19 Weeks! (Almost)

Last week was a doozy but thank goodness for 2nd trimester energy! We did a full daycare day- more on that in another post... because yeah, Manhattan is an insane place and you have to, I also had a routine doctors appointment and my sister came into town! We also received some bad news then some good news regarding the Babymoon trip, hung out at Home Depot on Saturday designing our new kitchen for the renovation and I am officially dubbing myself the ultimate frugal-chic-mama-to-be for my excellent skills in locating gently used items from my registry through my Mama's Classified Group!

So, lets start from the beginning. A couple weeks ago I went to lunch with another Manhattan Mom who introduced me to her Mama's group- called HRP Mamas. It's a group support system that requires registration, approval and a referral, but allows Lower Manhattan Moms (i.e. ME!!!) to ask questions, set -up play dates organized by kiddos ages, gives info on different child friendly activities and venues (especially looking forward to the Mommy and Me matinee movies at local movie theaters while I'm on maternity leave), has referral lists for daycares/nanny's, pediatricians, OB/GYNs, etc and has a classified group as well. Through this group I've already located our pediatrician (pending in person approval) and managed to snag the bottle warmer that was on my registry as well as the now out-of-stock swing that's on my registry too! I'm trying limit myself to only things I'll need that are already on my registry but I'm hoping to maybe see a fantastic deal on some big ticket stuff (fingers crossed for someone to sell the stroller I want!). Of course there are some things I just want to be brand new, but anywhere where I can be frugal helps (because these babies are EXPENSIVE! Especially in Manhattan!).

Baby Knees! Possibly a hand too!
3/22/13- 18 weeks and 3 days

And... this past Friday I had a great appointment with my OB. I'd been a little worried since B had been on the quiet side as of late, but this put all those fears and more to rest. B was very active (Dr even commented on it), I saw little baby feet (!!!), a hand and got an interesting picture of B's knees with his/her ankles crossed. Dr. didn't even mention us declining the amnio, but instead went over the n/t scan results. B has a 1/10,000 chance of having Down's Syndrome or Trisomy 18 and a 1/6,700 chance of having spina bifida- and those results she said they consider negative (as in not a chance). So great news on that front! And on Saturday I felt my very first baby kicks, though Bill couldn't feel them yet. It'll just get stronger from here though so soon enough.

So now, babymoon. Everything was all-set, this-close to booking and I got word that Cayman Airways doesn't allow pregnant women past 32 weeks to fly. And I'd be 33. Well, fair enough, and totally understandable (and a BIG sigh of relief from my Mom) but it set back all our plans and made me cranky for 1/2 a day. So Bill brought up the idea of driving to North Fork or Cape Cod for a long weekend and I refocused my energy on that. Low and behold, I found an amazing looking place in Falmouth on the Cape, right next to the ocean, and booked it up! I'll be 35 weeks so I didn't even bother to look past the inn (and the view) as to other things to do, but we'll have a beautiful room overlooking the ocean with a nice balcony and a very short walk across the road to the beach. We'll also have a car to get around which will make it a lot more pleasant and one less thing to worry about if anything comes up where we need to get to hospital asap.

What else... well, my sister came to town and we had a great weekend together! We also sat down with our designer at Home Depot and came up with some first pass plans for our big kitchen renovation (pics below),  and of course the big day care day... which I'll make into another post because *sigh* that was a big day and of course, a big decision. Also, NYC is kinda insane with this daycare stuff. But more on that later.    

The wood will actually be darker and the counters will be an almond
colored silestone but you get the basic idea