Mmmmm, that was good!
The sheik of Endicott.
Guess what I'm doing!
Mmmmm, that was good!
The sheik of Endicott.
I wish this song had been out when we got married - it would've been our first (only!) dance song.
Our love is unconditional
We knew it from the start
I can see it in your eyes
You can feel it from my heart
From here on after
Let’s stay the way we are right now
And share all the love and laughter
That a lifetime will allow
Chorus:
I cross my heart
And promise to
Give all I’ve got to give
To make all your dreams come true
In all the world
You’ll never find
A love as true as mine
You will always be the miracle
That makes my life complete
And as long as there’s still breath in me
I’ll make yours just as sweet
As we look into the future
It’s as far as we can see
So let’s make each tomorrow
Be the best that it can be
Chorus
And if along the way we find a day
It starts to storm
You’ve got the promise of my love
To keep you warm
Chorus
I love you, baby.
Know what I did today? Do ya? Huh? Huh? Do ya?
Today I put on...
...
... JEANS!
They are my fat jeans, and they're a lil snug, but still... I haven't worn jeans in literally months, so I am THRILLED!
Thomas has gone through a real verbal growth spurt in the last month or so. He started talking (and walking, and eating, and crawling, and climbing) early as it is, but now he's doing a better and better job of making himself understood. His phrases include:
Lindsey had her first bath today, under the watchful eye of her brother. Immediately afterward, she celebrated by making an enormous poop*.
*What, you were expecting me to talk about, maybe, politics? Just be glad I didn't take pictures of THAT.
More pictures of babies! Here is Baby Dove in one of the outfits she got from Grandma and Grandpa Gunderloy.
And a close-up of her sweet widdow face!
Finally, a shot of how she self-soothes. Her older sister did the same thing.
Advantage isn't just something you have - it's something you take.
I'm having a rare empty-handed-of-baby moment, so I decided to write up my version of Lindsey's birth story. Enjoy!
Oh, and here are a few gratuitious baby pictures. :)
Fun Facts about Lindsey Nicole Gunderloy, age 2 days:
And in other news, my milk just came in. Like... just 3 minutes ago. My, my, my. Aren't they purty?? ;)
Lindsey Nicole Gunderloy
Born February 20, 2006 at 5:36AM
8 pounds 13.5 ounces
21.5 inches in length
Parents: Dana Jones and Michael Gunderloy
Mom and baby are both well and back at home. The whole family is excited to welcome her into the world.
I promise more pictures - and a birth story - well... later. :)
Today was the OB appointment I never expected we'd keep. Everything is still frighteningly normal - blood pressure was 132/83, weight was up 5 pounds over 2 weeks, no mention was made of my urine being a problem, there's plenty of amniotic fluid, and Lindsey's heart rate is fine. I'm now two days past my estimated date of delivery. The doctor says he's content to just let things roll along for a little while longer, but said if we have no baby by Thursday, we need to help things move. So I have another OB appointment at 10AM on the 23rd, which I hope not to keep. If Lindsey hasn't arrived by then, we'll almost certainly be inducing.
I've said all along that my guess for her birthdate would be February 21st. I shared this with the doc, joking, and found out that he's going to be out of town both Monday AND Tuesday, so if Murphy has anything to do with it, I'll be right. There's nothing wrong, in terms of competence or ability, with any of his replacements, but they just aren't "my" doctor. Anyway, I hope I'm wrong, and that Lindsey just shows up on her own over the weekend sometime. I'm going to try to get ahead on some of my work, nap often, drink lots of water, and think Happy-Baby-Coming-Out thoughts. Really, what else can I do?
Speaking of napping, I'm now having a really hard time getting comfortable at bedtime now. Last night I couldn't lay down on my right side, or on my left side; my ligaments were just causing me too much pain. Even propped up on pillows and sitting mostly upright, it wasn't happening. I was so tired by that point that I was just about frantic to sleep. I got on all fours and tried to lean my head on pillows, but that wasn't exactly prime sleeping position. It did somehow shift the weight of the baby, and I finally fell asleep, exhausted, on my right side, for my usual four hours of sleep. Yep, baby's definitely getting me on HER schedule. :)
I was singing lullabies to Thomas, and Adam decided to help by making up his own. Here's what he came up with:
Twinkle, twinkle, little dinosaur,
How I wonder if you're a minosaur.
Down in the middle of the jungle so deep,
Like an anaconda that won't sleep.
Twinkle, twinkle, little dinosaur,
How I wonder if you're a minosaur.
Clever boy. :)
Oh, and.. yes. I'm STILL pregnant.
Just when you think you've heard the absolute stupidest thing that anyone can say to a (very) pregnant woman, someone comes along to surprise you. Mike and I just got back from the grocery store where a woman called me...
...
... wait for it ...
...
... an elephant.
An. Elephant.
She said I looked like an elephant.
Not a cow.
Not a very large sheep.
Not a pig or a goat.
An elephant.
...
There are no words.
Thing is, I don't think she was TRYING to be hurtful (though it hurt, a great deal). I seriously, honestly just believe that she was so unbelievably THOUGHTLESS as to say the first thing that came to mind, and as I was wearing all gray...
Still. Is it REALLY so VERY difficult to THINK before you SPEAK? Or are APPROPRIATE comments just that difficult to come up with?
Here... I'll help:
"Ooooh, can't be much longer now, right?"
"You look great!"
"That baby's just too happy in there! You've made him/her too comfortable!"
"You're glowing! No wonder your body doesn't want to turn loose of the baby - look how great your skin is!"
"It's all baby weight."
Now, look, normally I am a big, big (SHUT UP!) advocate of truth-telling, but when someone is THIS pregnant, it is PERFECTLY OK to LIE to them to make them feel better. I mean, it's probably only a little lie, anyway, and it won't hurt anyone, and it will do so MUCH for their sense of well-being, so why not?
I am so miserable. I am so very ready to STOP being pregnant! I want my daughter out, where I can see her, and where she can beat up on and abuse someone else for a change. I want to start nursing, and start losing this "baby fat." I want to be able to bend over and touch my toes without squatting to do so. I want my back to stop hurting, my hips to get back into alignment, my shoulder to quit aching.
I want to regain my normal attention span. I want to be able to eat something - anything - without the horror of heartburn. I want to feel sexy and wanted again. I want to stop smelling like an alleycat. I want to be able to cuddle my other children without feeling like they're going to kill me. I want the contractions to either STOP, or KEEP GOING - this stutter-stepping shit is getting seriously old.
I hate this.
This was the result of a challenge for an online crop I'm participating in. Well, TRYING to, anyway. The challenge was to use stitching, rub-ons, and the color pink, all in the same layout. I love the pictures, and I'm pleased enough with the layout.
The love of my life.
I swear, I can NOT have a baby without first making an aborted attempt at delivery, and having to come slinking home from the hospital with my tail (and fetus!) tucked firmly between my legs. UGH. I am thoroughly disgusted with myself.
Timeline:
Tuesday, February 7th
4:30PM I lay down to have a nap before dinner.
5:00PM Contractions start, and are uncomfortably strong. I call Mike in to coach.
5:45PM After timing contractions, we realize they are coming anywhere from 2-4 minutes apart. I get up to take a shower, and he gets up
to pack last-minute things into the van, "just in case."
5:50PM I squat my knees a little during a contraction, and feel some kind of gush. I'm not sure if it's amniotic fluid or urine, and as
I'm in the shower, there's no way to know for sure. I call for Mike and tell him what happened.
5:55PM Mike calls the hospital, telling them we're coming in and might have ruptured membranes. Mike and I get dressed and head in.
6:30PM We arrive at the hospital. The nurse (Christy) checks my cervix (50% effaced, only "a fingertip" dilated), and uses "the magic
tape." The magic tape turns bright blue, which Christy confirms means my water has broken. The doctor is called over, I'm put on monitors and
given an IV shunt (in my hand, after no fewer than FOUR aborted attempts elsewhere), blood is drawn, and we sit back to wait.
8:00PM And wait.
10:00PM And wait.
12:00PM And wait. We spend these hours walking the hall, doing a puzzle in the surgery waiting room, rocking in the rocking chair, watching
really bad television, and talking to each other. Contractions come and go, but never really get serious. There is no bloody show. My doctor comes
by to check on me, offering "assistance, any time you want it." I laugh, telling him he knows how we feel about "assistance." The nurses, doctor,
and we all get a good chuckle. Everyone decides to just wait and see.
Wednesday, February 8th
2:00AM Mike and I are both getting tired, so we decide to sleep. I crawl into the bed with the Evil Baby-Monitoring Straps around me. Mike
folds out the couch and tries to steal a few winks himself. We are plagued with the usual hospital routines - beeping and swishing machines, nurse
visits at least every hour, bathroom breaks at least every 45 minutes, and general discomfort in too-hard beds in an unfamiliar room.
5:30AM I get up and decide to go for another walk after a restroom break. While in the bathroom, I have my first sign of bloody show, but it
is not bright red, and it is largely mucousy. While Mike and I are walking around, there is more mucous, with a little more blood. It would be
the last blood we would see all day.
6:15AM We return to the nurse's station to announce that I think I have lost my mucous plug. Christy tells us there will be a shift change
at 7, and we will have Martha for our nurse. I try to doze some more.
6:55AM Martha arrives, and the sound of her voice wakes me up. Contractions have all but stopped completely at this point. It's been over
12 hours since my water broke, and I know they're going to want to talk intervention.
7:30AM Breakfast time. Some kind of egg-pepper-ham thing and toast, along with milk and orange juice. Mike and I are both getting whatever
cold Thomas had. Joy.
8:30AM We meet with the doctor, and ask for another pelvic exam. 60-70% effaced, 1 finger dilated, "and only because I can push my finger
through." We opt to start a pitocin drip to augment contractions, but go for one last "freedom run" around the hospital.
8:45AM Just before we get hooked up to the IV, the doctor decides to do a
ferning slide just to make sure my membranes had really ruptured. He
goes to find a microscope, then comes back almost beaming, announcing, "Well! That explains how you could have lost your mucous plug after
you got here! There's no amniotic fluid at all." I'm sent home.
9:30AM Relieved, sad, exhausted, disappointed, we head for home.
We made a run to the hospital last night, but it wasn't for me. We were sitting upstairs, chatting about kids and half-working, when I noticed Thomas chewing on something red that had dripped down onto his shirt and was smeared on his forehead. My first thought was that he had bitten his tongue, but then I realized we hadn't heard a peep out of him. "He must've found a piece of candy lying around," I thought, so I inspected. Damned if he wasn't chewing through a hunk of his tongue, on his right side!
Oh. My. God. It was so disgusting. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't screaming - didn't it hurt? - until Mike later reminded me that we had recently given him a dose of Motrin because of a fever (100.7) he was spiking, so he probably wasn't feeling pain at full force. We tried to get the hospital on the phone, to see if they had any ideas about stopping the bleeding. I mean, you can't just apply pressure to a TONGUE, especially when the toddler is busily and happily chewing on it! I got him to take drinks of my ice water (he LOVES ice water) while calling the hospital. But the yahoos that were supposed to be answering the phone... weren't. We kept ending up in the answering machine queue for the physical therapist, of all damn places!
So we decided screw it, we'd take him to the ER. We should've just driven him around instead - that made him fall asleep, and let the tongue stop its bleeding. Our beloved hospital has recently contracted to outsource its ER services, and that has proven to be a GRAVE mistake. These people do NOT exude "competence" on any level. I swear to God, when the "doctor" came in, I had to check his badge to see that it said MD - I was sure he was the janitor! He reeked of cigarette smoke, talked at a snail's pace, had long, grimy, greasy, slicked-back hair, and said things like "somebody's got an owie" to the elderly gentleman across the hall. UGH!
Thomas is fine. His tongue had, by then, mostly stopped bleeding on its own, so they gave him a round of Amoxycillin to prevent infection, and told us to dose him with Tylenol or Motrin for pain. We couldn't get out of there fast enough, and both Mike and I agreed that if facing THAT doctor was our only medical alternative when I went into labor, I would deliver the baby with Mike's help at home.
We all had a rough night after we got home. Thomas is crabby (not, I think, because of his tongue) and we've had to keep holding him upright to sleep (stuffy nose), and dose him with Motrin to keep the fever at bay. Needless to say, we're all even lower on sleep than usual, and I'm finding myself hoping Lindsey DOESN'T choose to come now - I'm not sure I'd have the energy for labor.
A layout from my "ABC's of Me" book (should get back to that!) that I forgot to share.
I'm putting together next week's curriculum for the Scrapbooking 101 Course, and I scanned the above layout to illustrate a point. It was too cute not to share!
OK, Lindsey's baby book is all done, so it's OK TO COME OUT NOW, DO YOU HEAR ME?????
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My computer has been getting flakier and flakier lately. Microsoft Outlook was mysteriously crashing on me 3 or 4 times a day, and Windows Explorer was getting unresponsive. It was finally time to bite the bullet and rebuild the operating system. This is always a major pain in the ass, not to mention a time sink. I had been putting it off for weeks.
I downgraded my operating system from Windows 2000 Server to Windows XP, mostly because more of what I've been trying to use lately was incompatible with 2000 (including my Christmas game from Mike). So I'm looking forward to that.
As another gift/surprise/business necessity, Mike bought me a memory stick and media reader for my camera! Now I can take HUNDREDS of pictures at a go, rather than my former limit of 46 or so. I'm stoked!! I can also dump the camera myself, without bothering my poor, already-overworked-but-loving-kind-sweet-and-generous husband. Score!
Some contractions (one starting now, as a matter of fact), but still no baby. *sigh* My sacroileac joint continues to be all wonky, so aside from sitting in this chair, playing Texas Hold 'Em, and trying to get the odd bit of work done, I'm not doing much. I think I might try to fit in a little scrapbooking now, if I can hold off on taking another nap. I went to bed at 1AM (blame the baby), woke up at 2, 3, 4, and 4:45 (for good, that last time), worked/played poker until 7:45, then napped until 11. It's 3:30 now, and another nap is starting to sound good.
Crime in the Palouse!! I lifted this story from this week's Whitman County Gazette (they have no website).
Snowman Attack Hearing Set
------
Three Colfax 13-year-old boys have been charged in juvenile court with attacking an inflatable snowman which was on display in a yard in the S.
600 block of Mill Street. The youths have also been charged with taking a tip cup from the Daily Grind on the same day, Dec. 26.
They have been summoned to a juvenile court hearing Feb. 16.
According to the Colfax police report, the investigation started when a staffer at the Daily Grind reported a tip jar had been taken. The suspects were later located with the help of descriptions from a resident who spotted a group of boys loitering in the area behind the building adjoining the Daily Grind stand.
Police the same night received a report that three youths attacked the inflatable snowman. Descriptions of the suspects matched descriptions of some of the boys spotted in the Daily Grind investigation. According to the report, one of the suspects unplugged the snowman while another struck it with a bottle and the other boy tackled it.
Another boringly uneventful doctor's visit today. In fact, this pregnancy has, in general, been SO unremarkable that my doctor said that, in absence of some concern on my part, I could skip next week's visit. (He's going to be out of town on a "Men's Retreat" skiing, and I'd just as soon wait for his return to resume my prenatal care, such as it is.) I teased him that he could just slip us a protein strip (for testing the urine), and we could check weight and blood pressure at home. He kinda chuckled and said, "I could... but... I don't think I will." Hee.
So, let's see... what WAS there to report this week? Weight was down a pound (go figure). Blood pressure was at 110/80, which the doctor deemed "excellent" and the nurse called "consistent." (They LOVE that word, "consistent.") I got a big laugh out of her when she was taking my bp, because I told her before she got started, "OK, now, think '110/70'." She said she would, and told me to think babbling brooks and warm summer days. Hey, whatever works, right? So anyway, there was a tiny bit of protein in my urine, but the doctor was not at all perturbed. My pulse rate was 96; Lindsey's was 132. So everybody's still humming right along.
Until the doctor told me he was counting on me "hanging in there" until February 13th, when he got back from his trip. Shit. Now, I've expected this pregnancy to go late all along, but something about having my doctor gone for 5 straight days just must've put the fear of God into my uterus or something, because it was only about an hour or so later that "It" started.
We were pulling out from the furniture store in Pullman, where we had been looking for a camp mattress for our bedroom (no luck), when I felt this god-awful pressure, way, way down low - more rectal than vaginal. But it was fetal movement - not contractions. She twisted and squirmed, her head firmly engaged, and I started feeling that achy-hips feeling that comes from your pelvis spreading open. She worked at that for awhile, playing the "Mommy Violin" (and I do make such pretty noises when that happens) and looking for the exit. Alas, she didn't find it, but I endured that awful rectal wiggling all the way to Colfax.*
About halfway there, the wiggling was joined by contractions. Irregular, but fairly hard. It wasn't "go" time, but I told Mike (and he agreed) that if we saw one TINY LITTLE TINGE of pink when I went to the bathroom, we were heading straight to the hospital, Do Not Pass Go. We made a couple of stops on the way to the grocery store - the pharmacy and the bank. It was at the bank drive-in that I had a REALLY bad contraction. Like... find-a-focal-point-ignore-the-worried-teller's-annoying-questions bad. We finished there, then went to the grocery store.
Mike wanted to know if I felt like trying to shop, or if we should just go home. I told him I wanted to go to the bathroom first, and then decide. I did - no bloody show. Damn. So I started trying to shop with them (Mary and Thomas were along), but my sacroileac joint had slipped badly out of place, and it was too painful. Once a spot in the deli opened up, I took it. I nibbled on a piece of chocolate cheesecake and sipped water, and endured the contractions. Finally, I started noticing the times. 3-4 minutes.
Mike came back and checked on me, and I gave him a progress report. We decided he'd finish the shopping while I waited - I could tell we still had some time. After 15 minutes or so, sitting got too uncomfortable (I could barely wedge myself into the booth between the seat and table as it was). I tracked Mike down in the meat section and told him I was going to sit in the car and wait. They wrapped up the grocery shopping, and we headed for home. Contractions were strong and regular, 3-4 minutes, all the way home.
Got home and checked again - still no bloody show, but a LOT of mucous (I think I lost my plug). I went and lay down to rest. The contractions continued, but were far more manageable, and stretched out. They didn't stop, and even though I was dozing, each one woke me up. After 30 minutes or so I got up to use the bathroom, went back to bed on my other side, had 2 contractions, and promptly fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up, the contractions had stopped.
So now, here it is, 5:30PM. I still feel a lot of rectal pressure when she squirms, there seems to be a vacancy under my ribs, I'm still having fairly hard contractions (albeit irregularly), and I'm starting to think my February 21st guess was wrong.
But who knows?
And if you found this post by Googling "rectal wiggling" then I'm guessing the JOKE'S ON YOU!
