baby preparations

The last month – 24 hours still to go!

This is the last pregnancy post as, by this time tomorrow I will be in the operating room meeting the little princess while D will be pacing in the waiting room. This is also the last day of the cute baby bump meaning that from tomorrow on I will just be fat and trying to get back into shape. This is a bitter-sweet post for me as I am well aware of the fact that our household will never be as quiet as it is today, but I am also aware of the fact that there is no happier stage than the one that will shortly start. I am also extremely afraid of what is about to happen tomorrow as this is my first surgery and I have no idea what exactly to expect. That being said, it is too late to call in the ‘Stork-service’ and I have a feeling that it is too late to ask DHL to deliver our baby as well, so I am going to have to suck it up and just plunge in without much thought in advance.

Today, being the last pregnancy post, I would like to touch-up on a few things: the last month – its ups and downs; why I opted for a C-section and my fears for the following period. Like I mentioned in the last post, we will take a break from actually publishing real-posts on the blog, but we will try and post as many short updates as we can on how things are going, how a C-section feels like, what our bundle of joy is like, how parenthood is for us as well as some short reviews on products that we bought for the baby and wether or not they are any good. We decided to leave the product reviews for after the baby is here as truth be told, no matter how much thinking we put into selecting them, if the baby doesn’t like them, they are not good, so we’ll keep you updated on that too.

Let’s get on to the last month of pregnancy and how I felt. Overall, it was ok meaning that I can’t complain although this was by far the toughest month of the entire pregnancy. As opposed to the eighth month, this one was harder on all aspects. The first thing that really bugged me about it was the fact that I went from having mild shortness of breath from walking up one storey to actually having real shortness of breath just from walking for five minutes through the house. This did not make me give up on the evening walks with our dog, it only meant that the walks were slower and a bit shorter but that was ok especially since it has been really cold and it snowed a lot in Bucharest. Another issue that progressed in this last month was the fact that I went from having reflux and heartburn once a week in the previous month, to having it daily in this last months. I swear to God that last night I was this close to actually spitting fire – yes it was that bad, especially since I did not experience these symptoms during the first seven months of pregnancy. Another thing that annoys me is the backaches. True, I only have something to complain about if I spend a lot of time standing throughout the day so that is rather manageable. That is due to that fact that the bump has grown quite a lot in these last few weeks and it is getting harder and harder to actually be independent. D has to help lift me up from bed constantly, he has to always put on my socks and shoes and so on, but luckily for me he did not complain once. I did experience a mild swelling of my hands and feet, but it is so mild, that I can’t really complain about it – I can still wear my wedding band but it only comes off easily with soap and water. Now for the more touch-y subject of weight gain… Throughout the entire pregnancy I have gained a total of 18 kgs, with the last 5 kgs being gained in these last four-five weeks. That might be due to the baby growing at a rapid pace, water retention as well as the fact that I did not take such good care of my diet lately because I promised myself that I will indulge in the last month of pregnancy. For some reason, I thought that this weight gain will get me in a more depressed state than I am in right now, but to be honest I feel really confident that once we will get a grip on the parenting stuff, I will be able to get back into shape, but there is no pressure on that right now. Another annoying symptom that I have developed during this last month is an everyday growing tiredness, especially in the evening. Like seriously, if it is passed 4 p.m. I am DONE! I literally can’t concentrate on much passed that hour.

A bit about the baby during these passed four weeks… She is more and more active every day, not for such extended periods of time as last month but more feisty when she is up. She still doesn’t hurt me, but I have to stop what I am doing when she has her active minutes because I feel like she can put me to the ground with her stomping. Again, this does not hurt, but it is hard to concentrate on anything else. We can’t complain, as from the beginning we were well aware of the fact that she is one active baby. She is also down enough now to let me breath normally, but her actual position does give me some pelvic discomfort from time to time, again when I spend a lot of time standing throughout the day. Still, at this stage, I have not experienced any contractions – I either do not know how they feel or I am literally senseless. In the recent non-stress test there have been some contractions recorded that I yet again failed to feel and my doctor tells me that everything is ok, so I do not worry about that at all. Because of how big she has gotten, I have lately spent most of the day in bed as that is the most comfortable place to be and I suspect that is the reality for most pregnant mamas-to-be.

A bit on why I opted to have a C-section… First of all, I do not feel any less of a woman because I opted for this method, as from what I have heard it still hurts like hell, especially afterwards. At the last scan, the little bundle of joy managed to have the umbilical cord half-wrapped around her neck. While this did not threaten or stress her in any way, that might have posed some problems with natural birth. Another reason for my choice was the fact that the due-date is in January and January is very unpredictable weather-wise in Bucharest meaning that you might not be able to use the roads for a day or two. Having a C-section means that usually the baby is born on week 39 instead of actually waiting for natural labor to start which gave us a week of actually getting to the hospital before it became too late. Being at peace with this decision gave us the time to actually select the birth date and the hour. We opted for Friday the 13th because I feel that is a very lucky day and a good family friend informed me that from an astrological point of view this is a very good choice. Also, I opted to have the surgery in the morning because that way, I do not have to starve myself for 8 hours as I will be sleeping. Also having a planned C-section helps me stay calm and feel good as I am the type of person that plans everything, even brushing my teeth.

As for the fears we both have for the following period, I have to tell you that as time passes and we come closer and closer to holding our baby, those seem to fade. I am very lucky as D is very calm, claiming that this can’t be such hard work as most people we know have had a baby and both them and the baby survived, so having him be so calm really helps me ease my fears. On top of all that we do have a good support system, with both sets of parents being eager to help us in any way possible, we have not found a nanny yet, but the search continues and therefore I am hoping that by the end of February to have that sorted out as well and, most importantly, we have lots of friends that have babies or toddlers around us that can help ease our fears, so we are very lucky in that department. Right now, most of my fears revolve around the surgery, the baby being healthy and happy and our dog befriending her quickly after we arrive home. But all that is out of our hands and therefore worrying about it does not help or resolve the issues.

That is about it! This is the last pregnancy post, but more on being parents will come soon, in the meantime I will try and update you from the hospital bed as frequent as possible. I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be ok tomorrow and we will be able to introduce to you our princess as well as reveal the name we have chosen for her.

January 12, 2017

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Holiday Series: Christmas Feast!

Starting our Holiday Series late this year as we had tons of stuff to do these days, plus we found out that we do not have five more weeks until the little bundle of joy joins us, but only about three so we had lots to do and lots to panic about. That said, we did do a lot of stuff for the blog as well, a Christmas feast included that will take you two days to make. I think this is actually the most elaborate thing we ever did in the kitchen and this all happened because of D. Because he just loves ribs!!!

To keep with the Romanian Christmas tradition, this time he chose pork ribs and we decided to make them in the oven with a wedge-potatoes side – that happened because I still crave potatoes like crazy! As well as craving chocolate, sweet bread and other fattening stuff, except for meat.That said, I do admit that those ribs were amazing eating them felt like heaven in my mouth. They were just the right amount of cooked, seasoned, moist and they simply fell off the bone. I am telling you D outdid himself with these ribs! Thus I am absolutely recommending his recipe! So this post will go two ways: the ribs and the side with a simple mayo dip.

Part 1: The Ribs!

What we used:

4 racks of pork ribs
1 bottle of Jack Daniels Barbecue Hot Chilli Sauce
4 tbsp honey
1 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp hot chilly powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon (you can skip the cinnamon if you do not like it)
10 g fresh basil
20 g fresh chives
20 g fresh rosemary

What we did:

We took a large amount of photos – as you can see this has to be the most photo-infused recipe post.
In a large bowl, mix the barbecue sauce, the chopped herbs, the honey and the spices.
Take each rack of ribs and generously cover them in the mixture.
Cover them with transparent foil and place them in the fridge overnight.
The next day, carefully line a tray with aluminium foil, place the ribs on it covering them with the barbecue mixture.
Pre-heat the oven at 160 degrees C.
Grind some Barbecue spices all over the ribs, cover the tray with foil and into the oven they go for about 3 hours making sure you flip them mid-way.
At the end of those 3 hours, take the covering aluminium foil off and leave them in the oven for another 30 minutes.
That’s it! Despite this one taking 24 hours to perfect, it is very easy to make.

Part 2: The baked potatoes and the dip!

What we used:

1 kg small potatoes
10 g fresh basil leaves
10 g fresh rosemary
10 g fresh chives
30 g butter
3 white onions
1 small pot of Hellman’s mayonnaise (we usually prefer fresh home made mayo but being pregnant, I am not allowed to eat anything unpasteurised)
2 garlic heads
1 tsp barbecue seasoning

What we did:

Again, we took lots of photos – did I mention how much I love food photography?
We roughly cut the potatoes into wedges (no, we did not remove the skin) and we cut the onions into rings.
Chop the greens, mix them together but keep about half of the chopped chives for the dip.
Heat the butter until it is liquified and smash the garlic.
Mix the butter with the greens, the seasoning and half of the garlic – this will be your potatoes seasoning.
In an oven-safe ceramic bowl carefully place the potatoes and paint them with the butter-herb mixture, add a layer of onion rings and then repeat with a layer of potatoes and butter mixture and off into the oven they go at 160 degrees C (yes, you can add them in the oven with the ribs) for about one hour.
For the dip you will need the mayo, the remaining garlic and the remaining chives and all you have to do is mix them together to end up with a perfectly balanced garlic dip.

That is about it! You will end up with an amazing dish for the holidays that is both filling and delicious. And it was all D‘s idea! Since this is a festive time, I will not, under any circumstance think about how healthy/unhealthy this dish is and thus I will not post any nutritional info as I feel this is a time to celebrate life and not count calories and fats.

Stay close by as the next post will be the first one from the Christmas Tree Series that we plan to do every year and we will reveal the theme we chose this year! Until then, just enjoy a full plate of ribs with your family!

December 22, 2016

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5 Weeks to go…

Here we are…only five more weeks of pregnancy to go if everything goes according to plan. I kinda feel anxious, scared and happy at the same time, so I decided to give you an update on how everything is going right before we enter the last month of pregnancy and right before the holidays. To celebrate this landmark, D (thoughtful as ever – I am so lucky!) surprised me with a bouquet of my favourite flowers: pink peonies! Not the small type, but the big and fragranced ones! In December! Of course there are 5 flowers in the bouquet for each week he has to help and care for me until he will have to divide his attention between me, our bundle of joy and our little doggie. Tough times await him…maybe I should have bought him flowers… I am writing this post before our third scan so no new photos of the little one as well as no news on how everything is going in my belly, but I can tell you that thus far, I feel that everything is going according to plan and the little one is doing well inside. Lots of things have happened during these last two months of pregnancy-wise: lots of activity going on and this time some real kicks, the belly is growing unexpectedly fast, getting out from bed is becoming more and more difficult every day, eating has become a love-hate relationship and so on…

Now, let me detail on all those things for a bit. First of all, during the seventh month, I really, actually felt kicks and fists and actually saw my belly change shape while the little one was playing inside and I have to say that it does not hurt at all, but rather feels like ‘home’ – I mean I get all warm and fuzzy inside and feel like this is the most natural and beautiful feeling in the world. This is a lot coming from someone that thought this must be the most alien-like feeling in the world, and when I say ‘alien’ I mean Sigourney Weaver’s Alien, but as it turned out this actually feels so, so nice. If in the seventh month there was mild activity going on, nowadays it really feels like she is one strong lady. The feeling is so satisfying and makes both of us so happy that I can’t really describe it in words.

The growing belly is becoming more and more uncomfortable to carry around and seriously impends lots of movement on my part and thus I have become even more addicted to D. Getting out of the bed, or up from a low-couch has become nearly impossible without help, not to mention that putting on socks or shoes with laces is a real struggle. Luckily we laugh a lot about the entire situation and he helps me with most of the stuff when he is at home. To be honest I have really felt the adding of weight in the middle section and right now after going one storey up the stairs I usually struggle to get my breath back. Kinda like Kung-Fu Panda when he declared his greatest enemy the stairs. Putting on body lotion is a workout in itself, so I getting my daily cardio twice. I am now very happy that we did all the shopping for the nursery and for the little one in the second trimester because right now, only thinking about going shopping gives me blurred vision. Honestly, until this week I have never noticed how close together all the stuff in shops are. I literally have a hard time going from one side of a shop to another simply because I have a hard time fitting in through all the racks.

A bit on the eating in the last trimester, actually in the eight month as the seventh month has been very comfortable. First of all, because the bundle of joy is growing fast, I do feel the need for more fuel a.k.a. food these days. You might think that this is not such a big deal, or not really worth mentioning here, but honestly, in the past few weeks eating has become difficult because of the growing baby and the limited space inside me. If I eat my usual serving (or at least the amount I used to eat last month) in a sitting I immediately feel intestinal reflux, therefore I am always hungry as I have to eat minimal amounts of food at a time. This is tricky as you tend to eat more frequent and more of the shitty junky foods because let’s face it, you can’t always have healthy food servings with you all day long and thus getting fatter faster. As far as weight goes, thus far I have gained 13 kgs throughout the entire pregnancy, but considering the fact that fatty, sweet foods are coming this Christmas, and I am craving more sugary things than ever, I will probably gain a lot more weight by the time I give birth.

Thus far I have been lucky enough to not have swollen hands or feet and was able to still wear my wedding band and beloved cocktail rings on a regular day basis. I hope that everything will continue to go this way until the end, but I am well aware that there is a 90% chance that this might not happen and I am ready for that (I think). Also thus far, I have not had a single stretch mark in sight, but I must confess that I have been using litres of Bio-Oil twice per day throughout the entire period and I think that might have helped with that. I seriously hope that no stretch marks will appear until the end of the pregnancy as I am not morally ready for that whatsoever and will get very upset. I did however get a weird no-irritation itchiness throughout my entire body for the last two-three days that seriously annoys me, but I am trying not to panic (read about it on the internet) too much about it, as my following appointment with my doctor is on Tuesday and I do not trust Dr. Google at all as I think it really messes with your head. So keep your fingers crossed that it is nothing too serious and rather an allergy or something that does not affect the little one.

Also, this past month I have been experiencing a lowering in the quality of my brain cells. What does that mean? It means that I have gone full-pregnancy-brain and that is one serious condition as I forget stuff two seconds after I make my brain promise that it will not forget something, I have zero space orientation with a map in my hand – to be honest, I was not good at that before the pregnancy, but now I feel that I am holding some sort of alien object in my hands instead of a map. This is no biggie if you’ve got an understanding husband but I must confess that being honest with him from the moment I took notice of my failing brain did help a lot as he now knows where this is coming from.

That is about it for the seventh and eighth month. I did not experience anything out of the ordinary or uncomfortable thus far and I really hope that everything will proceed the same from now on. As far as maternity clothes go, if you have been following this blog, you’ll have noticed by now that I did not buy anything more than a few pairs of maternity jeans and I advise all future mothers to not splurge on maternity pieces but rather on different cuts. I also urge future moms to try and buy all the stuff needed for a new baby in the second trimester as the energy levels in the third trimester go down a lot. I will keep you updated on everything as much as I can considering Christmas is coming and I also promise to start a Christmas-Tree Series and choose different themes each year from now on. I can’t wait to show you this year’s theme, but I will reveal it on the 24th!

December 18, 2016

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Nursery…

Finally we have arrived to the nursery-reveal post! I couldn’t wait to share these photos with you as we have put our heart and soul into making this room perfect for our little princess. FYI – the name tag on the door – handmade by Atelier Funky Fresh – is not the little bundle’s name but the way we are referring to her and probably will for a long time to come. I am not one for stamping the name of our baby everywhere in the room as that might influence her into being very selfish with her stuff and we do not want that. So no name revealing thus far, but we promise we will have a special name-revealing post in the near future. We need to do a lot of baby-oriented posts in the near future as she is actually coming in about 6-7 weeks from now, and lots of things need to be covered here (stroller of choice, baby monitor, baby bath sleeping snuggles and other clothing pieces we bought for her etc) as there is no telling when we will have the time to actually post stuff once she is here.

First things first, obviously, like the rest of the house, this room is decorated in yellow and grey as despite us knowing that we were having a little girl, I hate pink as a main colour theme for a room. I would’ve gone for turquoise but I thought that was too boyish and yellow seemed to be the right choice especially since I do love a colour-coordinated home. Grey was the next obvious choice as nothing looks better with yellow than grey, especially where home-decor is involved. I must confess that once we set our colour-themes there is no flexibility around it and we absolutely need to find everything in those colours – note the bedding. Well actually I’m more of a nazi than D but he likes to play along.

Door-decor : Handmade by Atelier Funky Fresh

Furniture : Pinio I’Ga sold by fleximo.ro

A bit on the actual room…The bed and the changing table along with the three-drawer chest are produced by Pinio and sold in Romania by Fleximo. The furniture line is called I’ga and it’s their newest one, hence the long waiting time to actually get it – about two months. We loved the quality of the materials, especially the fact that we could opt for grey-dotted textile elements and the fact that the bed can be used quite a while form now since it is 140 cm long and has three stages of transformation. Yes, it is a bit on the pricier side, but the fact that we can add different pieces of furniture as the little one grows and therefore we will not need to change the entire bedroom is something that made us splurge. Obviously I needed a bedding that perfectly matched the furniture and therefore we had to custom make it at MC Ana Concept. The quality of the cotton is fantastic and you get everything you need – two bed bumpers, a bed sheet, infant-pillow, comforter, nursery pillow, changing mattress and a very useful bed-pocket for about 100E. If you are like me and need to have everything colour co-ordinated and high-quality cotton this is the best I could find.

Bedding : MC Ana Concept

For the nursery chair, we chose the one from Tutti Bambini which you can find at bebebrands.ro. I honestly wanted a chair like this one ever since I was a teenager but since this is a classic nursery chair it is only now that I found the logic in actually buying one. Yes, it bugs me that this one doesn’t have a grey cover, but to be honest, the moment I sit in it everything just fades away. The reality is that I edit all the blog photos sitting in this chair and I just love, love, love it and was worth every cent (it was about 200 E). Naturally our little sweetheart (dog) needed a crib of her own in the nursery as she usually follows me around everywhere and we really wanted her to be comfortable so we just had to find the perfect grey one for her. Now, before yo start objecting on her coming into contact with a newborn, let me tell you that she is well bathed and vaccinated and all her blood-work is to date, not to mention that animal-viruses do not pass on to humans. The most important aspect is that I really want our little girls to get along and love each other.

Nursery chair : Tutti Bambini sold by bebebrands.ro

Carpet : vivre.ro

3-D Butterflies and Changing Mat both from vivre.ro

We bought the toy-box, basket, laundry-basket and wall pocket from bonami.ro as we just could not resist. They are produced by 3sprouts and you can find lots of colour combos online. They are exceptional quality and we think that our bundle of joy will use them for a long time. If I recall correctly we got them all for about 120 E because bonami.ro has lots of discounts every single day. Or changing mat is from NafNaf and we got it for about 15 E on vivre.ro. Also from vivre.ro we bought the lovely butterflies that completely changed the way the entire room looks as well as the carpet which is so fluffy that we literally just want to sit on it all day long. The moonlight and melody projections mobile is from Skip Hop and we just loved the fact the it works well with the animal theme as well as the fact that it is remote controlled. All the blankets and the cloths are from Jollein but we will shortly stack up on other brands as well as we heard that we will need loads of cloths if we do not want to do laundry every single day. As a diper garbage bin, the best option I could find in Romania is the Angelcare Captiva Deluxe which I honestly hope is efficient but I will keep you updated on that.

Laundry bag, toy box, toy basket, wall storage : 3Sprouts sold by bonami.ro

Baby cloths: Jollein sold by fleximo.ro

Moonlight and melody projections mobile : Skip Hop sold by fleximo.ro

We are extremely proud of our nursery and we actually do spend quite a lot of time there and I think that by the time the bundle of joy will enter our lives we will be sick and tired of this room, but love it none-the-less. As you can see, the little one has already started to receive toys and I have a feeling that soon the whole room will be filled with lovely plush toys. But let’s be clear, the huge penguin is mine and D won it for me at a fair in Dubai almost two years ago. Scratee is also mine and D bought it for me for St. Nicholas exactly 6 years ago. If the little one will not take good care of those toys, I will have to take them away from her as I really love them.

December 6, 2016

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Apple Watch

(Note: All Screen-shots are from my iPhone in regards to the Apple Watch. If you would like to see screen-shots of the UP App see the full post on Jawbone UP3 here)

It has been more than three weeks since I’ve switched from my Jawbone Up3 to Apple Watch and I think a review is needed as there are a lot of things to say and weight-in when a change like this emerges. I do not want to influence your fit band/smartwatch choices, but I do want to talk a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of having one or the other as well as show you how I use mine and truthfully what I think a smartwatch is most used for – let’s be honest, while it is nice to see who’s calling you on your watch, we’re not the FBI talking to our wrists therefore people talking on the ‘phone’ on their watch look stupid (to say the least) in my humble opinion. But hey, who am I to judge?

First I’ll start off by saying that I got the Apple Watch Series 1 in pink (obviously!). I did not get the Series 2 because besides it being waterproof – which in my case is completely useless as I am afraid of water and therefore stay clear of it as much as I can (daily shower not included in this category) all it has as an extra is a better (better illuminated) display and as D puts it, soon we will have white displays to look at. Since I got it right after the launch of the second series, I found it at a special price and it made no sense to me to miss the opportunity. That said, D will get the series 2 as he is the type that is mostly in the water whenever we are on vacation and waterproofing is something that he and anyone that is not afraid of the water needs in a smartwatch. Therefore, I do feel that this feature is needed for normal people and it definitely is worth the money.

Since most of our stuff is from Apple, I did not even look at other smartwatches as the OCD side in me likes everything to match and thinks that everything works better if it’s from the same brand, so no, I did not even show a bit of interest in other smartwatches. As with any Apple product, the installation is easy and fast and, unless you did not came in contact with another Apple product before, you’ll find the menu to be intuitive and very easy to use. Getting started was fairly easy, my iPhone detected the watch immediately and I was set.

Jawbone UP3 vs Apple Watch experience – health tracker

Activity Log

For the first few days, I kept both my Jawbone and my Apple Watch on just to compare the two. The nice thing about the watch is that you can see all your notifications on your watch so, if you are like me and always leave your phone somewhere in the house, you will not miss any notifications/phone calls/messages/Instagram or Facebook notifications ever again so this is a big plus on my Jawbone band. Also the screen helps a lot in keeping up with your activity. However, let’s not forget that the Apple Watch costs double than the Jawbone UP3 but it also does a lot more than track your activity. As step trackers they have the same accuracy, however the Jawbone band detects when you are exercising more easily than the Apple Watch and that is a big plus especially if you do not want to constantly log every walk you take beforehand so that the Apple Watch can measure it (both in time and length). This is one thing that I did not like as much about the Apple Watch – it fails to detect exercise on its own while the Jawbone UP3 does that impeccably.

Sleep Log

Another feature that the Jawbone UP3 has and the Apple Watch does not have is the ability to track your sleep on its own. Again, for the Apple Watch you have to manually log in when you go to bed and set an alarm to wake up – I hate alarms, but that is the only way I can track my sleep. I suspect this is because the Apple Watch uses a third party app, called Pillow to do that. Do not get me wrong, I think that the sleep tracking on the Apple Watch is a million times better than the analysis I used to get from my Jawbone UP3 and therefore, alarm or no alarm and as much as it bugs me to manually log when I am getting into bed, I think that in this category the Apple Watch is by far better. Now it all depends on how much you value a good sleep analysis. For me this is very important and that’s why I started loving the Apple Watch quickly.

Nutrition

This, in my opinion is where the Apple Watch won me over for good. Again we are talking about using a third party app and to my best knowledge the best one out there so far is MyNetDiary. This app is so complete and so easy to use! I just love it. As opposed to the Up App, I can find most of my daily food choices without having to add them myself (I hated having to add all the nutritional info to most of my food), so one can say that the database is way larger and that makes the whole logging experience a lot better. Another cool feature that this app has is the ability for the user to make their own recipe and divide it either by serving or weight. This is very helpful when you want to cook stuff and also keep things as healthy as possible. I also love the fact that this app is easy to use but I hate the fact that it does not sync with the activity tracker on my watch and therefore it does not give me a throughly ready-calculated calorie count and I have to do that by myself. It does however sync with the step-numbers on my watch and it makes no sense to me why they didn’t manage to sync it to the Activity app.

Mindfulness

This is a feature that the Jawbone UP3 does not have, or at least not to this level. The Apple Watch can track your heartbeat live and when it gets too high it usually makes you take a 1 minute break. The Jawbone UP3 only tracked your resting heart rate which, again might or might not be important to you. It is to me, especially during my pregnancy and it will probably be important post-pregnancy when I will restart going to the gym regularly.

All this data is nicely stored in the Health App that the iPhone has pre-intalled and that most people do not use until they get an Apple Watch – or at least that was my case. This is a very good nutrition analyst in my opinion and not much else. I mean, yeah, it does put everything together and all but it does not tell you anything. It does however do a great (and I mean GREAT) job at analysing your food (vitamins, minerals, etc), which no other app does. This again is very important to me right now, and to be honest it always was important, but the Up App did not provide that. This is something that I loved from the very beginning and really made me change my mind and go from the Jawbone UP3 to the Apple Watch.

This is where the comparison between the Jawbone Up3 and the Apple Watch stops as the Jawbone is just a fitness tracker while the Apple Watch does so much more. If you are only interested in a fitness tracker, then go for any of the tracking bracelets out there (I loved the Jawbone UP3) and save your money. However if you want more than that, keep on reading.

Like I said earlier, this watch is like your mini iPhone on your wrist. It basically has every app on your phone and it has most of the abilities you phone has. That being said, you must keep it connected to your phone for it to actually work and having your phone in the near vicinity usually makes you use it as opposed to using the watch. There are a few situations where I used the watch to answer and talk on the phone – when I was too lazy to actually get off the couch or when my phone battery was almost over – but overall, I use my phone. Also, it is nice to have the ability to reply to messages but scribbling every single letter on your watch tends to be time-consuming but helps in the earlier mentions situations.You can also check Instagram, use Shazam and lot more apps that are compatible with the watch. The interface, as I said at the beginning of the post, is very user-friendly, and, especially at the beginning, you are tempted to over-use it.

The Watch app on your phone allows you to customise virtually anything about your watch (see the print-screens) and also gives you a full insight on your device (apps, notifications, setting, font size, sounds, app layout, etc). The battery life is decent, and because I want to wear it all day and night, I usually charge it before I go to sleep for about 20 minutes and again in the morning for about 20 minutes, but if you do not want to wear it during the night you could get away with only charging it once.

Overall I am very happy with my watch and I have been using it non-stop for the past three weeks which means that I have been ignoring my other beloved watches, but I did also keep my Jawbone bracelet at arm’s reach as whenever I want to wear another watch I need something to track my activity (yes, I am crazy like that and that craziness only got worse one the doctor forbade me to got to the gym during the pregnancy). So, is the watch worth the money? Hell yeah! Not saying the same thing about the watch bracelets that Apple are selling and are waaaay overpriced – if you know a good third party bracelet seller for my watch please leave a comment below as I am really bored by my Sport band that the watch came with.

November 14, 2016

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Not so scary second trimester!

We just came home from the doctor this morning and I am happy to officially tell you that the second trimester is under wraps and everything is going smoothly and perfect with our little bundle of joy. I really do not want to turn this blog/diary into a pregnancy page, so I am trying to keep everything about babies to a minimum, but now the time has come to talk a bit about the bittersweet second trimester.As you know by now, I have been really fortunate in the ‘baking baby’ department and did not really feel sick for one day during the first trimester (see here), and the overall great feeling stayed throughout my second trimester as well. I was fortunate enough to not have any medical complications and apart from my prenatal pill I do not take any other medication. Now that we sorted all that out, there are a few things and feelings that deserve a bit of attention and I plan on discussing them here.

First of all, remember how I said that I felt tired during the first trimester? Well that feeling magically vanished from the 14th week and I was lucky enough to feel as energetic as I used to in my pre-pregnancy days. This does not mean that I slept less or exercised more, but I did put that energy to good use where the baby-stuff is concerned. These are the three months of big decisions in my opinion, as, to be frank about the whole situation, there is no guarantee that you’ll feel 100% during the last trimester and it is better to make all the baby decisions when you are feeling great both about yourself as well as about the pregnancy. This meant that we went in full-renovation mode despite only wanting to do the nursery at first. I must confess that we had not done a proper renovation of our house for the past 7 years and I do not regret for one moment the decision to feel horrible in our home for two weeks. While the work is not done yet, all the construction work is over and from this point on it is up to us to finish everything – we are currently waiting on some furniture pieces.

This was the period when we decided on the furniture for our little princess, the decor, most of the miscellaneous (baby bottles, stroller, baby bath, etc) and I am very glad we did that as I have to say this is no easy task. It took us about 3 weeks to decide on the stroller as there seem to be so many different options out there and I have a feeling that first-time parents tend to be over-thinkers – I know we are overthinking every single thing. At some point, being the rational adults that we are, we decided to divide the stuff between us but still making the ultimate decisions together. Therefore D got to choose the stroller and all the electrical hi-tech equipment (nanny cam, baby monitor, sleep monitor) while I was left with the rest of the stuff (baby furniture and decorations, baby bottles, steriliser etc). When each of us got down to two or three choices we involved the other, but not before and so far it went smoothly for us. All of these choices are incredibly hard to make (2 weeks on the crib alone) so I feel that the second trimester is the best time to make them mainly because that is when you start feeling human again and naturally we had to think about the winter ahead and what if we did not feel/ could not get out of the house to buy all these things because of the snow.

Those are about all the big decisions we made during this period, now a bit about the feelings and sensations that come in this second trimester… First of all, in my opinion, this is the time where a pregnant woman blooms, literally, she expands on all spatial axes. Or at least that was what happened to me. But make no mistake, this is a good thing! True, I had two days (not in a row) of panic attacks while looking at my closet as I felt like I looked like crap in everything I owned, but both of those moments where right at the beginning of the forth month and I blamed that on the last ‘first trimester hormones’. After my belly started to really look pregnant as opposed to full of beer and pizza, I immediately started feeling a lot (A LOT!) better about myself. The fact that I went shopping and discovered that I did not go up a size did help a lot (A LOT!) and made me less nervous about my monthly weight-in at the doctors’.

A bit about the weight gain… It does tend to be nerve-wrecking, but healthily gaining weight is the best thing for you and your baby right now. I would like to emphasise a bit on the HEALTHY part of the matter and I want to be honest with you. Thus far, I have gained 10 kg (got weighted this morning) and I’ve got another two months and three weeks to go. While I did not gain any weight during the last three weeks I am still in the healthy-range for my age and height. The fact that my weight gain stopped for a bit must be due to the fact that I have started taking long walks with our dog every evening while not adding extra-calories to my diet. I am however listening very carefully to what my body desires and do not plan on depriving it of anything. Thus far, I always had certain weird cravings at the beginning of each trimester, when I gained a lot of weight but that weight gain usually stops by the last month of the trimester. I assume this will happen in the third trimester as well though, by now, I did not have any huger moments in this third trimester. Hopefully I will not gain too much weight, but honestly, that is my last concern right now. My major concern is being healthy and getting all the nutrients my baby needs daily.

Also, my skin cleared up a bit more and I am now able to put on make-up and feel great without worrying about zits and greasy patches (though that might be thanks to my new beauty routine – here). So far I did not experience any swelling in my legs nor in my hands, no cramps, to be honest, I did not experience anything nasty. I did have a few (3) days of heartburn in the evening but that sorted itself out after about an hour and I was told that is totally normal and it usually lasts way more that that. I also had two episodes of cramping but as my doctor reassured me, that was due to gas and again, after a bit of walking around the house and taking two pills that was over. Other than that, on most days I did not feel like I was pregnant, I do not feel like I am pregnant now and the big belly growing is there to remind me of how lucky I am thus far.

The most important feeling of the second trimester in my opinion is the first baby kick. I felt my bundle of joy at about week 20 and it was the best feeling in the world. I aways thought that this had to be the weirdest, most alien-like feeling ever and was very scared of that moment, but when it happened it felt like the most natural and normal thing out there. If at the beginning I was feeling her once or twice per day, now I feel her all the time and from time to time she even wakes me up at 5 in the morning just to let me know she is up. So far I have not experienced any painful kicks, only some nice soothing ones that feel lovely, but I will keep you updated. But, I am telling you, there is nothing more amazing than feeling you own little baby kick and D has to agree as he felt her through my belly and loved it.

Also, during the second trimester it is best to think of a birth plan, just to get that sorted especially if you are leaning toward the private sector (like we did) as there is quite a consistent discount for ‘early booking’. So far, I have not decided on wether I’d like a natural birth or a C-section, though I am leaning toward the latter, but ultimately it is up to the little lady inside because if she decides she can come out naturally without a big fuss that’s the way I am going to go, otherwise C-section it is!

This is also the time to start buying pregnancy adjuvants (as I call them). As you know, I found it hard to wear normal pants so I felt the need to go for maternity ones and the best and most comfortable I could find are the ones from H&M. They totally changed my mood when it came to dressing daily. I love these four pairs here for the comfort and the way they hug your curves: 1, 2, 3, 4. Another big help during the second trimester are the Belly Bandit products, specifically the thighs disguise and the flawless belly. Whenever I wear a dress, I wear one of those miracle makers and I instantly feel and look better. They both offer great support for your back and belly and they keep the stretch mark oil off of my clothes. Obviously I am going to opt for their post-pregnancy stuff as well as I love these two items.

I’d say that is about it on the second trimester. I am very glad that I did not have any incidents thus far and I hope that everything will go smoothly from now on as well and we will welcome our healthy princess in January. As far as this post goes, I hope that it will help mamas-to-be both morally and with planning their decisions. Naturally, at some point, we will show you everything we deemed worthy of our princess terms of baby-stuff, but I really want to get the products first so we can avoid the internet-perfected-photos and use our own. Hope this post was helpful!

October 31, 2016

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Autumn has no plans of getting warmer and/or nicer!

If you see D in a jacket than it’s settled: it is cold outside! He usually wears a t-shirt and not much else until the temps get as sown as 15 degrees C, so despite the apparent flimsy warm autumn clothes we are wearing in this photoshoot, let me tell you, it is getting colder every day outside. Which mostly sucks but not really if you consider the fact that I can now wear all my lovely autumn dresses (for a short period of time) and my lovely pumps and boots. That being said, had I not been pregnant, I would’ve whine about this weather in every single post as I have been known to be a spring-summer king of girl that actually hates both autumn and winter. To be honest, this autumn has come way too fast and way too wet for my taste (we only had a few hours to shoot last week in total).

Processed with Snapseed.

Mostly I am over the top because my Herve Leger bandage dress is still fitting nicely over the growing bump. This is a time when the tiny human being inside me grows so fast that I am not really sure in the morning what will still fit me so it is mostly a game of trial and error every single day. I am trying to shoot as many outfits as I can but that bitchy weather is not really helping much (it has been pouring since yesterday afternoon in Bucharest and apparently until Thursday that is the way things are going to stay – here you have it, a weather forecast update). Honestly, by Thursday, I have no idea what in the world will still fit me.

Processed with Snapseed.

On me:

Dress – Herve Leger; Shoes – Guess; Bag – Atelier Lemnia; Coat – H&M; Bling – Swarovski, Constantin Nautics, Pandora and Tomorrowland; Watch – Daniel Wellington

For this photoshoot we both agreed on red, I combined it with black, while D used grey. All in all, I am quite happy with the way things turned out, but it has become more clear now that the man needs a serious autumn shopping trip as his go-to things are t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. Enough about him in this paragraph… As stated earlier, my lovely Herve Leger bandage dress fits and feels wonderfully over my bump (thank you elastic!) therefore I really wanted to take advantage of the matter and shoot some pics in it. I paired it with my red patent Guess pumps that D got for me about 5 or 6 years ago (when Loubs were way out of our budget) and until this day, they are definitely my most comfortable red shoes.

Processed with Snapseed.

On D:

T-shirt – Scotch and Soda; Jacket – ZARA; Jeans – Scotch and Soda; Shoes – Converse; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Daniel Wellington

To keep my promise where layering is concerned and to keep any cold away, I finished the outfit with my H&M wool jacket that is way warmer that I had expected and will probably hep me get through this winter as well. Moving along to the bag…This bag is yet another item I got at Untold Festival last August (lots of shopping going on there) and it is Romanian made by Lemnia Atelier. You should really check them out as you get great quality for your money. I think that from now on I am going to get most of my clutches from them! Bling wise I wore my Swarovski bracelet, my Constantin Nautics bracelet and both my Pandora and Tomorrowland rings.

Processed with Snapseed.

D, for some reason really wanted to wear grey, and he did so wonderfully and he managed to match everything in his outfit even better than me. His pinstripe t-shirt is from Scotch and Soda and the thins red lines match his grey Converse sneaks perfectly as they also have a thin red line on the sole. His jeans are also from Scotch and Soda (more matching points!) and his grey leather jacket is from Zara and I think it is just as old as my Guess pumps. He kept his accessorising to a minimum and only opted for his Fossil bracelet. We both wore our matching (well, the nato straps are identical) Daniel Wellington watches.

Processed with Snapseed.

I can’t really say that I normally hate autumn as that is a very harsh word to describe it, but I do hate the weather we have had so far during this autumn. Like seriously, how much more rain can we get here? It is really messing with my shooting schedule and I think we need to find a place to shoot inside from now on.

October 11, 2016

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Current Blogging Situation!

I wanted to write a different blog post today – a beauty one, but apparently WordPress has a few saving issues and it completely deleted the one I wanted to publish today (note to self – write on the notepad first!). Since their customer support is closed until the 23rd of September I can’t find a solution until then. Just keeping my posts short and clean. Yes, I am a bit upset than two hours of work are gone forever!

The thing is, I also find myself in a nearly impossible writing environment as you can see from the pics I’ve published. We are in full renovations and I am writing from the kitchen where my office has been moved – at least now I can say that I use the kitchen on a daily basis for more time than it takes our Nespresso to deliver the perfect coffee in the morning. We are hoping to finish the actual renovations by Monday, but after that is when the hard part comes – us having to actually go through all our shit and throwing away most of it. Hopefully we will finish everything by the end of October (that is when the last pieces of furniture arrive) and we will be able to post detailed ‘after’ photos.

That is it for today, and I sincerely hope that WordPress will get its shit together soon!