Hullo hullo! It's the first day of spring, and rather fittingly, the start of my first week in the third trimester. Three months to go until we get to meet our bubba - it feels like an age, and at the same time I know it will fly by! My second trimester certainly seems to have sped past twice as quickly as the first. I've been making notes all the way through to try and document my experience - excuse the rambling, and hope you enjoy!

Body
After simply feeling a bit flabby for the first few months, my bump emerged at about 16 weeks and has been doubling in size on a regular basis! I'm now living in maternity jeans and tights (H&M are a godsend, I tell you) and although I can just about squeeze into some of my old dresses, I have had to buy a couple of stretchy maternity dresses to fit over my rapidly expanding belly. My skin, sadly, is showing no sign of this fabled pregnancy glow... I'm still getting a lot of spots, despite overhauling my entire skincare routine thanks to The Ordinary, and drinking so much water I'm rarely away from the loos at work. My hair is also the usual frizzy mess of yore, none of this magical hair growth I was promised!
In terms of health, I'm regularly having blood tests and seeing specialists thanks to my underactive thyroid (a concern in pregnancy as it can affect the baby's development, although thankfully our bubba seems fine so far). Other than that it's just the expected aches and pains - my left hip keeps failing me, especially in Sainsburys, which means I've ended several food shops whilst hanging over the trolley to keep upright! Oh, and no one told me about the nosebleeds - such fun! The exhaustion is difficult too; I've been struggling with chronic fatigue for a decade now, but it's definitely been amplified by the pregnancy - I guess it's all just prep for newborn nights?!

Mind
Baby brain has kicked in - my brain just can't connect the dots between words anymore, it's like my old Spanish translations when I'd think of the word in every other language but Spanish. Ordering a Subway became an ordeal, I prepped my order so carefully in my head but then got all my words mixed up, pointing at lettuce and saying "cucumber"! The poor guy was so confused. I had to take some deep breaths and start again. Why yes, English is my mother tongue, not that you'd know...

On a less funny note, I've also recently experienced some heightened bouts of anxiety - it's not something I'm used to, my previous experiences have all been related to depression instead. So rather than the usual absence of emotion and general sense of lethargy, I've been feeling the absolute opposite - everything is overwhelming, being in crowds or around people is overstimulating and can lead to panic. I'm almost feeling too much, rather than not enough - it's as though all my emotions have been switched to the highest level and most days I'm close to tears because of it. The midwife said it is most likely hormonal, which is fine - but it's not terribly easy to deal with! I've been trying to practise mindful breathing to calm myself, and to avoid panic attacks on my commute I try to listen to music or bury myself in a book, but it doesn't always work... so any advice would be gratefully received!

Being in possession of around 60 baby books, I wasn't sure about attending NCT classes, and when my friend mentioned hypnobirthing I was both intrigued and sceptical. I thought hypnotherapy literally means you get hypnotised, you see - I couldn't have been more wrong! We attended the Babies in Waiting course in Billericay for 4 weeks and it was absolutely wonderful. Hypnobirthing challenges a lot of preconceived notions of labour and birth, and encourages the use of breathing and visualisation as relaxation techniques, with the idea that you'll have a calm, assured state of mind during the birth. It really appealed to me, and helped to reassure both Jon and I to the extent that I'm now rather excited to give birth! We shall have to practise a lot before June but the techniques help me to get to sleep at night and I've already noticed an improvement in my stress levels. I'm definitely going to visit some of their relaxation classes once I'm on maternity leave!

Baby
Most importantly though, baby is doing very well - flourishing in fact, no matter how much I'm suffering! We have a big bubba on our hands, measuring at least 2 weeks further along at the moment, but from the leg and body measurements at our most recent scan it looks as though we are expecting a tall child, like Jon! We found out baby's gender at 17 weeks, but I'm not sure whether we will announce it before the birth (although close family and friends know what we're having). I didn't actually want to find out the gender as I like the idea of a surprise, whereas Jon was very keen to find out, so this will be my little compromise. In terms of decorating the nursery and buying clothes I've still kept things fairly unisex, mainly because baby clothes are so cute, how can you possibly decide between boys and girls?!
One thing is for sure though - our baby is a huge wriggler, I started feeling movement very early on for a first pregnancy and they're only increasing as the weeks pass. At 24 weeks I noticed my bump moving of its own accord, and baby seems to dislike me resting things on the bump, which is a shame as it's the perfect size and shape to rest a cup of tea or ice cream carton on...

To illustrate this, here is bump at 22 weeks, and 27 weeks respectively...











Food!
I struggled to eat properly up until I was 16 weeks pregnant, but after Christmas my nausea diminished and my appetite returned with a vengeance. My favourite things have been clementines, strawberry yoghurt, granola, apple juice and spaghetti bolognese - Jon has made it every week since the start of the year and I can't get enough of it. After half a year of eschewing red meat, I found myself craving it again, so I've allowed myself the odd cheeseburger or steak and cheese sub, as well as making my old faithful lamb curry from time to time. Most excitingly though, I'm back on the coffee! It broke my heart when I gave it up last October because it was giving me heart palpitations, but around Valentine's Day I finally succumbed to a hazelnut latte and was so pleased when I didn't experience any side effects. That said, I have cut my caffeine intake right down, and cap it at 2 cups of tea or 1 cup of coffee a day, but I'm right on time for frappuccino season and may have enjoyed one or two peppermint mochas already...
Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on pregnancy so far! Is there anything you'd like me to talk about further? I'm always wary of rambling too much about babies and such things! Let me know!
Love Dani xoxo

My first camera was a plastic Fisher Price-style job - I've got photos of 10 or 11 year old me clutching it as though it were the most precious piece of equipment ever! I used to have to beg my mum to buy me rolls of film, then I'd run around taking random snaps and see what developed. My mum would dutifully keep every photo, no matter how blurry - some of them are still in existence in our house today!

Nowadays my photos all sit on my external hard drive, or take up space on my phone (currently over 1,800 and counting!). My instagram account might be a colourful, carefully planned haven of memories, but how often do people scroll back through their feeds? What's the point in taking an ace photo if you never look at it again?

That's where Printiki come in! I ordered 30* of their white bordered square prints, picking some of my favourite memories off my instagram - it couldn't be easier, all I had to do was link up my account and select the photos to print (this, ironically, was pretty hard). I had a couple of projects in mind for the prints, so tried to pick some that were meaningful, and some that fit the colour scheme I had in my head.

My first project is our baby memory book - as first time parents, we're eager to document every stage of our little one's existence (before we run out of time to complete it - I literally don't know anybody who's managed to fill out an entire book like this!). I printed our baby announcement photos with the scan picture, as well as a bump photo from last month (it's doubled in size since then...)

Next I chose some of my favourite memories with Jon, ranging from our honeymoon to our wedding, and other trips away! My friends have tons of photos of themselves together, whereas Jon and I only had a handful of wedding pictures in frames - no more! I'm going to pop these up in our bedroom, maybe on a canvas or in a pretty shape on the wall.







Finally, I'm thinking about decorating the walls in our baby's room/second bedroom. It's all white at the moment and I'm happy with that, I love a clean, white home (Sara of Me and Orla does this particularly well!). But I think it would be nice to have some bright artwork and prints on the wall for baby to look at, so I picked up the Polaroid peg frame from work recently and decided to fill it with joyful photos in blues and pinks! The seaside photos are all from my favourite beaches in St Briac, which incidentally act as my calm place during my hypnobirthing practice. I feel chilled out just looking at them, and hopefully baby will too!






To finish off, I added some prints from my favourite trips - York, Vienna, France and Disneyworld. I've not yet decided where I'll put these - some I'll pop in our bedroom, others I might alternate around our living room! I've also got a memory notebook I'd like to keep going, so I'll add a few in there as I think it will be fun to look back at them over the next few years. That's the joy of these beautiful prints - they're so versatile and easy to style. I chose mine in a matt finish and they're absolutely gorgeous, the quality is wonderful and the colours are so vibrant!

A huge thanks to Printiki for their help, and their wonderful service! Check their website out here, and their instagram for ideas on how to style your prints.

Much love,
Dani
xoxo



* for my policy on sponsored/review posts, please read my disclaimer here.

My favourite instagram hashtags all seem to have a theme:
#nothingisordinary
#littlestoriesofmylife
#petitejoys

I really love the idea of finding beauty in the everyday. The smallest of occurrences - blossom sprouting quietly on the trees; sunlight bouncing off a window; fluffy clouds clustered around a rooftop; my dog's eyelashes as she drifts off to sleep. I try to record these on my Instagram, as much as possible, taking joy from the little moments that make up my days.

I thought it might be fun to pick some images from my daily work life at the moment, given I have but a matter of weeks before I clear up my desk and depart on the adventure of motherhood for the next year. I'll be a different person when I return to work - I want to be able to remind myself of the lens I used to view the world through, the effort I made to find something pretty in my mundane commuter life.





I'm lucky to work in Marylebone, strolling past 221b Baker Street with a coffee in hand, Regent's Park beckoning across the road for a sunny lunch break, Marylebone High Street calling with its cutesy storefronts and floral displays. On fair weather days I try to go for a walk every lunchtime - during the winter, not so much. But here are some of my favourite photo spots that make up my day-to-day life.





The park is where I go when I need to be calm. If you pass the gaggle of geese and shrieking seagulls, down the paths and across the bridges, you find the perfect pockets of peace to while away a sunny lunch break. I came here to clear my head before having interviews with my current workplace; I come here when I'm stressed and need to sit and watch the water for a while, remembering how to breathe. Last summer I came here nearly every day with my colleagues, sprawling on scarves and eating jelly pots from the Co-op round the corner, chasing off some of the feathered thieves that have grown a little too brave for our liking. Coming to the park reminds me how much better I feel when I spend time outdoors - something that's all too easily forgotten in daily office life.





Here we're surrounded by the sort of gorgeous old townhouses I used to dream of - cheerful painted doors, flowerpots spilling over, shiny tiled porches. I can't get enough of them; they litter my Instagram from time to time, each door a different entity.





Along the road there's Paddington Basin - I make a point of walking this way to any meetings. There's something about open stretches of water that appeals to me; they're calm, quiet places to sit and enjoy the peace away from London roads.





That's the thing, you see - I let the stress of my working life take over sometimes. Days pass in a blur of commute, work, commute - and it takes a toll on my mental health. So when I've made an effort to appreciate my surroundings, enjoy what's available to me, and take time to make happy memories too - it's only natural that I feel more at ease with my day-to-day routines. I think looking around and taking a breath at least once a day is beneficial for all of us. And goodness knows what my daily life will be like in 3 months - a 9am coffee run could be a thing of the past (who am I kidding - it'll be a 6am coffee run!)

Love Dani
xoxo

For the last few months there has been a magical treasure trove of Harry Potter film memorabilia, hidden down a side street in Central London. You've probably heard of the House of MinaLima - a pop-up shop featuring creations by the two artists who worked on the film props, designing everything from the Daily Prophet to the Half Blood Prince's potion book. I visited in autumn but restrained myself from posting much about it, as I was under the impression the shop would vanish in early 2017 - but yesterday they joyfully announced that they're here to stay, so I'm here to make a case for visiting!

Hi my lovelies!

One thing I've loved doing over my pregnancy so far is discovering other mums' accounts of their experiences - every lunchtime I've searched for pregnancy updates, compared my bump to theirs, read umpteen birth stories (and scared myself silly in the process), and I find every single post absolutely compelling. I'm a woman obsessed! Apologies if you don't share this fascination - you might want to skip this post if pregnancy isn't your cup of tea (and I completely understand if it isn't!), but I've been documenting little parts of my journey so far and thought it might be nice to share with those of you who are interested!

So my first trimester was not absolute plain sailing. I know it's a tricky time for most mums to be but I think I literally got every single symptom going - if it was in the book, it happened to me!

It started for me with extreme bloating - unlike anything I've experienced before. I went shopping for new jeans with my bestie and felt I looked pregnant in everything - my stomach was just oddly distended and I had to buy trousers in a size up, which at the time was devastating as I'd been trying hard to monitor my diet and increase my walking. I put it down to my period being due, as I'd been monitoring my cycle for nearly a year to see if it attained some semblance of regularity following my PCOS diagnosis. So when it was a couple of days late, I didn't immediately jump to pregnancy conclusions. I did however experience terrible cramps and stomach pains, and started to worry as these were quite unusual without a period making an appearance. I also started crying at everything (this has persisted until now...)

Once I'd done multiple pregnancy tests and confirmed I was actually 5 weeks pregnant and not just the size of a small killer whale, I started to feel a bit better about my odd new body habits! I almost instantly became quite picky with food, sticking to lots of toast and craving smoked salmon at least once a day. I was also permanently exhausted - as a chronic fatigue sufferer this was not unusual, but it got to the point where I almost fell asleep at work because the tiredness was so extreme. Turns out my thyroid is acting up, which hasn't helped at all, so my fatigue is still ongoing... at least I'm prepared for being a parent?!

Around week 6 my nausea started - it was mainly motion sickness on the train at first, but soon escalated to being sick in the evenings and some mornings. I actually reduced my dinners and made sure to have larger lunches for a while because I just couldn't stomach food in the evenings. Anti-sickness wristbands improved my commute, as well as a healthy amount of mints and ginger nut biscuits. My manager at work kindly let me work from home for a few days to avoid the commute, which meant I could rest as well - this really helped. But nausea has been such a pain, I sometimes even make myself feel sick just thinking about food!

Between week 8 and week 10 I completely went off fatty foods as they made me feel so sick, and couldn't eat a grilled chicken burger at Byron because it just tasted wrong. I literally only wanted to eat cereal for ages, and at one point refused to eat anything but avocado and pasta for dinner - so healthy!! I tried to incorporate as much fruit and veg as I could bear to eat but really struggled to have a balanced diet thanks to the sickness. Thankfully baby didn't seem affected by this as he/she was measuring perfectly average at the 12 week scan, so I can only surmise that copious amounts of Weetabix helped somehow!

My skin has also been absolutely dreadful. I've got quite spot-prone skin anyway, but I'd reduced my dairy intake over the summer which had helped. Once I found out I was pregnant I stopped having soy and tried to eat more yoghurt on a daily basis, but mostly I think my skin just erupted thanks to hormones. I had to repurchase Estée Lauder Double Wear to try and conceal the red bumps everywhere, and it was so painful! Introducing a strict skincare routine has helped a little, but it's just a waiting game until the hormones level out a bit I think.

I also suffered from numerous aches and pains around my body, in particular my lower back after walking more than usual, and I had to start wearing a soft bra to bed as I just couldn't get comfortable. A wheat heat pad worked wonders here and I'm researching pregnancy pillows too as I want to get as much as sleep as possible over the next few months...

Reading back over this it does sound a bit negative, so I'd like to stress that while it's not been the easiest time, it hasn't been impossible at all, and we're so happy and grateful to be experiencing this! I honestly thought for a long time that we would struggle to conceive, more than we did - and I'm forever thankful to my body that it has managed to produce a healthy pregnancy thus far, because I had convinced myself it was something I could never achieve. I'm not going to linger too long on this because compared to many couples out there, our "struggles" were formed mostly of fear and a very disinterested doctor's diagnosis, and I would just like to acknowledge how lucky we are to have reached this stage.

That said, I'm looking forward to the supposed surge in energy during the second trimester, and the fabled pregnancy "glow" - come to mumma (although I'm 18 weeks now and it still hasn't appeared...ahem!) I'm also looking into very gentle exercise routines to limber up my unused muscles, so if you have any recommendations please do let me know!

Love Dani
xoxo

Hello all my lovelies!

Today has been the first day of "normal" life after a glorious holiday period of sleeping, eating, and rediscovering Pokémon on my sister's old 2DS. We finished off 2016 with a delicious Christmas at Jon's parents', a chilled out New Year's Eve with my family, and plenty of food in between. I'm so grateful that my appetite finally made a reappearance in time for Christmas dinner, although I'm still struggling with portion sizes!





We kicked off New Year's Day with a wonderful walk in the frozen woods near my Luxembourg home. My dog Molly had an absolute blast, despite increasing arthritis now she's hit retirement age, and it was so worth all my pregnant huffing and puffing to see her bounding gleefully through the forest and exploring the Roman ruins. I took about a hundred photos as I'm not sure when we will next see snow here!

Next we were very lucky to see our darling obstetrician on Monday, who came in on his day off to see us and reassure us that our baby is doing well. I'm currently approaching 18 weeks of pregnancy and beginning to feel little swooshes and flutters - no surprise as our little one is measuring slightly above average, so I'm very pleased to see my lack of food intake hasn't had an effect! I'm feeling so optimistic about late spring this year, as we're awaiting my niece's arrival in May, followed by our little squidge in June and I can't wait to meet them both!



So. 2016 was a bit of a topsy-turvy year, wasn't it? I've never felt so pleased to wave goodbye to an old year before. Sure, there were scattered highlights - my bestie's gorgeous wedding, some lovely weeks off work, trips with friends, and of course, our delightful baby surprise - but on the whole it's been tough both on a general and personal level. I'm really hopeful that 2017 will be an improvement and that we will learn from 2016's mistakes, and I'm trying hard to put all sorts of things into place to make it the best year ever. With that in mind, here are some little goals I've set myself, although I won't beat myself up if we don't achieve everything here. 2016 has taught me to take life as it comes and as long as I have my wonderful husband and my excellent family and friends, I'm sure we can manage somehow!

2017 goals

~ a happy, healthy pregnancy, with a happy, healthy baby! It's no surprise that this should be my main objective for 2017. I just want to do the best job I possibly can - it's more than a little scary, but I also can't wait to be a mum. I hope I make our child proud!

~ develop my photography! This is frequently on my list of goals, but 2017 starts with two paid photography jobs - something that always seemed out of my reach! I'll be shooting my first newborn and a couple of family/baby shoots too, which I'm so excited about. I love being able to provide people with images that will make them happy. It's a bit stressful because I desperately want to do a good job, but I'm also feeling so lucky to have these opportunities and hope I'll be able to develop further when on maternity leave, especially as I'll have my own little model to practise on ;)

~ start learning to drive! This is long, long overdue, but as Jon should (touch wood) pass his test in the early months of 2017, it's about time I started my own journey towards driving too. I've always found excuses not to do it but I really think it's important for me to achieve this as soon as possible now. Eek!

~ change our living situation! We're very fortunate to own our little flat, but little is the operative word here - it's crammed full with our possessions (six bookcases!!) and I just don't see how it will work for a little one when they're on the move. We always said it would be a temporary residence so maybe 2017 will be the year to move into our own house. Imagine!

~ keep up my reading - I almost managed to read 50 books in 2016 (although I'm very behind on my reading round-ups!) and I'd like to try and beat that in 2017... it's unlikely with a little one, but I love losing myself in a book so much, I have to make time to do it more often. I'm currently reading The Light Between Oceans and I've got The Essex Serpent lined up afterwards. Let me know if you have any recommendations!

Here's to 2017 and I hope it's a wonderful year for all of you!
Much love,
Dani xoxo