Baby will be here soon!

Disclaimer:  If you don't want to read about the stuff that happens before a woman goes into labor, stop reading now, although I promise it's not too graphic!

Well folks, with any luck, this will be my last post before you get to see a picture of our little bundle of joy!  I had an appt. with my doctor's office this afternoon and to my delight, the doctor informed me that I'm 3 cm dilated, 50% effaced and the cervix is soft (which we knew from 3 weeks ago).  I went to the appointment hoping that he would tell me I was 1-2 cm dilated and was prepared to be happy with that.  I suspected, though that much more has been happening since I've felt a lot of pressure really low for the last couple of days.  The Braxton-Hicks contractions have continued to occur often as they have since the fifth or sixth month of this pregnancy.  Now, technically, I could go another 1-2 weeks without dilating any more (so I have to put in that disclaimer) but my prediction is that we'll have our baby in the next week.  I'm hoping for Mother's Day!

Another update on baby:

Today I had another ultrasound and appointment with the midwife and Mom L was able to join Emily and I for the visit.  It was nice to see the baby again on the monitor and No..... we are STILL not finding out the baby's gender!  ;-)So basically everything looks good.  The technician said that the heartbeat was normal and all of the baby's limbs/organs looked good.  They estimate the baby's weight to be 2 lbs., 13 ozs. today, which puts our little peanut in the 41st percentile.  The due date is still unchanged (5/19/09) and the baby's head was down.  I visited with the midwife after the ultrasound who indicated that all of my bloodwork is "right down the middle for values" so basically, I'm average!  I'm down to scheduling appointments with the midwife/doctors now for every two weeks.  The picture below is of the baby's face (although it's probably hard to tell for most people).  The forehead and eyes are to the right of the image and the nose and mouth are toward the center from the right.  The blurry spot in the middle of the image is an arm that was sort of crossed over part of the face.  At one point, we could see the baby opening and closing it's mouth, which was neat!

A room to call his/her own ...

Yay!  The major work has been completed on the nursery and now it's just a matter of finishing the room's color scheme by adding wall decor, accessories, bedding and window treatments.  Unfortunately, we won't have a truly "finished" product until the occupant itself is "finished" growing!  But for now, you get the idea with these pictures.  The picture to the left is a "before" shot.  The rest are pics of the semi-finished result. 

 

The room was painted with two different shades of brown/tan and all moldings were painted in a creamy white.  

I constructed and hung a book bin below the chair rail on the wall in which the closet door swings into (and will add one more above the chair rail on the same wall).  The idea with this was that since the room's size prohibits a lot of furniture (including a book shelf), I wanted the baby to have some place to put his/her favorite books.  

I made french message boards (2 boy, 2 girl) to hang

 over the changing table as a place to put notes & clippings and to add a touch of the accent color to the wall.  I'll use the extra fabric from that project to make accent pillows to put on the glider rocker.  I've hung a nice ledge shelf above the crib to place a few frames and keepsakes and to add a focal point to the wall.  In a few weeks, I'll add a phrase in vinyl lettering above the shelf and  a monogram of the baby's initial's below the shelf after he/she is born.  I have a few other ideas for bringing the accent color of either pink or blue into the room but for now, the room must be as it is.  I really think once it's all "put together" it'll be the perfect place for our little one to spend time!  :-)

The latest Preggo Pic!

Well folks, here it is.... I'm about 15 weeks away from the end of my last pregnancy and here's a picture of me and my baby bump!  The four of us are all getting excited about our impending arrival and I think it's been more pronounced lately because the belly's more noticeable now than ever.  Let the stretching begin!

UPDATE - Getting ready for baby

Okay, so here's an update on our adventure of getting ready for the baby.  This past weekend, we slowly continued our attempt at moving things out of the office and to, well, whatever place we could find for the stuff.  Tim spent at least 2 hours moving and cleaning the freshwater tank from the impending nursery to a relatively permanent location in our bedroom.  I actually think this will be a better place for it, since he (we) may actually look at and enjoy watching the fish from our bedroom more than the glimpses we were getting while passing the office before!  The next step is to figure out an appropriate location for our computer server and to run the wiring to that location.  After that, Tim will patch a couple of spots in the wall and I can finally begin painting.

Which brings me to my next topic.... painting.  Emily and I spent some time this afternoon at Home Depot looking at paint swatches in an effort to determine which shade of brown would be the best for the baby's room.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I had two bedding sets picked out (one boy-centric, one girl-centric).  After hours and hours of searching the internet for just the right combinations of blue/brown and pink/brown, I thought I had it just right with the bedding that I mentioned in my last post.  Originally, I had anticipated that the manufacturers of the bedding sets would be able to provide me with fabric swatches.  However, I've been unable to get them and when it comes to picking paint colors, I feel most comfortable when I have a fabric of inspiration to work from.  Not to mention that, in this case, I need to pick a color that will go with both bedding sets!  UGHH!!!  So we trekked back up to Babys'RUs in hopes of finding something that I could live with.  I still love the girl bedding that I'd chosen and since that's available at the store, I'm sticking with that choice.  However, the "Baby Noah" design that I choose for the boy bedding is only available online so I've settled on an altogether different bedding set, which still has the brown tones but MUCH less of the blue (boo hoo).  I'm hoping to make the blue more noticeable by using a coordinating blue crib sheet and other blue accents throughout the room.  The latest selection in baby boy bedding is called "My First ABCs" by Kidsline.  Here's some pics:

Getting Ready for Baby!

Now that the holidays are over and life is beginning to get back to normal, I'm turning my focus on the next few projects for the year.  One of which, of course, is getting ready for the baby's arrival.  Today Alex & Emily and I went to BabysRUs to register for a few items that we will need for the baby.  Although we have a lot of things that are needed, some items are nearly 7 years old and are either in rough shape or simply not recommended for use (like the infant car seat that is only rated for 5 years because, according to the manufacturer, the plastic quality degrades after that length of time).  Anyway, the main purpose for creating a registry is to take advantage of the close-out program that the store offers, in which they'll send me a coupon good for 10% off my purchases from the registry.  Keeping this in mind, I've included things on the registry that ARE gender specific, so that I can buy them after the baby arrives and still get the discount!  

I have two sets of bedding picked out for the baby's room.  The plan is to wait until our little one arrives to purchase the bedding and use the bassinette until the bedding arrives.  

If it's a girl, we'll get this bedding:  "Butterfly Meadow" by Kidsline, Inc. 

If it's a boy, we'll get this bedding: "Baby Noah" by Bananafish

For anyone interested in taking a peek at the registry, it's registry #94774637 at BabysR'Us.