Happy Birthday, Darling!

J's birthday was this weekend and he got some great gifts!

1. Ellie started her 3 week growth spurt on Thursday night and it lasted a few days.....oh the horror....the horror....

1a. giving us 45 minutes here and there to sleep throughout the whole night, definitely not enough for a REM cycle!

1b. feeding for 3 hours at a time, just switching from side to side. Ouch.

2. Ellie decided to use J's hand as a diaper and lovingly gave him a pee AND a poop.

However, there have been another milestone like the cooing noises! When she's alert (and fed and her diaper has been changed), we put her on the Baby Einstein and she makes such cute little noises like 'goo!' or 'gaa!' or 'blah!'....and she's never upset, she's just verbalizing. It's awesome to hear.

So along with the her sleep deprivation torture techniques, there are many other things that make up for it. Unfortunately, J's birthday was right in the middle of one torturous time, but the next moment she was making eye contact with him and yelling 'a goo!', so that obviously meant "I'm sorry that I'm not letting you get any sleep, and I'm sorry I keep pooping in your hands, but I really do love you and appreciate all the hard work that is going into keeping me happy".

Happy Birthday, J!

Elizabeth Niles...giving us smiles.

Here is the new addition to the family!

Elizabeth Katherine Niles: Born 6:34 am on November 8th, 2011. She weighed in a 8 lbs and 8 oz and measured 20.5 inches. She so adorable we could stare at her for hours!!!

Still with child.

Had a doctor's appointment yesterday....on the drive there I realized that I hadn't been out of the house (other than the odd limp to the mailbox) in a week. Crazy. I had one of those moments from The Simpsons when the children discover the outdoors again and they are all rubbing their eyes thinking "what is this place??"

We are on day 5 of being overdue.

Routine non-stress test today and Monday/Tuesday we shall have her out at the latest....unless I go into labour all by myself. Come oooon, self-started labour.

J says she must be just like him and is just too lazy to come out!

Let's DO this, already.

I'm officially overdue. Only by about 1-2 days, but overdue nonetheless. You spend all your time thinking about the 'd-day' that the doctors give you, but the little one has its own agenda. I will think of it this way: I must have created such a comfortable, enjoyable environment in there that she just doesn't feel like coming out. I mean, it's cold these days, fall is here and winter is around the corner. Wouldn't YOU want to stay in your nice little temperature-controlled studio apartment?

So for all of you looking for an update, this is it. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis. And maybe once I publish this post I will instantly go into labour.....but probably not.

Helen Niles....not travelling many miles at all.

That dull back ache turned into sciatica in my right side. If I had some sort of walking stick, I'd be using it daily as I can't put much weight on my right leg. Also, my hips have decided to flee my body, or at least that's what it feels like. These last two weeks have been the hardest out of the last 9-ish months (I know, I know, what's next will be harder...), but I still have to consider myself lucky. Pregnancy (and Life for that matter) is full of ups and downs, and if you can't deal with them, then you'll never get through it.....so dealing with them, it is.

Because of the pain, I haven't been getting around much. I go up the stairs (slowly and limpingly) to put in a load of laundry, or I walk around the street corner (slowly and limpingly) to get the mail. Otherwise, I've been sitting on the couch or at the kitchen table watching movies and checking Facebook wayyyyy too much. I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, then He's Just Not That Into You, then an hour of Sense & Sensibility (which I normally love, but deemed too slow for my current state of mind), and then My Best Friend's Wedding. Along with cooking dinners for J, napping and tidying up the odd room, that was how I spent my week. Oddly enough, I thought it would be harder to get used to being away from work, but nope! Turns out it's not that hard at all!!!

This is the calm before the storm. I'm due on Monday. Shall we start taking bets as to when she'll arrive?

Maternity Leave (and caternity leave)

I am officially on Maternity leave. It was nice the first couple of days until I started getting some consistent dull back pain. From what I can gather, the baby has descended and I'm getting even closer to D-day (due date). Unfortunately, I have promised J that I will take it easy from now on....and that means only doing one or two things on the list I have prepared for my time off before the baby comes....instead of the 3 to 4 that I managed earlier this week.

Around the 32 week mark, I decided enough was enough and that I have to stop feeling sorry for myself and my ever-expanding middle. You're supposed to get bigger during pregnancy, but for whatever reason (I think it's because my abs were always my favourite body part), I just couldn't get used to the idea. So I took matters into my own hands.....by hiring a photographer and getting maternity photos done. A photographer that's done this type of thing before will know how to pose a pregger so that optimum flattery is obtained. Essentially, it's amazing that we are adding this little person to our family, but I really wanted to look back on pregnancy as a positive thing...not something 'you have to get through'.

Melanie Shields was our wedding photographer and I knew that she did all sorts of different photography. I sent her a quick email, we decided on a date, and we met for the photos. She suggested that the 35-36 mark is the best time to get photos done, and we went to Hog's Back Falls.

Now, I don't think I'd ever actually been to Hog's Back Falls. I'd driven by it loads of times, but it's actually a very nice park!!! We stolled around, I did various poses (some more flattering than others in my mind) and finished in under an hour. Here are some of my favourites:





If you like Melanie's work (and I will press the fact that her prices are very reasonable), her website is http://www.melanieshieldsphotography.com/ and her phone number is 613-296-1239.

As for Zorro, our cat, until the baby comes I am also officially on Caternity Leave and I must say he is enjoying it quite a bit!

Birthday before a Birth-day

I've heard that 30 is the new 20. I've heard people are much more sure of themselves at 30. I've heard that 10 x 3 = 30.

I remember thinking that I wanted to have my first kid by 30....and being a scientist, I know that everything has a degree of uncertainty, so we'll say that 30 +/- 3 weeks is pretty much 30.

I know that after this point, almost everything will be about the future baby Niles, so I will now say buh-bye to my childhood and look towards the new childhood about to start!