Thursday, April 15, 2010

The First Big Thing and Girl Parts

Okay, it's the second, really, but the first first thing isn't working out so well.  What the heck am I talking about?  Baby stuff!  Yay!


A couple of months ago my niece gave us her old dresser.  It's the right color and size, and the style even works with the girls' room.  But my brother and his wife are heavy duty smokers.  We have had that dresser and all the drawers spread out over our patio on sunny days and wiped it down with vinegar five or six times.  The smell seemed to be gone well enough that we moved it upstairs to our loft.  Still didn't notice any bad aromas.  We had Mad's party and the big reveal on Sunday (more on that later), and put the drawers back into the dresser just for tidiness.  When I took my dad upstairs to show him Mad's "new bed" we stopped and took a whiff of the dresser.


I can barely smell anything, but as soon as we opened the drawer, I could smell that smell.  Ugh!  If anyone has a workable solution to get the stench out, I would love to hear it.  Plan B is to post wanted ads on Freecycle.org and hope we get a better dresser.


So what has supplanted the dresser as the first big thing?  We got the baby's mattress.  As we've learned more about being green (I'm proud to say we were green before green was cool... but embarrassed to say we're lazy... so maybe we're really teal? aqua?) and health conscious, we have learned about all the nasties that get put into crib mattresses.  So Mad has our family's first organic mattress.  And by organic, I don't mean the cotton cover is organic, but sprayed with chemical flame retardants.  I mean it's got an organic rubber core and cotton and wool padding and cover.  Wool is a natural flame retardant.


We love the mattress, but hated the whole process of getting it.  I found a website for a company based in Vermont, called and made the order.  The 2-3 weeks estimate for shipping turned into 10 weeks.  It almost didn't arrive before Madelyn!  And when it did arrive, it was folded in half in a box.


Even if that company were still in business, there's no way I'd send them my money again.  We found another company, EcoBaby Pure Rest, that not only manufactures their own mattresses, they have a showroom.  And they're in my hometown, San Diego!  I called to confirm that they had mattresses in stock, Nance and I made the drive and picked one up.  It's leaning against the wall in our living room right now.  Shipping is only $35, which is about what I spent in gas, but I was glad to have it in my hands immediately (okay, after about two and a half hours of driving).  The bonus of the day came when the sales guy, Victor, told me they give a 20% discount for coming to pick it up.  I saved $88.  Yay!


To make it less of a spent-the-whole-day-driving kind of day, we went over to the harbor and had a fabulous lunch at The Fish Market in an enclosed patio right over the water.  The only downside for me is that I haven't completely regained my taste buds from this pesky cold.


In other Baby Fynn news, I had the EKG done yesterday.  Her heart is strong and healthy.  Even though I have some minor heart things, she does not.  The doctor asked if I avoid caffeine.  I do, in part because of my own palpitations and mainly because who wants to have a hyper baby en utero?  Then he told us something we'd never heard before:  Caffeine during pregnancy is linked to babies developing skipped heartbeats, too.  Who knew?


After he was done checking out her heart, Doc spent a little time doing another ultrasound.  For part of it he switched to 4D.  I saw my daughter's face.  It felt like meeting her a little.  I can't wait to really be face to face with her.


And, causing me to think these ultrasound people are more than slightly obsessed with genitalia, he reconfirmed that we are having a girl.  The picture he printed is pretty grainy, so to be sure we didn't forget that we're having a girl, he typed "Vagina" and put three arrows pointing to it.  If that wasn't enough, he also typed a message in the corner.


JUST LIKE MOMMY!


Thanks, dude, for the picture I will never show (at least until she's, you know... annoying me around her friends or something).

4 comments:

Shannon said...

The ultrasound label is hilarious!!!!

Bossy Betty said...

Too bad about the dresser, but I would probably have that thing out on the curb, pronto.

Love the idea of an organic mattress! Can you imagine what our tender little baby bodies were placed on as infants? My early inhalation of chemical could probably explain A LOT of things!

Ummm...the doctor's note. Well, I could think of several retorts you could have shot back at him, but I'll let it go. I do think it is a little weird!

Glad to hear all is well in babyland! When is your due date?

Shan said...

So far she's due August 18th. The doctor at the big ultrasound a couple of weeks ago said the info she had only changed it by a couple of days, but she didn't say which way. And my doc didn't get the report, so he won't be able to make his final decision until next month's visit.

Rebecca said...

For real!? He wrote that on the ultrasound photo?!

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