Nursery

Our nursery is officially completed! I have washed all the bedding, baby clothes, cloth diapers (need to be washed multiple times before use), towels and blankets. Everything has a spot and is put away. I feel very ready! I love sitting in the nursery to read; it is a really comfortable room with great lighting. It will be nice to hang out with the baby in there!

The theme for the nursery is "tree tops". We chose this theme for a couple different reasons. Primarily I love animals and nature, second because we like the colors green and brown together, and thirdly because we wanted something that represented Maine. All the animals that are in the tree top theme (foxes, squirrels, blue birds, turtles, bears, owls, frogs, raccoons, etc.) are found in Maine. We do have a couple other random animals featured in the room (like a tropical snake and crocodile), but those we had before and are lacking a better place to put them in our apartment for now. The walls were painted with an eco friendly paint (check out this post "Painting completed") in the color guacamole. Here are some pictures:

Rug as you enter the nursery

Looking into the nursery

The crib

Inside the crib

Looking up at the mobile

Comfy chair to nurse and read in

Crib and bureau

Inside the bureau everything is clean and ready for Mattimeo

Where we are storing all his cloth diapers, bibs and wet bags

Cute little newborn cloth diapers ready for Meo

Beautiful fox painting our friend Gib made for us

Lovely maternity portraits taken by our friend Kate (Maternity photo shoot)

Even with the blinds closed, the window is sunny. The fox and squirrel on the chair are puppets.

Side table

Bookcase full of children books

Exiting the room

Thank you again everyone for your wonderful shower presents and for helping to make this nursery possible! <3

34th Week Update

Development at 34 Weeks

Lately, I feel like I just want to always be pregnant. People have been out-of-their-way nice to me lately, and it feels really nice. Robbie joked that I should just stuff pillows up my shirt so people just always treat me like I'm pregnant. Besides the way people treat me though, I just feel happy and healthy, and I like feeling the baby wiggle around inside me, even though he does occasionally stretch up or kick my ribs.

I've been having a great week. Robbie and I have been working a lot on getting things put together and put away in the nursery. We have a handful of things we still need to get before the baby comes that we've slowly been purchasing. On Tuesday night, our friends Andrew and Lauren had us over for a delicious meal. They made us mung beans (my first time having them and I loved them), some delicious stir fried vegetables, homemade tortilla chips with ghee and Madhur Jaffrey's Baba Ghanouj (creamed eggplant) to tie everything together. It was so yummy (Lauren has her own food blog, and you can read more about this great meal there: the spiced plate). I feel inspired to try to make a similar dish in the future. We played a game afterwords, and their two cats were super cute and affectionate. Wednesday night Robbie and I went to a free car seat safety check in Portland. There were a bunch of tents set up for people to drive their cars under. Then we had someone come and look through our vehicle manual and car seat manual and show us how to properly install our car seat. They also showed us how to put a baby in the car seat and adjust the straps properly and had us practice with a doll. I'm really glad we went and did that, it was very informative, and I feel much more comfortable about bringing our baby home now.

Our dinner with the Norsters: check out Lauren's blog at http://spicedplate.blogspot.com/

Today I had another appointment with the midwives. Everything is still going great, yay! I've gained the recommended 2 more pounds, my blood pressure is 90/60, and the baby's heart rate is a healthy 134 bpm. She thinks he is about 4 pounds right now, which is the normals size for a baby at this stage. Today he is head down with his hip poking out toward the front/middle of my belly. I just had one question for her today: whether it was normal for me to be throwing up again (I have thrown up 4 times in the last two weeks). She said it is normal for some women, but it should feel different than morning sickness (which it does). My mom came with me today and has been worried about me being short of breath sometimes (many times in the morning I can't even get out a whole sentence without needing to catch my breath). But the midwife assured her that this is to be expected because I am petite and have no waist so the baby doesn't have very much room and taking up a lot of space inside me. Plus I am slightly anemic and very active which will also lead to shortness of breath. But I am fine, and it usually gets better once I get some fresh air and start walking the dogs.

Robbie and I have been keeping up with practicing HypnoBirthing stuff. The other night I came home to dinner all set out for me on the table with a candle lit and some great relaxation music Robbie found for me playing. It was very romantic! We have been trying to listen to the rainbow relaxation CD before going to bed, but we both find it so relaxing that we end up falling asleep before we get five minutes into it!  I also listen to my birth affirmations regularly in the car (telling me that I will birth a healthy baby and have a wonderful birth experience in lots of different ways on repeat), and practice different types of relaxation breathing while I do yoga throughout the day. We have a picture of a baby inside the womb in the correct birthing position posted on our door so that I can visualize my baby ending up in the correct position for the best possible birth experience. It might all sound kind of silly, but it's really helpful, and I feel really excited about childbirth right now.

Trying out one of the newborn bumGenius cloth diapers on a stuffed bunny

Painting completed

Yesterday marked the first day of my third and final trimester (7 months). I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going by, no matter how much I try to slow it down! Everything has been going really well lately; I feel really energetic and happy. I had my first prenatal water aerobics class yesterday, and it was really fun. I feel like it was just the right amount of exercise and I am excited to be meeting more pregnant ladies.

For the past few weeks, Robbie and I have been continuously working on getting the nursery ready for Mattimeo. We needed to switch our room with the office, rearrange the living room to make room for our computer (downsized to one computer for now), and make our old bedroom into a nursery. It was quite the endeavor and turned into a bit of a spring cleaning project at the same time. We also painted both of the bedrooms, so everything in our apartment feels fresh, new and clean.

For paint we used Olympic Premium (for more info about this paint, click this link). This paint has no VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which create indoor pollution and lead to the formation of smog. Zero VOCs also made it safe for me to help paint the rooms, as it is important for pregnant women to avoid exposure to toxic fumes.

Salute

Guacamole

For our bedroom, we chose the color Salute from the Harmony color collection (from twilight shadows to sunrise glow, the harmony color palette is inspired by the vision of the National Audubon Society), and for Mattimeo's room we chose the color Guacamole from the Grandeur color collection (from hazy peaks to mossy boulders, the grandeur color palette is inspired by the vision of the National Audubon Society). Here are some before and after photos of the two bedrooms:

Bedroom 1 before

Bedroom 1 after

Bedroom 1 before

Bedroom 1 after

Bedroom 1 before

Bedroom 1 after

Nursery before

Nursery after

Nursery before

Nursery before

Nursery after

Nursery before

Nursery after

Nursery before

Nursery after

Nursery before

Nursery after

The Salute looks really great with the new duvet cover Robbie got me for my birthday last month (it really highlights the blue birds):

Organic Duvet Cover and Shams

Organic Duvet Cover and Shams

And I think the Guacamole will look really great with the treetop theme I want to have in the nursery:

Carter's Treetop theme we want to use for our nursery

It feels really good to have the rooms all painted and situated now. This weekend Dad and Sue brought over the beautiful crib they bought for us, so now we have a bureau, crib, a bookshelf already full of awesome children picture books, and a comfy recliner for me to nurse in all set up. It will make it a lot easier to have a place to put things as we accumulate baby stuff, and Robbie and I have fun snuggling on the recliner together reading books to my belly.