We’ve reached 1 month! The time has gone by so quickly, which is amazing and sad. It’s amazing that we’ve already gone a month, and how much Gizmo has changed. He’s gained so much weight, almost 1.5 pounds. He’s also outgrown some of his newborn size cloths. It’s also sad because it’s a realization of his quickly time flies. In no time Gizmo will be a walking, talking and a regular old toddler. It’s just a reminder that we need to pay attention to every day and cherish everything. Paying attention every day is going to be hard since I have to go back to work on Monday. I am not looking forward to that. At all. Unfortunately it’s a necessary evil. This week has been good, but lacking some sleep. We are finally free of house guests and can get back to figuring out our own schedule and how to make this thing happen. First thing we need to do is get Gizmo to change his sleeping pattern. At the moment he lies to sleep a lot during the day and stay awake at night. If we were taking more day naps then this might not be as much of a problem as it is. Another part of the issue is that when we put Gizmo down into his bed he wakes up. That’s not the best way to get a good nights sleep. On Monday we went and picked up Gizmo’s birth certificate from city hall! He’s now official! It was Gizmo’s first T ride, and first big outing which was fun. It was also his first snow!

Another week very much like the previous. We still have T’s parents, and her sister, visiting. Gizmo continues to gain weight, which is awesome. He also continues to hurt T when she breastfeeds him, so we continue to go to the breastfeeding support groups. There is one that we go to which is great, the woman who runs it is very nice and helpful, and the other moms that go to the group are a-okay with me being there. This week there was even another couple at the group. Gizmo is starting to fill out a lot, his little feet are puffier and cute. His eyes are starting to be open more and more. He likes looking at bright spots on the ceilings and walls, also windows. Every day we continue to fall a little more in love with the little guy.

And there goes the second week! Very much like the first, but with the addition of T’s sister, Gizmo’s aunt. We’ve continued to go to breastfeeding support groups, though one of them doesn’t allow male partners to attend. That doesn’t make any sense to me… a partner should be able to attend, even if they are male. We’ve been getting more used to having a little one around the house. We’ve decided on a schedule for me and T. T deals with Gizmo during the night, and I sleep more. During the day I take more of the Gizmo work and T is supposed to sleep more. It’s hard to change a schedule to sleep more during the day, so T is having some issues taking naps. Well, enough naps that is. Gizmo is darn cute and is only getting cuter every day. It’s amazing having a little one around the house.

1 week! We’ve had Gizmo in our lives for one week! It’s amazing to think about that. It’s also amazing how fast the week went, but also how the birth feels so far away. Just a reminder that time moves quickly. This week started off with a couple nights in the hospital where we were monitored constantly. Nurses would come in and give pain medication, check on Gizmo, and take notes. Gizmo got to meet one set of grandparents, mine, and his aunt. Everybody loves the little guy! Our first night home, after midnight, we noticed something orangish in Gizmo’s diaper… This was alarming, so we called the doctors office. They said that it was normal, uric crystals, and not to worry. Seeing something orangish, almost reddish, in your newborns diaper is worrying, both T and i wish that somebody at the hospital would have mentioned that this might happen. Anyways, we went in to meet with the weekend pediatrician the next morning and had Gizmo checked out. Everything was fine, and he was even gaining weight! A coupe days later T’s parents showed up for a visit. It is nice having grandparents around to help, though I feel a little jealous of Gizmo spending time with other people so much. That seems normal to me though. We have another appointment with Gizmo’s actual pediatrician on Thursday. Hopefully things will be continuing towards good.

Today is the due date! It’s also the birthday of Gizmo!

Over the weekend tea and I went to a prenatal couples yoga class, which was good. It was an abbreviated version of the Bradley method class with some yoga stuff mixed in.it was nice to be at but didn’t help anything along with the pregnancy.

On Tuesday we had another doctors appointment. The doctor checked to make sure that Gizmo was in the correct position, and it was. They also checked T to see if any dilation was going on, and sadly none was. After the appointment T broke down because she was ready for things to start.

Very early Wednesday morning T’s water broke, which started our adventure. We both woke up, because this was exciting, and were ready for next steps. T started to notice brown/yellow in the amniotic fluid so we called the doctors. They said that we should come into the hospital to get checked out, so we drove there around 4am. After we got there they checked out T and found that Gizmo had pooped meconium while still inside. That’s not ideal so they wanted us to stay at the hospital for monitoring. That was the start of a long day. I won’t go into too much details, but not much happened until late Wednesday evening. Soon after midnight on Thursday things started to roll and finally Gizmo was born on the due date!

The delivery went 98% as we wanted it, which was awesome. Now we head to the postpartum wing to recoup and get to know our little one.

Were both very excited and happy to have Gizmo on the outside.

Boy, it feels like it’s taken a long time to get here. We’re almost at the to the end! The end being when Gizmo comes, not 40 weeks, though being at 40 weeks will feel good too. The doctors will induce the pregnancy if we get to ten days after our due date, so something has to happen soon.

We had another doctors appointment this week. Everything is still going good. They checked Gizmos head position, and he’s still head down.

One more week to our due date!

We’re at 38 weeks, and Thanksgiving, wooh!

This has been a week! We start our weekly appointments this week, so we had one on Tuesday. Everything is going good with Gizmo. There is a strong heartbeat and lots of movement. Also, Gizmo is already in the correct position, so that’s good.

Over the weekend we took a trip up to New Hampshire to get a ton of Lindt Truffles for the delivery room. When we went to the Meet The Doctors one of them said that they love chocolate, so we thought a good thing to have in the delivery room would be truffles. I think we bought about 300 of them… though not all of them are for the hospital. Some are also for gifts and the holidays.

This next week looks to be good. We have two doctors appointments on Tuesday, and one of them is an ultrasound! It will be great to se Gizmo again!

Well, today we are at 37 weeks! Seems like this used to be ‘at term’ in the past, but I am seeing things online saying that 39–41 weeks is 'at term’.  I like thinking that Gizmo could come nay day now. It certainly feels like Gizmo could. T is big and uncomfortable and lots of movement is coming from her belly.

On Tuesday we had a doctors appointment where things went as usual. We were able to hear Gizmo’s heartbeat… and we got a surprise ultrasound! The doctor wanted to check Gizmo's position, which was correct. butt up, feet down. We got a good view of Gizmo’s mouth and nose. There was a lot of movement, so it was hard to see much else.

We also visited a child care place nearby our house. That was a first for both of us. It felt odd seeing a place that we won’t be able to use for several months, but we need to find one now I suppose. This place wasn’t bad, but it’s our first one, so we need to see more in order to make a good decision.

T has been going through all the baby clothes we have. We need to figure out what exactly we have and what we need. We also need to do that with diaper stuff and feeding stuff.

Not much else this week, but that’s kind of a lot anyways.

Wow, 36 weeks! No time at all left! Both T and I are ready for Gizmo. Both of us want to meet this thing that has been growing inside of T for so long. T has the added bonus of feeling extra uncomfortable these days. That makes her extra ready for Gizmo to arrive. 

This was a pretty typical week with not a lot going on. Only a couple things of note. T came back from her grandfathers funeral service on Monday. Both of us were nervous about the trip because flying at 35 weeks sounds sketchy. I was nervous that something would happen while she was away and I would miss the birth. Nothing bad happened. She is back home safe and sound and Gizmo is still cooking. 

This morning we met with a pediatrician. It was a meet and greet so she knows us and we know her and so once Gizmo arrives we have somebody to look after them. We both liked her, so I think we’ve found our pediatrician. 

Oh, I almost forgot. We met with a financial advisor also. We could use some help with savings plans for Gizmo and our future, so it will be good to have somebody for that. 

T and I had looked for a co-sleeper we could purchase, but with a low bed, and wide boards on the side of our bed, we weren’t able to find a good one. I thought it would be easy to make one, so I asked my dad for help with that. Really he made it and I just helped him. He is way more of a woodworker than I am. So, a few weeks ago when my parents were at our house he and I took some measurements of the bed so he could draw up some plans for the co-sleeper. We just need a platform that attaches to the bed and has a couple legs, nothing too difficult. Grandpa M, of course, made some great plans. So, yesterday Grandpa M and I made a bunch of measurements, a bunch of cuts, a bunch of hammering and a bunch of sanding. In several hours we had a lovely co-sleeper!

Two big boards will supply almost all the wood we need.

The first pieces cut from the boards, the side walls.

The sides attached to the back.

All put together minus the front lip that will hold it to our bed.

The front lip has been attached. Next up, round the front corners and sand it.

Front corners have been rounded and the whole thing has been sanded.

That’s it. Pretty simple, but pretty awesome. It’s going to look great after it gets painted, which Grandpa M is going to do. It’s going to be a nice mid-tone grey which will go nicely with the black bed, and the grey nursery we have set up even though it won’t go in the nursery… I have to make a mattress for it since it’s, most likely, not a normal size. A quick trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics for some cloth and some foam should do the trick. Then I just need to sew it all up. I figure that it should take me a day to make.

Another slow week on the Gizmo news front. But, it’s 35 weeks! We can count the number of weeks left, if we go strictly by the due date, on one hand! I’m guessing that Gizmo will come a little late.

T is feeling extra big lately, and we can definitely see Gizmo moving in her belly, so much so that you don’t need to be looking directly at her belly. I noticed some out of the corner of my eye the other day while we were on the couch.

We had a doctors appointment this week where we got to hear Gizmo’s heartbeat again. It’s slowed down from it’s usual of ~140bpm to ~125bpm. The doctor said that was great, and I took to mean that Gizmo is getting bigger so it’s heartbeat is slowing down a little.

This weekend I will be heading to my parents so I can make a co-sleeper with my dad, or Grandpa M.

So T pointed something out this week… we have been counting the weeks based on our original due date of 12/14. So all these posts on Mondays were off by four days which is why this post is on a Thursday. Our new due date is 12/10 which is a Thursday… so we quickly gained another week this week!

This being such a short amount of the from the last weekly post there isn’t much to talk about that’s new except that we’re getting darn close to finally seeing Gizmo. The more I think about it the more excited I get!

One more week with not a lot of new stuff. I suppose that these will become more of the norm as we get closer. It’s just a waiting game now. T will continue to get bigger as Gizmo grows, and movements will get more drastic as Gizmo grows bigger and womb space gets limited.

T and I will continue to get the house and nursery ready for the new arrival. I am feeling like the nursery is ready. I just feel like some slimming down on the rest of the house needs to happen. We need less things in the way and around. Less things in the way so when we are carrying Gizmo around we don’t have to bump into stuff. Less around so we have less to clean/move when we need emergency space for Gizmo, diapers, bottles, or whatever.

On a side note, T has been going swimming at a local pool, which she has been enjoying quite a bit.

This week, again, was a lot like other weeks lately. Not a lot new going on. We had our last Bradley Method Class on Thursday. It will be sad to not have other pregnant people in our lives. Well, not sad, but it was nice to have a connection to other pregnant couples. One of the other people in the class actually were having contractions on Thursday so she wasn’t at the last class. We are the second to last couple to give birth, based on due dates. The last couple’s due date was 12/31 I believe.

Gizmo is moving around quite a bit these days. It’s still nice to feel Gizmo move around in T’s belly.

We’ve been working hard on the nursery and things are coming together nicely. The closer we get the more real it feels.

Counting down one more week! We’re almost to the finish line!

We had a doctors appointment this week where we got the hear Gizmo's heartbeat again, which is always a nice sound. We also had two Bradley classes this week. Only one more class and we are done. It will be nice to have our Thursday evenings back, but kind of sad because we will lose our one baby-centric thing right now. I imagine we will find other things that will introduce us to pregnant couples. If we don’t we are doing something wrong. Perhaps we can check, I hate to say it, Facebook for some local group. I’ll have to do some checking.

We received the new mattress for the crib and it fits much better. Also started looking at changing tables, but none are great. It seems like T and I want something about 36" high and wider than the changing pad so we can put some changing table stuff on it, but finding something that meets those requirements is more difficult than I would have thought. Something will show up in our searches, something will have to because we will have to change this kid quite a bit.