My Pregnancy Scrapbook [in Full]

I've made this post public for two reasons: 

1. To share with my family and friends who have listened to me talk about this project for a long time now; and

2. To inspire anyone who happens to find this post through search engines that there are many ways to document a pregnancy, and digital scrapbooking is one of them. :)

Just after Christmas, I finished working on my pregnancy scrapbook which had been over two years in the making. I taught myself digital scrapbooking when I was pregnant with Rowan so that I could undertake this project, and when I look back over my earlier layouts to the more recent ones in the book, I can really tell the difference. I thought about remaking a few of them before printing, but resisted the urge because I have memories associated with these earlier pages. So instead I tweaked the shadows and fixed up any glaring mistakes, and sent it all off for printing.

I printed with an Australian company called 123Cheese, as I had a coupon I'd bought earlier during 2012 with this purpose in mind. Basically, I got a $100+ project printed for $30, including postage/shipping. I was impressed with that, and had printed with the company before (photobooks, not digital scrapbooking projects) so I could vouch for their printing quality. Blurb are another printing company that I recommend, their quality is phenomenal but they are more expensive (you can search out coupons online pretty easily though, there are generally 15% coupons floating around; even up to 25% off before Christmas).

Anyway, back to the book... it was quite literally a labour of love and although I've shared pages here and there from it before, I've never posted it in its entirety before now. So without further ado, here are some pictures of the printed book itself and all week-by-week layouts. Lots of text (mainly for me to look back on, plenty of belly pictures and all the things I deemed important to tell at the time. I've had people ask me if I'd go to this much "effort" for subsequent pregnancies and I've said no, though I'd probably do a more abridged version if time allowed.

Some of the text/pictures might be difficult to make out, but that's due to the compression and resizing. In the printed book, everything looks crystal clear - even the thin journalling fonts. :)

The book itself; hardcover and linen-bound, printed in 12x12".
Hand for size comparision!

An example of layouts in the book (weeks 16-17)

The printing quality is exceptional, though a stitch-bound album would have been lovely,
glue-bound was only available from this company.

Following the week-by-week pages, I have his (lengthy) birth story, and a spread of 10 photographs of Rowan's first week in the world

ONTO THE ALBUM!

To view all pictures at a better size, click on one of them and it will take you to a full-windowed gallery (displaying bigger than in this post)

Inside front cover

Happy Birthday, Rowan!

One photo of Rowan per month, taken on his 'month birthday'.

My little Rowan is now a strong, robust one year old. I'm in awe of this little boy, and at the same time missing that squawking, always-hungry newborn baby. <3

It was Rowan’s first birthday yesterday, my little man(atee) is now officially a toddler in all sense of the word! Not that I’m in a hurry to see him grow up so fast, but seeing his understanding of the world around him and his need to communicate increasing is quite fun (video of Rowan newborn squawks at 26 days old... so cute!). In the last couple of weeks he has added a second word to his repertoire (go; pronounced gohhhhhhhhh, the singsong inflection is totally my fault as I’ve said to him “let’s go!” in an enthusiastic way for the last few months at least. Still, it’s very cute – I’ll try to get it on video soon. ;)

Rowan is teething at the moment (which I’ve been expecting because he hasn’t gotten any new teeth since he was eight months old; there’s a white line to the right of his bottom front tooth – so far he always seems to cut the first of any tooth pair on the right. Don’t know if that’s a Rowan thing or similar in all children?). He had a disturbed day and night’s sleep leading up to his birthday, and consequently looks a bit tired and grumpy in quite a few of his pictures. Still, I’m glad that we didn’t plan a bigger celebration in the end because given the situation he would have found it completely overwhelming.

My parents and brother came over to our place for afternoon tea (Mum and Dad are amicable, and Dad’s wife and her son Billy – who also has Autism – are in China visiting family at the moment so they weren’t there. Chris only wanted to come if Rowan wasn’t going to cry and Billy wasn’t going to be there, could confirm one of these and not the other though...! Something that was really cool was Chris actually letting Rowan sit on his lap for the first time ever. Seriously, my brother has never ever touched Rowan before, he’s been too frightened. So this was a HUGE step and we were all thrilled – except Chris, he tolerated the situation but was quick to resume sitting solo again shortly afterwards!

Something I wasn’t anticipating was how excited I was for Rowan’s birthday. Not just the fact that he has been earthside for a year (and believe me, I had been recounting the events leading up to his birth over the past few days; very nostalgic already!), but getting excited for him and watching the special people in our lives making a fuss over their first grandchild. I was filled with a warm glow, and it certainly beat celebrating my own birthdays.

I wasn’t know where I stood on the whole ‘cake smash’ thing that I’m seeing pop up more and more recently – personally I think it’s a big waste of cake and a little excessive, but I understand that many people see a baby covered in cake as a rite of passage into birthday-dom somehow. While we didn’t give Rowan a cake to play with, he got to have his very own (small) piece of the cake we’d made – combining three of his favourite things: cake, strawberries and chocolate! He made a mess, but nothing near what I was expecting (probably due to making a regular icing rather than a buttercream icing). It was more than enough for him, and afterwards he tried licking his plate too. :P