Crochet....

I finished my first little pair of crocheted pants for Charlotte. I think I'll try to find a pattern for the next pair. They didn't quite turn out like I wanted, but they're cute enough, I think!

Front:



Back:

Teething

We are not so in love with the teething around here. Dorothy has always been a really good sleeper. That is, until she started cutting her 2-year molars. Now she wakes up one or two times a night and hates being put back down. Another lovely thing that came around the same time is her refusal to go to the nursery at church. She used to love it, now she throws a colossal fit. We end up having to hold her out in the hallway and hope she stays quiet enough to not distract everyone. She was never that bad with teething as a baby, but add in being two and she's a different child. She's already cut the top two and now we're working on the bottom two. My hope is that she'll go back to her regular routine once they're through...just in time to adjust to the new baby.

NABLOPOMO

It's NABLOPOMO time again. That's right. A post a day in November. And I should be able to pull it off as long as Charlotte doesn't decide to come early.

I'll be 30 weeks tomorrow. Most likely that means only 2 more weeks of bedrest. I'll still have to be careful not to do too much lifting, but at 32 weeks the survival rate is about the same as full-term. I keep telling myself that the next 8 weeks is going to go by quickly, but right now things are dragging by even with classes to keep me busy. At least it's November already!

28 weeks!!

You'd think being on bedrest that I would post more often. I really intend to, but time slips away from me between homework and Dorothy and everything else. Over the weekend I reached 28 weeks, which was the major milestone we have been shooting for. It feels good to know that baby Charlotte has such a good chance of survival now:)

I had a bit of an eventful week. Last Monday/Tuesday David came down with a cold/fever. By Tuesday afternoon, I had a fever as well... but being that my stomach is so sensitive when I'm pregnant, I wasn't keeping anything down. One of my church friends came to take me to L & D for the night so they could monitor my contractions and hydrate me. We got there around midnight and I was discharged by 7 am, but it was a LONG night. It took me most of the week for my stomach to be back to normal (as normal as before, anyway). I will be getting my flu shot at my appointment this week to avoid Influenza this year. Now I'm just dealing with mild cold symptoms, which are totally nothing in comparison to what I was dealing with. Luckily Dorothy avoided getting sick. She and David will be getting flu shots as well... we can't have the flu this year. I'll be either pregnant or dealing with a newborn for the whole of flu season.

I have also made a *few* more things lately. Purple K asked me to post pictures of the wool diaper covers I've made. I used up all the wool I got from her, and I think they turned out pretty good. There are a few different styles of them.

3 newborn soakers, 1 small soaker, 2 medium soakers, and newborn longies:


1 small soaker and 2 medium soakers:


The rest of the stuff is just random things that I wanted to make....

Strawberry Shortcake set of a prefold diaper, hat, and pants:


4 large fitted diapers:



And a bunch of cloth wipes:


Diapers are about the most exciting thing around here for me, so sorry to bore you with them! I'm actually going to start selling a few things... wetbags, nursing covers, wipes, wool covers, and baby legwarmers. I have a friend that has a website and she wants to have my stuff available on there. As far as time, diapers take a while to make so I don't know yet if I will want to sell those, but I'm sure that if I wanted to I could.

That's all for now! Off to do some more homework... oh, how interesting History is.....

Nice cervix!

My cervix (since I'm sure you allll want to hear about it) is still behaving at around 2.4 cm long, which is the same as it was with Dorothy at this point, so all still looks good. I have been having contractions a lot. So much so that on Friday we went in to L & D to have me monitored. But, of course, by the time we got there they had slowed down. It was a rather uneventful trip and we only ended up being there for around an hour or so. I was glad they calmed down because some of them were as close as 4-5 minutes apart, although most of them averaged about 12 minutes apart. That's been our only "scare" so far, so we're doing alright. At my next appointment I will be 28w2d, so we'll be in the safer zone. Not totally safe, but getting there!

Dorothy seems to be enjoying daycare well enough. She HATES being dropped off and throws a big fit, but she's generally happy when we pick her up. This afternoon she kept saying how she wanted her friends, so I'm taking that as a good sign that she must be having some fun.

Classes are in full swing now, with History being the most time-consuming one right now. I think they'll all take up most of my M/W/F while Dorothy is at daycare. I'm still sewing up a storm, too. I've made a few cloth wipes, some wetbags, some nursing covers, a few newborn wool diaper covers, and a couple of size large fitted diapers. I took some pictures of our "stash" as well. Keep in mind that these are going to diaper her until potty training, although I only had through medium when I took the pictures. Feel free to ignore them if cloth diapers don't interest you, but I think they're lovely. Nothing like a fluffy diaper on a baby bum!

The newborns:
4 KLO colors galore,
1 homemade fitted
1 me-made nb prefold (the black & white)
9 small kissaluvs contours
2 nb fleece soakers
1 xsmall prorap
Not pictured:
2 x-small me-made wool diaper covers
1 pair of me-made nb longies (wool pants)
several more nb prorap covers

The smalls:
5 me-made fitteds
12 sweet cheeks sewn in folded-down position w/sewn-in doublers
4 various adorable fitteds
2 fleece covers
1 small diaperrap cover
4 small proraps
6 0-3 month gerber vinyl covers
Not pictured:
1 yellow me-made pocket dipe w/microfiber insert
1 cute cupcake print fitted
4 small Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers
a few more small prorap covers
1 me-made wool diaper cover

The prefolds:
22 me-embellished infant sized DSQ prefolds that will fit small/med (a few are Christmas-ish because she is trying to come early)

The mediums:
12 Coolababy one-size pocket dipes/inserts (for daycare)
12 sweet cheeks fitted dipes w/microfiber doubler sewn in
10 me-made flannel fitteds
1 kushies all-in-one
2 med fleece covers
3 med prorap covers
4 3-9 month gerber vinyl covers
1 me-made medium drawstring wetbag (for daycare)
Not pictured:
a few more medium prorap covers

The randoms:
3 snappis
a bunch of flannel wipes (making more of those myself)
fleece liners (making more of those, too)
boosters for kissaluv contours
birdseye doublers
flushable liners
Not pictured:
1 pail liner
several diaper pins
8 flat diapers

As far as larges, I now have 5 home-made fitted diapers (2 made by me), 24 premium DSQ prefolds (that I am working on embellishing), one pocket diaper, and several prorap covers. The Coolababy pocket diapers should work through large as well, since they are supposed to fit until 30 lbs. I am also going to be making a bunch more fitted diapers and if I get any baby shower money, I want to invest in a few more cute large fitted diapers if I can find some good deals online.

So that's that! Hope you're not bored to death now:)

25 weeks!

I am so pleased that we have made it another week. This week Dorothy will start her daycare 3 days a week, and that should cut down on the stress of wondering where my help is coming from for the day. Monday is also when my online classes start, so I'm looking forward to the term flying by. 2 weeks after the end of the term is when we should be getting induced as long as baby stays put and bakes that long.

My cervix shortened only a tiny bit. In the past few weeks it has gone from 2.7cm to 2.5cm to 2.25cm. As long as we're moving in mm, then it's not so bad. My cervix is open to the stitch above it, and basically all of my length is below. So little stitch is doing his job very well. I'm trying to stay off my feet unless I am getting something to eat or taking a shower. Obviously sometimes I need to get up for this or that with Dorothy, but for the most part I am doing a pretty good job of staying down.

I made my first pocket diaper this week. A pocket diaper is waterproof, and it is made so that you can stuff the absorbent material inside the pocket. It turned out pretty well, and I hope to make some more after my sewing machine gets back from the shop. I was sad the other day when it pooped out on me, but hopefully a good cleaning and tuneup will fix the problem. Here are some of the embellished prefolds I did before my machine freaked out on me....

Sewing adventures

Since I am on bedrest and classes haven't started yet, I have my sewing machine set up on a wooden chest next to the couch. If I put the pedal on the couch and lay on my side, sewing is not too difficult at all. I have sewed 8 new fitted cloth diapers and modified some fitted cloth diapers that I bought and used with Dorothy. Here are some of the pictures of my diapers....





I am also starting to work on embellishing some prefolds. Since they are plain white, I wanted to add some color to our diaper wardrobe. I have a ton of cute prints, many of them girly, that I can add a wide strip of down the middle of the diaper. I'm excited to see how they turn out and I will make sure to post some pictures when they're done.

I'm also excited to be 24 weeks now! We're now at the beginning of viability, so if my contractions start to change my cervix, the baby would at least have a chance of survival. Her chances get better by the day, really. But 24 weeks was our first major milestone. This pregnancy is flying by!!!

And just because she's my sweetie....

Birthday pictures!!