Life in the Barbie Dream House: 38 Week Bumpdate: Playroom Reveal!

Hello dolls!

We're still cruising along very pregnant over here. Although baby has made some very strong moves toward departure, for now he's still calling my torso home. We're so happy that we've crossed the full-term threshold - such a blessing! My colleagues threw me the sweetest "sugar shower" at my law firm last week. Everyone baked or bought sweets, which ended in a delicious sugar coma for everyone in attendance. It was so thoughtful, not to mention delicious. Baby's nursery is all done except for switching out his curtain rod (In a nesting meltdown I decided that I didn't like the original... so the new one is in the mail) so we'll hold off on those pictures, but we finished his playroom!

We went with a light gray, light blue, black & white motif for little man's playroom and couldn't be happier with how it turned out. The best part is that Ross made him an enormous toy chest for the playroom, which is beautiful and probably one of my favorite things he's ever built. He plans on writing a tutorial for the blog on how to make one soon. It's huge and has an adjustable divider inside and a cute gap under the lid to prevent finger squishing. Even cuter, our niece came into town and helped Ross put the finishing touches on the carpentry & paint. So sweet.

I also have fabric to make him a teepee for the playroom, but I figured that could wait until he's a little older (we should probably tackle holding our head up and rolling over before he really needs a teepee). We also did a vinyl cloud mural on the ceiling - Ross's idea - which I loved. The ceilings are 15 feet high and vaulted, so it looks really sky-like. My mom made the custom curtains - some of her best work yet! I made his little zoo box for all of his stuffed animals, hubby built his chalkboard and together we mounted 20x16 prints from our maternity shoot. Without further adieu, here's the finished product:

What do you guys think?

Now, a few general bumpdates:

How baby is doing: From what we can tell, great! I wish we could learn more than just his fundal height & heart rate at the weekly appointments, but oh well. He's not measuring as ahead in size as he was, but maybe that's a good thing since he was measuring really scary big for so long. He's moving a lot still, some days more than others.

How mama is doing: Mama is kinda over it. The hip pain comes and goes in intensity, but I'm almost used to it now. My left hip feels literally out of the socket about 1/3rd of the time & the right hip is always burning. My tailbone has also started to hurt occasionally, but nothing like the damn hips, which are by far my biggest third trimester complaint. My range of motion is limited, but I still have a ton of energy (seriously more than I had pre-pregnancy). I can barely sit down on nights & weekends because I'm so ramped up, which is probably good since sitting & laying hurts my hips so bad. I'm getting tons of steps on my pedometer each day without even really trying, which is a nice side effect. Still no cravings per se. I guess that one just skipped me. The heartburn has died down a lot, which has been wonderful. No back pain yet, which feels like a big blessing. Lots of Braxton Hicks contractions and even a few batches of real ones since I lost my mucus plug at 36.5 weeks, but none that have produced a baby yet, although we did get close to going to the hospital twice as they were at or approaching 5 minutes apart. Prodormal labor (labor that starts and stops) is the most emotionally exhausting thing on the planet. Breathing has been less difficult recently, probably due to baby dropping lower and lower in my birth canal (he's already at a negative one station!). I can't reach my toes, so Ross is now doing my pedis, which is so cute. I've had two or three big nesting spells. Still no stretch marks even though I've had a few scares with speckles & elastic lines from clothes. Lol. I'm SOO thankful that my feet haven't grown and thus my beloved shoe collection is still safe. People keep asking why I still wear heels and my response is because they're the only cute things in my closet that still fit! Each week fewer and fewer dresses are long enough to wear to work and my tops selection narrows. I can still wear all of my pre-pregnancy shorts & undies, which is nice. My jewelry also still fits. Lol. Overall, I'm just really excited to meet baby & to be done being an oven. I'm ready to be his mama. :)

How daddy is doing: Daddy's sympathy pregnancy is still going strong, which is precious. He's still having cravings and has been doing some serious nesting. In our 8 hour birthing class last weekend he had a serious meltdown after watching a video of a real birth, which was so funny to watch. He kept repeating "I can't do this, I can't do this" and I was thinking "what do you have to do?!" I'm the one who has to do all of the birthing! Men are so funny. Overall, daddy too is just really ready to meet our little guy.

Weight gain: Only 20.6 pounds as of today! It's been hard work keeping it in check but I can't imagine how much more uncomfortable I'd be with any extra, extra weight to carry around & put pressure on my hips. My weight gain has plateaued lately, but the doctor says that's okay at the end because as the baby grows they're losing amniotic fluid at about the same rate as they're gaining fat, so a lot of women break even in weight the last few weeks.

Projects: Aside from obviously working on the playroom, putting finishing touches on the nursery & buying last minute items, we've been monogramming like crazy now that we realized we can monogram with my cricut. So much fun! Some pictures of my favorite monogrammed things are below.

Progress: At my 37 week appointment I was 2cm, 50% effaced & baby was at a -1 station, all of which are ahead of the game for this stage. I lost my mucus plug a week ago, so in reality he could come any day now!

Favorite recent purchases: Believe it or not, we really haven't been buying much lately since we already had it all. I've picked up a few new 0-3 month things since I didn't have many of those & he's given us a few signs he might be early & because his size has leveled off a bit. When he was measuring so big everyone kept saying to skip straight to 3-6 month clothes, which is what I've mostly bought, but it's looking like he might surprise us & be an average sized baby! I bought him two precious cardigan onesies with his monogram on the pocket - can't wait for them to arrive. He also recently got a few monogrammed Christmas outfits and 3 hand carved wooden cars from Lake Fest. My mom finished sewing several adorable seersucker and minky burp cloths with some fabric I bought - they're so cute. My sweet MIL also just shipped us the cutest minky shopping cart cover for him. We ordered his soother after help from my BFF enabled us to finally find one with all the features we wanted. Not exactly for him, but I've bought a few pieces of jewelry with his name or our 3 names on them recently that I just love. My husband also bought us all matching Nike Olympic outfits. Lol. We also bought a freezer for our garage for breast milk.