Weekend Update
Sep. 30th, 2007 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jenn_unpluggedIt's been a few days since I updated, and I actually have a lot to post about!
I had my monthly checkup with the OB-GYN on Friday morning. It was pretty low-key; they just took vitals, asked if we had any questions, and we listened to the heartbeat. That was great to hear, because I'd spent the last week wondering if I was really pregnant, heh. Once that first-trimester queasiness subsided, I wasn't sure if everything was proceeding as it should. It was also the first time Doug got to hear the heartbeat, which was great.
My weight goal for the first trimester was to keep my weight gain under 5 pounds, and when they weighed me that morning, I'd actually lost three pounds since my last visit, bringing my first trimester weight loss to a total of eight pounds. This while gaining a belly. I haven't been trying to lose weight by any means; in fact, I always eat when I'm hungry. I wasn't particularly sick during the first trimester, so it wasn't like I was struggling to keep food down. The one thing I did was start to eat in a very healthy way. I have been very careful and picky about what I put in my mouth, and that combined with a rise in my metabolism is responsible for the weight loss, I think. I mean seriously, every time I eat something, I'm acutely aware of the fact that this is going to build my little Boo's tiny body. So I read labels, make sure I get the right balance of nutrients, and choose very carefully. Maybe it's overkill, but it makes me feel better.
I asked the doctor if it was something to be concerned about, and she said that as long as the fetus was growing at a good rate, it was fine, that I shouldn't force feed myself to gain weight. She said that when women make significant changes in their diets during pregnancy, it isn't uncommon for them to end up with a net weight loss after the pregnancy is over, with no harm to the fetus at all. That was good to hear, because I am already at an unhealthy weight and have been trying really hard to be very healthy these last few months. I'd really like to continue to eat the way I have been eating, which makes me feel good and is completely satisfying, and not to worry that I'm not gaining a lot of weight in the process.
The Crib has arrived!
Mom wanted to buy us a crib, and the one I wanted was from Pottery Barn Kids. I liked the sleigh look, as it matches our bed, and the color of the wood blends in well with the other furnishings in the house. It was delivered on Friday:
The changing table will be delivered next week, and I've also ordered a glider that will show up at some point. The walls will probably not stay that color. I think I want to go with a pale yellow. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bring in a designer or just pick everything out myself. The bathroom that adjoins this room needs to be repainted as well, and I'm not really sure what I want to do with it.
The Epic Tale of the Hot Water Dispenser
Ever since we moved into this house, we hated the kitchen sink.
The faucet was cheap and leaky, and so low it was hard to get tall pots under it. The sink itself was scratched up and impossible to keep clean, and it always smelled bad. We had been toying with the idea of getting new countertops and replacing the sink when we did that, but having to do IVF sort of killed our kitchen remodeling plans. So plan B was to head to Home Depot and pick out some new stuff.
We wanted to go back to a stainless steel sink, and we wanted a deeper one. The white sink had 8" basins and we wanted 10". We also wanted a higher faucet, a new and much better quality garbage disposal, and something new: a hot water dispenser. I'd heard good things about hot water dispensers and had started to see them in magazines and model kitchens. It's basically a hot water tank that is located under your sink, with a faucet that dispenses near-boiling water. When you start to think about all the times you need to heat water for various things, you can see how such a thing would be very handy. And it turned out that Home Depot sold the tank-and-faucet sets, so we bought everything we needed and then called a plumber to set it all up.
First of all, I should note that this was all back in July, just after the IVF. So why am I only posting about it today, the last day of September?
Well, gentle reader, it turns out that we managed to hire one of the worst plumbers in Austin. You wouldn't think that the process of installing a sink, disposal, faucet, and hot water dispenser would be too difficult, but for this guy, it was. Every little snag he hit was "a disaster" (his words) or a "major problem", followed by a lot of hand wringing and claims that he wasn't sure this was going to work. I had to stop and help him solve these problems every step of the way. For example, the original hole that had been cut for the previous sink was jagged in spots and so the new sink didn't fit in it easily. He basically told me it couldn't be done, until I pointed out that all he had to do was file down those jagged bits. And of course, it worked just fine. It went on like that for three days. I made three additional trips to Home Depot to replace parts that he said weren't working. I have no idea if he was right, but what else could I do? If I didn't replace them, it was an "unsolvable problem".
The hot water dispenser turned out to be his waterloo. He couldn't make it work, even after spending a whole day on it. At this point, I had paid him far more than I thought he was worth, so I told him to forget it and we'd call the manufacturer. The manufacturer (Insinkerator) was fairly unhelpful, and then gave me the number of their local repair representative. When I called that guy and explained the problem, he claimed not even to know that Insinkerator made hot water dispensers. I reported this back to Insinkerator, who apparently called him and told him what-for, because he called me back and said he'd be right over.
Long story short, he had no idea what was wrong. Moreover, he said that the other plumber must have taken some of the parts with him, and that he couldn't even turn the faucet on to see why it didn't work right now. There was nothing we could do. In short, we had just wasted a hell of a lot of money.
A couple of months went by, during which I stared forlornly at the non-functioning hot water faucet, wondering what had gone wrong. Finally, I formed a new plan. I would go to Home Depot and buy another tank-and-faucet set, and call yet another plumber to come and install it. Any missing parts would be in the box, and if something didn't work, he'd be able to change it out. I would put everything left over back in the box and return it to Home Depot for a refund.
It all worked fairly well, except for one thing: the third plumber could not get the faucet to work either. He tried to set it up with the old one and the new one, and both had the exact same problem as before. We called Insinkerator, and they were just as unhelpful as ever, even to the point that the plumber got in an argument with the representative, during which he asked the person if she'd ever successfully installed one these things herself. I finally cut him loose (with a large check) and got back on the phone with Insinkerator, asking them what the hell I should do now. They gave me the number of the second plumber, and I said "no way" and explained what had happened last time. They then connected me with a plumber in Dallas.
The guy in Dallas was Mike at Mr. Blender, and after listening to my sob story immediately said, "I've seen this problem a dozen times, and I know exactly how to fix it." It turns out that the faucets in the Home Depot kits have a manufacturing flaw that Insinkerator has been unwilling to deal with, for whatever reason. Mike's solution has been to get the company to send out a new, much more expensive faucet to replace the faulty one, and then the system works. It almost sounded too good to be true.
But Mike got Insinkerator to send me their top-of-the-line faucet (which alone cost more then the original kit) for free and to pay for the installation. The faucet arrived on our doorstep on Thursday, and Mike's Austin guy came out yesterday afternoon to install it.
And it worked. I almost cried at the sight of steaming hot water coming out of the new faucet. During the two weeks we waited for the new faucet to arrive, we had only hot water at our kitchen sink (the cold had to be shut off because of the problem with the HWD faucet), but now we have it all. I feel like sending Mike a thank-you note.
So here is our new, finally fully-functioning sink:
I haven't totaled up how much we spent on this project and I'm not going to. I don't want to know. But it looks lovely, yes? I had a nice cup of tea right after the plumber left, right from the faucet. Was it worth it? I don't know, but it's over. :-P
So today we can hang out and relax a bit. Amnio is Thursday, and I'm ready to get it done. Happy October, everyone!
I had my monthly checkup with the OB-GYN on Friday morning. It was pretty low-key; they just took vitals, asked if we had any questions, and we listened to the heartbeat. That was great to hear, because I'd spent the last week wondering if I was really pregnant, heh. Once that first-trimester queasiness subsided, I wasn't sure if everything was proceeding as it should. It was also the first time Doug got to hear the heartbeat, which was great.
My weight goal for the first trimester was to keep my weight gain under 5 pounds, and when they weighed me that morning, I'd actually lost three pounds since my last visit, bringing my first trimester weight loss to a total of eight pounds. This while gaining a belly. I haven't been trying to lose weight by any means; in fact, I always eat when I'm hungry. I wasn't particularly sick during the first trimester, so it wasn't like I was struggling to keep food down. The one thing I did was start to eat in a very healthy way. I have been very careful and picky about what I put in my mouth, and that combined with a rise in my metabolism is responsible for the weight loss, I think. I mean seriously, every time I eat something, I'm acutely aware of the fact that this is going to build my little Boo's tiny body. So I read labels, make sure I get the right balance of nutrients, and choose very carefully. Maybe it's overkill, but it makes me feel better.
I asked the doctor if it was something to be concerned about, and she said that as long as the fetus was growing at a good rate, it was fine, that I shouldn't force feed myself to gain weight. She said that when women make significant changes in their diets during pregnancy, it isn't uncommon for them to end up with a net weight loss after the pregnancy is over, with no harm to the fetus at all. That was good to hear, because I am already at an unhealthy weight and have been trying really hard to be very healthy these last few months. I'd really like to continue to eat the way I have been eating, which makes me feel good and is completely satisfying, and not to worry that I'm not gaining a lot of weight in the process.
The Crib has arrived!
Mom wanted to buy us a crib, and the one I wanted was from Pottery Barn Kids. I liked the sleigh look, as it matches our bed, and the color of the wood blends in well with the other furnishings in the house. It was delivered on Friday:
The changing table will be delivered next week, and I've also ordered a glider that will show up at some point. The walls will probably not stay that color. I think I want to go with a pale yellow. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bring in a designer or just pick everything out myself. The bathroom that adjoins this room needs to be repainted as well, and I'm not really sure what I want to do with it.
The Epic Tale of the Hot Water Dispenser
Ever since we moved into this house, we hated the kitchen sink.
The faucet was cheap and leaky, and so low it was hard to get tall pots under it. The sink itself was scratched up and impossible to keep clean, and it always smelled bad. We had been toying with the idea of getting new countertops and replacing the sink when we did that, but having to do IVF sort of killed our kitchen remodeling plans. So plan B was to head to Home Depot and pick out some new stuff.
We wanted to go back to a stainless steel sink, and we wanted a deeper one. The white sink had 8" basins and we wanted 10". We also wanted a higher faucet, a new and much better quality garbage disposal, and something new: a hot water dispenser. I'd heard good things about hot water dispensers and had started to see them in magazines and model kitchens. It's basically a hot water tank that is located under your sink, with a faucet that dispenses near-boiling water. When you start to think about all the times you need to heat water for various things, you can see how such a thing would be very handy. And it turned out that Home Depot sold the tank-and-faucet sets, so we bought everything we needed and then called a plumber to set it all up.
First of all, I should note that this was all back in July, just after the IVF. So why am I only posting about it today, the last day of September?
Well, gentle reader, it turns out that we managed to hire one of the worst plumbers in Austin. You wouldn't think that the process of installing a sink, disposal, faucet, and hot water dispenser would be too difficult, but for this guy, it was. Every little snag he hit was "a disaster" (his words) or a "major problem", followed by a lot of hand wringing and claims that he wasn't sure this was going to work. I had to stop and help him solve these problems every step of the way. For example, the original hole that had been cut for the previous sink was jagged in spots and so the new sink didn't fit in it easily. He basically told me it couldn't be done, until I pointed out that all he had to do was file down those jagged bits. And of course, it worked just fine. It went on like that for three days. I made three additional trips to Home Depot to replace parts that he said weren't working. I have no idea if he was right, but what else could I do? If I didn't replace them, it was an "unsolvable problem".
The hot water dispenser turned out to be his waterloo. He couldn't make it work, even after spending a whole day on it. At this point, I had paid him far more than I thought he was worth, so I told him to forget it and we'd call the manufacturer. The manufacturer (Insinkerator) was fairly unhelpful, and then gave me the number of their local repair representative. When I called that guy and explained the problem, he claimed not even to know that Insinkerator made hot water dispensers. I reported this back to Insinkerator, who apparently called him and told him what-for, because he called me back and said he'd be right over.
Long story short, he had no idea what was wrong. Moreover, he said that the other plumber must have taken some of the parts with him, and that he couldn't even turn the faucet on to see why it didn't work right now. There was nothing we could do. In short, we had just wasted a hell of a lot of money.
A couple of months went by, during which I stared forlornly at the non-functioning hot water faucet, wondering what had gone wrong. Finally, I formed a new plan. I would go to Home Depot and buy another tank-and-faucet set, and call yet another plumber to come and install it. Any missing parts would be in the box, and if something didn't work, he'd be able to change it out. I would put everything left over back in the box and return it to Home Depot for a refund.
It all worked fairly well, except for one thing: the third plumber could not get the faucet to work either. He tried to set it up with the old one and the new one, and both had the exact same problem as before. We called Insinkerator, and they were just as unhelpful as ever, even to the point that the plumber got in an argument with the representative, during which he asked the person if she'd ever successfully installed one these things herself. I finally cut him loose (with a large check) and got back on the phone with Insinkerator, asking them what the hell I should do now. They gave me the number of the second plumber, and I said "no way" and explained what had happened last time. They then connected me with a plumber in Dallas.
The guy in Dallas was Mike at Mr. Blender, and after listening to my sob story immediately said, "I've seen this problem a dozen times, and I know exactly how to fix it." It turns out that the faucets in the Home Depot kits have a manufacturing flaw that Insinkerator has been unwilling to deal with, for whatever reason. Mike's solution has been to get the company to send out a new, much more expensive faucet to replace the faulty one, and then the system works. It almost sounded too good to be true.
But Mike got Insinkerator to send me their top-of-the-line faucet (which alone cost more then the original kit) for free and to pay for the installation. The faucet arrived on our doorstep on Thursday, and Mike's Austin guy came out yesterday afternoon to install it.
And it worked. I almost cried at the sight of steaming hot water coming out of the new faucet. During the two weeks we waited for the new faucet to arrive, we had only hot water at our kitchen sink (the cold had to be shut off because of the problem with the HWD faucet), but now we have it all. I feel like sending Mike a thank-you note.
So here is our new, finally fully-functioning sink:
I haven't totaled up how much we spent on this project and I'm not going to. I don't want to know. But it looks lovely, yes? I had a nice cup of tea right after the plumber left, right from the faucet. Was it worth it? I don't know, but it's over. :-P
So today we can hang out and relax a bit. Amnio is Thursday, and I'm ready to get it done. Happy October, everyone!
