I have been taking these pictures in the same place, usually in the morning, wearing the same shirt - but these last two weeks I have had trouble getting a clear picture - they are all a little (or a lot) fuzzy. I have no idea (and no time to figure out) what the heck is going on, so one more bad picture. Maybe next week...

Good news is that the pain in my ribs is bearable finally - I feel just very sore. It god bad once again - last Wednesday - so bad, I actually had to take a taxi to go to the doctor's appointment. The driver wasn't very happy - maybe it's just the way cab drivers are - but maybe he was afraid - He saw me rolling into his cab and I was in pain on every turn or when he breaked or started the car again - afraid I was going to go into labor in his cab! We got to UCLA, around 4pm in 20!!! minutes. At that time of the day it would take me probably 45 minutes...

We revised our baby room plans. It will not be repainted after all. My husband is too busy with other stuff so we agreed we would just touch paint, and leave it yellow. My Mom is flying in today, but we will have other little things to do, that painting just won't happen. I decided that I will accent the room in red, it will work for boy or a girl and it will be different from Luka's room. Also, we bought a chair/sleeper for the room (we used to have a futon but that had a new place and function now) with red covers, and some pegged shelves that I will paint red too. And we rearranged the furniture... that was a little tough. When we started I had a rough idea about what I want, but then when we put the chair together, it just didn't work. It seemed that the furniture is going to have to be as before. I was so sad... I don;t know why... hormones? I just wanted the room to be different, and with the same wall color... ahhh... so I left the room while my husband was finishing the chair, and while I was preparing dinner he made it work! It's a bit different than that rough idea I had, but it works great! Soon I will have some pictures to share...

I am excited about tomorrow... fabrics and supplies shopping - last time before the baby comes...

In the last post I said I thought I can see the end of the cold. Well, I had been sooo wrong. Last Monday I started feeling a bit sore on the left side (above ribs) - I thought it was from the coughing. On Tuesday, the pain spread and I basically could not cough standing up, or sitting down - the only way it did not hurt too much was standing up and bending, holding on to a table or some other surface. But that evening... just as I was about to get the cough medicine, I had a cough fit and heard the strangest grinding sound from my ribs, and then the pain... I literally set on the floor, gasping for air. I could not get up for a couple of minutes, and then I called my husband to help me up. I was in so much pain, I could not take a full breath, or walk, or sit down or get up... without my husbands help, crying with pain. I am pretty good with pain, but this was almost unbearable - on the scale from 1 to 10, it was definitely a 10. I called the obgyn on call, and they told me to take tylenol and use hot compresses. That helped a little, and by morning I could get up and sit down by myself. But the problem was when I coughed. That was terrible. On Wednesday I saw my doctor, who gave me tylenol with codeine (when he saw in how much pain I was), antibiotics and sent me to get chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia - apparently long lasting colds in pregnant women like to end in pneumonia. Wednesday night I had another coughing fit, there was more grinding sound, and the pain got even worse, if that;s possible. Actually, now it hurt all the time, not just while coughing. I could not breathe. I had the painkillers, but they did not kick in until the next afternoon. I could not believe I could be in so much pain. This was the second night when I did not sleep. The pain killers made me sleep, but it was such a weird sleep, I would not move an inch and when I woke up - I would be more tired than before. The pain gor bearable by Thursday afternoon, but not without painkillers. Today was the first day I dod not take any painkillers even though I am in pain, but it is not that bad. It just feels terribly sore, but I wanted to get off the meds as soon as possible - for the baby.

And the baby - it cooperated throughout the whole time. Sometimes with the cough so violent so late in the pregnancy - the water can break and labor can start, but thank god the baby is OK... Now I have three more weeks to get better, get some sleep and recover enough to be able to go through those first 6 weeks of not sleeping... Only three weeks, and I had so many plans.... They included two more trips for fabric/supplies buying, but right now I could not do that. I am still too tired an sleepy to drive and walk around. Maybe next week when my mom is here...

I did not post last week, so, yes, it is only 4 weeks to delivery. About two weeks until my mom arrives. I am happy to report that we (my hubby) did make some progress with the new arrival preparations - he fixed all the baby furniture. All that needs to be done in the room - the big stuff anyway - is to paint the walls and I need to find a chair or a slider for me to sit in. The room is now a very lively yellow - this was Luka's color. Even though the color is fun and fine, I want to change it. I picked a very light lavender/blue - Behr Hosta Flower: 640 C-1. I figure it will work for either a boy or a girl. And the chair - that's not going so well. With Luka I used to have a futon there - I was told I need a rocker/slider, that the futon will be awkward - but it wasn't. It was actually great for those early feedings (around 4 or 5 am) when I could not go back to my bed - I just slept there for a couple of hours. This time around, the futon has been repurposed so I need to get something new. I don't really like the gliders - they are not so comfortable, and I feel weird sliding. And I have not seen one that I can say I like, they are all kind of ugly. So I am thinking about an armchair, something deep and oversized and comfortable... but that's not so easy to find...