Found a love affair with eBay...

Week of Pregnancy: 29/30 

Me with the cutest booties in the world on my tummy!

Fruit to Fetus Comparison: the weight of a cabbage! (Approx 40cm and 1.5kgs!)

Cravings:  Salad & Icecream because it’s darn hot!!

Aversions: Heat. Apparently caramel mud-cake (HORRIFIC HEARTBURN, PEOPLE!)

Husbands’ excitement metre:  Accidentally punching holes in walls and (intentionally) throwing desks off balconies. I wish I was joking. 

Mini-Muffin Kick-Counter:  Rib kicking has become more frequent. Also I can feel her head poke out occasionally. There is a pattern to her kicks now (as far as I can tell) and it starts as soon as I lie down for a rest... haha.

So this week I went ahead and ordered a cot and change table (even though the baby will be in a bassinet for the first few months), some children’s books (Magic Beach, Bibs and Boots, and Happy and Sad by Alison Lester and the Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet book!! Okay, more for me than the child... it’s never too early to read to your child!), a breast pump, a microwave bottle sterilizer, and several bottles. 

Overboard? I like to think ‘prepared’. Also ‘broke’. The Bechaz’s don’t do things by halves. It’s as if Justin and I were like ‘Hey! You know what would be super awesome and easy to do? Let’s buy a house and have a baby at the SAME TIME! Oh, and let’s go on a holiday to Tasmania while we’re at it!’

Yeah. We’re geniuses. 

No regrets about any of it, but it’s certainly left us with a lot less ‘throw around’ cash. I’ve had to buy Migoreng noodles for the first time in a while... but I refuse to purchase one-ply toilet paper. That is inhumane considering how many times a day I have to pee.

So we’re working hard for the money, and seeing it all go on baby items. Also, my lovely friends have decided to plan a baby shower – so my life has been very ‘baby oriented’ this week. 

Also, it’s been super hot. Scorching, even. In the 30’s every day (38 two days ago... WTF?!) and it’s only October! Swimming has become an exciting exercise, although all I do is get a kickboard and waddle (can you waddle while swimming?) from one end of the pool to the other a few times while I’m out-stripped by passing four year olds. At least it is very unlikely I will drown, as I have a built in floatation device. Between the bump and my boobs I could have stopped the Titanic from sinking.

“Oh, the main hull is all ripped up from that iceberg, huh? Well, just bung a few pregnant ladies on it. She’ll be right!”

Attempted water synchronised swimming yesterday. Forward somersault, Backward somersault, Handstand with kicky legs, present!

NAILED IT! Some people possibly thought I was a breaching whale, but otherwise it went fabulously!

Something about being in the water is very relaxing – the weightlessness is fabulous and makes it feel as though you’re not actually exercising! I may in fact continue it after the baby is born! Haha.

Thank you to all those mums (and dads) who replied to my questions from last week! I received so many helpful (and varied!) answers to all! Have learned random things like what to do with the baby so you can have a shower (wait until asleep and take baby monitor with you!), bouncers = either saviours or cradles of doom depending on the baby, and the majority of mums said they couldn’t live without electric breast pumps, baby monitors, and baby slings! (And one Chiropractor – thanks Bronwyn!) So much information – will have to test them all out and see which ones work for us!

Also – this week have been asked to do a pregnancy photo shoot with the Camera Club. Quite excited (and nervous!) but looking forward to it! Justin has opted out, but I plan on coercing him to get some photos done with me before the baby is born, and then the three of us after Muffin is here!

Only NINE WEEKS to go until Miss Mini Muffin arrives! Starting to freak out and am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited! Can’t wait to meet her but also LOVE being pregnant!  

Anyway – off to practise my hypno birthing! Currently listening to relaxation music including Enya and Thunderstorm re-enactments. 

LOVE

Rhonie

Tests & Requests!

Tests and Requests

Week of Pregnancy: 28/29

Fruit to Fetus Comparison: the weight of four oranges! (approx 1.2kgs?! What a big girl!)

Cravings:  Salad!! (Finally! Ladies, how often have we wished it could be salad rather than icecream – for the waist-line in particular!)

Aversions: Bread. Avoiding bread due to heartburn/reflux! Strangely enough my mum and dad bought three loaves for us when they were up here... THREE! (The majority of which went stale and got given to the dogs...)

Husbands’ excitement metre:  Super-lovely sweetheart. 

Mini-Muffin Kick-Counter: lots of kicks and occasional stamps – occasionally she will shove a foot/elbow/head into one side of my tummy and make it look like she is going to burst out of it like an alien... Also, as we’ve witnessed over the past few weeks, she is psychic and will not kick as soon as someone puts a hand on my tummy! 

Week 28/29 has been pretty great – busy with back-to-school activities such as completing marking (oops), planning, cheerleading (Relay for Life performance!) and an art show to prepare for (200 kids between Jenelle and myself to hang works for! And the help of some lovely volunteers!)

Decided to go swimming this week with the girls – very enjoyable experience! I miss swimming at the coast, although my fitness and breathing is totally shot, I felt so much lighter and mobile than I do walking around at the moment! The lack of gravity was very welcome as I didn’t have to waddle and the lower back pain that has begun to twinge was virtually non existent!

Week 28 brought with it the test for gestational diabetes (YAY FOR NO DIABETES! No thanks to the copious amounts of icecream and lollies I have lately consumed!). My veins have gone into hiding again for some reason – four jabs later  they eventually got blood from my hand (still not a count on the 8 jabs I have once had!) the worst feeling is when they stick the needle in and wiggle it around a bit trying to poke the vein under the skin! Makes me want to spew...

Our little Miss Muffin has been kicking away merrily. She is super heavy  now, and apparently weighs over a kilo! WOW! It’s a weird sensation when lying in bed that my tummy now carries me onto my side if I tilt slightly in once direction! According to our ObGyn she is now inverted with her head facing downwards (a good thing!) which I found is less comfortable on the bladder, as the head is quite heavy! On a particularly bumpy car ride (for four hours!) it was super uncomfortable to feel something heavy (baby) smashing into my organs/bladder/whatever else is down there every time we hit a pothole! Ended up sitting with a cushion surrounding the bump trying to protect us! I’m sure it wasn’t very comfortable for her either!

We have started buying for Miss Muffin! (Clothes don’t count – have been doing that for weeks!) We have finally purchased (on order) a stroller and car seat combo (for the first few months), and have bid (on ebay) on the cot we want! It is super cute and white and has a matching change table thingy. I am excited for the decorating of it! Obviously we won’t need the cot too much until Muffin reaches around 3 – 5 months and gets too big for the bassinet. Which coincidentally lines up with when we move into the new house! PERFECT! Oh yes, also we’re purchasing a bassinet, so we are quite broke (even with our fabulous family who continually offers to purchase us things!), but much of our baby purchasing is done J EXCITING!

So I’ve been probed for bump photos! Here are the latest!  

30 weeks today!!

Feeling fat but kind of loving the shape actually! For once it’s not my boobs that prevent me from seeing my toes :)

A couple of questions for all the parents out there!

1.     Where does the baby go/what does it do when you have a shower?

I am a little nervous about this because there’s not a lot of room to put a stroller/bassinet in our current shower room! I assume you don’t take the baby in with you – the whole drowning/slipping/general dangerousness is bad.

2.     Baby Bouncers – for or against? Why? Please state good reason! (By bouncer I mean the thing that they sit in when they’re really little, not the swing-like-contraption that looks like a bungee swing.  I like this one (Pretty colours!)

3.     What is the one thing you could not do without as a new mum (apart from furniture and nappies and bottles/etc that are ‘essentials’)

4.     Water-Birth/Hypno/Calm Birth – Thoughts if you have partaken in any of these or tried to go ‘drug free’! I'm reading Hypnobirthing and listening to meditation CDs and it makes it sound like an amazing (but INTENSE) experience.

So – Eleven weeks to go (Actually less because I’m posting this quite late...) and I’m sure it will fly by!

Lots of Love,

Rhonie

Holiday with the Husband whilst being a Humungous Whale.

Week of Pregnancy: 27 - 28

Fruit to Fetus Comparison: Butternut Squash/A Large Cabbage (Approx. 1.1kg and 40 cm long from head to toe! She’s getting so BIIIG)

Cravings:  Water, Feta Cheese (though the two could be related...)

Aversions: Still all things carb/sugar related

Husbands’ excitement metre:  Contented and happy – holidays do that to people J Excited and freaking out that there are only 84 days (give or take a week) until we have a bouncing baby to look after!

Mini-Muffin Kick-Counter: Many more kicks this week. She tends not to kick when: a) I am walking or moving; b) when we are on some form of transport (vibrations & movements?): c) When anyone puts a hand on my tummy. I swear she’s psychic and mysterious!

Yay for blogging!

It’s been a week and a half since we left Bilo in search of greener shores... and found them on holiday in Tasmania! It was an amazing holiday for our Two Year anniversary and also our last one before little Miss Muffin is born. Well worth the time and money put into planning it!

 We tripped around Hobart, 

bought some art, ate some fancy foods,

 found the most ‘gnomed’ house in Tasmania, 

went on a boat tour in Strahan, 

accidentally took a 3 hour hike to see a waterfall (totally worth it despite my shoes falling apart and the mud seeping to our ankles), 

made a snow-man in Cradle Mountain, 

cursed at the Rock Wallaby who ruthlessly murdered our snow-man, 

read a lot, and generally spent a whole lot of time together (my favourite bit, just to be a sook!)

We refrained from buying anything baby related, though we have decided on a pram (I think) and know what kind of cot set we want. I was sorely tempted to go all girly and buy some adorable purple soft baby-fairy-wings when we were at Salamanca Markets in Hobart, but the problem was getting them back to Bilo, as we already had to carry some art and a second hand complete illustrated works of Lewis Carroll (Awesome find!). As well as some fabulous nerd stuff we found at Area 52 (Comic & Book shop in Hobart).

Basically, we relaxed and enjoyed being a married couple for a bit longer – might get a bit tough to appreciate each other quite as much when we have a crying baby, very little sleep, and everything smells like milky-baby-vomit and/or poop. Though I’m sure we’ll love that too!

 

I guess I just really felt the love for Justin – I don’t often make time to appreciate him and his awesomeness and everything he does for me, so it was lovely just to get time together.

On another note, my uterus is the size of a basketball. Literally – I’ve been told this is the case, and apparently that’s normal. My tummy has really ‘popped’ and I feel super fat right now. It’s officially, trying to do up any form of denim is completely out of the question, even with sucking in and squeezing (probably not great!). The rest of me is normal sized (mostly... boobs are kind of huge still but that’s normal for me) and fits my clothes – it’s just my tummy that kind of wrecks it! Trying to feel the ‘beauty’ of being huge but after spending the majority of your life dieting and trying to look stunningly great with your curves (even though you want rid of them) it’s hard to love being large.

Part baby, part Tasmanian delicacies. 

Also. I now groan involuntarily when getting up from tight spaces.

So week 28 is dedicated to getting a test for gestational diabetes (apparently also a normal test... I hate needles!), working on getting fabulously good at hypnobirthing and self-hypnosis for a potentially ‘drug free’ birth (I reserve the right to revoke this and cry ‘epidural’ at any given point in the birthing process) and convincing my fabulous doctor that I can work until the end of the year.

Doctor B is not keen. Neither are my parents. Of course, any sign of problems and I’ll take time off, but I would like to finish the year off if possible! 

Have booked in for ante-natal classes (full day courses at the Buderim Hospital) and an Active Birthing class (Justin is going to love all the fun labour positions we get to try out).

Updates on hospital induction, blood tests, ultrasounds and belly photos etc in next post.

Change is as good as a holiday... but also a holiday is as good as a holiday! Time to return to Biloela less stressed and more in tune with my husband and myself.

Lots of love,

Rhonie xxxx