Well Dressed

It looks like our little guy is going to be very well dressed. Look at all the clothes we have! I've only bought a few things - most are gifts. Granted, these are all different sizes - mostly up to 6 months, but several things are larger. We don't have too much small stuff because I don't anticipate he's going to be all that small since I keep growing and growing and growing.

First Ultrasound

We're only a few weeks away from meeting our little guy. Here's our first picture of him from our first ultrasound. I'm so glad my doctor has a 3D/4D ultrasound machine. It's been really cool to see so much.


By the way, the "bump" on his back is the yolk sac.

Echocardiogram

I had an echocardiogram today. My OB wanted me to have one since I have a ventricular septal defect (link), and I think she wanted to be prepared in case of any complications during my labor. The ultrasound tech said she was excited because she doesn't see VSD that often, and then she was really excited when she was able to find the hole. I was able to see the screen most of the time that she was doing the ultrasound so I got to see how the oxygenated blood and non-oxygenated blood was flowing and where the blood from the left ventricle entered the right ventricle. It was pretty neat.

I've finally gotten to where I'm really hot all the time. In the last couple of weeks I noticed that I'm actually warmer than Brian which is not the norm. It's cooled off here, and we've had to have the heat on some. I keep turning it down or off and Brian is freezing. Even at work I've been turning off the heat in my area which my co-workers probably like because they prefer it freezing. By now I'm usually bundled up wearing a jacket all day with my space heater on and now I'm too hot when I wear long sleeves. Hopefully I don't get anyone sick by keeping it so cool all the time!

37 weeks & 1 day

I had another routine doctor's appointment today. My blood pressure was 124/73 (or something close to that) and I am fat - I put on 6 pounds in a week and a half. However, no one at my doctor's office seems at all concerned with the amount of weight I've put on lately so I guess it's okay still. I really didn't think I had gained much this time between my appointments, but I was wrong.

I am now 2 cm dilated but the baby is still "floating around" and hasn't "locked into position" yet according to my doctor. So he could still potentially turn into a breach position though that's not too likely.

My doctor was having trouble getting a good heart rate reading from the little guy with the hand held device so she put me on the fetal monitor. It was supposed to be for 15-20 minutes but I think they forgot about me and I was on it for about 50 minutes. Luckily Brian showed up after about 30 minutes and entertained me. He had been there already for 20 minutes (he was a couple of minutes late due to a lunch meeting) but since my appointments are usually so short he figured he'd just wait until I was done. I was so glad he found me though because then he could open the door to the room to let it cool down some. I was starting to think my fingers were going to burst because they were so swollen in that hot, stuffy room. And by opening the door, it reminded the nurse and doctor that I was still in there.

The doctor said the baby's heart rate looked good and there were 3-4 contractions in that 50 minutes which is good. They weren't consistent, but they were there. I really only felt one, and it was really mild.

I'm going back to the hospital tomorrow for an echocardiogram. My doctor wanted one done since I have a heart murmur. I think it's to make her feel more comfortable about my labor and delivery since she doesn't know much about what my condition really is.

Curtains

We hung curtains in the dining room a few weeks ago and got the hold backs up today.


We've had a pretty relaxed weekend for once not trying to get too much done. I got the most sleep I've had in months this weekend - it was nice!

Car Seat

We went ahead and put the car seat in my car today so that there's one less thing to worry about when we have to go to the hospital. It was REALLY EASY to put in the base. We can't understand why it's supposed to be so hard to install car seats correctly. Maybe if you have an older car and can't use the simple latch system it's more difficult.


We also went shopping today and got the last of what we think we need for the baby. We should have enough to make it through the first few weeks with the little guy. I'm sure we'll figure out other things that will work out better, but we should have enough to start off with.

Belly Update

I haven't felt like I've been getting that much bigger this last week - finally. For the last month it seemed like I was able to notice a difference every few days. My next doctor's appointment is on Monday so I'll get to find out for sure if I stayed closer to the same size between appointments this time.

Cute Raccoons

Who knew raccoons could be so cute?


The woman that works at our Pennsylvania office sent me this today as well as a cute picture frame.

Birthing Classes

We finished up birthing classes a couple of weeks ago. We went to 4 classes, once a week, that were each 2-3 hours long. There were about 8 other couples in our class. The classes were at the hospital we are planning to have the baby at. They were generally helpful and informative. I'd definitely recommend them if for no other reason than to make you feel a little more confident about what's going on and to know a little bit of what to expect. Some people have told me that their classes scared them, but I didn't feel that way at all. A couple of delivery nurses from another hospital taught the classes. Here's a short summary of what we covered ...

Class 1 - General pregnancy information and signs of preterm labor. We also took a tour of the maternity ward. I haven't seen the maternity rooms in other hospitals in Knoxville, but these seem really nice.

Class 2 - The stages of labor, including viewing a few birth videos. These really weren't as graphic as I had expected. I've seen almost as much on TV.

Class 3 - Pain management (types of pain relief) and post labor recovery.

Class 4 - Basic newborn care, including a question and answer session with a pediatrician.

And here's a picture of why I get out of breath so easily and get up to pee at night every 1-2 hours ...


I also took a breastfeeding class a couple of weeks ago at the hospital. Unfortunately Brian was in Fargo, ND that week so he didn't get to go. The other two women in my class brought their husbands which is the norm for this class. The instructor was extremely long winded and took every second of the three hours the class was scheduled for, but the class was useful. The instructor is a maternity nurse at the hospital we'll be at so hopefully she isn't assigned to me because she might drive me crazy.

Home Improvements

The house we bought this year was purchased by the first owners in January of 2006 and we bought it from then in April of 2008. It had been on the market since at least October of 2007 (that's the earliest MLS listing our realtor could find for the house), and we believe the owners moved to Florida when they put it on the market. We think it took so long to sell the house because of the price (by the time we made our offer, they had dropped the price $22,000) and choices the previous owners made about paint, carpeting, etc. Also the pictures they used for the MLS listing were terrible and did not convey anything positive about the house. We only looked at our house after seeing almost all the others for sale in the same neighborhood and not liking them but loving the neighborhood. And we were desperate to find something - our house had already sold and our closing date was approaching.

We have done a lot of basic remodeling since we've moved in. One of the biggest changes we made was painting the entire downstairs, the stairwell, and the upstairs hallway. The best way to describe the color choices for downstairs made by the previous owners is rainbow sherbet. The dining room and office were a light green, the bar was a salmon color, and the rest of the downstairs was a yellowish peach color. And the previous owners chose to use a glossy paint that reflected a lot of light. We decided to cover all that up with a neutral flat paint called "River Sand". We also had the stairwell and the upstairs hallway painted this color. We ended up getting a painter to do all of this because it was just too daunting of a project for us to handle. Plus we have nine foot ceilings downstairs which are difficult to get to the top of with just a step stool. Here's a before and after picture from the front door that kind of shows the difference the paint makes.

Before:


After:


Another major change we made was replacing all the berber carpeting. The previous owners put berber in the family room, on the stairs, and in the upstairs hallway. All the bedrooms however have plush carpeting and they just butted the two types of carpet up to one another with nothing between them. It looked pretty ridiculous. We had the berber in the family room and upstairs hallway replaced with the same hardwood that is everywhere else downstairs (other than the kitchen which is tiled). We had the stairs recarpeted with the same carpet that is in all the bedrooms. We really wanted hardwood stairs but went with carpet since they are safer. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before:



After:



Some of the other changes we've made are:

- Replacing all the blinds with 2" faux wood.
- Adding ceiling fans to the family room and two bedrooms.
- Painting the master bedroom and bathroom and the nursery.
- Removing contact paper from every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen, bathrooms, and garage.
- Replacing the leaking kitchen sink piping.
- Replacing the kitchen faucet.
- Installing new locks on all the doors.
- Adding a garage storage / organization system.
- Fencing in the backyard.
- Staining the deck.
- Cleaning up all the beds, replacing one with grass, and adding a new one around the maple tree.
- Putting rocks under the deck.
- Moving and adding sprinklers to our irrigation system.

No wonder we've been so busy the last 6 months! Just buying everything for and setting up the nursery was a lot of work.