The home stretch

Well, I know it's been awhile. I may as well admit that I'm not good at keeping up with a blog. But, I have this week off, so maybe I'll just blog every day since I'll have the time. Baby Ethan is due on Friday so Mark and I are just sitting around and waiting now! We've got the nursery all ready, his car seat in the car, bags packed, clothing and diapers washed and ready to go. Now we're just waiting for him to show up! I was a little sick over the weekend, vomiting and other nastiness, but I'm feeling better now, and I'm trying to take it easy, as hard as that is for me. I never take this much time off without having plans like going out of town or something, so this is going to be hard for me. But, my brother is in town, and I have lots of projects that I have wanted to get done, so maybe I'll have the time to do them now. Oh yeah, and it's Christmas, so there's that too! It will be a nice break from sitting all day making jewelry(which lately has been killing my back). The photo above with the henna art on my belly was taken at my baby shower about a month ago, so I was about 34 weeks there. Mark and I took some pregnancy photos a couple of weeks ago at my dad's studio, and that was a lot of fun.. I'm about 37 weeks there. I know, lying down I barely look pregnant, but trust me, I am! Our organic baby mattress came today that my brother bought for us. So we put the mattress protector and sheet on it and folded his blankets up and made the crib look all pretty :), even though he won't be sleeping in it for awhile. Not sure how long it will be before he makes it to his own room. We'll just see how everything goes. Also, we received an adorable newborn shirt from my Grandma from postivelyorganic.com in the mail. Thanks, Merrylynne! We were also able to get all of our Christmas presents wrapped and put under the tree today. It's amazing what you can get done with a whole day off! I think that this is the earliest I've gotten done Christmas shopping and wrapping presents ever. Normally I'm wrapping presents the day before or day of Christmas. It's nice to see presents under the tree before Christmas!

Tomorrow, my family is coming up to cook some lasagne for us to freeze for postpartum meals and eat dinner with us. My mom's also going to make some gluten free cakeballs. If you haven't had cakeballs yet, you should! They're so good! Yesterday my mom, sister and Kerry came up to my house and cleaned it from top to bottom, dog hair and all! Thanks guys! It's stayed pretty clean so far. Then Mark and I went down to Jason's mom's house to eat dinner and play Mexican train dominoes. It was a lot of fun! After leaving there, Jason and Tamara came back to our house and we watched Wanted with Angelina Jolie. Tamara and I both fell asleep in the middle of the movie, but apparently it was pretty good! I wish I could have stayed awake to watch the whole thing, but sleep is more important at this point.

Well, I had a midwife appointment on Friday and was told that I'm about 2 cm dialated and 80% effaced, which is a good thing! Maybe this kid will actually be born on his due date. But, I know that whenever he is born is the right time, regardless of when that may be. Well that's all I got for today. Maybe I'll post again tomorrow!

belly photo

Me at 28 weeks!

Yeah yeah...

It's been awhile, I know. Life got in the way. Well, I'm currently 29 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good. I had been exercising in the beginning of the pregnancy, then sort of slacked off for about a month. Last month I joined a gym, because I decided that paying for a gym membership was the only way I was going to keep up with exercising. My mentality is, why pay for something you aren't going to use? It's my motivation, what can I say? I've been hitting the gym about 4 times a week, and the days I don't go, I try and go outside and take a long walk. If I plan on having this baby naturally, I sure want to be in the best shape possible. Speaking of the baby, we decided on Ethan as a first name, but we have yet to determine the middle name. Maybe we'll save that for after the birth. We have a few ideas, but nothing solid yet. Any thoughts?

My only complaint right now about my pregnancy is heartburn. I've been dealing with it for about a month now, but it's just recently started getting worse. I've figured out some of the triggers though and for the most part have tried to avoid them. Cooked tomatoes, most citrus, and greasy foods cause the worse heartburn, while dairy products and eating small frequent meals seem to help quite a bit. Oh, and the best remedy of all thus far is Tums. Hopefully they will continue to work effectively over the next 11 weeks.

I've begun to think about the birth more now that time is dwindling away. Surprisingly, time seems to be moving faster than I expected. I mean, I can't believe I'm already in my last trimester! I have been thinking about whether I want to have a water-birth, what kinds of foods I'll want to have with me while I'm laboring, what labor will feel like, how long I'll labor before going to the birthing center, whether I can handle the pain, etc. etc. Luckily, the child birthing class starts at the end of this month and lasts until less than two weeks before my due date. As much as I know that preparing for birth is not exactly the same as studying for a test, the preparation classes seem like they will be comforting to me and will help me feel more prepared.

Baby Ethan seems more real to me now that he is running low on room and I can feel him move around inside, switching positions, pressing on my ribs, kicking my bladder, and playing games with me. Occasionally, I will press on my belly and he will press back. Oh and let me tell you, when he gets hiccups, it's the most irritating feeling ever. The rhythmic patter of hiccups when I am trying to go to sleep is so obnoxious, but I am trying to enjoy this stage while it lasts, because before long, he won't be living inside of me, an experience that I've come to enjoy. I know that the last trimester may be a different story. I may be so sick of this that I can't wait for him to be in my arms and not in my belly anymore, but right now I'm savoring it. I also have been trying to fight the guilt of sleeping too much, not keeping the house in spic and span shape at all times, like I used to try and do, because I know in a few months, my life is going to completely change, and I'm no longer going to have the luxury of sleeping until I wake up or the time to keep my house looking Martha Stewart-worthy. So, I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

As far as cooking goes. I'm so glad that the nausea went away at around 17 weeks. Food has made me happy again like it used to. For months nothing sounded good and I only ate because I knew I needed too, but now food, especially the tasty treats that I get from the farmer's market every week make me drool again. This last week, my sister brought me some persimmons, butternut squash, apples and sweet potatoes, as well as bacon and eggs..my weekly must. Let me tell you, it's hard to compare store-bought produce to locally grown, fresh produce. Bursting with flavor, it's difficult to go back to buying an organic apple imported from Chile from the grocery store, after savoring an apple grown less than 50 miles away. With the butternut squash and sweet potatoes, I made a soup:

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 onion, chopped
6-8 cups chicken or vegetable stock (depending on how long you cook it and how thick you like it)
thyme, black pepper and nutmeg to taste
2 tbsp olive oil

sautee onions in olive oil until translucent

add squash, sweet potatoes, stock and seasoning and cook until vegetables are tender. scoop the veggies from the pot into a blender and blend until smooth, adding some of the liquid in if it's too thick, then transfer back to pot and continue to cook until hot. Do not add salt before tasting it. I did this and it became too salty, so I had to water it down. You can also garnish with a drizzle of fresh cream. yum!

Tonight I am preparing some chicken bone broth from the chicken I got at the farmer's market. After it's done cooking, I'll freeze it for later use in soups, stews and as a base for rice. I love homemade chicken stock! If you want instructions on how to make a bone broth, let me know.

Well, that's all I got for now. Hopefully I'll update in another week or so. I want to get back on track!

a quick view of our baby's room

This is a video that we took the other night to give everyone a look at the baby's room

I'm not very good at this blogger thing

I posted a single post for photos because I am not very good at posting multiple photos and add text also. So, here's what's going on in my life! I am currently 22 weeks pregnant. We had our sonogram about a week ago and it revealed a happy, healthy baby boy. I was a bit skeptical about trusting the sonographer's conclusion that it was a boy, but she assured me that she's 100% sure, and hasn't been wrong in 25 years. Plus, one revealing photo definitely makes it clear that he is in fact a boy. So, with the sex figured out, Mark and I have been hashing out names and haven't settled on one yet. A couple that we both like is:

Jacob Henry or Henry Jacob
Ethan (no middle name figured out yet, but I like Henry, Emery or William)

A few that we like but have no middle names figured out for is:

Carter
Emerson
Cael
Bryan (maybe)
Blake
Emery
Caiden

And that's about it right now. I can't think of anymore that we both absolutely loved...and trust me, I've tried! Anyway, the photo below was taken a few days ago..about 21 weeks pregnant. I can't believe I'm halfway there already. I don't think I even look 5 months pregnant. Crazy!

Pregnancy photo and sonograms

more local finds

So my sister has been going to the farmer's market in Coppell (a bit of a drive for me, so I gave her money). My mom, sister and and I have started a mini cooperative by buying local meat, eggs and dairy. Shelley lives the closest to Coppell, so she has been driving out there every week to pick up a fresh supply of milk, eggs and meat for all of us. The great thing about these farms is that most of them are organic, free range, and grass fed, something that has been important to my whole family for as long as I can remember. Growing up, we raised goats for their milk. My mom thought I had a dairy allergy, so we decided to try out goats milk instead. I tolerated it pretty well, and the thought of having milk that fresh again was very intriguing. It's been so long for me, that I literally forgot what fresh milk looks like. I forgot that when you buy a gallon of milk in the grocery store, that it has been heated to nearly 280 degrees, homogenized and standardized...even organic milk (gasp!). Shelley couldn't say enough good things about the way this milk tastes so I had to give it a shot. One thing that amazed me was that she told me that this particular minimally processed cow's milk didn't seem to affect her asthma at all. She had gone off of dairy weeks prior thinking milk was the culprit of her constant asthma symptoms, and it helped, but she decided to branch out and try really fresh milk, and voila..no problems. If any of you haven't seen fresh milk, it looks like regular whole milk but with a layer of fat on the top. This is because fresh milk has not been homogenized; a process in which milk is separated from the fat and then put back in in uniform amounts to create store varieties like 2% and1% milk. Milk is then pasteurized by heating it to 280 degrees to destroy bacteria. This high heat also destroys many of the benefits of milk too, such as live cultures. This particular milk that we purchased was only mildly pasteurized to approximately 165 degrees, just to the point of killing the bacteria but preserving the nutrients, and is non-homogenized, leaving a silky layer of fat on the surface of the milk, which can be removed or shaken up into the rest of the milk for a creamy treat. I also purchased a dozen free range, cage free, antibiotic free eggs (I like to call them happy chickens), sliced smoked ham (made from organic pork) a whole chicken for roasting and a pound of ground beef from a grass fed cow. This morning I decided to sample some of my purchases, by making scrambled eggs mixed with a little milk. When I cracked the eggs open, it took me back to my childhood. We used to raise hens for meat and eggs as well. The difference in the yolks is amazing. Store bought eggs usually have light yellow yolks, but these fresh egg yolks were a deep rich orange color (which I can only imagine is a good thing based on the taste) and when combined with a little fresh milk created a taste that was not even comparable to anything else. All it needed was a little fresh ground pepper and a dash of sea salt and I had a truly local, organic meal. This week I will prepare the chicken and ground beef and will probably blog about that too!

Okay, so enough about food (can you tell I like food?) I began to feel the baby kick about a week and half ago. It was pretty neat. Mark was able to feel the kick this morning for the first time but said "it doesn't really feel like a kick, it feels like a pulse or something." I assured him that it was indeed a kick he was feeling, but the baby is still small so it won't be as intense as it will be later on. Right now we keep referring the baby as "it" this and "it" that, because we don't know the sex yet. We will be finding out a week from tomorrow though, so then we can refer to the baby as the correct gender. It's funny..depending on what I'm wearing depends alot on whether I even look pregnant. And as the day progresses, I look even more pregnant because you know, I've been eating all day. By night time, I look way more pregnant than I do in the morning. I really have no idea how much weight I've gained because I don't have scales, so I will be finding out in a week how much I have gained. I really don't think it's very much. It's not that I don't eat, cause I certainly do eat! I think I just haven't hit that mark in the pregnancy when you start to gain weight more rapidly. I'm still wearing my regular clothes with one exception..jeans. I just can't tolerate them anymore. It's not that they don't fit, because a lot of them still do, it's just that pressure of the denim seam that my belly doesn't like. So, I've been wearing a lot of roll down waist pants and long tops, as well as skirts and dresses( and I'm so not a dress person).

Well, that's all I got for today. I'll post again later...it may be next week after we find out the sex!