A question I get asked more frequently than I feel I ought to is, “Now that you’re having a baby, what are you going to do with the dogs and cats?” And I blink and say, “Nothing!” Well, it’s not nothing exactly – but we’re certainly not getting rid of any of them! If such time comes that we have a serious conflict on our hands then we’ll handle it appropriately, but that’s not something we are anticipating.

We do however have some plans in place for getting everyone ready for the changes.

Our fence is getting finished before the baby is born, not so that we can “put the dogs out” but so that they have a play space to get some energy out, and so that I won’t have to leash them both up every day and take them out to go potty (which I can only imagine would be nearly impossible with two dogs and a baby – it’s hard enough with two dogs and being pregnant!). The dogs are both crate-trained and are used to being crated during the day since currently we both work. They may or may not continue to be crated while Den is at work, me at home alone with the baby – that really depends on how good their behavior is. If they’re obnoxious and I’m at wit’s end, they’ll be crated for everyone’s sanity until Den is home to help manage the zoo.

Neither the cats nor the dogs will be allowed in the baby’s room. Mostly this is because of the fur issue. I’d really love to keep her crib and clothes as furless as possible – which, yes, I know is impossible in a house with pets. But I’d really prefer it if the cats don’t sleep in the crib and the dogs don’t try taking off with dirty diapers. We’ll either be keeping her door closed or be putting up a tall, swing-open babygate in the doorway.

As for expectations, they’ve all seen kids before, though they’ve never been around them for any length of time. The cats don’t seem to mind kids at all, in fact Jojo was “playing” with my niece (22 months old) last time she was over – he was jumping on his cat tree and running towards and away from her in some mad game of tag. She thought it was hysterical. (And so did I, actually. I’ve never seen him do that before!) Merlin was a little shy towards her until he realized that she’s nice, human, and – score! – closer to his level than an adult human. So he was loving on her after a while, much to her delight. Of course if any kid gets too rough or overbearing the cats both show disgust and leave. We have one room babygated off and furniture that they can jump on, and they know just to leave the area and go somewhere the irritating one can’t reach.

The dogs have differing opinions. Zeeke LOVES kids. He thinks they are absolutely awesome and the few times we’ve had relatives with kids over for picnics Zeeke shines in absolute joy. Unfortunately he’s also 95lbs and can knock the little ones over pretty easily – so that will be our biggest issue, I think. He just doesn’t realize that he’s big. Zeeke, being a German Shepherd, is also highly protective of anything of “his.” Once the baby becomes a part of our pack we have no doubt he’ll be watching over her like a hawk, making sure that we all treat her right. He’s already started hovering over me – he’s the only one of our four who has noticed that something is up with me. Since I got pregnant – and this happened both times – he has been sleeping near me, checking on me, and just in general being the watchdog.

Zoe is terrified of all strangers, so there’s really no test for this one – she treats all strangers, adult and children alike, as “scary, bad, must-go-away-now-OMG.” She takes a long time (weeks, months) to warm up to people, so she’ll likely be totally avoiding the baby for a while until she figures out that it’s “ours.” A newborn is pretty non-threatening, doesn’t move or anything, so I figure by the time the kid is mobile Zoe will have adjusted just fine. Zoe is also our resident blond and her thought processes tend to follow the track of, “That’s interesting, will you play with me now? Oh look, a shiny thing!” She’s easily amused, easily occupied, and while she needs some attention she’s also perfectly fine playing with a toy for hours or just sleeping next to me.

Of course one of the most important things will be teaching Kate how to treat the animals. I think it will be invaluable to have her grow up with pets, to gain an early sense of compassion for other creatures, to realize that we are caretakers and we need to treat them well. I really hope to impart to her a real sense of responsibility towards all beings.

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One of the big things we have on our to-do list for getting the house ready for a baby is to have all the hardwood floors redone. Our house is small, so it’s only three rooms – both bedrooms and the living room – and a hallway, but that consists of 3/4 of the main floor. This house was built in the early 50’s and it has seemed to us that floors have never been redone; they are terribly stained and have no protective finish on them at all. (Tell me how fun that was when I was potty-training Zoe!) The floors are just one of the things that Needs To Get Done, but it’s a large undertaking. Of course in the meantime we haven’t bothered with any furniture in the baby’s room. No sense putting something together just to take it apart and move it out! So I’ve sat and waited. Devin’s crib waits, disassembled, in a storage room (we never got to the point of setting up the nursery for him, so I have truly never seen it whole and complete).

Friday Den came home from work and told me he’s contacted the flooring guy and it will all be getting done on Wednesday. This coming Wednesday. Mere days away. I am so unbelievably thrilled! I really can’t imagine this house with shiny, bright, new-looking floors. And the thought of truly being able to put together the baby’s room has me giddy.

My next thought was how on earth Den was going to move out all of our furniture before Wednesday – and where he’s going to put everything. But then, I guess that’s not my problem… he’ll figure it out somehow. We’re going to have to live in the basement for a few days while it all cures, so I sure hope he finds a way to get the mattress down there – you can see where my priority is!

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For those interested, I’ve uploaded a video I took of baby Kate kicking. It seems smaller in the video than it looks in person, but it still shows how she shakes it up on a daily basis!

Oh man, I don’t know what baby Kate is doing in there today but I feel positively ill. I woke up feeling great, sat up with my computer, got some kicks to the ribs like usual. So I got up, puttered around, got some food, watched some TV. It was there on the rocking chair that I started feeling very… not good. Not contractions, definitely not contractions. At first I thought I had to go to the bathroom, but that didn’t work very well. I took the dog for a walk around the block in the hopes that would sort things out. Nope. Still feeling kind of like I need to go to the bathroom, but now my belly hurts on top of that, and my lower back is feeling achy.

So I drew a bath and layed in it for a while – that felt a little better. While laying there I started feeling around my belly. That’s when I noticed she was entirely below my belly button, no legs up high like they have been. Plus I felt a hard spot across, culminating in something – a foot? a knee? – on my right side. Lots of firmness below the belly button – and very uncomfortable when I press on things, as if I’m pressing on body parts that are in turn pressing on my internal organs. Like my bladder. And my bowel. And every so often I’d feel a stab in one of those internal organs. I’m also getting random punches/kicks to the cervix. All I could think was, girl, WTF are you doing?! It almost felt like she’d turned transverse again, wedged sideways and squished up against everything down low. Not impressed, not impressed at all.

I’m laying down and she apparently has flipped back over to face outwards and I’m getting kicks on my right side, so she’s probably not transverse – but everything still aches bad down below. I’m wondering if it’s a combination of her position and me still needing to go to the bathroom. Or maybe she’s dropped. Or maybe it’s just one of those days. Whatever it is, it hurts. I’m back in bed and thinking I’m going to stay here for a while.

Later: Well I really don’t know where she is now. I just felt hiccups for the first time from her, and it was on my upper right. And after all that pressure earlier today, it very well could have been her flipping to breech. But I’m still feeling her limbs (whichever they are) pushing into my ribs and kicking out all over on my right side, just like normal. I don’t get any big kicks down low. Sooo… I’m confused. I have an appointment with my midwife on Tuesday so I’ll ask her what she thinks. Not that I’m concerned about her position for birth, it’s still very early, but I like to know where she is!

Ever stared at a room in your house after you’ve moved all the furniture and clutter out? It looks a lot bigger than you thought. A lot bigger. We currently have one completely empty and two almost-empty rooms. There’s a couple more things to move out tomorrow, then the bed gets moved Wednesday morning when we get up. Wednesday all the floors will be redone and then it will be living in our basement until the weekend when we’ll be able to move furniture back in.

Den asks me, “Will you be okay with staying here? Or do you have to go to a hotel?” I’m pretty sure he was talking about the vapors from the floor refinishing (though of course I won’t be home while they’re being done). No, my question was, How long will we have to stay off the floors completely? Because dude, if I do not have access to the bathroom for an evening then I am outta here. (No, we don’t have a bathroom downstairs yet. Yes, it is sad.) We will find out from the floor guy on Wednesday what I will have to do.

But hey, one of the local hotels has free wifi. I won’t suffer.

::

We also moved the dog crates to the basement, where they will likely stay. We have *finally* (after 6 years of owning the shepherd) gotten to a point where we can leave them both loose in the bedroom when we’re not home and nothing will be destroyed. Well, our bedding is all messed up, but we’ll come home to two dogs just snoozing. For a dog who had severe separation anxiety when we first got him (and would attack furniture frantically whenever we left the room, much less the house) this is really magical. And oh my god how much extra space we have in the bedroom without two giant crates in here!

Unfortunately with the crates went the dog beds. You know what that means? I have a german shepherd stretched out between DH and I, who routinely (and very innocently, I presume) stretches, kicking me. The other dog is on my other side. I feel like I’m stuck in a straight jacket in my own bed. And yes, it’s a king size. That doesn’t really seem to help much when you have a DH and two dogs.

The dog beds will becoming back in when the floors are done.

::

Suddenly, just like that, I am at peace with her name. Actually, I think I love it. It was the name we had agreed on early on in the pregnancy, before we knew for sure she was a girl. After all the worry and upset, it just feels right. All the anxiety and confusion that was swirling around has settled.

I look back at the last month and observed to my best friend that I’m pretty sure the entire freak-out was misdirected anxiety and emotional distress caused by Devin’s birthday. How else do you explain why I was literally hysterically bawling about the name decision 3 days before his birthday, and then very nearly at peace with it the day after? I was very calm about his birthday. Only the day before his birthday did I start crying at all about it, about him not being here – and it was just a sad few tears.

And my best friend basically said – in much nicer words, of course – “Well duh.”

30 friggin’ weeks! I can do another 10 weeks, I can.

And I’m not talking physically – I still have very few complaints, I’m not achy much, I’m not near the “I’m so done” stage yet.

But mentally I’m starting to get a tiny bit twitchy. Just a little. (But then… I have been twitchy this entire pregnancy, ha.)

::

Appointment today – no ultrasound, just seeing the midwife. They were so busy and backed up it was crazy in the waiting room… strong dislike. It was 45 minutes before I got called back by the nurse, and then another 15 until the midwife saw me. Grrr. This is why I try to get appointments first thing in the morning, not at 10:15.

But all looks good, and that’s all that matters. My weight is showing a total of 20lbs gained on their scale (which is probably over by a couple pounds, I ate a big breakfast at IHOP before my appointment, lol), my blood pressure is right where it always is at 102/64. I mentioned my BH contractions, and was of course told it was totally normal, just make sure I stay hydrated (which I knew, but I wanted to mention it). Heartrate was good and strong, probably 140’s.

Den was all concerned last night about me not looking very big – even though I’m pretty much the same size as I was when pregnant with Devin – so I mentioned that too. My fundal height is at 29cm, totally normal. Plus she says at this point she’s not growing out yet, she’s still growing up, plus with her all lopsided on my right side like she is all the time it makes measuring a little less accurate. I also told her about how the baby wedged herself into an awkward position on Sunday and how I wasn’t really *sure* which way she’s facing. The midwife tried to tell by feel, but baby’s still not big enough to get a good position on the head. She’s definitely vertex, but she couldn’t say for sure which end was up or down. And she said with the hiccups, their whole body vibrate with them so who knows! I remain fairly convinced those are feet in my ribs still. We shall find out in two weeks.

I also asked her about the floor refinishing and she basically said when if the smell doesn’t bother me then it’s fine. So I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

When does nesting kick in? I’ll tell you when: when it is not only inconvenient, but quite possibly the worst time ever.

I’ve never been a terribly nest-worthy person. Den and I, our house is well lived in. You know… papers piled on the desk, dishes left in the sink for a day or two, fur drifting around. We try, but there are many days when going to bed is just more important than cleaning, we’ll get to it tomorrow. I also tend to get overwhelmed easily and just avoid dealing clutter so it doesn’t stress me out.

So we’re redoing the hardwood floors, almost all of our furniture is stuffed (and I mean stuffed) in our garage and breezeway, I am living out of two little drawers of clothes (which is pretty much all my maternity clothes), my desk and files and books are inaccessible. Obviously this is necessary to get the floors refinished. It is short-term. I have my clothes, my laptop. We have Den’s TV room in the basement (where we are currently piled together on the couch). And yet it is driving. me. crazy.

I have a massive headache tonight simply due to anxiety. I came home from work and immediately started cleaning the kitchen. There were tools around, the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the floor, clothes bins in the corner, dishes in the sink, and I really couldn’t handle it. Den had to come to my rescue and carry out the big items while I cleared off the counter. Den finally coaxed me out of the kitchen to the TV room downstairs – ostensibly to eat and “relax” – and I started cleaning it, too, upset about the christmas decorations that were in bins in the room instead of in the storage area. I’m walking around cleaning little bits of garbage off of his desk, straightening tiles, putting bins away.

Every time I look around I want to start crying – and a couple times I actually did. Den’s quite perplexed (and concerned when I start crying!). I’m trying to explain how it feels like little spiders crawling around in my head, creeping me out that everything is out of order and I need to fix it.

It is all completely ridiculous. On Saturday we’re allowed to start bringing furniture back in, and we are taking this opportunity to completely de-clutter and improve our house. We had to move everything out quickly, but it was obvious that we need to purge in a big way. So moving things back in is going to be slower, and much more selective. I expect we’re going to be throwing away or re-homing a lot. We’re talking about buying a new dining set (because the one we have was a $10 garage sale find from 6 years ago), getting an area rug for the living room, replacing my old too-big-for-the-living-room desk with a small writing desk. All dependent on what kind of sales we can find, of course. So hopefully this extreme nesting OCD will come in handy.

Until then I have a whopping stress headache and I am going to my SIL’s to sleep in a bed (and take a shower). Sadly they do not have wifi.

I’ll be spending the next few nights at my SIL’s, with limited access to internet. But boy did it feel good to sleep in a bed in a house with furniture. Only a few more nights to go…

I am back in my house, and boy does it feel good. The floors are quite simply gorgeous. Den and I keep walking in the upstairs just to stand and look at them, marveling at how different the rooms look now. I really just love watching our home renovation projects get completed – bit by bit I love this house a little bit more. And that’s saying a lot, because when we got this house I really hated it. Immensely.

All in all I slept somewhere else for three days. I’d come home to grab some clothes, check my email, and then the smell of the poly would start making my eyes burn and give me a headache and I’d have to quickly get out. Though I must say, sleeping at my brother- and sister-in-law’s was very peaceful; last night was my first night back and I had cats crawling on my head and dogs hogging the blankets. Then with all the fur… (I can easily see why some people don’t have any pets in the house.)

The cost of the contractor was less than I budgeted for, though the amount of work it took Den to clear out the house was significant. We’re not going to be putting furniture back for at least another few days – we don’t want to take any chances on hurting the floor before it’s fully cured – so we’re stuck in the basement on a futon with all four animals, all of us piled on top of each other.

But it was all well worth it.

Before:

And after:

Our whole family – 2 adults, 2 cats, 2 dogs – are living in our basement this week. One room down here is finished, it’s Den’s “man room” with the big-screen TV, XBox, his computer, couch. We are sleeping on the futon mattress – just the mattress, on the floor. We are both very sore and cranky. It’s only a full size mattress, and compared to our king size it feels like we are crammed onto a postage stamp – and that’s when it’s just us, without any of the furry creatures climbing on too. (The dogs have been smart and have stayed off, mainly I think because they see how uncomfortable we are all crammed in!) My hips hurt, this mattress is far too solid for me. Even Den is complaining that it’s not comfortable. He may choose to sleep on the couch tonight to see if that’s any better. Maybe that will help me, too.

One of the cats is about two seconds from being throttled at any given time of the night. He’s our resident idiot – he’s lovable as all hell, but dumber than a box of rocks. He likes to cuddle. He likes to lay right up at your head and roll all over you. He likes this – and he does not get the freaking hint that we are not so appreciative at 3am. All fucking night long, every 10 minutes, the cat steps on your head. We can feel him coming, walking closer on the couch, then his giant fat-cat-paws land on your hair/face/whatever and we start flailing around, eventually tossing him heartily off the bed. And you know what? He comes right back. We’re going to murder him. (This is the reason he is NOT allowed in the bedroom.) And here he comes again. Why can’t he just sleep at my feet like a normal cat?

And then I have the unique situation (at least in this house) of being kicked from the inside all night, too. Every time I roll over – which is often, given how uncomfortable this mattress is – Kate starts up again, rolling to whatever side I’m laying on and kicking away at the side of my belly that is pressed up against the mattress. Not that this is something that I mind – it’s very reassuring – but at the same time after a half hour of being pummeled I start wishing I could just fall asleep.

All in all the dogs are the easiest ones to deal with, and who expected that? Not us! They’re not trying to dart upstairs like the cats are, they’re happy just to have us down here spending all our time with them. They sleep in their crates (which we moved downstairs) out of free will, though Zeeke also has a fondness for falling asleep on the carpet right beside the mattress – he really prefers to be within reach of us at all times.

Oh, and my anxiety attacks have gone away after that first initial freak-out. It’s still hard to be living without access to most of our stuff, but we’re keeping busy with house projects and soon we’ll be moving our stuff back in. We want to get baseboard put in before we do that, though! Which is an exciting thought – we haven’t had baseboards in here since we tore out the paneling in 2006.

Den and I are positively giddy when we stand in our living room. Little by little we see this house take form and it just feels so good. This is never going to be the perfect house, it’s certainly not a large house, it’s not a new house. It’s a fixer-upper. But every year we turn it more into our house. Every bit of paint, moulding, flooring… it’s all us. With the exception of bigger projects, like the fence installation and hardwood floor refinishing we’ve done almost all of it ourselves. And neither of us are contractors. We’re just homeowners, trying to figure it out. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s all worth it when at the end of the day when we can stand back and say, “Wow, I didn’t know we could do that! That looks awesome!” Of course that can get dangerous when we finish one project and start thinking, hmmm, we could do the bathroom just as easily…

Of course with a 2-month deadline we’re feeling mighty motivated to get everything that we can done now. I’ve been putting money away all winter, just waiting for the warmer weather to arrive so we could dive into everything. The other side benefit of all of our hard work has been keeping me busy and distracted. The weeks are going by fairly quickly, and I don’t have the time or energy to sit and worry about every little thing about the pregnancy – which I could easily do, left to my own devices. I definitely check in with Kate a lot during the day, and do my kick counts and “how was she moving” notes every evening, but I just don’t have time to start imagining scenarios and freaking myself out.

I am 31 weeks. I have 9 weeks to go until my due date. 5 weeks until I hit that “last month” mark. That’s kind of key for me. That was the point I didn’t get to with Devin (he was stillborn at 35w5d), the month that I lost. It’s significant. I’m counting down.

The husband and I are getting along really well throughout this house remodel, except when he says the wrong words, then we aren’t getting along well at all. I tend to hover at the edge of tears – minutes after laughing and smiling happily, gleefully. What did you say?? WELL FINE. I’LL GO DOWNSTAIRS AND CRY. Husband has, I am certain, contemplated running away. Or maybe boarding me up in a padded room. I love him. Most of the time. (It’s the hormones, I swear.)

As I have said before, I do my kick counts every evening. Usually about half an hour after I sit down she wakes up and starts going at it, and I try to just take a few minutes then to count and record. But some days that proves harder than others. Today I was busy eating and talking something over with the hubby while she was active, and now she’s being all laid back. I can feel her butt pushing out, and she just had the hiccups – but not kicking or moving frequently enough to count. (And most of her movements are slow snakelike movements of her foot towards my ribs, as if she’s plotting a sneak attack soon as I’m not paying attention. I am ON to you, baby.) So now I’m stuck in a dilemma. I know very clearly that while I was eating dinner she was kicking away at me and I could easily have gotten my kick counts – plus she was normally active all day. But now that I’m quiet and counting, she’s facing the wrong direction and isn’t cooperating, so I can’t get my numbers to plug into my fancy little excel chart. And it’s not like I can just leave today’s blank, I am a wee bit obsessive about things like this. So I poke Kate’s cute little butt (which is protruding yet again) and say, “Umm, I know you’re fine in there and you’re probably wanting a nap, but could you roll over so that mommy can get her numbers? Thanks.” So far she has not obliged. Not sure how long I’m going to have to sit here. Apparently a good long while.

Den and I finally found a paint color that we liked the test patch of, so today I bought a gallon and Den painted the top half of the room. And then I started fretting that maybe it wasn’t the exactly right color. It’s just a paint color, for crying out loud! This should not be a month-long process! (But it has been.) And then of course we get to the problem of what to do between the two colors. My original idea was to just paint a white stripe, but now neither of us are too fond of the idea. I’m thinking a white chair rail, he’s thinking a wallpaper border. We have spent hours (hours!) searching for the right border paper that matches the room colors and fits my idea of what her room should be. We have a couple of “maybe”s, and I still would prefer the white chair rail and he still really wants wallpaper. I found one combination idea that I really like, only for Den to say, “But that will be too hard to do.” And of course it’s a discontinued pattern for sale on ebay. Throwing hands in the air now.

On a related note, if anyone knows where I can buy wall decals of the entire alphabet in a single color, that would be great. My mind sees a script font, but at this point I’d take any kind of font. I can make my own effing border. (I want a pink or chocolate brown alphabet on her wall. Not multicolored, not with all kinds of picture scenes. Just the damn alphabet. That should NOT be this hard to find.)

I guess all I need to do is roll over and pretend to go to sleep. That’ll wake her up for sure.