A sigh of relief

The doctor in Columbus doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with the baby's renal system. The only abnormal thing he noted with the baby is a single-artery umbilical cord. Babies normally have 2 arteries and 1 vein in the umbilical cord, but missing an artery is a common problem. It can have adverse effects, but he didn't see anything to indicate that this is the case for us. Tom and I suspect it probably is related to the subchorionic hematoma I had early in the pregnancy. No matter; the baby seems to be healthy and well. They estimate her to be about 5.5 pounds, which would make her about 7.5 pounds when she's born. I'm going out on a limb and saying that's an underestimation by about a pound at least.

While the baby's stats are all in the normal ranges, my blood pressure is starting to creep up into the high territory. My regular doctor noticed this at my past few appointments, and the doctor in Columbus seemed even more concerned. He wants me to monitor my blood pressure at home to watch for preeclampsia. Even with close monitoring, I'm on strict orders to take it easy and not do any strenuous activities. I think I can handle that.

No house news...

And there might not be for the next couple of days. I had an ultrasound today, and the doctor found cysts on the baby's kidneys. We have to go up to Columbus tomorrow for another ultrasound and some tests with specialists. They will be better able to tell if the baby has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), which will determine if we deliver in Columbus or here in Portsmouth. The prognosis for PKD in infants is not good, so all prayers are duly appreciated. I'll give an update when we know something more definitive.

Baby's first 5k run

It was more like a 5k waddle for me, but I made it through without injury. The local college sponsors a 5k walk/run twice a year, and I try to participate when I can. I missed the one in the fall because I was still in doctor-prescribed "take it easy" mode. They did have a number of "special prizes," but "most pregnant" wasn't one of them. I admit that today my legs are sore and my feet are tender, but it is good to know that I can still walk 3 miles in about an hour. I didn't give birth in the middle of the race, either, so it was all-in-all a success.

In other news, we're just about ready for our big move-in at the end of the month. Well, construction-wise. We've got a sink, a toilet, a tub (though I need to give it a good scrub before I will bathe in it), temporary curtains, and a bed. We even hung the bedroom door and the bathroom chandelier.

This picture is misleading. The sink on the right leaked, so we had to take it apart again. It's still not back in place. I still need to hang the mirrors, too.

I still have a long way to go as far as packing up our apartment, though. Our landlord gave us a little extra time to move out, though, so I'm not too worried. He'll be out of the country and won't be able to do the typical between-tenant cleaning for a few weeks into May, so he gave us permission to stay if we need to. I think the plan is to try to get everything out of the apartment by next weekend with the exception of kitchen stuff. We still don't have a fridge or stove at the house, so having a place to prepare a meal will be nice.

Deal of the day, part 1

A trip to the local Goodwill the other day yielded my best thrifty find yet. For a mere $20, I scored an 8'x10' seagrass rug in near-perfect condition.

It's still a little bumpy from being rolled up, bent in half, and stuffed in the backseat of the car, but it'll smooth out soon. I'm not crazy about the red border, but it can be easily covered at a later time when "magazine-worthy" is the goal instead of "marginally habitable."

Mitered corners. Please excuse the grossness of the floor. Despite its appearance, it's actually relatively clean. Refinishing them is on the "eventually" portion of the to-do list.

A dishwasher and the attic

The dishwasher I mentioned got delivered today, but not without hassle. I was originally scheduled for a Monday morning delivery, but they called and said they wouldn't make it until about 12:30. No problem. The guy finally showed up around 1:30. As soon as the guy had pulled away, I realized that he'd delivered the wrong dishwasher. I called Lowe's and the delivery guy returned a little while later. Luckily the store had the right one in stock, so I finally got the right thing delivered today around 4 pm. He also gave me the necessary form for me to send in for my guv'ment rebate, which I promptly mailed.

Sometime during the dishwasher debacle, I had an appointment with the people who replaced our windows to see about doing the casements in the attic room. We wanted to wait to replace these, but the guys working up there accidentally cracked one of the window panes, and another one got blown out in a wind storm we had the other night. The window guy's trying to talk me out of doing replacement casements (because of how expensive they are), but I don't want to alter the look of the house too much. These tiny little windows (about 15"x30") are going to run about $400 each. Ouch. And apparently we'll have to pay for the replacement for the window downstairs that got broken, since their warranty doesn't cover vandalism (even though the copy of the warranty I have says that they cover glass broken for "any reason"). I'll be honest - I cried (after he left). The though of spending $1400 on 4 small windows and one that I thought was covered under warranty was apparently just too much for my hormonal pregnant self to deal with today.

On a slightly happier note, I don't think I ever updated with pictures of the attic room, which actually looks like a room these days.

Again, I probably shouldn't stand on a ladder to take pictures.

It's not quite done with the mudding process. A couple of outside corners still need corner beads and mud, but that shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes a day. The guy that has been doing this work owns a gutter company, so he's outside doing gutter jobs when the weather cooperates. Unfortunately for us, the weather here has been pretty nice for the past couple of weeks. Another few days of this, and I'm going to just do it myself.

What's been happening

Since the last time I posted, we've gotten a few things done. First, I finished painting in the bathroom. We wanted to get this done so we wouldn't have to deal with painting behind fixtures. The top 2/3 is the same color as the bedroom walls. The bottom 1/3 is painted in a semigloss white. We're installing wainscot around the room, using the wall itself as the inset of the panels.

We also finished wiring outlets and switches and installed switch plates and outlet covers in all three rooms. And I hung the other vanity light.

Next, we installed a toilet. It went remarkably smoothly. The more time-consuming parts (installing the valve and flange) had already been done, so setting the toilet and getting it all in working order only took about an hour.

Fit for a king, even if it's not centered.

Sometime last week I put valves on the supply lines for the second sink, glued on the PVC-to-metal transition fitting for the drain, screwed on the flexible tubing, and attached the P-trap. The transition fitting was too deep for a standard box flange, so I had to stack two on top of each other. It looks kind of goofy, but it's much better than leaving the PVC exposed.


Then we were ready for sink installation. This unfortunately took the better part of 4 hours. We couldn't get the P-trap to stop leaking, so the plumbing got taken apart about 5 different times. Fortunately, Tom has an infinite amount of patience and was able to fix it long after I'd given up on it. We still don't know exactly what he did differently the last time, but (knock on wood) it doesn't leak anymore.

All it needs now is a mirror!

Hopefully the second sink won't take so long to install now that we're experts on pretty much everything that can go wrong with a pedestal sink installation.

Dishwasher deal

The government decided to offer rebates on Energy Star-rated appliances, to be administered by each individual state. The Ohio program started this week, and I plan on taking advantage of it. Here's the dishwasher we're getting:

Frigidaire FGHD2433 in white.

The MSRP is $549. That's not too bad for a nice dishwasher, but of course I won't be paying that. Lowe's has it for $404.10. Unfortunately, they're the cheapest place to get it. I say unfortunately because they have a 110% price match guarantee. If Sears beat them by only a penny, I'd be able to knock off another $40 of the price. Ah well. I'll get that 10% discount anyway, though, via a mover's coupon given to us by a friend. So we're down to $363.69.

But wait, there's more. Oh yeah, the government is giving us $100 back. $263.69. And even better, there's a manufacturer's rebate on the same product. $233.69 ($259 with tax) for a $549 appliance.

Ohio does require proof of recycling of an old appliance before they'll sign off on the rebate. Fortunately we have a friend with an old dishwasher just sitting in his garage that he wants to get rid of. And even more fortunately, Lowe's has free delivery and does the haul away and recycling confirmation for you. Now I just need to find a junker refrigerator so I can take advantage of the refrigerator rebate, too...