Thursday, February 26, 2009

Week #26 - Update

How Am I Feeling?
I am just 2 weeks away from my third trimester! As you can tell from the photos in the last post, I'm definitely showing it!
I am still feeling alright, and this week have been enjoying a little break from heartburn! I'm not doing anything differently, but I've only had hearburn a couple times this week, versus several times a day and very severe. Chewing gum or snacking on Swedish Fish after I eat have seemed to help keep the acid reflux down, so I'm going to keep that up!

The Baby Room
The next few weeks will be very busy for us as we continue to prepare and transition the game room/office into Silly Baby's room. The futon and computer is still in there. We recently purchased a Dell laptop that we will be getting in just a couple weeks. So we will just toss the computer desk and store the laptop in a bag next to our couch. Quite a nice space-saver!
The futon we are going to see if it will still fit in the Baby Room or move it out into the living room, replacing our loveseat. We're not working with a lot of space, so this may be a challenge. But having to take apart the futon and transport it to somewhere we can store it would be quite a hassle.
The Silly Baby closet was cleared of all of our things a few months ago, and has been filling fast with baby items already! We have already received some clothes and toys for Christmas on top of our hand-me-downs from Pat & Lorie and Josh & Tina (thanks!!!!).
Our main task right now is to get the baby room painted. We've had busy weekends and many more coming up, so it's just trying to find a weekend clear of any events/gatherings to get it all done. We are penciling in March 7-8 as painting weekend, unless something else comes up. Our goal is to have the room clear and painted by the end of March, since April is booked with Showers and other events - and our furniture (crib & dresser) are scheduled to be delivered between April 5-25. We also want the room ready to be filled with the gifts from the Showers on April 4th and 25th.
The plan is by May to have the entire room set up and ready to go - just waiting for Silly Baby to come home :)

The Hospital
As mentioned previously, our delivery hospital is St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates. It is part of Alexian Brothers. The hospital is located on Barrington Road between Golf & Higgins. If those streets sound familiar, yes, that is less than a mile from our condo!
We have completed 3 weeks of our Childbirth Preparation classes, last week being the tour of the Maternity Ward!
We will be in the same room for Labor & Delivery, which is great! The rooms are very nice and large, so for those of you who will be waiting at the hospital for Silly Baby to be born, this is probably where you'll first meet Silly Baby! However, I am only in there for an hour or so after delivery.
From there I will be moved to a Mother/Baby room. I will recover there for 2 full days after delivery (the delivery day counts as Day 0). These rooms are semi-private and quite small. The hospital will try and match me up with a patient who is checking out that day or the next day, so hopefully I will not have a roomate the entire time. In any case, the room is not condusive to large groups of visitors at once, so we may have to be on a rotation system if several friends/family happen to come to visit around the same time.
There is a small waiting room right outside the Maternity Ward, but for more comfortable and roomy waiting, we suggest waiting on the main floor. The Maternity Ward is right off the elevator on the 2nd floor, and the 1st floor waiting room is right off the elevator as well. This waiting area is very large, complete with several big TV's and even a full Starbucks area with a fireplace!
We were really looking forward to the Maternity Ward tour to help us envision the birth, and it has helped me so much already to be able to picture everything.

Coming Up!
Friday, March 6 - I will be taking the Glucose Tolerance Test. Wish me luck!
Saturday, April 4 - Milwaukee Shower! The invites are going in the mail this week, so watch your mailboxes!

Please feel free to post any questions you have for us on this blog and I'll do my best to answer them!

5 comments:

MyMuse said...

Just a thought on the visitor situation (from what I've experienced!) Josh and I thought it would be cool to have all these visitors come see the baby in the hospital, but it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. For one thing, you are tired and REALLY sore and you will constantly have nurses poking and prodding and "checking" you if you know what I mean. Also, as you are planning on breastfeeding, you will be nursing him/her A lOT and it's a little awkward to get used to at first and sometimes it's easier to be without a shirt! As soon as someone would come to visit, they'd have to leave the room so the nurses could do what they needed to do, etc...I'm not saying that it'll be like that for you, but it's just an observation from my two experiences. That's why it's nice to have your mom or sister or CLOSE friends. ;) Either way, I had great experiences both times, but for me, I prefered it to be a little more private!

Monica O'Neill said...

Good points, Tina! But yea, I doubt we'll really have many visitors in those couple days. I only expect our immediate families to visit at the hospital. Maybe a couple of Tim's friends but that's it. So we should be ok unless like 2 families show up at the same time or something!

Miss Organizized said...

Yeah sorry about that Tina!!! I know when I visited the nurse just happened to come by and have to do a bunch of stuff to you!!! But at least I got to entertain Josh for a little bit ;)

INVITES!!! I think everyone should've gotten them by yesterday! Mandsi got hers on Thurs I think, and I got mine yesterday (weird right??) But I already got a really nice txt from Chelsea about them!! PS I had a feeling they would require more postage so I feel bad your mom had to buy all that!!! Stupid post office!!!

MyMuse said...

Katie, I totally didn't mind you visiting at all. I'm sure you've seen me without a shirt on! (heehee ;) ) When we had Ethan, Josh's prof. from Purdue came to visit and ethan was screaming cause i needed to nurse him, and it was wierd! But, close friends and family...that's a different story! BTW, I LOVED the invites. You are super talented!

Monica O'Neill said...

I want to see the invite right MEOW!! I started making my Thank You cards yesterday. I'm sure they'll suck compared to the invites, but I wanted to play crafty card maker too!!