Oh Boy, 30 Weeks!!

So, I have reached 30 weeks. I don't know where the time is going, but it is flying by. I can't believe that sometime in the next 8 to 12 weeks we will have a new person added to our family. It's so surreal for me sometimes. I am overjoyed and anxious and a little terrified...I imagine these are all normal feelings for first time parents. I have been raised around children and babies my whole life, so this should be no problem...but when it's YOUR OWN child, it's a little different. Sometimes I wonder if I know what I am going to do with this little person when she gets here. Obviously I will feed her, clothe her, love her, etc. But I've never been a mother before (other then to 3 spoiled cats) so as time is ticking closer and closer to that due date, I am trying to educate myself in the areas I lack confidence.
My husband and I start a couple prenatal classes at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto in October. I feel like they it might be full of obvious information, but hey, if anything, it will boost our confidence, and it will better prepare my husband who has never changed a diaper before.
I continue to read books on childbirth, preferably natural childbirth. I have been reading this blog too, which I find enjoyable.
I have found a midwife from Seven Generations and I have my first appointment coming up. We are going to go ahead with the plan to have a homebirth, but if our minds change and we decide that we're more comfortable in a birthing centre (oh how our society has put fear in us), Sunnybrook has just renovated and opened their new and improved birthing centre. So if you want a virtual tour of the place, click HERE. My midwife would be with me of course and a doctor can step in only if she feels it's necessary, but I am sure since everything has been running smoothly, everything will go just fine. I just have to trust myself, trust my body and of course have a great support system (which I have.)
I have such beautiful light in my new apartment in Toronto, so I had a fun photoshoot. It's important to me to document my pregnancy through photos. Maternity photos are some of my favourites to shoot. Before I was pregnant I thought pregnant ladies were SO cute and it was hard to understand how some people feel unattractive when their pregnant, but as I sit here with a large 3 pound eggplant sized baby in my belly, I completely understand. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable and unattractive, especially as I run out of clothes that fit properly, as all you other beautiful pregnant mama's have probably felt. My veins are more noticeable, I have what looks like cottage cheese growing on my butt and thighs and sometimes I get weird red bumps on my belly. But, when you look at maternity photos, man, pregnancy is a beautiful sexy thing. I have a collection of maternity photos here on my Facebook page, so become a fan and take a look!!
http://www.facebook.com/artist.heatherbays

Manitoba to Ontario to 3rd Trimester.

Yikes, it's been over a month since my last post. What can I say, we were busy. We have packed up and moved out of Winnipeg. We will be moving in to our new apartment in Toronto this Friday, Sept 10th. I am excited about settling in a new place. Change is good. It's refreshing and inspiring. When you stay in the same place too long you become blind, so I am excited to see again!
For now, we are visiting my family in Rosseau. We drove for 2 days to get here, through Ontario around Lake Superior. What a beautiful drive. I would like to do that drive again but with more time so I can photograph the landscape and the wildlife. Since we had 3 cats in the car with us, we wanted to get to out destination ASAP. And having just started my 3rd trimester, I didn't want to spend too many days in a car.
My cousin (who we are staying with) has a friend who does henna work, so in celebration of my 3rd trimester, she did some beautiful henna art work on my belly. I love it. It should stay for about 2-3 weeks.

As of today, I am 28 weeks pregnant. I am still feeling fabulous. Maybe a little tired and some days I need a nap, but I can still touch my toes!! I experience practice contractions multiple times throughout my days which they call Braxton Hicks, but ya know, I just hate that they are called Braxton Hicks so I can't bring myself to call them that, lol. The baby is very active and getting stronger all the time. She sometimes gets hiccups which makes my belly jump rhythmically. The backache can be pretty bad, but my husband massages my back every day...thank goodness!
I am reading a book called 'Birthing From Within' which is great and helps me get more comfortable with the idea of pushing a baby out of my hoo-ha! It brings you back to a primal way of thinking about child birth instead of the medical way we look at it today. As I get deeper in to the book I will write more about it.

Gotta Love Baby Shoes!

I am now 23 weeks. Time is flying by! I can't believe HOW much my belly has grown and I'm finding it impossible to imagine what it will be like in the 9th month!! She has been extremely active lately and her punches and kicks have way more power to them now. Good thing I have been doing my kegels because those bladder kicks can catch you by surprise! I have also been experiencing round ligament pain mainly in my lower belly...OUCH! And I have felt a few braxton hick contractions as my uterus is practicing for the big event. They don't hurt too much (yet) but my belly gets really hard for a few moments.
The doctor gave me the a-okay for the ultrasound and said that if I was concerned about the health of the baby still, then they could do another ultrasound at about 30 weeks, but he said there was no reason to think there was a problem. I think I will pass on that ultrasound. I am sure everything is fine and as I have mentioned in my past posts that I don't believe ultrasounds are the safest for babies. I have also heard that many women who go for that later ultrasound end up having the baby early and I would like to avoid that if I can. We are moving to Toronto in 3 weeks and would like to be able to make it back to Winnipeg for the birth and we plan on coming back here when I am about 38 weeks...but as we all know, babies come when THEY want, lol.

I have started crocheting baby shoes! They are so adorable!! These are for newborns to 3 months and they are now available in my online shop!!
www.heatherbays.etsy.com

It's A......

So, we had our ultrasound just over a week ago that checked to make sure baby is growing okay and could determine the gender if we wanted to know. We knew from the moment we found out we were pregnant that we would want to know the gender. I am not one for surprises and for something like this, I really needed to know. Thank goodness I live in today's western world because a little over 20 years ago this just wasn't possible and for many people in many countries, this still isn't possible.

We got the photos from her "photoshoot" and most of them look like blobs of gray and I can't really make out what it is. But some of them are pretty obvious. Like this one here shows that it's a GIRL!!! Those are her legs and butt and as you can see, there is no willy. I know that these things aren't 100%, but they are pretty accurate.

This next one is a face only a mother could love, lol. It sorta looks like I am pregnant with Jack the Pumpkin King, lol! But there she is, laying on her side looking right at you.

These ones below are my favourites. She has her arm up covering her eyes and you can see her little lips and her tiny nose nicely framed by her arm.

This one is a little closer.

And here is the last one I will post, of her cute baby feet.

So of course there are all these numbers and letters and I didn't know what they meant. Was this a normal looking ultrasound? I didn't know. My appointment with my doctor isn't until the end of next week, so I wouldn't get the results until then. So, I researched like crazy on how to read an ultrasound. What things meant. This was the most helpful website:
http://www.baby2see.com/medical/charts.html
So, you gotta study your ultrasound and find the numbers and find the averages and then ta-da! What I discovered was she is doing just fine. Everything is in the normal ranges and that for me was SUCH a relief. I know that they can't tell everything from the tests and ultrasounds but nothing wonky has shown up yet so there is no reason to think that this baby will have any problems. THANK GOODNESS we didn't listen to the first 3 doctors that I saw. It just goes to show that you are the best person to listen to. Now time to make an appointment with my homeopathic doctor to detox me from this ultrasound!

Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre

So, I went to the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre on Monday to photograph the animals! These photos here plus many more will be used for fundraising purposes. The proceeds will go directly to the animals in need there. You can view more photos by visiting my fanpage on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/HeatherBaysPhotography

They have recently changed locations to a temporary place in Ile Des Chenes because of flooding. This place is really in need of some donations, so if you have some cash hanging around that you want to donate to a place that needs it, send it to them, they would really appreciate it! They always get so many baby raccoons every year, over capacity.

But they aren't the only ones who are in need of more space. The whole facility could use more of everything! And if you have some extra time on your hands? Why not volunteer?!

Here is there website for information on donations and volunteering!
http://www.wildlifehaven.ca/
After I was done photographing all the adorable animals, there was a call from a lady saying that some baby ducks and their mother had fallen in a manhole. So Reesa (one of the volunteer workers) and myself headed over to Waverly to try and help. When we got there we felt like we entered a hopeless situation! There was a mother duck with 10 babies (one of them on it's side struggling until finally it took it's last breath) floating on the water about 9ft down a manhole that was about 4 feet in diameter.

There was a ladder going down to them, but there were bars that didn't have enough space for either of us to fit through, (though a small child could easily fit through them).
So we called the City of Winnipeg to see if we could get someone down to open the bars but the lady was rather unkind and very unhelpful! She told us that someone could be down in 2 days!!! Well, that wasn't good enough, they would die in 2 days! So we realized a friend of ours (Lisa) lived in the area and we called her to see if she had a net. She didn't answer. So, we drove to Superstore and just about bought 2 lacrosse nets when Lisa called back. She said she would see if she had a fishing net and she would meet us by the ducks. So we bought duct tape in case we needed to make the handle longer. When we got back there, some city workers had shown up! Alas, they were unable to open the bars for us. Lisa showed up right after us with a hockey stick and some mosquito netting that she had just quickly sewn like a net, so we duct taped the netting onto the hockey stick and then taped a pole to the end of the hockey stick which was thankfully long enough to reach the ducks!

So it was time to save the 9 living ducks and their Mum! Sometimes one was scooped out and sometimes a few at a time! Mum didn't put up a fight at all, she seemed relieved and thankful!


The babies were placed in a box as they were saved so we could drive them to a pond away from this manhole. I am happy to say that the Mum and her 9 remaining babies were all rescued after being stuck for almost 5 hours! We released them into a pond in Whyte Ridge where another mother duck and her young came and greeted them. It was too sweet and a perfect way to end the day!

19 Weeks...Half Way There!

So, a fetus is considered full term at 38 weeks, which means, we are half way there...unless I pop early! All this time I felt like I was climbing a hill and now that I have reached 19 weeks, I can start my way back down. Of course if the baby is overdue, which is anytime after 40 weeks, I will be waiting at the bottom of the hill standing still...so maybe I will bring a tent, lol.
We are slowly collecting things we need thanks to close family and friends who have children and kept all the stuff their kids grew out of. Babies hardly use anything because they grow so fast. My sister gave us this pretty bassinet which is mint green. Bassinets are so sweet. I wish babies could sleep in them longer then they can, but thanks to my parents, we'll have a crib to upgrade to. Though, my cats seem to really like the bassinet, lol. (These 2 pictures can be enlarged if you just click them!)


Sometime is the next couple weeks we will be heading back to Health Science Centre for hopefully our last ultrasound which will have more detail on the anatomy of our baby. We'll also find out the sex of the baby then too. I had another dream last night that it was a boy, but we'll see...
After the ultrasound I will be going back to see my homeopathic and naturopathic doctor to detox me from the ultrasound and to see how my vitamin levels are. I have started taking a teaspoon of cod liver oil everyday and I must admit...it's one of the grossest things I have ever swallowed, but thank god for B12 spray because I just breath out of my mouth for a while until the B12 is absorbed and then swallowed so I can't taste or smell lemony cod anymore, only spearmint from the B12. But cod liver oil is good for brain development in fetuses and makes for smarter babies! Not to mention all the GREAT things it does for YOU! You'll know cod liver oil is a good natural healthy brand when you stick it in the freezer and the oil doesn't freeze. I was told the 2 best kinds are by Carlson's and Nordic Naturals (which is the one I use. I bought it at the vitamin store on Corydon Ave called 'Thrive'.)
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Cats and Sinks.

I'm not entirely sure what it is about the bathroom sink that our cats love so much, but even the new kitten has been caught hanging out in there. Ha! He looks so tiny!
Here check out these photos of our other cats,
Oggy: http://heatherbays.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-water-babies.html
Catface: http://heatherbays.blogspot.com/2007/03/most-photographed-cat-in-world_09.html

It's A Bear!!

A few weeks back me and a friend drove to Saskatoon. On our way there we saw something running in the field as we were driving to Pelly (to pick up another friend who was also coming to Saskatoon.) Realizing it was a bear I slammed on the brakes and hit reverse to get really close. We jumped out of the car and watched him. Seeing a bear in the wild is pretty exhilarating!! I grabbed my camera and starting walking closer to him so I could get a better shot! Sometimes I seem to forget that some animals don't want to cuddle, lol. He didn't really seem threatening (but really, what do I know, lol.) He looked young and he was all by himself, he was frantically running around in the field before darting across the highway towards a wooded area. I wondered where his mother was because he didn't look that old and I thought that the mother kept her cubs for 2 years before they go off on their own.
Here are the photos from that really wonderful moment!

16 weeks and Counting!

Well, we had a nice surprise when we got home from India! Looks like half way through the honeymoon we made a baby by accident! At first is was very concerning since we had many vaccinations and we were on anti-malaria meds called Docycycline (a drug that is NOT recommended for pregnant ladies.) A few heartaches and many doctors and specialist later, everything looks good and normal! PHEW!!! So word of advice out there...if you are ever concerned about conceiving on medications that are "high risk" to a fetus, don't jump to any conclusions right away, start by calling Motherisk (they are Toronto based): (416) 813-6780
www.motherisk.org/
Sometimes doctors only know what they read in the text book, where as these doctors have stats for you so you know just how high the risks really are. If it wasn't for them, I don't think I would still be pregnant since the first 3 doctors we saw pushed us in the direction of an abortion.
Now I have a VERY excellent western doctor that I see regularly, along with a homeopathic doctor (who is also studying to become a midwife) and a naturopathic doctor who specializes in massage therapy too. So far all tests have come back normal and I am getting myself on track with vitamins...I was low on B12 a few weeks ago, but I think at my next live blood test she will be pleasantly surprised thanks to all the red meat I started eating and the B12 spray that take 2 or 3 times a day. Hopefully there are less toxins in my body from the help of Acidophilus. I also have another ultrasound in about 4 or 5 weeks time that will show any problems (if any have developed) and we'll be able to find out the sex (even though I am willing to bet that it's a boy!)
We are so excited! Sometimes I am like, "WHOA, there's only 5 more months until the baby comes" and other times I am like, "man, there's still 5 more months to go!"
Come back to stay updated on this adventure!

Meet Shere Khan!

We got a new kitten totally by accident! We found him on the drive home from Saskatoon over the May long weekend. He was in very rough shape. Covered in sticky white stuff, had been burnt with what looked like cigarettes and has been beaten up by another animal. The owners didn't want him, so they kicked him out. He's was only like 8 to 10 weeks old. He is crazy and adorable. Oggy and him are totally in love and Catface is just grateful that he is now left alone by Oggy.