Lactation Cookies

With 6-ish weeks left till Guppy makes her grand appearance I knew it was time to make some lactation cookies to help my milk supply!  So I went to a speciality store to get some of the ingredients and then went to mom's house to make some cookies!  We started by gathering the ingredients.

not pictured?  Sugars...brown and white...whoopsie!

Week 34!

Guppy can be here as early as 3 weeks (eek) or as late as 8 weeks....it's totally normal!  My Dr doesn't stop labor once you hit 37 weeks, and won't talk induction till after 41 weeks.  Most first time mom's deliver after their estimated due date (6 more weeks for me)...we shall see as things progress!  This week my little one is around 5 pounds give or take. And somewhere between 19-22 inches long.  Her kidneys are fully developed and can function on their own, and her little lungs are almost fully ready for her first breath.  99% of babies born at this point can survive without much help.

picture from babycenter.com

One last nursery project

The nursery is almost done, I just had one more project I wanted to get done before Guppy gets here. I wanted to paint a triptych of the Three Wise Monkeys; hear no evil - kikazaru (聞か猿), speak no evil - iwazaru (言わ猿) and see no evil - mizaru (見猿), as sock monkeys.  These monkeys are part of the Koshin belief to try to live a life without any evil. I started by drawing up a half a monkey...

Week 33!

As the weeks go by this month Guppy will be gaining about a half a pound a week, so she's at about 4-1/2 lbs right now...or at least this is the average. And this number can almost double by d-day. She can grow about another inch this week alone so she could be close to 20 inches, which is the average height of a full term baby.  We know from earlier ultrasounds that she has long legs, so we will see how that correlates to her overall height at birth.  Speaking of birth, if Guppy made an appearance now there wouldn't be a ton of problems, of course we want her to "bake"  a few weeks longer, how much longer?  Anywhere from 5-9 weeks!

photo from pregnology.com

What to do about vaccinations

I was vaccinated as an infant, and a child, and I never had a bad reaction (that I can remember).  Nor has my mother told me that I had a reaction to a vaccination.  I was raised to trust doctors, they are the ones that went to medical school, they have the most current information etc.  Not that it has stopped me from doing my own research on the matter.

Week 32! 8 Months...

Another week closer to meeting Guppy!!!  This week she is close to 19 inches (give or take of course) and almost 4 pounds!!!  That explains why my back tends to hurt after being on my feet and active all day long! She is still kicking and moving, enough that I have finally gotten her on video a few times, it really does look like there is an alien in my stomach!  Surfactant is being released to help keep those little air sacs open and the lungs working.

Picture from pregnology.com

I am assuming that Guppy is in fact head down as she has been during the last two ultrasounds we had.  I feel a hard bump near the top of my belly that has to be her cute little (and bony) rump, and her kicks are above my belly button, the heartbeat is below my belly button,  there is a fun article (click here) that explains how to guess the baby's position, just note that babies move around a LOT, and will change position often.  I still have more time (about 4 more weeks) before the OB will take a guess, or even start to worry about it.  If they aren't worried, then I'm not either.

Later this week we get to do our pre-registry with the hospital!  And another thing checked off our to-do list!

Side Table

I have been on the hunt for a small side table that I can paint teal to sit next to the glider in the nursery.  It had to have a at least one drawer so I could hide snacks and supplies in it so the dogs wouldn't be able to get into it.  After searching and searching I found a super cute one at At Home....but it was all beat up, and they wanted $60 for it...it was super cheap materials so I passed on it, and kept looking.  Fast forward a few days and I saw a post on one of my Facebook swaps and there in a picture I found THE ONE!

Crib Mobile

Finding a mobile to go with my sock monkey theme has proven difficult....well maybe not difficult but everything out there is super expensive....like $90 and up...So I'm going to create my OWN mobile.  I got the inside of an embroidery hoop, felt, a garland I found at the Goodwill Outlet, stuffing, glue, embroidery floss, my 504 spray, good scissors...yarn...oh and a pattern!

I found a used mobile with the music box at a local consignment store for $7.  So that will be my base.

I took all of the old decorations off of the mobile, including the pink arm sleeve, so I could start fresh.  I started by covering the entire hoop in blue yarn

Leslie did a quick AutoCAD design for the sock monkey pattern, so she could send the file to her Silhouette machine...P.S. That thing is amazing!  And we she sent the file to cut

We did have to trim each piece out because it's not really made to cut felt, but it did an awesome job, better than me cutting each piece out by hand from scratch!  We then glued the details on.

The next step is sewing the buttons on, then stitching around each one and stuffing it so it puffs out.

Once each of the four monkeys are done they get attached to the hoop with a blue yarn each with their own little ball from the garland I deconstructed.  Then I strung the hoop up with more blue yarn, topped with another ball and hooked it to the music box!  The sleeve that goes over the arm is made out of the same material I will be using to make the crib skirt.

All of the monkeys are looking down so Guppy can look up at them!  I think it turned out quite nice!  One more thing done and checked off my to-do list!!

Alphabet Wall

I finally ordered the wooden letters for the nursery!  And they showed up quickly!

Set from AlphabetBoutique123

Week 31!

This last week flew by very fast! At this point Guppy has almost reached the length she will be at birth, and will still need to gain 3-5 more pounds, the big growth spurt starts soon!  And talking about weight, the placenta has stopped growing any bigger and is now just over 1 lb.

Photo from Pregnology.com

Every two weeks

From this point until 36 weeks I will be visiting the Doctor every two weeks.  At today's appointment I found out that....

My fundal height is 31cm, so a bit ahead but nothing to be concerned about...

Baby position is hard to determine right now, but they don't worry about it till 36 weeks...according to spinning babies and baby mapping with the heartbeat being below my bellybutton it's likely that she is head down.

I also got my Tdap shot today.

On our way home we stopped in at an Antique Mall and I found a vintage sock monkey!