Homecoming + Home Depot

Noah was born on Wednesday, our kitchen counters were installed on Thursday, and we went home Friday... stopping by Home Depot on the way, of course.

He's so squishy. We are so tired. And so in love with this little face.

36 Weeks and Other Milestones

Wohoo! Today marks a big milestone: if baby was born today, he wouldn't have an automatic ticket to the NICU. However, since he is unfortunately a white male (dare I use the NICU term "wimpy white boy") I'd be thrilled if he stays put for another 4 weeks! And all jokes about my brother's wedding aside, there don't seem to be any signs of impending labor, thank goodness. I plan to be there large and in charge in my bridesmaid's dress two weeks from now!

This week actually marked several other milestones as well: my "first" Mother's Day was on Sunday, and while I feel silly claiming the title until I've gone through the Ultimate Test (aka labor), Ross was still sweet and bought me a few simple gifts: he snuck out to buy me a vegetable juice in the morning before church (because vegetables are seriously lacking when you're living out of a suitcase... and because he hopes our kids get my tastebuds); then he gave me a few tomato cages for the seedlings my mom graciously bought for us (I've been working every Saturday and haven't been able to get to the farmer's market); he also reserved the latest Bill Bryson book at the library, stating he hopes our kids get my love of reading. It was sweet.

We also got to go to brunch with my parents and my brother Tommy, which was extra nice because I'm not sure of the last time I actually got to see my mom on Mother's Day.

Then Tuesday marked ONE MONTH UNTIL HIS DUE DATE. Which is simply not possible. Tuesday we also "moved into" our "house."

Let's be honest, it's still only half done but Ross set up the bedroom and hooked up the washer and dryer, so its livable. We were ready to sleep in our own bed and have all our belongings in one place after a month of couch-surfing! But to be honest my stress levels haven't really gone down yet. There's a LOT left to do.

Until this week, I'd been cruising along with these house renovations. Okay, maybe not cruising, but staying pretty busy. Wearing myself out. But this week, my belly is just too big. My hips are just too sore. It felt good to go to my Midwife appointment today (I've been going weekly since 34 weeks) and hear her say, "stop making yourself miserable!"

So while our to-do list is still a mile long, I'm going to try my best to limit the manual labor since I'm already on my feet all day at work. I'm also going to try to take one day of complete rest each week (no errands or stress-inducing activities). Sure, I'd LOVE to be nesting and getting the nursery ready and washing baby clothes, but we're not there yet. And I feel like even me busting my butt on my days off won't really get us there much sooner. All I can do is one thing at a time on my to-do list, and keep plugging away at a pace that doesn't make me lose my sanity. (At least I finally met with the pediatrician and got our info into their system.)

The good news is that even though half of our house is still a construction zone, it's livable! We sleep there now, after 25 long nights of living out of a suitcase (yes, totally a first world problem).

The list of "things that still need to get done" probably won't ever end, but at least the pre-baby checklist is getting shorter. What still really needs to happen:
-cabinets needs to be finished, painted, and cleaned
-kitchen countertops need to be ordered and installed
-kitchen and laundry room floors need to be installed
-kitchen and laundry room walls need to be painted (but praise God the drywall plastering, sanding, and priming is DONE in those two rooms! And we did a mighty fine job if I do say so myself.)

What would be nice, but might not be realistic:
-setting up the baby's room
-finishing the drywall in the "ugly bedroom" (the room with plumbing damage and the compromised walls with exposed lead paint that we ended up replacing-- thank you Dad for helping Ross get those walls up so quickly!)
-fixing the bathroom (it works fine, but it's fascinatingly ugly; a different coat of paint and a new shower curtain would do wonders)
-decorating the living room
-replacing the gross linen closet or whatever it's supposed to be in the hallway

Things left to do to prepare for baby? I seriously don't want to think about it. The house needs to be at least semi-finished before I can make a trip to the store for last-minute baby essentials.

...

Wait, this was supposed to be a pregnancy update and not a house update? Am I too fixated on this house? Can you blame me? A pregnant lady can't help but want a safe, comfortable place to bring a baby home to! But.  

Craving this week?
-WATER. I seriously drink 5+ liters of water some days because I'm so thirsty.
-Also finally satisfied my PF Chang's craving from... oh... two trimesters ago. Those lettuce wraps were delicious, and for the record the "gluten-free chocolate dome" is a more than reasonable substitute for my once-beloved Great Wall of Chocolate!

Symptoms?
-Pretty regular Braxton-Hicks contractions. But don't get excited! The Midwife confirmed that they're definitely just practice contractions and not the real thing! She said that me overworking myself will make me miserable, but it won't bring on labor, thankfully. (I'm sure most post-date pregnant ladies wish that inducing labor was as easy as scrubbing floors and painting walls and working 12 hour shifts).
-The numb/painful spot on my stomach is still there above my belly button.
-Is waddling a symptom?
-Frequent bathroom breaks (baby "dropping" + 5 liters of water a day will do that).
-Totally messed up sense of balance. I was clumsy before, but it's frightening now. Sometimes I'll get extremely lightheaded out of the blue and feel like passing out. Other times, I'll lose my balance and trip over nothing. The other day I fell completely to the ground simply while walking around in bare feet. And I'm starting to roll my ankles in my sensible work shoes. Ouch.  A constantly shifting center of gravity + extremely loose joints isn't the best combination.

How's baby?
Still head down, thankfully! And he moves so much, which I love. I totally wish I could see what the heck he's doing in there sometimes. I think my favorite is when I feel his arms moving at night when I lay down, and I can imagine him sucking his thumb and soothing himself.

How's mom? 
-So very ready for things to calm down so maybe I can focus on pregnancy and baby things while I'm still pregnant. So not ready to be done with pregnancy yet, although I can tell things are going to start getting more uncomfortable. I still love it!
-Swimming has become my favorite exercise. It feels so good to be weightless.
-You know what's starting to stress me out in my extremely tired and vulnerable state? People telling me the baby is going to come early. It used to be funny, but as the due date draws closer, it's no longer entertaining to think about him coming early. It stresses me out when people ask if I think he's going to come even one day before his due date. We will know when he gets here, right? When people ask, it makes me feel like a ticking time bomb-- let's all remember that I actually have a max of 6 weeks left. That's a long time, people! I'm probably going to freak out if people keep asking me if the nursery is done or if I'm having signs of labor, even though I know they're just making conversation.
-Hmmm. I may also be hormonal and emotionally labile at this point...

Beauty Instead of Ashes

Today I have an unexpected day off of work and I'm simultaneously feeling grateful, guilty, and lazy in response. I really need to start packing, but I'm avoiding it. Straight up in denial about the fact that we need to be out of this apartment in 11 short days.

We bought a house a few weeks ago. I'm so NOT invested in it. This is actually a good thing! Because if I were involved in the nitty gritty I'm just not sure how I would handle the cascade of problems we've experienced in our short time as home owners. I have to give MAJOR kudos to Ross, who has totally stepped up to own every single thing about this house, from the mortgage paperwork to the physical renovations. Again, I feel bad that avoidance is my coping mechanism right now. But man, this guy is really in his element.

In the meantime, I started reading a book on grief that my friend recommended. So far, it's really good. The book is about the ways people respond to catastrophic loss, and it's taking me a while to read through it. But in the first chapter, the author also acknowledges those smaller losses that are a part of every life, and he really put into words a lot of the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head and heart recently.

All people suffer loss. Being alive means suffering loss. Sometimes the loss is natural, predictable, and even reversible. It occurs at regular intervals, like the seasons. We experience the loss, but after days or months of discomfort we recover and resume life as usual, the life that we wanted and expected. The winter's loss leads to the spring of recovery. Such losses characterize what it means to live as normal human beings. Living means changing, and change requires that we lose one thing before we gain something else.

Thus we lose our youth but gain adulthood. We lost the security of home but gain the independence of being on our own. We lose the freedom of singleness but gain the intimacy of marriage. We lose a daughter but gain a son-in-law. Life is a constant succession of losses and gains. There is continuity and even security in this process. We remember the losses that lie behind us, and we look forward to the gains that lie ahead. We live suspended between the familiar past and the expected future. The scenery we enjoy today gradually faces into the background, finally receding from sight. But what looms ahead comes nearer and gets clearer, until it becomes the scenery of the present moment that fills our vision.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited for this next phase. The idea of saying hello to a house and a baby in the next two months is completely crazy, and almost too good to be true! But the nature of life is that saying hello to this stage means saying goodby to the last one, and I've always had trouble saying goodbye.

Last night, Ross got home from working on the house for a few hours and he showed me the latest progress pictures of the kitchen. Our grand plans for an addition fell through when we found out our home inspector totally gypped us and we had to spend thousands of dollars replacing basically every major thing inside the house in the first 2 weeks. So we figured redoing the kitchen was still better than nothing.

I do feel a little spoiled, but the old kitchen just wasn't great given the amount of time I spend in there. Besides being ugly, the cabinets were filthy, the kitchen layout was awkward (have you ever seen a house with the furnace in the kitchen, just taking up room next to the fridge?), and while there was a dishwasher, it didn't really fit anywhere in particular, and it had to be hooked up to the sink faucet with a hose when you wanted to run it. Truly, none of these are life-threatening issues and I'm not complaining. But I am very grateful that we are able to redo the kitchen before the baby comes.

Ross the architect has tackled the project with gusto. I really had no idea what to expect, except that every day when he comes home and says, "we got so much done!" my non-architect mind hopes to see walls and a ceiling in place because it always seems like surely that's the next step! But that just hasn't been the case. Stripping away whats ugly, what's old, and what's rotten takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work. It's a little painful. The dust is so thick it's hard to see clearly sometimes. And this morning it struck me, as maybe it's struck anyone who has ever seen a home renovation: redoing an old house is a great metaphor for life.

How often are we content or even complacent with where we are, reluctant to change? When it's your life, and you can only see things from inside the thick of it, it's sometimes painful when change starts to take place. Even if you know it's supposed to be a change for the better! The old roots are ripped out. The reasonably shiny facade that you've pieced together falls apart to reveal mold and decay. You think, how can this possibly be good for me? I thought things were supposed to get better, but they're worse than ever! You say the finish line is closer, but things look even more desolate! It struck me this morning that often in our own life, we just can't see the other side and we chose to cling to what we know, even if it's not what's better. We lose faith in the dark before the dawn.

With a home renovation, it's easier to keep the faith because you can envision the end product. Okay it's taking longer than I thought, but it WILL be worth it! (I'm aware I'm saying all these things as an observer, totally not the one putting the work in. Again, infinite thanks to Ross. I'm baffled that this has been FUN for him!) What would it look like if I placed my faith back in God during this time of transition in my life? Instead of feeling like I'm leaving the known and entering the unknown which, no matter how wonderful I'm hoping it will be, is still the murky unknown? Because it's known to God. These moments existed before I ever set foot on this earth. And walking forward with God will always lead to beauty, even amidst chaos and dust.

Yet lately these thoughts scare me a little more than they comfort me. After all, God knew how my Grandma Ginny would die before she was even born, and it's not the ending I would've written. At all. While I'm not mad at God, and I'm certainly not going to pretend that I know better than He does, I'm a little confused. I know in my head that he calls his own back to him, and he does it in a way that can only glorify him, but I feel like we haven't seen the end of my grandma's story yet. Something in this has yet to come to fruition, though I do love the glimpses I've had so far. God has been gracious.

Hows this for a jumbled post? Basically, sometimes in the thick of it, when the past is known and the future is scary, it's good to know that God's promises are still true. When he says he will "provide for those who grieve in Zion-- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor," he WILL do it (Isaiah 61:3).