Woo! Finally some colour!

I’ve realized that I’m just not very good at snapping these bump pics from the side, I never seem to get quite the right angle to show off the bump, and I’ve been wearing quite a few loose / flowy tops and dresses these days that don’t really do Babe justice.

Rest assured – even if it isn’t overly visible in pictures, I can promise you, the bump is real. 

This week was another roller coaster of ups and downs, highs and lows, and another week of pretty extreme emotion swings for me.

I was feeling 95% better from my 24-week salmon escapade by Wednesday and Thursday of last week, and was back to eating as normally as I could. Unfortunately, I think I over-did it a bit on Thursday, and had another miserable night on Thursday night writhing with twisting stomach pains. I never did end up throwing up, but my stomach was just a mess, and eating was next to impossible again.

GO AWAY FOOD POISONING / STOMACH BUG. GO AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

I was too sick to go in to work on Friday, and felt really guilty all day about work in general, as I really hadn’t been myself all week and my productivity had probably been only about 25% of what it normally is. By the afternoon, I absolutely forced myself to have some dry toast to eat, got about half of a Gatorade down, and made myself go out to do a couple of quick errands with the idea that maybe moving around a little bit would help things somewhat.

For once, I was actually right, and after getting my eyebrows done and picking up our car seat (which had come in at Snuggle Bugz – YAY!), I was starting to feel a little bit better – though still not close to “well”.

My family from Sault Ste. Marie had started to arrive at my mom’s house for our baby shower on Sunday, and Matt was busy recording a podcast for a few hours on Friday night, so his dad Roy and I went over to my parent’s house to visit with my Grandma and my Aunt / Uncle / Cousin for a few hours.

It was nice to see everyone, and plans seemed to be coming together for the baby shower, but it was hard for me to be too excited about the weekend when  my stomach was still feeling so sick. I (once again) said a gigantic thank you to the pregnancy gods for giving me a smooth first trimester, free of morning sickness – I just don’t know how pregnant mamas survive weeks on end of that!

Saturday was Matt’s best friend’s brother’s wedding, and I made the (foolish) mistake of not really thinking about a dress to wear to the wedding until the morning of – thinking that I had a couple of flowy options that would work fine. Turns out that when I tried said flowy options on, they looked more “nightgown” then “wedding”, and I went into panic mode trying to find one of my non-maternity dresses that would still fit.

It took me, Matt, our dresser, some cooking oil and some elbow grease, but we finally shoe-horned me into this (non-maternity) black dress, and off we went.

The wedding was beautiful, and my stomach was feeling a little bit better then the previous day, plus we had a couple of hour break in between the ceremony and the reception to come home and hang out for a bit, which was nice. I just couldn’t bring myself to squeeze myself back into the way-too-tight black dress for the reception, so went with a more flowy floral dress that I’ve been wearing to work (totally not formal enough for a wedding – but at this point, it was the best I could do!).

I had a hard time with the dinner at the reception because I was worried about my stomach, so didn’t really end up eating much of anything the entire night, and much to Matt’s dismay, was feeling like I really needed to go home and lie down by about 11pm. It was baby shower day on Sunday and I desperately wanted to be feeling as close to 100% as possible!

Sunday dawned clear, beautiful and sunny, but I was wary because the weather forecast called for thunderstorms to start right around the time of our photo shoot. I had initially scheduled the photo shoot for our entire family, but it was becoming clear over the course of the week that it just wasn’t going to be feasible to get everyone together in the two hours before the shower, so we decided that Matt and I would do a mini-maternity session instead (before I get too giant and potentially wouldn’t really want pictures of myself anyways).

I got my hair done at a blow-dry bar in Oakville, and it felt nice to get a bit glammed-up after my so un-glamorous week, but as luck would have it, while she was putting the finishing hairspray touches on my curls, the heavens opened up and thunderstorms rolled in like a herd of rampaging bulls.

Sigh.

Sensing my utter dismay, the poor Asian girl who did my hair for me escorted me out to my car with a huge umbrella and got soaking wet herself trying to protect my hair as I got into the car – so sweet!

It was about a 15 minute drive over to the photo shoot location from the blow-dry bar and I summoned all of the positive karma I could during that drive pleading with the weather gods to stop the rain. Miraculously, it worked, and by the time I got to the gardens that we were shooting at, the rain had stopped, and although things were wet, the sun was actually starting to peek back out!

We met our photographer (who was lovely), and spent about 45 minutes taking some maternity photos in the gardens. I’m not totally sure how they will turn out to be honest, I’m really not loving how I’m looking these days, and just not feeling overly comfortable in my own skin, so not sure how that will translate in front of the camera, but regardless, at least we have some nice photos to document the pregnancy along the way (better then my weak attempts at bump selfies!); and some photos of Matt as well!

(this is a cheesy iPhone pic – not a professional pic ;-))

The shower was wonderful, but was a bit of a blur to be honest! I do remember feeling pretty frustrated in the hour beforehand that things weren’t ready, people were frantically running around, and the photos that I had planned to take of our entire families never really came to fruition. I fully acknowledge that I’m a bit anal when it comes to planning and logistics, and I like things done a certain way (you know….my way! ;)). I also know that I’d be a much more chill person if I could adopt Matt’s Golden Retriever mentality and let more stuff go. C’est la vie!

In any case, thank god I was feeling pretty good for the shower, although I did miss out on the best looking taco bar ever because I just didn’t trust my stomach! We got totally spoiled with tons of gifts and lots of love and support from our friends and family, and it really was just an awesome afternoon surrounded by the people that we love the most. Our photographer stuck around to take candid shots for about an hour during the shower, so once I receive those, I’ll come back and update this post with a few pictures!

Although I was finally feeling better physically, Monday and Tuesday were stressful days, and my emotions were way out of whack. Most notably, my patience was at an all-time low, and everything that didn’t go 100% as I expected it to (even stupid things like the light changing from green to red at the wrong time) really irritated me and weighed on me for hours. I was also much more emotionally charged then I usually am, and everything (including loading my dishwasher) just seemed overwhelming and too much to ask of me in any given moment.

I know that hormone fluctuations (once again) are likely to blame, and I’m feeling much more level-headed today thank goodness, so until the next appearance of irrational Sara….here’s hoping that this train stays away from crazy-town!

We have SO much to do at the house this weekend, nesting ninja needs to come back out in full force to start organizing all of our shower gifts, plus we have our nursery room furniture being delivered on Friday!! Now that our house is empty again (Matt’s parents are in Lebanon with my family right now!), we are going to start emptying out Babe’s room of the office furniture to make room for it all to be setup! EXCITING! Once the nursery starts to take shape, I’ll be sure to share some pics!

For now, I’m in countdown mode until the long weekend, I’m off on Friday so only one more day to go! A big happy birthday to Canada – 150 years old and lookin’ damn fine!

Have a great week all!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

 

 

Here we go again with the dark clothing!! I promise lighter and brighter thoughts are on the way!!

Now that I have most of my basic maternity clothing items, I’m steering more in the direction of “dual-use” non-maternity pieces that I can get away with for the rest of my pregnancy, but then wear again after I’m pregnant. This particular dress was one that I picked up at Ann Taylor on the weekend, and one that I hope will look much more flattering once I’m not rocking a watermelon in front of me LOL

24 weeks WAS moving along relatively smoothly for Babe and I, until Sunday of the weekend when we hit a small but significant stumbling block!

I woke up on Sunday feeling major queasiness and just an uncomfortable tension in my stomach. A bit hard to describe, and I wasn’t sure if it was my actual stomach that was queasy, or if it was some sort of pregnancy-related tension / air build-up in my stomach that was throwing me off. In any case, I really didn’t feel great, but made myself go and take my friend Meaghan’s BodyPump class anyways as I had missed a workout on Saturday and was feeling like I needed to move.

The funny thing with the queasiness / tension was that it seemed to kind of come and go, I would go an hour without feeling anything, but then another hour feeling constantly queasy. I’ve been SO super lucky with this pregnancy to not really have had any nausea or upset stomach at all so far, so this was all very abnormal for Babe and I. Neither of us liked it very much. Glad we’ve worked out this whole “no morning sickness” deal Babe. Fist bump.

Sunday was Fathers Day, and we had plans to go out to Niagara Falls for the afternoon with my Dad and then out for dinner in Niagara later that evening. Matt was actually out of town this entire weekend on a canoe trip with his brother Neil, so I didn’t get to see him until late Sunday night when he got back.

I fought with the queasiness / tension in my belly all day long in Niagara; never really feeling 100% better. By the time we got to dinner, I was really feeling awful and just knew that me eating anything wouldn’t bode well for the car ride back home, so I just had a few bites of a garden salad (what a crying shame – we were at the BEST Brazilian Steakhouse!!) and even that didn’t sit well with my stomach. The car ride home was misery, and I spent most of it with my head inside a Ralph Lauren shopping bag feeling like I was going to throw up at any second. Thankfully, for those in the car anyways, I didn’t!

By the time I got home, Matt was home and unpacking from his canoe trip, and I had some Fathers Day gifts laid out for him, but I was feeling so terrible that I could hardly acknowledge the poor guy on my way to the couch to curl up in the fetal position. The tension in my belly had evolved to twisting pains, and I knew I was going to be sick at any moment. We called my midwives hotline and she suggested that I take a ginger Graval and try to get some sleep; which all sounded good in theory! I popped one Graval, but woke up about 20 minutes later puking my guts out. Lovely!

I threw up about 4 times and somehow made it upstairs to bed, but was up all night long (and I do mean all. night. long) with the same twisting stomach pains that I had had before the first puke-episode. I knew that I was doomed for Round 2. Around 5 in the morning, Matt got up for work to find me wide awake, writhing in pain with my pathetic little bucket.

Side note: I still can’t believe the guy gets up at 5am to go to work after going to bed at the same time that I do every night, that is some serious dedication right there.

He took one look at my pathetic little set-up and we assessed that maybe he better stay home for a few more hours to make sure that nothing crazy happened with Babe and I before he went in.

Sheesh – thank you god for instincts on that one.

I was puking my guts out again within 45 minutes, but this time, had a similar episode to my previous bout of food poisoning last year and actually passed out cold right in the middle of the whole episode. In a pool of my own vomit. Yikes.

Poor Matt was terrified (as he was the last time that this happened), but because it wasn’t the first time that it had happened, he also knew what to expect. After yelling my name for about 10 seconds, I apparently came to, with zero recollection of what had happened.

Alright, time for a funny side-story to lighten the mood around here! Last year when I passed out (twice in that episode last year actually), when all was said and done, Matt and I were re-hashing the whole mess and came up with the analogy that when I pass out, I look something like a gutted salmon at the grocery store ready to be wrapped up and handed off to a hungry family. Something to do with how wide my eyes get and how my body straightens out completely. LOL.

For the past year, whenever we (affectionately) look back at that passing out episode, we refer to it as “that time that I / Sara turned into a salmon”. LOL – call us crazy, but we think we’re hilarious.

Anyways – so there I was in full on “salmon-mode”, and Matt made the executive call that we were going to the hospital. No more messing around with hotlines or anecdotal internet advice. I was able to get up and into the car myself thankfully, and off we went.

8.5 hours later, 2 IV bags of fluids, 1 absolutely revolting Pedialyte drink and about 100 tests later and we were finally home, no worse for wear, and reassured that Babe was doing just fine in there like the tough little muffin he is. The one up-side to the whole ordeal being that we got an extra ultrasound and got to look at Babe again, who is still in there with his legs crossed exactly like he was back at our anatomy scan! Little monkey has found a comfy spot and he ain’t movin’! He also reaffirmed his hatred for ultrasounds / doppler machines by kicking the ultrasound technicians wand so hard that she actually jumped in her chair LOL – apparently he’s really not a fan of the frequency that the machines give off!

Anyways – all’s well that ends well, and thank goodness Babe and I are back to just about 100% today, I haven’t had any more stomach pain or nausea and have kept all food down for nearly 36 hours. Operation rehydrate has commenced.

If I rewind a bit back to before the disastrous Sunday – Monday fiasco, it was actually a very productive weekend, nesting ninja was in full effect, and I managed to get another two garbage bags of clothes off to donation, and move all of my clothes out of Babe’s closet and over into our guestroom closet, so we now have one completely empty closet ready to store Babe’s things! Woohoo – sweet, sweet victory!

I don’t want to start putting things away in the closet until I have some kind of organization system going, so for now things are accumulating on the futon in our office. Once Matt’s family is gone next week (his parents and brothers will be at our house this week / weekend for our baby shower!), we’ll be starting the process of emptying furniture out of the office and moving it downstairs to the basement so that when the crib / other nursery furniture arrives (should be within the next 2 – 3 weeks at most!!) we can get it all moved in and set up. Things are coming together!

My energy / mobility continues to be a bit slower (as I noticed for the first time last week), and I’m just finding that I have to accept that what I used to whip through in 30 seconds now might take me 2 minutes to do instead. Case in point: the days of carrying 23 bags of groceries into the house in one load are over. I need to make a few trips now!

I’m so looking forward to this weekend for our baby shower, we’re doing a co-ed shower and a much more relaxed vibe which I think should be more “BBQ and hang out by the pool” then “official” baby shower, and I’ve also booked a photographer to do a lifestyle photo-shoot session for Matt and my entire families just before the shower as well! I’m really looking forward to it – and am very grateful that my crazy salmon-episode took place LAST Sunday, and not this COMING Sunday (the day of the shower)! Yikes!

On the agenda for this week is to re-hydrate, re-energize with some good food and just take better care of sweet little babe, he’s had a rough couple of days!

Hope you’ve all had a very “un-salmony” week!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

Two observations:

1) I seriously need to invest in some cheerier clothing, sheesh, all of my clothes are so dark!

2) I swear this dress used to be an appropriate length for work.

This past week (23 weeks) has been a major “transition” week for babe and I in the sense that it’s the first week of the pregnancy so far that I’ve actually felt pregnant. I’ve been getting bigger for a while now, and had some very minor symptoms, but it hasn’t been until this past week that I’ve actually noticed myself slowing down getting in and out of cars, going up and down stairs, carrying things, even laying on the couch sometimes!

It was a great run while it lasted! LOL

I’m so happy to report that my head has been in a much better place this week, and all of those overwhelming emotions from last week are long-gone. Ahh perspective.

I’ve discovered the trick to maternity clothes shopping is online, and I’ve also discovered that returning items you buy online isn’t as colossal a pain as I had built it up to be in my head. I’ve been cheerily doling out my credit card number to anyone who wants it online for the past week and have finally had some luck with a few maternity pieces!

So far, the verdict on maternity clothes is:

Maternity dresses: yes – but not too tight (nobody needs to see that much detail)

Maternity t-shirts: OH BABY YES – I love these things! The previously hated ruched cotton is a god-send, and I’m SO relieved to finally have shirts that are long enough! More, more, give me more!

Maternity pants: I hate you and always will

Maternity shorts: I hate you and will until I find the right pair. Or maybe I always will.

Lululemon non-maternity shorts: My one-true love…..I knew you wouldn’t let me down…

Lululemon non-maternity leggings: See above comment

Lululemon non-maternity cool racer back tank tops: See above comment

All I can say is it’s a darn good thing I’m pregnant in the Summer months. Much respect to pregnant mamas trying to survive the winter in pants / jeans all the time.

Shudder.

Nesting this week has mostly been in our backyard actually, and Matt’s been leading the charge! Back in the winter, he came up with the idea to rip out and replace our god awful, builders grade patio stones in the back and put in some nice interlocking stones.

I basically avoid our backyard at all times because it’s an untamed jungle and I just can’t deal with that nonsense (seriously, it’s enough for me to keep my house clean and somewhat organized, outdoor space = no), so was fairly indifferent to the idea at the time, but I have to admit that the guy has been working his tail off, and the finished product is one that actually makes me want to spend some time out there (you know – once the stones are all cleaned up and the furniture is back out)! Check it out!

Inside the house, I attacked the upstairs closets this weekend and gee golly it’s a behemoth of a task. Allow me to explain.

When we moved into our house 4+ years ago, I quickly monopolized the entire closet in our master bedroom (allocating poor Matt a tiny fraction of the closet space for his nice shirts and suits), and soon found myself busting at the seams even while using both sides of the “his and hers” closet. I struggled along for a few months before deciding, to hell with it, I’ll just use the closet in the office as well!

Mistake.

So now – we’re at the point where I’m busting at the seams in essentially THREE FULL CLOSETS, and shit has just gotten WAY out of control. Our guest bedroom closet is still empty (at least from clothes), but there are tons of odds and ends stored in there (suitcases, our vacuum cleaner, duvets etc etc). SO the master plan is:

1. Sara to get her life together and purge half of her clothes so that they fit in the master closet and PART of the guestroom closet
2. Free up the office closet completely for babe’s clothes, and all of his paraphernalia to be stored in one place
3. Purge / organize the stuff currently in the guestroom closet to make room for Sara’s extra clothes

Sounds simple in theory, but my god there’s a lot of stuff in those closets (the office one in particular is the biggest gong show – I literally found an old Halloween ceramic house in there that I had bought at some point and never got around to putting out…..). I took a first run at it on Saturday with the intention of getting it all done in one day, but tired quickly and only made it through a partial purge of the office / guestroom closets and one trip to the dump………it’s a work in progress.

Apart from nesting, the other biggest change this past week has been in my appetite.

You guys. I am unstoppable.

When my brother was going through his cancer treatment, at one point they put him on steroids to boost up his body in preparation for the incredibly invasive and grueling stem cell transplant that he needed. When he was on the steroids, he once said to me “Sara, the sky is the limit, there is no limit to how much I can eat!” He was eating about 8 full meals a day – and his stomach would still ache with hunger pains!

Friends, this is how I’m feeling these days.

I no sooner finish eating then I’m planning the next meal or snack or whatever it may be. I am out of control! I attribute this partially to what Baby Centre tells me is a baby growth spurt around this time in the pregnancy, and partially to the fact that I just like eating and food is yummy. I need to seriously get it together though, I know it isn’t good for babe or for me to be eating too much.

Wah wah wah.

My last update from this week was that we had our 24 week midwife check-in on Monday (right at the tail-end of 23 weeks), and got our requisition for my gestational diabetes screening test, which I’ll be doing this weekend. I’m a bit petrified that this will come back positive, and will mean the end of my sugar consumption for the rest of the pregnancy (HORROR OF ALL HORRORS). Think un-sugary thoughts for me this weekend, will you?

Babe was being a little monkey at our midwife appointment and was scurrying all over my belly trying to get away from the Doppler machine (the little handheld unit that they use to listen to the heartbeat). Apparently the midwife could actually SEE babe through my skin scurrying around! He’s clocking in around 1.3 – 1.5 pounds this week, and is roughly the length of an ear of corn (says Baby Centre)….we’re getting there!

Overwhelming emotion of the week is gratitude. So many of my friends and family members are dealing with real hardship and struggle right now, and I really can’t put into words the gratitude that things have gone so well for us to this point.

See you on the other side of 6 months! Crazy daisy!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

Hi Friends,

It feels these days like every day I wake up and my belly is a little bit bigger then it was the day before! Some days I swear it even gets bigger over the course of the day!

22 weeks was one of the most challenging weeks in this pregnancy to date (excluding some of those god awful early weeks when I had that hellish flu bug for 7 weeks straight of course). I’m so glad to be saying goodbye to this week and moving on to 23 and beyond.

Over this past weekend I took a trip to Thyme Maternity to look for some maternity clothes, but walked out without a single thing, feeling so frustrated by the cheesy empire-waisted EVERYTHING and the ruched cotton EVERYTHING. I left feeling so down about myself and my body; I haven’t felt like this much of a slob since my awkward teen years.

This mama is in total denial and is digging in her heels on the whole “need to buy maternity clothes” thing, but today with my ill-fitting pants and too-short-shirt, I basically have my belly hanging out at work and look like I should be propped up against a saggy chicken-wire fence with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

It’s time Sara. It’s time.

The Gap has been mildly better for maternity clothes, but you can only order their maternity stuff online, which means you can’t try anything on (which is how I ended up with said ill-fitting, trailer park pants that I’m currently wearing lol). I may try my luck at Old Navy this weekend, as one of the only maternity items that I actually like is my plain black t-shirt dress. Maybe I can just get 10 more of those, and make it through the next 3.5 months. A girl can dream, right?

One productive thing that we did manage to get done over the weekend was to pick out and buy our crib mattress! What I thought would be a super-easy decision turned into quite a discussion in the store! Who knew that there were so many options! I was pleased with our decision, and in general have been pleased that I’ve managed to keep a pretty rational head about all of this baby stuff. It’s easy to get sucked into thinking that you need to spend thousands of dollars on everything, but when you step back and really think about it, I’ve been pretty happy with my ability to spot a gimmick and make a more reasonable choice (in most cases – baby bathtub aside ;)).

Aside from the maternity clothes crisis of 2017, my head just wasn’t in a great place over the weekend. Anxiety was high, self-esteem extremely low, and I was just feeling extremely down and emotional. I know this is probably just pregnancy hormones at work – but say that to my face and I can’t promise that I won’t punch you 😉

Work has been stressful the past several weeks / months too, and I just can’t wait to start my maternity leave and get out of here. I know the stress and the environment here isn’t good for me or for babe, so I’m trying my best to limit how much things get to me and adopt the whole “water off a ducks back” mentality. Much easier said than done.

Quack quack.

I had some scary symptoms earlier this week that drove me to call my midwives hotline in tears saying that I thought I should come into the hospital. They were very sweet and kind to me, asked me lots of questions and spent over a half hour on the phone with me reassuring me that from what I was describing, it didn’t sound like anything serious, and that babe would be just fine. I have my next midwife appointment on Monday June 12th, so I’m really looking forward to that and to chatting some more with my midwife about the whole episode (which in hindsight, and with a clearer head, really wasn’t a big deal at all).

SO – all in all, not the best week of the pregnancy to date, but I’m DETERMINED that 23 will be a better week. I’m already 2 days in and am feeling much better and clearer-headed about things. We are planning to do some shopping for a glider chair this weekend, and I’d love to make a final decision on that (we’ve been looking for a while!), and I’d love to take another run at our basement and see if we can get another 100 pounds of stuff out of it too.

Food-wise, I’ve been eating oooookay….although I did cave and eat half a box of Kraft Dinner yesterday (but technically that was in 23 weeks – so that’s a sin I don’t have to account for until next week ;-))….DAMN that stuff is good. Whoever said that a box of that stuff should feed a family of 4 people was dreadfully off course….Matt was lucky that he got to keep his half of the box.

I have my eye on our upcoming baby shower at the end of June – I’m so excited to see everyone!! I’ve also planned a lifestyle photo shoot with our family members from out of town for before the shower, and am really looking forward to that too!! I’m hoping that the next two weeks speed on by!!

Well – babe and I will sign off for now, hope that you all enjoy the sun and a great weekend ahead – sending you best wishes for a clear head and a light heart!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

Alright, well let’s just start off by addressing the elephant in the room. And I’m not just talking about myself.

I crack myself up….

I am carrying ABSURDLY low, am I right?!

Comparable pregnant mamas around my stage in pregnancy are rocking these round, perky, basketball shaped bumps right up under their rib cages, but me and Babe? We just look like some 50 year old guy that’s been drinking beer and eating hot dogs in his mama’s basement for the past 5 months! Sheesh!

Jokes aside, the fact that I’m carrying so low is causing me major grief in the gym these days, particularly in BodyAttack with all of the running and bouncing. Ultimately I think that the growing pressure / pain my pelvis is going to mean a much earlier departure from teaching Attack then I had initially hoped for. I’ve also been having some mild – moderate mid-back pain towards the end of my work day after sitting at my desk for the majority of the day.

The silver lining is that BodyStep and BodyPump are still feeling totally great, and I am okay for at least part of the Attack class (it’s more towards the end of the class after we’ve been jumping / running / bouncing for a while that the pain / pressure is starting to settle into my pelvis), so it’s not like I’ll be on a total ban from Attack either.

Believe it or not – I’m at peace with how things are progressing in the gym, for better or worse, and I’m resigned to make the absolute most of what I can do! Really!

Week 21 was another emotional roller coaster, and another productive one at that! I worked from home last Friday while we had our carpets deep steam cleaned and our vents / duct work cleaned as well. I was in the house for a little bit before kind of freaking out that I probably shouldn’t be around the noise / chemicals and barricading myself at our patio table in the back yard until I left to go and sub a BodyPump class.

I should mention that the lovely gentleman cleaning the carpets actually volunteered to drink the carpet cleaning solution in front of me because “that’s how safe it is Miss! 100% plant-based, non-toxic, seriously, look!”

I stopped him before shit got out of hand, don’t worry ;).

The other exciting happening from Friday afternoon was that OUR STROLLER CAME IN!! Wahoo!! We zipped right over to Snuggle Bugz to pick it up, and having it down in our basement is so exciting!!

Oh the things that now get me excited….how times have changed 🙂

Anyways, Saturday after my class Matt and I attacked the clutter in our basement with a passionate vengeance. This nesting stuff is the real deal, I’m telling you. I’ve never been so ruthless with purging in my life. I barely have to lay a hand on something in our house before it’s being tossed out the door. Matt had to wrestle his glasses away from me while I was on one of my tears through the book shelf. We ended up taking over 100 pounds of STUFF out of our basement and over to the dump on Saturday afternoon!

Nesting = 1

Clutter = 0

We still have a lot of purging to do both in the basement and especially in our storage room, but I can see the basement starting to take shape, and being down there doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to pass out from the stress of it all anymore. We have a ton of furniture that needs to come downstairs from our current office (and future baby room!), so we need as much space as we can get in there.

We had a pretty quiet night on Saturday, stayed in and made some “fancy food” (i.e. steak and seafood), and I was (as per usual) asleep by 10:30pm. My energy levels have been great during the day, and I basically feel like myself all the time, with the exception of the evenings, when I’m zonked and ready for bed by 9pm most nights.

Matt would roll his eyes and say that nothing has changed since before I was pregnant in this regard, but I’m the author, so I’ll write MY version of it 😉

Sunday, we did some more running around, including a stop at Babies ‘R Us to check out some of their crib options. We’ve had a favourite crib for a while now, but it isn’t sold in Canada in the right colour for us (white).

Seriously, who doesn’t make a baby crib in WHITE?! WTF?!

I’ve been calling everyone and their brother trying to find some way to get a white one shipped to Canada, but unfortunately it just seems to be impossible. So, I resigned myself to a second choice (still lovely), by the same manufacturer (Baby Cache), and in the end, I’m just as happy with the one that we picked.

We took my parents (who generously had offered to buy us the crib and our nursery room furniture) over to Leons and The Brick to show them a few other options on Monday night, and ultimately all agreed that the Babies ‘R Us crib was the nicest option. So we pulled the trigger on it – and the crib, dresser and change-top have all been ordered! WAHOO!

In a time when I feel like I can control so, so little, it does feel good to focus on the things that I can control / prepare for (or at least, that I feel I can prepare for). I’ve been reading a few different books about baby care and the 2nd / 3rd trimester of pregnancy (sheesh – why do they all make the 3rd trimester sound so scary?).

I’ve made the comment a couple of times that “I can’t wait for babe to be born so that I can stop living in fear every moment!”; which always makes moms laugh out loud. I know that the real worrying begins once your baby is outside of your body, but I have to say that I honestly can’t imagine living in more fear then I have been for the past 5 months.

I am not exaggerating when I say that 60 seconds does not go by in a day where I’m not thinking about / hoping that everything is okay with little babe. I am still hoping to make some progress in letting go of some of this over the coming months. I don’t want to raise a worrywart of a child, I really don’t, so I know I need to toughen up a bit 😉

It’s been a while since I mentioned food cravings (of which, I really haven’t had many to speak of), but I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve been loving anything HOT, HOT, HOT lately. Not spicy hot, I’m talking TEMPERATURE hot.

I think this started off with a fear of listeria and food-borne illness, and resulted in me cooking / heating the life out of my food, but now it’s gotten a little out of hand LOL Matt had to have a “serious-face” microwave intervention with me just yesterday when I gave a couple of chicken thighs and some green beans 4 minutes in the microwave…. LOL

I die….

Apart from this, I’m in a bit of a Cobs Bakery scone phase (I call BS on this being a pregnancy craving, those things are just damn delicious and I would never have let myself have them previously), and I randomly picked up and ate a Mr. Big chocolate bar from the grocery store this weekend.

Who do I think I am over here?!

Well – this post is turning into a behemoth, so I guess we’ll sign-off for this week. Week 22 is one that I’ve (randomly) been looking forward to for a while – and I’m looking forward to more purging this weekend.

Out of the way….nesting ninja coming through…..

Have a fabulous week!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

It seems as though my jersey wearing days are nearing their end….I think once the colour of your skin starts to show through the holes in the jersey, that you’re probably encroaching on “too tight” territory! LOL

Babe and my 20th week has been fairly smooth, the long weekend was a productive one for Matt and I as we finally got to get over to Snuggle Bugz and complete our registry there, and more importantly, picked out our gorgeous stroller and car seat! Wahoo! For some reason the stroller / car seat was really weighing on my mind as something I wanted to figure out on the double, so that felt pretty good to get sorted out.

I had a close encounter with a chipmunk on the weekend (seriously….don’t ask)….my crazy cat Blake had proudly dragged a bedraggled chipmunk into my parents as a prize for my mom, but when he dropped it at her feet, it jumped up and ran away in the house…. since I was the only one around to feed Blake this weekend, I was the one that had to find and free him from one of the traps they had set to try and catch him….I later nearly had heart failure because I never thought about virus risks from being exposed to wild chipmunks up close and personal, but hopefully all is well. Chippy lived to tell the tale and was set free outside, in case you were wondering…. lol 😉

We (read: I) also made some progress emptying a few things out of our basement…..but there’s still so much to do down there that it’s hard to feel like that was a victory at this point! We are having someone in to clean our vents and deep steam clean all of the carpets in our house (including the basement) this Friday; so we do need most of our stuff up and off the floor in the basement by then.

I’ve been feeling Babe more and more these days which is pretty funny; the most amusing part to me is his affinity to music! The times when he is most active are when I’m listening to music either in the car, or when I’m laying down or sitting still somewhere and there’s a TV on with music playing. It really cracks me up! He particularly seems to like Les Mills music (surprised? I wasn’t either), and gets pretty excited when I turn on my release music in the car en route somewhere or other. The sweet interpretation (courtesy of Matt) says that maybe he can tell that mama is happiest when she’s grooving to this music and that makes him happy! The anxious interpretation (courtesy of me) says that maybe he gets anxious when the music comes on because he doesn’t like the way I jump around when it’s on???

Sheesh…. 😉

In any case, it is a pretty big relief to be able to feel kicks throughout the day, and serves as a pretty effective ease for my mind that he’s doing alright in there and is still kickin’. Literally.

Next task on our list is to sort out a crib and nursery room furniture and get that stuff ordered / figured out. We also have some work to do sorting out what theme / design we want for the nursery….fun, fun, fun!! 😀

This week I’ve found my anxiety decreasing a little bit (not completely by any means, but headed in the right direction), but some new issues with body image coming to the forefront. To be honest, I’m totally perplexed by this whole pregnancy thing and what it means for my body. I still don’t feel like I really look obviously pregnant, which makes me a bit sad and uncomfortable, but I am definitely putting on weight, and just feeling like a bit of a stranger in my own body. I find myself more often than not dressing to try and hide my belly, as opposed to show it off. I’m still wearing my own clothes, but find maternity pants so, super uncomfortable (seriously – I JUST HATE THEM), that I hardly wear pants anymore at all, with the exception of leggings and Lululemon pants. I’m also definitely starting to slow down in my classes (at least in BodyAttack for sure anyways) as well, and feeling a bit sad about that.

I think I had an idea of what it would be like to be pregnant purely from a vain / cosmetic standpoint, but in reality, the way that my body is adapting to the whole thing is nothing like I had pictured.

As Matt once said about me, “You’re totally cool, as long as nobody messes with your ducks”.

And these days, I feel like I don’t even know if my ducks are all in the same pond, let alone in the neat little row that I had arranged them in!

In any case, I’m doing the best I can, trying to play it safe in the gym and dressing the best way that I can for right now. At the end of the day, all of this stuff is totally insignificant, and doesn’t really matter worth a damn to me, as long as sweet little babe is doing alright and progressing well in there.

This coming week should be a pretty Vanilla one (here’s hoping anyways!), with weekend plans to do some more work in the basement and hopefully finalize our crib / nursery furniture selection! I just can’t believe that by this time next week, we’ll be at the end of 21 weeks, and at the end of May! I know that the next couple of weeks are really critical ones for babe’s development, so I’m really focused on eating as well as I can and getting enough sleep etc etc

Hope you’ve all had a great Victoria Day weekend – only 2 more days until the next one!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

As I’m sure you could have expected me to say: the BodyAttack 96 filming rehearsal class was to die for. In the moments leading up to the class, I had felt a bit fatigued physically, my legs heavy, and my breathing a bit more laboured than usual. I should have known better than to worry, because the moment the music started, it was like I had spent the past 2 weeks sleeping in preparation for the class and I was ready to rock!!

Like I  mentioned in my last post, I loved how informal and approachable the filming team was. They were joking around with each other and with us for most of the class (I distinctly remember Lisa saying “Oh come on – I’m not your mother!!” at some point), and just seemed to be a really fun loving group. That being said, Lisa took the rehearsal class seriously as well, and was very particular about where she wanted people to  be standing on stage  in relation to each other, how they transitioned between moves etc etc etc it became very obvious to me very quickly how and why the BodyAttack DVDs always look so impressive and perfect in finished product!

I don’t think I stopped beaming the entire hour; I couldn’t have been any happier than I was in those moments (at least so I thought ;)).

I didn’t get the opportunity to chat with any of the presenters after class, but that was okay, both my mom and I were feeling pretty exhausted by that point, and we had both reached the end of our super human powers. 2.5 days, about 8 hours total of sleep, and about 2 meals in total had caught up to us, and we were both totally wiped and ready for bed (side note: it was only about 7pm at this point! LOL)

We trudged back to our hotel, me chatting my mom’s ear off about the ins and outs of the class that we had just done and her gamely nodding along, agreeing with me that it was “sooooooooo good” (lol). We had dinner at a very fancy restaurant right in our hotel, simply because we were too tired to go exploring anymore in the city. The restaurant was named “FISH”, and we both had just that (though truth be told, the restaurant was way too fancy for both of us, we really had no clue what we were ordering – but thankfully, it turned out to be pretty tasty!). The view from the restaurant was beautiful, overlooking the Auckland Harbour, and that was definitely the best part of the dinner for sure.

We passed out right away when we got back to our room with the plan to get up for Gandalf’s BodyJam 80 rehearsal class at 10:10am in Studio One.

What?

We were both up the next morning pretty early (still totally and completely confused about what time it was and what meal we should be eating LOL), had a quick breakfast in our room of the stuff that we had bought at the grocery store the previous day, and were out on our daily pilgrimage to the gym!

We got to know that walk so well over the next 10 days, I can still picture every turn in the road so vividly in my head!

We got to the gym (what we thought!) was plenty early for the Jam rehearsal, but it turns out that Jam is something of a hot ticket, and Studio One was PACKED!!

The BodyJam 80 rehersal class was amazing. Gandalf didn’t disappoint at all, he was as hysterical and charismatic as I suspected he would be. He had me laughing right from the beginning because I guess the regular Saturday morning 10:10am BodyAttack class had been moved that day into Studio 2 (yes – there is another huge studio at Les Mills Auckland!) to accommodate the BodyJam rehearsal class in Studio 1. Susan Renata was once again teaching the CXWORX class right before the Jam rehearsal, and Gandalf made sure to point her out and tell us that Susan was the GFM at Auckland City, and to thank her for moving the Jam class into Studio 1 because “the Attackers are a bit mad with her right now!” LOL….he then went on to introduce the warmup tracks as BodyAttack, and talk about how funny it would be if someone showed up late to class thinking  it was BodyAttack….too funny!

I couldn’t follow 100% of the choreography for BodyJam 80 the first time around, it was a bit hard for me to see the presenters feet (critical for do-dos like me in BodyJam – LOL), but I did my best to follow along and had an awesome time doing it! My mom also did the class with me and she did awesome as well!

After class, I absolutely made myself work up the courage to go up to Gandalf and introduce myself, and thank him for the class. I am a huge introvert and naturally very shy (I know, I know, hard to believe if you’ve taken any of my classes, but I promise, outside of the gym and without a microphone on my head, I really am quite introverted, and don’t make friends easily at all!), but I knew that this was probably my only chance to chat with Gandalf (maybe ever, in the 10+ years I’ve been teaching for Les Mills, he’s never been to North America!), and with a little prod-along from my mom, I just couldn’t miss the opportunity!

G was very nice, gamely listened while I babbled on about how amazing BodyJam has been doing in Canada (seriously – I’ve noticed a huge upswing in BodyJam in the past few years!), how truly talented and incredible our Canadian BodyJam instructors are, and how much we would love to see him in North America some time! I also apologized for kind of butchering the choreography in the rehearsal class, which made him laugh and say, “Oh my god, you are such a Canadian – why are you apologizing?!” We took this picture, and I was totally happy that I had worked up the courage for the whole interaction.

After class, we made our way back down into the main lobby of Les Mills Auckland where we made a quick stop into Platinum Sports to pick up some more Reebok gear for friends at home and for us as well.

As we came out of Platinum Sports, I noticed Amanda and Lisa across the lobby, they had just come from a BodyStep rehearsal class (or actually, it may have been another BodyAttack rehearsal class…I can’t be sure!). I had briefly connected with Amanda on Facebook before we left (she had done my AIM training for BodyAttack the past summer at Can Fit Pro), and she had said to be sure to come up and say hi when I got to New Zealand. Feeling slightly emboldened from my previous interaction with G, I decided to take her up on that offer and go up and say hello!

While I don’t think she recognized me at first (nor would I have expected her to!), she was super sweet, gave me a huge hug and welcome to New Zealand, and then tugged on Lisa’s arm to introduce me to her! I’ve met Lisa several times over the course of my worship instructing career, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually introduced myself to her by name or anything like that. It’s been more a steady stream of babble about “you’resoawesome, BodyAttackissoawesome, everythingisawesome, iloveyou”…….oh, that and misplaced comments about how her hair looks on the DVD…..sigh…..

Anyways, this conversation miraculously went so much differently! I asked how the rehearsals were going, and they told me a bit about their upcoming schedule (I had planned to attend the BodyStep rehearsal class the next morning!). Lisa then noticed that I had thrown on my TORONTO shirt that they had given out at Can Fit Pro a couple of years back and asked if I actually lived in Toronto. I said yes, just outside of the city anyways, and she asked if she could take a picture on HER PHONE to post for the BodyAttack 96 filming?!?!???! WHHAAAAAATT!?!??!?! Thank goodness for cool heads prevailing (read: my mom) and taking my phone to get a picture for me as well, because I totally was in mad fan-girl mode, and wouldn’t have thought of it at the time!

This picture ended up being posted to LISA’S Instagram account later that day – amidst a flood of texts and messages from my friends back home!! Ahh!! So exciting!!

My mom and I had the best day after our exciting Les Mills morning. We headed back to the hotel to get showered and changed, and then back out on the town. We had lunch at a really cute restaurant on the wharf named “The Crab Shack” which served freshly caught seafood, in a cool, pub style atmosphere, and were then on our way to cross one item off of my mom’s list: to see penguins while we were in New Zealand. LOL – oh how different our lists are!

There was a huge aquarium just a few minutes away by bus, so we hopped on the bus, and were off. As we drove, I couldn’t get over how absolutely stunning the lush green landscape and the water were. It’s just a bit staggering to imagine how much water was surrounding this little slice of land that we were on.

The aquarium was very cool, I’ve never seen penguins up close like this before, and we even found a 10 year old New Zealander who was an avid fan of penguins, and knew everything there was to know about them, who walked us through the whole exhibit!

We spent the rest of the evening at the Auckland City Sky Tower (kind of the Kiwi equivalent of our CN Tower in Toronto!). There is a casino up at the top of the tower (amongst other entertainment!), and I actually ended up winning a few dollars on one of the slot machines lol (cool – now just need to do that 100 more times, and I’ll be heading back towards the green for the overall trip! Lol!).

All in all, it was a truly great first full day in Auckland, and by the time we got back to our hotel room, I just felt so content, peaceful, and grateful. Similar to how I had felt when I got on the plane in San Francisco, I had never felt more sure that I was in the right place, at the right time, and doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing at that moment in time.

We made our game plan for the next day (BodyStep filming rehearsal class in the morning,  bit of exploring / shopping around the city and then the BodyJam and CXWORX filming classes in the evening!! THIS WAS IT!! Show time!!

So long awkward teenage years – and a big hello to the fabulous 20’s! I won’t keep you in suspense (although I’m sure that most of you already know by now)….

IT’S A BOY!!!!

I hate to say I told ya so….but…..

This week has been such a super fun one for all of us since finding out the gender last Tuesday! We were so excited for the weekend and for Matt’s brothers / girlfriends and dad to get into town so that we could finally break the news to them on Saturday!

I had gone back and forth over if I even wanted to have a gender reveal get together or not. I really didn’t want things to get too overblown, and I know people are so busy with their own schedules; plus with the shower coming up that’s yet ANOTHER day that we’re asking people to dedicate to celebrating us and babe (seriously, how selfish!). Matt had it just right (he normally does) when he suggested we just do a small get together with family, and it ended up being just perfect!

Matt’s youngest brother Troy and his girlfriend Amelia arrived at our place on Friday night, and we did a bit of running around to get some themed napkins, “Team Boy / Girl” paraphernalia and pink and blue punch supplies! There was lots of wagering on boy vs. girl, and it was so hard for Matt and I to keep pronouns out of the conversation when we were talking, especially because I’ve been referring to babe as “him / he” since Day 1!

The next morning was a bit of a gong show because (as per usual) I was trying to squeeze 26 hours into a 24 hour day, and went to teach my Saturday class before the party got started around lunchtime. There was almost a bit of a crisis where Matt wasn’t able to pickup our gender reveal cake from the bakery because we had our times crossed, but all’s well that ends well, and he ended up getting there just in time.

Phew.

Although my stomach had been majorly off earlier in the week, and I wasn’t feeling great going into class, turns out that babe just needed some tuck jumps, because I felt great during and after class, and my stomach seemed to settle right down.

I tell ya, the best drug there is!

After class, I showered and got ready quickly at the gym and headed right over to my parents where everyone was waiting for me to bring the guest of honour to his party! By that time Neil and his girlfriend Kaitlyn had also arrived and the BBQ was in full swing!

My mom had gone all out and got some boy / girl balloons to put up around the house, and I quickly noticed that the buttons that we had bought the night before were being well used and everyone was proudly sporting their team! I was actually quite surprised that there was almost an exactly even split between Team Boy and Team Girl – funny when so many people had told me they were on Team Girl leading up to the party!

We gobbled down our food pretty quickly because the troops were getting impatient to cut that cake and spill the beans once and for all! It was pretty funny to see them all get so antsy actually! JUST as we were finally about to get up and cut the cake, Matt managed to get a hold of his mom on her cell phone who told us that she was still 10 minutes away from home – so we had to wait! I thought we were going to have a mutiny on our hands! LOL

FINALLY, finally we managed to get Dianne and Scott on Skype and it was showtime! Unfortunately my WordPress platform doesn’t allow for videos, but if you’d like to see the video of us actually cutting the cake, the video is posted on my personal Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sara.fayed.

We all nearly died laughing when we watched the video back because my dad just sounds like he’s going to BURST with excitement, and is the first one to scream out “IT’S BLUE! IT’S A BOY!” well before Matt even pulled the slice out of the cake (guess he saw some blue residue on the knife?!). I think he will hear about that one for the rest of time!

The rest of the afternoon / evening was a lot of fun; in addition to Matt’s dad, Neil and his girlfriend ended up staying overnight at our place, and we went to do an escape room nearby our house which was a lot of fun! Turns out the four of us (well – actually, let’s be honest, the three of them, I’m not great at this whole escape room thing, although I do make a great cheerleader ;)) are pretty good at these things, because we have an undefeated record so far (2/2)!

The next day was Mothers Day, and Matt ordered me some lovely flowers from him and Babe (which through absolutely no fault of his own ended up being delivered the next day – poor Matt felt so bad about that 😦 ) and we spent most of the day down by the water at Spencer Smith Park, and then out for dinner with the crew in Oakville. It was a really nice weekend with family, and I was sad to see it end!

As we approach (and now technically are PAST) the halfway point, I think all of this is feeling so much more real for Matt and I! I also think that we are both starting to mildly panic about how unprepared we are at the house….there is SO.MUCH.TO.DO.

Big priority #1 is finalizing our research and test-driving a few strollers / car seats / cribs and baby room furniture and choosing the ones that we want for babe. Then….we tackle the storage room conundrum / disaster to make room for everything that’s currently in our office to move downstairs.

Gee golly I’m tired just thinking about it.

In general, I think I’m doing a little bit better at dealing with the anxiety of all of this stuff (the intrinsic stuff – the organizing / preparing externally doesn’t stress me out so much). I think as each week goes by I get a bit more confident that maybe I won’t totally screw this up, which is a nice thought (in an odd kind of way)…… here’s hoping, anyways!!

Well – hope that you all have exciting plans lined up for the Victoria Day long weekend, Matt, Babe and I are headed out to Kingston for my cousin’s graduation from the RMC on Friday / Saturday, but will be back in town Sunday / Monday.

Cheers to the 20’s!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

Helloooo baby bump!! As one my BodyAttack participants so eloquently put tonight “OH MY GOD, you’re so much bigger than last week!” …LOL, guess I better get used to that, and quick!! 🙂

This week has been a huge and super exciting one for all three of  us, so much has happened since my last update at the start of 17 weeks; it feels like that was a lifetime ago!

Firstly, Matt was away in Halifax from Monday – Friday of last week on a survival training for offshore platforms (he got dunked and inverted in a mock helicopter and had to escape through the windows – guy was in heaven!). Babe and I were on our own for the first two days of the week, and then an opportunity came up for me to pop up to Sault Ste. Marie for a few days with my mom to spend some time with my grandparents. I was feeling  tiny bit under the weather (just the very beginning of a cold), and I kind of liked the idea of taking a few days away from work and the gym, maybe getting a little extra sleep; plus I wasn’t sure that I would get the chance to see my Grandpa again in person before babe arrives in October, so a quick duffel bag packed, and my mom and I were on our way on Wednesday afternoon!

It was nice to spend some time with my mom on the drive up, we made great time and beat the sunset into Sault Ste. Marie (rolling in around 9:30 with the sun still shining…what?).

It was a great couple of days up North, the sun was shining brilliantly the entire time (a really refreshing change from the torrential downpour that we had had at home for the past 1,00,000 days – seriously, someone build us an arc), and it was nice to spend some time with my grandparents. I came down with a nasty headache that lasted the entire second and third day that we were in the Sault; but a quick call to my midwives hotline confirmed that I was good to take two regular strength Tylenol, which got rid of the headache right away.

My god, drugs are wonderful.

My mom had the great idea while my headache was at its peak that maybe we should pop into a Shoppers Drug Mart to check my blood pressure, which we did just for fun. Interestingly, it was substantially low at 123 / 59. My midwife wasn’t overly concerned, but I do think I’ll keep it in my mind to ask her about at my next appointment.

I got tons of sleep while I was in the Sault (and even got into the very dangerous habit of napping every day from about 2pm – 4pm…..who do I think I am?!), but my major challenge was eating. We were eating out quite a bit, and my anxiety over food safety is reaching an all-time peak these days. It’s gotten to the  point that I am so hesitant to trust any meat from restaurants, hot, cold or otherwise, and I’m sketchy about most salads / salad dressings as well.

That leaves french fries and breads, in case  you were wondering.

In all seriousness, I was eating a lot of carbs at meals simply because they were the only thing that I was fairly confident would be safe for babe. Stupid, I know; I can’t help it. I then started to have massive anxiety that I wasn’t getting proper vegetables / fruits in…… sigh. It’s a work in progress.

We trekked home on Sunday, where I finally got to see Matt after a full 7 days away! He was excited to see how much babe had grown in the week he’d been away.

Monday was a huge day for us all, as we had our 18 week anatomy scan ultrasound, and the ultrasound that could tell us the gender of sweet little babe! I was nervous going in, but more so excited to FINALLY find out if our guesses and intuition were right!

We had a different ultrasound technician then we had had the previous two times, and this one had slightly less patience for my Spanish inquisition, quickly telling me that she couldn’t tell me anything about how things looked or if babe was okay. I pouted about that for a while, but pressed on like a persistent chocolate lab at feeding time peppering her with questions about the heartbeat and the movement until I got her to admit (in exasperation – LOL) that yes, the heart was beating strongly, and babe was moving around.

Victory is mine – mua ha ha ha.

The tech quickly delivered some very sad news; that babe was in a bad position for her to be able to tell us the gender on that day. I know it’s silly and superficial, and really in the end it doesn’t matter to Matt nor I, but we had both been looking so forward to finding out on this day for so long that we were both pretty bummed by this news. I asked her if I could try to do some jumping jacks (which got an eyebrow raise from her, but I did them anyways), but babe was perfectly comfortable right where he / she was and wasn’t budging.

Sigh….strong conviction, this little one! We’re in trouble…..

Despite being disappointed, my heart melted to see babe sucking their thumb in one of the ultrasound pictures…..sweet baby…. take a look!

To make a long story short, after much deliberation at home, we decided to make one last ditch effort to keep our small family gender reveal get together on for this weekend, and book a 3D ultrasound at a private clinic for the next day. I was skeptical because I wasn’t convinced that babe would have moved by then, less than 24 hours later, but figured we may as well try.

Today at lunchtime, Matt met me over at the 3D ultrasound clinic; holy cats, what a difference from the medical building we’ve been going to! This place was F-A-N-C-Y, Iggy Azaela style! You could tell that the clients here are paying, not the government, that’s for sure! 🙂

The technician was the exact opposite of a Supreme Court judge; she was  this big, soft, super warm and friendly European lady with short blonde hair, and right from the get-go, I knew that we were in for a good experience! She crooned away at how great babe looked and how cute they were on the ultrasound right away (I foolishly beamed away with pride laying there – as if I had anything to do with this, and as if she doesn’t say this about every 18 week old fetus that she lays eyes on LOL). The BIG news though is that…..

SHE COULD TELL THE GENDER RIGHT AWAY. 

Shut.the.front.door.

I was so shocked that I don’t think I was even ready for her to say it right away, but she did and that was it! We know! We finally know!

We have our gender reveal for our families (Matt’s dad is miraculously in town this weekend, and we are hoping his two local brothers can make it in with their girlfriends as well); so I’ll hold off on sharing the gender for this week on the blog – SORRY!! You can expect the big reveal first thing next week though – Scouts Honour!!

And here we are! Today was my first Attack class back since my trip and everything felt good, it felt great to be back in the studio and moving again.

Well – this week has been a marathon for updates, so I think that’s all for today folks. 19 weeks starts tomorrow, and I’ve got my eye anxiously on the 20’s! Babe and I  will be glad to move pasts the 20 week milestone and start working on the second half!

Hope you’ve all had a great week! Chat soon!

-Sara & Babe xo

Okay, full disclosure, this 17 week picture was taken at the BEGINNING of the week, it’s a slightly different story now! The belly has officially popped, and 18 weeks will be much more prominent!

This week has been a fairly uneventful one for us, no appointments or changes to report, no major developments in terms of symptoms or anything like that. All of this NON-activity has paved the way for me to invent some stuff to stress out about. Sigh.

Top of my anxiety list this week has been a rotisserie chicken club wrap that I ate from Swiss Chalet….cold chicken….what was I thinking??? I haven’t been able to stop Googling the symptoms (or even more terrifying – the lack thereof) of listeria poisoning, and have been super stressed out and full of anxiety that I’ve done some harm with that damn cold chicken. Ugh. Everything I’ve eaten since that day I’ve scalded my mouth on because I won’t eat anything unless it’s piping hot now. Sigh again.

I’ve also been a bit stressed about sleeping positions these days, I’ve been struggling to stay on my side overnight, and quite often find myself waking up on my back (which isn’t supposed to be the ideal position for baby – or  for me right now really). I’ve had a bit of pain in my lower belly / pelvis when I wake up like this, so I’ve also been a bit paranoid that this sleeping position is causing babe some kind of distress too.

Sigh for the third time.

My mom has been totally shocked with the amount of information that is available to pregnant women these days, particularly on the topic of what foods to eat / not eat. She had never heard anything about cold chicken (or deli meats / cold meats in general) during her pregnancy, never worried about sleeping position, soft cheeses, exercising, or really anything at all that’s been totally plaguing my mind since well before I even found out I was pregnant. Drinking and smoking were the two big no-no’s, and that was pretty much it at that time.

And look how great we all turned out 😉

Long story short – I’ve been dealing with a huge amount of anxiety this week, and I really wish that I could find a way to let go of it all. Or at least some of it.

On a much brighter note, 5 MORE DAYS UNTIL WE FIND OUT THE GENDER!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!! We’ve been counting down the days for what feels like FOREVER – and we’re finally down to the final 5…AHH!!! I’m still firmly on Team Boy, but I’m dramatically outnumbered by people that are feeling like it’s a girl! We’ll see if mother’s intuition is really a trump card or not 😉 We honestly don’t care what gender it is, both have so much fun stuff about them, but really happy and healthy is all we want.

On another bright (or at least – interesting!) note, I wandered over to Thyme Maternity this past weekend to look at maternity clothes for the first time! Most of my pants have been fitting pretty uncomfortably so I decided it was time to bite the bullet and check out these maternity pants that I’ve heard so much about.

It was an interesting experience that’s for sure! The store had a “fake” bump that you could velcro around your belly so that you can try on the different pants / outfits with a bigger bump (want a sneak peek of babe and I at 30+ weeks? Check it out below – LOL).

I didn’t find the pants overly comfortable, but I think I’m still kind of in the awkward stage where I don’t have a big enough bump to actually hold the pants up properly yet, but my own pants don’t really fit properly either.

Dresses and Lulu leggings for the win! 🙂

ANYWAYS – we are planning a really small gender reveal get together with our local family for Saturday May 13th, so the big secret will be ours to keep for 5 days after we find out….eeks! I’m not great with secrets, so we’ll see! 😉

For now, we’ve officially gone public with the news, and it’s been so wonderful to be out in the open with everyone and not hide our wonderful news anymore!

Hope you’ve all had a great week, and here’s hoping for a more peaceful mind for this mama in week 18!

-Sara & Babe xo