i'm starting on dates you're supposed to have six per day that just seems like a lot didn't get the
best news today at my 36 week appointment it's two nights i finally have the dreaded dreaded
pregnancy insomnia his nursery is done now i figured it would be smart to pack my hospital bag
well i just did my 36 week appointment with the ob and i found out that i am positive for group
b strap which is a bummer um about a quarter of pregnant women are and the thing is you just need
antibiotics when you're in labor and delivery or you can pass it on to your baby which is a bit
big kind of a big deal so obviously i i wanted not to have to like get an iv with antibiotics while i
was delivering it means no bathtub for me after my water's broken and it also means that i need to be
like in the hospital a little sooner so they can put the iv in so yeah it's not my favorite but um
anyway garrett and i are gonna go take some pics together maybe our last maternity shoot
before baby gets here so i have some kind of cool outfits planned for us
hey got some dock options right there also right there try to frame this
garrett's hair has a mind of its own
he's trying to get it wet so we can fix it
this is a new day friends i did such a good job sleeping the last two days and then this morning
right when the birds started 6 a.m up i think i fell asleep at one it wasn't great every time we
did the last hospital class last night and this one was about um baby care and this was probably
the least stressful one that we've had because the other ones were about birth and breastfeeding
which um i found both of those kind of difficult to stomach at the time but then processed it later
and now i'm like okay with those things um but i just kept dreaming about swaddling last night
yeah and then i ripped my favorite pants my absolute favorite pants i liked it because they're
like under the bump you know want nothing nothing over my bump right now and they were three dollars
in myanmar so maybe that is why now i'm making um banana pancakes like two ingredient banana
pancakes just banana and eggs i was eating avocado toast every single day for a while and now i'm so
tired of it i can't do it anymore but i know the choline is really important for his brain health
so i'm still trying to get the eggs into my diet so some people really like these some people think
it tastes like a banana omelette but the key is really to make them small [ __ ] that one up
all right had a little nap put a little makeup on and it's amazing how much better that can
make me feel and i am starting on dates i mean this is all just like anecdotal grain
of salt stuff well actually there has been some studies done on women who ate at least
six dates a day starting from week 36 they did find actually that they were less likely to need
pitocin which scares me and honestly so curious to know what it is about dates that does that
but i figure it can't hurt well there's a lot of sugar and dates but i'm making a date shake
right now in an effort to do all i can to make things easier on myself a lot of peanut butter
a doula who's basically like a birth coach she had a client who gave birth
recently and she hung like powerful mantras all around the birthing room and so she suggested
that i do the same so i really like this one okay that's about as blended as i could get it
that is really good insanely sweet i don't know if i can do this every single day especially
when i can't like exercise the way that i used to one thing that has been kind of hard is i'm
like looking through the pictures i can just see that i have a little bit more of a chin here that
my arm's a little fatter than it never was before and obviously my belly's bigger and it's just so
frustrating and hard being i think a woman i grew up during the 2000s during the waif era
this was like the hardest time to be a young girl it was super in to be like be skinny nicole richie
lindsay lohan that is really hard to undo you start to feel like your worth is tied up in the
way that you look i actually was starting to go on a diet last year because i felt like i was too
heavy and i look back on pictures of myself from then and i'm just like what was i
thinking i looked great i'm just so tired of not loving what i see in the mirror every day
i think that there have been so many years wasted and i just really hope that after i give birth i
recognize how powerful and amazing my body is and i accept it for the way that it looks and that i
don't give a [ __ ] anymore about an ounce here or like a little bit there because no one else even
sees it and it's just so crazy to live life not loving yourself it's the only body i'll ever have
okay so i'm coming to the end of my 36th week now and so it just seems like a good
time to pack the hospital bag sometimes people do go into labor at 37 weeks which
if that happened next week i don't know if i'd be mentally ready yet
it's good to just be like physically prepared right i have watched a lot of youtube videos about
this i watched one from a labor and delivery nurse who had just given birth and so i feel like based
on what i've seen i hope that i'm sort of set up for success here so first thing is clothes i have
these grippy socks which came with my birthing ball so that was handy and apparently these are
just nice for walking around the hospital i'm not going to bring slippers because i live my
life in flip-flops and if i'm not wearing these i don't see why i wouldn't just wear my flip-flops
i wasn't going to get my own hospital gown just because i heard that and it makes sense
to me that it's going to get disgusting and you're going to want to throw it away but
i also don't love the idea of a gown that's just open in the back as i'm trying to walk around and
squat it snaps in the back it also snaps at the shoulder for easy nursing and skin to skin so if i
actually don't end up wearing it during labor then i would probably very happily wear this just
around the hospital afterwards there's easy access here in the front as well and it completely snaps
in the back i think at some point no matter what i'm gonna end up wearing this whether it is during
labor or afterwards i also have this skin to skin shirt it's from seraphine i bought two of them
just because in the beginning that's really my plan with the little guy is to have them um on
me as much as possible it basically wraps around and although you're not supposed to use it like
as a baby carrier if we're just chilling on the couch or you know just hanging out
at home or in the hospital he can basically be in here like a little kangaroo in case that other
robe just gets totally messed up i have this one that i love this kimono robe so i don't know i
just feel like this is nice because if i don't have anything else under it i can easily cover up
i also have sweatpants that i'm going to bring just comfy loose sweatpants these are high-waisted
so hopefully whatever's going on it won't bother me too much they're pretty loose and they're very
soft and then for my going home outfit it's going to be so hot so i just don't see myself wanting to
walk out in like the pajamas that everyone usually has in their hospital bag so i have a long very
loose dress i have a nursing bra as well it's really soft it's pretty loose i got a bunch of
these a friend of mine told me that when she wore bras that were too tight that's when she would get
clogged ducks so i went a little on the large side the l d nurse who did the video uh what to
bring to the hospital did mention that she really likes these onesies that zip from the foot one of
garrett's friends was just raving about this brand kite because they make these bamboo ones
so although almost everything we got for him was secondhand this is a brand new little onesie for
him so he can wear it in the hospital um it has a little mitt that can go over his fingers but i
actually am bringing a little finger clipper with me because that same nurse did mention that they
don't have any clippers in the hospital and that they can be born with nails that are still really
sharp and so i'm just gonna bring this so we can file his nails down it's an electric one i'm gonna
just figure this out when we get there i also was listening to a book about natural hospital birth
and one of the things that they suggested was bringing an outfit that you can look at when you
just need some reassurance and to remember kind of why you're in that situation working so hard
going through labor this is my favorite little thing we bought him because of the ears and so
i just kind of want this in the room with me that same nurse also did suggest a white noise machine
basically does the shushing for you so i'll bring it it's small so i did do the birthing class at
the hospital where i'm going to be delivering and the nurse said that they pretty much provide
everything in terms of the peri bottle the pads the um underwear diapers that you're going to be
using so i do have some organic diaper underwear here but i'm not going to bring it with me because
it sounds like they give you everything you need while you're there that said she did warn us that
we would want our own toiletries so i have my shampoo my conditioner my face wash some
really nice lavender hand cream in here samples of my moisturizer that i already use i really
like the lineage brand the water bank one is great my bamboo tooth brush floss hair stuff
i was gifted this beautiful lavender soap in quebec when i was there so i'm going to bring it
with me also a friend of mine gifted me this at my baby shower i love this lineage lip balm i'm
gonna bring this with me for sure i also forgot um aluminum free deodorant this one's by riodeo
another thing several people mentioned is having a fan so i'm actually gonna do it one better i have
this like little mini battery powered but also you can charge it through usb to like recharge it
air conditioning thing it's you know it's not like a powerful air conditioner but you can actually
put water in it it's a mini swamp cooler and i can move it all around the room
with me wherever i'm going you can put ice chips in it to make it even colder
like this thing in the burning man rv is so nice when you're just trying to nap in the middle of
the day and you don't want to run the generator so this is going gonna be perfect for the libra and
delivery room too okay electronics i'm bringing a portable power bank that has four charges in it
my camera this is an extra lens for it extra battery for my camera extra long iphone charger i
have noise cancelling headphones but they need to be charged so if i run out of juice or if i'm like
between charges or anything like that i have just the cheap headphones that came with the iphone
but because i'm doing hypno birthing i never want to be without something so that i can like
tune out and listen to my recordings which i've downloaded onto this ipad because i realized that
i don't necessarily want my phone involved maybe during the birthing process people are going to be
sending messages and i just think that a phone has other temptations on it i don't want to deal with
this i'm just going to keep offline all of the recordings are already downloaded onto it offline
and it's just bigger and easier to deal with so it was also suggested to me that if i really want
to stay in the zone i bring an eye mask so i have that as well so hopefully with my hypno birthing
recordings my noise cancelling headphones and my eye mask i can really like just tune out
be calm and in my own world that's totally my goal for this birth so we'll see i have a big water jug
so that i can have as much ice water as i want always available i am a camel and constantly
drinking already as it is so it'll be just good to have this not only for the birth but for the
time afterwards and that's pretty much what i'm bringing i'm gonna have snacks garrett's gonna
bring a bathing suit so he can get in the tub or shower with me if that's what i wanna do i'm
not gonna bother with the suit though personally in terms of blankets pillows all that i've been
advised not to bring it just because it can get so disgusting and it ends up getting thrown out
and they obviously do have blankets and pillows and stuff there the nice thing is that we live
10 minutes from the hospital so if at some point garrett gets uncomfortable i mean it's
the hospital he works at so he's familiar with it um but if at some point he gets uncomfortable he
can always just come home get pillows bring them back like we're not at uh we're not in a situation
where if i forget something it's like the end of the world yeah that's basically what i'm bringing
and i hope that that is sufficient but if you guys have any comments on it let me know because
i could be forgetting something really essential and that would be too bad
so i haven't done this before it's my first time but i can definitely make a video if you
guys want afterwards on what was a good idea and what i didn't end up using etc
we're basically in the home stretch now his nursery is done now that we have the mattress
but yeah 36 weeks down and one to four more to go this is the craziest thing ever um like having
no idea when he's actually coming but we're at least a little bit more prepared now see you soon