[40 weeks and 4 days] Baking for just a little too long!

Our little man's due date of July 4th came and went, but with much fanfare. We received constant emails, texts, phone calls, IMs, and facebook posts wondering if Baby Zhao made his entrance! We were of course just as anxious as our friends and family! Unfortunately he is proving to be a bit stubborn, and I was learning very quickly that it is not at all uncommon for first borns to be late. In our case our practice will induce labor one week past the due date - ours begins on Tuesday - well, the ripening that is, then the induction is officially on Wednesday. While we would have preferred him to come out of his cozy little environment at his own free will, no matter what at least by Wednesday we will be ready for him!

In the meantime, more than 10 weeks passed from my last post, so there is much to update. We had several appointments between then and our OB would tell us at each appointment that the fundal height of my belly was measuring large for its current size. For example, at 32 weeks I was measuring at 35 weeks, and at 34 I was measuring at 37 weeks, and so on. This naturally made us very worried that our mister was going to end up being an extremely large baby, despite the fact that I had been eating fairly healthily, I didn't have gestational diabetes, and genetically my husband and I were average sized babies (I was just 6.7 lbs and my husband 7.5 lbs). We knew boys would end up being bigger so that we were at least aware of. While our hospital's policy was to have a standard ultrasound at 38 weeks to estimate weight and check on the health of the baby, since we had several appointments that had my belly measuring larger than normal, our ultrasound got pushed up to 37 weeks. During the appointment to our relief he was measuring about 6.2 lbs +/- 25%, which happily, is very average. And at his due date, it was estimated that he would be around 7.5 lbs - a nice round number that jived really well with our family genetics. But...as he's proving to be stubborn and he is arriving a week post term...there's a strong possibility he will be a 8 lbs. baby. At this point, I'm so ready to get this over and done with that I have completely become at ease with what the labor process will entail. So...BRING IT!

Here's me and my family in the last few days of pregnancy - this was right after dim sum Sunday brunch at Yangtze River in Lexington:

I am ginormous!

Ready to pop any day now!

In the meantime we have nearly finished the nursery. Our search for a rocker also ended - Gilt had a great sale for the Nurseryworks Sleepytime Rocker in slate for $350! Pretty awesome for a rocker that retails for more than a whopping $900 everywhere else. I've already fallen asleep in it!

The final finishing touches are his artwork. I am a big fan of whimsy and am a bit of a geek, so I thought it would be hilarious to add some jedi humor into the nursery's artwork. We got the "The Force is Strong with This One" typography art in 11x14 from WallFry (I love how they quote themselves -Wall art for small fry) through Etsy - love it! WallFry's from Australia but it got to us in record time.

I also ordered two prints from the lovely sycamore street press on Etsy as well. So well made and super high quality. I was enamored by two of their four prints, "You're Getting VERY Sleepy" and "Crying is for Babies (Other Babies)":

Lastly, sometime early in my third trimester when I was much more mobile I was perusing Anthropologie at the mall for some inspiration and came across a square canvas with the alphabet, but with the letters "H" and "I" spray painted a different color. I was drawn to it immediately and wanted to buy it for junior's room. To my dismay I was told that the resident artist actually MADE it for the staging and that it was not for sale. I was so sad. But the sales girl told me I could easily make it at home with a few items from Michael's. I'm honestly not the creative or artsy fartsy type - knowing me I'd screw it up! So I searched trusty Etsy for a print that was similar. And I ended up purchasing one from printsocharming on Etsy.

If it wasn't for all of these wonderful artists, I wouldn't know what to do! So thanks to all of you incredibly talented creative types, please keep doing what you're doing! Needless to say, they're all framed and ready to go - I can't wait to get them up on the wall!