Doctor’s Appointment Report & 38 Week Belly Shot

I had my 38 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: gained .8 lb since last week (3.8 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 110/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: 144

My appointment was pretty uneventful, so there isn’t really much to report back (just the way I like it!). Baby is officially full term and now we just wait for her to be ready to come out!

In honor of Halloween tomorrow, Sim, Ana, and I decided to get a little creative with this week’s belly shot. Sim and I painted my belly like a pumpkin when I was pregnant with Ana, so it was only fair. Here is my 38 week (pumpkin) belly shot:



Ana thoroughly had a blast while we were painting our bellies, so make sure you check out all the pictures here.

Extreme Nesting: Roof & Door Edition

And the extreme nesting continues! Thankfully, this should be the last of it for quite some time.You can get some home ideas here to know how to decorate homes.I am DONE with home improvement projects. For this last portion, Sim was in L.A. so I was left to coordinate all the workers (all the while getting Ana and I to all our various other commitments), as well as handle all the miscellaneous tasks that needed to be done before and after. Let me just tell you, cleaning up after worker men is exhausting. But the house sure looks snazzy! Amidst the whirlwind of tasks, there was still one last item on the list: the gutters. As part of the final touches, we decided to take the opportunity to install new gutter on house in Adelaide. The prospect of improved functionality and aesthetics made it a fitting end to our extensive home improvement journey.

The roof, before:

The roof, during:


The roof, after:

Some of the chaos during the process:


As part of the roof project, we also replaced the skylight in the kitchen. Here it is when once they removed the old one: (There aren’t any before or after pics because it all looks the exact same.)

Dining room sliding glass door, before:

Dining room sliding glass door, during:

Dining room sliding glass door, after:

All the pictures from the roof and sliding glass door replacement project are here.

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 37 Week Belly Shot

I had my 37 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: gained 1 lb since last week (3 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 104/71
Baby’s Heartbeat: 142

I got the results back from the Strep B test and it was positive. So, just like with Ana, I will have to have some antibiotics (for the baby, not for me) while I am in labor and stay in the hospital for at least 48 hours to be monitored. So nothing extreme and I’ve already been there before so I’m not worried. Otherwise, everything at my appointment was nice and normal. Baby Hadley is growing right on schedule and everything looks great.

Sim is going to be out of town for the next few days at a conference in LA, so he is insisting I take it super easy while he is away so I don’t accidentally bring on labor. He’s asked me not to workout, go for long walks around the mall but permitted to do carpet cleaning around the house with the help of an expert.I think I can handle it. Ana and I will find some nice leisurely activities to keep us busy and close to home. But, in the event that Hadley decides to make a surprise appearance, I have several friends on stand-by. So all my bases are covered.

But I’m still keeping my fingers (and legs!) crossed… just in case.

Here is my 37 week belly shot:


Then Ana wanted to be in the picture.

And she didn’t want Sim to be left out, so Ana took one with him and I.

36 Week Belly Shot

36 weeks? How am I that far along already? I don’t feel uncomfortably huge (unless of course I am trying to tie my shoes or pick something up off the floor) so sometimes it really sneaks up on me that I am already so close to my due date. A couple days ago I felt like the baby was sitting pretty low and I could actually breathe for awhile. Granted, I felt like I needed to pee almost constantly, but there was also a little break from the heartburn, which was nice. But today she feels like she is back up in my ribs. So the Tums are once again my constant companion. I don’t know if it’s just been four years since I was pregnant with Ana, but I don’t remember her moving around as much as Hadley. I have felt some serious kicks and jabs that practically take my breath away (not that I need any help with breathing issues). This baby stretches and moves around so much, all I can do is sit back and marvel at how strong she is. The other night, Sim was feeling some of her mightier movements and he had a moment of panic that maybe this baby wasn’t going to be all easy going and sweet like Ana was as a baby. It was funny for him to realize that Hadley is going to be her own person and we have no idea who that person is going to be. But she will be here soon enough and we just can’t wait to meet her!

Anyway, here is my 36 week belly shot:

As always, any pictures of Baby Bateman 2.0 will be collected here.

Doctor’s Appointment Report

I had my 35/36 week doctor’s appointment today and have this to report back:

Weight: down 1 lb since last month (2 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 110/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: 169 (she was being very active today!)

At my appointment today my doctor did the test for Strep B. I tested positive with Ana (it only meant they gave me a course of antibiotics while I was in labor before she was born) so I had assumed that meant I would have it again, but my doctor said that’s not the case. Some people have it at certain times, but just because I had it before does not mean I will necessarily have it again. Good to know. So we shall see how that test goes.

As with every appointment, my doctor measured me and confirmed that baby is growing right on schedule. So despite my obvious lack of weight gain (two pounds? Woohoo!), she is not at all worried. While she was pressing around on my stomach I asked her if she could tell if baby was head down or not. She pressed a little more and said with 90% confidence (short of doing an ultrasound) baby was, in fact, head down. That made me feel a lot better because at my last appt the doctor I saw thought her head was up. While, yes, she could have flipped in the last couple weeks, I have been pretty sure she was head down. I am constantly feeling what can only be feet and knees kicking and stretching me in every which way just under my ribs. So it was nice to confirm what I was thinking all along.

I start seeing my doctor every week now which just reminds me that this pregnancy has gone far too quickly. Plus I have this application on my iPhone that keeps telling me scary things like “4 weeks and 4 days until your due date” or “full term on October 24th.”

iPhone App Screen Shot

Extreme Nesting: Window Edition

We bought our home in January of 2003, almost eight years ago, and have done very little home improvements on the house. It was built in 1992, so it’s starting to show it’s age. All of the cheap building materials they used to mass produce houses in the 90’s were reaching their limits and we finally decided to do some major improvements. We started the research, estimates, and quotes process at the beginning of the summer but with the imminent arrival of Baby Bateman 2.0 we suddenly had the urgency we needed to Get. Things. Done.

We prioritized the things that needed to be done, and that we could afford to do, this year: replace the aluminum windows and redo the roof. The windows were the first project to come together.

The front of our house, before:

The front of our house, after:

Ana’s room, before:

Ana’s room, during:

Ana’s room, after:

The nursery, before:

The nursery, during:

The nursery, after:

Our living room bay window, before:

Our living room bay window, during:

Our living room bay window, after:


Anyway, you get the idea. We replaced our crappy aluminum windows with triple pane composite windows that I LOVE. They are the kind that you can open in, so you can wash the outside of the windows from inside the house. They are amazing, fabulous, and beautiful.

Once the windows were done, we needed to touch up some of the paint (to cover caulk) so we decided to repaint the trim (and gutters) white to match the new windows. Luckily, Sim’s dad and brother were available (and skilled in this area) which kept Sim from having to scale the side of the house on his own.


We are still waiting for both of our sliding glass doors to be replaced. One arrived damaged and the other was the wrong size so they have them on a rush order. I’ll post pictures once those are installed.

Our next (and final, before baby arrives) extreme nesting project (Roof Edition) will happen in two weeks. Stay tuned!

All the pictures from the window replacement project are here.

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 34 Week Belly Shot

I had my 34 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: down 1 lb since last month (3 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 118/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: Normal, in the 140s

Not much to report back. I didn’t see my regular OB this week since she was on vacation, so the appointment was pretty brief. But everything is going great and right on schedule, so I can’t complain!

Here is my 34 week belly shot: