Mat leave week three: 33 weeks pregnant

Apologies that I'm a tad late on the preggo

diary post this week, but it's just been soo busy! I had my baby shower on Saturday (thanks again to everyone who came/helped etc. Love you all) and I have also been on two day trips since then. I thought I would be bored and lonely on maternity leave, but my calendar seems to be full at the moment!

So. General achievements this week.
Baby shower. Check.

Look what my family made! ITS MY PRAM ! <3 and half the cakes had been eaten by the time I got to take this...

Stool reupholstering. Check.

So proud of this! I am also still rather trigger happy from using the staple gun.

Quality family time. Check. Trip One with other half's mum and sister to the charming Axeminster fair, where I may have purchased a new teacup. And milk jug. And restrained myself from buying at least two whole teasets. Mama is broke yknow!

 Trip two was with Rob to stay at my mums house overnight, and then today we went to Bird Land gardens in the Cotswolds. Lovely.

My little sister loving the penguins! It was mad how close they were. Feel a bit sorry for them in this hot weather though.

I also went out with Rob's mum for some more baby things. She bought us a crib so baby now has somewhere to sleep! Yay!

The crib we got.  It rocks and also has a locking mechanism and is small enough to fit down the side of our bed. And its preeeetty!

I am so glad we finally bought the crib, it was really put my mind at ease in being that little bit more prepared for baby's arrival. Not to mention all the wonderful baby shower gifts! I have now sorted those into 'ready for iminent use' - clothes, blankets and a couple of toiletry type bits, and 'save for laters' - toys, teddies, larger bits and bobs, because we just don't have the space for much at thr moment. The save for laters are going to join my pram in storage at my gran's house for now.

So after such a busy week I am pretty tired out! Which doesn't take much these days. At my ante natal class on Thursday we had this scary physio lady come to tell us about pelvic floor exercises (don't ask this part was traumatising), posture and labour positions.  She basically made us all feel bad for not doing our pelvic floor exercises and then even worse about pregnancy posture (turns out EVERYTHING that is remotely comfortable is now banned. It is bad for your pelvis don't you know). Getting comfy is difficult enough these days, but now I have Scary Physio Lady echoing in my ears whenever I do something she told us not to do. Baby is now the weight of a pineapple apparently, so its not easy!

I also got to have a sneaky peak at the ages of all the other women in my ante natal class which was interesting.  At the first class I did get the feeling I was the youngest person present and the list of names confirmed my suspisions. I'm the youngest at 20, the next youngest woman is 23, then 29, and everyone else is in their 30s and a couple in their 40s. I think maybe it's some sort of new thing to have babies at an older age? Cosmopolitan would have us beleive that we are all feminist career women these days and this seems to prove that. Maybe it's just the area I live in,  but it seemed that a few years ago everyone was starting young. I don't know.

Enough of my waffling any how... I must wander in search of food... pregnant woman must feed every two hours.

33 week belly photo!

Mat leave week two: 32 weeks pregnant

I can't believe I have been out of work for two weeks already, the time is flying by at an alarming rate. I'm really hoping all this hot weather doesn't continue,  as I dislike hot weather at the best of times and I don't like the thought of caring for a newborn in the midst of a heatwave.

We spent the day at Download Festival yesterday, and although we were disappointed we weren't getting to camp out this year I was very glad to come home at the end of the day. Things tire me out easily these days, and by 7pm I was feeling like I'd had enough and wanted to go to bed! During the day the sun was scorching hot so I spent alot of it watching the main stage from the comfort of a camping chair beneath my umbrella.  When I wasn't trecking back and forth to the toilets that is.

Skindred were the best performance of the day although headliners Avnenged Sevenfold certainly didn't disappoint. 

Not used to people's reactions when I wear this top, most people just want to compliment me on it but I end up getting annoyed and thinking WTF IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE WHY WON'T THEY STOP POINTING AT ME. I'm not that huge,  am I? ;)

Its getting quite difficult to spend much time in certain positions now, like standing up and walking (resulting in breathless bouts of Brackston hicks, sore back/pelvis and sciatic nerve pain) sitting upright (for some reason really hurts my ribs) or just sitting on flat seats (numb bum!). Not that I'm complaining actually,  because I feel pretty great. For the first time in my pregnancy I have actually started to feel really excited and impatient for baby's arrival and just want cuddles with baby now. Who, by the way is getting quite large (apparently the size of a kale. What?!) And very very active although baby always has been, the movements are now quite monumental and even painful at times.

But I started my DIY projects! The first one is lining my dresser drawers with wall paper, because all of baby's things are in those drawers and as it's old the wood is a bit rough and splintery in places.

I managed to get some really pretty paper from B&Q, so I'm quite pleased with it. I will have to find more uses for this paper because I definitely have more than I need and it's too lovely not to use. I also bought some fabric for reupholstering my little stool, but its not thick and hardy like I originally planned. I found a lovely black embroidered chinese silk and fell in love with it, I not only bought more than I need (for other purposes I haven't decided on yet...) but I am going to have to be careful on how much the stool gets used now because the fabric is quite thin and delicate. Pics of that one soon!

And lastly my 32 week belly photo :) think I will make a GIF with these once baby is born. Shame I haven't done them for the whole pregnancy but I'm only actually just feeling confident enough to do it!

First week of maternity leave

I'm now 31 weeks pregnant! Wooo! And as this week comes to a close so does my first week of maternity leave. I wanted to start a sort of maternity leave diary as firstly a countdown until baby arrives, and secondly to keep myself motivated and looking forwards at a time when things are probably going to go rather slowly and be very frustrating for me. So I need things to stay as positive as possible :)

Some interesting pregnancy developments, my feets and hands are now so fat I can't wear rings anymore, and I have to fold the elastic of my socks back down over my heel or else they dig in and make painful indents around my ankles! Baby is now so large (apparently the size of a coconut? I don't know if thats supposed to mean weight as they are meant to be about  41cm long?) I can now feel every little movement going on in there, I can tell hands and feet apart and baby has a tendency to stick his/her bum up and out on the left side of my belly button. I've been having some Braxton Hicks, which aren't painful but just make my belly go especially round like a ball and really hard. Although I have been having some back and belly cramps which may or may not be related,  I'm not sure. My belly button is now starting to look rather ugly; I had my belly button pierced years ago but let it heal over when I had problems with keloid scarring which was really gross and I ended up with a bit of a lump on the inside. Well now my belly has stretched the scar has doubled in size and gone purple, and where the lip of my belly button has started to push out I have a weird fold where the inside scar is. Yuck!

But on the plus side I have accomplished so much this week, it has been very productive indeed and I'm feeling quite proud of that. I finally ordered my pram (I'll include pics when it arrives) as well as bought lots of useful bits and bobs too.

Eco disposable nappies and nappy sacks!

I am really pleased to have come across these in Boots, as I'm actually planning on using cloth nappies, but I know that when a newborn goes through 15 nappies a day it's not going to be as easy as it sounds. So this is my solution for the in between times! Yay! They are made from GM free corn based films, so natural and renewable sources,  and contain no nasty chemicals or fragrances.  They are a Swedish brand, are FSC approved AND recommended by the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association (yay for astmatics with eczema like me!) so can't wait to try these out.

And I also scored a total bargain in Asda. Check out this dupe for a John Lewis cot bedding set!

The top one is my set from Asda, which included the quilt and the cot bumper for £28. Plus you can buy all that other matching crap too if it takes your fancy. Although in real life the embroidery isn't quite that bold and dark looking. The bottom one is the John Lewis version,  in which all is sold separately at £35 EACH. So in stead of paying £70 for the set, I got the Asda one for less than £30. Heres to savvy mummy shopping!

Sorry for the long post, just feels like I have so much to say this week! Plus I have so much more time on my hands... but more on that one next week ;)

P.s here is my 31 week belly photo that I almost forgot.