In the Home Stretch

So here I am...a few days shy of 30 weeks pregnant and with a little over two months to go before we add another little person to the house. It's hard to believe we're approaching the end already. At the beginning, nine months seems like such a long time, but it passes so quickly.

I'm feeling great right now. The second trimester was a breeze compared to the constant icky stomach and fatigue of the first. In the last few weeks, I feel like I really popped, and I'm definitely feeling pregnant. I get tired a lot faster (especially at the end of the day), and I've had to slow down at the gym a bit, but nothing too bad. Really, the worst thing right now is heartburn. I'm lucky that I never experienced heartburn until I was pregnant with Lily. And once she was born, it thankfully went away. But in the last week or so, it's come back. But I guess if that's my biggest complaint, I'm doing pretty well.


As we come closer and closer to the 35-week mark when pre-eclampsia presented last time, I find myself constantly looking for little indicators and trying to remember when things started last time. My blood pressure seems to be ok if a little odd (133/60 at my last appointment, which seems like the oddest number in the history of blood pressure), but that was really the last indicator last time anyway. I am optimistic, however, that I'm still currently wearing my wedding ring and I haven't had to buy new shoes. I don't remember exactly when I needed to buy a temporary ring or the shoes that I can no longer wear because they fall off my feet (an extra size and width were needed), but I don't have any swelling yet. I'm sure as the days warm up, particularly near the end, this might change, but for me, no swelling is a great sign. At my last appointment, the exact words from my doctor were "ridiculously normal." Even though my last pregnancy was the same until that fateful 35-week appointment, I'm taking that as a good sign and trying not to think about possible problems.

Since we moved Lily into her new room, I've been working on sorting her old clothes for any gender neutral items that could be reused and getting the nursery redone. I also finally did some baby shopping for a few more outfits, and of course, I made kimonos.

The second attempt was actually a disaster. Don't ask me how the second time doing something can have a result worse than the first try, but I managed it. But the third and fourth attempts turned out great. (I actually have enough of each fabric to make one more of each if anyone is interested.)

The nursery is all but finished. The main wall is painted and so are the drawers and knobs for the dressers. When I painted for Lily, I did stripes in three colors. Since we used the good paint that covers awesomely, I decided we didn't need a primer. I almost second-guessed myself after I did the first coat since it was definitely still striped. You couldn't see the colors underneath, but it looked like sateen bedding. As it dried completely, the stripes went away, so I think it was just how it was drying on the different types of paint. If the sateen stripes had stayed, it would have been a semi-cool effect, but I was glad they disappeared in the end. I still have a couple crafty things to do for the other walls, but final decisions haven't been made yet, so they'll have to wait a little while. But I wanted to let ya'll see how the painting turned out now or McBean may be 6 months old before I get around to posting it. (Hey, I can admit my shortcomings...) I'm super happy with how it turned out, despite the little trauma we had cutting the board in the middle to the right lengths. Let's just say we had to buy a second board and leave it at that.