Since I last posted life has thrown us for a real change… like we no longer live in the same province kind of change. In mid February we were presented with a choice to head East for the next 6 months; because Michael and I believe in family first and God made it very clear that we were to take this chance we packed up our little growing family and headed for the ocean. Now that we are here and starting to settling into a new normal in my childhood home, and I am settled in with my doctors here, I am finally able to take a deep breath and take an adventure or two with my Moo.
I’ll start with a Bumpdate. So that worry I mentioned in my 25 Week Bumpdate about the gestational diabetes diagnosis came to fruition. I was diagnosed with “borderline” gestational diabetes as my sugars were slightly elevated at the 1 hour mark of the testing but managed to get themselves in order by the second hour. This added a huge stress to my life as I was still at work and having to test every 2 hours and eat every 2 hours while still getting my job done. Thankfully I have a very supportive office and for the 2 weeks I was there with the diagnosis they never complained or made me feel like I was slacking…. because I did a good enough job of that myself.
On February 13 I finished work and began my general illness before baby came. This was a huge blessing with the cards life has dealt my family as a whole as of late and made the transition to the East Coast that much less stressful. But before we left we did take a fun day trip to West Edmonton Mall where Moo had a chance to play on some rides and see some new animal friends.
On February 23 Moo and I flew across the country while Michael drove and made it from Alberta in record time. I can say flying at 31 weeks is probably the least fun airline experience I have ever had and would not recommend it to anyone. But Moo had a good time and loved all the special treats he found in his new backpack.
The 34 week mark arrived as did 34 weeks and 1 day, 34 weeks and 2 days and deep breath 34 weeks and 3 days. Mile marker met!!!! Now I am officially more pregnant that I have ever been, every single day and that means every day that passes should mean that Little Moo will be just that much healthier and that much stronger when they are born. Now I hope to make it to term on March 31 and so I will hopefully not have a NICU stay. But I have to be honest, Little Moo feels a little anxious to get out, but only time will tell.
After a few weeks int the Maritimes we are starting to settle in and are ready to take on some new adventures, we we decided to start with the Sugar Bush.
Growing up in the maritimes I was lucky enough to experience the annual tradition of hiking into the woods in late winter early spring for the sole purpose of eating maple sugar and pancakes. Michael on the other hand having grown up everywhere from the beautiful southern British Columbia rich in wine to the gold rush territories of the Yukon and many places in between had never experienced this childhood dream of a tradition. So at the end of week 34 I packed up my favourite guys and we headed to one of our local maple sugar camps, Trites Maples.
We hiked a short distance into the wood to the Pancake House, where we started off with Moo having his first taste of hot Maple Toffee on freshly fallen snow (thank goodness for all the Nor’Easters earlier in the week).
After having our fill of pure maple goodness, we headed inside for an all you can eat pancake breakfast where Moo was very excited to share everyone’s sausages and pancakes. It was by far his favourite part of the day!
I have to say that this short Saturday adventure was a lot of fun and totally worth the walk in the cold and would recommend it to anyone wanting to partake in a wonderful eastern Canadian tradition. Because lets face it winter is far too long to not have add little Maple Sugar Tradition to your life.
Have you every made a quick decision to make a big change in your life? Where did that decision take you? What is your favourite winter/spring tradition?
To see more of our Maritime adventures follow us on instagram (@the_mcgills2015)
While on maternity leave with Monkey my Erin Condrine Life Planner was my ride or die. With weekly medical appointments, Michael’s work schedule and getting into a diaper washing routine I needed something to keep things straight in my mind and this planner did it for me. But when I went back to work with still far too many medical appointments to manage and my work schedule on top of that I found myself so disorganized because the life planner was too big to just toss in my purse so I never wrote anything in it and therefore never really even checked it either. Before I knew it I was always second guessing where I needed to be and when, so I needed something to keep me on track but was more compact than the life planner so I didn’t just leave it at the coffee bar in the kitchen every morning.