Hello, my darlings. First off, thank you for sticking around for so many weeks. There have been a lot of updates, but I wouldn’t say they’ve been super interesting unless you really care about pregnancy. So, I salute those who visit each post and take time to leave love here on this site or throughout my different social media platforms.

In real time, I’m writing this as I just hit 33 weeks, but since we’ve been out of town, I didn’t have time to sit and “chat”. Also, for privacy reasons I didn’t want to share where we were while we were there. The secret’s out now: we were visiting Santa Barbara for our 11 year wedding anniversary. We recorded a podcast in our hotel answering questions from you all about our relationship or relationship advice in general. I’ll link that here…

It was cool going down memory lane and even seeing how I’ve changed my approach to common questions I’ve gotten over the years about dating and marriage. We sure learn a lot each and every year we’re together.

On the podcast, we briefly talked about our trip and what we planned to do while out of town. It’s interesting because I don’t remember ever traveling this far along in pregnancy, but I didn’t think it’d be that hard. However, most of our activities ended up revolving around food. Fortunately, Santa Barbara is a pretty laid back beach city so I didn’t feel like I missed out on a ton of sight seeing by needing to rest. The good thing about taking it easy in the hotel room is you feel a lot better about the money you spent on your room!

We went to the hotel pool a good amount of days, too. I wasn’t sure how everything would be with the coronavirus precautions since we haven’t stayed in a hotel since everything got crazy in March. I think the biggest shock was walking into the hotel room and seeing it look very stripped down because all non-essential items were removed. One of the reasons we booked the hotel we did (The Kimpton Goodland in Goleta) was because of it’s unique decor and atmosphere. Seeing it look like a basic hotel room was a little bit of a let down. However, I’m glad that the amenities like the pool and the restaurant were still open.

We didn’t know how many guests would actually be at the hotel since school just started for many children and according to the news we’re “still in the middle of a pandemic”. Surprisingly there were a lot of families with children of all different ages so Petra got to enjoy some company of her own when we did have hours down by the pool. I guess that’s a perk of so many kids having to learn online now until schools are back open in California. You can do that from pretty much anywhere.

When we did actually make it outside, we found two spots that were very enjoyable. One was the Santa Barbara pier where we had our anniversary dinner and the other was a restaurant literally on the beach where you could enjoy a fish taco and immediately stroll over to the water and start building sandcastles once you are done (if you’re into that kinda thing).

All in all, it was a great trip and we’re looking forward to visiting this place again when we can take greater advantage of the sights and when I’m not so carsick during a two hour commute to get there.

As far as pregnancy in general, it’s still an ongoing battle with if my stomach is going to cooperate with me or not. I’m experiencing more swelling and feeling my uterus get heavier by the day. This means a lot of laying down throughout the day and getting pretty uncomfortable when I walk or stand. I’m also not able to wear my wedding ring anymore unless I want it to get stuck forever. Lol.

The time going so fast and still having so much to do kinda does get to me, but I have to remember (and my wonderful husband keeps reminding me) to take it one day at a time. I do what I can when I can and try not to feel bad about everything on the to-do list. It’s manageable, I just want certain things to be taken care of already.

On a personal note, I remember letting you guys know a few weeks ago about our journey to becoming debt free. Since that post, I’m glad to say we’ve had a lot of progress. Three things I’m really excited about are paying off our car loan, paying off all lines of credit, and paying what we owe to our midwife since it’s not covered at all by our insurance (usually a birthing center or homebirth isn’t covered and in rare cases it’s partially covered depending on your insurance plan).

It’s amazing because when we sat down with our midwife back in June and went over her rate, we literally had no idea how we’d be able to afford it responsibly because of all the costs that already come with having a baby. We felt God telling us this was the right path, so we had to just move forward in faith. To not only be able to pay it in full, but pay it off early without it being a financial burden is kinda blowing my mind. I remember wanting to do a birthing center birth when Petra was born back in 2014, but I didn’t see how it could happen with the cost being so high and I just gave up on the possibility. Who knew if God had some miracle in mind if we had just moved forward and said yes and trusted for Him to supply.

The only thing left for our debt is a student loan from Jerrell’s college. We can now focus on tackling this. One thing that’s tricky is the loan company hasn’t been able to give us a clear answer on paying it off because apparently the government is still deciding on what to do if/when they offer student loan forgiveness or something like that and how it will effect everything. We’re holding off on making any final decisions until all that is cleared up. If we somehow have a discount or if we just have to pay the total amount, we should know soon I guess. There doesn’t seem to be a set timeline for answers.

There’s not too much else to say, so I’ll get to those stats now…

Age and size of baby:

32 weeks old, 17 inches long, 4 lbs in weight.

Cravings:

French fries and ketchup are still oh so yummy to me. Also, I don’t drink coffee, but coffee flavored things or an iced decaf coffee drink seems to be something that my stomach likes. I also enjoy matcha lattes now and then. Oh yeah, I finally tried something that I’ve heard about a lot. It’s a drink called Topo Chico and the bubbles really help me out. I used to drink ginger beer to help with my nausea, but the sugar in it is a little too much. The sugar in a lot of things doesn’t really sit well right now.

Morning sickness:

I feel like my nausea is sometimes exacerbated when I don’t get enough sleep. The times I’ve had to wake up early or just didn’t get enough rest throughout the night send me into several hours of throwing up. We got up early the day of our drive to Santa Barbara and I literally threw up six times and didn’t feel like eating anything until dinner time. That was miserable.

Stretch marks:

No stretch marks, but like I mentioned I do feel more swollen. My wedding ring doesn’t fit and even my sandals feel tight. My husband got me some new sandals that are bigger and have more cushion. It makes all the difference.

Crazy hormones:

I mostly only feel like crying when I feel super sick. Fortunately, that’s not often. I thank God for that.

Sleeping habits:

I do get up about 3-4 times each night to pee. It’s weird because I won’t wake up until my bladder is screaming “I’m painfully full!!” and then I have to practically run to the toilet. Those trips make sleeping less fun as well as my uterus getting so much bigger by the day and having some discomfort from that.

So, that’s that for now.  Be blessed and take time to make your dreams into your reality.

-Kytia L’amour