Beginning of the Third Trimester!

I am now in my third trimester and  I only have about 10 weeks until the baby is due!  That is incredibly hard to believe since it feels like only yesterday I found out I was pregnant.  While the time has flown, I think that Jordan and I are pretty well prepared.  We started out with a giant to-do list and at this point we have managed to take care of most of our important tasks.

Finding Daycare: 

Finding daycare was the number one thing on our to-do list.  Our daycare search started about two months ago.  I am sure finding daycare is challenging for anyone, but finding daycare when you are both nurses is really difficult.  First of all, the hours we would need are 6:00 am until 8:30 pm.  After calling around, we soon found out that no major day cares will accommodate those hours, majority of them run from 8 to 5, with a few that will extend hours until 6.  We could try having a sitter who dropped her off at daycare and picked her up, but that would be really expensive, so would a full time nanny.  We also don't have set schedule and could need childcare anywhere from 1-3 days a week depending what days we both work, so finding someone who'd be willing to work with that was also a challenge.  We ended up calling Childcare Services Association of Orange County and asking them for advice.  They recommended in-home daycare, which is a lot more flexible than standard daycare but they still have to meet all the state licensing requirements.  They are rated on a 5 star scale, and you can look up to see if they have ever had any claims or complaints filed against them.  We got a list of local home day cares sent to us and began setting up interviews.  After interviewing at several of them (and driving by two which I refused to interview at based on the house/neighborhood) we finally found one that we liked.  It is in a nice neighborhood right next to ours, and the lady has converted her entire basement into a little daycare.  It is very organized, clean, and all the kids there seemed really happy.  She has a lot of experience and all of her references had wonderful things to say.  We were lucky that she actually had an opening, and Jordan and I are both relieved to finally have found someone we both feel comfortable with.

Nursery Updates:

We now have all of the major furniture for the nursery in place except for the glider.  Since we used my old furniture as a dresser, changing table, and night stand, we were lucky in that the only big thing we really needed was a crib, and my parents were nice enough to purchase a crib for us as an early shower present.  I am also starting to think that we will definitely need a bookshelf and a library card, because Jordan and I seem to buy books everywhere we go.

Our crib!  It is a Graco Covertible Crib, so when Cora gets bigger we can turn it into a toddler bed.

The letters that I ordered from Etsy, which are currently being shipped to us.  I can't wait to see them in person, it looks like they turned out great!

Jordan and I were also very excited to receive another early shower gift in the mail, our travel system!  Jordan's dad and step-mom had it shipped to us, and I literally squealed in delight when I opened the door and saw it sitting there.  We tested a lot of them out at the store, and then I did some online research, and we ended up picking out the Chicco Cortina Keyfit 30 Travel System.  For those of you who have never heard of a travel system, it is basically buying the car seat base, car seat, and stroller together.  The car seat can snap out of the base and right into the stroller so that you never have to lift the baby out or lug around a heavy carrier.  The car seat is rated #1 in safety, and the stroller is easy to use and light.   Scooby is terrified of it, so hopefully we can get him used to walking beside it before the baby comes.

The color is called "Adventure", which is basically green.  I thought it'd be nice to have a neutral color that Jordan wouldn't be embarrassed to push around.

On a completely unrelated note, Jordan and I recently had our anniversary and he surprised me with roses and dinner at Maggiano's.  It is unfortunate that  I am currently experiencing an aversion to pasta and threw up everything I ate that night.  I may never eat pasta again, but it was still a fun night.

Baby Updates:
This week I will be 30 weeks pregnant.  This means that Cora is about 17 inches long and around 3lbs.  She still a few inches to grow and quite a few pounds to put on.  I can feel myself getting bigger by the day, so I am trying to take more pictures.  Enjoy!

Just incase anyone was wondering what 17 inches long looks like.  At this point she can give me some pretty strong kicks and punches.

And from the side

Belly shot.  According to What to Expect, my uterus is now the size of a basketball... I believe it.

Emilie and Casey came to visit me last week!  Thank you guys for coming, and also making me realize how unnaturally pale I am right now.

Best parents ever.

Laziest dog ever.

Jordan and I have a few more days of work and then we will be hitting up Charleston, South Carolina for our 4-day babymoon!  I can't wait and I will be sure to take a lot of pictures :)