Baby Things, Nesting and Scares

Well, the nesting urge has appeared. Which, by the way, totally sucks when you are on modified bed rest (aka - you can still make your own food and go to the bathroom - basic necessities you know - but don't do anything else). So this urge really kicked up over this weekend when the hubby and I had to start planning how to remodel the attic into a bedroom for us and our bedroom into a nursery (because we simply can't take away the dogs bedroom and make that a nursery - that would be too practical!).

Our house has a weird layout. We have a finished basement with a big nice room down there - but the rabbits are getting that room. Personally, the rabbits bother my allergies and asthma so I would rather evict them, but the hubby says we must stay responsible and take care of them. Fine - I agree, they can be cute. So they have the basement room for the next ~ 5 years (aka - until they die).

The main floor has a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom obviously, with 2 bedrooms. One is ours being transitioned into the nursery - the other is the dogs room. Granted, we did buy this house from my hubby's brothers when his father died ( and no, they did NOT give us a good deal on it) and his dad died in that room - so he wants it to just be the dogs room. We were going to use it for a bedroom once - but he just isn't comfortable with the fact it used to be his parent's bedroom. You would think I would have a problem with this since it is the bigger bedroom , but I agree, the other room feels so much more friendly.

The attic is also finished and has a bedroom and a living room type area. Unfortunately, due to years of neglect before and after we purchased the house, we need to redo the entire thing :/ The rug needs to come out and we are laying new flooring. The walls are crappy peely paneling and we are knocking them down and replacing with whatever the hell that stuff you put up that makes real walls that you can paint is called. It will be nice. Plus we can do it all for under $1000. Budget is key since we also need a new boxspring for the bed since we will need a split boxspring to get it up the stairs - hopefully we won't need a new matress as well.

Then our refrigerator decided it wants out. After many many years, I am giving up the battle to regulate it's wild temperature flucuations. I am done using lab tape to keep the door from popping open. It just doesn't seem responsible to feed a baby from a fridge that I do not know is properly storing breastmilk/ formula (if we need it). So I found a great fridge for under $1000.

Now the reason I say budgeting is key here is multifold.

1) I have been without my income for 2 months now

2) I will still be without my income for another 3 months

3) I will have to shell out ~ $5000 for COBRA coverage to stay insured

4) my job goes unprotected - oh on MONDAY!!! - I am fairly certain they will not fire me or will rehire me ASAP when I am ready to come back - but gosh - who wants to think of that crap!

5) we are draining the savings so that it will be gone in 2 months from monthly expenses - ouch. The hubby works 2 jobs - but I really make a very decent amount of money when I am working - so of course not being paid for 5 months is fucking awful!

O.K. so I really do not mean to ramble about money. I know everyone has hard times. I just know I need to spend the money I have allocated here because we just need to. We need a room for us to live in, we need the new refrigerator and we need to pay for COBRA. Overall, I am doing very good about not worrying about money (which is huge if you know me!). The hubby and I agreed there is no better reason to go into debt than to have our baby.

So I am also really lucky - my parents are buying us all the baby things :) This helps tremendously!!! Especially since no babies have been born in my family recently (except a little girl a few months old- she needs her baby things!) so no hand-me-downs are available.

Anyways, we waited so long to start doing anything for this baby. I mean, you really want to know it is going to come home with you before the renovations begin. Well, I figure I have to chance setting stuff up now - I mean baby needs to come home to something! So in the past few days I have located the new flooring for the attic, picked paint colors for the walls and picked out the new fridge. Now I just need the hubby to create more time in the week so he can get it all done ( the poor guy!).

Then on the baby side of things I have found 2 awesome consignment stores near me, found amazing deals for baby furniture, contacted the g...Diaper people in a quest to figure out how worth it they really are and made list after list of things needed for hospital bag/ for what baby will really need right away vs. what baby will really need in a few months.

Last night the hubby and I took a short trip to get my gestational diabetes supplies and stopped off to check out the flooring we are going to get. I am so happy to find something O.K. quality for cheap. I mean, it isn't wood flooring like the rest of the house, but laminate with rugs over it will do just fine for a few years until we can afford an upgrade.

Then we bought baby his first onesie :) I love it!!! Hubby picked it out and I delaying putting it back on the rack when he asked if we should just go ahead and buy it for him :) So cute! It's size is 3-months - but hey - he is supposed to be big!

We bought him his first book - about a dachshund of course!

He has his first stuffed animal from Vincent's memorial service at the hospital. They gave siblings a stuffed animal from their angel siblings. I was 16 weeks pregnant with Sprout at the ceremony so he got this teddy bear from Vincent.

Then I splurged today. I was looking for travel systems for baby. Travel systems seem like the way to go for us at first. I mean, first off, you need an infant carseat and this is one. Plus the carseat is so portable. The carriage was harder to decide on, because of course the hubby wants a nice all-terrain jogging stroller. I got him to agree baby wouldn't need that nice of a stroller until NEXT spring. I mean he won't even be 6 months old until Fall! With Winters in New England, kiddo won't really be able to enjoy the outdoors until he is 1. So the travel system carriage is perfect for us . I was trying to find a pattern I liked on-line. They retail for $259. I saw this "older" model one on clearance and picked it up for a grand total of ~ $160!!! Too good to not snatch up right away!

So after I purchased that this morning, I went and started organizing my closet. I know, I know stupid me. But I hadn't put away my laundry in sooo long. I spent about 30 minutes putting stuff away and then decided to take a nap. As I was drifting off to sleep I felt so good I was contemplating being cleared to go back to work. I mean I have so much energy for baby related things the past few days. I fell into a nice deep sleep thinking the third trimester was going to be wonderful with so much energy and life going back to normal!

Then I woke up after having a dream I was bleeding. Got up - peed - and yep, very teeny tiny small amount of dark red blood. I called the dr.'s and they told me to lie down on my side, make sure baby was active and keep an eye on it. If baby wasn't active to go right to L&D, go to L&D if bleeding occurred again or if I started contracting. I lied down, and thankfully baby boy was very active! He made me feel so much better! Off and on tonight I have had some tightenings. So I think I am having some contractions - probably Braxton Hicks though because they are not regular at all. Not painful, but tight. They have been mostly off with only a few periods of tightenings.

I have my final fetal echo tomorrow!!! Then we can conclusively (hopefully) rule out congenital heart block! What a relief that will be!

I'm going to see how I am feeling. I may call the Dr office tomorrow and go in just to get checked out since I will be right near them for the echo. I just think they will send me to L&D for evaluation and I hate to have false alarms (although they are obviously preferred to real alarms!). Obviously if I have anymore bleeding I will head right in. I just have no idea whether everything is normal or not.

Just when things were feeling so good - the scares come again. I am staying positive though.