Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Pregnancy

It just occurred to me that I have not posted anything on my pregnancy!! Barney and I are expecting our second child on February 12, 2008. We had an ultrasound early on to determine the exact age and due date. Of course at the ultrasound it was just a tiny speck with a beating heart. Today I am 13 weeks along and next week I will begin my second trimester, crazy!! At first it was really hard to think about being pregnant. It is very different the second time around because you already have a little one at home to keep you occupied :) When I went for my big OB appointment I spoke with Dr. Patton about this and he assured me it was normal. He was like, "You have a toddler, you've been through it before." (By the way, it was great to see him as he was the doctor who delivered Kaitlyn 2 years ago.) So when he went to find the heartbeat the baby was hiding and he could not pick one up. Luckily they were able to fit me in for an ultrasound to pick up the heart rate and I got to have a second look at the baby! Of course, this time it actually looked like a baby. You could see the head, body, arms, and legs. Any boy oh boy was this baby active and had a strong heart beat. Not at all like Kaitlyn who was generally still during the ultrasound and had a lower heart beat. Barney and I have always said that since Kaitlyn was such a good baby the second one would probably be a terror!! We are very excited to have a new member of our family.
We are not sure yet if we will find out the baby's gender but we did decide to opt out of the disability testing that's offered. When Kaitlyn was born they had the test for Cystic Fibrosis and we opted out of that test. Now there is a test for Downs Syndrome and neural tube defects. Knowing that even if the baby has a chance for one of these disabilities we would still have the baby we decided not to have the testing. There are so many things that you cannot control when pregnant, during the delivery, and in the baby's first few years of life that could lead to having a disabled child. My doctor explained to me that while they are more accurate now they are not 100% perfect in giving the correct results. For instance, with the Downs test you just what your percentage of having a baby with Downs would be. The test could come back saying I have a 1 in 60 chance of having a baby with Downs or a 1 in 4,000 chance of having a baby with Downs. I just would not want to be stressed if I came back with the 1 in 60 chance for my whole pregnancy. Anyway, being a teacher of students with severe special needs I know how special all children are.
So enough about that! Kaitlyn's furniture was moved into the small room while we get her room ready for her to move in with big girl furniture. Then the small room will be prepared to become the new baby's room. It will be nice this time around to have a decorated nursery as we really could not change the wall color in the apartment when Kaitlyn was born. I just can't wait to get out all of the little baby clothes again!!

Moving Day

Saturday, August 4th was the day of the big move from our apartment to our house. Friday night I set the alarm for 6:00 a.m., or so I thought! Much to my surprise I woke up to Barney telling me it was 7:30 a.m.!!!! Of course I hadn't bothered to double check the alarm and set it for p.m. instead of a.m. :) So that was an hour and a half that we missed of prime organizing time before the troops were set to arrive at 9:00. The hardest part about this move was that we really could not pack up everything a week ahead of time as that really would have thrown Kaitlyn for a loop. Never mind the fact that she thought the boxes were her personal jungle gym and that they were for climbing on :)
So after a quick shower we headed out to pick up the UHaul and breakfast. Everything was going smoothly, the weather was cooperating, lots of people showed up, Kaitlyn was with her grandparents for the day, and then the anxiety set in. It's been a very overwhelming summer between the pregnancy, being so sick in the heat, buying a new house, packing, trying to toilet train Kaitlyn, worrying about the upcoming school year, and of course never getting to spend any time with my husband. I just hit the point where I wanted to tell everyone to stop so I could crawl back into my bed and go to sleep! But of course there was lot's to do, like cleaning the new house so that I could put stuff away. The heat the week before we moved was just unbearable. I basically had to stay in the house with the AC on because I would get unbearable headaches and then couldn't take anything for them. So, once I was over the initial shock that we were really moving, it was time to get to work. Liz and Ruth worked on packing up the rest of the china and kitchen stuff that was left, and boy was there a lot of it!! Thanks so much girls!!!! Dawn and Jeanie helped the boys with loading up the trucks and organizing the furniture and boxes. Thank you for keeping my stuff safe :) Of course there always has to be a trouble maker in the bunch, I will name no names, but I was not pleased to see my sofa being lowered over the side of our second floor porch to the ground below!!! Barney received many evil stares for that move. Tom, Chris, Matt, and Stevie brought over their trucks and Matt Kempf and Corey helped to move a lot of the stuff. They instituted a chain down the stairs which seemed to work really well. That's our friends, always thinking!!!
A little after noon time a bunch of people left because of previous engagements, but so much had already been moved, it was amazing. And we appreciated all the time anyone was able to give us!! Luckily Aaron, our new neighbor, came over to help us out as well. He is a fellow runner so we've known him for quite a while.
Overall the day went very smoothly. I was exhausted by the end of the day and I wasn't even able to do most of the work! Poor Barney, he cut his hand open pretty well on the last item he moved, the dryer. It's been healing rather quickly, but his hands were very swollen after the move. Gary and MaryAnn came over around 5:00. Gary helped Barney set up Kaitlyn's crib and MaryAnn made our bed for us. We they went out to dinner at Friendly's as there was no way the oven was going to be turned on :) Kaitlyn seemed very happy to be in her new house and she has slept through the night and gone down for her naps with no problem. Toilet training has obviously taken a back seat this week!
So after getting settled in a little it was time for bed. I think by then the day had caught up with me and I told Barney I wished we were back in our apartment and started crying. It was bright in the room because there is a street lamp out front, we did not have the piece of plywood for our bed so it was too soft, the clock was not plugged in, I was worried there would be spiders in the bed, I just went on and on. Plus the fact that we are now living in a house with all of our possessions packed away and I could not even find my contact case or glasses, and we had left the toothbrush at the apartment so we both had gross teeth!!! Luckily I had found the mouthwash, but it just wasn't the same. Barney convinced me everything would be fine and we were able to get a good night sleep.
It's been hard trying to settle in this week as Barney has had to work and I'm still fighting a nasty cold, but our kitchen table is set up and things are slowly being put away. MaryAnn is going to take Kaitlyn tomorrow so we can get everything else put away. It is looking more like a house rather than a storage container!! We did have 7 big green trash bags go out his week and tons of recycling. I already have another pile of clothes to bring to the Salvation Army. Luckily Troy and Heather were able to use a bunch of our boxes so we were able to pass on some of those.
I am looking forward to going on vacation this upcoming week with my mom, sister, and Grandma to the beach in Delaware. Although a big part of me wants to stay home and finish setting up the house. Once we are back from vacation the countdown will really be in swing before returning to school. Then it will be time to set up the classroom and prepare the work. I am looking forward to school. I love seeing how much my returning students have grown over the summer.
I will try and post some pictures of the house later tonight. Hope everyone is well. Oh, my phone and Internet have finally been connected as you can tell if you are reading this post :) The funny thing is that when the phone rings you can hear the old rotary phone in the basement ring and also there is a ringer mounted to the wall in a bedroom upstairs that rings. It is very bizarre hearing the "old-fashioned" rings!!