See, I really am crafty...

I know that I've been busy with other (perhaps) more important things, but I haven't been crafty lately and it's about time. And I have a ton of people to send thank you cards to, so that's what I've been working on. How long do you have to send out thank you cards when a baby is born? I'd better look that up.... Well, just browsing quickly, wedding gifts allow 3 months because of wedding planning and stress. I think I should be allowed at least that much time with a new baby, right? We're getting into the 5th week with some people unthanked and I'm feeling guilty.


Anyway, a couple of the cards I came up with (sorry my close up pics were way blurry):





All products used are Close to My Heart:
Paper: Let's get together paper pack, Ocean and White Daisy CS
Ink: Black
Stamp Sets: For All Occasions, Friendship Word Puzzle
Embellisments: Summer Posies Just Blooms, Winter Buttons


I'm not the only one getting crafty around here. Abby had a friend over a while ago who showed her how to make her own purse, wallet, and money (if only it were that easy) out of paper. Over the next week or so since then she has come up with many original handbag designs. She brought me her favorites the other day and asked me to take their picture and put them on the computer for everyone to see. How can I turn down a request like that? So here they are:







It's nice to know that I'm a good influence on my kids, at least some of the time. In fact just the other day Danielle asked if I could "get out her scrapbooking stuff". I'm not joking, those were her exact words.

Happy Easter

I hope that you all had a great Easter Sunday. We had lots of fun here. The kids got to participate in our apartment complex's egg hunt on Saturday. Isaac found a "golden egg" and won a banana split at the cafe on campus. He's pretty excited. And now of course we have a TON of candy. I bet we have at least 5 pounds of just Tootsie Rolls - as that was most of the candy in the eggs. Luckily on Sunday morning, the Easter Bunny brought a little candy of the more traditional easter variety. And he brought a few other trinkets and toys for the kids. They they all hopped in the shower and got gusied up in their new Easter outfits. And of course I took a few pictures (and by a few I mean a whole lot since it's really hard to get 4 kids to all make at least an OK face at the same time).











And here's a few candid shots that I just have to share, because my kids are so stinkin' cute.

One more thing

I added another recipe to my recipe blog. Just wanted to let you know!

The Birth Story - Part 2

OK, so we left off with a great birthing plan in place, which of course wouldn't go that smoothly, life never seems to, right?

So, it's about 2:30 in the afternoon, I'm dialated to a 6, and one of the nurses steps out to call the anesthesiologist for my epidural and the doc to break my water. I'm still chatting with the other nurse and all of the sudden - my water breaks! Now you have to understand that my water has never broken on it's own. In fact the doctor always seems to have a hard time breaking it. I must have thick placentas or something. This is why I requested my epidural before the doc came in to break my water.

As soon as my water broke the current mild contraction jumped up to a mega-sized contraction and hurt - A LOT! And I really started to feel nauseous - this had happened a couple of times earlier in the day and the nurse and I had finally figured out that it signaled that my bladder was full and it was forcing my contractions into my stomach. So the nurse got me all unhooked and helped me shuffle to the bathroom. No sooner had I sat down and I needed to push - this baby was coming. I screamed the urge to my nurse who yelled back, "don't you dare push in there!" She ran in, pulled me off the toilet and out of the bathroom, yanked the sheet off the bed, wrapped it around me and literally dragged me across the hall. All while I screamed that I need pain medication NOW!

I should mention a few side notes here. First of all, my nurse is the sweetest little Korean woman, whose name I cannot recall, but had to have been about 1/2 the size of me. Secondly, from this point on, I don't believe I opened my eyes until the baby was born. If I did open them I was blinded by pain, and don't remember what I saw. It was really all a blur of noise, mostly from me yelling at whoever was touching me or telling me what I needed to do.

Somehow my nurse, who seems to possess some sort of superhuman strength, managed to get me up on the delivery table and hooked back up to the monitors. The doc - a female resident, whom I absolutely loved and now really want to know where she will be practicing in the future - walked in just then, assuming she was just there to break my water, but instead was met by a screaming woman who wanted her epidural now! Without doing more than just looking she announced that I was fully dialated and the baby was already crowning.

Keep in mind that the last 2 paragraphs took place in the time frame of about 2 minutes, tops. I'm not kidding. It was that fast.

Next thing I hear is about 15 people running at full speed dragging in all sorts of equipment and monitors. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few people there just because they had nothing better to do - I was the only person in Labor & Delivery so far that day. I distinctly remember hearing someone saying, "Lights, camera, action" as the huge birthing spotlight was turned on, good thing my eyes were clamped shut or I may have really been blinded. Everyone was encouraging me to push, I was yelling that I still needed something for the pain, my little Korean nurse was rubbing my arm saying something to the effect of, "It's too late for anything dear, I'm so sorry" over and over again (I think she was feeling guilty, even though it wasn't her fault I didn't get my epidural). I pushed, they turned me to one side - they asked me to turn, but I yelled at them that there was no way I was moving, so they (about 3-4 nurses) picked up my rear end and turned me whether I wanted to or not. That side wasn't helping, so they asked me to roll to the otherside, I didn't even respond this time, but they must have done the same manuver again, because I was on my otherside before I could even think about it. This time it helped. I pushed and screamed and then screamed a little more (well, OK, a lot more), and eventually Juliana's head popped free and she came sliding out.

Turns out that she was "sunny-side up."

Again - this all happened in a very short period of time - Juliana was born at 2:54pm, I pushed for about 10 minutes - fasted I've ever done it, but pain is a great motivator, right? Doc said that if she had been face-down she probably would have been out with the first push.

Now the irony of it all is that the very last thing the anesthesiologist said to me, as she left my room with the signed paperwork, was to not wait too long because you never know how fast things are going to go.

So a few lessons were learned on that day of my beautiful daughter's birth:
1. Never take anything a woman who can dispense pain medication says lightly - she knows what she's talking about, even if you've already had 3 babies and you think you know how this whole birthing thing works.
2. If we do decide to have more kids and my water ever breaks on it's own, I shouldn't even bother trying to get to a hospital, much less one an hour away. I'm just going to call 911 and find someone to catch the baby if the EMTs don't happen to make it on time.
3. And though I plan to be full medicated and numbed if we do have another baby, I now know that I can make it through a natural birth if the need arises. However, I'm not a terribly pleasant person to be around at the time.

Looking back almost 4 weeks later, it really doesn't seem like it was that big of a deal - but then the swelling has now gone down (finally) and I have most of the feeling back in my still slightly brused tailbone. And I got to bring home the sweetest, new baby girl - it helps that they are so cute and tiny.

Out of the mouth of babes

I don't have time to write the rest of the story tonight since my mom is leaving in the morning. Since I want to spend time with her tonight, you'll just have to wait one more day. But I did want to leave you this a conversation I had with Danielle this evening - she really is a character:

Danielle comes running into the living room from her bedroom. She flops up on the counch next to me and says, "Mom, there's evil in my room!"
Me: "Really, what kind of evil?"
Danielle: "Blue."

Is anyone still there?

I know I've been totally slacking on the blogging duties lately. And I know that you all forgive me since I'm adjusting to baby in the form of much less portable packaging - but oh so much cuter than my big 'ol belly. But regardless, I've been meaning to at least tell the birth story. But first a few photos:

Here's her little tooties.

I think this one is my favorite pictures of her. She's so sweet and starting to get a little chubby in the cheeks!

OK, on with the story, or I will never make it to bed.

I had an agreement with my doc that if I made it to my due date he would put in for an inductions - we couldn't do it any sooner or the insurance wouldn't pay for it, so I settled for my due date. Doc was still doing it grudgingly, but I told him I wasn't waiting any longer.

So, the morning of February 19th I woke up at 6am and called the hospital. They said to come on down and be there by 8am - there wasn't anyway I was going to make it by then, but I didn't tell them that! So I woke up the kids and got them ready for school and sent then over to the neighbors house for a ride to school and then it was off to the hospital. Cameron had to go into work for a meeting in the morning, so he came up to the hospital a few hours later.

I ended up at the hospital around 8:30 (I knew I wouldn't make it by 8) and they got me changed and labeled and all that good stuff. They took all my stats and checked my dialation,I was at 3cm+, and started my petocin around 9:30. The morning was pretty slow going. They kept coming in and adjusting my petocin doses - everytime they turned it up my contractions would just get more frequent and not stronger, so they'd have to turn it down again and try smaller increments.

Meanwhile the anesthesiologist (yes, I had to look up how to spell it) came in and did her little speil and had me sign all the paperwork for my epidural. Now I just have to interject here before I continue - this is the only time that I've had the anesthesiologist come in early and talk to me and sign when I'm not in huge amounts of pain and don't really care what they are saying and will sign over my life if I had to. It just makes good sense to do it earlier when I'm still in my right mind. 5 stars for that doctor - because that's not hospital procedure, that's something she does because she thinks it's just smarter. Leave it to a female doctore to figure that out.

So fast forward a couple of hours to about 2pm. My contrations were finally strong enough and regular enough, so they decided they would check my progress (FINALLY, they hadn't checked since I first got the hospital) and I was at 6-7cm. We chatted about breaking my water and when I wanted my epidural and we agreed that we would move me over to the delivery room (don't ask - the hospital is in the middle of a huge remodel), get my epidural and then break my water. That sounded like a great plan to me, so of course that's not how it was meant to be....

And now I'm going to have to leave you hanging for part 2 of the birth story. I promise it will be soon. Cause I'm just getting to the good part. But I've got a 3 yr old that is so exhausted she won't go to sleep and my poor mom is trying to keep Juliana from crying so I can finish this post.