On Saturday I cleaned the upstairs, finished organizing Lily’s things, and advised Paul on the finishing touches on the mural. We completed a few paint touch ups, redid the shadowing under the pooh characters, and did the bees and bee trails. It seemed like fate did not want us to finish the mural, though, as things kept going wrong. We read that we should protect the mural with a coat of water-based varnish. It worked fine over the acrylic paints and details we did with permanent marker but it ruined the bee trails that we did with a scrapbooking marker. That setback we remedied by repainting sky blue over the trails with plans to redo them with permanent marker. Then since the painting tape had been up since December 6th, it wanted to pull part of the mural down with it. Those touch ups Paul did not feel like dealing with at 9pm so we watched some TV and went to bed early.
Sunday Paul got up really early, got the rest of the tape off without incident, and fixed the places that the tape had peeled up. I cleaned the downstairs, redid the bee trails, and then took a bunch of pictures of the finished project. Yes, it is finally done and looks wonderful!!! (See my previous blog entry for the pictures.) While we were taking pictures, my parents pulled up (perfect timing) in my dad’s new truck so we had to go check it out. It is a beautiful GMC Sierra with an extended cab. I am glad he got himself a new vehicle finally but we will miss the Suburban which went with us on both of our UP camping vacations. My mom worked on creating a safer system to fasten on the crib bumper headboard while Paul and my dad brought the dressers up from the garage, arranged the furniture, hung the mobile from the ceiling, and hung pictures and shelves on the wall. Meanwhile, I filled the dressers and arranged everything in the room. It is almost completely done. There are just a few things left to put away. We had a late dinner at Zukey Lake Tavern then went to bed exhausted. While my parents were over, Paul had gotten an interesting call from his ex-wife, Lisa, which we had to discuss before going to sleep. Apparently she is getting a divorce from her current husband and is moving into an apartment in New York City which would mean another upheaval and school change for Rachel. Lisa has a lot to deal with and none of us want Rachel to go to school in NYC so she wanted to have Rachel move in with us ASAP and go to Pinckney schools. We are excited at the prospect of having Rachel full time and having her around more to establish a connection with Lily right away but the financial and emotional stress of suddenly going from having one part time kid to two full time kids is overwhelming. I stayed up most of the night stressing over the details.
The rest of the week was spent finishing putting the nursery together and ironing out custody and financial details with Lisa. We decided to have Rachel move here on March 1st. That way the baby should be born and Paul and I should be on our leave so that we can help Rachel adjust to her new school. Since we will be home, we can hopefully help her transition better but I worry about us being able to meet her emotional needs during such a life upheaval for her while we are trying to adjust to life with a newborn and meeting the baby’s needs which is a big life upheaval for us.
Tuesday we had our tour of the hospital birthing center. We learned the check in process, toured the triage area, high risk, and low risk areas, saw a room, the nursery, and got answers to a lot of questions. I was quite surprised to find that I appeared to be the youngest person in the tour group.
Friday I had my now weekly OB check. I lost another 0.2 pounds making the total loss 12.7 since I got pregnant. But my OB says that Lily is growing great, her heartbeat is strong, and she is still in the head down exit position.
I still feel great and am enjoying being pregnant but it won’t be much longer before Lily arrives!
News from the womb…
The baby’s grasp is becoming firmer and firmer. The baby now automatically turns toward a source of light. This is called the “orienting response” and permits the baby to practice being more aware of its environment. While the ossification process of turning cartilage into bone has been progressing steadily, not all of the baby’s bones will be ossified by birth. This is advantageous as the baby’s skeleton is more flexible when it contains cartilage, making the passage through the narrow birth canal easier. Because the baby’s quarters are so cramped at this point, when it moves the contours of its arms and legs make moving bulges on my abdomen. From the end of this week on, the baby’s growth will be much slower until birth, with the exception of fat production.
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