Look what I can do!

Its my own built-in table. (nb check out how fat my face is getting.. although I did have a mouthful of toast I was trying to conceal..)

32 weeks

We had a great time in Blenheim at the weekend. Here you can see Phil getting some practice in, holding our nephew Joe (4.5mths old).


We came back with a car full of baby stuff! A chest of drawers for baby's room which Mum and Dad had spare, LOTS of clothes and knitting from various family members, a capsule carseat from Frank and Em which Joe has just grown out of, an awesome quilt that Mum made (will take a photo of it later to show you) and some of the old fashioned smocked dresses that I used to wear, including this gorgeous one:


We've been so spoiled, its seriously amazing how much people have given or lent us.
We have decided we can't afford professional preggy pics, nice as it would have been, plus my belly is getting past the 'nice' stage and onto the huge, veiny, stretchmarked stage, which makes me a bit more self conscious.
Phil tried to take a couple of nice ones last night though: here are a few (scuse the bare belly)




I'm not thrilled with how the pictures turned out but they're a bit better than the poor quality ones we've been taking inside in front of the hallway door. And at least they were free!

30 Weeks

We've now finished antenatal classes, found them really good, very informative and I think it made everything more 'real' for Phil cos he's been even more excited about bubs since then. Met some nice couples and will hopefully stay in contact and continue meeting.
All is going well with bub, another uneventful midwife appointment with everything normal and going well. I'm having a bit of back pain and fatigue from carrying round the extra weight, but overall feeling healthy and happy :). We are off to Blenheim this weekend and I'm really looking forward to catching up with the family.

Here's the 30 weeks pic. I keep meaning to get some nicer photo's - ie in the garden, nice poses etc but haven't got around to it yet. We were going to get some professional preggy portraits but they turned out to be too expensive.

Updates

We had a midwife appointment a couple of days after this picture was taken. Bubs is measuring at 30weeks (2 weeks ahead) so that would explain why my puku is drawing so many comments! Apparently its no big deal to be measuring a few weeks ahead or behind at this stage. Everything is going well though, all tests were fine, as they have always been througout this pregnancy so far. Bubs is in a head down postition and we're hoping she stays that way. I'm so glad everything is normal and healthy - being fit and healthy throughout the pregnancy will give us a better chance of acheiving the homebirth we would ideally like.
Antenatal classes start this weekend, we are both looking forward to them, and hopefully meeting other like-minded parents-to-be.

28 Week Photo

Feeling good!




Front on:
Believe it or not I wasn't posing like this! I was in the middle of telling Phil something (probably how to take the photo!) and he snapped it.

26 week photo

This was taken a week ago - I'm now 27 weeks which according to some websites is the beginning of the third trimester!
I've been getting a lot of comments from workmates, strangers, acquaintances etc about how big I am for only being 6ish months pregnant. This is making me feel a bit self conscious about my bump, and I feel embarrassed telling people I'm not due until May. Here's hoping that now I'm supposedly in my 3rd trimester I'm 'allowed' to look big, and some of these comments will stop!

A few photo's from the wedding..

..Especially for you Helen! I don't have access to the official photo's but have seen them - they are stunning! These are just a few that my Dad took on the day.
Doesn't my Mum look young in this one?? she could easily pass for 10 years younger than her actual age, would would mean she had me as a teenager - how scandalous!

And this is the happy couple with their gorgeous daughter (who is our God-daughter)

Reality Check, and the arrival of Suzie

Wow - only 15 ish weeks to go and this baby will no longer be in my belly, but out there in the big wide world. That doesn't really seem like much time to me, and its made me all frenzied to get everything ready (is this nesting??).

This wee reality check was possibly bought on by visiting our friends Cendrine and Ben and their new (less than 24hrs old when we visited!) baby Suzie. Congratulations - she's a gorgeous wee girl, so contented and calm looking.

It was strange holding her and realising I'd be doing the same in a few months except the baby girl will be mine!

24 week belly pic.

This weekend I am the most exhausted I have ever been in my life. Being a bridesmaid at a wedding yesterday with lots of standing, not enough food or drink and a naughty baby in my belly (lots of BH contractions), all on only 4hrs sleep was not much fun. My emotional preggy hormones didn't help matters either and I lost my nut several times over the weekend. I feel like its going to take a full week to recover although I have the task of babysitting the brides energetic preschooler daughter for the whole week, so unfortunately there won't be much time for that.
On the upside, I do have an amazing husband and family have been/are being very helpful, and I got lots of compliments for the wedding cake (which I made).
You can see my sad, tired face in the picture!

22 weeks (nearly) belly shot

I'm wearing the same clothes as my 16wk pic, so you can see the difference 6 weeks makes. I actually hate this photo, my pyjama pants are sitting really weirdly, but I can't be bothered taking another one.

Phil and I have been married for 4 years today! We're on a tight budget to recover from Christmas etc, so won't be doing anything in particular to celebrate, except maybe go out for a coffee/hot chocolate tonight.

Happy New Year!

2008 was a good year overall. Some of the things that have happened, good, bad and indifferent include:

- Major operation on jaw to remove possibly cancerous (but thankfully not) lump the size of a golf ball.
- Diagnosis of infertility requiring IVF.
- Miracle natural conception- no IVF required after all!
- Welcoming 2 new nephews to our extended family.
- Various trips around NZ including Lake Tekapo, Mt Cook, Auckland, Dunedin and a road trip in the North Island.
- Moving out of the house we had been sharing with multiple flatmates since 2006 and into a flat by ourselves.
- Gradual change in diet to include more wholefoods, vegetarian meals and organic produce.
- Multiple engagements/weddings/births.
- Sold our dear wee 1983 Toyota and bought a more modern 1998 Ford.
- Watched my first real live international rugby game.
- Fed 80 people for a weekend.
- Went to the casino for the first time.
- Turned a quarter of a century.

Oh and so many more things! I could be here all day.

On the weekend we took a trip to Timaru to meet up with Gavyn and Christine who were staying in Dunedin. We thought Timaru was a good place to meet since its between Christchurch and Dunedin, and none of us have spent any time there really, apart from passing through. We had a nice relaxing weekend. Explored Caroline Bay, went to Geraldine, and lazed around our swanky motel unit.

Our 2 babies having a chat: (11wks and 20wks)

Shark washed up at Caroline Bay - scary!

Bye Gracie!

We waved my baby sister off at the airport today, she's off to Germany for a year to be an au pair and experience the big wide world. I still sometimes think of her as this age (below) so it seems like such a big, scary thing for her to be doing.



But in reality she is (almost) all grown up, and will have a fantastic experience. I am a little sad she won't get to meet her new niece until she's almost 8mths old, but hopefully we will be able to skype. (Photo below to prove she really is grown up - this is us, taken almost a year ago at our brothers wedding)


If you want to follow her adventures she's started a blog at http://www.graciegrowsup.blogspot.com/
Miss you baby sister!

Happy Christmas and all the rest!

We have just returned from a few days up in Blenheim/Nelson, christmassing with the families.
I haven't taken a nice official side-on belly shot for a few weeks but I'll show you a few we Christmas photo's so you can see the huge gut.

We had our scan on Christmas eve, everything fine and healthy, baby is measuring bigger than expected according to my dates, but I suspected it might, as my belly feels so huge. We found out the gender...PINK flavored. A girl! The scan place is supposed to be emailing us copies of some pictures so once they arrive I'll put them up.

She's moving round a lot, Phil felt his first real big kick the other day - he was stoked.

In other news we have found out our great friends the Jones's are also expecting - Yay! Christine is due about 2 months after me.

Phil and I comparing "babies" on Christmas day:

17 Week Belly Shot

For those who wanted one!
I reckon I look about 20 weeks at the moment. And it can't be extra fat cos I haven't really put on any weight. Maybe 1kg if I weigh myself after dinner!
I'm modeling some of the new preggy clothes I inherited from Phillipa, these clothes have been doing the rounds of the ladies at church and now its my turn. I've got a great big bag and now have everything I'll need I reckon. Its so much more comfortable to wear proper maternity clothes, I've been making do with leaving the top button undone on my pants.

17 Weeks

It seemed to take forever to get to 12 weeks, and now the time is flying!

We have been really busy, traveling all over the country for weddings, as is usually the case for this time of year.
I'm still experiencing nausea, especially when I'm tired, which is often these days.

Still, its a nice stage, finally I am starting to feel 'properly pregnant' and not just fat and tired.
We spent the weekend in blenheim, attending a wedding and visiting family. It was great to see wee nephew Joey again (Frank and Emily's baby). Phil practiced his moby wrap skills on a very grumpy Joe - worked a treat though - he went to sleep almost as soon as he was snuggly wrapped.



No bump photo's today - I haven't taken one this week - the camera has run out of batteries.

Big tummy

16 week belly shots:



See how good I am - I even wore the same clothes so you can see the difference! People are noticing I'm pregnant now, and I'm starting to feel like I look pregnant and not just fat. From feeling my fundus it seems I'm quite big for my dates... I definitely think I look big for 16 weeks.

I am feeling a lot better this week, still get really tired which is made worse by the fact I haven't been sleeping well lately.

We are having a scan on Christmas Eve, and hope to find out if its a boy or girl. AND before you say anything - Whenever I tell people this they seem to have strong opinions. "oh don't you want a surprise.." " oh why don't you just wait and see - thats what WE did"... FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!! MY baby MY body, I think I can make the decision about weather to have the surprise at 20 or 40 weeks, without having to feel the need to defend my choice. Why does it matter to YOU weather or not I know?? Some people seem to be trying to make me feel bad for wanting to know. Next person to try this is getting a verbal bashing courtesy of my pregnancy hormones. humph.

15 weeks. I thought it was supposed to get easier from now on!!

Forgive me for supplying too much information, but the last few days have been awash with puke. I had either a vigorous return of the pregnancy sickness, or some kind of stomach virus over the weekend. It was better on yesterday (Tuesday) and I had high hopes of returning to normal today but no such luck. My breakfast made a forceful return and I'm feeling as grotty as ever, so yet another day of staying at home worrying that I should be at work but feeling glad that I'm not cos even walking to the mailbox seems like too much effort. So much for all the books saying that the 2nd trimester is awesome, all glowing and filled with energy...so far the 2nd trimester has been far worse than the first!

Ohhhh..and now I'm feeling all guilty for moaning and not enjoying every moment of this much anticipated pregnancy. Sigh. I'm sorry.

On a higher note I had a midwife appointment yesterday, and got to listen to the heartbeat on the doppler machine. It was awesome, really bought home the fact that there is something ALIVE inside me! It was such a cute wee heartbeat. So loud, and fast. It was nice to know all this sickness hasn't affected bubba and he/she/it is growing really well.

Heres a week 15 belly pic..

And that was taken after 2 full days of not keeping anything (food or drink) down, so you're definitely seeing baby bump - not just my dinner.

Apologies!

Two weeks turned into two months! The news is that..dum dum dum... I'M GROWING A BABY!
So hence the tiredness and lack of blogging. I am intending on using this as a bit of a pregnancy journal, which may mean I lose some of my ex-readers if I haven't already. Which is fine, even if no-one reads this, its nice to have a record of things for myself to look back on.

So far I am 14 weeks pregnant. According the the ever-popular fruit analogies bubba is the size of a large lemon. The sickness (I refuse to call it "morning sickness" as it is in no way confined to the mornings) is subsiding a bit although I still have bad days, and energy is slowly returning. We haven't had a scan so far, for reasons I might go into later, but as far as we can tell things are going well. I'm really looking forward to feeling some movements. I've already felt a few flutterings which I think are bubs but all the experts say you shouldn't be able to feel it until week 16.

I need to start doing some belly pictures, I tried to take one the other day in the mirror but it didn't turn out very well - excuse the messy room, dirty mirror, and towel on my head! As you can see, tummy is beginning to look a little preggers. It definitely feels bigger.


This one was taken a few days ago before a friends wedding. If I hold the bump it looks more prominent!


No interesting cooking to report lately I'm afraid - food has been a touchy subject for the past 10 weeks. Sometimes even thinking of it would make me gag, let alone cooking it. The paradoxical part of that is that I still have to eat SO MUCH otherwise the sickness gets worse. So its been a lot of toast and crackers. Thankfully I've managed to diversify a bit in the last two weeks.

don't say you couldn't see it coming..

..you can kind of tell from the lack of posts lately that things have been getting on top of me.
So I am announcing a two week break from blogging. But wait dear readers (all three of you) there's more.. you must stay tuned and be sure to come back in two weeks as I have a fantastic new blogging idea/theme. You wouldn't wanna miss it!

Feeding the masses

Camp has been and gone, and I'm fairly sure no-one went hungry or got food poisoning! The physical and mental energy of planning, and executing the feeding of 80+ people was exhausting. I slept 12 hours on Sunday night when we got home!

I think our camera is on its last legs, so no photo's of the culinary efforts I'm afraid. Actually having no camera makes blogging difficult, as I'm usually inspired to do a post based on pictures I've taken recently.

Off to Wellington on Thursday to visit some old friends from school. Really looking forward to it, there's something comforting about hanging out with people who've known you for ages.