Big week! Huge!
As I am writing this, I am tired. Like just-finished-a-Ragnar-Relay tired. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a combination of being 34 weeks pregnant, being in the middle of a Crohn’s disease flare, not having a full night’s sleep in several weeks, and generally going nonstop for a while now.
So yeah. I am feeling pretty beat, but happy beat! (Maybe except for the Crohn’s part.)
Last week included all kinds of fun baby-related and non-baby-related activities.
Baby’s library is now seriously stocked. And every time I opened a book, Abby insisted I read it to her. I agreed to read the first page only.For example: Another visit to the midwife’s office on Friday! In addition to the midwife I’ve been seeing all along, there are other midwives and OB/GYNs within the practice, and any one of them could be on call when it’s time for Baby Cristiano to come into the world. So my midwife was all, “You should probably meet them,” and I was like, “But I am very attached to you specifically and would like to guarantee your presence in the delivery room,” and she was like, “You’re nice and sometimes funny, but it doesn’t totally work that way.”
So Brian and I met one of the OB/GYNs at our appointment on Friday, and I LOVED HIM. He’s so funny and super sarcastic and we got along really well. So I would be super fine with him delivering our baby!
No ultrasound photo to show for the appointment. She has gotten very camera shy!We had another ultrasound and got to see our little 3-pounder. (Well, estimated to be around 3 lbs. 11 oz.) Again, they reminded us that these are just estimates, and that while, yes, this estimate puts our baby on the small side (13th percentile!), she’s been measuring small all along, so it’s totally not a concern. She’s healthy and seems happy, based on her daily dance parties. They could see that the umbilical cord is wrapped around her neck once, which sounded terrifying to me, but they assured me is not a concern at all, and is very, very common.
In non-baby activities, I did the second Ali on the Run Show LIVE event on Saturday, which was so much fun! I’m so grateful to everyone who came. The crowd was amazing and so much fun, and I loved meeting so many people before and after. Also, to turn this into a baby-related thing, it makes me so happy to do things like this while I’m pregnant. I think it’s cool that, in some way, our baby is already being surrounded by so many strong, inspiring, badass women, like Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn. (If you couldn’t make it to the live show, or just want to re-live the super fun day we had, you can listen to the episode here.)
Chatting with Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn!Last baby-related thing: my baby shower! The live show at New York Road Runners was Saturday at 10 AM. My baby shower was Saturday at 1 PM. It was a crazy, fun, love-filled day, and I soaked it all up.
Hey it’s OK if you met some of your very best friends via the internet.The baby shower was so wonderful and so special and I felt so loved and supported all day. My mom, my mom-in-law, and my BFF Michael did such an amazing job with the shower, which was right here in our home (something I also loved). It had all my favorite colors (pink! gold!), animals (giraffes and elephants everywhere!), foods (my mom’s “Death by Chocolate!” Michael’s mint brownies! fruit water!), and people (everyone! Abby!), and if I write more I’ll cry, and I don’t feel like crying today. So it was a very magical, special, happy day, and I am so grateful.
As for the rest of the week…
I don’t know, these pictures never seem accurate. My stomach looks so much bigger in real life, I swear.BABY IS THE SIZE OF…
a pineapple or a head of celery.
Spiky Baby!HOW I’M FEELING
Generally fine. I’m kind of just used to the Crohn’s stuff at this point. So even though it’s annoying and inconvenient, it’s just where I’m at. Also heartburn. I had never had heartburn before! But now I get heartburn from time to time.
WHAT I’M EATING
Mint brownies and Death by Chocolate… Sorry, baby.
Testing baby’s new goodies on Ellie. She loved it, I swear.ON THE WORKOUT FRONT
A bunch of Orangetheory workouts. Some days I felt great, ran the whole time, and didn’t need any bathroom breaks (of the Crohn’s variety or the baby-on-my-bladder variety). Some days I didn’t even think about my stomach, which was awesome and very encouraging. And then some days I just kept. going. pee. The pressure on my bladder, namely when I’m running sometimes, can be crazy! And even if I just peed, I feel like I have to pee again! Women who run half marathons and marathons this far into pregnancy, how?! Do you pee every four seconds? Or does not everyone have the constant feeling of needing to go? (Some days I don’t, but on the days I do, OMG.)
Speaking of working out, I met all of these people (except Brian) thanks to working out! They all came out to the live show AND THEN came to New Jersey for my baby shower. I am really, really lucky. These people are good people.WHAT I’M WEARING
This dress to my baby shower, which was so comfortable! (IT HAS POCKETS.) Of course, I realized right before I put it on that I don’t really have any bras that fit right now, so I wore a Lululemon sports bra with it.
Michele and me! She’s due just about a month after me!WHAT I’M READING
Still working my way through Pregnancy, Childbirth & the Newborn! I made it through the pregnancy chapters and the childbirth chapters, and now I’m into the breastfeeding section, which is really interesting. I’m meeting with a lactation consultant in a few weeks, once my breast pump arrives, to do some pre-baby troubleshooting, since I really have no idea how any of that works and don’t want to wait until I’m in a post-delivery haze to try and navigate all of it.
HOW I’M SLEEPING
Not amazing. I fall asleep really quickly, but usually wake up at some point in the middle of the night for various reasons. (Last night, Ellie decided she needed to go out at 1 AM, which she never does. I figured she was sick, so I took her out, but I think she just wanted to hang out and play. Thanks, Ellie!)
See?! She loved it! So cozy!WHAT I’M WONDERING
When baby will arrive, of course. Everyone predicted when the baby will be born at the baby shower. She’s due October 23, and October 21 was a very popular guess! Meanwhile, Tyler guessed May 7 and Abby guessed August 6.
Things are coming together, though. We have enough diapers to last a lifetime, or at least a week, if baby takes after me. This weekend we’re going to get our stroller and a few other things, and I’m going to wash the baby’s clothes. The rocker is getting delivered tomorrow, and then we’re pretty much good to go with the baby’s room. So I’m feeling pretty good about everything! I definitely have no idea how to take care of a baby or raise a smart, confident, open-minded human, but we’ll figure it out!
QUESTIONS FOR YOU: What is your favorite baby book?! Mine are Giraffes Can’t Dance (obviously), The Little Engine That Could, I Knew You Could! (it’s like a sequel to the Little Engine), and all the Llama Llama books. Brian’s favorite is Curious George, because he wants our baby to be very curious, just like that monkey.
More Baby on the Run:
16 Responses
Love seeing all your baby updates! My girls’ favorite books as babies were “I Love You Through and Through” and “On the Night You Were Born”…I can’t get thru that one without tearing up…even now, and she’s 3 years old!
The Great Dog Bottom Swap. You won’t regret it. It is my favourite book for children and quite frankly, I don’t care if my boys are sick to death of it.
Both you and Brian look radiant, glowing in the photo! Your dress at the baby shower was so beautiful. Super cute color and flowers.
Chika chika boom boom is such a fun baby book. I also bought my goddaughter “on the night you were born” which has a sweet message and lots of animals!
My 18 month old literally had the same two books read to him every nap and bedtime for the first year of life. One is the Baby Bear finger puppet book and the other is called Night Night and only has eight words. Then I always read a different book before those two. Nursing, books, song and then bed. He’s very routine oriented! But I was like, whatever works if you sleep after!
I recently invested in a gabrialla maternity belt and it’s done wonders for me. It even helps me not feel like I have to pee every 7 minutes because it helps support the belly weight. I’ve been having lots of lower back and SI pain and it’s been a godsend. Maybe something to check out? You look great!!
The Bad Mood and the Stick is maybe the best book I’ve ever read in my life, period. But marketed towards little kids.
Love reading your updates. Had misdiagnosed Chron’s for 15 years through all my pregnancies and just blamed the babies- whoops! Also was taking Ranitdine for heartburn throughout and babies are fine! For books- Eric Carl’s The Hungry caterpillar, the Wonky Donky-laugh out loud reading it and The Gruffalo. Good luck with everything!!
Yay for baby’s room ebing complete, but when are you getting a couch!?!?!
I’m guessing October 25th!
We ordered it forever ago! Just waiting for it to be delivered!
She’s going to come on the 20th because thats my one year wedding anniversary and we’re crohnies together!
Doesn’t matter what books you like. I tried to sway my sons reading when he was a baby but now that he is a very stubborn 14 months, we read “Baby loves fall” approximately 1000x per day.
Your updates are so fun to read. Thanks for sharing about your pregnancy!
My almost 2 year old is obsessed with Curious George. I haven’t driven her anywhere in 3 months without listening to Curious George Learns the ABCs audiobook, but she knows a lot of letters… mom life. Peter Rabbit and the other Beatrix Potter books are also a favorite. For babies, the “Baby Loves Science” series board books are amazing. We have them all and daughter tells us how birds fly and yells “gravity” when she drops things. She also liked the Rosie Revere, Engineer book and the other 2 books in that series.
It’s so fun watching you prepare for baby and seeing what goes into it. We adopted our son and we didn’t have any advance warning. He was born on a Tuesday, we learned about him Wednesday, and he came home Friday. We had noooooothing. We had a day to make (many) Target runs and my takeaway is this: newborn diapers are too small after three days and babies need very little. You’re going to be great parents!
Little Blue Truck, The Pout Pout Fish.
There is a whole series of Goodnight books by Adam Gamble and Mark Jasper that are very cute and colorful – I like Goodnight Galaxy, but there are tons. You might like Goodnight New Jersey.