Shower Invites!

These are the baby shower invites that my mom and me made for Mia's upcoming baby shower. The baby shower is coming up on September 6th, so we've been spending a lot of time preparing everything for that day. I'm really looking forward to it, hopefully I didn't forget anyone on the invite list. It's going to be a fun day and I can't wait to eat the Cupcakes that Cindy is making for the party. I got to sample them this week and they were so delicious!

Max Takes Over the World...

My mom bought a bassinet this week so Mia would have a place to sleep away from home. But apparently, Fat Max decided to take it over until she arrives. All of the cats ove there are curious about what's going on. But Max seems to be the most curious and interested. He loves to sleep on baby clothes (which he's laying on in the picture) and to sleep on baby blankets. I'm assuming he'll be the protector of the baby since he is afterall the king of the house.

I guess he's counting down the days until she arrives as well. I still can't believe that her arrival is only 2 months away from now. We can't wait to have her here for the holidays. I guess this year we will have to get a real tree and stockings since Santa will be making an arrival.

We can't help to wonder what she's going to be like. Ryan and I have been talking about it a lot this past week. We are curious to see which of our personality traits she'll have and which ones she won't have and which ones will be hers alone.

A Lovely Surprise Gift!

Earlier in the week, I was surprised with this beautiful quilt by Ryan's Sister's Best Friend. She apparently makes quilts for all the babies born into Ryan's family. All the quilts she has made for his family are amazing. What makes this quilt even more special for Ryan is that it was his late Grandmother who taught her how to quilt.



I was really happy to receive this quilt for Mia. It's really beautiful, too beautiful to use. I love how she used vintage linens and embroideries as well and added them in. The center of the quilt has a beautiful piece of what looks like a fancy vintage table cloth. And best of all, it was done in Pinks and it was shabby chic. It's exactly what I would have picked.

The quilt is going to make a perfect keepsake and I hope someday Mia will pass it down to her children.

This is the Thank You card I made for her for making me the quilt. I've made several baby cards this last week using vintage
Bingo cards. I love using them for hanging cards. I hope she likes the card I made for her.

Waiting for Mia...

We are in the Third Trimester now!

Pinky is waiting for her new friend to arrive.

I can't believe we only have three more months to go. We are getting more prepared each day. As you see, we already have her crib built (still haven't decided on any bedding.) We also have her car seat ready, stroller, and her playpen/changing table ready to go. We are stocked up on clothes (This girl is going to have quite the wardrobe! including 17 hats!) and are getting stocked up on diapers.

We see the doctor on Monday. Hopefully, we get a peek of Mia and see how she's growing.

I'm currently doing my 24 hour heart monitor test, so don't piss me off. ;)

Today I had my echocardiogram done and got fitted for my Holter Heart Monitor. The echocardiogram was pretty interesting. It's essentially just an ultrasound of your heart. So far during this pregnancy, I've had an ultrasound of the baby and uterus (obviously), my leg for blood clots, my gallbladder, and now my heart. This one by far was the most interesting not to discredit getting the chance to look at Mia, but sometimes it's just flat out hard for me to tell what I'm looking at. It's definitely a lot different when you are looking at your heart. It's kinda crazy seeing your heart actually at work.

There's Electrodes attached all over my chest and I have a monitor strapped to my chest. I'm supposed to keep a diary of symptoms and press a button on the monitor when I get them. I'm going to work in about an hour, so I'm sure I'll get some interesting results there.

A Posey Pocket for Miss Mia!

I made this today for Mia's room. It reminds me of those pockets you made in grade school to put your Valentines Day cards in.

I used vintage sheet music, trims, buttons, and cupcake holders for the trim. The baby card is a copy of one of my favorite vintage baby greeting card.

Trip to the Hospital

Yesterday I had a lot of discomfort and intense pain in my lower abdomen region for most of the day. It grew progressively worse throughout the day while I was at work. Needless to say, I had to call the doctor from work, but due to the fact it was Friday (he doesn't work on Fridays since he's Seventh Day Adventist) I got the on-call doctor who informed that I had to be seen as soon as possible and checked for pre-term labor.

However, Feather River Hospital has been closed for days now due to the fire in the canyon, so I had to go Enole Hospital in Chico. I wasn't too thrilled about that since I prefer to go to FRH since we knew it was going to be a mad house since everyone in the county who does not have insurance goes there and since FHR was closed, it has been swamped down there.

I guess there's some perks to being pregnant because they saw me right away. I didn't have to sit in the packed waiting room that had 50+ people. In fact, I didn't even have to go the ER. They took me straight to the Maternity/OB ward, where I had a private room and they ran some tests on me and checked Mia for any distress. We had a heart monitor on her for about 20 minutes and got to listen to her heartbeat while they logged her heart beats, which were really strong by the way.

Needless to say, nothing too serious is going on. It turns out they think all the pressure and pain that I was feeling was due to Round Ligament Pain, which is common during this time in pregnancy. The on-call doctor still decided to come down to Chico to check on me. He seems to think that I should no longer be working due to all the problems I've been having and he wrote me an open ended note for work until I can get the disability papers in the works.

So now I'm supposed to spend the next few days resting. We'll see how that goes since some days it's hard for me to settle down.

Cardiologist Appointment

Today was my appointment with the Cardiologist today after waiting nearly 3 weeks.

It turns out that my working days may be coming to an end. He mentioned that I shouldn't be working and even mentioned how bed rest may be beneficial with the symptoms I'm displaying. Once again, my blood pressure was high. They couldn't schedule the tests I need today since the Hospital is currently evacuated due the Camp Fire that is approaching Paradise in the Feather River canyon. They are scheduling me for an Echocardiogram along with a 24 hour heart monitor test and then I follow up with the Cardiologist a month from now.

I imagine that I'll probably be off from work within the next few weeks considering my doctor said he'd sign off the papers on Monday but was concerned that I may get denied with disability. But now that the problems are mounting up, I'm sure it probably won't be too much longer.

Back From the Doctor

No new or major developments on the baby front.

We went to the doctor today and everything looks good. Her heart was beating strong and the doctor said that she looks good and everything is progressing in the right direction. We had such a ultrasound of Mia today, that I didn't get to see much. In fact, I couldn't even tell what I was looking at. Ryan had to tell me what we saw, since we had such a quick view.

I finally started feeling Mia moving over the weekend. I was starting to worry since I was approaching the 24th week marker and it seems that all the books said that women normally start feeling movement between the 16th - 20th week. Ever since I felt the first movement, I feel it all the time now especially when I'm relaxing or sitting down for long periods of time. I'd imagine it won't be too much longer until you'll feel her from the outside as well. It's pretty crazy sensation. I really can't describe other than the first time I felt it, it felt like my insides were being tugged on.

As for my health, everyday tasks are getting harder and harder for me. I wear compression stockings (aka - ultra thick granny stockings) on my legs ever since they thought I had a blood clot in my leg. I have to wear them 24 hours a day (yuck!), and they are hotter than hell. Seriously. Especially in this 100 degree heat that we are having. I guess the discomfort of wearing the stockings is better than the alternative and actually getting a clot in my leg. I had to get several more blood tests today, including the glucose test again that checks for gestational diabetes. So yet again, I got to down another horrible tasting cocktail and wait an hour for my blood to be drawn.

I see a Cardiologist on Thursday and hopefully that will be the last doctors visit for the next 4 weeks.

Hopefully is the key word.

Baby Flags

This is what I did over the weekend.

I made these little pennants using an old dictionary and chop sticks for the poles and finished them off with some ribbon and some vintage buttons.

I thought these would be cute at the baby shower added to a centerpiece. I might put a couple of them on my etsy shop as well since it's in need of an update.

Vintage Goodness

I love vintage baby greeting cards.

They certainly don't make cards like they used to. I love how they always incorporate lots of glitter on the vintage cards.

I've spent the last two days searching for them and I plan on printing them out and using them in the baby book and making things for the Mia's room.

Something for Mia

I found this today at a thift shop and I couldn't pass this up. I thought this would be a perfect addition to Mia's room.

Granted, it's not a Nancy Pew but regardless it's still very cute.

So Lovely...

We bought Mia's crib this week. I wanted something vintage looking and it seemed like the Jenny Lind Spindle crib would be a perfect fit. Not to mention I had the same crib as a baby too, although my crib was a light shade of yellow. So it made it a little more special even though it wasn't the same exact one I had.

We are definitely pleased with it. It was simple enough for Ryan to build that he put it together in probably about 25 minutes. He plans to make his cradle that he is working on for Mia to match the crib now since he likes the style of it so much.

We are slowly starting to get the room together. We've had a lot set backs due to my health problems, and all fires in the area also hasn't helped much either. It seems like the weekends just fly by and we never have the time to get anything done.

I hope to get the room done by the start of September that way the last month of my pregnancy I won't be stressing over getting the room done at the last minute. But knowing us, I'll probably still be working on it the week that she arrives.

Hopefully that won't be the case.

-AiMee

The Beginning...

I wanted to start documenting the pregnancy earlier on, but like always there doesn't seem to ever be enough time in the day to accomplish everything I want to do.

So five months in... I'm finally starting a blog.

It's hard to believe in less than 4 months the Mia will be here. It's exciting yet extremely scary at the same time. You never realize how important of a job that a parent has until you are about to become one. This is certainly going to be the biggest task of our lives. We are certainly up for it.

-AiMee