The Nursery

While I feel blessed with the opportunity and means to improve our late1940s home, dealing with the contractors/labors, the dust and debris, communication issues and how things do not operate on my time frame makes me feel a little overwhelmed since I have no place to nest and get ready for Baby D’s arrival. Thank goodness mom and dad are being so gracious and putting up with the two of us, our dogs, and all our stuff. We’ve managed to take over a bedroom, the dining room, part of Philip’s room, and their attic. Everything else is in the garage at what’s left of our house and in the POD (which is in our front yard—classy I know!)

I have managed to pick out nursery fabric; I’m just not sure when the nursery will actually be ready! Here's looking into the room that will become the nursery:



We are not going with a theme, it just isn’t our style. My mom is going to make the bumper pad, crib skirt, and curtains and we have a wonderful family friend that is going to make baby quilt. The fabric is called Ginger Blossom by Sandi Henderson.

Papa Smurf and a very Pregnant Smurfette

Here are some photos of Jason, Papa Smurf, and me, Pregnant Smurfette, in our award winning Halloween Costumes! Our dear friend April Hill celebrated her 30th Birthday with a Spook-tacular Halloween Inspired Birthday Party.



Here we have Elvis (David Cox), Priscilla Presley (April Hill, Birthday Girl), Kid Rock (Michael Helms), Kat Von D (Angie Helms), Smurfette (Amy) and Papa Smurf (Jason).

Newest member of the Dilocker Family

Congratulations to Jason’s cousin, Daniel, his wife Jessie and big sister Emma on the arrival of Benjamin Gregory Dilocker! Benjamin was born on Monday, October 20, 2008 at 9:35 am. He was 20 inches long and 7 pounds 3 ounces. Now the pressure is off us to carry on the Dilocker name! We are so excited for them and can’t wait to meet Benjamin (and see the rest of the family.)

Childbirth Class

So Jason and I survived childbirth class. The first class, was all about natural childbirth and showed plenty of videos of women crazy enough to give natural childbirth. After just one video I was convinced that I did’t want to be pregnant any longer and I there would be no way that I would be able to to give birth to Baby D! Jason said the noises that the women made not only scared grown men, but animals! I don’t know who was more afraid, me or him. Jason thinks all teenage boys should have to watch the videos we did and that would keep them from ever wanting to have sex! I told the guy at the hair salon about it and he thinks we would have an increase in the number of gay men as a result. The videos didn’t faze the guy in the class that already has two kids with other women. He was also the only one managed to eat during the videos.
So part of natural childbirth it to learn various coping strategies/stress relieving techniques. A few of them require that you lay down on the floor. I'm thinking, this is going to be interesting watching 10 huge pregnant women get down onto the floor and then back up once we are done. New Age music is playing softly in the back ground, you and your “partner” are spooning each other with your eyes closed while the childbirth educator is asking you to visualize that you are laying a field with the warm sun beaming down on you, your uterus is contracting while your cervix is getting thinner--I'm sure this is just what every guy in the room wants to be visualizing. While she continues to read, Jason whispers to me, “Is that your feet that I’m rubbing?” I respond, “Uh, No” as I start to bite my lip because I know I’m about to lose control and bust out laughing since its not my feet that he’s been playing footsie with. I can hear the panic in Jason’s voice as he tells me, “Oh my God, I was rubbing that guy’s head with my feet!” My entire body starts convulsing, tears streaming out of the corners of my eyes as I try to contain my laughter and not interrupt the class while they are trying to visualize their uterus contracting out of fear that we will be kicked out of childbirth class. Obviously we weren’t the only ones not being very good students, because someone started snoring half way through the exercise. You’ve never seen a pregnant woman hop up off the floor so fast to b-line for a bathroom!
The second class was much better--it showed women giving birth that were smart enough to use drugs! My mind is made up--give me the epidural!

4D Ultrasound

Here are some of the better photos that were taken at our 4D Ultrasound this morning. Baby D wasn’t interested in having her photo taken--majority of the time she kept her hands and feet up near her face. We were happy with the few shots we were able to get of her chubby cheeks. Only 12 weeks to go before we get to see her in person!

Major Life Events

It is a fact that certain life events can result in increased stress, can severely impact your health and overall happiness. I’m sure that some psychologist would love to ask us what in the world are you two thinking—having a baby, changing jobs, and remodeling a house all at once! How much more stress could one couple possibly take on? Our philosophy--why not do as much as you can at once, so you can get it over with! We are handling all this change surprisingly well. I'm sure this would push a Type A personality over the edge!

Baby
Had a follow up ultrasound on Friday, 19 Sept 08 to verify that Baby D is a girl since she wasn’t very cooperative the first time. We were able to see what we needed, so now I don’t need to worry about returning any of the pink stuff that I’ve already purchased! I’m scheduled for a 4D on Thursday morning. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some good pictures to share!

Changing Jobs
Jason started his new job today working on a research team for the new Hudson-Alpha Institute here in Huntsville. The building alone is impressive, not to mention the work that goes on inside it. He’ll be working on a research team that is headed up by Rick Myers, PhD, who came to Huntsville from Stanford to work on human genetics and genomics. According to Jason, he is "the man" when it comes to genomics and the human genome project. He is looking forward to this new and exciting opportunity. Its way too scientific for me, I’m just happy that he’ll be doing something that he loves and will be a great benefit to society.

Remodeling a House
We’ve been talking about remodeling our house ever since we moved in back in 2005. We absolutely love our neighborhood and can’t imagine moving anywhere else in town. We started working with an architect months ago on the plans and we finally have the final drawings! There has been lots of drama--architect dislocating a finger on his drawing hand, builders not returning phone calls when getting quotes, builders going on vacation, and getting a variance from the City’s Planning and Zoning Board—but we are one step closer to getting started.
Two Saturdays ago, we became the eye sore of the neighborhood by putting a POD in our yard. Jason assisted by our dear friend Tim and his teenage son, Corey, spent a Sunday afternoon loading it with some of our belongings so we can get ready for the construction crew to get started. Lucky for us, our neighbors are all wonderful and we can leave the POD in the yard until we move back into the house in December.
We have temporarily moved in with my parents who live 3.7 miles away. The builder told us if we could move out, he would be able to get the work done quicker since he wouldn’t have to work around us and have the remodel complete by the time Baby D arrives. Keep your fingers crossed! I'll post before and after photos once construction is complete.

Pink or Blue?!?

On Friday we learned that Baby D is a girl! We’ll we are about 90% sure that Baby D is a girl. She was being shy and had her legs crossed and pulled up so it was difficult to tell, but she did make a quick turn and Dr. Aguayo said she was able to see the necessary parts that indicate a girl. All we really care about is having a healthy baby, but I am excited that we'll be having a little girl! We will do another ultrasound to double check at my next visit in four weeks. I’m not sure if I can wait that long, so I’m going to call around to some of the imaging centers about having a 4D ultrasound done just to double check.

Dr. Aguayo said that she looks great! This ultrasound was amazing--we were able to see the chambers of the heart working, her bones, her fingers moving, etc... Jason and I were speechless (hard to believe I know!) Baby D currently weighs 1 lbs 3 oz so we may be a little head of schedule which means our due date may move up to December 18th instead of the 23rd.

Jason is already starting to worry about raising a daughter and having to deal with boys! Lucky for us, a lot of our friends that have daughters and will have to deal with this before we do, so we'll have lots of friends to turn to for advice!

Here are two photos from the ultrasound--you can kind of make out where her legs are crossed and pulled up.