35 weeks and I can't "relax"

I'm due in 33 days. At my last appointment, my midwife, though I'm not supposed to quote her on this, said that there is a chance I could go as early as mid-July. This gives me about 14 days left to prepare! I'm pretty sure that we are ready to go. We have all the basics, put the nursery together although with one key thing (though not instantly necessary) not quite ready yet, I am unable to blog about it, but I am truly excited to share my nursery with you.
I don't think that I have really processed the fact that I am going to be going through a birthing process yet. I always get asked if I'm nervous, but in all honesty, I can't really tell you my feelings about it, because I have never experienced anything like it, so I can't really process that idea. I think I just processed the fact that I'm pregnant...and that took me 8 months....now I have about 2-5 weeks left to try and process the birth? I don't think that's going to happen, so I'll just let it be. I bet that as soon as that first contraction happens, I'm going to panic. There's no turning back. But I am excited of course!

35 weeks and counting!

 Things that I look for ward to after pregnancy (aside from the obvious of getting to see/hold/get to know our new little boy):

1.  sleeping on my stomach.
2.  having the use of my stomach muscles again
3. not looking like a beached whale/ turtle stuck on its back, whilst trying to get out of bed
4. no more leg/foot cramps on a morningly basis (hopefully)
5. room for my guts
6. being able to breath
7. being able to work properly in my garden
8. being able to bend over
9. breathing
10. reaching my toes
11. walking at a decent speed again ( this one is especially frustrating when you are used to being a fast walker)
12. being able to shave my legs in a comfortable position
13. fitting into more than two pairs of shorts. 

I tried "relaxing" the other day. Supposedly it's best to just put your feet up and take it easy during the last little bit of pregnancy. I'm usually out gardening or working away in the work shop with my power tools, but the other day I thought that I would try out this whole relaxing thing people keep telling me to do. So I spent an entire day lounging around the house, watching a movie, drinking some tea, soaking in the bath, looking up everything that exists on Pintrest, and anything else I could think to "relax". Let me tell you, I had never felt so exhausted in my entire life! I don't know how people do that?! so the next day, I harvested a bunch of veggies, prepared and froze those veggies, made dinner, bathed the dog and did a bunch of other things and I felt a tonne better! I need to accomplish something in my day in order to not feel exhausted.

Our most recent baby purchase was our car seat. We finally got one. We really wanted the Baby Trend and then we discovered that the Baby Trend car seat is not compatible with our Phil & Teds stroller.... no worries though, I come from a handy-man family, and my dad made an adapter than would attach the car seat to our stroller. Yay!

What I love about the Baby-Trend car seat, is the handle. Most car seats have a fairly plain straight across handle bar, however, the Baby-Trend car seat has a triangular handle so that you can hold it at multiple angles for an extra comfortable hold. 

Baby-Trend with triangular handle grip

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Phil & Teds sport stroller bought off kijiji (with dad-made adapter)

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A great combo!

I have also prepared everything for our home-water birth. At least I am hoping we have everything. I decided this week would be a good week to test the kiddie pool that we purchased for the occasion. Since it was 38'C with the humidity, and I was getting rather irritable, it seemed like a good time to soak in my new pool. Let me tell you, it was great. It felt like what a hot tub feels like on a cold winter night, but the opposite I guess. 

Did you know that it costs $250 to rent a birthing pool, not including the liner which you have to purchase? My midwife told me to just buy a kiddie pool for $30 instead, because they work just as well, and you can reuse it as a regular pool before and after the baby. Why would anyone rent one??

This is the pool that I got. That's not me, nor do I know who those kids are.
  My pool was covered with a tarp today because it has been so rainy for the
 past two days so I couldn't get a good picture of mine. This will have to do.

Remember how I made all of my own inserts for my diapers? Well I recently threw them in the washing machine to wash off any possible chemicals (from other peoples laundry soap since I upcycled used sheets from the thrift store). Good thing I did that because I discovered that a bunch of them started to fray in the wash. So my next step is to resew all around them using the new cutter edge foot that I purchased off e-bay for my sewing machine. If you don't have a serger/don't want to pay for a serger because they cost between $400 and $1500, then a cutter edge foot is the next best thing. Though not as good as a serger by any means, it can get the job done.  I also think that I might just sew all of my stay-dry liners right onto the inserts. But I haven't fully decided on that yet. 

one of these attached to a sewing machine
will solve a bunch of issues...for me at least.

Well that pretty much sums up the baby update, aside from the nursery....I seriously can't wait to post that!