Well, my love, here we are– just one day shy of 40 weeks being pregnant with you! What a roller coaster this last trimester was! Most people describe me as “Type A,” but I have had no choice but to be humbled to go with the flow these last few months and trust that God would provide.
This summer we decided we wanted to hire someone to renovate our master bathroom before you were born. Our house was built in 1965 and both full baths were original to the house. We both hated our master bathroom– it was horribly claustrophobic gave off the vibes of an old high school locker room. By the time we got around to interviewing and selecting a contractor, the soonest we could get someone to take on the job was early October. We knew it would be tight, but figured it was worth it.
Living with a construction project at the end of the pregnant was rough! I ended up getting kicked out of the master bedroom once mold was found during demolition. Sleeping in the full-size guest bed with my big pregnancy pillow and your dad drove me nuts. Eventually he moved back into our bedroom so we could both sleep. Then there was the chaos of having bathroom stuff everywhere! The new vanity sat in front of the guest room closet forever and I was dying to get to the storage boxes with our baby things! That nesting urge is real!
When the project finally wrapped up at the end of October I was so happy to finally get a chance to decorate the new bathroom and unpack our baby things for you! But, of course then we were thrown another curveball. The bathroom was finished on a Thursday and Daniel went out of town that weekend for a wedding. He got home Sunday evening and I went to bed only to be awoken at midnight to “Kari, come help!” Water was pouring out of our master bathroom and into the bathroom. The hot water line exploded when Daniel took a shower– thank goodness he was home and awake to notice. Daniel swept into gear and turned off the water line for the house and then we got to business wet-vacuuming the bathroom and rescuing things to dry.
Unfortunately, the water began to leak through the floor upstairs into the basement so our contractor had to return the next week to repair the basement ceiling. Oh, I was so discouraged but also thankful the damage wasn’t worse and that our contractor was able to fix the ceiling and none of the new bathroom was destroyed!
While all that was happening at home, the day after construction began on the bathroom, I got hit by a school-aged driver while driving to work. The accident was nothing terrible– I got rear ended while I was stopped at a traffic light– and fortunately the baby and I were fine. However, the at-fault driver’s policy was horrendous to work with! While there wasn’t too much damage to my car, the “skid plate” got lose when I drove home from work that day, so I ended up having to share Daniel’s car until I got set up with a rental car. Then, it felt like everything that could go wrong did. I was assigned the slowest insurance agent on the planet. She dragged on so long, we assumed my car was totaled and ended up shopping for a new vehicle. Just when we were deciding between a Camry or a Hybrid Accord, we found out they would be paying for repairs once I found a body shop.
Of course none of the body shops could get me in right away and then the body shop I picked dragged on forever– they did one set of repairs only to realize more repairs were needed. I finally got called to pick up my car the day before Thanksgiving, only to see they didn’t fix the dent on the hood (caused by the accident) and the hood no longer lay flat. I had to assertively refuse to take the car back until more repairs were made. The accident was 10/3/23 and I didn’t pick up my car and turn in my rental until 12/1/23. The guy at Enterprise said I probably set a record!
But, it wasn’t all gloom and doom, we did manage to have some fun! We celebrated big sister Nadia turning three years old in October! We took our first overnight camping trip at Pocohontas State Park– that was a lot of fun and something we hope to try again this spring! We had plenty of fun trick-or-treating in the neighborhood for Halloween.
In November, we had a “Gender Guessing” party with family and friends where we put the Old Wives Tales to the test– ironically everything was split down the middle! Nadia is still hoping for baby sister, although she takes comfort in knowing some of her friends have brothers and they seem to be doing okay!
We had a very low-key Thanksgiving this year with “Grammy and Papa” and Aunt Jessica, Uncle Matt, and August. We felt very lucky to have family in town since it would have been very hard to travel or host visitors this year! Earlier that day we walked at Pony Pasture park and an older couple said “Oh my– you must be having the baby any day now!” To our relief you let us have a low-key weekend to decorate for Christmas and make sure that the hospital bag was packed!
This week I had a few rounds of Braxton Hicks contractions which made me pull out my copy of Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth. While I feel a little nervous, I mostly feel ready to meet you! If the last few months have taught me anything, I have learned that I am much more flexible than I thought. I think my mantra for this round of childbirth will be:
“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. – Christopher Robin”
