Paint! Finally!!

After many weekends of work, my husband finally finished flattening the walls in the baby room. He also installed  new insulation in the attic, which is accessed through the baby room closet, so our house will be toasty warm (and nice and cool in the summer) just in time for baby’s arrival.

So… colors. About a month ago, we went down to a local paint shop that carries Benjamin Moore paint. I like their selection of colors the best, but their prices are quite high, so we just wanted to get swatches there and then take them to Home Depot to be color matched.

After debating and consulting friends, we settled on Glass Slipper, Polar Ice, Summer Shower, and Lily White (from House Beautiful Magazine) all by Benjamin Moore. Then, I headed to Home Depot to get some little $3 sample jars so we could paint swatches on the wall.

The room isn’t primed yet, and it will take several coats of primer and paint because the plaster used to skim the walls sucks up the paint like a sponge, but here’s an idea of what the colors would look like on the walls.

I wore a heavy duty mask, so as not to inhale paint fumes. Sexy, huh?

We painted little abbreviations of the colors under each swatch so we’d remember which was which.

Watch out!

Ok, so here they are. From left: Summer Shower, Lily White, Glass Slipper, and Polar Ice.

And the verdict? We ruled out Glass Slipper right away because it was much too gray. Polar Ice was next to go because it was too dark. Now, we’re left with Summer Shower and Lily White. We both keep going back and forth between those two. They’re very different, but we like something about both of them. We have to decide soon, though, because we’re hoping to get it painted before Christmas (oh please oh please).

So, what do you think?

Here a picture of just those two without flash.

Wow, you can barely see Lily White in this one… maybe that’s a sign?

Tell me what you think. And we don’t have time to go get more samples, so it has to be one of these.

I miss my friends

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My online friends, that is.

When I started blogging about our struggles TTC, so many women reached out to me who were also facing similar challenges. I bonded with these women over the internet and still follow their stories, as documented online. A few of them are now pregnant, but many are not and my heart aches to think about the pain they must be feeling.

Now that I’m pregnant, I know many of them no longer read my blog. How could I blame them? I remember I didn’t unsubscribe from any blogs of pregnant women during my year + of TTC and I hated myself for it. Every time I’d see a post by yet another pregnant woman, so many emotions would flood through me: longing, anger, jealousy, despair. This goes for social media, as well. I even wrote a post about how hard it was to see status updates about the aches and pains or even the joys of pregnancy. I always thought I’d be different when I was pregnant - I wouldn’t be like them. Haha… well, I’m sure you see what I’ve turned into…

I do try to be mindful about things I write in posts and status updates, but this is my life! It’s impossible to censor everything while still being honest. Plus, I want to document this time in my life so I can look back years down the line and remember how it felt to be pregnant for the first time. Also, I have every right to experience the joys of pregnancy, just as all women do. I have to remind myself of that everyday: it’s ok to enjoy this. It’s ok to feel so happy inside I might burst. And it’s ok to write about those feelings.

Right?

While I’m sad that I no longer have these connections with other women who are still struggling with infertility, I am happy that I’ve made new ones with other pregnant women and even moms. And I know one day my old friends will join me on this new journey.

Gender Reveal

Did you hear? It’s a BOY! We are so excited. I’ve been having a hard time working the past couple of days because all I want to do is look at baby boy clothes and toys. Read all about how we told our families here.

There are some things I learned from our little gender reveal weekend that I’d love to share with you all, in case you’d like to do something similar one day.

1. If baking isn’t your specialty, leave it to the pros. I had a great experience with Crumbs, but I’m sure other bakeries would accommodate similar requests.

2. Skip the cupcake flags or any other decoration that might accidentally reveal the filling early. Cute it theory, but not practical.

3.Choose dark colored frosting. I wanted chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and frosting so people had a choice, but the white frosting didn’t hide the blue filling that well. I’d do all chocolate if I could go back in time.

4. If possible, get both sides of the family together for the reveal. It was fun to be able to do it twice, but it was hard to keep the secret for the side of the family that had to go second (and friends who were dying to know). It would have been so much fun to have both families find out together – the more, the merrier, right?

5. Enjoy yourself! Any time I plan something like this, I have a hard time relaxing and enjoying the moment once it arrives. If you’re anything like me, try to take a deep breath and remember what’s important – celebrating with family and friends!

Would you ever do a gender reveal party or gathering?

What do YOU think?

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Can you believe we haven’t peeked inside our envelope yet? In a short 24 hours, we will know whether our little nugget is a boy or a girl and I CAN’T WAIT!!! I might have to go out and buy something for him or her right away…

Unfortunately, I can’t share the sex of the baby online until Monday because my husband’s parents won’t find out until Saturday. My Friday bump post is going to be tough to write because I will know, but I won’t be able to share quite yet.

Care to take a guess, though? Let me know in the comments and we’ll see what the majority thinks!

For the record, my husband thinks it’s a girl and I have no clue, though every baby dream I’ve had it has been a boy…

Halfway There Photo Shoot!

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On Monday, we went to get our second trimester screen with a perinatologist. As of that same day, I’m 20 weeks pregnant! Halfway! I seriously can’t believe it. At this time last year, I thought all of this would never happen for me.

At the appointment, the ultrasound tech did a lot of looking and measuring and it was so incredible to see everything. We could even see the blood pumping through the cord and into the baby! We have two ultrasound pictures so far, one at 7 weeks and the other at 11 weeks. We walked away from this appointment with about 15 photos, though!

Want to see a few? I hope so!

I think this is 3D (or 4D, as it on the upper right of the picture), which is very cool because I wasn’t expecting to get that fancy with my $10 copay. Can you see the face? It’s sort of smushed into the placenta (I think) and there’s cord floating around so it’s a bit hard to see.

Here’s a nice profile shot. Love it!

My favorite – a little foot!

Here you can see the hand with five fingers!

This one is strange, but I think it’s pretty cool. You can see the lens of the eye. It’s a small circle and the little mouse hand is pointing to it. See it? Looks like the Terminator.

And here’s a view of the face from straight on, which looks like a sideways skeleton.

We told her we wanted her to write down the sex for us, so at the end she had us look away while she looked at the genitals and filled out the cards I made. After she was done, she gave us the envelopes and said that she printed out a picture and put it inside for us! We didn’t even ask for that, but I’m so glad she did because we were a little sad to be missing out on seeing the genitals. That seems strange now that I’m writing this, but it’s our baby and we wanted to see everything that we could!

I took one of the sealed envelopes to Crumbs Bake Shop today and ordered the cupcakes we will use to tell our families over the Thanksgiving. Our envelope is hidden because I don’t trust my husband to not peek before his birthday (I trust him with important things, don’t worry). I have a feeling we’ll open it the night before his birthday/Thanksgiving because we won’t be able to sleep! Come to think of it, I probably won’t be able to sleep either way. If we open it before bed, all I’ll be thinking about is baby clothes and nursery decor and imagining what our little one will look like.

While it’s hard to wait an extra week to find out the sex of the baby, I’m really glad my husband and I will have the moment alone to share. It’s less pressure this way and we’ll really be able to enjoy the moment without thinking about what everyone else is feeling. Only 8 more days!!

Baby Binder

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My husband is the king of the library. He has a long commute to and home from work each day, so he likes listening to audio books in the car. Once we saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound, he started checking out audio and regular books on all things baby. It’s pretty adorable to see his latest read about fatherhood in the bathroom with his page marked.

Around the same time my husband went baby book crazy, I read a post on Bee Kim’s blog about how, with her first pregnancy, she wished she had prepared less for the birth and more for dealing with a newborn and breastfeeding. So, on my husband’s next trip to the library, I tagged along and picked up some books I had heard about and some I thought would be worthwhile to check out.

Some of the books had some information I knew I would want to refer to later, when the baby arrives, but since they were library books, I decided to make some copies and put together a binder with all the most important info I think I’ll need later. I put some extra dividers in the binder so I can add to it throughout my pregnancy and I think we’ll also use it for the baby’s important information like doctor’s visits.

Here are the books I liked best:

Baby Wise is a popular book all about scheduling. While I would really like to avoid being one of those parents who freaks out over my baby’s schedule getting disrupted, I do see how important a consistent schedule can be for the baby and the parents. This book claims that 8 week old babies can sleep through the night! I know this idea is controversial and many people think babies that young need to be eating in the middle of the night, but I’d like to try it out as long as my baby is gaining weight appropriately.

The Happiest Baby on the Block focuses on calming baby’s cries and keeping him or her content. It outlines a method using the 5 S’s: Swaddling, Side/Stomach (not for sleeping), Shhhhing, Swinging, and Sucking. This method is supposed to help the baby feel the comfort of the womb and they emphasize matching the baby’s vigor when doing one or more of the 5 S’s. For example, if the baby is crying very loudly, the Shhhhhing should be just as loud. The book doesn’t advise using these methods to put the baby to sleep, just to calm the baby.

The Nursing Mother’s Companion is just what the title suggests. While husbands may giggle at the illustrations of engorged breasts, the visuals really help someone like me who has never breastfed (and is terrified). I’ve heard that reading books about nursing isn’t enough to prepare a new mother for the challenges (a lactation consultant coming to the house seems to be the best thing to do), but I like to be prepared and reading about it now helps me get my mind ready (I had a dream last night about nursing and it came very naturally to me).

The New Natural Pregnancy is a bit granola for me, but it has some really great exercises that my favorite prenatal yoga teacher does and since she’s in South Africa for a few months, I copied some of the pages so I could do them myself. It also has some good illustrations for massage, hint hint hubby.

What are your favorite books on pregnancy and infant care? I’d love to add to my binder!

The SAHM Fantasy

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I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom, or SAHM. My mom worked a lot as a restaurant manager when I was a kid and I always wanted her to be home when I was done with school. She often had to work on Christmas and Easter and I’d spend those holidays with family and sometimes eating at her restaurant. It was hard for us and I always knew I wanted something different for my family.

See the date in the corner? That would’ve made me about 7 months old.

When choosing a career for myself, I decided to become a teacher not only because I loved it, but because I knew the schedule would be ideal for raising a family. However, now that I’m faced with the reality of going back to work after having a baby, I’m realizing it isn’t as ideal as not working at all.

Unfortunately, we are not in the position financially to lose my income. I know that I’ll have to go back to work in August when the baby is about 4 1/2 months old and I’m very aware that I’m lucky I get so much paid time off (6 weeks will be a half pay and the rest will be full pay since it will be summer break). However, I know it’s going to be very challenging for me to leave my baby at daycare or with a babysitter and go back to work. Any time someone asks me what our plans are for childcare, I tell them I’m not ready to think about that yet. We have time, I know, but I’ll also admit that I’m in a bit of denial.

I am actually 18 weeks now, but this is the last weekly photo I took.

I have this fantasy that my husband will get some incredible promotion or job offer where he’ll suddenly make enough money to replace my income so I won’t have to work. I dream that maybe some fantastic opportunity will fall in my lap where I’ll be able to work from home and still make the same amount of money without needing childcare.

Earlier today, Marissa wrote about how Harry Potter didn’t know his mom, but still loved her and it got me thinking about why I want to be a SAHM so badly. I realized that I’m not worried as much about the baby handling me working as I am about me handling it. I know that our child will be just fine growing up with two working parents. I only had one working parent and I think I turned out alright. Sure, I wanted my mom home more, but I didn’t love her any less because she worked. It’s possible that I loved her more because of everything she had to go through to raise me!

Image by The Caldwells Photography

I do know that it will be really hard for me, though. Every time I come home exhausted after teaching teenagers all day with stacks of essays to grade, I think, “How will I be able to do this with a baby at home?” I honestly can’t imagine being able to give a baby the love and attention it needs when so much of my time and energy is devoted to my job.

For now, though, going back to work is the plan and I had better start getting used to the idea because the way time has been flying by lately, August will be here before I know it!

Nursery Paint Colors

Someone wonderful got me a subscription for House Beautiful magazine recently and I get so excited each time I see a new issue in the mail. In the latest issue, there is an article about paint colors that look beautiful in every light. I had an idea of the direction I wanted to go for paint colors in the nursery, but this article came at the perfect time to solidify two great possibilities.

One thing I wanted to keep in mine while choosing paint colors was that they should go well with the rest of the house. Remember our living/dining room color? It’s a dark purple. Our entryway is now a light gray and our kitchen and hallway will be the same color. Our master bedroom is staying white, due to the paneling, and my husband can’t stand painting another room, so our office will stay sage green. I remember when we were looking at houses to buy and there was one with a PINK room, a BLUE room, and a YELLOW room. Each one screamed it’s designated color and the whole effect was a bit nauseating. I’m hoping to avoid that same vibe, but I still want to have fun decorating.

For a girl, I wanted something with a peachy-pink hue, but I didn’t want it too girly. This is one color that was featured in the House Beautiful article and I really love it. It looks a bit different in the magazine, so I hope the name is correct!