I am definitely not pregnant. That's fine with me, as I need to get back into shape before I contemplate stretching everything out with another of DarthHusband's monsterbabies. We'll try again early next year or the year after. I'd like to make sure my nasty veins are in the best shape possible. We'll see if I can do this pregnancy thing without gaining 72lbs again, too.
Updates:
Me: I'm bringing the doula training workshop to My Fair City in June. I'm taking Eeny to see The Wiggles Live in May. I still heart Gerard Butler. I told DarthHusband I'd go see 300 with him. He knows my real motivation for going, but will take me to see it anyway. Good man.
DarthHusband: The CPAP is life changing, truly. It's amazing what proper oxygenation at night will do for one's mood and health. We're now having marital relations on a regular basis, and our marriage is infinitely better off for it.
He was even nice to Jehovah's Witnesses the other day. I missed the real him so much.
Eeny: Talking up a storm, pretending his fingers are walking people, saying things like, "I need my favorite toy," and still nursing. I never thought I'd still be nursing at this age, and I admit I'm ready for him to decide to wean whenever he wants. However, it's awfully cute to see him walk over to me, lay his head in my lap and say, "I would really really love a little bit of my favorite Nee." He's such a cutie, and is nicely outgrowing his runaway phase, which makes public outings much, much easier.
The Rooster: 'Tis himself. He's taking 3 or 4 steps at a time, but isn't really walking tremendously well yet. He's jabbering more, and says Mama, Dada, Eeeyah (Eeny), and this, that, and "Cheese!" The last one is said while shutterbug mommy's in his face with the camera. He's such a cutie. He got kicked out of KidZone at the gym today for wanting to be held all the time. They won't let him return that day if I've had to go get him, so my Pilates class was shot, but that's okay, because he's such a snugglebunny. He's cutting 8 teeth--all 4 molars and all 4 eye teeth--so he's a million kinds of miserable, and two of them broke through today. I feel so badly for him.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Bizarre dream
So in this dream, I took a pregnancy test. As an indicator for positive, the two lines suddenly became animated and started dancing around gleefully. Yeah. Sure. Gleeful dancing lines. It was definitely a dream--I'm crampy and tired and ready for AF to show or for my temps to freaking do something so I can have some random idea of what's going on with this body of mine.
Wow, I need to get more sleep.
Wow, I need to get more sleep.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Happy Birthday Rooster!
Here's a refresher on the birth story. I love my little guy! :)
Monday, April 4th was my due date. I’d been told by “everybody” throughout most of my pregnancy that I’d probably deliver early, and I’d sort of started to believe it. I got rather impatient as my EDD neared, and as I was absolutely enormous, I felt more than ready to have this baby. Monday marked the day that hope was permanently eclipsed. I didn’t really mind though. Instead, I felt that all the pressure was now off. My phone, which had been ringing off the hook, was blissfully silent most of the day. Ian and I spent the day running a couple of errands and playing and cuddling.
I took a nap around 8pm, and woke up at 10. I wasn’t tired, so I got on the computer. I stayed online for a few hours, and finally got tired around 2. I’d had maybe 4 contractions the entire day, and they were no more significant than the Braxton-Hicks I’d had through the month or so leading up to this. Inspired by a birth story I’d read earlier that night, I decided to write down what I wanted out of the birth. I had 8 things in mind.
1) A happy, healthy baby
2)A gentle birth from the baby’s perspective
3)I didn’t want him to be scared
4)I wanted the birth to be easy on him
5)A relatively short labor
6)A calm, trusting birth
7)I wanted him to be born before the back up OB wanted to start non-stress tests
8)I had an appointment with the back up OB scheduled for the morning of 4/5, because I would have been 42 weeks, 1 day according to LMP. I wanted him to be born before it.
I went to bed thinking, “Watch—this’ll be the night—I should have gotten to bed earlier.”
I woke up around 4:30 with what I thought was a really bad gas pain. I thought I’d better go ahead and pee since I had to do that anyway, so I went to the bathroom. I spent the whole time in the bathroom trying to breathe through what I finally realized were two monster contractions. I got out of there and went into my bedroom (right next door), and realized that 15 minutes had passed just as another contraction hit. I tried to get to where I could breathe through it, but unlike my first labor, these contractions were truly painful. I tried leaning forward and rocking through it, and it worked, but barely. As soon as that one was over, I woke DarthHusband and told him I didn’t think he’d be going to work today. I got the stopwatch and tried to time contractions, but I kept falling asleep and waking up on a peak. I figured they were about 3 minutes apart and lasting two minutes each, so I woke up DarthHusband again, springing out of bed during a contraction (laying down hurt), and yelling at him to call Midwife (the midwife), NOW. He called, and said that we really wanted to let her sleep, but that this just might be it. At the time, I said she should call back in a half-hour and then see where things were.
We got off the phone, and 2 contractions later, Ian woke up, crying because the house was lit up, and we weren’t in our bed. I tried to lie down with him to get him back to sleep, but it was too painful. I was feeling like I needed some space in a big way, and seeing Ian so distressed was upsetting to me, so I had DarthHusband call my parents and have them come get him. My mom arrived and stayed with me for a few contractions, holding Ian. He was crying—poor little guy, he was so tired and he didn’t understand why there were people up and running around—dangit, we were all supposed to be asleep! I went to the bathroom again, telling my mom I’d be out in a minute to kiss him goodbye. Ian got more upset then, so she and DarthHusband decided to go ahead and send her home before I got out of the bathroom. That made me rather upset, as I had really wanted to kiss him goodbye. :-/
Midwife called back, and talked to one of us briefly, saying she was on her way. When she got here (about 10 minutes later), she headed into the bedroom to get the Doppler and her things set up. At this point, I had an enormous contraction that was really painful. I was holding onto DarthHusband thinking, ‘It’s way too early for me to feel like this—I’ve only been contracting for 45 minutes or so, and I’m sure I’ve got hours and hours left to go, and I know I’m overanalyzing it and being a drama queen, but,’ and then out loud, I heard myself say, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” I was really sleepy and wanted to go back to bed. Midwife heard me say that, and convinced me to come back into the bedroom and get checked. After the length of my previous birth, during which I’d stayed at 6cm for three days, I was afraid to get checked, and I didn’t want to hear that I was 6 centimeters. I told her that I didn’t want to hear it if I was 6cm. If it was less than that, fine, I could deal, and if it was more than that, then I definitely wanted to know, but I didn’t want to hear 6. I told her she could lie to me and say 5cm if a 6 I was. She said then that she had small hands, and that it sometimes made it difficult to tell when people were dilated to 8. I had a contraction and that statement flew right over my head. However, her comment about a bulging bag of waters didn’t. She said my water would break soon, and then I’d probably want to push, which would be great.
It was then that I realized I was afraid. I felt so out of control. Ian’s labor had been long—very long, but it was never unmanageable, and the stage I was in was not what I would have considered painful. This time though, it hurt. I felt like I was at the mercy of the contractions, and I was afraid of where they’d take me. And I wasn’t ready to have this baby. I was supposed to have a few hours to get used to the idea that this was indeed real. Things were happening way too fast for me.
I didn’t want my water to break because I knew that contractions are usually much more intense after that happens, even though last time it wasn’t so. I told DarthHusband and Midwife this. I really felt like I should give voice to my fears and let them out. This happened several times during the labor. If I was afraid of something (water breaking, the ring of fire, etc), as soon as I voiced it, the event I feared happened and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Just as I said, “….because I don’t want it to hurt anymore than it already does,” my water broke. Like last time, I had a lot of fluid. Fortunately, it broke on a chux pad, and they got the plastic down in time, so there was only a small spot of it on the floor (it was clear anyway). The contractions did become more intense, but they were not more painful. The apprentices arrived about then. Since we knew this baby would be bigger than my first, I tried lying on my side. My belly felt too heavy for that, but I stayed there for a few contractions. She asked if I felt like pushing, and said I should go with it if I did. I didn’t.
When I felt like it, I tried pushing in that position (side-lying) a few times, and noticed that Midwife was no longer removing the Doppler from my belly after each contraction. I asked if everything was okay, and she said things were fine, but I should probably change positions to something more comfortable and if the toilet was comfortable last time, maybe I should try it again. We moved to the bathroom, and DarthHusband told me each time I was doing a good job. It was so encouraging to hear, especially since I felt so out of control. Midwife asked if I would please try pushing now, as she wasn’t able to hear the heart rate as well as she liked. I knew everything was okay, but I heard myself praying anyway. I was praying for the strength to remember that the pain was okay, and the result of all of this was a baby anyway, and that the baby would be okay. I’d sort of forgotten that this was leading up to a real baby in all of my fear. I pushed a couple of times, but it felt wrong. It wasn’t comfortable in the least, and it felt so much better to gently blow through contractions. It was the only way I felt in control. I think at one point I told Midwife to “get that #I$&)! Doppler off of me,” and she said she was sorry, but she really wanted to hear him. I was okay with it then. I tried to push again, and then stopped and asked if Ian would be mad at me. I hadn’t kissed him goodbye (something I always make it a point to do), and here I was turning him into a big brother and throwing him into a whole new phase of life, and he'd never be my only child again. After being assured that no, he wouldn’t, and this baby was coming anyway, I tried again. I could feel the baby descend a bit, but was afraid that since it didn’t feel right that he was malpositioned. Midwife assured me that when she checked, she felt the appropriate sutures on his skull, and that she was sure he was positioned right, but maybe I needed another position. Did I want to go back to the bedroom? I answered yes, and DarthHusband, who kept telling me reassuring things (after I nearly dismembered him for counting during a push—poor guy), helped me up to move.
I took two steps, and suddenly fell (not hard) to my knees. The tile floor was surprisingly comfortable, and things immediately felt right. I told DarthHusband and Midwife that the baby was going to be born right here in the bathroom, and they’d better get ready for it, and could I please have some pillows? The apprentices got the pillows for me, and I felt like I could push now. I pushed and felt his shoulders on my pelvic bones. I pushed again, and it burned. I felt warm compresses, and the burning went away. DarthHusband told me he could see a head. Then I heard, “I see lips, I see lips!” I waited until I felt another contraction, and then pushed again. I felt my pelvic bones separate to let the baby’s shoulders through. I don’t remember feeling that with Ian. I heard one of the apprentices say quietly, “The oxygen’s right here.” My heart was telling me that the baby was fine, but I asked anyway. I was told, “It’s just in case.” I heard myself scream as I pushed the rest of him out into DarthHusband's waiting hands, feeling in those few seconds his transition from the abstract concept of “the baby” to the concrete My Child. I didn’t scream because it hurt, but because the feeling was so intense. Then I heard, “Ohhhh, we’ve got a cord, times one…….two……three?! Lindsay—hang on a second, this little one’s all tangled up in his cord.” (This explains why she had kept the Doppler on me.) DarthHusband told me what they were doing as he worked with them to unwind our new son from his cord. He didn’t cry. Somehow I knew he was all right, even though he was quiet. I knew it was because he wasn’t scared. I heard a couple of whimpers, and was helped to turn over, and I could finally hold my little one. DarthHusband confirmed he was a boy, and I was immediately thrilled with my new son. It was 7:53am, just 3 hours and 23 minutes after I felt the first contraction.
The midwives were getting slightly concerned because Rooster wasn’t crying, so I asked him to cry just once to tell them he was okay. He let out one indignant yell, and then settled right back down, and looked at me with big, dark eyes. He nursed for a minute, I delivered the placenta immediately after—it was a big one, and then, after a quick shower for me, Rooster and I snuggled in bed. I ate a huge breakfast while DarthHusband weighed Rooster. When he came out, we were sure there was no way he was bigger than Ian had been—he just felt so tiny all crunched up in my arms. Midwife double-checked the scale, and Rooster was indeed bigger, weighing in at 9lbs, 4oz, and measuring just a wee bit shorter at 20.5 inches (and he refused to uncurl his leg to make it an even 21). An examination of me revealed one small labial abrasion (not worth a stitch), and not even so much as a skid mark to my perineum. I’ve healed very well, and feel pretty much back to normal, except for the lovely postpartum stomach with brand-new stretch marks.
Looking back over the birth, there were a few things that stood out to us. The first was that I gave birth in the ideal position for a large baby with a nuchal cord. It was amazing to me that my body knew exactly how to best deliver him for his size and the unexpected cord. His cord was also longer than normal. This was probably why I had so much amniotic fluid—it kept the cord floating well during the pregnancy. The cord was long enough that I was able to push him out before the midwife had a chance to determine whether it would need to be cut or if it could simply be unwrapped. His heart rate had dropped into the 90s, but did not do so until I began to push, and even though it was low, it was steady, and did not drop any lower. We suspect that Rooster wrapped himself in it on his way out, as his heart rate was strong and steady in the 120s even after my water broke. The cord was wrapped tightly enough to cause his heart to slow, but it was not pulled tightly enough to empty it or completely compress it. His descent into and through the birth canal was so rapid that his head wasn’t the slightest bit coney, yet for such a rapid birth, he had no bruising, and no signs of having been through any trauma whatsoever. I believe this birth was gentle for him. He is still a very calm baby, and very rarely cries. He was given an initial Apgar score of 5, because of his slow heart rate, and because he decided to take his time breathing (he didn't come out crying or obviously breathing), but by two minutes, he was given a score of 8. He required no oxygen, and was easily convinced to breathe with just a bit of blow-by. Had we planned to have this birth in a hospital, I don't know if we would have made it in. I think I probably would have wanted to stay home, not wanting to go in too soon. Since my first labor was so long, I know I wouldn't have believed I had progressed as far as I did in such a short time. I haven't marked time well in this story, but going back over it with the midwife, from the time Rooster's heart rate dropped into the 90s to the time he was born was about 20 minutes. We went to my family doctor the next day for my RhoGam shot, and to have the doctor take a peek at Rooster. He heard the whole birth story, and said it sounded like things went great. "Uncomplicated pregnancy, relatively uncomplicated delivery--just wonderful!" He gave us a pat on the back, along with his hearty congratulations and sent us home to rest.
I am firmly convinced that in spite of how rocky this birth was for me, it was gentle and easy on Rooster, which is just how I’d prayed it would be. I looked at the list I’d made the night before, and realized, as I sent DarthHusband to call and cancel the appointment with my back up OB, that I’d gotten everything on that list. Even though I didn’t feel particularly calm, I had a sense of peace through the whole thing that everything was fine. This labor and birth has taught me more about myself that I realize. It was an amazing experience.
Monday, April 4th was my due date. I’d been told by “everybody” throughout most of my pregnancy that I’d probably deliver early, and I’d sort of started to believe it. I got rather impatient as my EDD neared, and as I was absolutely enormous, I felt more than ready to have this baby. Monday marked the day that hope was permanently eclipsed. I didn’t really mind though. Instead, I felt that all the pressure was now off. My phone, which had been ringing off the hook, was blissfully silent most of the day. Ian and I spent the day running a couple of errands and playing and cuddling.
I took a nap around 8pm, and woke up at 10. I wasn’t tired, so I got on the computer. I stayed online for a few hours, and finally got tired around 2. I’d had maybe 4 contractions the entire day, and they were no more significant than the Braxton-Hicks I’d had through the month or so leading up to this. Inspired by a birth story I’d read earlier that night, I decided to write down what I wanted out of the birth. I had 8 things in mind.
1) A happy, healthy baby
2)A gentle birth from the baby’s perspective
3)I didn’t want him to be scared
4)I wanted the birth to be easy on him
5)A relatively short labor
6)A calm, trusting birth
7)I wanted him to be born before the back up OB wanted to start non-stress tests
8)I had an appointment with the back up OB scheduled for the morning of 4/5, because I would have been 42 weeks, 1 day according to LMP. I wanted him to be born before it.
I went to bed thinking, “Watch—this’ll be the night—I should have gotten to bed earlier.”
I woke up around 4:30 with what I thought was a really bad gas pain. I thought I’d better go ahead and pee since I had to do that anyway, so I went to the bathroom. I spent the whole time in the bathroom trying to breathe through what I finally realized were two monster contractions. I got out of there and went into my bedroom (right next door), and realized that 15 minutes had passed just as another contraction hit. I tried to get to where I could breathe through it, but unlike my first labor, these contractions were truly painful. I tried leaning forward and rocking through it, and it worked, but barely. As soon as that one was over, I woke DarthHusband and told him I didn’t think he’d be going to work today. I got the stopwatch and tried to time contractions, but I kept falling asleep and waking up on a peak. I figured they were about 3 minutes apart and lasting two minutes each, so I woke up DarthHusband again, springing out of bed during a contraction (laying down hurt), and yelling at him to call Midwife (the midwife), NOW. He called, and said that we really wanted to let her sleep, but that this just might be it. At the time, I said she should call back in a half-hour and then see where things were.
We got off the phone, and 2 contractions later, Ian woke up, crying because the house was lit up, and we weren’t in our bed. I tried to lie down with him to get him back to sleep, but it was too painful. I was feeling like I needed some space in a big way, and seeing Ian so distressed was upsetting to me, so I had DarthHusband call my parents and have them come get him. My mom arrived and stayed with me for a few contractions, holding Ian. He was crying—poor little guy, he was so tired and he didn’t understand why there were people up and running around—dangit, we were all supposed to be asleep! I went to the bathroom again, telling my mom I’d be out in a minute to kiss him goodbye. Ian got more upset then, so she and DarthHusband decided to go ahead and send her home before I got out of the bathroom. That made me rather upset, as I had really wanted to kiss him goodbye. :-/
Midwife called back, and talked to one of us briefly, saying she was on her way. When she got here (about 10 minutes later), she headed into the bedroom to get the Doppler and her things set up. At this point, I had an enormous contraction that was really painful. I was holding onto DarthHusband thinking, ‘It’s way too early for me to feel like this—I’ve only been contracting for 45 minutes or so, and I’m sure I’ve got hours and hours left to go, and I know I’m overanalyzing it and being a drama queen, but,’ and then out loud, I heard myself say, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” I was really sleepy and wanted to go back to bed. Midwife heard me say that, and convinced me to come back into the bedroom and get checked. After the length of my previous birth, during which I’d stayed at 6cm for three days, I was afraid to get checked, and I didn’t want to hear that I was 6 centimeters. I told her that I didn’t want to hear it if I was 6cm. If it was less than that, fine, I could deal, and if it was more than that, then I definitely wanted to know, but I didn’t want to hear 6. I told her she could lie to me and say 5cm if a 6 I was. She said then that she had small hands, and that it sometimes made it difficult to tell when people were dilated to 8. I had a contraction and that statement flew right over my head. However, her comment about a bulging bag of waters didn’t. She said my water would break soon, and then I’d probably want to push, which would be great.
It was then that I realized I was afraid. I felt so out of control. Ian’s labor had been long—very long, but it was never unmanageable, and the stage I was in was not what I would have considered painful. This time though, it hurt. I felt like I was at the mercy of the contractions, and I was afraid of where they’d take me. And I wasn’t ready to have this baby. I was supposed to have a few hours to get used to the idea that this was indeed real. Things were happening way too fast for me.
I didn’t want my water to break because I knew that contractions are usually much more intense after that happens, even though last time it wasn’t so. I told DarthHusband and Midwife this. I really felt like I should give voice to my fears and let them out. This happened several times during the labor. If I was afraid of something (water breaking, the ring of fire, etc), as soon as I voiced it, the event I feared happened and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Just as I said, “….because I don’t want it to hurt anymore than it already does,” my water broke. Like last time, I had a lot of fluid. Fortunately, it broke on a chux pad, and they got the plastic down in time, so there was only a small spot of it on the floor (it was clear anyway). The contractions did become more intense, but they were not more painful. The apprentices arrived about then. Since we knew this baby would be bigger than my first, I tried lying on my side. My belly felt too heavy for that, but I stayed there for a few contractions. She asked if I felt like pushing, and said I should go with it if I did. I didn’t.
When I felt like it, I tried pushing in that position (side-lying) a few times, and noticed that Midwife was no longer removing the Doppler from my belly after each contraction. I asked if everything was okay, and she said things were fine, but I should probably change positions to something more comfortable and if the toilet was comfortable last time, maybe I should try it again. We moved to the bathroom, and DarthHusband told me each time I was doing a good job. It was so encouraging to hear, especially since I felt so out of control. Midwife asked if I would please try pushing now, as she wasn’t able to hear the heart rate as well as she liked. I knew everything was okay, but I heard myself praying anyway. I was praying for the strength to remember that the pain was okay, and the result of all of this was a baby anyway, and that the baby would be okay. I’d sort of forgotten that this was leading up to a real baby in all of my fear. I pushed a couple of times, but it felt wrong. It wasn’t comfortable in the least, and it felt so much better to gently blow through contractions. It was the only way I felt in control. I think at one point I told Midwife to “get that #I$&)! Doppler off of me,” and she said she was sorry, but she really wanted to hear him. I was okay with it then. I tried to push again, and then stopped and asked if Ian would be mad at me. I hadn’t kissed him goodbye (something I always make it a point to do), and here I was turning him into a big brother and throwing him into a whole new phase of life, and he'd never be my only child again. After being assured that no, he wouldn’t, and this baby was coming anyway, I tried again. I could feel the baby descend a bit, but was afraid that since it didn’t feel right that he was malpositioned. Midwife assured me that when she checked, she felt the appropriate sutures on his skull, and that she was sure he was positioned right, but maybe I needed another position. Did I want to go back to the bedroom? I answered yes, and DarthHusband, who kept telling me reassuring things (after I nearly dismembered him for counting during a push—poor guy), helped me up to move.
I took two steps, and suddenly fell (not hard) to my knees. The tile floor was surprisingly comfortable, and things immediately felt right. I told DarthHusband and Midwife that the baby was going to be born right here in the bathroom, and they’d better get ready for it, and could I please have some pillows? The apprentices got the pillows for me, and I felt like I could push now. I pushed and felt his shoulders on my pelvic bones. I pushed again, and it burned. I felt warm compresses, and the burning went away. DarthHusband told me he could see a head. Then I heard, “I see lips, I see lips!” I waited until I felt another contraction, and then pushed again. I felt my pelvic bones separate to let the baby’s shoulders through. I don’t remember feeling that with Ian. I heard one of the apprentices say quietly, “The oxygen’s right here.” My heart was telling me that the baby was fine, but I asked anyway. I was told, “It’s just in case.” I heard myself scream as I pushed the rest of him out into DarthHusband's waiting hands, feeling in those few seconds his transition from the abstract concept of “the baby” to the concrete My Child. I didn’t scream because it hurt, but because the feeling was so intense. Then I heard, “Ohhhh, we’ve got a cord, times one…….two……three?! Lindsay—hang on a second, this little one’s all tangled up in his cord.” (This explains why she had kept the Doppler on me.) DarthHusband told me what they were doing as he worked with them to unwind our new son from his cord. He didn’t cry. Somehow I knew he was all right, even though he was quiet. I knew it was because he wasn’t scared. I heard a couple of whimpers, and was helped to turn over, and I could finally hold my little one. DarthHusband confirmed he was a boy, and I was immediately thrilled with my new son. It was 7:53am, just 3 hours and 23 minutes after I felt the first contraction.
The midwives were getting slightly concerned because Rooster wasn’t crying, so I asked him to cry just once to tell them he was okay. He let out one indignant yell, and then settled right back down, and looked at me with big, dark eyes. He nursed for a minute, I delivered the placenta immediately after—it was a big one, and then, after a quick shower for me, Rooster and I snuggled in bed. I ate a huge breakfast while DarthHusband weighed Rooster. When he came out, we were sure there was no way he was bigger than Ian had been—he just felt so tiny all crunched up in my arms. Midwife double-checked the scale, and Rooster was indeed bigger, weighing in at 9lbs, 4oz, and measuring just a wee bit shorter at 20.5 inches (and he refused to uncurl his leg to make it an even 21). An examination of me revealed one small labial abrasion (not worth a stitch), and not even so much as a skid mark to my perineum. I’ve healed very well, and feel pretty much back to normal, except for the lovely postpartum stomach with brand-new stretch marks.
Looking back over the birth, there were a few things that stood out to us. The first was that I gave birth in the ideal position for a large baby with a nuchal cord. It was amazing to me that my body knew exactly how to best deliver him for his size and the unexpected cord. His cord was also longer than normal. This was probably why I had so much amniotic fluid—it kept the cord floating well during the pregnancy. The cord was long enough that I was able to push him out before the midwife had a chance to determine whether it would need to be cut or if it could simply be unwrapped. His heart rate had dropped into the 90s, but did not do so until I began to push, and even though it was low, it was steady, and did not drop any lower. We suspect that Rooster wrapped himself in it on his way out, as his heart rate was strong and steady in the 120s even after my water broke. The cord was wrapped tightly enough to cause his heart to slow, but it was not pulled tightly enough to empty it or completely compress it. His descent into and through the birth canal was so rapid that his head wasn’t the slightest bit coney, yet for such a rapid birth, he had no bruising, and no signs of having been through any trauma whatsoever. I believe this birth was gentle for him. He is still a very calm baby, and very rarely cries. He was given an initial Apgar score of 5, because of his slow heart rate, and because he decided to take his time breathing (he didn't come out crying or obviously breathing), but by two minutes, he was given a score of 8. He required no oxygen, and was easily convinced to breathe with just a bit of blow-by. Had we planned to have this birth in a hospital, I don't know if we would have made it in. I think I probably would have wanted to stay home, not wanting to go in too soon. Since my first labor was so long, I know I wouldn't have believed I had progressed as far as I did in such a short time. I haven't marked time well in this story, but going back over it with the midwife, from the time Rooster's heart rate dropped into the 90s to the time he was born was about 20 minutes. We went to my family doctor the next day for my RhoGam shot, and to have the doctor take a peek at Rooster. He heard the whole birth story, and said it sounded like things went great. "Uncomplicated pregnancy, relatively uncomplicated delivery--just wonderful!" He gave us a pat on the back, along with his hearty congratulations and sent us home to rest.
I am firmly convinced that in spite of how rocky this birth was for me, it was gentle and easy on Rooster, which is just how I’d prayed it would be. I looked at the list I’d made the night before, and realized, as I sent DarthHusband to call and cancel the appointment with my back up OB, that I’d gotten everything on that list. Even though I didn’t feel particularly calm, I had a sense of peace through the whole thing that everything was fine. This labor and birth has taught me more about myself that I realize. It was an amazing experience.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Haiku Battle 2006
It all started when Kimmy, a teacher, posted a limerick written by one of her students. A limerick minus some valuable syllables was posted by another loop member. I was going to respond with a limerick, but they're hard, and I'm not about to take an hour coming up with a 5 line, multi-syllabic bit for the loop, as fast as it moves. Haiku is doable.
Thus,
Haiku Battle 2006
Me: Kim is a teacher
She works very hard on things
She prefers good dick
Kimmy: hard dick
Me:Whatever you say
I want points for my haiku
Give them to me now
Kimmy: Listen snarky bitch
I am grading this bullshit
Take this and like it
Me: I will take ice cream
No more, no less for me, please
I want chocolate
Kimmy: Just ate M and Ms
John ate gallon of ice cream
Too much fat for him
Me: I'm eating noodles
They have lots of ranch on them
Broccoli hurts me
Kimmy: Please no more haikus
Consonants are annoying
Stupid assignment
Me: It is not my fault
Limericks are much harder
You started it, bia
Shel: Fat free popcorn here
I lost 4.8 this week
Not rubbing it in
Me: Congratulations
You are on your way to slim
Popcorn sounds very good
Kimmy: I've created a monster.
Me: You have not done so
I have discovered my love
Such a simple prose
Kissy: today i looked down at my long sleeved black shirt and it looked like a garden slug had made its way down my arm.
Shel: you are the most poetic of the bitches (sorry, L)
Me: The haiku monster
Has returned to take revenge
Yea, I shall triumph
Kimmy: yes i wanted sex
but he fell asleep again
ah so much for that
My last entry for the night, sadly, highly relevant. He's batting at his ears again, I'll have to take him for a recheck tomorrow.
Amoxicillin
The pink stuff in use again
Ear infections suck
Thus,
Haiku Battle 2006
Me: Kim is a teacher
She works very hard on things
She prefers good dick
Kimmy: hard dick
Me:Whatever you say
I want points for my haiku
Give them to me now
Kimmy: Listen snarky bitch
I am grading this bullshit
Take this and like it
Me: I will take ice cream
No more, no less for me, please
I want chocolate
Kimmy: Just ate M and Ms
John ate gallon of ice cream
Too much fat for him
Me: I'm eating noodles
They have lots of ranch on them
Broccoli hurts me
Kimmy: Please no more haikus
Consonants are annoying
Stupid assignment
Me: It is not my fault
Limericks are much harder
You started it, bia
Shel: Fat free popcorn here
I lost 4.8 this week
Not rubbing it in
Me: Congratulations
You are on your way to slim
Popcorn sounds very good
Kimmy: I've created a monster.
Me: You have not done so
I have discovered my love
Such a simple prose
Kissy: today i looked down at my long sleeved black shirt and it looked like a garden slug had made its way down my arm.
Shel: you are the most poetic of the bitches (sorry, L)
Me: The haiku monster
Has returned to take revenge
Yea, I shall triumph
Kimmy: yes i wanted sex
but he fell asleep again
ah so much for that
My last entry for the night, sadly, highly relevant. He's batting at his ears again, I'll have to take him for a recheck tomorrow.
Amoxicillin
The pink stuff in use again
Ear infections suck
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
So there was this post
About car seats and safety. And it got locked and it was because some people are completely incapable of reading posts objectively. Does the phrase "blah blah blah" indicate basic respect and courtesy for the words to which it is the response? I think no.
Anyway, since I didn't get a chance to respond before the Blah Blah Blah-er got the thread locked, I'll post it here, since it was a darn good post--WhinyPerson comments in italics, comments from Myself in green :
WhinyPerson wrote:
blah blah blah...lol...just wanted to say something...lol...this subject is way heavy, can't we just leave it at we get what we want, and car seats now are a lot safer than they used to be, and just pray that we never have to test out the safety of any of them...
This is in the Hot Topics forum for the very reason that it is a heavy subject. Debates are often circular and can take a while to wind themselves down, as this one obviously is.
WhinyPerson wrote: good lord it's seems like it's being said that if you don't have a certain seat a certain way your child is gonna die and that it's your fault for putting them in that seat..bah...
I'm sorry that's the impression you've gotten. The bottom line is that a child is at considerably higher risk when improperly secured in an improperly installed car seat.
WhinyPerson wrote:
at least we are discussing the types of carseats not the lack thereof...I've seen several people riding down the highway with a young baby in their lap...
The point is that it is still unsafe to improperly secure a child in an improperly installed car seat.
Regarding forward vs rear-facing, I bet most of us that have chosen to keep our babies rear-facing past a year didn't know about the benefits of doing so until recently. I generally knew (through research via the internet of reputable websites) that it was safer, but I didn't realize just how much safer it was.
I don't know anyone who would call someone a bad mother for making a decision when they didn't know any better. The point of this is, now that the information has been made available, what will we do?
SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
Well if we want to get into the safety rating, then lets get into the car crash test safety ratings as well because if you are not driving the safest vehicle then you are putting your child in danger. Right?
The safety of various car seats depends on several factors. With the overhead shield type seats (see one here: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4645515), it's difficult to secure the child tightly enough in the seat, and it's been shown that 5-point seats are safer. Seats of this type only have three points, making it more difficult to secure the child properly.
For the rest of the 5-point harness seats, the place where safety ratings come into play is mainly in installation.
Consumer Reports bases much of their ratings on ease of install and ease of use. A seat that is difficult to install is obviously more likely to be installed incorrectly. Incorrectly installing said seat means the child is at greater risk of injury, therefore, the seat ends up with a lower rating by Consumer Reports. A seat that is easy to install but makes it difficult to properly secure the child (for instance, our spare Evenflo) will have a lower rating, too. For Baby Bargains' ratings, factors like how the company handled prior recalls and customer service enter the picture as well.
The main reason those of us who have Britax seats recommend them so highly is that not only do they perform very well in crash tests, but they are easy to install correctly in many vehicles, and the harness is designed in such a way that a secure fit for the child is very easy, too.
I've had a Graco, a Cosco, an Evenflo, and a Britax. For ease of use, I infinitely prefer the Britax.
That said, a correctly installed seat with a secure fit for your child is the safest way to go, be that a Britax or any other brand.
SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
If you want to get into statistics, no one should be driving anyway, it is very unsafe just for you to put yourself behind the wheel let alone put your child(ren) at that risk.
I think we would all agree that in this area, cars and driving are a necessary evil.
Me again--here's my PM to the Administrator of the Most Sensitive Forum of the Year:
Her:
Thanks in Advance for your cooperation . . . .This forum is now LOCKED!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me:
J, you know I love ya, but I have to express my displeasure at the locking of this thread.
It's a shame that it was not allowed to continue and resolve itself. Yeah, I'm probably miffed because I just spent an hour compiling a very polite post that included information on several seats (that I never got around to after discovering the thread was locked) and some deeper insight into how car seat safety ratings are established, and asking for clarification on some remarks, all without insulting anyone. I have the whole post copied and saved because it was a good one. LOL
The point is that people are going to read something into anything, and if someone wants to see "you're a bad mom" then they're gonna see it regardless of what is typed. Heck, it seems some people will translate "I think the sky is blue" into "you're a bad mom." :wink:
The locked topic was in a debate forum. If we are not allowed to make points and our debates are not allowed to complete themselves, then I fail to see how this forum will succeed. There are always going to be posts that get riled up on any message board (I oughta know, I've been on various boards for 7 years, and I think I've been through every debate topic to come up on a parenting board LOL), and they always resolve themselves. It may not be to the liking of everyone, but people do reach an understanding. I regret that that was not allowed to happen in this case. If threads that get heated continue to be shut down without resolution by the posters themselves, then I don't think this forum is going to get very far. Pretty soon no one will feel like they are able to express an opinion other than the one put forth by an original poster. The board will stagnate and that will be sad. I'm not speculating, I've seen it happen.
We are adults and fully capable of disagreeing without being hurtful. I didn't see anyone call names. I did see a poster asking for clarification of the comment "blah blah blah." Since it's usually meant as dismissive and disdainful of the quoted segment, I was going to ask for clarification of it in my post myself.
I didn't see anyone telling someone else that their kid's carseat was unsafe and nowhere did any poster call anyone else a bad mother. There is a lot of misinformation regarding car seats out there, and a lot of it was getting aired and corrected. I think the discussion was headed in a good direction. It's a shame it wasn't allowed to continue.
Even regarding the "not hurting others' feelings" rule for the board, I think it's a little impractical. It's inevitable that someone will get hurt over some perceived slight, and I think that's just one of the hazards of a written forum. I don't think a post should be pulled, edited, or locked because someone might get hurt when a post is misinterpreted.
Of course, all of this is just my opinion. ;)
Adding--I just noticed that the thread has been moved back to Parenting Concerns. Obviously I'm not an Admin, but I think it would have been just find to continue in the debate forum. It appears as though it was moved back to Parenting Concerns and then locked, which, IMO wasn't really fair to us as posters.
Normal me again. I was very tempted to add, after typing out all of that, then seeing how things went, "And there are some of us that are more articulate than others, and I see no reason why the inarticulate weenies should ruin it for the rest of us."
But I'm a good girl, so I didn't.
That said, my comments about stagnating forums are correct. As an example, my due date boards. Board A is very nice-nice, and no one disagrees on parenting things because they don't want to hurt feelings or make anyone feel like a bad mom or anything like that. Board B has some of the most unusual and noisiest debates on the Parenting Community. And we've debated it all. Board A is extremely slow these days, and there's nothing on it but "the baby cut another tooth" and "S/he's walking!" Board B is still having insightful and entertaining discussions on everything from WIC to Extended Nursing to American Idol to the lastest episode of Desperate Housewives. Board B used to be known as the "mean" board. Actually, after a car seat debate over there, in which Board B people came over and got snitty, it held on to the title of Mean Board. Anyway, I love Board B. Yeah, so we squabble and bitch and moan, but should one of our members be insulted by some other board, we've got their back. :)
Anyway, since I didn't get a chance to respond before the Blah Blah Blah-er got the thread locked, I'll post it here, since it was a darn good post--WhinyPerson comments in italics, comments from Myself in green :
WhinyPerson wrote:
blah blah blah...lol...just wanted to say something...lol...this subject is way heavy, can't we just leave it at we get what we want, and car seats now are a lot safer than they used to be, and just pray that we never have to test out the safety of any of them...
This is in the Hot Topics forum for the very reason that it is a heavy subject. Debates are often circular and can take a while to wind themselves down, as this one obviously is.
WhinyPerson wrote: good lord it's seems like it's being said that if you don't have a certain seat a certain way your child is gonna die and that it's your fault for putting them in that seat..bah...
I'm sorry that's the impression you've gotten. The bottom line is that a child is at considerably higher risk when improperly secured in an improperly installed car seat.
WhinyPerson wrote:
at least we are discussing the types of carseats not the lack thereof...I've seen several people riding down the highway with a young baby in their lap...
The point is that it is still unsafe to improperly secure a child in an improperly installed car seat.
Regarding forward vs rear-facing, I bet most of us that have chosen to keep our babies rear-facing past a year didn't know about the benefits of doing so until recently. I generally knew (through research via the internet of reputable websites) that it was safer, but I didn't realize just how much safer it was.
I don't know anyone who would call someone a bad mother for making a decision when they didn't know any better. The point of this is, now that the information has been made available, what will we do?
SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
Well if we want to get into the safety rating, then lets get into the car crash test safety ratings as well because if you are not driving the safest vehicle then you are putting your child in danger. Right?
The safety of various car seats depends on several factors. With the overhead shield type seats (see one here: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4645515), it's difficult to secure the child tightly enough in the seat, and it's been shown that 5-point seats are safer. Seats of this type only have three points, making it more difficult to secure the child properly.
For the rest of the 5-point harness seats, the place where safety ratings come into play is mainly in installation.
Consumer Reports bases much of their ratings on ease of install and ease of use. A seat that is difficult to install is obviously more likely to be installed incorrectly. Incorrectly installing said seat means the child is at greater risk of injury, therefore, the seat ends up with a lower rating by Consumer Reports. A seat that is easy to install but makes it difficult to properly secure the child (for instance, our spare Evenflo) will have a lower rating, too. For Baby Bargains' ratings, factors like how the company handled prior recalls and customer service enter the picture as well.
The main reason those of us who have Britax seats recommend them so highly is that not only do they perform very well in crash tests, but they are easy to install correctly in many vehicles, and the harness is designed in such a way that a secure fit for the child is very easy, too.
I've had a Graco, a Cosco, an Evenflo, and a Britax. For ease of use, I infinitely prefer the Britax.
That said, a correctly installed seat with a secure fit for your child is the safest way to go, be that a Britax or any other brand.
SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
If you want to get into statistics, no one should be driving anyway, it is very unsafe just for you to put yourself behind the wheel let alone put your child(ren) at that risk.
I think we would all agree that in this area, cars and driving are a necessary evil.
Me again--here's my PM to the Administrator of the Most Sensitive Forum of the Year:
Her:
Thanks in Advance for your cooperation . . . .This forum is now LOCKED!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me:
J, you know I love ya, but I have to express my displeasure at the locking of this thread.
It's a shame that it was not allowed to continue and resolve itself. Yeah, I'm probably miffed because I just spent an hour compiling a very polite post that included information on several seats (that I never got around to after discovering the thread was locked) and some deeper insight into how car seat safety ratings are established, and asking for clarification on some remarks, all without insulting anyone. I have the whole post copied and saved because it was a good one. LOL
The point is that people are going to read something into anything, and if someone wants to see "you're a bad mom" then they're gonna see it regardless of what is typed. Heck, it seems some people will translate "I think the sky is blue" into "you're a bad mom." :wink:
The locked topic was in a debate forum. If we are not allowed to make points and our debates are not allowed to complete themselves, then I fail to see how this forum will succeed. There are always going to be posts that get riled up on any message board (I oughta know, I've been on various boards for 7 years, and I think I've been through every debate topic to come up on a parenting board LOL), and they always resolve themselves. It may not be to the liking of everyone, but people do reach an understanding. I regret that that was not allowed to happen in this case. If threads that get heated continue to be shut down without resolution by the posters themselves, then I don't think this forum is going to get very far. Pretty soon no one will feel like they are able to express an opinion other than the one put forth by an original poster. The board will stagnate and that will be sad. I'm not speculating, I've seen it happen.
We are adults and fully capable of disagreeing without being hurtful. I didn't see anyone call names. I did see a poster asking for clarification of the comment "blah blah blah." Since it's usually meant as dismissive and disdainful of the quoted segment, I was going to ask for clarification of it in my post myself.
I didn't see anyone telling someone else that their kid's carseat was unsafe and nowhere did any poster call anyone else a bad mother. There is a lot of misinformation regarding car seats out there, and a lot of it was getting aired and corrected. I think the discussion was headed in a good direction. It's a shame it wasn't allowed to continue.
Even regarding the "not hurting others' feelings" rule for the board, I think it's a little impractical. It's inevitable that someone will get hurt over some perceived slight, and I think that's just one of the hazards of a written forum. I don't think a post should be pulled, edited, or locked because someone might get hurt when a post is misinterpreted.
Of course, all of this is just my opinion. ;)
Adding--I just noticed that the thread has been moved back to Parenting Concerns. Obviously I'm not an Admin, but I think it would have been just find to continue in the debate forum. It appears as though it was moved back to Parenting Concerns and then locked, which, IMO wasn't really fair to us as posters.
Normal me again. I was very tempted to add, after typing out all of that, then seeing how things went, "And there are some of us that are more articulate than others, and I see no reason why the inarticulate weenies should ruin it for the rest of us."
But I'm a good girl, so I didn't.
That said, my comments about stagnating forums are correct. As an example, my due date boards. Board A is very nice-nice, and no one disagrees on parenting things because they don't want to hurt feelings or make anyone feel like a bad mom or anything like that. Board B has some of the most unusual and noisiest debates on the Parenting Community. And we've debated it all. Board A is extremely slow these days, and there's nothing on it but "the baby cut another tooth" and "S/he's walking!" Board B is still having insightful and entertaining discussions on everything from WIC to Extended Nursing to American Idol to the lastest episode of Desperate Housewives. Board B used to be known as the "mean" board. Actually, after a car seat debate over there, in which Board B people came over and got snitty, it held on to the title of Mean Board. Anyway, I love Board B. Yeah, so we squabble and bitch and moan, but should one of our members be insulted by some other board, we've got their back. :)
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Bad Mom Complex
It's alive and well.
We've all seen it. Someone asks, "When did you feed your baby meat?" The first person responds with, "Around a year," and the next person responds with, "I guess I'm a bad mom, but....etc, etc."
When did Bad Mom enter the equation? I didn't see it in the prior questions. I theorize that the bad mom excuse makes an appearance when a perfectly reasonable mom is suddenly finding herself uncomfortable with her decision. The sudden second guessing immediately sets off an alarm in every other mommy's brain because at some point, we've all felt that we're thought of as a bad mom by someone. Unfortunately, this requires the 493 responding posters to quote Bad Mom's post and reply with, "You're NOT a bad mom. I did such-and-such." This takes the focus off of the OP and turns the post into one long pat on the back thread for the so-called Bad Mom.
There's something we need to realize. Different does not equal bad. There are some things that are bad decisions, sure. Using an expired car seat, feeding a baby fruits and veggies at the ripe old age of three months, turning and infant's car seat around at 7 months because they're screaming at the top of their lungs, telling your kids you'll let the monster in the closet have them for breakfast if they don't stay in bed, CIO, and I even put formula feeding because somebody offered to pay for it (and and using that as the determining factor) when you've got two perfectly good breasts and no particular reason to avoid using them in the category.
That said, there's a world of difference between a bad decision and a Bad Mom. Not one of us (mothers) will make the best decisions or even the right decisions all of the time. That's just a fact of life. My kids might go out once or twice underdressed for the unpredictable Kansas weather. Bad decision of me to not bring a coat, but does it make me a bad mom? Of course not. If I were a bad mom, I wouldn't even have coats for them. Instead, as soon as we get done with what we're doing, or they become uncomfortable with the temperature, we go inside or home and warm up. Eeny might eat McD's chicken nuggets for lunch one day. Bad dietary decision? Sure. But the next day he'll have a healthy lunch of chicken and veggies. It'd be nice if we, as mothers, generally took a party line of, We're human, we'll make bad decisions from time to time, and that's okay. It's not something to strive for, more something to understand and accept.
I put "I'm a bad mom" posts in the same category as, "If this is the way everyone feels, I'll leave the group because I don't want to be somewhere when people don't agree with me." Silly, and emotional blackmail, because it takes the focus off the disagreement and turns it into a "Love me" fest. I'm the first to admit that I usually don't know how to handle it when people disagree with me. It's uncomfortable. Why? Because it means that I might be wrong. It doesn't mean I am wrong, just that it's possible I might be. I don't like being wrong. I don't know anyone who does. It's just that it's possible, if someone else holds the opposite strong belief that I do, that they might be right, and I might not.
My feelings are not reality. I can feel that someone doesn't like me, but that doesn't make it true. When I make 5 phone calls and none of my friends and chat buddies are home, it might feel like no one likes me or is there for me, but that hardly makes it the case. So I can feel like there's a possibility that I might be wrong, but that doesn't make it true.
We've all seen it. Someone asks, "When did you feed your baby meat?" The first person responds with, "Around a year," and the next person responds with, "I guess I'm a bad mom, but....etc, etc."
When did Bad Mom enter the equation? I didn't see it in the prior questions. I theorize that the bad mom excuse makes an appearance when a perfectly reasonable mom is suddenly finding herself uncomfortable with her decision. The sudden second guessing immediately sets off an alarm in every other mommy's brain because at some point, we've all felt that we're thought of as a bad mom by someone. Unfortunately, this requires the 493 responding posters to quote Bad Mom's post and reply with, "You're NOT a bad mom. I did such-and-such." This takes the focus off of the OP and turns the post into one long pat on the back thread for the so-called Bad Mom.
There's something we need to realize. Different does not equal bad. There are some things that are bad decisions, sure. Using an expired car seat, feeding a baby fruits and veggies at the ripe old age of three months, turning and infant's car seat around at 7 months because they're screaming at the top of their lungs, telling your kids you'll let the monster in the closet have them for breakfast if they don't stay in bed, CIO, and I even put formula feeding because somebody offered to pay for it (and and using that as the determining factor) when you've got two perfectly good breasts and no particular reason to avoid using them in the category.
That said, there's a world of difference between a bad decision and a Bad Mom. Not one of us (mothers) will make the best decisions or even the right decisions all of the time. That's just a fact of life. My kids might go out once or twice underdressed for the unpredictable Kansas weather. Bad decision of me to not bring a coat, but does it make me a bad mom? Of course not. If I were a bad mom, I wouldn't even have coats for them. Instead, as soon as we get done with what we're doing, or they become uncomfortable with the temperature, we go inside or home and warm up. Eeny might eat McD's chicken nuggets for lunch one day. Bad dietary decision? Sure. But the next day he'll have a healthy lunch of chicken and veggies. It'd be nice if we, as mothers, generally took a party line of, We're human, we'll make bad decisions from time to time, and that's okay. It's not something to strive for, more something to understand and accept.
I put "I'm a bad mom" posts in the same category as, "If this is the way everyone feels, I'll leave the group because I don't want to be somewhere when people don't agree with me." Silly, and emotional blackmail, because it takes the focus off the disagreement and turns it into a "Love me" fest. I'm the first to admit that I usually don't know how to handle it when people disagree with me. It's uncomfortable. Why? Because it means that I might be wrong. It doesn't mean I am wrong, just that it's possible I might be. I don't like being wrong. I don't know anyone who does. It's just that it's possible, if someone else holds the opposite strong belief that I do, that they might be right, and I might not.
My feelings are not reality. I can feel that someone doesn't like me, but that doesn't make it true. When I make 5 phone calls and none of my friends and chat buddies are home, it might feel like no one likes me or is there for me, but that hardly makes it the case. So I can feel like there's a possibility that I might be wrong, but that doesn't make it true.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Hmmmm...
I could handle this:
I went to Friend H's house today to finish laying out The Rooster's quilt. Then I decided I didn't like the fabric I'd picked out to alternate between the cute little rails of fabric. Picture when it's done.
Here's the sling I made for the Rooster yesterday:
I can see where it needs some work, and for the next one I do, I'll remember that.
Great news--Friend A is pregnant!!! :) She and her husband have been trying for over a year. I'm so happy for them!
Yay! A snuggly newborn I don't have to gestate and deliver! :D
...and there was much rejoicing.
| You Belong in Rome |
 You're a big city girl with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian men - could life get any better? |
I went to Friend H's house today to finish laying out The Rooster's quilt. Then I decided I didn't like the fabric I'd picked out to alternate between the cute little rails of fabric. Picture when it's done.
Here's the sling I made for the Rooster yesterday:
I can see where it needs some work, and for the next one I do, I'll remember that.
Great news--Friend A is pregnant!!! :) She and her husband have been trying for over a year. I'm so happy for them!
Yay! A snuggly newborn I don't have to gestate and deliver! :D
...and there was much rejoicing.
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