A Week with Papa and Mimi!

This week was the last official visit of 'mom' and 'dad'. I keep thinking about how my parents never referred much to my grandparents as mom and dad, it was always grandma, papa or nana. So next time they visit they will be henceforth "Papa (like pawpaw) and Mimi"! A scary thing to think about! (And incredibly exciting and wonderful at the same time).

Dad aka Papa, arrived with a boot on his foot. Rest assured it was a quality product from DeRoyal - which probably explains why he's doing so well without it at this point in the week. ;-) He twisted his ankle going down some stairs getting of a plane last week and was told he had to wear the boot for a week. (Which he did before promptly taking it off after a week). While we had a list of tasks for mom and dad to help with, the first on dad's agenda was the crib - and he wasted no time doing it the night he arrived.



It soon ended up being a joint venture between Papa, Mimi and Daddy.





I "supervised". ;-) I've now gained ten pounds in pregnancy weight and feeling the third trimester fatigue. Oddly enough, I still feel better than I have in my pregnancy thus far, but my feet, ankles, knees and back are definitely feeling the effects of that extra weight! I was so thankful for the help!

As many of you have heard already, I bought fabric for this nursery before Stephen and I were even trying to get pregnant. I think at that point we were thinking we would try in the near future but I also knew I had several friends trying to get pregnant. I bought the designer $12.99 a yard Alexander Henry fabric on red dot clearance at JoAnn when it went half off the clearance price. There were four coordinating prints and I bought the whole bolt of what was left in all of them for just $3 a yard! I was so pleased with myself and fell in love with it so much, I just kept putting off using it until I knew when I got pregnant that was what I was going to use!



I picked what appeared to be a very simple valance for the curtains, but like most everything we worked on this week, it all took twice as long as it should have. The ripping out of seams and tweaking of patterns were all worth it though! I was so thankful for mom's help with all that because if I were doing it myself I would have lost the energy and given up.

Meanwhile, Dad worked on things we're not so great at. Our crib wasn't exactly the nicest of cribs, and had several open holes from screws after we put it together. Dad bought pegs to fill the holes, finished them to match the crib and glued them in place.

When we took down the existing valance and hardware, it appeared the current paint color was applied around the valance so the paint color was different when we took it down. Once again dad worked hard to spackle the holes from the old valance (and a crack in the wall from where the house had settled) and then repainted with the existing wall color.

That wasn't all we made him do though! We took advantage of his handy work while we had him! We are using Stephen's childhood furniture from Austria in the baby's nursery. When we moved, there was a small piece that got damaged in the move. The front ledge was split off because the movers stacked something heavy on it. We were given $200 dollars to fix it (which if you think about what was paid in the first place, then to pay duties and have it shipped back to the states probably really didn't do it justice) but the movers had no one to recommend to fix it. Papa to the rescue! It's not perfect as I expect it never will be and I think Papa the perfectionist was a bit disappointed (that's not where I get it from at all I'm sure!) but we are thrilled to have it back to functional and it really does look nice!

 

Here you can see a picture of the finished curtains, the crib, and the piece that Dad/Papa fixed is the squatty chest under the window.  It's perfect for storing some of those blankets we got at the shower!

Here are some more views of the nursery!

 This is a picture to show the rug mom and dad helped supply. (As if their labor wasn't enough!) I wasn't crazy about it on the hanger, but when we got it home it really completed the room! That was thanks to mom's brilliant vision!

 This corner features the biggest chest that we're putting her clothes in and the toy bins we bought from Ikea.

 In the corner where the stool is will have a glider which we ordered and are waiting to come in. The room has a ton of natural light in the day so when that chair comes in, I plan on just sitting there and dreaming about baby girl. It will also provide a very pleasant spot to breastfeed and read all those wonderful books! The room has a natural peaceful feeling to it.

 A mesh bumper per recommendation of a fellow church mom. She says there's also a mesh topper you can get to keep the cat out, but since we keep him shut in the living room most of the time, I'm waiting to see if that will last and if I'll actually need it. I also bought a soft cover for the boppy (the u-shapped pillow). If you've been out of the baby world for a while, it goes around your waist to help support the baby when you're sitting and holding her. We also have two monkey headed blankets, one for play and one to wash. Another mom friend's recommendation! I remember hating it when mom took my blankie away to wash it! Of course, I probably held on to it for a little while longer than normal!

 Not sure how to tilt the picture at this point, but this idea of storing onsies came from pinterest. You just roll them up and put them in her own compartment. The ones in the divider next to it have matching leggings.

 Here's a drawer of sleepers and other pj's.

 Everything in the previous two drawers is 3-6 month size, and this is a drawer of newborn clothes. Being a gestational diabetes baby I was afraid to register for too many little things. Mom says all my clothes were too big for me in the beginning and she used them anyway, so I figure I'll do the same.

This is six-twelve month and twelve month clothes. I also didn't want to get too many of them, because depending on what her actual growth rate might be (did she get daddy or mommy's height?) she may be in sixth month clothing in the winter or she may not. It will be fun to do some extra shopping for clothes later anyway!

 And after all that hard work, it was time to sit and enjoy!

 Mr. Cat never has a problem with that.

 Here we are proud parents to be!

And yes, I'm coming towards the end of 28 weeks and I am that big. Starting to panic a little...

And as if getting all of this set didn't make for a busy enough week...Wednesday I took another fun trip to Labor and Delivery for peeing myself. Yes, I thought my water was leaking but rest assured, I just suffered from a swift kick in the bladder. *DOH*

I probably did a little too much trying to rush and get things done. The curtains stressed me out taking two days to make when it should have taken two hours. Baby girl was sitting so low, I finally understood what people mean when they feel like the baby is going to fall out. I was also suffering for some uncomfortable symptoms that are just too much information to share with the general public. Then I started to feel pain radiating up my back (which was different than the usual nerve pain in my low back and down my legs) and some general cramp-iness. When I had contractions at 23 weeks, they told me the best thing to do is lay down, drink some water (because dehydration can cause contractions) and start tracking to see if there's a pattern. Well as soon as I did that, laid flat and got all my many pillows comfortably situated and did some slow breathing I felt this gush of water. I went to see what it looked like (I'll spare you the details and you can thank me later), and really wasn't sure what it was. Mom encouraged me to take precautions (since that's how she found out she was leaking fluid with me at 27 weeks) and my ob didn't really want to take chances either. Mom took me to the hospital and we promised to keep Stephen and Papa/Dad informed if something was up. Mind you this is Wednesday...in Lent, the week before Holy Week at about three o'clock in the afternoon when there are services in the evening. Baby girl just likes to get her Daddy's blood pressure up. 

My blood pressure however was fine, baby girls heart beat was strong and steady like always and turns out my cramps weren't contractions after all. Mimi got to hear baby girl's heart and her kicks so at least we got something out of it! They ran a few tests all coming back normal. My cervix is closed (thank goodness) and we were sent home with a diagnosis of peeing my pants. Humbling really. But I was assured it happens all the time and better safe than sorry.

The extra bummer about all this was it caused me to miss my session with the diabetic counselor that we worked so hard to get moved up. Maybe Baby Girl just likes to mess with both Dad and MOM! My sugar levels have been ok based on the small steps I've taken myself, but I still could have desperately used that session! I'm hoping it won't take long for me to get back in.

Friday was just a normal check-up day with the OB. I typically go every 2 to three weeks since I'm sort of considered high risk. We got a good report and he agreed my sugar levels were doing ok, but said there would be some room for fine tuning. At this point it looks like I won't have to take medicine or do insulin shots, but that will continue to be monitored for the rest of my pregnancy. The only sort of downside we got was that she's measuring a little big (just via tape measure). Because of this, I have a growth scan via sonogram coming up on Tuesday. I'm hoping it's not because of the diabetes, but maybe that they do actually have my due date a little wrong and now that I'm eating regularly and keeping food down, she's starting to catch up. If not, well...I'm hoping the "tweaking" of my sugar numbers will keep her growth at bay. It's not only that I don't want to deliver a 9 lb baby, I also just adore babies when they're tiny and I feel like a 9 pounder will take some of that time away Well there are other reasons too...like the fact I have twelve weeks until full term and some days my size leaves me absolutely miserable and I can't imagine being any bigger. As well as a fear of having to have a c-section. I know lots of people do it, but I would LOVE to avoid major surgery! 

I'll go back in two weeks and get the results of the sonogram from Dr. Anderson as well as hopefully have seen the dietician and talk more with Dr. Anderson about my sugar numbers.

All in all, not a bad week. I forgot to mention my sewing room that was covered in a thick cloud of dust from the remodel was cleaned by mom. I can't even really describe to you how thankful I am for that. Now I can put it back together again and my house my actually have some cohesive order to it. 

OH so thankful for the hard work my parents put in - especially on what was essentially a vacation! We are very loved!