Officially Overdue.

Like that favorite library book that I keep forgetting to return, this baby is now 4 days overdue.  These have been four of the longest and most agonizing days of my entire life.  Not only am I questioning every single little twitch or twinge of pain that comes from... down there... but I'm wondering if there is something wrong with me because Baby hasn't come yet.

Yes, I'm overly dramatic but damn it, this was not supposed to go this way.  Add a severe case of "Why ME"s to the equation and you have one very emotional and erratic Nicole to deal with... lucky Bean. 

Yesterday was just the most awful day I've had in a loooong time.  First, I was up since about 3 am because of severe acid reflux that just wouldn't go away.  At about 8 am, I was able to fall back asleep for a few hours until 10.  I wanted to take a quick shower and head out to the pharmacy to get some Zantac and lo-and-behold, the water main outside of our house broke.  I got soaped up and partially rinsed, but no hair washing in sight... I had to finish my "refreshing" shower with baby wipes... yay.  Then we left for the pharmacy, finally everything would be okay.  We were in the store for roughly 5 minutes and when we came out, our fairly new and nice car would not start.  Like nothing at all was happening.  Bean popped the hood and found that the battery casing had a big crack in it and had leaked all of the acid/water out... we had no power to do anything.  If you would have seen me in the parking lot of that store, you would have made a point not to make eye contact... here is a car with the hood up and a very pregnant woman sitting inside bawling.  Thankfully, my sister and her fiance lived pretty close so they were able to drive us home to get Bean's car so we could buy a battery.  Then off to Sam's Club, where we ran into Bean's parents and they teased me about my watermelon belly.  Everybody laughed but me because I was still right in the middle of my pity parade. 

Fast forward to us getting the new battery in the car, which is working perfectly now.  The afternoon was fine, we ended up making a special dinner together that was really really good.  3-Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Orange-Butter Broccoli.  Seriously, it was heavenly after a long and painful day.  At about 8pm that night, I started to feel menstrual like cramps, and I was praying that they were real contractions this time.  Coming pretty regularly, my tummy was tightening like it should... everything was finally falling into place.  Move to about 10:30 when Bean and I decided to go to bed.  Contractions still coming, everything was great.  I fell asleep pretty quickly and I woke up a few times in the night to pee, contractions were still there.  Woke up this morning and NOTHING.  No pains or tightening of any kind, just the baby wiggling about occasionally.  I woke up blaming myself that this all had stopped, like if I had just stayed awake we could have a baby today...  I am still pretty upset about the whole situation but honestly, what can I do?  If the baby isn't ready to come yet, it just isn't ready.

Here is hoping that today is better...

4 Days Away...

And still no baby to show for it.  Yep, my official due date is August 23rd, the day after my 24th birthday, and this baby isn't showing any signs of wanting to leave the womb.  I've been trying walking, drinking raspberry leaf tea, even some other methods that I'm not going to get into.  Still nothing...

Basically, I want this baby OUT but Baby is not interested in leaving.  Still getting lots of movements, wiggles, and stretches from the baby, so that is good.  For the past couple days I have been getting a lot of ligament stretching down my left side, especially at night, and Braxton Hicks contractions pretty much non-stop.  I am hoping that this is my body trying to tell Baby that it's time to get this show on the road, but I can't decide if that is just wishful thinking on my part. Haven't lost the mucus plug yet and the water has (obviously) not broken... I am about ready to sacrifice a (roasting) chicken to my heathen gods in order to get this movin'...

Bean wants me & little B to wait at least one more day so he can get some time sensitive, important stuff done for work... I couldn't help but laugh in his face.  I have been the one carrying around this squirming little human being for 9 months, letting it destroy my body the whole time... he doesn't have the right to ask me to wait, even if it was physically possible.  I'm sure he is 85% joking, but it's that 15% that makes me want to punch him in the nose...  He means well, surely.

Here is hoping that in the next week, I'll be able to give you guys my birthing story and Baby J's stats...  Any mamas with good natural-induction techniques should comment. I need all the help I can get.

Baby Baby BABY

So I went and did it again, I neglected my poor, sweet blog. 

I've been doing lots of other stuff in the mean time though, really.  Like trying to wish this baby out of me.  We have about a week and a half until our due date at this point and I would LOVE Baby to come prior to that.  Like now.

Besides wishing, I've been working on crochet stuff for a local photographer, CNicholl Photography.  She did my maternity shots and is just fab.  Seriously. 

Recognize the belly band?

Anyway, she has commissioned a hand full of crochet prop hats from me over the past two weeks so I've been busy crocheting.  And she manged to peer pressure me into making a new Etsy shop, miniolives, which is for all my baby stuff.  It's kind of nice to be able to do things other than jewelry, as everyone and their cousin can make a bracelet...

 I also did a bunch of diaper pail liners, which are selling like crazy at the new Etsy - who would have guessed?!

 Oh and a puffy star origami mobile for Baby J's room... it's so damn cute.

Anyway, go check out the new Etsy and a say a quick prayer for a quick labor and delivery for Baby J and I.  And maybe one in the next week, that'd be pretty great.

The beginning of our journey into cloth diapering...

We made the decision as soon as this baby was conceived that we'd be cloth diapering.  For the first 6 months of the pregnancy, I'd do a teeny bit of research every now and again but generally, I just figured I'd wait until the baby got a little closer.  I should have started early!  Not that it's a big deal now, but budgeting for this would be easier spread out over the entire pregnancy...  And now the majority of my day is spent researching cloth diapering stuff, as well as pinning good tutorials for stuff on Pinterest.  (Follow me HERE!)

That being said, we decided to do a combination of traditional cloth diapers with PUL covers and pocket diapers.  I went out to our local cloth diaper/organic baby rearing store, Little Padded Seats, and bought two white soft IMSE VIMSE diaper covers in small.  These are very soft and have nice gusseted leg holes for baby, which could accommodate both chunky thighs and chicken legs.  Since I didn't want to have to buy these every time the baby grew, I also bought two Rump-a-Roos covers that are one size fits all.  I got a cute little celery color and a stormy sort of gray.  To go under these, I bought two 10 packs of premium prefold diapers from Gerber, which I will eventually end up buying more.  These are nice because not only can I use them solo with a cover, but I can also use them to stuff my pocket diapers - SCORE.  For closure when going solo, I plan to use Snappis, which are pretty awesome because I can't poke baby with sharp pins in the middle of the night.

Now on to the pocket diapers.  For these, we are going to try two different brands, FLIP by bumGenius and gDiapers.  Both of these are a pocket diaper/cover combo, meaning that the diaper itself is a PUL shell with two pocket flaps on the front and back of the inside to hold inserts or cloth diapers.  So far, we have only bought the FLIP diapers but I am diggin' them already.  The shells are pretty easy to adjust, they are a one size with plastic snaps, and the stay-dry inserts that come in the daypacks are pretty thick.  They are in the wash now but I will test absorbancy soon and get back to you...  I got two Day Packs in Noodle and Butternut, which come with 2 shells and 6 stay-dry inserts each for $50 a box.  Considering that I will be able to use the inserts or the cloth diapers, these were a pretty good investment.  In the long run, I think we'll have at least 6 of the shells, possibly up to 10 because we'll be able to use them for the whole diapering experience up to potty training, and potentially for the next kid.

The gDiapers that we are going to try are SO FREAKING CUTE.  Seriously, those little things are precious even though the kid will poop in them.  We are going to end up trying four of the gDiapers in Small to start and see how it goes from there.  gDiapers are sized, which will probably make it a better fit for growing baby but we'll have to buy more as baby thickens up... Unfortunately, the gDiapers don't come with inserts, you have to buy them separately and they run $30 for a 6 pack, which ends up being $5 an insert!  YIKES.  I am already planning to make my own inserts for at least the gDiapers, probably the FLIP ones as well.  Tutorial in the future, possibly? 

Anyway, that is the beginning of my diaper stash, more to come I am sure.  I will calculate up my costs eventually as well, so that I can see how much we are saving versus disposable diapers.

Any of my cloth diaper mamas that want to comment with advice would be MUCH appreciated!  We need all the help we can get...

Belly Sash - A Tutorial!

Isn't that adorable?  Seriously, so much squee-ing over here.  I made this sash for my upcoming maternity photos with CNicholl Photography (here is her Facebook fan page).  I wanted to do something to show off the belly, since it still looks pretty decent, besides all of my new-found belly hair...

To make your own cute belly sash like this one, you'll need the following:

Materials

• Fabric scraps [I used purple knit from a failed dress and some cottony muslin]
• Lacey trim/ribbon or equivilant [Seriously, use anything you want!]
• 2 inch ribbon for the actual sash
• Yarn
• Hot glue gun and a couple hot glue sticks
• Scissors
• Beads
• Felt Sheet
• Button(s)
• Lighter

To get started, decide the basic shapes of your flowers and how many you'd like.  I chose to do one large focal flower, one lacey flower, two pom flowers, and two crochet rose flowers.  This project is infinitely personalizable, so have fun deciding what you'd like to do and the colors you are using!  For my sash, I used a printed ribbon that wasn't overly girly, since we aren't finding out the gender.  You could absolutely use a soft satin ribbon for this and it would look a little less busy, plus you could incorporate patterned fabric/ribbon into your flowers without clashing.

To start, make your big focal flower. I used a great tutorial over at The House of Smiths to make my focal flower.  I didn't follow her tutorial exactly, but pretty darn close.  You can find it here.  I used my purple knit on six 5 inch circles to make the base and five 3 inch circles in the cotton muslin to make the top petals.  I ended up hot gluing a star button in there, but you could use just about anything with a flat-ish bottom.

Next, I did my little pom flowers in the same purple knit.  I used another tutorial for these, found at Sew Chatty.  These were craaaaazy easy and I want to put them on everything!  I used ten 3 inch circles of the knit per flower and a 2 inch circle of the felt.  Once I was done, I went to town fluffing them up, they are friggin' precious!

Next I did the "crochet" roses.  I use the term crochet loosely because you are actually braiding them!  If I had the time, I probably would have whipped out my crochet hooks and just done a chain stitch instead.  For these, I took 3 pieces of yarn in chartreuse that were roughly 18 inches long.  I did an overhand knot at one end and stuck that under my clipboard.  Then you just braid braid braid.  Get it however long you want and overhand knot the opposite end.  Clip off the extra yarn on either side and set your felt circle ready.  Mine was about 2 inches in diameter, you want it as big as your rose.  Put a nice dab of hot glue in the center and put your knot on it.  Then just wind it around in a spiral - I twisted mine from time to time.  Hot glue regularly so it doesn't come undone.  At the end, you should have the knot and a little bit of braid left, this is the time to trim your felt circle if it was too big.  You'll want to tuck the knot on the underside of the felt circle and hot glue in place.  Repeat this process if you are doing more than one of these flowers!

Finally, I made my lacey 5 petal flower.  This was by far the easiest one.  I took some buy-the-spool lace trim and cut out a petal shape that I liked.  Then I just did 4 more.  Cut a small circle out of your felt, like 1/2 inch or so, and hot glue your petals on.  I decided that they needed something so I hot glued 3 vintage glass pearls into the center.  

At this point, decide how long your sash ribbon should be.  If you are making this for yourself, wrap the ribbon at the point you want it on your belly and add 10 - 12 inches.  If you are making this for a friend, I would say a 40 inch length of ribbon would be fine.  Once your ribbon is cut, don't forget to singe the edges with a lighter so you don't get fraying strings.

I then laid my ribbon on the floor and put out all of my flowers.  I took a few tries to find a design that I liked best but once you do, simply hot glue each piece directly on the ribbon.  Let it dry for 5 - 10 minutes and you have an adorable belly sash for maternity pictures!  This could also be used as a hairband, just cut your base ribbon shorter.  OR you could do this as a bridal sash, I'd love to see ivory and white flowers with pearls and little blue accents!

Sorry about the lack of progress shots but I hope you have fun with this tutorial!  Now go forth and make cute things, you deserve it!