Eviction Notice and a House Update

Unfortunately there's no baby news to report yet.  The ultrasound at 38 weeks showed that our baby girl was a normal size and doing well.  The large fundal height measurement might just be due to the way that I'm carrying this time around and the midwife said we can basically ignore it now that we know baby is fine.  This is a relief as I was starting to get really worried about how big she was going to be.  I even started having dreams that she came out as a 6-month old rather than a newborn...  Either way, she has completely consumed my abdominal space and when she's active I feel as though my entire body has been overtaken by an alien.

Up until the last few days I haven't been too anxious to have this pregnancy over with but I think I am officially "ready" now.  I'm 2 days from my due date and feeling a lot of cramps, contractions and back aches - which can tend to get my hopes up.  But when I looked back at my end-of-pregnancy days with the other kids - specifically Keziah and Silas - I realized that these "false labour" symptoms went on for days and even weeks before they were actually born.  In Keziah's case she had to be induced at 9 days over.  So, I could still incubate this baby for a while yet.  I always said in my mind that having a July baby was not a likely possibility and so I fully expect to see my due date of August 1st come and go... sigh.

(No this is not my belly, but I saw this picture online today and thought it seemed appropriate...)

So with no news on the baby front, I figured it was high time to give an update on the house project.  After the very visible changes that happened during the framing stages, things have felt like they've come to a bit of a standstill.  But a lot of the internal parts have been coming together: plumbing, hvac and electrical - all necessary before the drywalling process can begin.

The roof is now shingled and the windows and doors are in.  Temporary railings have been put up around the deck for some added safety.

Part of the process has been tying the old house into the new house.  We needed to have an indoor connecting point between the 2 living spaces so it meant moving around some walls to create a door and hallway.  Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pictures of this area but it really looks quite different.  The white door in the picture below is Mom & Dad's back door leading into the bottom of their new house.  Keziah is standing in the newly formed hallway, which is in the original house and used to be made up of closets and bathroom space before the walls were moved.  The doorway Keziah is standing beside leads into what will be our downstairs bathroom.  By the end of the the workday today Erik and his dad had put in a new door in this hall to separate old house from new house (or the "wood house" as Silas refers to it).

If you take a few more steps back you can see some new walls that Erik has framed in.  The laundry was previously set up kind of awkwardly with the washer out in the "foyer" and the dryer tucked away in a corner of the bathroom.  Now Erik has started to create an actual laundry room, which we'll be able to close off with a bi-fold door.

And here's the view from the other end of the hallway.  Keziah is stepping inside of a closet and the next door leads into the bathroom.

The next big change will be seeing the drywall go up in the new house.  But hopefully before all that happens we will have some baby news to report.  So stay tuned folks.  She's gotta come out eventually!