As I enter my third trimester, it’s already surprising how quickly time has passed. I wasn’t expecting to feel nostalgic for the early days of pregnancy already.

I definitely don’t miss the sickness of the first trimester. And being on the other side of the major tests and appointments of the second trimester makes me so grateful and relieved about baby’s health. Looking back, one of the stand out memories from the early days was actually when I’d forget I was pregnant and relive the shock and excitement when I remembered 10 times a day.

I’m still over the moon about the future, but now it’s hard to forget I’m pregnant. I have a true barrel belly, hormonal acne, stretch marks, and difficulty sleeping or finding comfortable positions. Derek has been so supportive and I feel like we are closer than ever and happy to soak up these last few months of just the two of us. The trade-off for all the new discomfort is the fun of feeling baby girl move constantly, and she’s going hard enough that Derek can feel as well. It‘s surreal for both of us and at times wildly distracting.

We got to see baby girl’s face in 3-D at our last ultrasound and combined with the movements I feel and saw, she clearly already has a little personality.

There have also multiple projects we’ve been working on as we get the house ready for her arrival, but the biggest is the nursery. We live in a cottage style house with one original bedroom on the ground floor and two small bedrooms in what was once the attic. We turned one of the attic rooms into the master bedroom (it’s tiny and basically only fits our king bed) and the other room we use as a walk in closet/dressing room.

Of course, we knew that little miss would get the ground floor bedroom, and it really is the perfect bright nursery with two windows and views of the backyard. It’s also the room that got refurbished first as it was the master bedroom before the attic was converted. So it has brand new crown molding, cornflower blue grasscloth wallpaper and hardwood floors! But when we started sleeping upstairs it became a storage room and was full of bins and furniture not in use.

We also decided to set up a mini changing station upstairs in the dressing room so that we wouldn’t be up and down the stairs with the baby in the middle of the night. I’m kind of used to the nightly up and down from pregnancy bladder, but neither of us loved the idea of being tired and having to carry the baby down the stairs constantly.

It took a full month to clear out the nursery so we could finally start designing and unboxing. So far we’ve re-done the closet, picked out a glider and built the crib. We had a bookshelf and double-wide dresser that were perfect already, so we just needed to find a mirror, hang curtains, and add a light fixtures that would match the girly vibe. It’s exciting to see it all start to come together!

This month we also started our childbirth preparation class, which is fantastic so far and right in the labor and delivery unit of our hospital, so we are getting more and more familiar with being there. Its a small group of eight (four couples) and the nurse educator has decades of experience and knowledge to share! Now that we’re getting into the nitty gritty of labor I am starting to really think about birth wishes, and we are making some more concrete plans as far as postpartum and pediatric care. We realized that since neither of us have much experience caring for infants that there were a lot of things we didn’t even know that we had questions about. But the flood gates are opened so we have been looking into other resources that may be helpful. In April we’ll take the infant care class that the hospital offers as well.

Otherwise, we have been taking it easy and enjoying this time with our families and each other. We are starting to realize what a blessing it has been to spend nearly a decade with just ourselves to consider, and now we can appreciate it in an even deeper way. More updates to follow!