The Wednesday Stork presents: "As Maternity as I Get"

I've made no secret about my feelings regarding maternity pictures: I'm not a fan. Not usually. I've seen a handful that I like but mostly I just find them awkward or lovey-dovey or occasionally...um...inappropriate? I don't want to see things I shouldn't when you're not pregnant, so I really don't want to see things when you are. Yikes.

It's possible that I may have said I wouldn't do maternity pictures when I found myself in a maternal way, but I still Pinned a few ideas that I thought weren't so bad. You know, just in case. Maybe one day I'd wish I had a handful to look fondly back on (like after I forget what pregnancy can sometimes feel like) and it'd be a shame not to have at least something maternity.

So today's Wednesday Stork is a little different. Todd was the sole photographer so I can't take any credit. It's not in our usual style...we tend to lean towards outdoorsy photos with lots of sunlight and thoughtful backgrounds. We decided these have a more magaziney look, but still liked the way they turned out.

As an interesting bit of trivia, the only maternity outfit featured is the tank top I wore in the first picture. The rest are all normal clothes that I'm definitely not wearing right now.

This one was Todd's favorite. I Pinned it before I was ever pregnant and he was excited to finally be able to take it. It's now his iPod background image :) In case you were wondering, I have a very low bump.

And I like together pictures...

Yes, I am that pale in real life.

Oh, here we are outside:

And one more of just me...

Got enough bump? I'm glad we did these at 35 weeks (today's new number!) instead of waiting until full term. I don't know if I'd want to document myself any chubbier than this.

Until next time, I leave you with this image: Me and the bump, bumping Todd right out of frame. Happy Wednesday :)

Getting Ready

I have every intention of doing an entire post dedicated to some of the little "baby touches" that we've done over the last few weeks/months, but Todd looked adorable assembling our stroller and I thought it deserved a post unto itself :)

His generous parents got us this Graco travel unit (it has a carseat as well) as a baby gift, and I was eager to see it all put together. I like to take walks so a good stroller that's convenient to use was very important to me.

Otherwise, I'm really not picky about the stuff we have for Ty; some of it is used and some borrowed and that's wonderful! The less we have to buy him, the better. I'm also very...how do I put it?...ignorant of what I need at this point. I've never had a baby so maybe I'm way underprepared. Part of me feels like he doesn't need much and we certainly don't have the space to cater to every eventuality.

But that's neither here nor there. How about those pictures of my hero and schnazzy stroller?!

 He's a natural at this sort of thing, for sure. It didn't take him long at all!

Real men refer to the instructions. 

Is he cute or what? (Don't tell him I said that in "public." He'd probably prefer to be known as something other than cute.)

A job very well done :)

At the moment, the stroller is "folded" up downstairs, awaiting its maiden walk around the block. The carseat (which JUST fits in our tiny backseat) is perched on top of the wardrobe, ready to be installed on Ty's TBA birthday.

Now we just wait :)

The Wednesday Stork: Week 34

I give new meaning to the term bump on a log. Or maybe I give it old meaning. Either way, I am the bump and my log is the couch, or the bed, or the other couch, or the other bed. Take your pick.

But I've got to say, I don't really mind the relative inactivity. I actual quite enjoy it. I get to rest and read and crochet and then rest from all the reading, crocheting and resting. I'm taking my own little vacation (interspersed with things like laundry, bathroom cleaning, cooking dinner, and other chores that have to be done occasionally) and it's nice. I don't think life with a newborn, or really any age child, is conducive to doing exactly as one likes, so I'll get that in while I can.

Hopefully that will explain why I don't have anything very interesting to say this week; I don't do anything very interesting :)

Weeks: 34. While the weeks don't go any faster then they used to, each one feels like a big deal now, like I'm really accomplishing something. That helps.  
Weight gain so far: Nearly 21.5 pounds. I almost don't even care anymore.  
Got any prego stretch marks? Still none.  
How am I sleeping? I'm usually really tired at night and I think on the whole I sleep well.   
Feeling anything in there? Am I the only one who sometimes wishes he would just calm down? It's cute for a while, but there are times when he can really get going and eventually all that turning and churning can make me feel sea sick.    
Aversions or cravings? I've wanted to eat a lot this week. I don't think I've killed it or anything, but I've had an appetite. 
What’s the gender? Boy. 
Any labor signs? Nope. Maybe just another month and a half, though...  
How pregnant do I feel? Heartburn is back a little more forcefully than it was last week, but still not as bad as it's been. I'm heavy and slow-moving and feeling pregnant for sure.    
Belly button in or out? Still in...
Still sporting my wedding rings? Sadly, no. 

We have our 34 week appointment with the midwife tomorrow and then we should have one at 36 weeks with my OB. The OB appointment is where we hope to get the "all clear" to proceed as intended with the midwife practice. We're praying a lot these days for no complications and trusting that God will do and provide all that is needed. Out of control is a good place to be, really :)  

A "little " laundry for Valentine's day

So today I did laundry for Valentine's day, and I loved it :) Ok, so I didn't do it because today is Valentine's, I just happened to do it today, and today happens to be Valentine's.

Anyway, I've been waiting and waiting to wash up Ty's tiny little clothes and just got around to buying baby detergent yesterday, which, by the way, I only found in a giant box. I was hoping to get just a small thing of it since I don't plan on using it indefinitely, but let's just say that now EVERYTHING I wash for a while can smell like a baby.  

Laundry is about the only baby chore I can do in preparation for Ty's arrival, which we expect to take place in about two months. If I drag it w-a-y out, maybe I can do a load or so a week to give myself something to look forward to. Would you listen to that? Laundry becomes the highlight of my week. Hmm. That'll be short lived. From what I understand, I'll be doing laundry all the time once there's a newborn in the house. 

Here's some interesting trivia for you: this is not the first time I've photographed laundry. The first and only other time I can recall making a clothesline the focal point of a picture was when I visited some missionary friends in Brazil. I just thought the line looked cool tied to coconut trees :) The scenery isn't anything to write home about in the pictures below but the outfits are adorable!

Ty's wardrobe ranges from hand-me-down items to consignment shop finds, and there's even a tiny bit of "brand new." The kid is practically rolling in clothes!

Hope your Valentine's day has been as thrilling as mine! Maybe I hope it's been more thrilling than mine, even if I did get a kick out of doing a little laundry :) 

The Overbeeks on Holiday: Part 2

If you missed Part 1, click here to see our trip to Cape Town.

There are a few things one must see if one comes to Africa...zebra and giraffe :) Of course, most people would also love to see elephant, lion and rhino, but those can be a lot harder to come by. Not to leave you hanging, we didn't see any of the latter while Todd's parents were with us, but we gave it a good effort. We took a game drive at a big 5 game park not far from Pretoria and had a really fun time! It was pretty much a private tour as we were the only ones in the truck apart from our guide.

Here're Todd's parents, ready to get rolling! It was the bumpiest ride I think I've ever taken...if Ty had been full term it may have produced a trip to the labor and delivery ward afterwards, but thankfully he wasn't and it didn't :)

Here we are stopping for some drinks. I'm mostly just including it so you can get a good feel for the truck :) So safari-ish!

And now for some animals...

Check out how huge these eland are...absolutely massive. We're told they can jump 6 or 7 feet from the standing position.

The clouds behind this giraffe make him look like he was taken out of his original picture :) I assure you that is not the case (though I don't suppose any of you doubt Todd's talent in this department).

The game drive was a lot of fun, even if none of the big 5 made an appearance. It's always a gamble...sometimes you see 'em, sometimes you don't. We had a great time anyway. After the afternoon drive we had a really nice dinner at the lodge and then went back out on the truck for a night drive! That was a cool experience, but I won't be including pictures for obvious reasons. Unless a bunch of little glowing eyes would be of interest to you, you're not missing anything.

In my opinion, we didn't see nearly enough zebra on our game drive to validate a trip all the way from the United States to Africa, so the day before Todd's parents left we took them to a little park in the city, Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve. This is a park with zebra, bok (different kinds of "antelope"-type animals) and some ostrich. There are walking and hiking trails and the animals just mill about freely. It's a fun, low-key place to take visitors.

It was one of those rare days in Pretoria where it rains and drizzles off and on, very uncharacteristic even for the rainy season. Here we are taking shelter under an obliging tree :)

And here is our "Africa" group picture. What makes it African, you ask? Oh, nothing...just the zebra butts in the background, of course.

Oh and y'all, we saw the absolute tiniest little baby zebra I've ever caught a glimpse of, and I've glimpsed a lot of them in my year on the continent. It was so cute and so obviously unintimidated by humans. It couldn't have been more than a couple days old so I wonder how much people-exposure it's had yet.

The mother let me get pretty close before ambling out of the thicket to chomp some grass nearer the baby.

After Moreleta Kloof we made our way to the Union buildings, which are some really nice buildings with beautifully-kept grounds. I'd never been before. And yes, that statue with outstretched arms is Nelson Mandela.

A nice cloudy, rainy, not-too-hot summer day in Pretoria...my kind of day :)

It was with very heavy hearts that we dropped Todd's parents off at the Gautrain station the next evening. They didn't make a big deal about leaving and maybe that was for my sake, I don't know. But it still took me all of about 2 seconds to realize that saying goodbye to family will probably never get any easier, no matter how many times I have to do it. At least this time it was only for about 10 months instead of 12, which was an encouraging thought.

And so ended our lovely holiday. It took a long time to get here and was over much to quickly, but we are so grateful that God brought them safely, kept us all healthy the whole time, and used their visit to pour out blessing after blessing on Todd and me. It was a very good holiday :)

The Wednesday Stork: Week 33

Well, here we all are. Another week older, another week fatter, if you're me. I'm slowing down, y'all, I really think I am. My walks aren't quite as brisk as they used to be (though Todd would probably tell you they haven't been exactly "brisk" for months now) and I find myself resting a lot. 

But as usual, I have nothing to really complain about, and I'm grateful for that. If fat and tired are as bad as it gets, then this will have been a truly blessed and easy pregnancy :) 

Weeks: 33. You know, I think the reason this feels like it's crawling is because I'm keeping such close count. Maybe that's why it feels like the women I know who are a few weeks or months behind me seem to be moving at an unjustly fast rate.   
Weight gain so far: It's just under 20 pounds. It's starting to look like I won't make my goal (which is completely arbitrary and I never knew if it was realistic), but I don't have much to be ashamed of. I think Todd would vouch for me that I have not eaten like a crazy person. 
Got any prego stretch marks? The last time I saw my belly (and I see a lot of it), it was still stretch mark-free! 
How am I sleeping? If you don't count the two or more interruptions per night, I sleep great! I've found I'm really tired by about 9 or 10pm and have been able to fall asleep quickly. I also haven't had much trouble falling back to sleep after making my bathroom runs.    
Feeling anything in there? He just moves and moves and moves. Anytime, anyway he wants, he is one moving baby. We are quite curious to know what the little round thing is that he is always poking out of my lower left side. We've taken to just calling it "the little round thing." I hope he does it at our appointment next week so I can get some insight from the midwife. I'm sure she's got more experience at identifying little round things.     
Aversions or cravings? Bring on the Papa John's. 
What’s the gender? Boy. 
Any labor signs? Nope. There's still a very long way to go before this will even be a realistic question.   
How pregnant do I feel? I tell you, my heartburn has calmed WAY down! There have been plenty of days this week when I haven't even needed to take any medicine! It might be too good to last, but I'll take the break. Otherwise, as far as feeling pregnant goes, I feel very pregnant. Slow and heavy.    
Belly button in or out? In. Todd is watching it like a hawk :)  
Still sporting my wedding rings? Erm, no. I took them off last week, more as a precaution than anything else. I was afraid I'd wait too long and get them stuck and stuck rings are one of the most claustrophobic feelings. I miss them, but better safe than sorry. I'm glad I removed them when I did because I think my fingers have swollen a tiny bit. 

*Yawn*

I am probably about the laziest person you'll meet these days but it's such a blessing to have the freedom to rest and take it easy. From what I hear, I better take it while I can ;) 

 

The Overbeeks on Holiday: Part 1

I've been threatening/promising to give you a peek inside our recent holiday, and by holiday I mean vacation. I still envision Christmas decor when I hear the word "holiday," but here in ZA it is a word that first and foremost implies time off work, i.e., vacation.

Todd's parents arrived on January 18th and we were blessed to have them here with us for an entire two weeks! I wish I could tell you how wonderful it was to have them here visiting...just take my word for it. It was wonderful.

We sort of had a holiday within a holiday while they visited in that we took a trip to Cape Town! I've wanted to see Cape Town since we got to South Africa and I was not disappointed, I can tell you. We travelled down by train (have you ever slept on a train? It's easier said than done) so we were able to see a good bit of the country. It was a long and rather hot ride (no AC, naturally) but we eventually reached our destination. I'm just glad they let me on the train at all. They took one look at my middle and almost didn't.

Here's me and Todd on one of the benches in our four-person compartment.

And here we are the next day, watching the desert go by.

Our hotel in Cape Town was really more of an apartment with two bathrooms and a kitchen. We weren't here much, but when we were we enjoyed the view from the balcony:

On our first day (we spent two full days in CT), we took the cable car up Table Mountain. Here's a picture of Todd's parents at the bottom, before we took the cable car up:

And here's how it looked from the top:

In case you can't tell, Todd is standing with his back to a solid wall of fog. We obviously couldn't see a thing! There should have been a breathtaking view of sea, city, and mountain behind him, but as you can see...there's just Todd.

Personally I thought the moodiness was kind of picturesque in itself. While I'd never been able to see the ocean from any mountain I've hiked before, I'd also never felt so completely enveloped in cloud before either. It made for some interesting pictures.

Eventually the clouds did start to break and we were able to take in the view we'd been hoping for!

Such beautiful blue water!

Mountain and ocean, in the same picture? Are you kidding me?! We're not in Tennessee anymore...

Oh, as a side note, Cape Town is the absolute windiest place I've ever been in my life. It was unreal. Worse by the sea than up on the mountain, but still...

I really enjoyed Table Mountain :) Definitely wins my favorite-part-of-the-trip award. But after Table Mountain we went to the V & A Waterfront, and that was cool too! It had lots of souvenir shops, restaurants, and this massive ferris wheel!

Those cars are really big. The four of us went in one of them and we could easily put another 3 or 4 in there with us.

Me and Todd inside said ferris wheel car. We picked just the right time to take a ride as a little rain shower hit the waterfront. But by the time our ride was over, the rain had passed and we could carry on with our sightseeing :)

Here's the nighttime view of the wheel:

The next day we were off to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I will confess that after a day of being on my feet for hours, I wasn't exactly high energy for Cape Town Day 2. I sat a lot at the gardens and tried to stay in the shade. It was a hotter day and the wind wasn't nearly as strong in the gardens.

Poor Todd...you can tell we got some sun the day before :)

After the Gardens, it was back to the apartment for a looong afternoon nap and then a walk along the incredibly windy beach! The water is freezing so there was no thought of actually going in for an ocean swim, but the view was lovely.

And no, I don't like wearing my hair in ponytails for pictures, but it was either that or have it all in my face...

We drove down to another side of the beach which for some reason wasn't nearly as windy, hence the hair-down look :)

Fabulous. Cape Town was great! It was so nice to see another side of South Africa, something other than just the city of Pretoria. It was also nice to get a little mini beach fix in.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of The Overbeeks on Holiday :)

The Wednesday Stork: Week 32

Happy 32 weeks everyone! Can I pretend this is a really big milestone and celebrate with cake or something? I do have cake, you know...four packs of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes in my freezer, all the way from the USA. I did have five packs, but, you know. Actually, I'm very good at making them last. When you only get a handful of those every few months, you learn to take it easy.

We had our 32 week appointment on Monday and it's the first one that didn't earn a glowing report, I'm sorry to say. Brace yourself: Ty is no longer measuring in the 90th percentile, but the 50th! Shocked? Yeah, me neither. The midwife said that actually she likes this better, based on my size (didn't I say I didn't feel like I was toting a 90th percentile baby?), but on the charts, going from 90th to 50th makes him look like he's not growing. If he slips below the 50th percentile at our next appointment (34 weeks), she'll order an ultrasound to find out why he isn't growing properly.

Frankly, I'm not worried about it. I know he's growing. He sticks out all over and just go ahead and compare this week's bump to the one at 30 weeks. You'll probably agree with me. He's definitely not struggling in the growth department :)

In addition to the case of the incredible shrinking baby, this appointment also resulted in a "drink lots of water" mandate, for reasons I won't go into here. It's not likely to be anything serious, based on the fact that I'm not swelling and have a routinely low(ish) blood pressure, but I'm supposed to drink a lot all the same. Fantastic. Just when I thought the bathroom couldn't get any more familiar...

Weeks: 32. It does keep creeping steadily along, despite it not seeming to at times.  
Weight gain so far: Can I say 18.7 pounds? Is that obnoxious? 
Got any prego stretch marks? Still none, which I think is near miraculous. 
How am I sleeping? Last night was good. Tonight...who can say?   
Feeling anything in there? Uh-huh. He's in there alright.    
Aversions or cravings? I'll stick with Papa John's. I'm not craving it any more than usual but it is something I almost always miss. 
What’s the gender? Boy. 
Any labor signs? I still hold to the suspicion that I won't know when it starts.  
How pregnant do I feel? Not too bad. Heartburn visits often, I get winded easily, but I can't really complain. These are but minor discomforts :)   
Belly button in or out? Oh y'all, it's funny how badly this thing wants to pop out but remains just barely in :) 
Still sporting my wedding rings? Yep! 

Next on my list is picking out which pictures from our holiday I want to share with you all. There're tons to choose from and I'll have to WAY limit myself. I'll get right on sorting out the best of the best...after a trip to the bathroom.