And the Verdict Is...

Yesterday we finally met with the plastic surgeon that will be taking care of our baby after he is born. It was an all day appointment at Children's Hospital. We really liked the hospital. It was definitely kid themed which gave it a really warm feel. Everyone was really nice and helpful. We're really lucky to be out here for the great health care.

Children't Hospital Artwork

The appointment was really long. We went in at 8:50 and didn't leave until almost 5:00. They started with another ultrasound. During the ultrasound he starting playing with his toes - it was super cute! Next, they did an MRI to help them determine the extent of the cleft. They told us that it is definitely a complete unilateral cleft of the lip and palate. After the MRI we met with the surgeon and he told us about the surgeries. The baby will need an appliance that moves the gums and palate together placed surgically that will be in place for six weeks. He will need a surgery called a lip adhesion that will start to fix the nose, sew the gums together, and move the skin of the lip closer together. He'll have another surgery to completely seal the lip and fix up the nose more. Finally, at 9 months or so, he'll have another surgery to fix the palate. We were a little overwhelmed to hear about so many surgeries during the first year; however, we got the impression from the team that he will be in really good hands. We still have the same attitude towards the situation, we know that everything is going to be fine and that we will have a wonderful baby, we're just not excited about lots of surgery.

These pictures are actually from the last ultrasound that we posted. They didn't print these ones out for us before, but our doctors made a disc with all the ultrasound pictures to give to the specialists at Children's. Needless to say we took the opportunity to download the images onto our computer before we handed it over! In these you can see the cleft on the baby's left side pretty well. His face is in the middle and you can see the uterus on either side. In the bottom picture, his hand is at the bottom of the picture. Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Abandoned Property?

So the most expensive part about attending Boston University School of Dental Medicine, after tuition, is by far housing. When we were moving here, no one wanted to rent to us without actually meeting us. We eventually signed a lease for an apartment which we saw no photos of and paid the entire first years rent all up front. It actually worked out really well for us and we like our place. Our landlord is okay but I think he stopped paying his landscapers or something. Our front yard has weeds as tall as I am and the back yard is too overgrown to even venture into now. I thought maybe he would send the landscapers at least once this summer...but now summer is officially over. Maybe I just need to borrow a weed eater from someone.

Our neighbors on the first floor were gone for a week awhile back when I took these photos so their newspapers piled up on the stairs adding to the abandoned lot effect.


We promise that we're not just squatting but at the price we're paying, we kind of wish that we were.

Bunkin' with the Bunkers

Bob and I went camping with the Bunkers at Camp Joseph again this Labor Day weekend. Bob has been wanting to go camping all summer, so we took advantage of our last opportunity. We had a really good time and the weather was actually great. I feel like all we did was eat and eat and eat. I never once got hungry, but I attribute all the eating to our baby weighing in at 2 lbs 4 oz at our last ultrasound. (That bumped him from being a little below normal to a good way over normal.) We also joined the local "hill billies", according to Bob, and went floating down the river while we were there. It was a blast, and even though the "rapids" were pretty puny Bob and I both managed to get flipped over. I don't have any pictures of us going down the river because I forgot our camera, so you will have to watch the Bunker Blog if you really want to see some. I am posting this blurry picture of me looking pastey because this was the size of my belly at 100 days to go (and yes that is my pre-pregnancy swimming suit stretched over my belly).

A Whole New World

If any of you have ever been shopping with Bob you know that he really enjoys pushing the cart. He loves to pretend he is looking the other way and run into a display, or drive the cart on two wheels. He seems to never get sick of it. So keeping this in mind you can only imagine what it was like with Bob at Ikea. For those of you who don't know they have carts that manuever really easily. You can spin them, or drive them sideways, or on an angle. So as you can imagine that is exactly what Bob did THE WHOLE TIME we were in Ikea. I had to take a picture of him even though this was at one of his more mellow moments. The purpose of our trip was to get us new dressers. We are going to give the target stackable drawers (they are really crappy, but we more than got our money's worth) to our new little guy. So we needed something cheap but not as cheap as what we have been using for the past two years. We went with two three-drawer dressers, rather than the six-drawer dresser for the ease of moving and versatility, plus we saved like ten bucks. Although it is still cheap furniture, I'm way excited for our new drawers. They are soooo much better. It also cleared up some much needed closet space because I can fit more clothes in them.
Bob recommends that any of you who have never been to an Ikea go just for the experience, plus you'll probably find a good deal on something you like. This was his first time and he considered the whole thing quite "trippy." He said he could spend a month in there if he was building a house. They also have a little food place, so you could get some cheap grub (and they have a place for the kids to play) so you could even make it a date night. We didn't spend much time looking around, but it still took us almost an hour when we already knew what we were getting.