Maternity Shopping Tips

I head out early this morning to finally buy some maternity clothes. Since I went out early, there weren’t very many people around and I took my sweet time trying on a ton of clothes. With that being said, here are the “tips” that helped me along the way.

Sneak peak of some of today’s finds.  

• Don’t shop at stores that specialize in maternity. We’re talking stores like A Pea in the Pod, Destination Maternity, etc. Everything there will be so ridiculously expensive and you’ll end up spending a ton on clothes that you won’t wear very long. I went to stores like Kohl’s, Gordman’s, and Target.
• Shop the sales. I racked up at Gordman’s today by only shopping the sales racks.
• Find pieces you can wear throughout your entire pregnancy. I found several cute short dresses today but I knew I couldn’t wear those towards the end of my pregnancy in December so I put them back. One of the shirts I bought is a tank top but I knew I could wear it under a cardigan in the colder months.
• If you aren’t completely comfortable, don’t buy it. I tired on a shirt that I loved but I didn’t feel 100% comfortable in it. Since I loved it, I debated it for a while then ultimately decided, if I don’t love how I look or feel in it now I won’t love it later either.
• Utilize what you already have. I went through my closet pretty early on and pulled out pieces I had that could work over a bump. This included tunic’s, leggings, and maxi dresses/skirts.

I know a lot of people say “don’t buy maternity, just buy clothes 1 size bigger than you are” and I understand the concept of this but I don’t agree 100%. The maternity clothes I bought don’t look like maternity clothes so you bet I’ll be wearing them even when I’m not pregnant and they’re my size. If I would have just went up a size, I wouldn’t be able to wear anything afterwards which would have been wasteful to me.

Week 20

After an extremely busy week, I am beyond excited to do very little this weekend. I have a very low-key agenda that includes shopping for maternity pants (I think it’s time…), the normal workouts, going to my mom’s to pick up a suitcase for my trip next week, the dreaded packing and a lot of chillin’ with Philip and my kitties before I leave for 4 days. Since I’ve been so busy this week, I didn’t put up my usual pregnancy by week post. I seem to always be late for that though so I’m not surprised. So here we go:

 

Week 20

Fun Facts:… If you're having a boy, his testicles have begun their descent from the abdomen to their ultimate destination — the scrotum. And while your baby is definitely getting bigger (weighing in at about ten ounces and measuring six and a half inches), there's still plenty of growing room in there, which allows him to twist and turn (and allows you to feel his acrobatics!)

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Weight Gained: When I weighed myself the morning my 20^th week started (which is when the picture above was taken), I was up 1.8lbs.

Symptoms: At this point, all I have is the hair and nail deal still.

Food Cravings: I crave pizza sauce lately but not pizza. I want the sauce on toast or a whole wheat tortilla but I don’t want the full pizza. It’s weird, I know.

Food Aversions: Anything overly sweet I despise still, even overly sweet tea.

Sleep: My little man kicks my bladder all night long so I wake up having to pee. I go to bed early now though, I’m in bed by 9:30 nightly and asleep at 10 if Iron Chef isn’t on, if it is, I wait until 11. ;)

Stretch Marks: Not a single one from pregnancy.

New Baby Item: I actually don’t think I bought anything this week and I’m not sure how I held off an entire week.

Movement: ALL.THE.TIME. He loves to move and make his mama feel uncomfortable! I swear he’ll try to squish himself to one side and it feels so weird for me but I absolutely love it <3

Exercise: I’ve been taking it really easy exercise wise. When Philip and I go to the gym now, I normally walk while he jogs (30 minutes), then I do really light weights (typically the lightest the machines go but add more reps), and if he ever does an exercise I can’t do anymore, I’ll hop on the elliptical for 5-8 minutes until we’re at the next set.

On another note, one day during lunch I ran to Kroger to pick up some snacks for my desk at work and I came across Thin Mint coffee creamer.

Um, what?! How did I not know this existed?!??!!? I want coffee lately but decaf coffee tastes a little funky to me so I need a stronger tasting creamer so something with mint in it is perfect. Plus, it reminds me of a chocolate peppermint mocha around Christmas time (which I’m trying to hurry this year!) so I’m a fan!

Moving Day=Exhaustion

Well, the day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. MOVING DAY AT WORK! The movers got to our sales office at 8am to start loading everything up (we spent a lot of yesterday packing it all). I got to the office at 8:30ish and they told me everyone went to the community already (our permanent building) so I decided to head over there instead. When I walked into the community, I immediately noticed the beautiful decorations and also, the eight million people. Because the building isn’t quite done and has to be by Saturday, there are so many people working to complete the final details. The designers have a ton of work to do and they’re running around like crazy trying to complete it all in such a short time. They’re doing such a fabulous job though, here’s a sneak peak of one of the almost finished dining areas.

We toured the building again to see all the touches we haven’t seen in the past and to also try to familiarize ourselves with it. The building itself is MASSIVE and there are so many different wings and sections, I know I’ll have to carry a map around for a while. After the tour we started to get bored, the movers still weren’t there and we really couldn’t do anything until they brought at least our computers. Finally at 10:30 I decided to swing by the sales office to see how the progress was, or really, what the hold up was! When I walked in they said they had about 15 minutes of work left and needed someone to lock the door behind them.

Since Target is right across the street, I decided I needed to swing in to get a skinny decaf caffe mocha from Starbucks to pass the 15 minutes I had. When I returned, they were loading the last item so I locked the door and head to the community.

An hour later, still no movers.

Finally, an hour and a half later, they showed up. We told them we’d start letting them know where to put items at and they told us that their boss informed them to leave everything by the front and that’s it. We spent a lot of time yesterday labeling all the boxes so when we heard they were instructed to just leave it all, we were a bit frustrated.

Fast forward some and the boxes eventually got to the right place. I started unpacking my office and felt very overwhelmed because it was such a mess.

I dug my computer out because I had several deadlines to meet today and when our IT manager went to set everything up, it wouldn’t come on. Just my luck, I thought! He tried 4 or 5 different reboots but nothing worked and he eventually had to swap my computer out with another and I will be sending mine back tomorrow to get it looked at.

The problems don’t stop there though! The new computer turned on but, I couldn’t log in. When I finally left the office at 5:45, there were 2 IT people working to get some sort of network in my office so I can play catch up tomorrow and get some things done.

By the time I got home, I realized I sat down all off 30 minutes that day and my feet were killing me! Since I was home later than normal, Philip was already ready for the gym and I quickly changed and we high-tailed it there so we could get home asap for dinner since I was already starving. Evidently moving is exhausting and makes you hungry when you’re expecting! Now that I finally have food in me, watched Big Brother, and showered; it’s BED TIME.

I’m hoping to make it into work a bit early tomorrow to get some work done that I missed today.

Goodbye, Stress!

When I started my new job with a startup company back in May, I knew in the beginning a good portion of my time would be dedicated to staffing. As we draw closer and closer to our open day and the day my staff should be here, I began to stress a little because I just wasn’t having luck with applicants. Today though, I made my last offer. STAFFING IS OVER and I’m very happy with every single individual hired.

Today also happened to be the day that we had to pack up our office because at 8am tomorrow, we will be moving from a sales office to the our building! I can’t stress how happy this makes me because our set up in the sales office was less than ideal. It was a tiny store in a shopping center that the company I work for rented, and made into “offices”. We had seven people in an office the size of a frozen yogurt shop. <- I use that as an example because next door was a frozen yogurt shop and we had the same size suite as them. So, today, we scrambled to bubble wrap and pack. It amazes me that since May 6th, I’ve accumulated so much stuff.

It was also difficult to actually get any work done since half our stuff was packed early on. After a long, less than stellar day, it made me smile to come home to this sweet guy.

Stress is really bad for babies so I’m so happy that I don’t have any strict, make-or-break the opening of the building deadlines I have to meet anytime soon! I don’t want to go all Kim Kardashian and have him 5 weeks early.

In my quest to “be healthier” for my son, eating better, consuming more water, and not stressing are definitely top on my to-do list! Now if I could only get out of going to Minnesota next week…

All day kicking

I started feeling my sweet baby kick a few weeks ago but it was barely and off and on. Today, I’ve felt him move NONE STOP and I love it! :) I know a lot of people say all the kicking makes them feel uncomfortable but I absolutely love feeling him move. As a first time mom, a lot freaks me out. For example, when I can’t feel him, it freaks me out.

This was actually the perfect day for him to start moving like crazy because I felt extra large today. I was so frustrated when trying to get dressed this morning and the first two pairs of pants I put on didn’t fit comfortably. After I finally found something that I could breath in, I head downstairs in a really bitchy mood and then he started moving and it made me realize that me being uncomfortable is worth it.

I have to grow, I have to be a size I’ve never been before/not used to, and I have to get some bigger pants so I don’t go through this same ordeal daily.

19 Weeks

 

Again, I’m really late posting this…

Fun Facts: Have you ever seen a mango dipped in cheese? Well, that's what your baby looks like this week due to a little growth spurt (she's about a half pound in weight and six inches long) and a substance called vernix caseosa. This greasy white stuff covers your baby's skin, protecting it from the surrounding amniotic fluid. (Without it, she'd look totally wrinkled as she entered the world.) The vernix sheds as delivery approaches, though some babies still sport a bit of the coating at birth.

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Weight Gained: 2.9lbs

Symptoms: The only pregnancy “symptoms” I have lately are my hair and nails growing like crazy!

Food Cravings: Cheese quesadillas!! Really random. But also apples, I love apples these days.

Food Aversions: While I wouldn’t say I have a sweet tooth yet, I’m not completely against sweets now (frozen yogurt from Menchie’s to be exact). I still don’t enjoy the smell of coffee.

Sleep: I can tell it’s harder to get comfortable now, and I wake up 1-2 times nightly but overall, my sleep is still good.

Stretch Marks: Nope :)

New Baby Item: Lots of cute clothes.

Movement: He moves all the time but mainly when I’m at work, which is weird because I heard it’s normally overnight.

Exercise: Same here; I’m working out still but modifying. I did do a killer leg workout the other day and I can barely walk. I don’t think that will be on the agenda again until after my sweet baby boy is born.

Gender Prediction

There are so many “gender prediction” quizzes out there along with a lot of old wives tales about the different things that happen if you’re pregnant with a boy or girl. I was dying to know what I was having so of course I looked up about a billion of them and took some quizzes but most of the time my quiz results said “50% chance it’s a boy/50% chance it’s a girl”. Oh really? Ya don’t say! So, now that I know I’m having a boy, I thought I’d go back and see what’s true for me and what is not.

According to the “facts” if you’re pregnant with a boy:

Your bump is low. – Correct!

Your babys heart beat is over 140 beats per minute. Correct! Right at 148 :)

Your skin gets better. – Mine didn’t get better, for sure. So, wrong!

You don’t have much nausea. – Correct! I was sick for 2 weeks, tops, but even then I wasn’t too miserable. A friend of mine pregnant with a girl due 19 days before me was sick for at least 3 straight months.

You crave more salt/sour than sweet. – I definitely want nothing to do with sweets so, right!

You have to shave your legs more often. – Correct! I definitely do, my leg hair grow backs like crazy :(  

You gain weight only in your stomach, not your hips/butt. – I feel like I’ve gained mostly in my hips :( So, wrong!

Your feet get colder. – Mine have! Right!

Being pregnant with a boy will make your nose increase in size. Wrong, mine is the same.

Boys make your chest grow. Correct, mine has grown for sure

On your first ultrasound, your boys will be to the right and girls will be to the left. – WRONG! Mine was on the left. This was had my mom convinced I was pregnant with a girl, she was kind of shocked when she found out he’s a boy ;)

It looks like most of the “tales” are right in my situation but I still don’t believe in all that ;)