Nursery

The nursery is nearing completion. We got everything hung up last night and now we just need to finish painting the toy box, pad the top of it and find a furry white rug. Pictures to come as soon as the toy box makes it in. Which will hopefully be before the baby comes...but you never know with us, we are really good at not getting things done when we want to :(

I am getting so excited/anxious to have our little Arya here. I am down to almost 3 weeks until the due date! Some days I think I am so ready and then I look at how messy our bedroom is, the fact that I don't have anything remotely packed for a hospital bag and then I begin to remember how painful contractions are and I realize that as ready as I am I am so not ready...if that makes sense. I better get cracking!

So my mother in-law is a certified holistic nutritionist and was very kind to give me some herbal vitamins and such that are supposed to help out with labor and delivery. Now I have gone from taking 1 prenatal vitamin a day to taking a prenatal vitamin + 2 red raspberry leaf capsules + 2 omega 3's with EPA and DHA + 4 slippery elm capsules. Sounds crazy eh?

Well the prenatal is a given but here's what the others are supposed to do. Seeing as I don't eat fish almost ever at all I don't get those much needed Omega 3's that are good for brain development and are seen to help with things such as depression and anxiety and an all around better outlook on things amongst other things that it preaches as benefits. I have been wanting to take them for a while but the last one I tried I had an allergic reaction to. But I took one capsule yesterday and felt fine so I took the recommended 2 today. Anita said it's possible that the EPA and DHA ratio might have been too much for me so she bought me a different but still effective kind.

As for the red raspberry leaves, well I am thinking these will be providing the most benefits. Not all people believe in these herbal supplements so I guess it's not common practice to take this but it is believed that the benefits of this are many when it comes to labor and delivery. It's supposed to 1. strengthen the uterus in the hopes of making contractions more efficient and more bearable. 2. Allow for a clean break away of the placenta and 3. because of a clean break away and a stronger uterus it will make the bleeding afterward a lot less. I also read that if you take these and do your kegel exercises then it also helps tone/strengthen those muscles making it less likely that the doctor will need to resort to a c-section or forceps. Because of these things though it is not recommended that red raspberry leaves are taken until the 3rd trimester. Sounds worth a try right? At least I think it does. Last pregnancy I would have loved to have more efficient contractions, less bleeding and all that good stuff.

And the slippery elm...well it's benefits are actually not entirely related to pregnancy but according to Anita it is also supposed to help with a clean break away of the uterus and good healing afterward. Other benefits, when taken orally, are more gastrointestinal. I don't think I really need to elaborate too much more on that except that it is good for making things inside you less acidic and thicken the mucous lining in the stomach preventing things like ulcers. And apparently slippery elm was what was used in that (church)story of the little boy who had his hip blown off. They applied it directly onto the wound to heal it. Kinda cool.

Anyways, so that is my regimen until I have this baby...though I'm sure the omega 3's and the prenatals will continue after I have the baby. I'm really hoping for a much better and easier labor and delivery this time around. Here's to hoping!

I really can't believe I have just about 3 weeks left...maybe even less! Seriously it's so close!!! A week from today I find out if my body has made any progress towards labor. And maybe my doctor will talk about the possibility of induction...I don't know, we shall see. I'm hoping Arya will just come on her own and early...can I have both? :)

Now it's time for me to go pay attention to my cutie face Audree. I have one of my smaller t-shirts on her for her pajamas and it just kills me every time I see her. She's so stinking cute! I just love my little Audree so dang much. I would squeeze her all the time if she'd let me...but of course I only ever get a couple of good squeezes out of her :) I can't believe that I will soon have 2 little girls that I can love this much!!