25 1/2 weeks down and 100 days to go!!

Last weekend we did a lot of baby stuff! Did a tour of the second hospital in town and made our decision on which one we will be using. That will make my doctor's office happy as I have at least 3 people ask me about that at each visit. Basically, both are nice and I'm sure are fine but one you labor, deliver, and recover in the same nice sized room with pull out bed for father, the other you labor and deliver in one room, then about an hour later are moved to another room for recovery. I do not want to be moving around, neither does Justin, so that really pushed us to our decision. We did our first "baby stuff" browsing at 2 local baby stores, which really overwhelmed me with the amount of crazy baby stuff that is out there and the costs!! Just the bottle aisle at Target was insane--how many types of bottles could there really be?! Justin was much calmer. :-) We also went to a CLOTH DIAPERING Class!! Yep, that is right, we are going to try cloth diapering. I will say it is way more advanced and user friendly than when my mom was folding giant diapers up for my "everything gives me a rash" hiney. It greatly disturbs us to think of the number of diapers in our landfills (the 3rd largest type of landfill waste) and the fact that they will be there for over 500 years. And certainly some people will try to argue the use of water and electricity for cloth diaper care, but I'm not going to get into that here. :-) We will also likely hang most to dry, which cuts down on energy used and how cute will nice clean diapers look on the clothesline drying in the breeze?! And I am frugal so the cost of disposables over time hurts my feelings also. There are 4 main types of cloth diapers these days and we are going to probably use a combination of 3: prefolds, fitted, and pocket. We will be registering at a local Athens store for these if anyone wants to contribute to the cause. :-) Check out these cute, not to mention as easy to use as disposables, cloth diapers:



Baby Y is one busy dude!! He is moving all the time now! If we are patient and watch, we can also see him move my stomach when he is dancing around in there! Very cool and a little odd. :-) He isn't keeping me awake or anything yet, but I can imagine as he gets bigger and is still so active it will be interesting. We also found our crib set (baby comforter) at Tractor Supply Company. Hee hee. I was there to get birdseed for my dad and found one with a farm theme and John Deere, which will go perfect with the room already in place. Not to mention it was way less expensive than the crazy (but cute) ones I have seen in the stores and online. They cost more than our comforter set!! And since they really shouldn't use the bumpers til they are older and same for the comforter, you are really paying for a sheet they will pee/spit up on. Guess I shouldn't work in advertising for any baby crib set companies. :-)

Speaking of keeping me awake, I am having a horrible time trying to sleep now. I have some tendonitis in both hips, which I found out a few years ago when I was jogging more. Sometimes they just ache when I am trying to sleep. Now that I cannot sleep on my back or stomach, I have to alternate sleeping on my sides, which has now resulted in crazy aches. All night I have to switch back and forth, and the hip that was hurting when I was laying on it is still hurting when I turn on the other side and makes it very hard to sleep. My doctor told me to put a pillow behind my back so I'm not fully on my back but more tilted to one side. I was doing that with a regular pillow but that wasn't working too well so I went out and bought a wedge shaped pillow to use. Course the wedge is probably a little to big for what I need it for, so I am sleeping all kinds of wacky now and poor Justin gets to wake up every time I'm rolling around and moving pillows and such. Yesterday was awful because I was folding clothes and packing up some things and was sitting on the floor for a few hours and that did a number on my lower back and my left hip was aching all morning. Already falling apart and still have 3+ months left!!

I am planning to get a 5 session photo shoot from some great local photographers, http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/, which includes a Maternity (i.e. giant belly) session, newborn, 4 mo, 8 mo, 12 month shots of Baby Y plus two albums, storyboard of all the baby sessions, and 20% off all other prints. It is a little expensive for me (but they are actually doing a special so it is a bargain) so it is my birthday gift to myself. :-) Check out their baby shots, it is addicting!

Here is the most recent belly shot taken by famed photographer and super husband, Justin: