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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Work

Tomorrow I start my first day of my last month of work before my maternity leave.  Time seems to have just flown by.  I an stopping work on Feb 29; in attempt to have a few weeks at home to myself before baby Wiseman arrives.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Rice Babies

No, this isn't some kind of weird racial slur, I'm just letting you know that if any amongst you decide you need a rice baby, let me know.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Hallway Flooring Retrospective

This is from back in December, again. It's the flooring in the hall outside the bathroom. Underneath the carpet and the vinyl tile, there was this odd snakeskin vinyl rolled goods, with some kind of coconut-husk-y backing. Underneath that was old linoleum/marmoleum, 1/4" thick, flexible, and with a nice green stripe to it.

Underneath that, some plywood - subfloor/underlayment on top of the plank subfloor. The ply didn't go to the edges, so we ripped that up and put in new 1/4" fir ply. Once I finish sanding down the underlayment/subfloor on the bathroom transition, it'll be ready for a little leveling compound/crack filler, and the new bamboo.

Midwife visit - Jan 24

Baby is well his heart beat is between 130 and 140 very normal for this time. He is still head down and Debra (who was replacing our midwives will they are on vacation) says he is growing fine. This visit they took some blood to test my iron levels, she said if there is a problem with the results she will call me.

Other then that yesterday we had our hospital tour (just in case we need to go). As much as the birthing wing is great at Toronto East General, this reinforced why we are doing a home birth and have a midwife.

The first thing that made me say to Geoff 'I am happy I wont have to do that' was the triage room, a large room with lots of beds that you wait in until you are dilated enough; however this is only if you have an OBGYN: midwife patients are triaged at home.

The rooms were all nice for hospital suites but having my own bed afterward, my own kitchen if I am hungry (there is nothing open near the hospital late at night), somewhere for Geoff to sleep that is not a horribly small surface (he is a big guy after all). It was also so warm in there that I though I was going to pass out.

However as much as the delivery bed is very hospital like it would be neat to have a bed that can do all of those crazy adjustments to help push baby out.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

trying trying succeeded (maybe)

Before Christmas we bought a Summer Infant Prenatal Listening System;  this gadget cost us $30(taxes included) and was supposed to let us listen to baby heart from the comfort of our own home.  We tried every day for a bit then got frustrated and tried every Saturday finally last weekend we heart a faint galloping noise - Baby.  It claims you can hear baby from week 20 it took us until week 32.  Geoff says it because mommy is defective (in the sweetest possible way you can say that) my placenta is in the front so it creates an acoustical barrier between the outside world and baby.  I would love to know if this gadget actually works so if any of my friends in the future are with baby let me know and I can lend this to you and see if you have better luck.

Registry

I was asked a few times what items we need the most from the registry.  So I decided to flag a few items that we will need for baby's arrival with *** in front of each of them.   However all items on the registry are things we decided baby Wiseman would love :-)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Early December

In about early December, we went out in the laneway and the snow, to shoot pictures of Pierrette's belly, now that she was showing much more clearly. This was baby's first walk in the snow.




Saturday, January 19, 2008

This week

Both Geoff and I have been very busy during the past week.

Geoff has been working hard on the house getting almost all the underlayment for the floors complete. We picked up from friends all the tools necessary to complete the floor, a compressor, a floor stapler, a water saw... (a thank you goes out to Shawn, Kregg, Deanna and Ed)


On Wednesday our new fridge arrived. Yippy for us.



Today I work on my picture wall. At the top of the stairs we are hanging a selection of frames that will end up covering most of the wall. All I need to do now is wait till we put in the corner shelf to hang the rest of the frames to make sure they are all nice and snug to the shelves.




I also spent a large chuck of the week cleaning up the chaos let behind from both Geoff and I being sick. Now I am relaxing while Geoff is finishing up the dishes, I think I must of done 5 loads of dishes during the past 2 days so I decided it was Geoff's turn.

This morning baby finally decided to let us hear his heart beat. We bought this weird baby listening device that was absolutely not working for us now for almost 2 months, but this morning finally we got it. It was like we struck gold after trying for so long. I will take more about this next time.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Yoga

Many of you know that I have been doing Yoga since the beginning of the pregnancy. I have found this to be extremely helpful in keeping my joints from being stiff from all the changes happening. It also should help build my stamina for the birth and teaches me various relaxation techniques. All good stuff for the big day.

I tried a few different places before settling on Sasmita Prenatal Yoga the lady who teaches the class is also a Doula. The classes are thought in an old church on Queen Street East and are very small in size.

So it is now official I am the biggest in the class, I mean the next one that is "due". I look at all the moms to be that are just starting the class and can't believe that I was them just a short while ago.

My favorite pose is "childs pose".  I also really enjoy the cat and the warrior poses.  When I first started I was a pro at squatting however it is getting more and more challenging;  I can still go as far down as I used to however because my center of gravity has shifted I always feel like I am going to fall face forward.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Midwife visit - Jan 10

Last Thursday morning we had a routine visit to the Midwives Clinic.  This time, I got to meet Sarah: she is a student midwife graduating at the end of March that will be attending the birth.  She is great.  There is something about students that I always love, and I can never place it.  She said she is excited to meet our Doula (Deanna) at the birth since she has heard from other midwives that Deanna is one of the best at what she does.  I also met Deborah briefly; she is considered our third midwife and will only be at the birth if both our primary and secondary midwives are already at births (so chances are she won't be there) but it's good to meet her just in case.  My next appointment will also be with her, since both Christie and Merhan are on vacation for the month of January.

I have to say one of the things I love about midwifery is that they do their best to make sure that you will know at least one person very well at your birth,  so you don't have a stranger helping and caring for you during the most emotional time of your life.

Despite the fact that mom was sicker then I think she has been for over 10 years;  (The last time I was this ill I think it's when I had Mono) baby was fine.

Mom's story first:
On Sunday I started feeling like I had upset bowels which caused me to go to the bathroom a lot,  I did not think twice about it since I have a lot of food sensitivities and it just felt like I ate something I should not have.  Lisa and I went out to do some errands during the day (Olympia Tile; Canadian Tire and Groceries) as 5pm was approaching I started feeling nauseous and light-headed.  As I am stubborn and wanted to finish my errands, I said "let's just hurry and do the groceries, you can help me and then we will go home."  I also grabbed a small snack because these days I sometimes get nauseous if I let my stomach go empty.  Well, was I ever wrong, we got to the grocery store and I started feeling worse so we left the cart as it was with a few bits in it and returned home promptly where I lied down.  Soon after that it all started.  I will leave it at: I vomited parts of me that I did not know was possible.  Once that stopped, the next morning around 4:30 am I now started re-hydrating myself but staying away from all foods until Tuesday, where we tried toast.  On Wednesday I was feeling up to eating bland foods in small amounts and am still at that point today.  If I eat too fast it irritates my stomach and I get killer heart burn that makes me feel like I am going to get sick. 

One thing I learned is that unborn babies can go 3 days or so without the mothers eating anything as long as you are drinking water; after that as long as you stay hydrated they can go for weeks even if mom is malnourished.  The only person that will suffer is mom.  However I don't recommend anyone to try this as it is always better to have a balanced diet.

Baby Story:
Baby is doing great he is in the cephalic position.  That is the clinical term for head down.  The has been head down since September so I am expecting a squished head baby when he born.  His heart beat is 140, a little lower then his typical 150, but Sarah said that is in the normal healthy range, so no worries.  However, she had a heard time finding the heart beat with the stethoscope since my tummy was louder then baby.  Baby must have had some 'sound show' the past week.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

A Peek Inside

Ever wonder what your unborn child looks like; well we sure did and here are the results of the 3D ultrasound.  I present Baby Wiseman:








These were all taken on September 12, 2007 by UCBaby.

Busy Month for Daddy

(Posting from Pierrette's Laptop, even though this is Geoffrey; more on that in the next paragraph.)

It's been a busy month so far.  While working from home on the holidays, my laptop brick died, and Best Buy will only repair the unit as a whole, so I had to ship out the entire laptop so that they can fix a defective power adapter.  That, or pay $150 for an adapter that they will fix for free on a laptop that only cost $699 to begin with.

So my laptop's in the shop, and with it, some of the photos I was planning to post here.  If they fry my HD while fixing/replacing the power adapter, I'll be very irritated, but there wasn't a good solution to backup the HD while I was running out of battery power, and their $80 backup didn't appeal to me.

After that, I really focused on the renovation, tearing up the flooring on the main floor to make way for the bamboo.  I carried an 8x12' 1/4" plywood panel home from Home Depot to acclimatize for new subfloor - not yet sure if it's enough, but it's a start.  Also took the fan off the ceiling in the bedroom since the light has stopped working - either I've gotta diagnose it, or we've gotta replace it.  Either way.

Then I got the flu - fever for several days, lots of sleep, not much else.  Yesterday, I recovered enough to return to work and then we spent the evening picking up 13 boxes of composite vertical strip bamboo flooring from Rona in Ed's van (Thanks, Ed!).  I know I'm recovering because I'm no longer able to sleep all day every day - so I was up 'til 2am reading about tiles and transitions (tiles should probably have a backerboard, rather than simply subfloor - so subfloor, thinset, backerboard, optional membrane, thinset, tiles; thinset for porcelain needs to be premium latex-modified, unless you're using schluter ditra, at which point they recommend unmodified thinset, etc.)  Adding to all this, Pierrette had heavy heartburn and was running low on liquid cal-mag, which wasn't working, so I went out to get her some Tums at 3:30, after doing a quick round of research on what heartburn medicine was ok for pregnancy (stick to chewable calcium carbonate, mostly).

So it's a late start to Saturday, after a long night.  Time to go eat breakfast and get on to cutting some subfloor (outside, I hope, if the weather co-operates).

Stroller

We wanted to shout out a thank you to grandpa Wiseman...

Last weekend grandpa Wiseman (Roy) treated us and baby Wiseman to a brand new stroller.  I have to say I can't wait till the little one is out so I can go for nice walks with him and his new "Cadillac".  Yes for all of those who want to laugh at us we chose a Bugaboo.  However we had our reasons:
  • Had to have adjustable arm in length that could accommodate both comfortable myself (5'-5") and Geoff (6'-1").  Honestly there are only a few out there that met this first requirement: Bugaboo Cameleon; Stokke; Quinny Buzz (just barely); Mutsy; Stroll-Air
  • Weight of the stroller when folded.  I.E. I needed to be able to lift it comfortably into the trunk of my car.  This gave a strike against the Mutsy, the Quinny and the Stroll-Air.  However the Quinny was just on the line of tolerable.
  • Ease of use.  We played with all of these over and over in the stores.  the Quinny and Bugaboo kept on coming up at the top for the easiest to fold and open.  The Mutsy we had to fight with each time and the Stokke we eventually got the hang of it after going to 4 different stores and finally finding a sales clerk that knew how to operate the stroller.
  • How each of the strollers felt to us when we walked around with them.  Geoff really seemed to prefer the Stokke and I preferred the Bugaboo. For both of us it had to do with the handle.
  • We looked at the price however by this time we had already decided against the Mutsy one of the lower cost options.  The remaining 3 options ranked in price as follows the Quinny (+/- $700); Bugaboo (+/- $1100); Stokke (+/- $1200).
  • Then I wanted to look at the widest span of the stroller because I know it can get complicated trying to get a stroller onto the TTC in Toronto. The narrowest Stroller was the Bugaboo, followed closely by the Stokke and then the Quinny was probably a good 6" wider at the wheel span.
  • The I looked at what came with the stroller and what was available as an add-on.  For the all inclusive package the Stokke definitely wins, it came with almost everything including a stroller umbrella/parasol.  The Quinny followed after however the bassinet is a separate purchase and the amount of verity in the accessories that you can purchase after the fact are limited.  Including the fact that until this month you could not get an infant car seat that was compatible with the stroller.  The Bugaboo came in last for all inclusive however it definitely leaves everyone else in the dust with the after-market add ones you can get.  The only ones we are planning on getting for our Bugaboo are the cup holder, diaper bag and travel case.
  • The designer in me had to look at the style and colours available, however at this point all 3 strollers left in the running were all great looking and very hip :-)
All in all: 
  • The Mutsy got eliminated due to the weight and not user friendly
  • The Quinny got eliminated due to the wheel base width
  • The Stokke we flip flopped back and forth to this one but at the end it got eliminated because it just was not as user friendly, it felt odd to push around (at least for me) and it was more costly
Oh, for those of you that are wondering what our final choice was from Bugaboo: The Cameleon with a dark grey base and red canvas tailored fabrics.

SAFETY

I was sick for a bit so that would explain my absence. Baby and me are both fine, so no worries. I decided to divide these entries by subjects as there is a lot to say.

TOY SAFETY:
The Canadian Goverment released this notice regarding toy safety that I tought would be good to share with everyone.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/advisories-avis/info-ind/toy_lead-jouets_plomb_e.html

Also for those of you that want to keep up to date with recalls in Canada there is a great newsletter from the Canadian government that you can subscribe to.  

On our part, a few of the things we are doing for baby to keep him safe from all the dangers of toxic chemicals out in the world are:
  • Use only stainless steel, glass, silicon or wood for meals.  I.E. Glass bottles, silicon trays to freeze milk or homemade food, metal sippy cups,  wood cutlery (once he is there)... If you are wondering why we don't want to use plastic check out this information on Bisphenol A.  You can also check out this great article on what plastics are safe.
  • Keeping up to date with recalls both in Canada and in the US.  The US often recalls things a few days before us.
  • Choosing his toys wisely, this is probably the over cautious first time parent nerves kicking in but we are doing our best to select toys from manufacturers with none to minimum amounts of recalls.  We will always have few exceptions to this rule as I know we have at lest one Fisher Price toy and we all know they had there shares or recalls. Some of the toy manufacturers that we like are: