28 weeks

28 weeks pregnant (4/1/12)

Time for a little update on how things are going getting our house together/getting ready for baby! I made this to-do list in early February, so 2 months later, here's where we stand:

To-Do List Before Baby
1) Jack's Room: Buy big boy furniture and move Jack from nursery to big boy bed in his room - Jack is sleeping in a big boy bed in his room now! I still want to buy a new dresser, hang curtains, and put artwork up, which may or may not happen before baby!

Initial set-up pre-big boy bed

New set-up with big boy bed

2) Nursery: Decorate nursery to welcome new baby - I'm way ahead on this one. I knew what I wanted, so I bought bedding, moved our downstairs rug upstairs, purchased/hung 3 canvas prints of flower photos Jacob took, painted Jacob's childhood dresser green, and painted C-O-R-A letters to hang. I still need to get curtains (I'm thinking two long green panels), buy a lamp, and fill the dresser up with baby girl things :)

Initial nursery set-up when Jack was in here in crib

Nursery set-up for Baby Cora

3) Dining Room: Finish decorating - we need bar stools, at least one piece of furniture to sit on, and to hang pictures - We bought bar stools and a new rug to replace the one we moved upstairs. We still need to decide if we want furniture for our empty wall and hang pictures.

That is the wall that could use furniture/pictures, but we like the stools/rug progress!

4) Our bedroom: Find places for this pile and turn this corner into a nursing/reading/relaxing nook with a glider + ottoman


Pile is gone, but now we've got our old changing table there which we need to sell on Craigslist. I really do want to get a roomy, plush chair/ottoman but brand new these are about $1,000 and there are competing projects!

5) Porch: Clean off our porch and start using it - meaning buy some porch furniture


It's definitely cleaner! Our April project is going to be to hire someone to stain the entire porch so it will have a nice finished look. We then need to decide on furniture. If money were no object, this would be easy, but the challenge is deciding exactly how much we want to invest in our porch furniture. This is our priority project bc Jack loves being out here and I want to get some comfy furniture so that me and baby will love being out here too!

6) Backyard: Test our backyard for lead, remediate if need be, landscape, possibly put up a back fence, and make it a place that will be fun for Jack to play outside this summer.

Jacob has spent hours working in the backyard (check out before and after pictures!). He sent soil samples off for testing so we're waiting on results. He is working with a friend landscape architect to design what our outdoor spaces will look like, but plans include a chicken coop (which Jacob built), a large garden, fruit trees, and a playyard for Jack.

Before

Now

The "coop"

7) Baby Supplies: We only NEED new cloth diapers, upgraded changing table, a toilet bowl sprayer, a double stroller, and some girl clothes.

We upgraded the changing table! Nadeau had beautiful wooden changing tables and since our particle board shelf old one kept breaking, we went ahead and bought this one. It's so big and roomy - it's like the Cadillac of changing tables! We also were given a toilet bowl sprayer though it is not installed yet. My mom and I have added a few cute things to Cora's wardrobe and we've gotten 8 diapers so far (probably need closer to 25 total).

The Cadillac changing table

Week Twenty-Eight Stats:

How it feels to be pregnant at 28 weeks: Overall, I'm feeling better than last week. My backache has been coming and going throughout the week so I alternate between feeling pretty good and wincing when I move. Same for contractions: most days they've been very infrequent (like 15 across the day) whereas Wednesday and Thursday they picked up, especially during parts of the day (had about 35 total each day). I have a sense this baby is long because I feel lots of jabs simultaneously on opposite sides of my body (and I think she's head down).

My healthy pregnancy intentions for last week (how I did):

1) Start reading Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way to get a refresher on what we learned the first go-round (yes! Read chapter 1)

2) Do all 4 Bradley exercises three days this week (Yes!)

3) Get my glucose screening and my shot of Rhogam since I'm RH-negative (Yes! Will probably get results this next week)

My healthy pregnancy intentions for this week:

1) Do all 4 Bradley exercises three days this week

2) Read three more chapters in my Bradley book

3) Midwife check-up (we went to every 2 weeks which I will continue since I'm now in the 3rd trimester)

4) Cook 3-4 healthy meals for my family