week 30

average size: 15.2 to 16.7 inches, 2.5 to 3.8 lbs.
what's going on with baby: "Her skin is getting smoother, but her brain is getting wrinklier to make way for all that essential brain tissue. She's now strong enough to grasp a finger!"


10 WEEKS LEFT!!! :D


this past week we got to visit both of our hospital options to choose which one we liked better for giving birth at. it was really exciting to see where she will be born! here's a little rundown of what we saw at the two options:


hospital #1:
 - overall nice
 - nothing really overly "wowed" us, but it was a nice hospital
 - i DID like the fact that they don't do all the newborn testing right away and that they encourage family bonding time with the mom and dad immidiately after the birth, breastfeeding before newborn check-up/shots, skin-to-skin contact, etc. (all things i really want to do)
 - they have safety precautions with matching wristbands for me and remi, and alarms in the wristbands automatically go off/doors lock-down if a baby is taken out of the maternity ward area
 - grandparents also get a discount card for parking!

hospital #2:
oh man. where to begin...

i guess first off, on the hospital #2 tour, they handed us this booklet and a whopping 3.5 out of the 10 pages talk about paternity testing so that should give you an idea of the environment right there. why you would include all that info in your WELCOME packet/sales pitch for the hospital, i don't know.

we both left hospital #2 feeling dirty. the whole place had a smell, and it wasn't a clean/sterile one. the security also wasn't nearly as good as hospital #1. not that i really think someone is going to run in and snatch up my baby, but hospital #1 has security key cards at EVERY. DOOR. and i think hospital #2 only had...1? so it just feels safer (and more advanced in technology).

the labor/delivery rooms were pretty similar between the two, but hospital #1's still seemed nicer with more advanced equipment. also, at hospital #2, there is the possibility that if they are over-booked, i will have to share a postpartum room with someone else, and erik wouldn't be able to spend the night! he would have to leave at 10pm and not come back until 8am! so that's a huge turn-off right there because the FATHER of my CHILD is treated like any other guest for "visiting hours". no thank you. hospital #1 has all private rooms and he would always be allowed to spend the night.

the tour at hospital #1 was about an hour and 10 minutes of full, in-depth information. hospital #2 took 45 minutes and a bunch of it was lame jokes like, "har har...your partner sucks compared to the mom...they should bend over backwards for you, har har" as if all couples pick terrible partners. it sort of angered me. erik is a great husband, and of course would do anything i need him to. the whole attitude towards the guys was, "you're stupid and can't do anything right, so ladies...be sure to pack your hospital bag way in advance because if you don't, he will only pack a towel and washcloth because that's all he needs and won't think about what YOU need". the tour guide literally said this.

hospital #2 also doesn't have a little snack room (not a deal-breaker, but hospital #1 DOES have a snack area with muffins, juice, milk, sandwiches, etc., for us to freely get whenever if we're hungry), and the tour guide went over the food menus and everything during the tour at hospital #1. no food was mentioned at ALL at hospital #2. NONE.

the seats in the waiting room for guests at hospital #2 were also ripped in numerous places lol...minor thing, but still adds to everything else we saw, so hospital #1 is for sure the winner.

i guess overall...hospital #1 was doing a great job with the sales pitch telling you all the benefits you get, and hospital #2 was like, "welp...here you go! this is what you get!". hospital #2 also suppposedly just renovated a bunch of stuff, but you would NEVER know it, and the tour guide didn't even mention anything about it! wouldn't you mention that in a tour?! oh! but hospital #2 DID compare their showers to those of "motel 8" lol...nice. and you thought this was a good idea to mention...why? of course i'm not expecting a luxurious shower, but why tell a tour group you would compare them to a motel 8?! so bizarre...

anyway! on tuesday, i decided to get crafty, and make a pretty sign for the front of remi's room door!

i had seen the whole "melted crayon project" about a bazillion times a long time ago on the internet since it seemed to be traveling around everywhere, but i wanted to add the letter "R" to it to add a little something extra. luckily, i already had everything besides a big pack of crayons! i have a few smaller packs, but i wanted a big pack to get a full range of color. here is the process i used to get there!

i looked through a bunch of letter Rs, and chose "Lucida Bright" as the font. nice and classic :) printed it out, then cut it out with scissors. i used a 64 pack of crayola crayons (amazon, $6), and erik helped take out all the yucky whites, blacks, browns, and grays out of the crayon box since i didn't want those colors on the final project.

i needed a sticky stencil "R" to place on the canvas, but we didn't have contact paper or anything like that (would have been MUCH easier for taking it off later on because it would have been one piece), so i just used painters tape, and lined a bunch of rows and columns together on my cutting mat, then traced out the R in pencil.

then i carefully cut out the R with my xacto blade...

and placed it where i wanted it on the canvas (the canvas is 16"x20").

then i picked out the order i wanted the colors to be in, lined them all up, and hot glued the backs of them to place them at the top of the canvas. 

i figured heating up the crayon wax with a heat gun would make it splatter a bit, so i wanted to make sure to keep the house clean! haha...erik cut this garbage bag and taped it to the wall and floor for me :) 

and now came the fun part! i HIGHLY recommend using a heat gun over a blow dryer if you have one. MUCH faster. i still took my time though because i wanted to control where/how fast the wax came out to get the effect/look i wanted. keeping the canvas at this angle (below) really helped too. not too steep so the wax didn't just drip straight to the bottom. 

once i got it how i wanted it to look, it was time to try and remove that R that was now covered up with dried wax. i took small sections of the R off at a time because i think it would have been too hard to peel it all off at once since you can only re-heat small sections of wax at a time. i flattened the canvas at this point too because when i re-heated the wax above where the R was, i didn't want it dripping down anymore. just wanted it warmed up enough to peel that R off. this was a SUPER tricky process. 

here we are! all finished! well...almost! i wanted to clean up those edges where the wax leaked in under the painter's tape, so i scraped off as much as i could, then just painted the R section with white acrylic paint. 

here's the finished project! i'm SO happy with the way it came out. it's so bright, vibrant, and happy! i think it will look great on her bedroom door :)

erik and i both really love how the crayons just look like sewer tubes pouring out color hahaha...

overall, it was a really fun project! it took about 2 hours from start to finish, but i'm a pretty huge perfectionist, so it might take you less time if you try it yourself! 

i also finished the rug on sunday!!! WOOOOOO!!! i'm so happy that it's done! 

i'm really pleased with how it turned out, and it's SO comfy to walk on! so squishy! should be perfect for once she starts crawling around :) 

what else...

her kicks are for sure different now. she isn't moving around as much, and when she does, it's less punchy, and more rolley haha...i think things are just getting tighter in there for her, so she doesn't have as much space to wind up for a punch or kick, i guess! i even saw her stretch out one day and her foot pushed out on my belly, and then i saw it move down about 2 inches hahaha...it was weird to see! she's going to get stronger over the next 10 weeks, so i'm sure i'll be feeling stronger movement again soon. still no kicks to to ribs, so i'm thankful for that!

on wednesday, erik and i went to a lactation meeting at his med school, only this wasn't for the general public to go to, it was for the students to learn! so that was interesting to sit in on :) i didn't really learn too much because i've already done a ton of research, but it was still cool to sit in on a special lecture. overall, it was "BREASTFEEDING = YAY! FORMULA = BAD MOM!!!" lol...and how they can encourage mothers to breastfeed instead of going straight to formula. of course things change if the mother cannot physically breastfeed, but if she is capable of it, they REALLY want to push it (as they should because it's the absolute best for baby!), so it was fun to sit through their lecture. 

lastly, i got sick this past week! YUCK! but, thankfully, it really has gotten so much better already! erik got sick maybe about a week ago, and i was worried because of my weakened immune system. normally, i VERY rarely get sick, and i NEVER get sick when he gets sick, but pregnant women have a weakened immune system (i think i read it's so the body doesn't attack the fetus like it's a foreign parasite haha), so although i was optimistic, i also figured i might catch whatever he had, aaaaaaand i did. by wednesday morning i thought i was in the clear because he was getting better, but by wednesday night my throat started to get the sliiiightest bit itchy, and right before bed, i could tell i was getting sick. 

luckily i still have some sort of a healthy immune system because it's pretty much gone! thursday i had a sore throat, friday the sore throat was pretty much all gone and it switched to leaky faucet nose/sneezing, saturday the runny nose wasn't as bad, and sunday i felt TONS better. i only had to blow my nose a few times, and the runnyness was completely gone. today i'm feeling pretty great! just a little bit of a stuffy nose, but i will definitely take that over the non-stop runny nose! i HATE the damage kleenex does to my nose after all those wipes! so painful! so i'm glad that part is over with. i'm so relieved that it didn't last long because pregnant women really can't take any medications to help things move along! at least if we both got sick now, we can't get sick for when remi gets here, right? haha...

wow! lots to write about this past week! tomorrow i have another check-up visit with my midwife, but nothing too exciting since it's just a routine check-up!