32 weeks

My sweet and talented friend Beth took some maternity shots for me on Thursday. They all turned out oh-so-lovely. Except for the little black dot that is not on my lens, but actually inside my camera and appears on every.single.picture {and which we lovingly referred to as the "traveling mole" when it appeared on my face}, I love them all!
I figured I would use one for my bump pic this week.

I'm feeling pretty good. I have braxton hicks many times a week now and lots and lots of movement which is quite good although can be quite sudden and jumpy.

I got a ton of baby clothes from my sweet friend Aletha last weekend {on Canada Day} and sorted through them all into sizes. I'm dying to start rearranging the room and I may start rearranging furniture after Beth leaves. And by "I", I mean probably James taking a part the bunk beds at the very least and moving them up into the "party house". I'll probably use my nesting energy to clean up and clean out the "party house" for when Jamie's family arrives - on the 24th! So soon!

Only 8 more days until Jamie returns from the Philippines, but it seems like he's have a really good time there. Wish I could be there with him...perhaps Jamie and I will have to have an overnight getaway when his family is here. Maybe?

We're about to head out in a bit to MishMash even though it's a cool, cloudy day. I need to get me some bagels, tortilla chips and possibly an avocado or two to make some guacamole.

*oh and an assortment of the pictures that Beth took can be found here.

**so I weighed myself today hesitantly. still only at 11lbs gained! hoorah! but perhaps now is the time i should lay off the brownies and reece's pb cups, eh?

announcement

things totally didn't work out as i had envisioned they would. noah refused to cooperate with the "three on the third" pregnancy announcement. but {honestly} what else is new? he often refuses to cooperate with pictures and this was no different. i had to breathe {very, very deeply} and choke down the irrational rage at my plans not working out how i wanted them to {and also to resist the urge to be physically or emotionally out of control - man these pregnancy hormones can be whack}. i did shed a few tears as i stomped walked to my bedroom to upload the pictures. {again with the pregnancy hormones.}
jamie did a fantastic job with what he was given and jude was such a sweetie kissing the belly, touching the belly and smiling for the camera.

but it's out. it's official. the interwebs are now "in the know" about this sweet gift of a pregnancy.

13 weeks

Today I'm 13 weeks pregnant.
All of a sudden time has slowed down.
This morning I started googling "what to bring to a hospital birth" and doing some other searches related to that.  I'm not all that upset that I'll be giving birth in a hospital. Obviously I'd love to have a third home birth, but right now that's just not an option so I'm choosing to embrace what I've been given in my current situation.
Jamie and I talked about him taking a parental leave since I'm clocking in very few hours as it is and won't take a maternity leave. He can qualify for up to 35 weeks! If he started taking his leave when I'm due (September 1st) he wouldn't be off parental leave until the first week of May! That's almost our entire second year on STINT. Crazy. Obviously he's not taking the full 35 weeks, but we haven't decided yet how many weeks he will take.
And this morning I got a message from a woman who lives in Kampala and is a photographer. I had messaged her many months ago when I was still on Facebook and she never replied re: a family photo session and just today she did.
When I told her I was pregnant she asked if I was interested in labour/birth photography as well! I definitely am. I have never had professional maternity, birth/labour or newborn pictures done and I have always wanted it. So I'm excited. I don't know what her pricing is, but I'm hoping it'll be reasonable and we can do a maternity/family shoot, labour/birth shoot and a newborn one too! How precious those pictures would be.
I guess I should start taking some belly pics. {Maybe tomorrow.} My belly is getting a bit thick, but doesn't really seem to be a "bump" per se and all my clothes still fit me normally.
Jude often requests to see my belly and then comments, "Yah belly is getting biggah and BIGGAH!" Ha. You have no idea, kiddo.