a new house and a baby girl on the way

What a week!

By now you may have seen or heard that we have closed on our new house, and that we now know that our second baby is a girl. We are so happy the house is officially ours! Our contractor (not to mention realtor and friend), Alex already began some demo and other stuff yesterday. He has thirty days to get all the projects done. Today is asbestos removal, so we can't go to the house because it's unsafe. He said the people who remove it wear hazmat-type gear as the asbestos particles can be threatening. We are removing the asbestos because we are putting in new flooring in some parts of the house, and the floors need to be even to match the rest of the house. Once we can get into the house (sometime this weekend), I would like to take some "before" shots so that those of you who are into home improvement projects can join in watching the progress.

Tonight a guy from Renters Warehouse is coming over to look at our current place to help us assess how much we can expect to charge for rent. The next hurdle is finding good renters. We hope to find them on our own so that we don't have to pay one month's rent to Renters Warehouse in addition to a monthly fee...although I think even if we find renters ourselves, we still pay the monthly fee to RW.

We are thrilled to have another baby girl on the way. We really didn't have any inkling either way going into the ultrasound appointment, although I was starting to think boy (for no particular reason). At first the baby had her thighs closed together PLUS her arm and hand between her legs so the view was definitely blocked. The ultrasound tech said she would take the other pictures and keep checking back for the gender. I really liked our tech this time. She explained all the pictures she was taking. It was cool to see the spine, head, face, profile, foot (she said it was 3 cm long); to know how much she weighs (9 ounces); and that her kidneys were functioning (fluid in her bladder). She pressed down harder with the probe on my belly to get the baby to move, and finally we got a good look, and she told us we had a girl. Brett asked for probability (lol!) and she said 99%.

Tuesday Stella and I attended a play date for moms and their kids from our church. We met at a park in Deephaven, and it was fun to get to know some of the other women. We ate dinner later that day at my parents' house along with Brett and the other guys my dad leads in a book discussion group. I was feeling a little queasy, but I chalked it up to pregnancy and didn't think much of it. Mom and I took Stella to the park and for a quick visit to my grandma's house, and then Stella and I headed home. (Brett was still at my parents' for the book study). I felt progressively worse on the way home, and as soon as we arrived here, I put Stella down for bed. I paced back and forth and tried to convince myself that no, I will not be throwing up tonight. For some reason, I thought I could use mind over matter to stop my nausea. Nope. I proceeded to puke multiple times in a three or four-hour span of time (sorry for the grossness). I woke up again at 2:45 a.m. feeling like I had to puke again - I even stood in the bathroom for at least fifteen minutes, but was able to "talk" my stomach out of it that time. In the morning, seeing that I was in bad shape, Brett said he would stay home with me and take care of Stella. I was so relieved! It ended up being a really busy day for him watching Stella while staying on top of work e-mails, as well as fielding calls and taking care of last-minute details for the house closing which was the next day. It was pretty chaotic around here. 

This whole time I couldn't believe the crazy timing of my getting sick, and wondering if it was stomach flu or just a random incident. Would Brett and Stella get it, and would we have to end up postponing the closing and the ultrasound? Also, this is kind of funny, but I had broken blood vessels all over my face, and it looked like I was wearing hot pink eye shadow on my eyes and temples. Brett looked at me in the morning and said, "good thing you can wear makeup!" Ha! 

In the evening, Brett took Stella over to my parents' house to spend the night since our closing was scheduled for 7:30 in the morning, and it would have been too difficult logistically to get Stella ready and over to my parents' before that.

The next morning I still felt queasy and sore and so nervous for some reason. Thankfully the closing went off without a hitch. The ultrasound was a little uncomfortable because my stomach was still so tender from being sick (even the baby's movements didn't feel too good on my midsection ever since I was sick Tuesday night). I was also able to sleep while Stella napped, which helped tremendously. 

Even though Thursday was such an exciting and happy day, I was so happy when it was over! I feel SO much better physically today, and I'm happy to report that Brett and Stella aren't showing any signs of stomach-related sickness. Thank you, God! I also feel so happy knowing the gender now - it just helps psychologically to know and to be able to plan on certain things. 

After the ultrasound, Brett went into work, and I drove over to my parents' house to get Stella. Susie took the morning off because she wanted to be around when we found out the news. She had put Stella's hair in pigtails, and she looked so cute! She also brought a cute Gap onesie for the baby. When I got to my mom's house, Stella greeted me at the door holding the onesie and talking about her "little sister." I snapped these pictures of Stella stretching (she was trying to copy Susie). She reminded me so much of Boo from Monsters Inc., that I have been wanting to watch that ever since.

Well, that's it for now. I hope you all have a good weekend!