From Bump to Baby

My apologies everyone, I'm re-posting this because it doesn't seem to have posted correctly the first time! I think the photo might have been too so it didn't upload right.

Amelia is amazing. We're home from the hospital now and she fits so seamlessly into our lives that it feels like we've been waiting for her, saving her seat at the table before we knew there was someone else coming. It feels so much better to be home alone, just us three, after being woken and poked every couple hours in the hospital and we're able to spend all our time drinking her in and smelling the top of her downy soft head. Thus far my girl is a champion nurser, she actually worked so diligently at nursing, and screamed so loud when she wasn't immediately rewarded, that she made my milk come down on the second day when most women have to wait until day four or five. The nurses didn't believe me until they saw the milk themselves, but it was no surprise to me and E. No one makes this baby wait.

I'm working on her birth story but it was such a long experience that I don't know when I'll have the time to write it all down. I'm so grateful though that after a somewhat torturous second night with her in the hospital, Amelia appears to be an incredible sleeper. That second night, while E and I were still running on basically no sleep, Amelia was famished and my milk wasn't in yet, and they had just removed my epidural and gotten me standing after my c-section was so tough. Amelia screamed, E hid under his sweatshirt on the pull out chair muttering miserably and I tried to stand and rock Amelia despite feeling cut in half. The nurse kept coming in to assure me that it was normal, that her caloric needs at 24 hours had surpassed the colostrum I was producing and all babies had a tough time at this point, but it didn't make things any easier. She was so worked up and hungry that she couldn't nurse and E was so exhausted that he told me to give her back sometime around 4am. Sometime during that early morning she finally exhausted herself enough to latch and we were all able to get some much needed sleep.

Now that we're home, it's hard to believe that this is the same baby. We're staying downstairs, sleeping on the chaise of our new couch since I can't climb stairs, and Amelia sleeps in her rock and play next to my head for 5-6 hour stretches at night. She cluster feeds during the day, she's pretty much always attached to my boob as she was in the hospital, but we're doing so well and everyone is able to rest. E is a rock star daddy, he's changed pretty much every single diaper she's worn since birth, keeps me fed and helps haul me up and down off the couch. I'm taking my Motrin and Tramadol faithfully to stay ahead of the c-section pain and moving is still really tough, but she is so worth it. We discovered in the hospital that having a full bladder makes the pain a thousand times worse so I'm trying to get myself up and to the potty even when it doesn't feel like I have to go, I'm still weirdly numb to my bladder from the epidural and catheter.

 With E's help, I was able to walk backwards up the stairs to Amelia's nursery to take the final photo of my bump.  After 38 weeks of photos I wasn't going to mess this up so I was getting up those stairs c-section or no! I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that this tiny human was inside my body and is now here in the world, in my arms, a whole new person alive on our planet. She's incredible.

Hardwood Refinishing Progress!

As of November 18th, we have been officially kicked out of the house for floor refinishing! Our electrician R was trying really, really hard to get everything patched before the floor guys came in, but it just wasn't possible, even with an extra set of hands. They were able to get all the baseboards off though and got maybe 75% of the patching done before getting the boot.

 

This room is baby's soon to be nursery and you can see the patching out in the hallway and above the light switches that hasn't happened yet.  They did get everything wired for the smoke detector (above the door) and the new outlets (under the window) and the other side of the room is patched as well. You can also get a teensy peak at the sanded floors, I'm so thrilled that they're in good condition underneath all the scratches.

 

This is our master bedroom and you can really see how gorgeous the floors are. The original wood looks pristine after just the sanding and I think there's very little for them to repair or fill with wood putty. The two outer outlets under the window are for power and I believe the middle one is for internet, while the hole high up on the wall is stuffed with cat 5, coax and power for our TV.

Another shot of the master, I'm pretty sure we're almost entirely patched in that room. 

With all the sanding basically complete, E and I had to make the tough choice on the floor color. I was having a tough time picking based off tiny swatches of paper, since stain looks different on actual wood, so the floor guys made us a grid of all our top choices.

It's pretty hard to get an accurate sense of the color based on my crappy phone picture, but these were our final options. We nixed the lighter colors first, we definitely wanted a dark floor, and then nixed the red toned stains next. Our furniture has a lot of red tones in it and when you put red toned furniture on top of red toned floors, you get way more red than we wanted. In the end, we went with dark walnut which is the bottom, left corner. It's the color toughest to see in this particular photo but it has a really rich tone and E loved it right off the bat. I could probably have debated it for a few more days before ultimately making the same decision, but he expedited the process lol.

While the floor guys do their thing, R and his helpers have shifted their focus to the garage which we are attempting to turn into a finished space. That room is going to be a much bigger project than anticipated but in the end I think it will completely worth it. It's a 2 car garage with a gabled ceiling and R is going to loft 50% of it. This leaves an 8 foot 2 inch ceiling below, with recessed lighting, and a large loft above where we can store a ton of stuff or eventually turn into a little hang out space. The loft requires a massive engineered beam, which we have on order, and then drywall and insulation for the entire space, epoxying the floors, removing the garage door since the track takes up so much space, and building our own barn doors to replace them. It's really going to be a beast but the extra space will give us a laundry room, storage, and a work out/man cave space for E.  I can't wait to see what it looks like when the project is complete.

So ready for our frostie baby

This time tomorrow, I will be Officially Pregnant (until proven otherwise). There will be an actual, live embryo getting cozy in my uterus, settling in for the next 40ish weeks. After almost three years of trying, I am so excited and so ready that I feel like I might burst.

My pre-transfer protocol began this morning with the last of my Z-Pack, my estrace, aspirin and vitamins. I ran the last of the errands I'm going to be allowed to run for the next 4 days and then had a wonderful, relaxing acupuncture session to increase the blood flow to my uterus. Although she forgot to tell me the day before, my acupuncturist S also recommends a massage the day before transfer to completely relax the muscles. This sounded wonderful of course, who doesn't love a massage, but they usually require a bit more advanced notice than 20 minutes to book.

So, after leaving acupuncture, I called my mother in law to see if she could get me in for a massage at her regular place. Most of the places near me require at least a days notice but her place is unusually  flexible. To my great delight, they were able to squeeze us both in at a moments notice and I spent a glorious hour getting rubbed and stroked by a deceptively strong little woman. I hadn't realized I was in need of a massage until she dug her elbows into my shoulders and pressed the small of my back. Holy Ow. After being waved out of the massage clinic, hair all over the place and a tiny Thai woman telling me something about my face (perhaps that I needed water?) we capped off the evening with some delicious Italian food.

The next step begins tomorrow at 8am when I take the first of two Naproxen, along with my usual estrace and aspirin. I skip the Endometrin until after the transfer, so I'll probably bring that to the appointment with me. I follow that up with breakfast and at least a liter of water between 9 and 9:30am to ensure that I have a super full bladder for the transfer. The fuller my bladder is, the more it presses my uterus into an optimal position. Finally, we check in at 10am for our 10:30 transfer and I get to bring our little embryo home.

Everything is lining up perfectly. E and I are so ready for this frostie to be our baby. This IS going to be our baby.