THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - July Edition

Happy Canada Day! June was really awesome because it was a lot more low-key and relaxed and we didn’t really go anywhere. Sarah (Turnbull) pointed out to me that I am usually away from home 50% of the time and then I spend the other 50% of the time entertaining guests at my house. This is pretty accurate! I’m learning to try to appreciate my “nothing” times a lot more.

Sarah came to visit from Toronto and it was so awesome to show her around where I live!

There were tons of various festivals and events going on in June, so it was a ton of fun to check a bunch of those out! We went to the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival (and saw seven different shows), MURAL Fest, and Montreal Folk Festival Sur le Canal. So I guess in terms of neat Montreal stuff that has been going on, we saw a few things!

Just because I’m preggs doesn’t mean that I’m not still busting out plenty of this...

I suppose that we did leave town once. We drove down to Ottawa for a day because my cousin Marissa and her boyfriend bought a house and they threw a house warming party. So that was fun!

And then it was me and Tim’s 3rd wedding anniversary! It was a really perfect and ideal day. Tim went to work in the morning and when he got back home I was waiting for him like this. ;)

Who says that you can’t be pregnant and all-the-way sexy at the same time?! You can!

Actually, Tim and I had not had sex since we had conceived the baby!! Not because we feel weird about a baby being in there at all, but because the idea of a penis coming anywhere near my downstairs business has seemed completely unappealing to me. But I’m feeling a lot better about that now. So our anniversary seemed like a great time to get back into it!

Then we went and saw Cirque du Soleil’s newest show, LUZIA. It was fantastic, of course.

And we went out for our anniversary dinner at Joe Beef, a very famous Montreal restaurant that we’d been dying to try for years! It was amazing. We loved it all! Everything was so, so rich.

Some exciting family news... We found out that Mya and Jeff are having a baby girl! Another niece for us!! AND we found out that Angela is already expecting her second baby!!! We have quickly gone from zero babies to four babies in an extremely short amount of time! Mine is going to be the shit disturber and the negative influence on the rest, no question. ;P

This is a good lead-in to...

BABY WATCH 2016:

I have now reached 12 weeks of pregnancy, which means that I have been pregnant for three months! I believe that this means that I’m now in my second trimester, which is exciting news. Everyone always talks about the second trimester as the party trimester! :D

Month 3!

I think that I’m actually starting to show a baby bump for real now. It’s getting pretty obvious and much more difficult to appear not pregnant!

I am now at 119 pounds, which means that I have gained 5 pounds since this all began. I guess being on the smaller side means that the baby has no where else to go but to pop out! Here is a comparison of month 1 VS month 3, which shows quite a difference.

This is what happened inside of my body in the third month...

It still freaks me out that there’s an entire person in there like that.

In month three, I’ve felt much better! I still have “off” days and I have now vomited twice (although the second time was entirely my own fault for trying to take my vitamins without any liquid. What did I think was going to happen?), but generally I feel pretty good. I find that I’m very energized and feel the most amazing in the mornings, and then usually by the evening I feel worse and more tired and worn out. I feel as if I want ALL foods and NO foods all at the same time, which is very confusing. None of it has really stopped me from living my usual life, thankfully! I’m feeling better all the time!

I was supposed to have my very first midwife appointment on June 22nd (finally!) but on the day of the appointment they called to cancel because the midwife was busy delivering a baby. Which I suppose is a valid excuse *eye roll*. I have been rescheduled for July 5th. I feel a bit frustrated and anxious about this since now I’ll be at 13 weeks before any medical professional deals with the fact that I’m pregnant!!! I have literally not established any sort of anything with anyone yet.

Once we finally see the midwife and confirm that everything is cool in there, we’ll go ahead and do an official announcement of the pregnancy on social media. So please continue to keep things quiet until then.

We attended a “meet and greet” night at MotherWit Doula Care in hopes of securing a doula. I have known that I wanted to have a doula long before I got pregnant. At this gathering they explained exactly what the roll of a doula involves (it sounds so ideal!!) and we also got to meet the team of women that are available to choose from. So now we’ve gone ahead and selected a doula, a young woman named Laurel, and are getting things going with that.

We also looked into what kind of baby benefits Tim gets at work. They will automatically give him an entire month off of work at full pay when the baby is born. So that’s amazing news! After that, if he wants additional paternity leave he would have to go through the government. I don’t think that we’re going to bother doing this, because we like getting Tim’s full salary too much. :P

One of the main things that I really wanted to do was speak to the teachers at my yoga studio and discuss what my pregnancy will mean in terms of my yoga practice. It was so helpful to speak to Elizabeth (the studio’s owner and one of my main teachers) and Marylene (the prenatal teacher who is also a doula and midwife in training). They both gave me a lot of peace of mind, encouragement, and valuable insight. Plus they were so sweet and excited for me! They confirmed that I could keep taking the exact same classes that I currently do, including doing inversions, for the remainder of my first trimester. They suggested that I introduce the prenatal classes into my mix in the second trimester. I can keep doing as much as I’m comfortable with all the way through, as long as I don’t push myself. So this was wonderful news! I took a prenatal class just to see what it was all about, and it was a lot more difficult than I expected! It wasn’t all neck rolls and pelvic openers at all - we were doing leg balances and light inversions, albeit with plenty of props. I feel a lot more confident about continuing down my path and being a full-on preggo yogini queen!

I bought a Snoogle (which has been life-changing, and I assume will only become more and more valuable as things progress) and we have been enjoying some light reading, ha ha.

Now you’re completely baby-up-to-date!

IT’S JULY! IT’S FULL-ON SUMMER!

Jeff and Mya (Tim’s brother) are coming to visit from London and they get here tomorrow! They haven’t been to our place since we moved to Montreal so it’ll be fun to show them around and go eating! (We have reservations at Garde Manger, Chuck Hugh’s restaurant.)

Then we have a few quiet weeks before things pick back up again.

Near the end of the month I’m flying to Toronto to spend some time with my friends there, and I’m super excited to get to see them! Tim is meeting me there a couple of days later with the car and we’re driving up to Muskoka for our family cottage weekend (except it’s more like four days). It’ll be really awesome to chill at the lake for a few days... Although a lot less boozy than usual with three pregnant chicks!! Ha ha!

From there we’re driving to Ottawa and spending a couple of nights there and Sarah (Turnbull) is flying in to Ottawa from Regina. Once she is collected we’re returning to Montreal.

Then I’ll have Sarah in Montreal (for the first time!) and we plan to show her everything! The Just for Laughs Festival will be going on (we have tickets to a show called Oh, Hello, a two-man show starring John Mulaney and Nick Kroll, two comedians that we really like), plus we all have tickets to Osheaga, the giant three day epic music festival. (I’m very excited to see Radiohead, Passenger, Beirut, The Lumineers, HAIM, Death Cab for Cutie, Lana Del Rey, MØ, BØRNS, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, and M83.)

Should be piles of summertime fun!

THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:

July 5th is Candice Weingartner’s 34th birthday!

I hope that you have a gorgeous day, most likely out at the lake! And that your boys (especially Ryan) spoil you a ton! I love our long friendship and the memories that we have shared. You’ve always been an inspirational model of independence that I’ve looked up to a lot! Love you!!

July 8th is Crystal Maffenbeier’s 34th birthday!

You deserve to be spoiled by Jared this year more than ever after all of your hard work and accomplishments these past few months! You have no idea how much I admire everything that you did and I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it all was. You’re my hero and I love you a ton!

July 15th is Robin Checkowy’s 34th birthday!

I hope that you get to have a super special day to celebrate YOU! You’ve been through a lot and I hope that you’re starting to slowly reach a bit more of a calm. You’re such a sweet and fun person who deserves to feel special and loved! Love you!!

July 26th is Nadine Ottenbreit’s 2nd wedding anniversary!

As always, you and Kyle deserve every happiness and I hope that you get to celebrate your special day! Send the kids away and do something romantic!