Terms of Endearment

Ah, 37 weeks. I've carried this baby to term! Yay me! She is welcome to come out any time she likes now, except we're hoping she'll wait until after at least next weekend. We have many unfinished tasks...

My car is currently in the shop having its AC repaired. If the baby comes before that's done, we don't have a vehicle to bring her home in, as the seat belts in the back of Craig's car don't work (and even if they did, I don't think we could fit a car seat back there.) Contingency plans: we took the car seat base out of my car before taking it to the shop. Plan A is Mom & Dad's vehicle. Plan B is some other visitor's car. Plan C is rent a car.

Wednesday is Craig's birthday. It would be more convenient if we didn't have 2 people in this house sharing a birthday week. (June is going to be one hell of a month. Anniversary, Craig's birthday, Baby Girl's birthday, Desmond's birthday...)

We have a "preview" appointment at a pediatrician on Wednesday. It would be nice if we met one we like before she comes.

I have another prenatal appointment Thursday morning. (If she comes before then, obviously it won't be necessary!)

I'm supposed to get my hair cut Thursday. I would like to have "good hair" for all the pictures that will be taken post-birth.

And lastly on Sunday, I am going to the church for a pre-baptism class that they require of first-time parents. They only have them a couple of times a month, so if I didn't go this time, it would be a pain to reschedule.

Not to mention that the house is a mess, and I feel like we have so much to sort out still.

And I haven't even packed my hospital bag yet. That's a daunting task. I made lists for it though, and they are looong. You'd swear I'm going on a month's vacation. However, I just compiled it with every conceivable thing from every suggestion list I could find out there, so it will definitely require paring.

Nonevents

At week 36, it seems like it's all over but the waiting, now.

From the pages of "Duh" magazine:

Babies are expensive!!!

Craig and I spent the last couple of weeks shopping for things we didn't have yet, and WOW -- have we spent a lot of money! Thank God for our nice tax return this year. I don't know how other people do it.

I tried to rationalize it this way:
Imagine if you took in a refugee who had nothing. Imagine what it would take to outfit this person with everything they needed: clothing, food, toiletries, etc. Then consider that they are a special-needs person and also require lots of specialized equipment to get around and just for day-to-day living. What would that cost? Probably more, actually, than what it costs to outfit a baby. (Baby clothes are cheap in comparison to adult clothes!)

We went to the doctor yesterday for a checkup. Baby Girl was kicking around just fine. Nice strong heartbeat, still measuring on track. They had me get in the stirrups to do a Group B Strep culture. Yes, they already found GBS in my urine at that 10 week or so exam, but he said it doesn't hurt to do it again at 36 weeks. He didn't want to check my cervix this time because he said it's too early. But after feeling my abdomen he said he thinks she's already facing downward, so that's a good sign!

My pelvis feels like it's coming apart, and my lower back is killing me most of the time. I feel positively geriatric. What was I thinking having my first baby at 37 years old?? I'm so jealous of the under-30 crowd at this point. I'm sure I would have had a much easier time if I had started earlier.

Physically, anyway. Because then the logic-brain kicks in and reminds me I was in absolutely no place financially or emotionally to handle taking care of a tiny human when I was younger. I really needed the time to figure things out about who I am and what I wanted to do with my life before I decided to have a kid. Not to mention the fact that my traditional sensibilities wouldn't have allowed me to have a baby without a decent father in the picture for her. I kept to the plan:
1. Financial independence
2. Career stability
3. Marriage
4. House
5. Baby

It just took a really long time to get there. But I'm glad I did it this way. Would I do it this way again? Probably. But I would like to have known then what I know now. I would have gotten here much sooner.

And speaking along those lines, and of nonevents...

Today is our third wedding anniversary. Craig and I have neglected to get each other anything. I think we both just sort of forgot with all the baby excitement, and it's fallen by the wayside. We'll probably just go out to dinner and have a nice relaxing evening at home. I told him his present is that I'm making this baby for him. And he says that HE made the baby. So I guess it was a team effort, and that makes for a nice anniversary gift, indeed.

Baby Shower!

Ooops -- the news of this is two weeks old! LOL

My sisters threw our baby shower for us. We knew that it was going to happen, because I had to provide a list of people we would like to invite, but they didn't tell us where or when it was going to be...

My parents came into town for Mother's Day, so my younger sister, Christina, proposed that we all get together at Dave & Busters, where her husband takes her every year for (step)Mother's Day. I wasn't suspecting anything really, except that we don't usually do anything for Mother's Day, so that seemed odd. But since my parents were around, I left the mental work on it at that.

We took the drive up there, and Christina met us at the door, and led us to a back room...

(Holy crap! Am I smuggling Thanksgiving turkeys in that shirt, or what??)

We couldn't believe all the people that came -- from as close as the street where we live, to as far as 3 hours away! (*not counting my parents who came from Jersey.)



The mom-to-be and grandmom-to-be were made to feel like guests of honor:


Being that I'm part Italian (thanks Mom!) my parents decided to show off their sense of humor:


There was good food, (Mexican buffet! yum!) and Christina made this AMAZING panda cake!


Of course there were gifts:








After food and conversation, everyone got to go play games in the arcade (which, imho, is way better than the typical stupid degrading shower games!) So a good time was had by all.

We really enjoyed seeing everyone (what may be) one last time before the baby is born, because who knows how long it's going to be before we see everyone again!!? We were stressing that we would like visitors after she's here because we will probably be welcoming of adult human conversation and activities once we get the hang of newborn care...

(All pics were courtesy of my dear brother-in-law, Aaron:)

(as Craig brought our camera, but then with all the excitement, we neglected to actually take any pictures!)

Nursery Update #3

This weekend (and every weeknight last week) was spent doing nothing but painting the nursery. By Kathy, that is. As you'll recall from last week's installment, I'd taken myself out of the running due to the precision required at this point. In the meantime, I tried to take care of the housework, yard work, bringing water and supplies to Kathy, keeping the AC at a tolerable level for an 8-month-pregnant lady (hint: lower) and sanding and painting one of two pieces of furniture for the baby's room.

Sound like a lot? It was nothing compared to the work Kathy put in on the nursery.

As you'll recall, last week found her filling in the various circles she'd plotted out on the wall. This week, she continued to do that:




And continued to do that, adding three coats of paint to each circle...




Once all of that was completed, she began to hand paint a dark brown outline around each circle, starting in the bottom right-hand corner:



And continuing leftward...



I can't even begin to describe to you how tedious and painstaking this process was. She literally free handed each circle with a small paintbrush. From morning until bedtime on Saturday and most of today, she continued to work, until everything was outlined.




She's now in the process of painting the baseboard to cover the over painting. I told her that after this, she's not allowed to exert herself for the next two months.

Stay tuned for our next harrowing installment, wherein our hero (me) attempts to haul various pieces of furniture up a flight of stairs by himself.

Lazy baby!

Last week I had to go for what they call a fetal non-stress test, or NST.

Baby Girl had been really active over the weekend. We were painting the nursery and running errands, and she was kicking away like normal. Monday we went to see the doctor (another doctor this time; I think we may have seen all of the midwives by now) and everything was measuring on track, and her heartbeat was in the 130s. But the appointment was first thing in the morning, and the whole rest of the day, I hardly felt her move at all. By that night I was getting concerned. We listened to her heartbeat on the Doppler, but it was harder to find than usual. I thought maybe she was turned around backwards and I just couldn't feel her like I had been, but I was still concerned. I told Craig that if she wasn't back to normal by Tuesday, I would call the doctors' office.

Tuesday was a busy work day in the morning, but I tried to get her moving like usual with a nice, cold, sweet, chocolatey Carnation Instant Breakfast. She wasn't having it. Barely a kick or two. So I called the doctor's office and one of the nurses called me back. She asked a bunch of questions about what I had tried, and offered that as the baby gets bigger I may not feel her move as much because she has less room to do so. But she said what they could do is have me come down and hook me up to the monitors and see how it goes, so that's what I did.

It was easy enough to do. They sat me in a big recliner (like the one in the lab they sit you in if you're going to pass out!) and hooked up a fetal heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor. She had a hard time placing the heart rate monitor because someone didn't like the belt it was attached to, and squirmed away more than once. Then the nurse gave me a button to push every time I felt the baby move. And we waited, and watched the machine slowly churn out a roll of paper with squiggly lines on it.

At one point Baby Girl was being kind of sluggish so the nurse said we could try the buzzer. She showed me what the buzzer felt like on my leg before she put it on my stomach, and sure enough it produced a small BZZZT and a vibration. When she activated it on my stomach, Baby Girl JUMPED. I think we may have startled her! Poor little muffin, just trying to get a nap in there, with us bugging her, hee hee.

After the test was over the nurse told me everything looked fine, but they were going to have me see the doctor anyway. Coincidentally, the doctor I ended up seeing is the same one we're going to go see next week. He was really nice, and told me again that everything seemed fine, and he measured me. He said that he is all for someone coming down and doing an NST if there is a concern because it's so easy and non-invasive to do, and it also lets everyone be reassured. So he was glad I called and decided to come down if I was worried, and told me to feel free to do so at any time.

So yes, Baby Girl was just fine, she was just having a couple of lazy days. She's been pretty active since. This week (31 weeks!) I've noticed that I feel her pretty much all the time in some way. It's a lot of rolling or small movements, but I have a feeling that with much less space to move around in, she's pushing against me more and doing less floating.

It makes me happy and excited every time she moves. Even last night when she had her foot square up in my ribs. It's totally worth it to know she's okay in there, and that she'll be on the outside with us soon!

(Also, for the record, I forgot to mention that the results of my glucose tolerance test were just fine, and I do NOT have gestational diabetes! Yay!)

Nursery Update #2

Okay, so first let me start off by apologizing yet again for the delay between blogs. With the timer ticking down and less than nine weeks remaining until the baby is born, we're really starting to feel the crunch. That said, we've done quite a bit of work on the nursery over the past couple of weeks and I thought you might like to see how it's going.

Two Saturdays ago, we painted the ceiling and taped it up, along with the windows, in preparation for painting the walls:




The following day, Kathy and I painted around the edges and outlets (I'm providing these photos for reference, because it's harder to see the color in the later pictures):




Finally, we painted the rest of the room:




Very astute viewers, upon clicking the last image, will notice the very faint outlines of a few circles drawn on the wall. There's a very good reason for this. Kathy created detailed top-down plans and elevations of each wall in Visio, which we used to plan the layout of the room (with scale drawings of all the furniture). She also used the elevation of one particular wall to plan a pretty intricate pattern of interlocking circles. This allowed her to plan the radius of each circle as well as each section's respective color (you will see how this plays out in the next nursery update). Here are two of the plans (one showing size, the other color):



In the background, you can also see one of the individual pieces of string she used to draw the circles. Each one had the radius marked in red tape to avoid confusion.

Finally, once all of the circles were drawn, Kathy laid down the first coat of the lightest color. I didn't go near the project at this point (except to spot the pregnant lady on the stepladder) because my painting hand is not nearly as steady.




So that's where we're at right now... I know Kathy's working on another blog entry as we speak and I know there will be more coming soon from my end. Sorry again for the delay, but we'll try to keep the news flowing as we get it.

Back to School

Note: As so often happens in our shared life, the pendulum has swung back the other way. Kathy is now absolutely buried at work, so I will endeavour to take over the blogging duties in her stead. This means more big words (but also hopefully more jokes [not that quantity in this case is synonymous with quality]). Annnnyway...

Last night, we found ourselves attending our very first Childbirth Preparation class at the hospital (or rather, a small Maternity Education building right next to the hospital). For me, the jury was still out as to whether this would be a worthwhile experience. I was 1 for 2 with these courses after the (imo) abysmal CPR/Safety class and the amazing (again, imo) Boot Camp for New Dads.

We shuffled into the room, blankets and pillows in tow, along with about 6 other couples who were all interesting and different in their own ways. The nurse who would be officiating the class handed out name tags and collected fees. Then she addressed the class, giving us her name, home telephone and cellular numbers ("Call me any time if you have a question") and telling us, "I've been in nursing longer than any of you have been alive." A bold statement, but it turned out to be true.

She used no notes or textbook (she didn't need them). She'd been helping deliver babies since the 60's, she told us, and explained all that had changed over the years. She offered many colorful anecdotes, plenty of advice (always backed up with a sound medical rationale) and more than a little humor. This lady was amazing. I can tell you with no exaggeration that as of right now, she is the only nurse I want at the hospital when Kathy delivers.

She talked about the roles of the husband during labor (busting most of us guys' chops as she went along), what the actual process of labor would be like (long and not a lot of fun), and gave us an overview of what to expect from the class in the coming weeks. And like that, two and a half hours had passed before we knew it.

With just over two months of pregnancy left to go, it feels like we're finally entering the home stretch. Probably because we are.