First time ever I saw your face

We had another round of ultrasound on Tuesday to check on the growth of the baby.  Once again, it was all good news - he's the right size and shape, and he's even flipped to be head down since the last ultrasound (which is how he should be at this point).  In some of the previous ultrasounds, the tech had a little trouble tracking him down inside Emily's belly.  Not this time though - it's ALL baby in there!

Profile view using 2D ultrasound... it's tough to get a good view of him this way anymore now that he's so big

The regular ultrasounds are nice, but next was the really cool part.  Since the tech was able to get through her checklist pretty quickly and the baby was lying in a cooperative position for a change, she decided to take a few minutes to use the 3D probe to try and get a real picture of the baby's face.  It turned out way better than I expected it to... so incredible to see his little face for the first time.

Check after the jump to get a sneak preview of Baby Boy Basque's handsome face!

Secretly Pregnant

She hides it well, doesn't she? :)

More Baby Facts

One of my favorite things about being pregnant is all the amazing things that are happening to my body and to the baby in such a short period of time. It just is astounding that there is a whole little person living inside me right now! He's about five pounds and is developed enough that he could be on the outside kicking his dad instead of on the inside kicking my bladder. It's better for him to stay tucked in my belly for the next 5 and a half weeks, but he's just putting the finishing touches on right now.

The Chicago Museum of Science has an interactive online exhibit where you can watch a video called Make Room for Baby that shows how the organs move and adjust in a mother's body for the baby. Definitely take a look - it's crazy how small the liver gets!

After the jump some cool facts about babies.

Stuffy Nose (Be Prepared for Complaints)

I'm finally getting over the first illness I've had during the pregnancy. On the surface it appeared to be a simple cold - but it was much more malevolent than that. My nose was so stuffy! I am not usually one to take anything when I am sick, but man I really wanted some NyQuil or Sudafed or _something_. Sleeping is hard enough with our huge baby wiggling around in my belly, but not being able to breathe adds a really not fun dimension to that.

I am certain that I got sick from standing in cold, dirty water all night Wednesday night and Saturday night. As a side note - Alan's post and pictures about Wednesday night's flood didn't quite convey the magnitude of water that was pouring from our ceiling. It was more water than the quantity of four showers and coming in anywhere within a 2 to 3 foot radius. We filled buckets in a minute and the sink couldn't keep up with the water we were dumping into it. Finally we just threw in the towel (forgive me) and made the levee in that picture Alan took.

These are the worst things about being sick this past week:

Breaking the fourth wall (5/3 - 5/12)

The reason the temperature and weather affected us so much this past week is because we're now getting to the point where they're tying in the new construction parts of the house into the existing original sections.  This means that areas that so far have been safe and untouched (the upstairs bathroom and the 1st floor living room in particular) are now starting to suffer some of the same violations that the master bedroom and kitchen already went through.

The start of the new second floor above the temp laundry room

Lots more pictures and details after the jump...

Well-deserved

It's not always as tough as this weekend has been.  This is a picture from earlier this month of Emily (and baby) enjoying some sunshine and quiet time, both of which have been far too rare lately.

Fixing a hole where the rain gets in

This has been the toughest couple of days of the house renovation process for us so far .  When the work on the new roof started the forecast was for a day of light rain and then a warm weekend.  As soon as things were opened up that changed to something much wetter and colder.  It's been 10-15 degrees colder than normal for this time of year and we had almost constant heavy rain.  The worst part was Friday night, when it rained steadily from early evening until late Saturday morning.  Larry set up a drainage system in the kitchen to funnel the water from the leak back outside, and that caught most of it.  But there was just too much water so it spread out into more areas than the drain could handle.  So we ended up with buckets all over the kitchen to catch the drips, and had to keep adding new containers and emptying the old ones throughout the night.  This is what we ended up with around 3am:

The biggest leak was dripping off the vent pipe over the stove, but fortunately that space was exactly the right size to fit our trash barrel which you can see wedged in there in this pic

When the levee breaks

Sorry this post took so long to go up... Blogger has been down for the past day or two. 

We had a bit of excitement last night in our normally uneventful life thanks to a large amount of rain and a small amount of roof.  Heavy rain was expected yesterday but the roof over the new back of the house isn't complete yet.  And in order to build the new roof shape they needed to tear off the back side of the original attic and the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom.  Larry told us yesterday morning that if they started on the roof that day it was likely that they wouldn't be able to finish so there was a chance we'd get some water in the house.  Figuring we could handle a little dripping here and there, we told him to go ahead with the roof so we could keep things moving.  And he was right... we did get some water:

More details and pictures after the fold...

Here comes the rain again

The night that a huge thunderstorm rolled through was a really bad time to not have a roof on the back of the house... more details (and pictures) tomorrow after we dry off and clean up a bit.

UPDATE: I had hoped to post more about the storm this morning but haven't had a chance yet and I'll be away from my desk for a few more hours.  I should be able to have a new post up by around 3pm Chicago time though.

Monitoring

On Monday we had our first Monitoring appointment. When they monitor the baby they use two disk-like amplifier things about the same size around as an apple, except thinner. They strap them around my belly with a big plastic band (putting some goop between the monitor and my skin) and then you can hear the baby's heartbeat on a speaker and it gets charted on a little printout like you see brain waves getting drawn in movies.

It was really cool to be able to hear his heart. It beats so fast! It was between 120 and 140 beats per minute and that was normal and good. (My pulse is around 80-90 I think.)

We have to be on the monitors at least once a week for 20-40 minutes every week from here on out and we'll do it before our weekly appointment. It's just a precaution to make sure everything is okay and the little guy is not in distress.

A Very Pregnant Morning

We had our last child birth class today. Now-parents who had previously taken the class come with their new babies and share birthing stories in the last class and there is general social time where current class attendees can talk about registries, concerns and just general life things. It was also a potluck, so we needed to bring food to share.

I had a recipe we used to make often for Raisin Bran muffins and had found another recipe for oatmeal muffins to try. Easy to make, transport and eat, so they seemed like a good potluck food. Making both for a taste test Sunday morning sounded perfect, then we could have them for breakfast and then bring them to the class that afternoon.

It was shaping up to be a great morning: I slept a ton (for a pregnant lady) and was feeling good. Plus Alan recently got me the "Beaches" soundtrack, which I used to have on tape and loved as a kid, so I could listen to it for the first time in years sing along while I cooked.

I was elbow deep in suds washing dishes to prep for the morning (everything is always coated in construction dust so we wash before _and_ after eating), I was singing and smiling and generally having fun. Then "Wind Beneath My Wings" came on. It was suddenly the saddest thing I'd ever heard and I started to sing and cry, and then laugh at myself for crying so hard at the song. That's when Alan walked into the kitchen. I'm not sure exactly what he thought, he just came up and gave me a big hug and let me cry on his shoulder for the duration of the song. Then a new song, nose blow and I was singing and smiling again. It was the fastest transition between insane crying and happy singing that anyone has ever had. Once the song was done I was completely fine... at least until replay had the song on again and I burst into tears, again.

I still managed to finish all of the baking. I'm not sure if this is evidence of 'nesting' or just my own personal insanity... I made FIVE DOZEN muffins. Then I took a nap.