Monthly Archives: November 2010

My baby is 3 months old, so I guess it was long past time I tell you how she came into this world.

On Wednesday August 11th (her original due date) I had a little trouble going to sleep. So I got up about 12 or 1 and went to the kitchen and organized my recipe binder. I did this standing in the kitchen on the tile floor, hoping gravity would help convince her to start coming out! (I had already been to the mall and walked for several days.) In retrospect, this was my nesting urge. The rest of the house was already clean. Then I went to bed. I woke up that morning and thought maybe my water had broke, but it wasn’t super obvious so I wasn’t sure. So I putted around the house and a few hours later was pretty sure that had happened, but no contractions yet, so I called the doctor about 11 to see if they wanted me to come in. They did, so we finished packing up and got in the car and went to the hospital.

We checked in about 12 and I told them about my morning and they did a little test to be sure my water had broken and it had so they hooked me up to an IV (yuck!) and started me on pitocin. My parents got there and Larry B from church stopped by.

All the while the monitor said I was having contractions but I couldn’t feel them. After about an hour, somewhere around 2 pm, I started to feel them. Not too bad at first, it hurt, but I could breath through them and rest in between. But after about an hour, they started being really close together. It got to be where, when one would come down on the monitor, the next would start going up. I had that kind for about an hour, and then I started asking when I could maybe get an epidural.

Now I had gone into the whole thing pretty flexible about an epidural or not. My hippy-self would rather go au naturale, and thinks that my body was made to have a baby and people had them for years without drugs, and so it should be do-able. But after an hour long contraction, basically, I decided that I did not want to do this for too much longer.

The doctor had said I needed to be a 3 or 4 to get it and she was due back to check on me soon, so I thought I would just wait. But after like 30 minutes I decided to take the nurse up on her offer to check and see if I was ready. I was, and within about 5 minutes the doctor got there to do the epidural. Now I was pretty nervous about this part. Really just the logistics of exactly where they placed it gave me the heeby geebies! But I decided to just not focus on it and it would be over soon. So the nurse helped distract me and it wasn’t too bad. That was about 5 pm.

But I really did not like the way the epidural medicine made me feel. It gave me the shakes pretty badly (combined with nerves I am sure) but one they covered me up with lots of warm blankets I felt better. I think I just felt pretty yucky because I had things sticking in me all over. The next two hours went really fast to me. At about 7 the doctor on call came in to check me and I was shocked to hear him say, “She is ready, she is a 10!” So from 3 to 10 in two hours! That was sure a relief. Then the nurse said, okay we can start pushing now! I was shocked. I didn’t think it was already going to be time for that. I think the whole thing was pretty surreal, that here I was, in the hospital, in labor, about to get serious! I think I thought, wow, I am about to have a baby! Little did I know, we would be at that for a while.

I thought the nurse would be going to get the doctor, but no, I was going to push a while and she would call the doctor when it was almost time. Well, I pushed for almost 3 hours! I think it was hard because I couldn’t feel much because of the epidural. Here is where I think going natural would have been beneficial because my body would have known what to do better without the drugs suppressing it. My doctor was there for at least an hour or so of that, and she was great. Eventually they turned down and then off the epidural so I could tell when a contraction was coming.

At 9:48, baby E made her entrance into the world! I heard the doctor say, “she is a big baby!” They held her up for me to see and then took her over to clean her up. C and my dad went and watched her get cleaned up. 

The doctor and nurses were guessing how much she would weigh. The first scale didn’t work right, so they had to get another one. They were saying maybe 8 lbs or so, we joked that it would be neat if she weighed 8 lbs 12 ozs since that was the date, and wouldn’t you know it, she did! They stamped her feet in her baby book and the nurse said they were big feet! It made me feel better to know that it took so long to push out an almost 9 lb baby and to add to it, she had her fist up by her face when she came out!

After she got cleaned I got to hold her for a while. I don’t remember a giant emotional rush or anything, I think I was very overwhelmed and a bit in shock of all that was happening. The emotions and sweet joy of holding my precious baby girl would come later. We held and looked at her for an hour or so and then they took her to get a bath. Daddy went as well as my parents and my aunt who had been there for the birth. (The hubby and my mom were in the room with me.) While they were gone, I munched on some snacks and called my dear friend to tell her how it had gone. C had updated facebook some off and on during the labor and sent some emails to friends and family. I loved all the sweet messages we got during the labor, it was so encouraging to know so many people were thinking of us.Well that is the story, as best as I can remember to write about it, leaving out some of the details, but giving you the basic idea. She is is fun and I am so glad she is finally here! Can’t believe that was all 3 months ago!!

Its been a while since I did a blog tag so here goes.

Chelsea at jrandchels.blogspot.com tagged me to answer these questions:

I’m supposed to tag 8 people to answer these questions:
1. What’s your current favorite secular song?

Since I am not working, I don’t have 1.5 hours in the car to listen to the radio anymore, so I don’t feel like I listen to much music. But I do like Taylor Swift and think “Our Song” is really fun and cute!

2. If you could do anything as a job (money is no concern) what would you do?

Actually, I think I am doing it. I feel blessed to get to be E’s mommy as my full time job right now! But other jobs that I think would be fun are:

professor in department of education at Baylor
owner of one of those cute random boutique-y stores
school librarian
professional blogger- a la Simple Mom style

3. Books or magazines?

Both! Magazines are good for quick reads, in the bathroom, at the dr office, etc. But books are great to get lost in when you can’t put it down til you are finished. One thing about magazines though, there are way too many ads these days. More ads than content!

4. How do you feel about Valentine’s Day?

I think its great! Although people should make sure others in their lives feel loved EVERY day!

5. What’s the first thing do you when you get home from work?

I would always change clothes, check the mail/let the dog out, and have a snack!

6. What is your favorite dessert?

Gosh. There are so many. Cupcakes. Cheesecake. Oreo Truffle Balls. Ohhhh Jess! I could eat one or fifty of those right now!

7. Who did you look up to as a child?

I had a teacher in 2nd and 3rd grade that I loved, Mrs. Faircloth. We dressed alike one day. I wanted to be a wonderful teacher just like her. There was also a lady who came and sang at our church with her family, Becky Matthews. I thought she was just beautiful and sang so great! And I have a great cousin Josie, who was also a teacher and I looked up to her a lot too.

8. Embarrassing moment from high school?

Well I fell off the commons once, as we liked to put it. Part of the commons in the middle of the school was this raised area and it is where we ate lunch. I think I scooted my chair back and the leg fell off the edge and I fell. But actually I can’t remember if that was me or one of my friends. I just remember us joking about falling off the commons. That is all that comes to mind.

I am not going to bother tagging anyone because people don’t really do it ever. But if you feel so inspired answer these questions too on your blog!

A week or so ago, the hubby went on a trip to build a church in Brazil. So I went to my parents house. Who wants to be alone for a week with a 2 month old baby?

So we had lots of fun, just hanging out and watching the baby be cute. I stayed there until Tuesday and came home. But their dog Pepper got sick, so we had to go back and take her to the vet. On the way there we stopped at the mall and E did a great job marathon shopping all day!  Here is a video of how she entertained herself in JC Penny. Never mind. I can’t figure out how to embed a video. Here is a picture.

Then we came back home in time for me to go to the Jr. Staff Hallo-wii party.

Great costumes! We have: Cross Cultural Ministry, Kleenex, an M&M, the Memorial Herman Memorial City Hospital Tower, Mr and Mrs Smith, Peace and Quiet, The Baylor Bear Mascot, Spike, and a youth associate and his wife.

I dressed like  Baylor bear mascot! I just used a hooded baby blanket that was a bear and wore my Baylor Line jersey and some brown. The only thing I bought is some brown gloves for $2.50 so it would look like paws. I played a little Wii Tennis and then Jess and I carved a pumpkin.

The next day we went to a baby shower for my cousin and E got to meet some family members.

We missed Daddy a lot but got to talk to him on the phone.

The hubby was supposed to get home the next day, but he was delayed. A 1 hr initial delay on the first flight meant he would not make the next flight and so it resulted in 30 extra hours of travel including a stop in Sao Paulo and New York that were not planned! So he finally got home on Monday evening!

We spent Tuesday hanging out. Thursday he did Daddy duty all day and I ran errands because we wanted to make sure E would take a bottle. She had refused one a few times the week before, so we wanted to make sure to try again. The first time he gave her one, she fought it for an hour, the next time for 20 minutes, the third time not at all. And she took one each of the last three days, so hopefully we have dodged that bullet. And it was nice to go shopping by myself! It gave me enough time to spend FOREVER (like seriously probably over an hour) in Gap trying to figure out how to spend my Groupon credit. I also spent a Target gift card one of my students last year had given me, and a starbucks gift card, and a couple of free items from the McDonalds monopoly game. So it was a super fun day because I didn’t have to spend any money! Friday was free jeans day, then visiting a friend who had a baby, then lunch at Taco Cabana, followed by a leisurely afternoon and then date night! E had her first play date, although I am not sure how much playing she did, I am sure she had fun! Saturday was a productive day around here and then we went to a concert at church. Today was church and then a nap and then yummy dinner. Now blogging/video game playing/a nap for the baby. Whew! Great week!

So today only, if you were one of the first few people at Gap, you got a pair of free jeans! Yup! Free! How did I find out about this you ask? Well I do keep up with several “money saving” blogs but this is not where I heard about it. I was just at the right place at the right time. And eavesdropping.

I had a Groupon to Gap that I needed to spend. (Groupon is a website that sells things like a $50  credit to Gap for the price of $25, but to things like restaurants and shows and stores, but a different deal every day.) A few months ago I bought it thinking I like Gap and would find something there. So yesterday, after a couple of hours of trying on stuff and adding up stuff in my head (I had already been to Gap like 3 times over the past month trying to find something I liked) I finally got some stuff. And as I was checking out I heard the cashier say something about free jeans tomorrow. So I asked him what that was about. Turns out that they had free jeans to the first few people. This was a deal through facebook. So today the hubby and E and I headed up to the mall at about 9:40 since they open at 10 and we were number 6 and 7 in line and each got free jeans! It was good for a pair that cost $59.50 or less. Of course after trying on about 10 pair, I found some I liked. Then I got to the counter and it turned out that the ones I picked were a different price. So back I went to try on about 10 more pair of jeans. But needless to say, it was worth it. That is $119 of free merchandise!!

From there we went to see a friend’s new baby and then had lunch. Later today we are having a date night! What a fun Friday!