Austin Finley Hansford

Friday, January 30, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Brad did a lot of poking and prodding upstairs, looked outside at the structure, and in the basement etc. and determined that the wall between the two bedrooms upstairs is not a load-bearing wall. I will attempt to expand upon that, but I am not sure of some of the terminology (or if I am using it correctly). Essentially, the upstairs roof is being supported by the exterior walls (not from the interior). The upstairs floor is providing support to the exterior walls (to keep them from caving in, I guess). Brad pointed out a few things that helped make this determination: 1) the design/shape of the original portion of the house, 2) the type of roof (the type of trusses, not the outside roof), 3) the fact that the wall is not on-center with the roof and a few other things that I can't remember. Also, he suggested bringing back the corner of the current nursery closet to be flush with the back wall of the closet (open the nursery up some more). Brad also confirmed that all other ideas that we had will work and made some suggestions on the electrical. Brian decided to start some of the tear down this weekend. He doesn't want to waste these last few days off. The plaster did eventually thaw out, and Brian said that it is now about the same consistency as it originally was.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Brian was finally able to watch my stomach shift around as the baby moved around inside it. I was reading a magazine and he was talking to me and was able to focus on the belly as I said, "oooh".

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Brad (friend of Brian's family who used to own a home buildingcompany and built houses) and Brian's Dad will be returning tonight so that Brad can take a look at the wall between the two bedrooms upstairs to see if it is a support wall. So no further tear down or shopping until this is established.

Apparently Brian wanted to start patching up some miscellaneous holes in the walls, but the bucket of plaster was frozen. He now has it in the house next to a register to see if it will thaw out (and if it will keep its consistency when thawed). LESSON LEARNED: Do not keep plaster in the garage. Brian is okay with varnishing the trim (the options at Lowes weren't any different), but now he really wants to save it for the end so that I don't have to park outside and have to scrape my windows in the morning. (What?!? A big wet and dirty spot rightsmack in the middle of my tummy won't look good?)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Brian and I think that we have a design for the upstairs configuration(we used some masking tape to tape off the areas where the doors, walls, etc would go). Brian removed all of the trim going around the room (there is about seven different layers of paint on that trim). It took him 2-3 days so that way he didn't do any bodily harm. We are goingto try Dad's idea for the closet (put it where the old door was), but there is only one complication -there is only about 22" of room for a closet door (because the ceiling slants down). We're still brainstorming that one. We'll have a dumpster delivered on Friday to put all of the trim, plaster, etc into (as well as the paneling from the basement, which is currently out between the garage and house). Brian called around and the smallest we can get is 10 yards, which is as big as what we had for the bathroom remodel. The cheapest is still the place that we got the other one from, as well (Plummers). By cheapest, I mean $175 - OUCH. Today Brian's parents are coming up to take a look at our plans for the upstairs and probably start tearing out that chunk of wall where the pocket door will go. Then I think that Brian talked about going toMenards to start getting supplies (he'll need his Dad's truck). We went to Home Depot last night to check out trim/molding (after having been disappointed that all of Menard's trim is composite material now). Home Depot only has white or non-finished (natural) trim. It seems silly to have hardwood floors and composite trim, but I really want wood (not white). I'll check at Lowe's at lunch and see if it is the same story.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Mom, Dad, Nick and Jared came over last night (1/23/09) and helped us carry all of the stuff down from the second floor (the soon-to-be nursery and the guest bedroom) to the basement. Since neither one of us can carry very much, it was a very big help. We were all very tired after all of that cardiovascular work on the stairs.

Our plan is to reconfigure the doors that lead into the two rooms. The nursery room door is less than 26" and both doors have a rather large and useless hallway before leading into the rooms. We also want to remove all of the trim and baseboards from both rooms (which are covered in about seven layers of paint) and rebuild a closet in the nursery (the current closet is so small that the depth doesn't even accomodate a clothes hanger). After these projects are completed, we will have the floors sanded and refinished in the entire upstairs (so as to have the dust issues confined to the entire upstairs and eliminate having to do this again). We will also have new windows put in to replace the old single-pane, metal framed windows that are currently in the nursery.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

Brian felt the baby kicking (well, sort of). He was lightly pushing on my stomach and the baby started pushing back on his hand. Brian kind of jolted away, a little startled, but said that it was a very awesome and weird feeling.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Brian Back Injury

Brian twisted funny, which made his back hurt again (running through his buttocks). It went away after a day or so, but I think that Brian is learning that this may take a while to completely heal. He is getting very bored and very frustrated with being home and not being able to do anything. I am sure that he is not enjoying his wife saying "lay down", "take it easy" and "don't lift that" all the time, either.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

The baby has now transitioned from kicking me and it feeling like little flutters or taps on my stomach to it feeling like a soccer ball just hit the goal and my stomach is the net. It is very visible from the outside when he kicks and moves around, though only a few people have seen it.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Pregnancy - Third Trimester

We are now officially in our third trimester. The only difference that we feel is a little more stressed about getting the nursery done and getting everything organized. Other than that, week 27 feels just like week 26.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Pregnangy - Second Trimester

We have decided to go with the bedding set showing below. We bought some fabric to make panels for the curtains in the light green and will also be pulling in a lot of accents in yellow (sheets, window seat cushion, rugs, baskets, picture frames, etc). I am not a big fan of brown, so when asked, I will refer to the nursery as being green and yellow.


Monday, January 12, 2009

Pregnancy - Second Trimester

There is plenty of research on stimulating babies through music, reading, talking, contact, etc after they are born. For obvious reasons, however, there is very limited research on stimulating babies inside the womb. What little research that there is tries to make a correlation between heart rate inside the womb during stimulation and heart rate after birth during stimulation and then suggests that because stimulation after birth has proven effects upon increased motor skills and earlier communication, that stimulation in the womb will lead to the same effects. There are others that suggests that such stimulation could be harmful, leading to such things as hearing loss, ADD/ADHD, etc.

Brian and I have decided to take a middle of the road approach. Brian downloaded some Mozart onto my .mp3-player and I place headphones on my stomach every other night for 30 minutes before I go to bed. Though we haven't started reading to the baby, we do talk to him a lot and I rub my tummy a lot.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Brian Back Injury

Brian's parents came up to the house to shovel our driveway and sidewalks for us - they have really been a great help. They also took Brian back to Costco to purchase a battery and cat litter (the cat litter is 40 pounds - above both of our restrictions, so we couldn't buy it when we were there this week).

Brian's dad also put the battery into Brian's truck (his other battery went dead during this long period of not driving it). Now Brian will be able to take himself to the mall to walk during the day.

Pregnancy - Second Trimester

The results came back for the Glucose Tolerance Test and everything looks good. The threshold for glucose is 140 and my blood measured at 101, so it wasn't even close. My iron count was also great. Woohoo!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Brian Back Injury

Every day this week, when I get home from work I have picked up Brian to go somewhere where he can get his walking in. By the time all of this occurs and we eat, it has been kind of late for me getting to bed. We walked the Rivertown mall on Friday (1/2/09), Wal-Mart on Tuesday (1/6/09) and Costco on today (Wednesday, 1/7/09). Brian seems to be doing really well, the only hard part is that he forgets that even though he can't feel any pain, certain things may still be damaging his back (such as taking heavy items out of the cart at Costco to put into the trunk). I haven't put it on the scale, but I am sure that the package of 30 rolls of toilet tissue weighs over 5 pounds.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Pregnancy - Second Trimester

At my monthly doctor's appointment I had the Glucose Tolerance Test, where they test for gestational diabetes. They make you drink a really, really, really gross drink an hour before giving blood. I'll know the results in about 5 days. My weight gain was a little high this month, but the doctor said that he was not concerned as it appears that most of it was due to swelling and, of course, the holidays. He followed up that the swelling isn't a concern either, as it is common to have a lot of swelling in your first pregnancy. My blood pressure went down to 116/80, which is exciting, as this was my "last chance" to bring it down before they started a series of other tests for preclampsia.

I asked the doctor about the baby being breech and he stated that he will be able to tell if he is still breech (without an ultrasound) at 31 weeks. If, at 35 weeks, the baby still appears to be breech then he will do an ultrasound. Until then, I am not to worry. I also asked about my arms and hands going numb a lot and said that it is a form of carpal tunnel that will go away after pregnancy and not to worry.

I don't think that I will ever tire of hearing the baby's heart beat.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Brian Back Injury

Brian had his follow-up appointment with the Orthopaedic office today and his restriction to lie flat for most of the day was lifted. Though he is still only allowed to be in the sitting position for 20-30 minute intervals, he can now switch between sitting and standing instead of just sitting and laying down. The doctor also wants to see him walking to build up strength. He is to start at 15 minutes a day and work up to 1 hour a day by the next appointment (February 2, 2009).

His weight limit for lifting is still 5 pounds (1/2 gallon of milk). It seems kind of weird to be switching places and me telling Brian not to lift stuff, since my lifting limit is 30 pounds.