Annapolis Anxiety

Monday, December 5

We meet with the perinatologist (maternal fetal medicine specialist)up here. She is a direct referral from my doctor in Charlotte. In fact, my Charlotte doctor trained her so I know I'll be in good hands.

We talked through my chart and she told me there was no way she would let me carry this baby to 40 weeks. She said 39 is the absolute latest she'll let him hibernate. That is a little disappointing because I was really hoping to go full term selfishly so I can get paid maternity leave.

My official start date at work is March 11 since I worked as a contractor for four months prior. So, the closer to my anniversary date that I can deliver, the more likely I'll be to get paid leave.

Oh well, our health is more important than money....

They ended up doing an ultrasound! It was great to see him but always scary. The doctor said he still looks great and he's in the 54th percentile for weight. Perfect! There's a high risk for diabetics to deliver big babies so we definitely want to keep his weight (and mine!) down.

Aubrey worked from home the rest of the day and spent the afternoon on the phone with work and doing stuff around the house since he leaves for Arkansas for a duck hunting trip at 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

At least he brings Molly home next week when he returns!!

Tuesday, December 6

I've been running water tests all day.

I filled a large white mixing bowl with kitchen water. Looks good.

I ran an empty load in the washing machine to clear out the pipes and then ran a load of white cleaning towels (NOT the ones we use in the bathrooms). Looks good.

So, maybe the water situation is fixed?

The cable guy is here now drilling cable lines into the den and basement/media room.

We still have no ice and there's a hole in the guest room.

Baby steps.

Annapolis Bound, Part Four

Monday, November 28

Moving truck arrives around 10 a.m. I stand at front door directing movers on where to put things. For five hours.

I start to notice that the water is the house is discolored and smelly. I know we're on a well, but was told that we shouldn't be able to tell a difference in the quality of water.

I also notice that the ice maker doesn't work. Neither does the kitchen sink disposal nor does the over headlight in the master bedroom and there is an "open" hole in the guest room ceiling where the smoke detector should be. And there's jumping crickets in the basement.

I throw a load of towels in the wash. BIG mistake.

They come out rust stained.

Tuesday, November 29

Aubrey and I go back to work. My in-laws stay at the house to keep unpacking and cleaning. My father-in-law paints the nursery for us. It's my favorite room in the house. It's clean. No boxes. Beautiful paint.

Cpmcast comes to set up cable, phone and Internet. It takes the guy two hours just to find the lines. The house has been completed so poorly that he's not sure he can make any of it work. Three hours later we have Internet and cable in my office and bedroom. He can't drill any cable access points for the TVs in the den and basement because we don't have a signed, written letter from our landlord saying it's okay to drill. He leaves.

The water is worse. It smells like you're taking a shower in liquid metal. The white sink, tub and toilet basins are starting to yellow making the house look dirtier.

We call the landlord to complain and he calls water company. They tell us to run the water for one hour to see if that will help.

We do it. No improvement.

Wednesday, November 30

Aubrey's parents stay and continue carting stuff up and down our two sets of stairs and organizing our storage shed and hanging pictures. We literally could not have gotten this far without both sets of parents help. At this point, I'm hurting. A lot. I vow to make myself sit down more today.

They have to leave this afternoon to get back to Richmond so my mother in law changes the sheets on the guest bed and cleans the guest bathroom so I don't have to before my mother arrives this week. She also scrubbed the entire basement (including yucky bathroom)!

They leave after dinner and D.C. traffic and vow to come back soon to help more.

Thursday, December 1

We meet my Baltimore OB-GYN. I really like her and am excited that she'll be delivering Crawford. I warn her of my fear of pain.

The water company comes out to evaluate the conditioning system in the house. His reaction is that our water levels are all over the place. No s&%t Sherlock. He says he does some treatments to improve the quality but the water is safe to drink. I point to my ever-growing belly and inform him that I am NOT drinking yellow, smelly water.

He tells me to wait and see what it looks like on Tuesday. FOUR days later.

We buy more ice.

Friday, December 2

We decide we need some fun and go get our Christmas tree.

Saturday, December 3

Aubrey has to work and I have my first Junior League of Annapolis function. It's so fun to put on make-up and talk about something else besides yucky water. I really like all the ladies I met and can't wait to get involved.

We decorate tree and finish unpacking den and kitchen. Aubrey runs three million boxes to the trash and storage containers to the shed.

Sunday, December 4

We spend $40 and three hours at the laundromat. There's no way I'm washing our clothes in the water here. Who knew doing laundry was so expensive??? I kept watching familiesbringing in double what we had and had to refrain from yelling out how much they were spending a year at the laundromat and they could just buy a washer and dryer for that cost....

I meet a sweet older lady who is appalled at the state of my towels. She suggests I scrub them with lemon juice and then wash them again. Since the whole load was from Pottery Barn and cost a bit of money, I'm willing to try anything.

We leave the laundromat and head to the grocery store where we purchase groceries including 10 gallons of filtered watered and three large bottles of lemon juice.

I spend one hour in our future son's bathroom (only bathroom with a tub) scrubbing iron stains out of our towels with lemon juice. 6 months and three weeks pregnant.

Annapolis Bound, Part Three

Saturday, November 26
Aubrey, Max and I get up early and head to Charlotte. We arrive at Land Rover Charlotte around 10 a.m. Car is ready. We unload ENTIRE minivan (plus Max) into my car and start off again.

Brake light and beep comes back on.

At this point, all I can do is laugh. If I didn't, I would have to break down and they would have to admit me.

Apparently, the front brakes were worse than they thought. We turn around (not really out of parking lot yet). Land Rover Charlotte promises to have them fixed in one and a half hours. So we pack up dog and laptops back into minivan and head to Chick-fil-A. Where else?

2 p.m. - car is ready. $1000. We leave for Richmond.

We arrive in Richmond around 6:30 p.m. to a wonderful belated Thanksgiving dinner prepared by my mother-in-law. Aubrey's parents have agreed to come to Annapolis with us to help with the delivery of all of our stuff so the guys decide they want to get up at 2:30 a.m. to beat the traffic in D.C.

Sunday, November 27
2:30 a.m.- wake up
3:00 a.m.- leave for Annapolis
6:30 a.m.- arrive at Aubrey's apartment in Columbia, MD
7 - 10:00 a.m.- NAP

We then treated Aubrey's parents to brunch, packed up his apartment and headed over to the new house.

We arrive at the new house around 2 p.m. I arranged for a housekeeper to come and clean the house on Saturday so all we would have to do is start unloading and then unpacking stuff. When we arrived at the house, it did not appear at all to be cleaned. It didn't smell clean and there was dust and dead bugs everywhere. I almost cried. Again.

My mother-in-law and I scrubbed the entire kitchen. I called the housekeeper who proceeded to argue with me about what they had done. Then my blackberry died. Like, wouldn't turn on, wouldn't charge. Completely died.

So we went to Lowe's.

Annapolis Bound, Part Two

Thursday, November 24
We made it to Greenville safely the night before and got up early to head to Atlanta, GA to celebrate Thanksgiving with my extended family. 13 hours away from our new house in Annapolis.

Friday, November 25
We spent all of Black Friday shopping. Not for TVs or clothing deals. For a new car. Seriously. We bought my car in December of last year. Pre-owned, but not old. It is literally always in the shop and it always costs $500 - 1000 to fix whatever is wrong. I could have bought a new Kia (almost) for what we've spend in repairs over the past year.

The worst part is that the "current" issue turns out to be the fault of Land Rover Greenville who just last month replaced my rear brakes and rotors. They forgot to do something which caused one of the brakes to burn out again and the emergency brake pad. $600. So, we tell Land Rover Charlotte (amazing) to fix it and get us on the road. They then tell us that the front brakes need to be replaced sometime soon. Aubrey and I decided not to do those since we were getting ready to trade the car in and didn't want to invest any more money.

Car is done around 5 p.m. and we make plans to drive to Charlotte Saturday morning, return the minivan, get my car and finally head to Richmond. Three days late.

Annapolis Bound, Part One

Hello friends. Well, it's been over two weeks since I've last posted. Where to begin? The last two weeks have been absolutely crazy. I think I'll try to explain everything chronologically. I apologize in advance for no/few pictures, but I've honestly been too busy.

Thursday, November 17
I fly to meet Aubrey in Richmond, VA for one of his high school friend's weddings.

Sunday, November 20
Mom meets me at the Charlotte airport to start packing up our personal belongings and help oversee the professional packers so I can continue working from home until the last possible second.

Tuesday, November 22
Professional packers arrive- Mike, Damian, Bones and Claude. So sweet and nice. They take seven hours to pack up our entire house.

Aubrey arrives around 2 p.m. Steve (stepfather) flies in from China to pick him up from airport and bring him home to help with the last minute stuff.

Aubrey and I go to have our pictures taken for our Christmas card late afternoon. Crazy, I know, but I won the shoot in a charity auction and HAD to use it before we moved.

Wednesday, November 23
Loaders arrive to load up truck. Because we liked the four packers so much we asked for them to return. Bones couldn't so they sent a replacement. We missed Bones.

Before loading everything up from the house, they had to empty our storage unit down the road that was FULL of clothing and baby furniture/supplies.

It took them another seven hours to load up the truck. They claim it only took that long because we made them stop for lunch. Sorry guys! I thought you would appreciate the free Wendy's.

Truck leaves at 2 p.m. Aubrey, Steve and I (Mom had to leave for a haircut...) finish unloading the fridge, sweeping, etc. and load up my car. Aubrey's truck was obviously already in Annapolis. Have I mentioned lately that I've been 6 1/2 months pregnant this entire time? I can't even begin to explain the exhaustion and emotions I was experiencing.

3 p.m.- Steve leaves. 4 p.m.- Aubrey and I (and Max!!) leave the house after a few tears and head to Time Warner Cable on our way to Richmond for Thanksgiving. Here's where the real "fun" begins. On the way to drop off the cable box, my car starts shuddering and beeping every time Aubrey hits the brakes. NOT a good way to start a six hour car trip the day before Thanksgiving.

I immediately call Land Rover Charlotte and make sure they're open and after dropping the box off, we head over to have the car looked at. I literally walked into the service department and met our Service Consultant and started crying.

He was the most amazing guy ever and sat me down. He rented us a minivan (because my car was LOADED down) and told us he'd take care of everything.

At that point, it didn't make sense for us to drive to Richmond, VA to then have to return to Charlotte to eventually pick up my car. So I started crying again and called my mom. Of course, she mentioned that it made more sense for us to come to Greenville, SC (where I'm from and they live) to have Thanksgiving and wait for the car to be fixed.

So we headed South. 11 hours away from our new home in Annapolis.