34 Weeks Pregnant

34 weeks! I feel so close to meeting her and I'm so excited!

Baby is as big as a....

Yes a Butternut Squash..

And I wouldn't be surprised if she was longer than one. Her head is way way low and her feet mostly reside in my rib cage :)

This week the baby can actually recognize songs that I play around her and react to them. Super neat! Also kind of gross: she's peeing about a pint a day all around herself! lol.

So in week 34 I got over my kidney infection. Yay! Nick and I focused pretty hard on getting the baby room ready. Buying all the stuff we didn't get from the showers and putting it together. There are a few tiny things that need to get done before I can post pictures of the nursery. But I just love it. It's my favorite room in the house and Nick worked so hard to make it perfect I feel so lucky that our daughter gets to be in such an amazing environment with so many cool things.

This week I had a weird pregnancy symptom (itching all over) so I ended up calling the Dr about it and I set up to have blood work this past Friday. It turns out my bile acids are elevated indicating that I have Cholestasis of Pregnancy. This effects aprox. 1 in 1000 pregnancies and is kind of scary. Basically what's happening is my liver is not functioning correctly. My body is producing bile and my liver can not process it so the extra bile stays in my blood stream and can move through the placenta to the baby. Baby's liver can not handle the bile so it can lead to some issues. Overall it's not super dangerous it just changes some things... I need to maintain a healthy low fat diet, I am no longer going to be able to have a natural occurring labor, I will have to be induced, I am not allowed to birth in the natural birthing suite that I had planned on, I am still seeing my midwives but start seeing a new ob in addition to them on Friday, I got for non stress tests twice a week as well as once a week blood draws, I get an ultrasound once per week starting Friday and baby girl will definitely be an October baby.

Not going to lie, this news has been rough. But I'm starting to realize that life does not give a shit about my plan and I need to accept that. I'm working on it. I want what is best for Arya. What's best for her would have been a normal pregnancy and a completely unmedicated natural birth. But under  these circumstances we are now considered high risk and I'm willing to do anything/go through anything to get her out and into our arms okay.

During my kidney infection my weight jumped up pretty high, but it has dropped back down. I was really swollen during that time so I'm guessing it was just water weight. My total pregnancy weight gain so far is 32lbs. I haven't been exercising much at all except for cleaning my house and constantly running errands. And the last time I measured my waist was 44 inches around, prepregnancy was 29 so that's quite a difference!

Here is my belly this week on the left is my belly from Saturday and the right is my belly on Sunday. It appears as though she is starting to drop!

<3

Cloth Diapering

Here is most of our newborn diaper stash. I say most because we are registered for diaper covers which will complete our newborn diaper stash and can also be used for quite some time after the newborn stage. 

So first why don't I address what's going on here in the first place. These are cloth diapers. Not your mom or your grandmas cloth diapers. Most cloth diapers are now designed to be comfortable for baby and convenient for parents. There are many different kinds of cloth diapers to choose from and I have a good chunk of them but there are others. For more information check out DiaperJungle.

Next you might ask, "why the hell would you use cloth diapers when there are disposable diapers available?" And for that question I have 3 answers and then 1 other reason that honestly doesn't matter to me as much as the others.

1. Cloth diapers are extraordinarily economical

If we did not have a baby registry and we bought all of the diapers/accessories ourselves we would end up spending approximately $500. An estimated cost of diapering a child from birth to 2 years old with disposables diapers is somewhere between $1500 - $2300, that does not include wipes or diaper creams ect.

2.  Cloth diapers do not contain harmful chemicals

Most cloth diapered babies never develop diaper rash! Plus here's an article about the lack of regulations and such on disposable diapers. Many of the absorbent gels they use in disposable diapers they wont even allow on feminine napkins (aka pads and tampons) if it's not allowed on my vagina I'm not okay with it being on baby girl's.

3. They're really stinkin cute

Okay not an amazing reason but I'm just being honest.

Oh and there's 4. The environmental impact of disposable diapers. I don't want to contribute to the world turning into the trash ball featured in Idiocracy.

Also this.

Because it's funny and it's one of the reasons why we decided to reproduce.

Onto the stuff!

My newborn stash will fit baby from 5lbs to between 16&18lbs depending on the diaper. But by that time she should fit into her Onesize diapers which I'll talk more about in another post. We have pocket diapers, all in one diapers, fitted diapers, prefolds and soon diaper covers.

In addition to cloth diapers we will also be using cloth wipes which in my experience work sooooo much better than disposable wipes.

Here are all of the diapers listed from least expensive to most. 

Prefold diapers will be used with a Snappi to hold them in place and then a cover ontop.The ones I picked up are GMD Clothe-eez and are made of unbleached cotton.

Here's what they look like before washing and after 6 washes. And then an example of a Snappi.

I wanted to have a few kissaluvs newborn fitted diapers because they're supposed to be super absorbent, trim and practically leak proof.

I love the low rise for the umbilical stump as well.

Next we have some size xs Fuzzibunz pocket diapers. These diapers resemble and work almost just like disposables. They do need to be stuffed with an insert and you can change which insert/how many inserts you use depending on your baby's needs. 

And finally some AIOs (all in one) which work exactly like a disposable diaper. There is no stuffing no folding. Some use velcro closures some use snaps. I wanted to try a few so I got a small variety.

Kissaluvs

Cotton fleece blend

Swaddlebees

Owl print with organic cotton inner

Thirsties 

These have 2 sizes to get maximum bang for your buck.

I would love to have an entire stash of AIOs because they are the easiest and they do have extra room to stuff if you absolutely need it. But AIOs are the most expensive diapering option. Having 24+ AIO for each stage would come close to defeating my reason #1.

And that is what baby girl's bum will be covered in from day 1. A lot of people think cloth diapering is crazy gross and weird. From my experience so far with friend's baby's it is none of those things. Cloth diapering is going to help keep money in the bank and my mind at ease. I have absolutely nothing against parents who choose disposable diapers for their babies, this is just my preference. If anyone is interested in cloth diapering their baby but has no idea where to start feel free to comment/message/call/text me! Not that I know everything about it because I don't. But I've been researching cloth since we decided to have a baby i know quite a bit but there's still a ton that I have to learn!

23 weeks pregnant.

I'm 23 weeks pregnant! There's not that much time left before little one gets here! And she's getting big and strong in there! She's now as big as a...

And my uterus is now as big as a soccer ball! Woah!

This week my biggest symptoms have not been very fun. I started having leg cramps in the night :( Thankfully I'm so used to having them normally that I can usually react quickly and prevent them but right now the muscles in my calves are soo tight it's uncomfortable pretty much all of the time. Symptom number two is extreme pelvic and hip pain! I've always had issues with my hips when I'm really active so that doesn't surprise me it's the pelvic pain that's really freaking me out. I don't know if it's normal to experience it this intensely this early but thankfully I have a Drs appointment this upcoming Wednesday where I can ask her about it and possibly set up an appointment with a chiropractor.

This week we got our crib set! I am so excited! I absolutely love this set. It's just pretty without being overly girly. The last thing I want is for my baby girl to be bombarded with a ton of pink frilly shit all over the place every day of her life and I think I've been successful in avoiding just that.

I'm still doing my exercises most nights of the week. I've also been reading "Natural Childbirth for Dummies" and I've incorporated some new moves that are supposed to help prepare me for labor. I think I'm going to post my workout routine on the next blog for any other interested preggos. No signs of stretch marks yet and I'm still using my Angel Baby Earth Mama Natural Stretch oil which I've been using every night since I was about 6 weeks pregnant. I'm now up to 11.7 lbs in total weight gain. I was retaining a lot of water up until today but now I seem to be pretty much back to normal.

Here are my belly shots this week. The first 2 are what I get when I ask my husband to stop what he's doing and take belly shots of me. The next 2 are my mirror shots and now you know why most the time I just do mirror shots ;)

<3