Ralph Lauren Style

One thing I will say about finding out I was having a boy- 

I was a little sad with regards to clothing.

Boy stuff is terrible!  

Unless I was to import all his clothes from Europe- OMG there stuff is so cute!  

I have totally thought about doing this with one of my besties living in London,

I do not want my child in monkeys, or in stripes like he belong in jail!

I dislike shirts that say Mommy's Little... 

Really our men can dress well with some help and so can little boys!

 

Before we found out what we were having I gave Joe warning that if it was a boy it was going to be the preppiest boy ever!

Which I think was ok with Joe because deep down inside he felt the same way I did. 

I love everything Ralph Lauren when it comes to everything boys!

So what does the best husband ever do....

 He took me out to buy his coming home outfit which is ADORABLE!!!  

Thank GOD we live far away from the Leesburg Outlet Mall where there is a Ralph Lauren Baby because I would be in trouble.  

Cribs... MTV style!

Ok well not really. 

The show CRIBS on MTV came to mind while we were listening to a sale rep tell us about the tenth crib my mother and I looked at.   Yes all the houses on CRIBS are cool but they are houses- my thoughts on cribs.

Yes there are so many different types of cribs and brands but they are all cribs and if they are safe and serve the purpose then what is the big deal. Right?

A couple weekends ago I went out crib shopping with my mom. 

My parents are helping us out with bug's crib which we are so thankful for, so I wanted my mom to be involved in the process. 

3 hours later my brain was fried!

We went to Buy Buy Baby, Babies R Us and Baby2Teen in Manassas. 

I was on crib overload. 
And who would have thought that there would have been 5 different shades of white.
White is white damit!

The only thing I really had set in my head was

1) We wanted a convertible crib that made into a toddler bed AND a full bed

2) We wanted a white crib

3) We did not want to break the bank!

So my review on the stores:

Buy Buy Baby

Springfield VA- 

Small selection in store. 
I think we counted about 15 cribs.

Very helpful staff

Honor 20% coupons on furniture.

$100 for delivery up to 5 pieces

$30 to assemble the crib

Spent 20 minutes in the store

Baby2Teen

Manassas VA- OVERWHELMING

If I had to do it all over again, I would not go here.

They have about 50+ cribs. 

Cribs randing from $1300 was the most expensive we saw to $250.  CRAZY!

The cribs here were by far the most expensive when you compared to the other two places and this place does not have a tendency to have many coupon offerrings. 

Very helpful however, really did not have anything that I liked. 

$140 for delivery and assembly

Spent 20-30 minutes

Babies R Us

Chantilly VA

Again small selection in store- 15-20 cribs

Had a Babies R Us crib magazine with all the cribs in it which included colors, sizes, etc- this was very helpful.  Difficulty finding a staff member to answer some questions but once I did very helpful. 

$75 delivery fee,  $30 crib assembly fee. 

Honors coupons on furniture and often has crib specials. 

Spent 20 minutes- most of that was waiting on the sales rep to ask questions

After spending 3 hours between three places I came one with three "favorites" as I would call them. 

We measured first to see how they would fit in the room- yes the cribs were different sizes and also the dressers varied significantly.  The actually brought the "favorites" down to two as one of the dressers was too tall for me to use as a changing table- yeap I am short! 

So then what does my husband do- he figures out the area to price ratio of the cribs and the dressers. 

Seriously, I wish I could have recorded this for bug to see one day. 

Totally made me laugh. 

Then pulled out the saftey rates on both- both good. 

After about 15 minutes of discussing- we had picked our crib. 

 Baby Cache Heritage White Convertible Crib from Babies R Us

 What it looks like in an actual room.

We went into order both the crib and the dresser and the crib is on back order until Mid to Late November which means they won't even let you order it.

So we decided to also wait on the dresser as well.

Hopefully by the end of this month they will be ordered .

Yellow it is....

We had our Ultrasound today which by all means was pretty cool.

Seeing bug move like crazy.
Any does Bug move- so much that the ultrasound tech was having fun!

Finding out everything was normal and going as planned.
I left out a deep sign of relief.

I know too much sometimes for my own good to the point I have tried so hard to normalize everything but when you work in high risk OB this is hard to do.
After all- all Joe and I would like is a healthy baby!

It is amazing to me that every time I have an Ultrasound I get a little teary- particularly because I do not consider myself emotional at all.  

Bug was not something I even thought I wanted but I totally love bug and you are not even here yet.  

Since we have known the sex, I find it funny that many major wonderful life changes in my life has been caused by the same gender.

I became a sister when I was 5 years old to a little brother and I could have not asked for a better brother.

I became a wife after meeting a man who amazes me every day and continues to support me in all of my decisions.

I became a puppy mommy to the cutiest little puppy ever who has taught me so much about being happy and about letting go!  

All these men changes my life is amazing ways......

Which is why bug- I know you will too.

You will forever and always be

Our little boy!


I am destined to be surrounded by loving men...
Which is not a bad thing!

Totally love that Clemson is in the background of this one!

Happy 21+ weeks!

Hi Bug

Sorry both your Ultrasound appointment and your prenatal appointment got canceled this week due to Hurricane Sandy so I thought I would still write my entry even though your next prenatal appointment I could not get until almost 23 weeks.  

Second trimester- I have loved you.  

Nausea and Vomitting

Stopped around 17-18 weeks and I have not looked back. 

Still have a weird appetite- craving fruit and small meals.

Still hating anything meat =0(

Fatigue

I have really absolutely no complaints expect I have noticed I get tired more easy and it can hit me out of no where.  One minute I will be going full Laura speed and then then next I am crashing. 

 Fetal Movement

I have started to feel you move every day which I totally love and can't wait until Joe can feel you kick.  You are going to be strong I can tell =0)

Hopefully this means you will be strong physically and not hard headed like both your father and I.

But only time will tell.    

Pregnancy ....

Still fitting in to my clothes so no complaints in that department either- however, I know one day I am just going to pop and then it will be time for maternity clothes. 

For the record- I heart leggins.

I have decided they were invented by pregnant women!  

I also heart that low rise jeans, bubble shirts, and dresses with leggins are still in style- 

thank you for keeping me in normal closes longer. 

I did order a Bella Band from Amazon for my jeans along with a bra extender which I know I will probably eventually need but hoping that both will help me stay in my normal clothes a little bit longer.  

However... there is a tiny bump!

Tomorrow is hopefully the big day!

(Assuming another hurricane or earthquake or any other natural disasters does not hit the area!)

Ultrasound day!

See you tomorrow bug!

Baby 411

Of all the advice I have recieved up to this point- which actually has not been a lot,

(I think people figure since I am a midwife, I should know everything about pregnancy) the best advice was to read Baby 411 by  Denise Fields and Dr Ari Brown.

With two days of nothing but rain rain rain, I thought this would be a great time to dive into the book.   

So while I do not feel like I learned a tremendous amount from this book I did learn a little particularly sleeping and eating habits that I really am not the most up to date on.  

I did like how the book broke things down for you in an easy reading fashion.  

I could have done with out a couple of the sections particularly the Common Diseases and Common Infections but all in all it was a pretty good book.  

I do wish they would have dived into a little bit more about 

Alternative Vaccination Schedules but this is something I will just have to research on my own, 

and to be honest I already have it at work but it would be nice for mother's who are not in the medical field and do not have time to research but are interested in alternatives.  

I also liked how they reviewed the most popular books on Baby's Sleeping. 

I have found that one mistake new mom's make is they read every sleeping book on the block and then have so much information that they are overwhelmed.  

I kind of already knew what book I was interested in but this helped to reaffirm my thoughts and also let me know about the other books/methods out there.  

 

Fortunately, I was going to borrow this from a friend when my patient told me she had an extra one because she had recieved two as baby gifts. 

Score one for me!  

This is definitely a book that I will like to have around the house for easy reference- 

both for me and Joe.   

This is a book that if I had to pay for - I would in a heartbeat.

Totally worth having!

 I highlighted sections that I felt I would use the most and tabbed them for easy reference.

Even easy to read for Dad...

Guess now eventually it will be on to readying my book about Baby Sleep....

 

Rain Rain Rain

Rain Rain Rain Go Away.....

So it's offical- they called to cancel my Ultrasound for today due to the weather.

Which to be honest is for the best, as driving to Loudoun in the pour rain/wind is not on my list of things to do while I am pregnant. 

It was rescheduled for Thursday so hopefully another natural event won't take place again.

Anyway....

Happy Rainy Day

Pink or Blue?

As I sit in beautiful St Augustine Florida sipping on my Coke Zero, which at the moment is my splurge,  I am thinking tomorrow about our Ultrasound.  

I have been asked non-stop the last three weeks- pink or blue.

My response of course is Yellow and Gray.

Because I really as long as it is a healthy baby- Joe and I are over the moon.

This journey has been so wonderful so far, and we are so lucky!

Yeap tomorrow is the Big Day!

We will be getting our 20 week Ultrasound. 

Yes I will be technically 21 weeks but it was the only day I could arrange it without taking off of work.

If you know me, I hate waiting!

So lucky for us a co- worker scanned me at work, placed what we were having in an envelop and sealed it up for me and Joe to open if we felt the need.  At first we thought, maybe we wont find out the sex, after all it really does not change anything for us.  But having the envelop was just too much temptation.

So two weekends ago, while sitting down reading the paper and having breakfast on Sunday, we opened our envelop.  We are so excited to know what bug is.  

It totally makes it more real for me especially since we already have names picked out.  

However, we decided to wait to our official ultrasound to release bug's sex to the rest of the world.  

Why you might ask? 

Well first of all being a midwife I know that the 20 week Ultrasound involves so much besides the sex.  

They look at the brain, heart, everything- and a healthy baby is really all Joe and I could hope for. 

Also, it has been kind of a bonding experience for us knowing the sex two weeks before everyone else.

So tomorrow will be the day (hopefully permitting my appointment is not canceled due to Sandy!) that we will find out what bug will be.

All I hope is for a healthy baby and that our appointment is not canceled!

Stay tuned......