The Saga of the Addition(s)

Doctor: You're pregnant.

Me: Are you sure?

Doctor: Yes.

Me: You mean it isn't early menopause?

Doctor: No, you're pregnant.

Me: What do you mean it isn't early menopause?! (Even though I'd done a home pregnancy test, I was still in just a little bit of denial. Can you tell?)

Fourteen months ago my husband, G., and I found out we were to have another child. This news came as quite a shock, because I wasn't supposed to be able to have more children. Our four year old exists solely because of IVF. The fertility doctor who performed my surgery prior to going through IVF and the IVF itself apparently is as great as he thinks he is, since we got pregnant with S. D. on the first cycle, and we got pregnant naturally 3 years later.

G. accepted it a lot quicker than I did. After his initial, "Holy cow! How are we going to afford to have another kid, and where will he sleep?" reaction, he was absolutely overjoyed.

Call me selfish, but I had come to terms with the idea of not having anymore children and was looking forward to going back to school and getting a part time job once S.D. started school full time. I mourned the news for a month, meaning I cried every time I was in the shower where no one could hear me. I had just gotten back into decent shape. I was up to 175 crunches a day, and I was doing 11.5 miles on the exercise bike 5 times a week. I was also upset because I'm not one of those women who have easy pregnancies; the prospect of lots of bed rest with a 3 year old running around the house was not a happy thought. If you ever need to know anything about hyperemesis, anencephaly, polyhydramnios, or incarcerated uterus's, I'm your gal.

It actually took having some spotting for me to realize that I really, really wanted this little baby. Don't get me wrong, terminating was never an option. I knew that once he/she got here that I'd love him/her as much my others. I was just mourning the loss of the future I'd come to envision. As soon as I was faced with the idea of losing the baby, I knew that I had to do everything possible to make certain he/she got here safely. Now that he's here, I am absolutely in love with this adorable little guy, and can't imagine life without him. What was I thinking?

Talking about this cute, adorable, little addition to our family brings me to the topic of the other addition we're trying to cope with.

After the initial shock of having another child wore off, we realized that our current home as is, simply isn't big enough. Of course, we also found out about our little guy's imminent arrival just when the real estate market started to tank in our area. Moving also came with it's own set of problems. Our 12 year old with Asperger's Disorder doesn't cope well with change. We figured the arrival of another child was enough for her to deal with, let alone moving to a completely different neighborhood. Also, in order to sell our house, we would have had to live in our camper to show it; otherwise we would never be able to sell it. Since having children, clutter seems to have become our natural habitat. There is also the problem of all of the 2/3 finished projects around the house that would need to be completed ASAP.

We decided that the best course of action was to build an addition to our current home. The fun is just beginning. First we had to find an architect and decide on the plans. This took a little longer than we expected. Now that we have the plans, we're dealing with the joy of finding a contractor.

When we first came to the decision to add on to our house, we thought we knew what contractor we'd use. The same honest, trustworthy builder who built not only my MIL and FIL's addition, but also my BIL's addition. This guy is great! Imagine our horror when my husband contacted him only to find out that he'd gotten out of the business. He told my husband that he'd gotten out, because he was tired of dealing with all of the sharks in the business. He wished us luck in finding that most rare of all things, an honest contractor.

We now have bids ranging from $160,000 - $300,000. (Yes, we live in the suburbs of a major city, meaning higher prices.) When the guy called me with the $300,000 quote, I actually laughed at him and asked if he was planning to use platinum as a building material. We could move 30 minutes away from where we are and have a four bedroom house for $350,000 - granted it would be on a postage stamp sized lot, but $300,000 for our little addition is a bit much. I think I offended him, because we haven't heard a peep from him since.

Then there's the contractor that told us he'd get a quote to us within a week. Five weeks later we got the quote, but he still hasn't gotten his references to us. My gut tells me not to go with him either.

We've had the 'good ole boys' contractors out, too. These guys are really nice, but when the lead guy told us he had to take the plans to three other builders to get ideas on how to go about building our addition, let's just say our confidence level wasn't too high. Now, I'm not a builder, but the plans the architect drew up seem pretty straightforward to me.

Then there's the guy who couldn't find our house and didn't bother to call to let us know he was planning on coming out anyway. My husband played phone tag with him for two weeks. He has a bad habit of not returning calls, and he doesn't even have the job yet. Imagine how bad he'll be at returning calls once work begins. We don't think we'll be using him either.

Of all the contractors we've had out to the house, only one has stood out. He came prepared with a quote based on the plans and photos he got from the architect. When we told him we thought he was a little on the high side, he reworked the quote and came back $20,000 cheaper within 24 hours. He also got his references to us within 24 hours of our request. I keep wondering what's wrong with him. He doesn't act like a normal contractor.

We'll keep you posted on the addition(s) saga as it continues. Maybe we'll have the baby out of our bedroom by the time he's in kindergarten.