Thankfully, one dilation exam and ultrasound later, I learned that I am NOT in preterm labor! But, I wasn’t just imagining things either — they did send me over to the hospital for a non-stress test to check out my contractions and monitor the baby. I was pretty bored at first, but I actually enjoyed the NST because it was a reason for me to relax – I even napped through it for a bit, lulled to sleep by the sound of the baby’s perfect heartbeat coming from the monitor. Good news is the baby is A-OK, but I did have a couple of contractions (nothing regular), so the doctor is being cautious and has ordered me to limited activity – no walking or exercising (like I do that anyway… LOL), and I need to relax as much as possible and drink plenty of water.

Of course, it’s a little hard sometimes to “rest” when you have an active 3 year old who constantly wants to play and is very demanding of your attention… but fortunately he’s in school during the week, and we do have some downtime during the day on weekends. And I have wonderful friends who I love spending time with that come and help me out when my parents or Adrian are unavailable – which really means the world to me!

I couldn’t resist documenting my little adventure to the hospital, so here’s a photo of my NST printout to make this post picture-perfect.

The only thing driving me nuts right now about my “limited activity” status is that we just had some renovations done at home – we swapped my home office with the kids’ room – so I will have the smaller room to work in, and the kids get to share a bigger room…. and since I haven’t been feeling well, I haven’t been able to do what I need to do to get the room ready, AND my house is a complete mess from the carpet installation and other work we’ve had done this week. Good thing I still have some time left until the baby is due so that we can finish things up.

I still can’t believe how different this pregnancy is from when I was pregnant with Zachary four years ago! Aside from some swelling and ending up with really low iron, I had a great pregnancy with no issues. I even shot a wedding at 36 weeks, which I couldn’t comprehend doing right now, and I’m glad I made it through my final 2 weddings at 29 and 30 weeks when I shot them last month. This pregnancy has been soooo different compared to my last one. It really shows that every pregnancy is unique and you can’t ever truly plan 100%!

This image was captured with the iPhone app, Tadaa.

I mentioned a while back that we have been doing some work on the house. Most of that work will be completed by FRIDAY!! Since the bedroom that Zachary is in right now is too small for two little boys, and my home office is much bigger, I am swapping rooms with the kids and taking the smaller room for my office. We chose paint colors and carpet styles a few weeks ago, and this week everything is being painted in both rooms (as well as a revamp of our Florida Room/patio) and the new carpeting is finally being installed!

All of Zachary’s current furniture is going in his new room, along with Zachary’s old crib, which will now belong to the baby. I’m looking forward to the extra storage space we’ll have in that room, since his old bedroom does not have a closet and the new one does! Finally, a place to put all of the toys and extra clothing! Adrian and I planned the room layout and I’m really excited to get everything set up this weekend. For now, the entire contents of my office are now living in the dining room, as will Zachary’s furniture for a couple of days until the carpet is installed at the end of the week.

As far as a theme for the bedroom, I originally wanted to do a fun vintage travel theme. But… then I realized that would work much better if it was solely a nursery. Since a baby will sharing a room with an almost-four-year-old… well, the room is just going to be a combination of whatever things my kids are into! I allowed Zachary to choose the paint colors (celadon green and a darker olive green), but other than that, I am not going with a solid theme.  Zachary already has Thomas, Toy Story, and Angry Birds sheets for his bed, which constantly get alternated out. Once the baby is big enough to enjoy the same things, I’m sure we’ll have lots of posters and other memorabilia relating to whatever the kids like the best at that moment. At the moment, I’m on a hunt for a small Angry Birds poster, since we absolutely love those games.

Here are the paint colors that Zachary chose. The colors are from the National Trust for Historic Preservation collection with Valspar at Lowe’s. The artist in me is very proud of him for selecting such a great color combination! Now that the room is painted, I’m even more excited – it looks fabulous!

Zachary is very excited to move into his new bedroom this week after the carpet is installed, and understands that he will be sharing it with the baby after he arrives. I’m looking forward to putting the crib back together (it’s still in toddler bed mode and currently used as seating in the play room), and putting it in the new room. Of course that means I’ll be replacing the seating in the playroom with a new loveseat! I just love the yellow KLIPPAN sofa from IKEA, though I don’t think the yellow will really match the walls. :) Thankfully it comes in other colors – like black – which probably will be more stain-resistant. The other sofa, the SOLSTA, would go great in my new office. We had an old loveseat in my office for years, and when I needed to take a break or plop Zachary down with the iPad, I really enjoyed having some plush seating. The SOLSTA has an added advantage of being a sofabed in case we ever need space for a guest, so hopefully both of these are as cute in person as they are online!

In addition to Zachary and the baby’s room, I also get to design my new office! All of the office furniture we had here in the house was pointless after Adrian got his office space, as the office he’s in is furnished. Our office furniture was many years old and starting to fall apart anyway, so we opted to just get rid of it, and I’ve been scouring the IKEA website looking for a desk I like, among other items. I found these desks online on IKEA and like both of them. The MALM desk on the right, though, is half the price of the first one, the HEMNES desk. So, we’ll see which one I like better when we go to the store!

I also need a new storage cabinet for my dining room. Our home is a bit older and is short on storage, so finding different storage options has been a little bit of a challenge over the years. A few months ago it became apparent that I would need additional storage in my dining room. I’m torn between these two HEMNES cabinets from IKEA. Love the color and style, but can’t decide between full cabinet or cabinets with drawers. I’m leaning towards the drawers, but hoping they have some samples already built in the store so that I can see both!

So far those are all of the ideas I have, and I am really excited to implement everything before the baby gets here. I guess I am nesting in full-force now!! :) After a few more things are done, my mom has volunteered to help me with decorating – something she’s much better at than I am. Things are really getting exciting and soon we will be fully prepared for the arrival of Baby #2!

I know this picture doesn’t show off the belly, but it was too cute not to share! I’ll have belly pics soon enough. :) I just love Zachary’s expression and how Adrian and I are looking at him with happiness on our faces! It was a great moment and a really fun shoot.

Thank you Jessica! You’re the best!!!

Photo courtesy of my fab 2nd shooter, Jessica Savidge.

I keep remember the weekly updates when I was pregnant with Zachary. It was new and interesting. It’s still interesting, of course, and especially since I’ve gotten to have more ultrasounds this time around, it’s particularly cool to see the advancements in technology and hear the explanations about what I’m looking at (crazy how great it has improved over the past 4 years!). But seriously, the second time around, at least for me, the mists have parted and the #1 thing I’m thinking about is delivering a healthy little boy. I am ready for June to be here so that I can hold him already!

The first time I was pregnant, I did almost everything my doctor told me to, worked as much as I wanted because I felt invincible, and had no doubt in my mind that things were going to be awesome. And they were! I still have no doubt that everything will be awesome (come on, I’m me… LOL… I’m always awesome!!), but I freely admit that being pregnant and taking care of a VERY active 3 year old and two busy businesses is not the easiest thing in the world. Not to mention, the room I’m sitting in right now, my office, is going to turn into a room for my two boys and cleaning it out is a crazy exhausting task (which I, um, haven’t event started yet).

During my first pregnancy I shot 17 weddings (yes, all during my pregnancy), lots of portrait sessions, and often stayed up late (to the tune of 3-4am) getting everything done because I was shooting so much and was concerned about getting things finished on time. It’s simply not happening this time. Thankfully my business is in a place where I don’t have to shoot as much because I’m no longer in the beginning stages, and my prices now reflect my worth rather than my desire to build my photography portfolio… so I’ve been able to take it slower and don’t feel compelled to ever stay up until 3am working – not only is that kind of schedule 100% unhealthy, but I can barely stay up past 11pm many nights anyway. :)

Anyway, as I have to get back to editing a portrait session, here are some photos for you to enjoy, courtesy of my husband Adrian. These were taken at 22 weeks right before I headed off to photograph a baby shower!

Here’s my favorite ultrasound image for this week’s WW — it’s a little hard to see in this Instagrammed photo of the ultrasound printout (I was too tired to scan it, heh), but if you look closely you can see his little feet coming up over his head, like he’s doing a somersault inside my tummy! So cute!

Thanks to my friend Stacey for the photo and my friend Darcy for the amazing hair & makeup job!