Major Progress!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We definitely did. It was so nice to see most of our family in one day.

We caught ourselves a few times thinking that this will be the last child-less Christmas. Bittersweet of course because next year we decided we will not be doing the big trip to PA and then to Princeton and then back home again. 

We even talked about hosting our Yakscoe-Davis Christmas Eve Spectacular at our house complete with Christmas Eve Service at our Church in Chester and a sleepover for "Gam-ma" and "Pup-pup" Yakscoe and maybe even Uncle Kyle and cousin Bryar. Both of the girls will be almost a year old! I can't wait :)

The Saturday before Christmas we had our carpet installed and Brandt put the crib together.  Thank goodness I wasn't there for that one.....see next paragraph.

After Christmas we were busy putting together our new glider that my parents got us. That as so much fun.....(note sarcasm).  If any of you have ever put something together from IKEA you know my pain. The "instructional guide"...haha...simply contained tiny pictures of the 500 parts conveniently labeled A,B,C.... and about 100 easy steps.

After we attempted for 1.5 hours to assemble it we only succeeded in putting the chair together incorrectly about 4 times which resulted in my near fatal back flip off the chair. No worries, Bryn and I are unharmed.

The good news: The chair is now in one "successful" piece and Brandt and I are still married.

 The curtains, bookshelf, and lamp were a breeze to assemble!

However, we did notice a minor flaw in our room plan. The only plug that the light switch actually controls is actually directly behind the crib. Not really a great place to put the lamp. So we moved the crib to the other side of the room. This actually works out better because the sun comes right in through the window at about 6:30 (thanks to Sandy who knocked down our natural shade of the pine trees) and the crib would be more shaded on the other side of the room. Not to say we could be so lucky that she would sleep past 6am anyways but hey anything helps.

A lot of people have given us advice for how to introduce Bryn to our "current children" AKA Animals.  What I have been doing is leaving her door open at all times and letting them explore the room and get used to the new smells. They have been very excited to see what all this new "stuff" is and what they are actually most interested in is the smell of the detergent (Dreft) I use to wash her clothes, blankets, sheets, burp cloths, etc.

Bella is especially curious about the new room. I even found her in the crib yesterday just taking a nap in the sun.

In other news, I am E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D. Sleeping is extremely difficult between having to pee every 5 minutes and switching sides as she changes her location. I am getting a solid 4 hours of sleep each night.

Napping has never been my thing but I am trying to catch one or two each day. Now that my brain has started to realize that we are ready for her I am able to relax more and enjoy the last 2 weeks until our due date. I even scheduled a prenatal massage for Monday to help me relax. :) :) :) NOTE HAPPY FACE!

We had a doctors appointment this morning. All good news. I gained 1 pound from last week which puts me at a total of 18 lbs. Thank you October for helping me not gain 40+.  My bp is always good, sugars are also good, and I am not dilated at all. We are on track for our due date. Also, she is estimated at being about 7 lbs now! 2 more weeks may put her at around 8.5-9 lbs but my doctor is hopeful she won't be that big because I haven't gained much weight and frankly there is NO MORE ROOM in there.

I can't believe that we are only about 2 weeks away from possibly meeting our baby girl. :)

Stressed about nothing

We had a great doctors appointment this morning. I let him know that Bryn has been less active over the past few days and just to make sure everything looked okay we did an ultrasound (our first in 16 weeks!) Let me tell you how different she looks! Before you could see her entire body when we did the ultrasound and now you can barely get her head on the screen!

Everything looked great on the ultrasound so my doctor then hooked us up to do our non-stress test. Not all new mommas need this so don't worry if you don't get one. The test measures her heart rate over 10-15 minutes. Normal babies have an elevated heart rate for at least a few seconds during anytime during this test. Bryn had 3 intervals in ten minutes. The doctor was very happy with her movement and told us there was no reason to be worried :) Pheww!

He also informed us that I were to go into labor from now on they would not try to stop it! She's full term and ready to go! Now our goal is to stick close to home for the rest of the pregnancy and make sure we know where the nearest hospital is if we go to PA to visit my family. Both my mother and Brandt's mother had very short labors so that is also something to keep in mind.

Not all women get Braxton Hicks before the "real deal". I have only had them once and they were close together and weak. That was about 3 weeks ago. The reason that so many sources talk about Braxton Hicks regularly as women get closer to their due date is because they don't want women to get them confused with the beginning stages of labor. I was worried because I had not experienced them as often as all the websites and books say I should be. Totally makes sense now!

All we have to do now is relax and get through the holidays :)

One more month :)

This morning I woke up with an unfamiliar feeling.....I was able to breathe! Yesterday marked one more month until our due date.  You can't imagine how much I took breathing for granted before pregnancy.  I will appreciate not being completely out of breath after one of my 5 nightly bathroom trips :)  This means that Bryn has dropped and we are one more step closer to seeing her beautiful face. By the feel of things she is also head down (considering she gets the hiccups at least 3 times a day)...yet another milestone. Except for the occasional heartburn and sleepiness I have been feeling great and we are so excited our due date is growing nearer. 

In other news, I wanted to give you new mommas-to-be so advice. As annoying as the constant emails and junk mail can be, signing up for online pregancy newsletters can have its benefits. 

As you get closer to "d-day" I really am starting to appreciate looking at the growth of our little one and seeing her approximate weight and length is. My favorite is seeing what fruit or vegetable she is closest in size to.  The free app I'm Expecting has been a great resource for me to track my weight and sypmtoms as well.

 Also, as I am starting to notice some changes in my body, these websites can be a great source of advice for getting into a better position for sleeping and tricks to avoid acid refux. I love seeing testimonials from mothers who are due around the same time as me and being able to share some things that have worked for me as well.

Another benefit these websites have is all the FREE stuff they like to send you. For instance I signed up for Similac's newsletter and they sent me a bottle and formula samples to try. Since formula can be so expensive it is nice to have some one hand to try if I need to supplement at all. 

The Bump is a website to sign up for as well as Similac.

Bye all!

-Kaitlyn

Nesting, Nesting, Nesting!

As mommas-to-be we all get cravings. Me being a "neat freak" and someone who ALWAYS needs to be prepared anyways, being pregnant only hightens this tendency. 

 In fact, last week I packed my hospital bag and got Bryn's carseat ready and installed in our Jeep. Quite early I know but like I said, I like to be ready for anything.

There are so many theories on what to bring to the hospital but I found a post from a blog I follow that had the best items to pack: Simply Sadie Jane

We also went for our hospital tour Tuesday night so I was able to ask them what I should consider bringing. Of course they told us we wouldn't need a thing except an outfit for Bryn to go home in. I followed Sadies advice instead :)  

During our tour we were told by the nurse a few things that we shouldn't register for. One is too many clothes (see below for explanation) and the other was bumper pads for the crib. She told us that in recent legislation they have decided that bumper pads pose a suffocation hazzard and have been the result of several infant deaths....SCARY! Many baby stores will be required to pull their inventory off the shelves and only sell replacement parts for ones that have already been sold. Anyone purchasing these parts will be required to sign a waiver. I immediately went home and took that one off my list.
Get Bumper Pads Out Of Cribs- CNN

 On a happier note, yesterday Brandt and I went to Lowes and ordered carpet for Bryn's room (with installation.....pheww!) that should be getting installed next week. Pictures to come.  Brandt ripped up the 30 year old carpet up this morning and they are coming out within the next two days to do measurements.  Check that one off the list! Then, maybe, I can convince him to build shelving into her closet before she arrives....fingers crossed everyone!

My Aunt was SO nice to give me all of my cousin Sophia's hand-me-downs. I can tell you for a fact that Bryn will have more clothes for the first 24 months than I have EVER had in my whole life.

 Last night I sorted EVERYTHING. Shoes, hats, bathing suits, coats, bottles, gadgets, and clothes, clothes, and more clothes. I put everything in its own rubbermaid to go into the attic organized into 6-9 months, 12 months, and 18-24 months. I also washed everything from newborn to 3 months because, lets face it, Brandt was 9 lbs and I was 8 1/2 lbs. She's most likely not going to be a peanut!

My advice to any new momma, NEVER REFUSE HAND ME DOWNS! Who cares about the formula stains! Most babies have more than 3 outfit changes per day anyways and for around-the-house, gently worn clothes do just fine. Not to mention, baby clothes are expensive considering they may only wear an outfit once or twice because they grow SO fast!

We are a few steps closer to being ready to welcome our baby girl into our home.

 

Bryn Amanda- 12 weeks :)

 

- Kaitlyn

Hello!

My name is Kaitlyn and my husband, Brandt, and I are currently 35 weeks pregnant with our first child.  Bryn Amanda Davis is due January 15th. We are overwhelmed with joy and excitement as we wait for the arrival of our little princess. 

This picture was taken in October.  We've grown quite a bit since then :)

I wanted to create this blog to not only share our journey towards becoming new parents but to share tips and tricks for new mommas-to-be.  We have gotten TONS of advice from family, friends, and online articles that have helped to "prepare" us for parenthood.

I hope you enjoy our adventure as much as we are :)

-Kaitlyn