn't gas. Oh well. Maybe when she gets stronger he will feel it.

Pictures from Long Beach and Bryce Canyon

Nesting. What's that all about?

So I have read quite a few books on pregnancy and they all talked about the nesting instinct and I got my first taste of it this weekend. After buying and receiving all this baby stuff our apartment seems so cramped and my desire to clean/rearrange and prepare for the baby went into overdrive. I am pretty organized and all but this was pretty insane. Mike thinks I am weird because the baby won't be here for another 4 months but I figure that I should do as much stuff as I can before I get too big and too cranky to do anything.

Mike and I had a bunch of ideas on where to move the furniture and what to get rid of but unfortunately we don't always agree. So I measured all our furniture items in the bedroom and the dimensions of our room and pulled out some handy graphing paper and drew some different layouts. After a few drafts and a lot of time I really should have had Mike do this on Autocad instead of my doing it by hand. Oh well.

So we picked a new layout for the bedroom and a new layout for the living room. My goal is to do a few things (i.e. pack unused items, cleaning out our storage shed and putting more stuff in it, finding items to sell for our garage sale) everyday so it won't seem so overwhelming. Basically I am cleaning and reorganizing the apartment but hopefully in manageable segments so I don't drive myself nuts. This week the bedroom, next week the living room then Mike and I have to decide how we are going to rearrange the extra room so our office and the baby's stuff will fit and be functional. I know I sound nuts but I guess it is normal to clean this much before the baby comes.

Garage Sales...

I haven't ever really been to garage sales before but I decided this year that I would go to a few to get some baby items. From the advice of my friends, using second hand items could save me a lot of money in the long run because babies out grow toys, clothes and swings so quickly that the cost of items add up fast. Mike and I went to one a few weeks ago and I didn't realize how serious people can be so this time Mike and I woke up bright and early so we could scope out the best baby items.

Mike and I found some great deals and some really nice stuff. Our strategy was to go to the garage sales where the wealthy people lived and it really paid off. I want to thank Mandy on her recommendation to buy sleepers with elastics at the bottom instead of snaps to save me headaches during the multiple diaper changes in the middle of the night. I got 6 of them for $2. I wanted to thank Michelle on her recommendation on buying a bouncer to occupy the baby. I bought a really nice one that also vibrates for $5. After a wipe down with bleach and washing the cover, it looks brand new. I had originally registered for a really nice glider but Mike and I found a really nice chair with ottoman that I think will be perfect. I would also like to thank Mandy for letting me have her old crib and high chair. My mother-in-law also found a great car seat with base for $12 in Syracuse to put in Mike's car.