Yay for new work hours

This morning in our weekly company meeting, my boss announced that we are changing our hours, effective today. We will be working 8am until 4:30pm with a half hour lunch (as opposed to 8am to 5pm with an hour lunch). We are still welcome to work the old hours any day that we need an hour for lunch. On Mondays for the next 6 weeks, I am going to stay with the old hours since I have my prenatal pilates class at 5:15pm, so there is no point in me going home first. But, this means that on most days, I’ll be home by 5pm, which makes me really happy! That will also mean a half hour less per day I need to sit at my desk, which is good news for my aching back!

AC/DC put on an awesome show on Friday night!!! It was great! Saturday, the men worked hard on the renovation. The portico is almost done now. Probably as far as it’s going to get before winter. All that is left to be done is put some crown moulding around the inside to cover the gap between the ceiling and the beams, paint it, and brick around the front pillars (which Carlos’ dad is going to do). So, the painting and bricks will likely wait until the spring. But, everything else is done and it looks great! Check out Carlos’ blog for pictures.

The nursery is almost ready to be painted. Just needs a little more primer in a couple spots and then the painting can begin! I think Carlos will work on that some mornings this week and I have a sneaking suspicion he is going to try to get all the painting done by the time I get home on Saturday night from my weekend with nej and lj. Carlos won’t let me help with the painting because of the fumes, so he’s doing it all himself. What a guy! I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s all painted! Then we can start putting the furniture together. The only item that we are still waiting to arrive is the crib, and it’s supposed to get to our local Sears in about 2 weeks.

Saturday morning, I got myself all worked up. I hadn’t been feeling the baby move as much as I normally do, which had me worried. I was still feeling movements, they just weren’t nearly as frequent or intense as they had been. So, I googled “reduced fetal movements” and that was probably the worst thing I could have done because all these websites for stillbirth came up basically saying that usually before a baby dies, the mothers experience reduced fetal movements and to call your doctor if you are experiencing this right away, do not wait. So, I immediately burst into tears and was totally freaked out that something was wrong. Once I had calmed down a bit, I paged my midwife (they are available 24/7 for any major concerns). She called me back within 5 minutes and I explained what I had been feeling (or not feeling in this case). She asked me to drink a glass of cold water (to wake the baby up) and then lie down in a quiet room and count the movements. She said any movement counted, didn’t matter if it wasn’t as intense as normal, it could be that the baby is facing my back or something and I’m just not feeling them as intense as if the baby was kicking towards the front. She also said that later in pregnancy, the quality of movements usually changes since the baby has less room to move, so the kicks won’t be as intense. So, she asked me to count and then she’d call back to see how I was doing. She said 4 movements in a hour when the baby is awake is considered adequate. She did say that if we weren’t satisfied, we could go to the hospital for a non-stress test where I would be hooked up to a machine that measures the baby’s heart rate and movements.

So, when she called back, it had been about 40 minutes and I had felt 6 movements. So, she said that was lots and no reason to be concerned. The movements were very subtle, so I think what happened was I was just so busy on Friday that I didn’t notice the movements as much. But, lying down in a quiet room made me notice them much more. I felt very relieved after I had talked to the midwife. Since then, I have been noticing the kicks more, they are back to the ‘regular’ frequency and intensity. So, I think the baby just had a lazy couple of days or maybe the baby was in a different position for awhile. I am so thankful to have a midwife that takes such good care of me, even when I call her all panicked on a Saturday morning!