Peanut's room is almost complete!

My last blog entry showed some preliminary pictures of little Peanut's bedroom. Well since then we have been hard at work. My goal for the bedroom was to have the furniture in there, and all the newborn, 0-3month, and 3-6 month clothes washed and put away before our shower on February 5th. My mother and I also managed to get some art hung on the walls as well, so it's really starting to look like a nursery. I'm really happy with the final results!

Here are some pictures I snapped of the nursery just this past weekend.

The view from the doorway of the room.

The crib. We're doing the "bare" crib thing for now, with just a fitted sheet. I had to show off the blanket that my grandmother made though, so it's hanging on the back.

Storage in the corner of the room. A basket with bibs and other little things. Then our stash of cloth diapers to try out (more on that later), our collection of receiving blankets most made by my grandmother, then some of our blanket collection. We have so many.



The change station. We're starting with disposable diapers, so the basket is stocked and ready to go.



What has to be the oldest item in the room. This picture was made by my great-grandmother Helen for my youngest sister Lise at least 20 years ago. Now it hangs above the dresser. It will be a little reminder of Peanut's namesake since her middle name will be Helen.



Right now we're still deciding on what we're going to put above the crib. We think we may have decided on something from the Uppercase Living Catalogue though. My parents have decided to buy us a glider for the nursery, so as soon as that arrives the crib will move down that wall farther from the window and we can then hang something on the wall. Until then we're just waiting on Peanut!





Peanut has a bedroom!

Right after Christmas we started with the big Peanut related purchasing. Andre's parents had been very generous with us this year starting with a cash gift for our Anniversary in September, and then another cash gift this Christmas. We decided that instead of using the money for something for the house, we would put it towards Peanut. So Boxing Day we actually went shopping and picked up the crib (Graco's Lauren crib), and then the following weekend we went out and purchased the dresser at The Brick.

The day the dresser arrived mother nature decided to co-operate with us (in a way) and start snowing, so what better way to spend the day then huddled up at home assembling a crib?! I have to say that I am so proud of Andre and I. We have a horrible track record of bitching and moaning while assembling furniture, but we were so great assembling this crib. Not one curse or negative word was uttered. We worked so well together!

We haven't finished the nursery completely, but we have a pretty good start I think. The only piece of furniture that we still have yet to put in the room is a glider. My mother has decided that she is going to purchase this for us.

Here is a before of the room after clearing everything out, and then a couple pictures of our furniture, before we cleared recycled all that cardboard (oh the cardboard!!):

We haven't put any bedding in the crib since we have a cat, and we didn't know what Mikey was going to do with the crib in the house. Thankfully he hasn't figured out how to jump into the crib, but that might change once there is a glider right next to it. We have some artwork for the walls, but I need to get some picture hooks first, and figure out exactly where we want the crib to go on the one wall. I think for safety reasons we might end up putting the glider in that corner and moving the crib farther along the wall towards the closet, who knows.

We still have 6-8 weeks to make those final decisions, and get a ceiling fan hung (sitting in the box next to the dresser), and purchase a blind for the room, and decide once and for all if we're keeping the current drapes. At least for now Peanut has a room, and a dresser full of clothes already, and we haven't even had a shower yet!

Making room for Baby M

It's funny how well people know us, either from real life, this blog, or a combination of the two. When we announced on Facebook that we were pregnant, one of my friends commented that this must mean some more home renovations. Boy did she call it.

The plans for making room for Peanut included the following:
-removing the hideous wet bar in the basement
-capping all the completely unnecessary plumbing that was included with said wet bar
-scraping all the "popcorn" texture that was on the wall in this area (yes you read that correctly)
-repairing the walls, then priming, and finally painting the walls
-finding a suitable floor covering for the bare cement floor that the space the office would occupy
-finally move all the office furniture that is in the office on the 2nd floor down to the basement

There were days that this list would stress me out to no end. It just seemed like so much to do in our limited amount of free time (ie weekends). So we did what anyone in our situation would do. We asked for help. Mainly for the things that we just didn't have the knowledge to do which was the plumbing, and for the things that I just couldn't physically help with, which was the demolition.

We started the project in October with the demolition of the wet bar. To remind you all of the tackiness that was the bar here is a picture:

It's not the best picture, but the only one I have on this computer. It was the mid 1970's at it's best. We never used it. The only one in the house that regularly used this space is in the picture lounging around. So I asked my friend Pam if she could help us with demolition. She used to work for her uncle's construction company before becoming at SAHM, so she gladly came over and showed that bar who was boss.

 Here was what was left after she was finished:

She took out all of the bar that was not tied up with the plumbing. For that we had someone else come in to help. This is just a part of the garbage that we had to haul to the dump.

Then my friend Heather's husband Dave came in to fix one of the light switches that was not working in the basement, and cap all the plumbing for us. He also took out what was left with the bar. Once he was done this is what we were left with:

The mess on the wall is what happens when stupid old owners decide to glue plastic backing for glass shelving on the walls. In short you end up peeling part of the drywall off the wall. Major pain-in-the-ass!

And this is how the space just kind of sat pretty much until December when I decided that if we were going to finish the space the week after Christmas I really should get my butt in gear and scrape off that stupid popcorn texture, and repair the walls. Now for anyone who has read how to remove this texture which is typically on ceilings and not walls, you are suppose to spray with water, let sit for a few minutes then scrape off. Hahahahahahahaha. They make it sound so easy. What they don't tell you is that this does not work some of the time, ie. our basement. In short we were left with a freaking mess. A freaking mess that I spent hours trying to smooth out afterwards. It would have been easier to just have someone come in and re-drywall the space, but honestly, we were on a shoe string reno budget and that just was not going to happen.

So after hours of filling, drying, sanding, filling, drying, sanding, the walls were finally ready to prime and paint. This was a breeze compared to the prep work required. To go with our shoe string budget we opted for Rona's low VOC recycled paint. At about $15/gallon, we honestly couldn't go wrong. Friends of ours had used it and had been happy with their results, so we decided to go for it. They don't have a huge selection of colours, but in the end we're happy with the finished product. So here is the area right after paint:

For the floor we measured and thank goodness the area rug that was currently in our guestroom was just a touch too big, so we rolled the excess carpet along the wall where the desk would go, and voila! We have flooring. The best part is that is was neutral as well, so it all kind of ended up going together really well. We still need to go through the crap that is on those shelves so I can use them for scrap booking materials, but for now, it's okay.

Then came the fun, er, hard part, hauling all the contents from our office which is on the second floor all the way down to the basement. Thankfully Andre is amazing, and quite the trooper and did most of the grunt work. Aside from walking the really light stuff down stairs I really didn't do too much aside from walking up and down stairs.

We still don't have everything down from the office, and are going to need some help to haul the really heavy fire-proof filing cabinet down to the basement, but for now you can see that we have a functioning office at least:

So now at least the hard part is done. Now we can tackle the nursery!

The big update!

Everytime I logged on to Google Reader, or even just went on Facebook for that matter, the thought would run through my head about how it had been a long time since I had blogged. Then I would immediately become distracted, or the thought would just disappear from my head all together (gotta love placenta brain) and then I would go on my merry way again. Then I actually checked when my last entry was yesterday. Wow, it's been a looooong time.

There's been a lot going on, but at the same time not very much to warrant an exciting blog entry you know? Andre and I have been busy with work, and preparing for the holidays, and for little Peanut. The belly continues to get bigger, as does Peanut. She is moving more and more, and is currently having a love affair with my right side. My right ribcage to be exact. Her little head is there as I type. I continue to check my blood sugar multiple times a day, as well as injecting myself with Insulin daily right before bedtime. I'm being monitored very closely, and both Peanut and I are very healthy. As a nice little bonus with the reduced carb diet I have lost around 12-15 pounds. I'm too lazy to actually figure out the exact number. Don't be worried though, I continue to meet with my dietitian (and midwife, and OB, and diabetic nurse, and Endocrinologist...) and along with eating a balanced diet, both Peanut and I are both very healthy.

Preparation for Peanut was pretty much on hold over the month of December. With work, and Christmas shopping, and all that jazz, we were both just too overwhelmed to add one more thing to the mix. This week since both of us were on vacation things have shifted into high gear and preparations have once again begun. Among the necessary minor renovations to free up the smallest spare room to make room for a nursery, we finally purchased the crib, crib mattress, and car seat. Thanks to some very generous family, friends, and clients of mine Peanut also has quite the collection of new and gently used clothes. She will be quite the stylin' little girl! I've also started to purchase a little stash of cloth diapers to try out as well, but I will save this for another post!

As a reward for all of you faithful readers that will read this entry, I will finish off this post with our latest ultrasound picture of Peanut from December 20th at 28wks, and a belly picture of me from December 24th at 28wks.

Hello Blog Land it's me Jenna

And I am a bad blogger.

Even our baby blog has had a serious shortage of blog entries lately. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog about anything. If anything there has been so much on my mind that I have wanted to share, but I wanted to get to a point where I could write calmly and not be a sobbing mess while typing. Ah, hormones!

First of all the good news!! Because everyone loves good news! If you didn't catch this entry on Our Little One then you missed the news about our anatomy scan on October 22nd. We had waited so patiently for this ultrasound, and were rewarded, because the ultrasound tech was able to tell us that our little peanut is a GIRL!!! We are so over the moon now that we know what our little peanut is. It has made everything feel so much more real now. Even my grandmother who was a staunch "it has to be a surprise" follower, totally caved and wanted to know. Now she is planning a ton of sewing projects, and even brought wool over for me to look at because she wants to make our little peanut a sweater and some other things to wear home from the hospital.

And since I can't resist showing off how beautiful our little peanut is, here she is almost half baked at this point!

Now onto the bad news. My PCOS is back messing up everything again. If you have PCOS, then you know that you are at a higher risk of developing Gestational Diabetes. It's not a big surprise, so I knew that at some point I would have to do the Glucose Tolerance Test. Otherwise known as the test where you chug Orange Crush for breakfast. Not as fun as you might think. In Canada you can either do the one hour GTT, and then if you fail (one of your blood sugar levels is high) you have to complete a two hour GTT, or just do the two hour test. I talked to my midwife, and she informed me that because of my increased risk I would have to do this extremely fun test twice. Once ASAP, at the 19wk mark, then again at a later date.

So I went to do the test. First they take your blood to test your fasting blood sugar. Then you drink "the drink".  The drink wasn't as horrible as everyone says, it was carbonated, cold and the consistency of regular pop (or soda for all of you in the States). The only gross thing was chugging it down at 8am. Then after one hour you have your blood taken, then after yet another hour you have your blood taken again. Basically after this test, no news is good news.

The Monday following the great news about our Peanut, I got a phone call from my secondary Midwife Shannon. I knew why she was calling. One of my numbers was elevated. This doesn't mean a diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes, but I am now labelled at "Glucose Intolerant". Not as serious, but it means that something is up. So I was given a date to attend the Gestational Diabetes Class, and a date to visit with the dietitian a week after the class to evaluate my blood sugar levels, and how my diet has been.

This news devastated me. I got off the phone and started crying. Not like little tears, but all out sobbing. This news meant that I was only two steps away from the possibility of being on Insulin. Insulin=No Midwife. Insulin during pregnancy is a one way trip to a OB. I never wanted an OB delivery. I just felt like once again my body was failing me. First failing me during the whole TTC process, turning something that is suppose to be natural into a science experiment. Now my body was failing me again, and I could end up with they type of delivery that I didn't want. Nothing was going my way.

This feeling hasn't completely gone away, and now after attending the Gestational Diabetes Class this morning I am unsure about how I feel about everything. I guess I can only take it one day at a time, and see what happens.

Cloth Diaper Confusion

I've been trying to avoid bombarding all of you readers with all things baby-related, but this has been and will always be my place to ramble about all things, so for all of you that are not interested, you can just skip over any post that is just too "baby" for you. After all, this is about Mr and Mrs M, and really little peanut is forefront in our brains all the time!

I've always been intrigued with the idea of cloth diapering, long before we were actually pregnant. I liked the idea of saving tons of garbage sitting in a landfill for hundreds of years, and saving our bank accounts hundreds of dollars (on average about $1000-1500) over the diapering life of our little peanut. After all if my mother could cloth diaper two of her three daughters with old-school prefolds and diaper pins, and a ringer washing machine, then with all the almost high-tech by comparison cloth diapers now I was sure to be able to manage right? Not to mention, I own a modern washing machine, so I can dump the laundry and go!

There are just so many options out there! And although we will be saving ourselves a ton over the course of a couple years, we will have to put out a large chunk of change as an investment in order to be able to make this venture work! I also wanted something user-friendly if you will so Andre will have no excuses about not changing a diaper. I quickly figured out that this involved some research. Thankfully I have friends both in real life and online that have been cloth diapering their little one's so I have been asking questions, and visiting websites that they have suggested. I've also been doing comparison shopping, trying to find the cheapest price on my favourite cloth diaper so far, BumGenius.

I have also been researching cloth diaper samplers, basically a collection of whatever type of cloth diaper you have chosen, in different brands so you can choose what diaper works best for you and your little one. The best part is that I've found a company that is Canadian (yeah!) and only about 45 minutes away that offers this, so I have bookmarked their site to save for this spring. Who knew that finding something to cover a baby's bottom would be so confusing!