37 Weeks - Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'll be 37 weeks!! It's been my aim to get to 37 weeks and it's a good feeling to finally get there. I had an ultrasound on Wednesday and all is going well with Bubba. Bubba is 2.7kg and all the measurements indicate that he/she's growing well. The fluid has increased slightly again. It's now up to 11 (they have a 'normal' range from 5 - 25). Unfortunately, Bubba is still breech and will be, probably, staying like that. So, looks like I'll be getting cut open in the not too distant future. I'm not too happy about that, but at the end of the day, I just want a healthy baby.

A Blanket for Bubba

Once I began maternity leave, I decided that I needed a project to keep me entertained. I decided to knit a blanket for the baby. I finished it today. It was surprisingly easy to make. All those years of knitting scarves has paid off!

Here's a couple of photos of the finished product.

As you can see, I had to go for the neutral baby colours as we don't know Bubba's gender.

The teddy bear was a present from a student.

I've got the baby's cradle all ready now, which is pretty much the only thing that is ready for the baby. The baby's room is still full of junk. We haven't got a pram or car seat yet. As long as the baby doesn't come early, we should get ourselves organised in time (famous last words!).

Belly Buddies

We caught up with Mike and Katie last week. While we had the opportunity, Katie and I had some photos taken together with our "big" bellies. Katie is due a week before me - I'm a bit over 35 weeks and Katie's a bit over 36 weeks.

Here we are comparing our bellies.

35 Weeks

Here I am at 35 weeks. I'm slowly getting bigger. Bubba is growing really well and the fluid has increased, which is a relief. The only problem is that Bubba is in a 'frank' breech (bum down, feet up near its head) position - naughty baby!

A New Skill

Part of Dave's new role at work, being a Clinical Assistant, is sewing up people, otherwise known as suturing. After his first day, he came home with a slab of pig's skin to practise his newly skill. He also taught me how to do it as well.

Here's a closer look at our handiwork - mine's on the left.

Here's Dave, refining his work.

Laying the Floorboards

The next big job that we had to do was to lay down the floating floorboards. This was a huge job and it took Dave a few weeks to do the whole house (he was also working at the time and he was supposed to be studying as well!).

Here's the living room before the floorboards were laid.

Phil was our resident expert on laying floorboards, so he came over to show Dave how to lay the floorboards. Our friend, Paul, also came over to help. They had to measure and cut the underlay first (the blue stuff). They've just started to lay the floorboards in this photo.

Here they are making progress. As you can see, they worked into the early evening.

Here's Phil directing Dave and Paul, offering guidance when he wasn't otherwise distracted.

Paul came over the next day to help Dave again - what a champ!

It was quite fiddly maneuvering the floorboards around the doors.

Dave finally finished the job about 4 weeks ago; he's such a trooper. Now we just have to finish painting the skirting boards and put them back so that the house is no longer cold. We also need to put the doors back on - the job's are never ending...

Renovations

After the wall in the living area was removed, we were able to start painting the rest of the house.

Here's Dave cutting in around the kitchen.

Mum and dad came over to lend a hand painting the ceiling and window frames.

The lighting's not very good, but you can get an idea of the end product.
The colour of the walls are 'Hogbristle'.