as promised

I'm posting some pictures from the past few weeks. Some of the shower and of the nursery, mostly. I look like an enormous cow in most of the shower photos, so the ones of me and Jay (where I look the cow-iest) will not be seeing the light of day. You'll see in the belly shot of me that I've officially outgrown my maternity clothes, which now barely cover my belly. This has happened literally overnight. I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow, and I can't imagine how much more room there is in there for her to grow. Not a lot, I would guess. I can feel that she's cramped. I've been going weekly for my non-stress tests and everything is progressing fine, although they keep warning me to be prepared to go into labor at any point, particular after 37 weeks. I've learned in this experience that the OB practice I use is VERY cautious. I don't think I'm going to go into labor in the next two weeks, but I guess it's nice to have had 6 people tell me what to do in case I do.


It's been a not-so-fun few days at the Smalley household, as our basement flooded on Thursday because we've been having terrible rain storms and our crazy (to put it nicely) landlady hasn't taken care of it. She is blaming it on the City because she thinks that the city sewer line that runs parallel to the house is backing up (which it is, the street floods every time it rains) and she wants the city to come take care of it, which they are just NOT GOING TO DO. And there's no use sitting around with sewage molding in your basement just because you want to prove a point to the city. They don't care. Hire a &*%$^#*! private company to come fix it and then have it be done with. You can file a claim with your homeowners insurance. Oh wait, you can't afford the deductible? Not my problem. You shouldn't own a home and be a landlord then. If she didn't live directly above us and I wasn't 9 months pregnant and in no position to move, I'd call the Department of Public Health on her. We've had no hot water since Thursday, and there is still sewage and water in the basement. All of my non-maternity winter clothes are ruined, most beyond repair (even with a good dry cleaning), and my good furniture I've had since I was a child is damaged, but seems salvageable, at this point. Our dryer is ruined (that our landlady uses, as well, but I guess it's OUR responsibility to replace) and the hot water heater needs to be replaced. She was supposed to have someone come and pump out the water this weekend, but they never showed, and while it's slowly draining, there is a layer of shit (pardon my French) covering the floor. Being 9 months pregnant, there's not much I can do about it myself, and Jay's been working doubles Wednesday - Friday so he's not around either. My patience is wearing thin. It's very distressing not to be able to take a warm shower for the fourth day in a row, and to have no access to laundry. I'm going to hit a laundromat this week, but it's enough to make me want to just cry. Ugh.


Anyway, on to the glimpses of happier moments (and I know these bad ones, too, shall pass):