Professional Maternity Shots

Less than a week before giving birth, I got my maternity pictures done...talk about cutting it close.

Here are a few of my favourites.

Photography, courtesy of Gillian Gillespie, WEBSITE

Week 36 / 37 update, missing my babies

Week 36 brings a wide range of emotions. I’m leaving home and my boys, but I’m leaving to give birth to my daughter. The last 2 years have come down to this. All the heartbreak, all the tears, and all the waiting are finally coming to an end. In four weeks I will finally be holding our miracle baby in my arms. In the meantime though, I cry, cry for those I leave behind, this time is so much harder than the last. I know that they will be well taken care of, that we’ve planned well for my absence, and I know that they are looking forward to meeting their baby sister just as much as their dad and I are to bring her home to them.

Week 36 ends on a good note with a special phone call from my little boo, he wants to read me his school books before bed. So bittersweet.

My 37-week appointment turns out to be uneventful, a simple heart rate check shows that Mia is doing well, and so far she shows no signs of coming anytime soon, but I still have three weeks left.

My selection for OB seems to be a good one, he’s soft spoken and kind. He’s moved my due date up to the 24^th, it’s only a few days, but maybe that means she’ll be here sooner. This week I am focusing on packing for the hospital, I can’t believe how close the time is getting.

Maternity Shots

My friend wanted to start her portfolio so she offered to take some pics of Mia and I. I really didn't like my face in most of them, so I did some cropping, but I love my belly / Mia.

My Favourite



Our last family picture as 4

I will be getting some other maternity photos while in Toronto as well. So looking forward to seeing what she can come up with.

Week 34 Ultraound

My 8lb baby!

Weeks 32 - 35

Week 32 and I am officially feeling HUGE! I think Mia has had a little more than a little growth spurt these last couple weeks.

Sitting up anything but straight is impossible, and regardless, sitting, standing, walking, or lying down is uncomfortable and awkward.

I’m trying to keep smiling, after all this pregnancy has been relatively easy, and as always I’m continuing to count my blessings.

I go back home in three weeks, and I am not looking forward to it. By week three in Berlin I was miserable. I don’t know if it was a combination of the lack of sleep, the new poor body image I had of myself, and the newly formed discomfort, but I was missing home and missing Ron. I am not looking forward to going home for three or four times longer and missing my boys as well.

Weeks 33-35 bring my return to Moscow, to home – finally!!!

I feel good, some days I feel HUGE again, others not so much, but by week 34 my lower stomach and pelvis are very sore from the weight my belly is carrying and the varicose veins which flare up when I am sitting or laying down to long.

Sleep is still non-existent, but it’s gotten a lot harder to just breeze through the day. I need my naps now more than ever. I’m exhausted and fatigued all the time. Doing the smallest of every day tasks have become hard on so little energy.

My week 34 and 35 appointment with my OB shows that Mia is a BIG baby. He estimates her to be at 8lbs already with still 5 weeks to go. He assures me that ultrasounds can sometimes be wrong, but in my case, not so. He can feel her through my stomach. I guess time will tell soon.

No matter how big she is though, I have not gained a single pound in more than 7 weeks. I’ve gained now 11 or 12 lbs my whole pregnancy, and with an 8 lb baby + water + placenta, I think that’s pretty darn good. How I am pulling that off is beyond me.

Week 36 will see me flying home to Toronto…..stayed tuned for another update.

31 week Baby Bump

I will try and get a better one up soon, a side view, but here I am head on - still feeling good about myself for the most part aside from all the varicose veins and spider veins.

And since I'm in Berlin, it's only fitting that I take it beside part of what's left of the Berlin Wall.

Week 30 update

Well this pregnancy just keeps getting more and more eventful.

Soon after my last update my best friend and her family left. The temperatures in Moscow didn’t get any better from there; in fact they continued to get higher and hotter. By the end of the first week of their departure, temperatures had reached the high 30’s and 40’s. With the high temperatures came forest fires and peat moss fires in the Moscow outskirts, and eventually with the forest fires and peat moss fires came a deadly smoke that drifted into the city.

Two weeks after the forest fires started temperatures in Moscow weren’t getting any better and were continuously staying in the high 30’s and early low 40’s, rain was non existent, and the smoke traveling in from the outskirts was getting worse.

Our Embassy decided that it was time to evacuate (although they won’t say this is what it was) all pregnant women (this was me), young children (this was most of the people I knew around me), and people with health or heart conditions.

By week three we found ourselves on a plane headed to Berlin, Germany. Not knowing what to expect when we got there, especially when it came to the language, I’m happy to say that everything is going well.

A week after being here, it was deemed that the cO2 levels in Moscow were still too high to return, but I had an appointment to check baby Mia’s health, so one was set up for me here. I have to say I was nervous, not going to Dr. Peter who was so use to my nervousness and who I’ve been with through the last two years, my miscarriages and our new baby’s progress. It gave me some insight into what going to a new doctor in Toronto will be like.

Everything went well though. The staff was friendly, they did my regular urine and blood pressure check, although no weight check (I love Germany), and a NST were given where I listened to our sweet baby girl’s heart rate for twenty minutes. It was music to my ears and had I been allowed I could have fallen asleep to it. I felt so in love in that moment, and was so glad to have that moment alone with her listening to her and feeling her kick more than I’ve felt in the last three weeks. The OB preformed an ultra sound and Mia and everything around her were perfect.

It was a relief to know that all the smoke, and all the toxins hadn’t affected her in any way. If I am still here in one-week still, I will get another appointment and experience it all over again.