On Nesting

Several months ago, Ray and I were in Tampa for a wedding and we had dinner with our friends, Austin and Katrina.  They brought their baby girl, Zoey, with them to dinner, and we talked about pregnancy and children.  As we were standing to say good-bye, Katrina said, "By the way, nesting is real!"  While I had no doubt she was right, I think I underestimated what it would be like in our house.

The nesting urge comes and goes with me.  There are days when I'm totally calm about everything, but there are days and moments, too, when I completely freak out.  This nesting instinct has lead me to:

• Have a meltdown over not having a nursery furniture plan
• Have a mild panic attack over how filthy our house was
• Spend an hour on my hands and knees vacuuming under all of our furniture
• Consider making our beloved Ninja an outside dog (only for about 30 seconds, though)
• Insist that we put the crib together tonight
• Wash every stitch of clothing we have for Wolverina (including all towels, blankets, and washcloths) in one afternoon marathon
• Subsequently fold and organize all clothing by size and type and store in different bins in her dresser drawer
• Spend countless hours pouring over our list of must-haves before the baby arrives and searching online to find the lowest possible price for each of these items
• Double-up on all supper recipes so that we can eat one dish for supper and Food-Saver the extras to ensure we have a freezer full of meals when Wolverina arrives (I've been able to freeze about 12 nights' suppers in just three cooking sessions in the evenings after work!)

Ray has been rather patient with me through all of this.  He has helped when he could and stayed out of my way when he couldn't.  But, I had an epiphany on Sunday about him.  While I was washing my fifth load of baby clothes, drying the fourth, and folding the third, I decided to take a quick break.  I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and Ray was in there polishing the sink with some sort of rubbing compound.  He'd decided Sunday morning that we "needed" to replace the kitchen faucet, so we went to Home Depot and picked out a reasonable replacement.  We came home, and he immediately began replacing the faucet.  But when he finished the installation, he decided that the sink needed to be polished.  So for the next hour, he used a nice variety of cleaning products and polishers trying to get our sink spotless.  I admit, it looks awesome.  But this got me thinking.

I recognized on his face the same expression I think I must have when I become obsessed with doing something right-this-very-second-because-if-we-don't-do-it-now-it'll-never-happen-and-it-has-to-be-done-before-the-baby-comes. Rather than point this out to him, I just gave him a hug and thanked him for his hard work.  I realized, too, that his work on the dresser, his installation of new lighting and fans, and even his organizing of the filing cabinet are all his version of nesting.  He clearly has a list in his head of things we have to do (or things he has to do) before Wolverina arrives, and he's working diligently to get them done.  Perhaps he handles the emotional aspect of it all better than I.  Perhaps he doesn't even realize what he's doing and just thinks it's another project he's working on.  But he's totally nesting just like I am.  And this makes me love him that much more.

Thirty-One Weeks

This week: Wolverine Baby is a little over 16  inches long and weighs more than three pounds. That's about the size of a pineapple.  

Development: This week, all five senses continue to get sharper.  Her irises now react to light, and her brain and nerves are doing some major developing.

Are you craving anything? Still chocolate milk and ice cream.  I could actually go for some chocolate frozen yogurt right now...

Is there any food that turns you off? The thought of anything spicy makes me cringe because of the heartburn and acid reflux that I know will ensue.


How do you feel? Large, uncomfortable, and graceless.  Trying to get out of bed or off the couch is just ridiculous.

How is your sleep? When I sleep, it is wonderful.

Most surprising thing you've noticed or experienced: Probably the sense of overwhelming, "I do NOT want to be in this room when I deliver!!" I felt when touring the c-section room at the hospital.  While I am very, very grateful to Elizabeth for the tour, I did not like that room.  Until going in there, a c-section didn't really concern me.  It wasn't ideal, but I wasn't afraid.  And now, I wouldn't say I'm afraid per se.  I just really, really don't want to do that.

Something you're surprised you haven't noticed or experienced: Nope.

Favorite/most comfortable article of clothing: Anything that fits.

How is Ray doing? Good.  He was pretty engaged at the tour and asked many questions.  And he's been doing a good job of trying to make me laugh about things when I'm scared or anxious.

Dresser Made Over

About six weeks or so ago, I had a minor meltdown on a Saturday morning because we didn't even have a plan for the nursery furniture.  I was completely freaked out emotionally even though I knew logically we had months to get things together before Wolverina arrived.  We sort of had a loose plan - get a crib from a friend who no longer needed their crib and get a low dresser that could double as a changing table - but nothing really solid, and it was stressing me out.  Ray, always calm, suggested that we spend a few hours looking at our options.  My patient, patient husband spent about three solid hours driving me all over town to various Goodwill stores and other consignment shops trying to find a dresser that would work.  We had no luck at all.  I was on the verge of a complete meltdown when Ray finally just stepped in and took over.  He picked out a new crib that had an attached changing table and suggested we use a tall chest of drawers in the rented storage unit his parents had offered to us.  His ability to see when I'm overwhelmed to the point of not being able to manage it anymore and take over is just one more reason I'm so thankful for him.

Two weeks later, the crib arrived, and we got it assembled.

And then we began the long, laborious process of sanding down an old dresser and painting it bright white to match the crib.  To be honest, I think there was a part of both of us that really felt bad sanding the dresser to paint it.  It's an antique, and while neither of us is particularly into antiques, we both know that it's pretty much sacrilege to sand and paint one.  But, Annie assured us it was fine to do because the dresser was not one they had any intention of using and would probably just end up selling it at Pop's Attic in the near future.

First, Ray removed all the hardware and pulled out all the drawers.  He spent a few hours with wood putty, wood glue, clamps, and tiny nails repairing the drawers.  Then he spent several more hours sanding it all down and priming them.  Then, he had to leave town for about a week for work, so I picked up where he left off and decided I'd start painting them.

Small top drawers that have been repaired, sanded, and primed. 

Please note the open can of paint next to the various tools.  It took me thirty minutes to make that happen. And, no, I was not drinking a bottle of wine while I painted (even though by the time I got the paint can open, I could have).  I ended up using the wings of the wine opener to get the lid of the paint can off.  My sweet husband insists upon taking every tool we own with him when he travels ("just in case").  I couldn't put my hands on any of the 50 screwdrivers we have or any of the 12 paint keys I've gotten from Home Depot in the past several months.  The hammer and scraper he must have missed while hoarding the other tools couldn't get the lid off, and so my next choice was the wine opener.  It worked pretty well!

When Ray got back from his trip, I'd painted all of the drawers with about three thick coats of hi-gloss Pure Ultra White from Behr.  (I seriously love that paint.)  So Ray pulled out the dresser itself to begin work.

We forgot to take a picture before he started sanding the face and top.  Oops!

This low-quality cell phone picture is meant to show the difference between the sanded side and the unsanded legs.  Oh well.  We tried!

 After Ray had sanded all the major areas with the handheld sander, he went back with just pieces of sand paper and got all the little details.  Thankfully, this dresser was pretty plain and not some ornate piece that required too much sanding.

I think Ray probably spent a total of 10 - 12 hours sanding just the dresser (not including the drawers).  It is slow, tedious work that I simply don't have the patience for.  I love crafting, and I love details, but I do not love sanding tiny crevices.  Because he worked so hard on the parts of this project that would have broken me, I was happy to paint drawers, put on new hardware (that he picked out), lightly sand between paint coats on the dresser, and put the final coat on the big piece.

Small top drawers finally finished and with their new hardware

Two of the three large drawers finished and with their new hardware

And, the finished product in the nursery looks pretty good for our first-ever attempt at this kind of project.  At least, I think so!

Yay!

The drawers really are all the same color.  I'm not sure why the flash on my phone made it look like five of the six drawers are pink.  Everything's white.  And, thankfully, the dresser holds a lot of her things.  The next step is to get some drawer organizers, to wash all of her clothes, and to get everything put away.  I think that might be my project for Sunday.

Hospital Tour

One of the many things on our "Before the Baby Comes" to-do list was to get a tour of the hospital we'll be using.  Since Ray's sister, Elizabeth, is an RN in Labor and Delivery there, she offered to show us around at the end of her shift one day.  We took her up on it last night.

We started in triage.  This was pretty quick (they were almost all full!) and really nothing to get excited about.  It's basically just enough room for a bed and some monitors so they can check you out and see if you're really in labor.

After that, we moved into a birthing room.  Liz explained the bed and all the different positions it allows, showed us the TV and DVD player (which made us realize we might need to get some movies since we recently gave all of ours away when we moved), the whirlpool tub (whose jets are removed and sterilized like surgical equipment after each use), and everything else in the room.  She also showed us the monitors and explained what we should be seeing on each.  Helpful things we learned from Liz in this room:

• Bring lots of your own pillows because they're hard to come by in the hospital.
• There are several options for pain relief, including narcotics and epidurals.
• Ray asked, "When is it too late to get an epidural?"  Elizabeth said, "When she's crowning."  That's a lot later than either of us thought it would be!
• Wolverina's monitor line should be squiggly.  Straight lines are bad.  (I never thought I'd prefer a squiggly line!)

Next up was the surgical rooms where we'll go if I end up having a c-section.  We got to wear these very attractive hair nets while touring.  I have to admit that I really, really did not like this part of the tour.  While it appears to be very sterile and very good if you need surgery, I really didn't like it.  It was freezing and looked kind of terrifying.  I took a lot of comfort in learning (from Liz) that TMH's c-section rate is slightly lower than the national average.  Also, she spent a lot of time explaining the process of a c-section in terms of getting prepped, when Ray can come into the room, how Ray would go with the baby to recovery and then I would join them, and how much time we'd spend in recovery.  The room we were in had five c-sections that day, and Liz had been in two of them.  That seems high, but I also think they were very busy yesterday.  I observed that it was very, very quiet, and Liz said, "It's because we're busy.  These doors are almost sound-proof, and all the nurses are in rooms working.  It's only when we're slow that you hear people."

Then, we went past recovery (which looks pretty much exactly like triage) and up to Family Care.  This is where we'll be for the two days or so after Wolverina arrives.  Liz warned us that the nurses here have essentially twelve patients - six moms and six babies - so the attention we receive in this part of the hospital will be much less than what we receive in L&D.  She also then explained that this means "ask for medicine as soon as you think you need some because it'll take probably 20 minutes for them to get back to you."  She also suggested that we immediately request a cot or a room with a cot because the reclining sleeper chair they have for dads isn't going to work very well for Ray.  The cot we saw looked pretty small, but Ray seemed to think it was pretty luxurious compared to Army-issue cots.

After about 15 more minutes where we asked questions and Liz told us everything she could think of, we headed back down to Labor and Delivery.  As we left, Ray and I both agreed that taking that tour with her was something we're both glad we did.  I feel extremely comfortable with Liz's wealth of information and her calm communication of facts.  Ray also felt much more informed about what to expect when we arrive.  Now, we just need to finish those online child birth classes...

We Got a Glider!

(This should be subtitled "And I'm a Crazy Pregnant Woman.")

Last night, Ray brought home the glider that Annie and Pop got for us.  We were excited enough when we found this glider at Target for a couple of reasons.  The first was that it was not $600 like the gliders at Babies R Us, and the second was that it had a tall enough back for Ray to be able to lean his head back.  (We suspect that we'll both end up falling asleep in this glider from time to time.)  When Ray's parents asked what they could get for Wolverina since we bought our own crib, Ray decided that this was the way to go.  They went to Target on Sunday to buy the glider, and it was delivered on Tuesday.

After work yesterday, Ray ran by their house to pick it up, and he decided to assemble it immediately.  Thankfully, it was much easier to assemble than the crib.  There were, however, several warnings about not using power tools to assemble it.  I think it took all of ten minutes to put the glider together with me reading the instructions and Ray working the assembly.

Once the glider was properly assembled, Ray said, "Okay.  Come try it out!"  I suggested that perhaps it was unwise to have the pregnant woman try out a just-assembled chair first, and he pretended to be offended that I questioned his skills.  I sat down in the glider and propped my feet up on the ottoman and started rocking.  And then I started crying (hence the subtitle).  There was just something kind of overwhelming about sitting in the glider and rocking Wolverina for the first time.  Ninja, who is the sweetest dog that ever lived, brought me her (current) favorite toy since she thinks that makes everything better.  Ray laughed a little at me crying (I was laughing a little, too) and grabbed my phone to take a picture.

(Please excuse my appearance.  I had done prenatal yoga and put the next-to-last coat of paint on Wolverina's dresser.)

We have the glider in the nursery for now, but Ray is lobbying to move it into the living room because he likes it so much.  I cannot wait to start reading to her while rocking away.  Thanks, Annie and Pop!!

Thirty Weeks

This week: Wolverine Baby is almost 16  inches long and weighs roughly three pounds. That's about the the weight of a head of cabbage and the length of a (rather large) cucumber.

Development: This week, Wolverina's eye sight is continuing to develop.  Her skin is smoothing out (but her brain is getting more wrinkled), and she's now got the strength to grip a finger.  I'm sure Kellie O'Dare would be glad to know that our girl's already working on that grip strength.  Pull-ups will definitely be in her wheelhouse!

Are you craving anything? Still chocolate milk and ice cream.  It's pretty much the only thing that doesn't give me heartburn.

Is there any food that turns you off? No, but I am avoiding eating anything too spicy. 

How do you feel? Large and uncomfortable... And a little worried about what this might mean for the remaining ten weeks.

How is your sleep? When I sleep, it is wonderful.

Most surprising thing you've noticed or experienced: Wolverina attempting to get out of my uterus yesterday...  I was in Ray's office sitting across from him after we finished lunch.  Our child, I swear, attempted to fight her way out of the womb and onto the desk.  She punched/kicked me so hard that it hurt and scared me enough to make me grab onto my stomach to try to keep her in there.  Obviously, I know she can't get out that way, but she was certainly making a valiant effort to go somewhere!

Something you're surprised you haven't noticed or experienced: Nope.

Favorite/most comfortable article of clothing: Anything that fits.

How is Ray doing? He's doing amazingly well, just like he does every week.  We started our online childbirth classes last night, and he diligently sat through all the explanations of the stages of labor and even took the quizzes.  He was happy, too, when we skipped over all the "pregnancy symptom" pages because I said, "Puh-lease.  I'm completely familiar with these. Moving on!"

Twenty-Nine Weeks

This week: Wolverine Baby is 15 inches long and weighs a little over 2 1/2 pounds. That's about the size of a butternut or acorn squash.

Development: This week, Wolverina's just growing.  Her head is getting bigger to accommodate her growing brain, and her lungs and muscles are continuing to mature.  I feel certain that the box jumps she performs on my bladder and hip bone are contributing to her muscle maturity...

Are you craving anything? Chocolate milk and ice cream.  Apparently, this is good because I'm supposed to increase my intake of calcium this trimester to help her growing skeleton.

Is there any food that turns you off? Nothing really turns me off, but I simply can't eat anything too spicy because I know how badly I'll pay for it.

How do you feel? I feel big.  I feel like I'm waddling, but Ray sweetly lied to me and told me I wasn't.  My feet are swollen at the end of the day, and the Braxton Hicks contractions are stepping up in frequency, intensity, and length.

How is your sleep? Surprisingly good.

Most surprising thing you've noticed or experienced: A Braxton Hicks contraction that lasted for probably 20 minutes.  It was accompanied by cramping.  It wasn't terrible, it wasn't even really that painful, but it was enough to make me ask Ray to please google it to ensure nothing was wrong.  I had not had one that lasted that long yet, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't indicative of a larger problem.  Nope.  It's all normal.

Something you're surprised you haven't noticed or experienced: Not that I can think of.

Favorite/most comfortable article of clothing: Pajama pants/shorts.

How is Ray doing? He's doing well.  He can't remember the term "Braxton Hicks," so he refers to these contractions as "Briggs and Stratton."  When he asked, "How are your Briggs and Stratton things?" I started laughing and asked if he was referring to the BH contractions or Army generals.  I was corrected.  Apparently, Briggs and Stratton are not generals.  They make engines...

Twenty-eight Weeks (Seven Months)

This week: Wolverine Baby is 14.8 inches long and weighs 2 1/4 pounds. That's about the weight of a Chinese cabbage or an eggplant.

Development: This week, Wolverina is now blinking her eyes (complete with eye lashes) and can possibly sense light coming in through the womb.  I wonder if she'll enjoy the sun when we go scalloping this weekend... Also, pretty much everything else I've read about this week of development says that basically, she's just putting on weight and growing more brain cells.

Are you craving anything? Not at the moment.

Is there any food that turns you off? I want spicy food - it sounds so good, but the thought of the heartburn I'll get from it turns me off for sure.  Pretty much everything except water and chocolate milk gives me heartburn these days.

How do you feel? Better now than I did in the middle of the night last night.  Acid reflux woke me up.  I have never had acid reflux before, and I now have a tremendous amount of sympathy for people who deal with that on a daily basis.  It's terrible!  You can feel the burning liquid rising in your chest.  Gross!!

How is your sleep? Except for the interruptions, it's pretty good.

Most surprising thing you've noticed or experienced: I think this is a tie between three things... 1) When I lay on my side, I frequently feel Wolverina on both sides of my abdomen.  It feels like she's standing on the side I'm on and reaching her hands (or maybe it's her head??) up to touch the top side.  2)  Nesting is real.  I have had several moments in the past week where I've felt this frantic urge to get the house completely clean and the nursery put together.  (This is why we spent several hours yesterday cleaning out the nursery closets and organizing everything in that room.)  3) Monday night, I got out of bed to use the restroom, and when I tried to stand up, I couldn't.  I was having a Braxton Hicks contraction that was strong enough to keep me from being able to completely straighten up.  The sensation wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't particularly painful.  It was kind of like a mild cramp.  But it was definitely a surprise.

Something you're surprised you haven't noticed or experienced: Nope.

Favorite/most comfortable article of clothing: A pair of sleep shorts that are loose enough to wear comfortably all the time.  Too bad they're not exactly appropriate outside the house.

How is Ray doing? He's amazing.  He has been working diligently on sanding the dresser we're going to use to house most of Wolverina's stuff, and he was super patient while humoring me yesterday as I insisted that we needed to try to get the nursery in order.  What I want for the nursery (nothing in there except her stuff and all of it organized completely) simply isn't possible considering the size of our house.  Ray gently reminded me of this fact several times and helped me work out a solution that left me feeling pretty happy with the arrangement of things in there and in our other closets.  He is a good, good man.

Crib Chaos

I think everyone who's ever known someone who attempted to assemble a crib has heard the horror stories.  I've been told many times that a former coworker of mine almost divorced her husband over the assembly of their first born's crib.  I also received two very valuable tips before assembling the crib: 1) Assemble the crib inside the nursery and 2) Do not stand inside the crib while assembling it.  I had more than one person tell me that they'd spent hours assembling a crib in the living room only to realize that it wouldn't fit through the door to the nursery.  More recently, my hair stylist told me about a friend of hers who was inside the four sides of the crib she and her husband were trying to assemble, holding the sides steady while he installed all the hardware.  After he tightened the last screw, they realized she couldn't get out.  She was too pregnant to be about to crawl underneath, and the crib was too heavy/awkward to lift over her head.  So, armed with these two handy pieces of advice, Ray and I began to assemble the crib in the nursery last night.

The first thing we did was pull out all of the pieces and lay them out and get the directions out.  Because I am a woman, I read all the directions before we began.  Because Ray is a man, he looked at all the screws and the supplied Allen wrench and went to go get his power tools.  This is why we make a good team.  If I hadn't been there to read the (terrible) directions and Ray had not had power tools, we probably would have gotten a divorce.

So, let's talk about these directions Graco was kind enough to supply.  To be blunt, these directions sucked.  The part of the directions that included diagrams of each piece was not labeled in the same way the actual directions were labeled.  So what they called "Crib Bottom A" in the opening diagram was later referred to as Crib Bottom Middle.  And that's the mildest complication.  Here's a picture of the double-page spread that led Ray to swear more than I've heard in a long time and wonder aloud how many people could legitimately sue Graco for being the cause of their divorces.

Looking at these directions, you don't see the problem.  Everything looks pretty clear.  But here's the problem: the diagrams are labeled incorrectly.  The first two diagrams that set you up for the next six steps are wrong.  I thought the first diagrams were mislabeled (I thought that diagram labeled "Changing Table on Left" was actually a picture of what we needed to do if we wanted the changing table on the right), and I asked Ray to look at it with me.  We agreed that it didn't seem right, but we decided to just follow the directions and diagrams because the good folks at Graco surely know more about assembling their products than we do, right?

WRONG.

When we got to the next step and started looking at the diagram, the pieces, and the instructions, we realized our instinct about those first two diagrams was right.  So, we spent ten minutes taking everything we'd just worked to assemble back apart.  That involved twelve screws for each end we'd already assembled.  Thank God for power tools.  If we'd have had to do that with just the Allen wrench provided, it would have taken about six times as long.

There were several other occasions when the diagramming or instructions were too vague to explain properly where screws should be placed and brackets should be attached, so it got to the point where I'd read the instructions, we'd look at the diagram, and then we'd just use that as a general guide for what we were supposed to be doing.

Proof that I did more than sit and watch Ray do all the hard work:

Two hours after we began, we had a completely assembled crib with an attached changing table.  I didn't take a picture of the finished product because I want to wait until things look a little more completed to post a picture of that.  But, this morning, we got up and spent three hours organizing the nursery, nursery closet, my closet, and two other closets to get us where we need to be.

As I'm writing this, my dear husband is outside on our screen porch sanding all the drawers of the chest of drawers we'll be painting white and that will (hopefully) contain most of Wolverina's stuff.  He's going to be such an amazing dad. :)