I am sharing another survival kit that I feel is the most important for all moms after giving birth and that is the postpartum care kit. Having everything you need in one place to properly take care of your lady bits makes everything easier and having the kit near the toilet is also a good idea. You don't want to have sat down on the toilet to realize you forgot to grab something out of the kit so be sure you set the kit up within arms reach of the toilet.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


We made it to 39 weeks which if you actually calculated my pregnancy based on my last period I would technically be 40 weeks but my doctor calculated my pregnancy based on the size of the baby at my first appointment. However, due dates are a mere estimation and can be off by about two weeks so I could even be 41 weeks. Nevertheless, we are still waiting on baby boy. We did have our weekly appointment earlier this week and I was still 3CM dilated and blood pressure is still doing good. Baby boy's heart rate was a strong 142 and my doctor said he felt higher up, I guess he is as snug as a bug which I don't doubt with how much he balls up into my left ribs. I am still have Braxton Hicks randomly that I really think I'm going to think my body is crying wolf when real labor actually starts.

Another thought to cross my mind while we wait on our little guy is what if I am that 5% or whatever of women who actually go into labor on their due date. Of course, no matter how anxious we are for baby boy to make his arrival, we trust in the Lord's timing and are just happy we have gotten this far without medical interventions. Here is to praying that baby boy won't be stubborn and cause us to have interventions because he is taking too long now though, haha.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


We have made it to 38 weeks of pregnancy and does it seem to be taking forever, haha. At our appointment on Tuesday, my doctor did another pelvic check and this time I was 3cm dilated and she said there was a possibility of having the baby within a week. At the time of me typing this, it has been 6 days... so we are still waiting. Ultimately, I know the Lord's timing is perfect and I am so thankful we have made it this far without any interventions and I am praying that we still won't need any.

Baby boy is still somewhat active although he mostly seems to curl up into my left rib which makes it hard to breath and then he stretches out completely and I look deformed. Sometimes I can feel the outline of his little limbs and I just can't wait to hold this sweet little babe. 

We have been trying to do morning walks as much as possible to help jump-start my labor naturally which obviously it got me from 0 cm at 37 weeks to 3 cm at 38 weeks. We have an appointment this Tuesday at 39 weeks so I am curious as to if I dilated anymore. Although it has been an episode of crying wolf with all these false contractions I am feeling, at least my active labor should be shorter since my dilation is getting knocked out now. Gotta find the positive somewhere, right?

Friday night, I did think I was finally in labor as I was contracting for 3 hours with contractions about 8 minutes apart lasting for a minute or less. That is the longest and most consistent I have ever felt the contractions but nothing since then. Since I was induced with Sophia due to preeclampsia (read her birth story here), it is kind of hard to know what to expect and when it is real. Although I am told that I will know when it is finally real contractions so we shall see.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

The post was created in partnership with PinkBlush Maternity but all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

I think it would be best if I admit upfront that I like to be prepared while others may say I am an over packer. Being prepared sounds better but whatever. I am also slightly high maintenance therefore I do not depend on certain accommodations that hospitals or even hotels provide like toiletries. I have sensitive skin and I like what I like so there's that. Now that I have disclosed that to you all, here is what we packed for our hospital stay as a family of four (yes, we will have Sophia stay with us in the hospital, more on that in another post UPDATE 10/30/2017 read here).

UPDATED 10/5/2017 My doula suggested also packing a sports bra or a swimming top for myself and swimming trunks for Anthony, in case we decide to utilize the shower during the labor process.

Mom

• c/o a nursing bra
• c/o PinkBlush hospital delivery robe
• a going home dress
• travel size toiletries
• birth plan
• non-slip flip flops
• comfy shoes
• non-slip fuzzy socks
• nursing pillow
• sports bra (UPDATED 10/5/2017)

Last time, I brought a simple button down night gown but this time around I decided a nursing bra and a hospital robe would be the easiest and most efficient thing to wear after I have the baby since I will be constantly checked in all private areas during my stay plus having less on will make it easier to also nurse my new little babe. And you can't go wrong with how beautiful this hospital robe from PinkBlush is as it will still make me feel put together and decent looking for visitors after pushing a human being out my lady parts. I also plan to wear it around the house once we are home as well because let's be honest who really wants to get dressed those first few weeks especially when you are nursing around the clock.

Also, I will be wearing the same shoes into the hospital that I plan to wear home to keep some of my packing to a minimum. The reason I am also packing non-slip flip flops is to use those in the shower so my bare feet are not touching the floor where countless women's bodily fluids touched. I also really like the mesh undies the hospital provides therefore I will not be packing any and I plan to take some home with me (see what I took from the hospital last time and what I plan to take again here).

The fuzzy socks will be much more comfortable then the ones the hospital provide and the nursing pillow will, of course, make nursing more comfortable by helping me support the new little babe.

Dad

• a change of clothes (shirt, shorts, socks, boxers)
• pajamas
• toiletries
• flip flops
• house shoes
• swim trunks (UPDATED 10/5/2017)

Since Anthony will be going back and forth between the house to care for our dog and allow Sophia to have a normal nap, he doesn't need to pack as much since he will be able to take care of his business during that time back at home.

Baby

• going home outfit
• socks

As you may have noticed, I kept baby's packing list to a minimum this time around. The hospital has everything you need for the baby.

Sibling 

• c/o DockATot Grand and traveling bag
• pajamas
• change of clothes (shoes, socks, etc)
• diapers
• lovey
• blanket
• bottle/cups
• snacks
• sound machine

Most of the items on Sophia's list are her bedtime items as she will be going home daily with daddy for nap time while he takes care of our dog so she can get a fresh pair of clothes as needed.

Entertainment

• Cell Phones & Chargers
• iPad
• Busy bags

• lacers 
• books 
• sponge blocks
• drawing pad
• stickers
• doodle pad 

• Camera and Tripod

We decided we would take our own Fresh 48 photos this time around as I didn't find the price worth the quality we received from Sophia's Fresh 48 that the hospital provided last time. We will have more formal family photos done in a few weeks by our friend and photographer Nick.

How did you pack differently for each delivery? Did you pack more or less each time?

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

This week has been exhausting. All three of us managed to get sick with a cold so just imagine a pregnant person, a toddler and a person who is always sick, sick at the same exact time. In a way, it was good we caught it before baby boy comes but it sure made this week challenging but we were fortunate enough that my sister made us chicken soup on Thursday and on Friday someone from our church also made us chicken soup as well as provided food for us to have for Saturday and Sunday. We are constantly amazed of the love we have surrounding us from not only our biological family but our church family as well.

Also this week, there were two late evenings or early mornings (around 3 am) where I thought I could have been in early labor. I had what felt like contractions for about 40 minutes one night and then nothing. On another night, I had contractions for about an hour, nothing for an hour and then a few more for about 40 minutes but then nothing after that. Oh what fun those two nights were.

I also stopped babysitting this week since I had late onset preeclampsia with Sophia at exactly 37 weeks, I didn't want to chance the mom having to find last minute childcare accommodations, just in case. We have our appointment tomorrow at exactly 37 weeks so I am a little nervous that I will have to be induced again. As much as I am ready, I would rather little man to come naturally and my body do what it was made to do but I do understand that sometimes our bodies work against us and the Lord provided doctors with the means of intervention for when it is necessary. I would still appreciate any and all prayers that intervention is not necessary this time around though.

As I was reading back on my bump date from Sophia at 36 weeks, I noticed we also started nesting at the exact same timing. What was suppose to be a simple wall repair in our master bedroom quickly turned into painting our walls and some of the trim as well as deep cleaning the pack n play and setting it up in our bedroom. We also installed the infant car seat back into the car.


I plan to take this week pretty easy for the most part besides finishing up my hospital bag today as well as take Sophia to a mommy and me program one last time before brother arrives. Tomorrow morning, I am going with my sister on her hospital tour (she is 34 weeks pregnant with her first baby) and I will have our 37 week appointment after that in the afternoon which will include an ultrasound and checking my lady bits. Hmm, that sounds like I'm busy already but once Wednesday hits, we don't have much planned unless baby boy makes his arrival early.

This post was created in partnership with PinkBlush Maternity but all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

I am so happy to finally share our maternity pictures with you all. Hurricane Harvey first put a damper on the first date we were supposed to photograph these and then the next weekend, we were hit with rain again. Even the day we shot these, we were rained out of our shoot but we still managed enough time to get a few amazing photos in.




As always, I can never think our friend and photographer Nick from LaPalomento Photography enough for always capturing these special moments in our lives.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


I can't believe we are already here at the end of this pregnancy but at the same time, I still feel like there is forever to go. This mama is tired and I just want to be able to hold baby boy in my arms and to lay on my back comfortably, haha. This week, I have been trying to take advantage as much as possible during Sophia's nap time to just take it easy and relax in bed. Thankfully with Anthony being home the last few months, it has helped tremendously to also take breaks throughout the day since he is here able to take over. I am not sure how I would be doing this if he wasn't home although I am sure we would have managed but it is nice not having to, if that makes sense.

Strangely enough, I have also been craving the hospital food. I really cannot wait to have their sandwiches for lunch and the oatmeal for breakfast. And honestly to have oatmeal in general without getting heartburn will be nice. This whole pregnancy, I have had to give up oatmeal because the heartburn is so bad and that is one of the easiest and my favorite breakfast foods.

Baby boy is still having consistent movements and I noticed the times I wake up to pee in the middle of the night are always around the exact same timing, 3:40ish am and between 4-5 am and again around 7-8 am. I normally fall asleep around 2-3 am due to discomfort and constantly peeing and waking up around 9 am for the day for reference of how much sleep I am actually getting. Around 4-5 am is when baby boy is going crazy in my tummy with summer salts and flips so it has me wondering if that is around the time I will go into labor. We have also noticed that Sophia has been strangely extra extra clingy and just acting strange with bath time and bed time so we wonder if she senses brother coming sooner than we think.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


We had our 34 week appointment on Thursday and everything is still going good, praise the Lord. My blood pressure is normal, baby boy's heart rate was 142 and our doctor said she has a feeling he is going to be a big boy which honestly I wouldn't doubt with how heavy he is and because this belly just keeps growing and growing limiting what actually fits so you will find me rotating through the same things quite frequently until baby boy arrives.

The past few days, I have made a lot of progress on the hospital bag front but still have a lot more to go. What can I say, I am very particular about certain things and I definitely do over pack because I would rather be prepared. The baby's things are completely packed and fit into a sandwich ziploc bag, haha. Anthony's items are mainly packed besides his toiletries. I packed as much as I could for Sophia but most of her stuff will have to be a last minute packing thing so I jotted them down on a post-it for Anthony to be able to grab quickly. I still need to pack my entire list but I am honestly waiting on a few things in the mail so I am hoping they get here soon.

As for the baby, he is still moving quite a bit, not as much as before but still enough. A few times it felt as if he was doing summer-salts so I guess he is getting just as uncomfortable as I am at this point. I also started noticing I am leaking small amounts of colostrum already so my body is definitely getting ready for this baby and to be honest I am ready to be done with this pregnancy but I know how important these last few weeks of development are for the baby so I will not rush him out and God willing he will come naturally on his own.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


Well, I didn't get nearly as much accomplished this week as I planned. I still need to register for the hospital and pack our hospital bag although I do have my packing checklist ready. We were able to score an awesome deal on a second hand rocking chair so I can have one in my room for once the baby arrives as I did not want to take Sophia's out of her room. It's not the prettiest or even my first choice but when you are on an extremely tight budget like we currently are, you make do with what you can and hopefully we can upgrade later on. So I spent the last few days deep cleaning the cushions and wiping down the actual chair.

On a pregnancy related note, sleep has been very scarce this week. I have a hard time falling asleep as I cannot get comfortable at all and end up tossing and turning so much that baby boy pushes against my bladder that I then get up a million and one times to use the restroom. Very much the same thing that happened around this exact timing with my pregnancy with Sophia. When it is bad enough, I end up getting out of bed and work on blog stuff late until early morning when my eyes are so heavy that I can no longer concentrate. That seems to be the only thing that works to get me to sleep otherwise I would stay up tossing and turning and never falling asleep.

Baby boys movements are still fairly active, not as much as he use to be but still enough that I feel him move throughout the day. If for whatever reason, I can't remember the last time I felt him move I will give him a few nudges to wake him up just to be certain. He definitely loves the left size just as Sophia did as he loves to curl right into my rib and then stretch out to the point of feeling pressure in all directions. I tell Anthony I really think he is trying to break out already but little guy still has a lot more growing and development to get done.

Although it has been a challenging week, I know it will all be worth once baby boy is safely in my arms and I know I will long for the days of this growing bump feeling all the kicks and movements.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

This week has been a little busy especially dealing with the after affects of Tropical Storm Harvey. We were extremely fortunate enough to not have any damage or flooding in our home but the anxiety alone of the possibility made it a tough week as well as helping family members who did get flooding in their homes. However, we are finally back to normal around our household so we can focus on getting last minute things done before baby boy's arrival. I finally got majority of his clothes hung up however we do not have a dresser for him so all his pjs, socks, bibs, etc are in a pampers box for the meantime. I have also created a hospital bag checklist that I still need to actually pack and I plan to share that with you all in the next few weeks but for the meantime you can see what we took to the hospital when we were expecting Sophia. I also still need to register for the hospital but we have been waiting due to some insurance stuff going on but that is also on the checklist for this week. It already sounds like another busy week but I do enjoy it as all these things are a reminder of the gift we are about to welcome into our lives.

We did have our 32 week appointment on Friday and baby boy is still doing great. Strong heartbeat and lots of moving around despite being cramped inside my tummy. My blood pressure is also still doing great, praise the Lord, and continuing to pray that it stays normal. With Sophia I had late onset preeclampsia which is a worry of mine during this pregnancy. 

Overall, I am still having a hard time sleeping comfortably but at this point it is just preparing me for the sleepless nights to come with a new little baby in my arms and that will definitely make all this discomfort and exhaustion worth it.

When Sophia was first born, I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked when it came to breastfeeding. I was induced three weeks early due to preeclampsia (read her birth story here) and I thought I had more time to get what I needed but birth doesn't always go as planned so you just roll with it. 
1. Nursing Pillow - Nursing pillows are great support for your arms when holding that little babe up to nurse at the breast but it can also support your arms if you bottle feed as well. I also heard that a nursing pillow is great if you have a C-Section as it can help relieve the pressure on your incision site when you are holding your baby. The one I have is discontinued but the Boppy Nursing Pillows are the most popular on the market. Plus, you can find tons of small shops that make custom slip covers that can fit your taste and nursery decor.

2. Milkies Milk-Saver - I have just heard about this product and I can not believe I didn't know about this sooner. I was a leaky mess with Sophia. So bad that I had to stuff my bra with cloth diapers and I still leaked through those. Imagine how much milk I could have saved if I would have had this!? It is definitely a must have now that I know about it.

3. Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - If you have been around my blog, you know my love for this book. I even did a book review here. It is a must have for any momma considering breastfeeding as it is super informative and helps debunk a lot of the misconceptions there is out there on breastfeeding.

4. Washable Nursing Pads - As I mentioned, I leaked a lot when I breastfed Sophia however not everyone leaks a crazy amount like I did, in fact some women don't leak at all but in case you do leak, having washable nursing pads available are helpful to prevent having wet spots on your shirt. I have the Medela ones and they are extremely soft and they come with a laundry bag which helps reduce the chances of losing one. I also use the laundry bag to contain them in the diaper bag.

5. Nipple Cream - I used the samples my hospital provided and those lasted me so I never had to invest in nipple cream but also I didn't need to use the nipple cream as much as other breastfeeding moms did. I guess constantly leaking helped prevent me from get dried out nipples. However, I am planning to use Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil if I do need a cream for my nipples this time around since I already have it on hand and it is natural compared to lanolin. I also use coconut oil to moisturize my growing tummy - I did this for my pregnancy with Sophia and now with baby boy. Plus one container has lasted me an entire pregnancy and some so more bang for your buck going this route.

6. Nursing Bra/Tank - I have used nursing tanks, nursing sleep bras, nursing sports bra, and everyday nursing bras however I still haven't found the perfect everyday nursing bra yet so I am on the hunt for one and actually plan to write a post going into more depth of why you need different types of nursing bras. For the mean time, any nursing bra will work and help make breastfeeding easier. I have heard great things about the Bravado brand (I plan to try them out next) so maybe start there.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.