Nursery Redux

I think it looks better in person than it does in photographs, but here it is!

Weigh-In: 33 + 5

It's December!!!

140 lbs. and 44 days until my due date.  There is no mistaking I'm pregnant now, even in a bulky sweater.  Another mom at daycare said, "I couldn't even tell you were pregnant" when I was in a winter coat, but I think she was just being nice.  The baby's bum is up at the top of my uterus, and it's very much in the way when I bend over.  Tying my shoes is troublesome.  Shaving my legs is very difficult if not impossible, even sitting in a bathtub.

The nursery is completely done and looks adorable.  It's fun, vibrant, to say the least.  It's almost a different room with the new paint.  I changed out a few basic accessories, but otherwise it's the same, just very, very different with Sea Breeze on the wall.  Oliver likes to go and play with "Oliver's car" (his old walker, collapsed into a riding toy) in "baby's room."  The rug even works.  It doesn't match the paint, per se, but it works.  I don't know that we're going to get a decorator's nod of approval for our interior design there, but we like it, which is really all that matters.

This afternoon is my tour of labor and delivery at Vanderbilt.  I'm looking forward to just seeing where all this will be happening.  I had been in Prentice several times before I went there for a tour and to deliver, so it didn't seem as distant a place.  I've really never been in the hospital here.  I even had to get directions from Wes about how to get to the meeting place for today's tour.  (He is working so cannot go with me.)  I do have a list made for a hospital bag, but I'm not going to pack anything ahead of time.  I know that I need things to do while in labor!  I have my next midwife's appointment on Tuesday.  I'm hoping the baby is measuring correctly or at least four weeks further along than where I was at the last appointment.  I need to ask some basic questions at this point, like who to call (if anyone) when I go into labor and am ready to go to the hospital, and at what point in the pregnancy they will let me labor at home rather than try and stop the labor.  I have been having a lot of sharp pains around my cervix.  I think the baby is just really low, but a few evenings I have wondered if things would be happening sooner than later.

We also hired a caregiver for next semester.  Hailey is a graduate of Belmont University and currently in the MDiv program at Vanderbilt but taking a semester off to teach a class at a prison and make some decisions about whether to finish the MDiv program.  She's smart, really nice, sweet with Oliver, excited to be getting a baby to care for, comfortable with part-time and sometimes strange situation (me sometimes at home, Wes sometimes asleep in the bedroom).  Most importantly (and this is my advice to anyone hiring in-home help), we seem to get along well, and I feel comfortable talking to her about what we want to see happen, what we don't want, and so forth.  Sometimes I think it's less important that people agree exactly on what to do with a baby and more important that they feel comfortable talking through things they arise.  It was part of what I loved about Katie in Chicago.  So that's taken care of, and she's set to start in mid-January on my first day of classes.  If the baby has just arrived, I'll just run in for the first hour of class so I can get the syllabus and some face time.  If she's been around for a few weeks, I'll try and go the whole day.

I'm still nervous, even at this point in pregnancy.  I know too much.  I know that getting to 34 weeks doesn't mean there aren't things, very bad things, that could still happen.  Of course, a healthy delivery doesn't preclude those either.  In which case, I should also be nervous about Oliver waking up each morning.  In which case, I should be nervous about Wes, too.  And some days I am -- all of those things.  So usually I just try to take a big breath, know that I have very little control about those things, and so I should just enjoy these last weeks of this pregnancy.

For now, I'm just excited to be able to say when people ask when I'm due, "Next month."

Which one?

I'm having a really hard time choosing a paint color for the nursery.  The pale yellow currently the wall just doesn't seem to fit the room.  There's clearly a theme of primary colors, so I want a rich color, but I'm a little worried about it being too dark.  The furniture, trim, and floors are all light colors, so that might not be the problem I think it is, but it's hard to know until the whole room is painted.

Here are the colors in the room right now:

We tried another brand in a color similar to Dahlia (top left) first, along with a Billiard Green, but the yellow was too much, and still not enough of a contrast, and the green was too dark.  Then I got samples of Iolite (top middle) and Balsam (top right), and I love both the colors, but I'm worried about them being too dark in a whole room.  Perhaps something like Sea Breeze (bottom left) or Island Blue (bottom middle)?  I tried Pail (bottom right) also, but it wasn't enough different than Iolite to make a difference.

Help!

Update: I couldn't sleep last night and had paint samples going through my brain.  I think, in my not-sleep, I decided that Sea Breeze would look good, and sure enough I like both it and Island Blue very much.  Just have to decide between the two!

Final touches

Wes and I are putting the final touches on the baby's room, including a few things on the wall. I got this cute cable art system from which we can hang wall cards or photographs. Right now it's displaying some tools (drill, hammer, vice), some "science nerd" cards (positive correlation, y chromosome, neuron, uvula), and some animal cards (cow, giraffe, ladybug). We will ultimately replace some of those with photographs of family members. The lovely green chenille rug we ordered is still on backorder, so it might not arrive before baby, which is fine since it won't get used a lot right away (by the baby anyway -- Lucy clearly will use it immediately). We still have two pictures to put up that are in the same series as the Jane Goodall one, but one of them is stored in the way back corner of the storage locker and will require some energy to get out (and by that, I mean Wes has to do it). The dresser, as you can see, is in place and fully stocked. Even the diaper pail sits at the ready. Now all I have to do is read the camera manual some more to work out the white balance in the room so all our baby pictures don't turn out bright yellow.

The finished product

I really like the way it looks -- the yellow is truer in this picture, but again not quite what you see in person. The A to Z crib sheet (thanks, Lauren!) looks really cute against the simple crib, yellow walls, and wooden floors. Wes says he prefers the crib without a crib skirt (which I had been considering buying to add some other color to the room), and it wouldn't even show once we drop the mattress anyway. He does want a different color for the changing station. This from the man who is color blind :)

Assembling

One Oeuf crib, one petrified (no pun intended) dog.

Painting

It's impressive what my husband can do with a kitchen table, a stepladder, and a long roller brush. The highest wall in the room is probably 15', and we managed to do a really nice job (I was responsible for tasks low to the ground, like taping and removing the electrical outlets). The pictures sort of show the multiplicity of the paint -- it comes off more or less bold and bright depending on the surrounding light and the point of view to the room. It's bolder and brighter if you see if from the living room -- softer and livelier from within. None of these pictures really captures the way it looks in person.