itsmejamielee.com

(I know that labour can go longer, but you get my drift), but when it’s over you get to hold and kiss and love your baby! In fact, Luke and I didn’t even attend the labour and delivery portion of our prenatal class. Not only do you need to follow the doctor’s orders of which foods to avoid for the baby, it’s also important to keep a healthy diet so you can keep your body in tip top shape for labour. I didn’t hit that mark every single day of my pregnancy, but I definitely made an effort to walk at least 30 minutes per day 5 days per week whether it was on the treadmill or just through my commute.

We had found out the big news at 5 weeks and morning sickness didn’t waste any time making it’s way into my daily routine. One of the major challenges I found with the first trimester was having those tired spells or my morning routine interrupted by nausea while being early enough in my pregnancy that I hadn’t announced it yet The morning sickness had subsided, my baby bump started to peak out around 16 weeks, and I felt the first baby flutter at 19 weeks. It’s time to start thinking about what you’d like the nursery to look like, getting your baby registry set up, and decide what you’d like to include on your birth plan.

Give me Christmas mugs, mistletoe, Christmas tunes while I decorate, retelling the same stories of where my ornaments came from as we decorate the tree, Santa hats at family gatherings, a freshly chopped Christmas tree – all of it. Christmases past meant that I would start shopping in September to spread out the damage to my bank account, go over the spending limits that were set for any given gift exchange, and feel like I need to buy a gift for anyone I might happen to spend time with in the month of December and first week of January. I won’t lie, I was sad that we didn’t drive to a tree farm and cut down a Christmas tree to decorate. By the time we would have had the chance to go to a tree farm, it would have been a week before Christmas and we couldn’t justify spending the gas money to get to and from the tree farm plus the $100 for the tree just to have it for a week.

It’s easy to get caught up in baby prep, household chores, making sure you’re spending time with friends and family, on top of work responsibilities, but the opportunity to just sit down and enjoy a movie from beginning to end without interruption is about to come to a screeching halt for parents-to-be. As a new mom, you want to get it right and make sure you have everything ready for your baby to have a smooth transition into your home, but in the midst of all that, you’re not really thinking of yourself and what you might need once baby arrives or even while you’re still pregnant. If you’re not close enough with her to feel comfortable enough to buy her nipple butter, don’t sweat it, Earth Mama has a variety of less personal products that would be a great gift for moms and moms-to-be. All this to say, even if you’re not sure if the pregnant mom you’re buying for is a “bath person” or not, chances are she’s down for that bath now that she’s pregnant.