Sweet Yet Sour

And Then There Was Cake

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 | Henry | 5 Comments

As with all good stories, the story of Henry’s birth begins with a chocolate cake.

Last Friday we had a pretty decent snow storm and our lovely neighbor Darrel shoved our walk (all the way up our front stairs too), as he has kindly done all winter.  In appreciation for his hard work I decided I would make a chocolate cake for him on Saturday.

I started the cake early in the morning, since it was my mom’s sourdough chocolate cake, which needs to sit and get gassy before you finish the cake.  In the early afternoon I finished the cake and let it cool on the counter while I set out some butter for the butter cream frosting.

And then I started having contractions… At first, I ignored them, since for the past few weeks I had been getting contractions when I overdid it, and I had walked around a lot, chased Anna around and made cake that day already.  But as I sat and relaxed the contractions didn’t go away so I began to wonder if this wasn’t something else.  I was determined to finish the cake, so I proceeded into the kitchen to whip up the frosting and finish the cake.  Mike and Anna came home from a dog walk while I was making the frosting and I said quietly to him, “I’m timing contractions right now.”  I finished the frosting and got the cake put together while noting that the contractions were about 8-10 minutes apart.

Mike rushed around packing a bag for himself and getting a shower, since he had played racquetball that afternoon.  I finished packing my bag, Anna’s bag and called my sister.  We called the midwife, headed out the door, dropped off Anna at my sister’s and headed in to the hospital.  All the while I hoped that this was the real thing, it certainly felt real, but you always worry that you will be sent home with a “false labor” diagnosis.

Shortly after we arrived at the hospital at 7 p.m. my water broke (contrary to urban legend, the water rarely breaks at the beginning of labor) and it was determined that we were definitely not in false labor.  However, things were moving pretty slowly, cervix wise, so we spent a long time at the hospital with not much progress made.  When things got pretty painful I opted for the epidural, even though the whole needle near your spine thing makes me nervous. Pain will make you do things you didn’t think you could do, like allow someone to poke you with a needle in your spine.

Since I was (still!) recovering from a cold, I spent most of the labor and delivery with either an oxygen tube in my nose or an oxygen mask.  My blood oxygen level was so low that little alarms kept going off, and they were a little worried about the baby’s oxygen level because of that.  I kept hoping that the cold would clear up before labor, but no!

Sometime around 1:30 a.m. it was decided that things were moving so slowly that I needed a little help and I was given some Petosin.  Labor began to progress a little faster, but around 3 a.m. I realized that the epidural was wearing off.  The epidural actually slows labor, so for a while I tried to buck up and deal so that I could have the baby in the next few hours.

At 3:45 a.m. the midwife came in to check me and we had a discussion about the epidural. While I got some more epidural medication in my i.v., the midwife announced “we’re ready to push”.  I won’t lie, this part was painful, the epidural had not really had much affect at that point, but after some serious pushing the baby was born at 4:09 a.m.

When Anna was born I had been drugged up and down with various concoctions because her heartrate had dropped.  I don’t remember Mike cutting the cord, or seeing the placenta and certainly felt less pain.  This time I was in pain, but I was much more aware of everything, I watched Mike cut the cord, got to check out the placenta, and there were far fewer people in the room.  It was nice to only have Mike, the midwife, and two nurses in the room – it felt like there was a medical army troop in the room when Anna was born.

On Monday, while I was still at the hospital with Henry, Mike delivered the cake to our neighbors with the news of Henry’s birth.  If the frosting looked crappy and spread unevenly I had a really good excuse – I was finishing a cake and having a baby!

The Little Man Has Arrived

Sunday, March 21st, 2010 | Henry | 6 Comments

The latest addition to our family arrived this morning at 4:09 a.m.  I am too tired to review all of the gory details, but I do have a picture of him and his favorite activity so far (sleeping):

Henry - Day 1

Henry Thomas Munhall weighed in at 6 lbs 7 oz. and is 19 inches long.  He is in good health and seems to be doing quite well so far.  Later, I’ll share gory details, but for now, I need rest!

Pregnant Much?

Friday, March 19th, 2010 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

Did the pregnant woman go to the grocery store yesterday?

Well...

Why yes, yes she did – as evidenced by the items above.  They were on sale darn it! You got a problem with that?

Pregnancy Update

Sunday, March 14th, 2010 | Updates | 3 Comments

Here we are at the beginning of the 37th week of my pregnancy.  That means at most I have 3 more weeks until my son enters the world.

12 days.  12 wonderful days – that’s how many consecutive days since the beginning of December I have not been sick.  Otherwise I have been battling a cold or stomach virus each week.  Apparently for this pregnancy my immune system completely shut down.  As I sit here with my trusty box of tissues with lotion and my Mentholatum, I can only hope that it will come back up after the baby is born.  During my 12 days of not being sick I was able to visit with friends and have my baby shower – so I should probably be grateful.  I sincerely wish that I was one of those wonderful people who never complains and is always perky, despite being sick, but unfortunately for Mike – I’m not.  I’ve been sick, grumpy and unable to sleep for the past few months and he’s been such a great husband throughout.

I’m at the point in the pregnancy where sleep is generally a problem anyway.  The baby is so large and heavy at this point that turning over is something that requires a forklift and a major pillow shift.  I sleep on one side for a little, until the bottom hip begins to hurt, and then I have to turn over, move the pillows that are under the baby belly and behind my back and start the whole process again.  I generally have to pee at least 4 times a night, and with this latest cold, I wake up to cough or sneeze fairly often.  This latest cold did bring some relief to Mike however – I lost my voice on Wednesday and didn’t really start to get it back until Saturday- so he has been spared some complaining…

I’m also at the point in the pregnancy where I go in to see my midwife every week.  Don’t worry – I’m not one of those “Do It Naturally At Home with a Midwife” kind of gals. My midwife is a certified Nurse Midwife, so when the time comes, I meet her at the hospital, she hangs around, but not annoyingly so, and then if something goes wrong there are nurses and doctors around to help.  It worked out great with her for Anna and I’m glad that I have her support again for this second pregnancy.  I can clearly remember a conversation I had with her last time that went like this, “Dorrie, the breathing isn’t working is it?”, “No, Jayne, it isn’t.” to which she replied, “Epidurals are our friends.”  Damn that was good advice!

At last week’s appointment the midwife did some checking and announced that I was making progress, but we weren’t going to have the baby this weekend.  This all has to do with the state of my cervix, the status of which I am going to spare the details of – it’s the internet after all.  I have lately been having lots of contractions and with the lack of sleep was pretty much hoping to go into her office and come out a few hours later with a baby.  There comes a point in my pregnancies where I get to a “I’m done with this crap” point and I am so there…

On the homefront I have been nesting a little.  The baby’s room is as decorated as I can get it right now – we’re doing a farm animals theme with red as our main color.  I got so nesty this past week I scrubbed a few baseboards, and even picked up all of the dog poop in the yard – although what contact the baby will have with the backyard is beyond me.

We’ve also been trying our best to prepare Anna for what is about to happen.  We talk a lot about the baby and how when the baby comes she will go her Aunt’s and Mama will go to the doctor.  If you ask her what babies do Anna says, “Cry”.  She visits the baby’s room a lot, mostly to find her old toys and say, “It’s mine!” and we have been reading her a book about being a big sister.  This will be a bumpy road for her coming up, but I’m hoping that all this prep will make it a little less of a shock.

Hormones willing my next post will be a post of pictures of my son and how the whole birth thing went down.  But if I get bored in the meantime, I’ll post some pictures of the cutie/soon-to-be big sister.

The Best Baby Shower Ever

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 | The Daily Special | 3 Comments

As many of you know, I loathe baby showers.  I am simply not of the personality of people who likes to sit around playing what I consider either silly games (or the nasty – “Guess How Big Around She Is” game).  And I have no desire to watch other people open presents or have others watch me open gifts either.  As a result, I avoid them like the plague and only agreed to one for Anna because my sister promised that there would be no silly games.  That first one was very nice, I got lots of good stuff and the games that we did play, like having everyone guess the baby’s name and sex and people writing funny things on diapers, made the experience far more enjoyable.

For this second child, I was again hoping to avoid having to attend one, since we don’t need all that much stuff (except boatloads of diapers and wipes).  But again, my beloved sister promised that she could make the experience better than I feared.

Last Saturday, due to what could briefly be described as “flooring/flooding issues” at my sister’s house, a shower was held for me at my house.  Honestly, it was the best baby shower ever.

First, Rhiannon had decided that the shower would be a “Supper Shower”, which meant that all who attended would bring a few ingredients which would be combined to create dinners which I could freeze and use after the baby arrives when I have no motivation to cook.  I got to decide what people would make and my sister divied up the ingredients among the attendees.  Then my sister and I hunted down vintage aprons for gifts for everyone to wear and then take home.  (Ebay, as it turns out, is a treasure trove of funky vintage aprons.)

We found several large lots and when they arrived there was even a little tiny one that could be tied to the cutie:

Anna in Her Apron

Don’t worry though, we didn’t make her cook; Anna and her daddy headed off to the park with her friend Timothy and his dad, Steve.

Anyway, everyone showed up at my house with their assigned ingredients and after a brief period of “who wants to work on what?” all the ladies filled my kitchen making dinners.

Here’s the best part, my lovely friend Andrea showed up with a pedicure kit and my friend Cassandra had a new bottle of nail polish in her purse that I liked much better than the ones I had in my drawers.

So, while other people cooked and made meals, I sat on the couch and got this done:

Toes

How awesome is that? When it was time for lunch someone brought me my plate (I was drying after all) and then Rhiannon and my friend Shannon managed to make a small pan of lasagna that Mike and I had for dinner for the next two nights.

In the end I went out to my freezer in the garage and gloried in the fact that I now have: 3 meatloaves (I had managed to make myself one a few weeks ago), a large pan of lasagna, two dozen turkey meatballs, two Swiss Enchilada Casseroles, a Shepard’s pie, and a casserole of mac and cheese that my mom made a few weeks ago.

Along with the store bought pizzas and anything else I might have the energy to make in the next few weeks, we should be set for several nights of very little effort on my part for dinner!  Thank you to my sister who planned it and she , my mom and my friends who showed up, cooked, and cleaned my kitchen!  It was truly the best baby shower ever!