Happy Birthday to my 2nd baby

This week has been busy, I've got a lesson to prepare, HFPE to help with, and I had a Business meeting with a new mom due in June today. Amanda's birthday is tomorrow, she'll be 15 and is anxiously awaiting the chance to get her drivers permit! She can't wait to learn to drive dad's truck! She already practices shifting for me when I drive.
Of course it makes me think back to that night in 1993...
We had gone shopping during the day at the Madison Sq. Mall and I did a lot of walking around. I wanted to buy a coming home from the hospital outfit... (that was important to me then, so I didn't' have to come home in my maternity clothes, yuck!) I found a cute pair of stretch pants (yes stretch pants and legging were all acceptable clothing back then! LOL!) and a long t-shirt. I had a low back ache, but who doesn't at 38+ weeks pregnant? That night we ate a big greasy dinner of steak sandwiches, and for Christmas I'd given Bill a Fry Daddy, and we made deep fried french fries...
I ate a nice big dinner, having no idea I'd be having a baby later. My first baby was a full week past my EDD, so... I figured I'd at least go to my due date! Although, my OB was 'concerned' that I wouldn't make it to the hospital, and wanted to induce my labor, and was doing weekly ultrasounds to check on the baby's size, to see if she was big enough... some story about if the head circumference was a certain number of centimeters or whatever, that it correlated with the baby's lung development, and they could go ahead and induce so that I would be at the hospital. I actually was going along with this plan, and would probably have ended up with a Pitocin induced, unnatural labor.
I'm so glad that things started on their own. Amanda is sitting here reading over my shoulder and said that she knew she needed to come to help me become who I am today, so she got things going...
Back to the story...
So we put Rebekah to bed for the night and ate our greasy dinner, and we watched t.v.
Nick at night... The Dick Van Dyke show was on, and it was the episode where Rob (Dick Van Dyke) was telling his son Ritchie about the day he was born... complete with flashbacks.
In true Dick Van Dyke style he goes through all these crazy practice drills, so he'll be ready when Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) goes into labor. He sleeps in his clothes with his pajamas over top so he would already be dressed if he needed to get up and rush her to the hospital... (because most mom's when they go into labor 'need' to rush right to the hospital so they can spend hours in labor strapped to the table before finally giving birth). He placed his shoes on the floor by the side of the bed, so that when he sat up he'd slip his feet right into his shoes. He placed the telephone on his chest so he could dial the hospital as soon as he'd woken up, and his hat in the bookshelf headboard so that he would reach up and grab the hat and place it on his head as he sat up, while dialing the phone and putting his shoes on his feet pretty much all at the same time. He did this repeatedly with silly outcomes each time and resulting hilarity... and when the time finally came, if I recall correctly he grabbed Laura's suitcase, hit the clasp, flinging all her clothes on the floor then picked them up shoved them back into the suitcase struggling to shut it with things hanging out of the sides. then when he finally leaves the house he leaves Laura behind... you get the picture.
Bill and I sat there laughing all the while, thinking how silly the whole scenario was.
That night I bed and woke up thinking my water had broken... I thought, that I should roll over and see what time it was so I'd know not just what time or what day it was, but also what month it was. Just after midnight, March 1st... o.k. so I made it to March. Then I got up to go to the bathroom where it was confirmed my water had definitely broken and as I sat on the potty, I thought, I'm not getting up until I have something clean and dry to put on. So, I call out to my husband who is sleeping soundly in bed, and being fully awake, I start calling out my order for what he needs to get me: sweatpants, underclothes, etc, etc... so Bill wakes up hearing me say something about sweatpants and he thought I was telling him he needed to get up and get ready because he was late for P.T. or something! I slowed down and told him my water had broken and I needed him to get me some things... he sat up and started darting around a bit crazy, looking for the things I needed.
I began ticking off my mental check list making sure I had my stuff together and Bill called a friend down the street to come stay with Rebekah, and tried to call the hospital to tell them we were on our way. He didn't get through at first, so we gathered our stuff and got things in the car, while we waited for Debbie to get there. About 30 minutes after my water had broken, my contractions started , just like my first labor with Rebekah. Then Bill finally got through to the hospital, L&D and told them we were pre-registered, who I was and that my water had broken. They said very casually... o.k. come on in and we'll see you when you get here... Bill then explained about my first labor going quite quickly (so he'd heard... he wasn't there for Rebekah's birth, he was deployed to Saudi Arabia, so all of this was a first for him), and they got a little bit more animated and said they'd put a call in to the Dr.
We got on the road and as my labor increased, my stomach decided it didn't particularly like all that greasy food I'd eaten for dinner and I had to make Bill pull over on the side of I-565, on the way to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital, Huntsville, Humana (now Women's and Children's of Huntsville), and they got me upstairs. The first thing I wanted to do when I got into my L&D room was to get a drink and wash my mouth out! so I headed for the sink in the corner of the room! the nurses were rushing frantically around to get everything set up, and then trying to get me to change into the hospital gown. Meanwhile I was contracting away... I am sure I freaked the poor nurses out when I grabbed onto the end of the bed and squatted during the contraction, but man that was what helped me feel better. The nurse kept telling me I NEEDED to get changed into the gown and get up into the bed. Finally I managed those tasks, no small thing in transition! I laid down but could not stand to be on my back, so I rolled onto my side. The nurse wanted to get the I.V. in my arm and I put my arm back toward her and all she had was the side to go with, but that was all I was giving her. She got the I.V. in , but I was bruised nearly from my wrist to my elbow for days.
The nurses got me prepped, and the Dr. rushed in, asking if he had time to change/get gowned up. The nurse told the Dr. to hurry she could see the baby's head without me even pushing. He got down to business, which was to get the table raised up to his level..., he's tall, then he draped me with 'sterile' drapes, including putting leg drapes on my legs and feet as if I had some contaminant my baby would catch from my own body, then they put my legs up in the stirrups, which I hadn't had for my first birth. Then what was helping me to deal with things was to reach back and grab the pillow that was behind my head, I had done the exact same thing with my first birth as well, it must be what works for me. I then had the chanting and counting to ten, push! push! push! coming at me from all angles. The nurse told me I needed to round up and grab my knees and push with gravity to get the baby out. The funny thing is, (o.k. not funny ha ha, but funny/odd, strange in retrospect), was that from the video camera angle at my side, the bed really had been raised up to the Dr's level; and my tail bone was raised higher than my hip bones and yet they were trying to tell me to push with gravity! I was literally pushing my baby out UP HILL, and my body was pushing whether I wanted it to or not! I certainly had no need of forced count to ten pushing. Once I had delivered her head, the Dr. grabbed her and pulled the rest of her out and immediately called her a peanut, and asked when she was due, she was only 11 days early, but she was a little thing! Miss Amanda Katherine came into the world at 1:30 a.m. March 1st (less than 20 minutes from the time I came through the door to L&D!) and weighed in at 5 lbs 9 oz.
Then while I spent two days in the hospital I got very little rest. The hospital was in the process of joining with the other hospital and they were doing construction, and I listened to jack hammers all day long. And the nice nurse who came in at 1 am to tell me it was shift change and she was my new nurse... she chatted for a full hour. Don't get me wrong, she was very nice, but I didn't really want to chat in the middle of the night when my baby was literally 24 hours old. No fun.
I remember Rebekah coming to the hospital to see me and the baby. She looked at me, then looked at the baby in my arms, looked at my belly where we'd been saying the baby was at and it was no longer as big and round as it had been, and looking back to the baby... you could just see the little gears spinning in her head trying to figure it all out! Very sweet.
I would never have believed it if you'd told me back then I'd be back in Huntsville, AL and I'd have 6 kids way back then! I can't imagine my life without any one of them. They all bring so much to our life!
Happy Birthday Sweeetheart!!!!

In the News

Here is a story in the Montgomery newspaper about our march for midwives yesterday.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080227/BUSINESS/802270367/1003

Here are some pic's of me and my kids walking in the march. Sariah is near the top center wearing a white sweatshirt and long skinny legs! I'm holding Liam and he has on a bright yellow hoodie sweatshirt. Right near the New Mexico State Flag.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=DS&Date=20080226&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=802260801&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=5

Political Activists

Yesterday I took three of my kids; Amanda, Sariah and Liam with me to Montgomery (a three hour drive) to a Midwifery Rally at the Alabama State house. We marched around the capitol building, had some speakers on the front steps of the statehouse, and then went to talk with our legislators. We spoke with our House Represetative Mac McCutcheon, and to Senator Tom Butler, to ask them to please read about and support our bill SB240. We had a nice little chat with each of them. They asked where the kids went to school, Senator Butler and his wife told us that they had a child who had attended Liberty Middle school the first year it was open. We left them all with Bottles of Water and M&M's labeled with MW facts, and our message that Alabama Mothers deserve Midwives.
The girls got them both to sign their business cards to show that they'd been there, and in the hopes that they would work as their school excuse for the day. We'll see how that goes over, but it was worth the effort.
We had a good day other than the fact that it was COLD and the wind was whipping!
The youth of our Ward had temple night, so on our way driving home from Montgomery we stopped at the Birmingham Temple to drop Amanda off.
Rebekah wanted to go with us really bad, but... she had concert tickets to go see Linkin Park in Nashville, with friends. The Seate health committee had a hearing last week on Thursday, and we would have gone to that so Rebekah would have had a chance to go see the political machine at work... but I had a birth last Thursday morning and so she's really bummed. I told her we'll probably still be going down again next year. Unless we manage to get the possitive Momentum in the Senate, to pass along to the House and our bill passes this year. That would be Awesome!!! and we can hope, but the reality is, we still have to fight the big money of the Medical Association.
The kids all did great, until about the last 40 minutes of the car ride home. Liam and the other little girl (Akira) that traveled down with us with her mom, started crying. The kids had had a LONG day and 6 hours of driving...

I'll post pictures from our day but I don't know how... I have to wait for Amanda to come home and help me some more... thank you Amanda! love you!

UUGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

O.K. I had this really long post (it started out just a quick mention that I wrote something really cute about Liam on the kids blog link), http://wendyrfulkids.blogspot.com/ but then I lost it! I went to publish and it errored. So I was trying to find the draft and re publish it... don't know how to do that yet either... I'm learning, a little bit at a time!

My Kids

***Here is a message I lost a while ago***


I have put a new blog link to the left for posts about my kids. You know, all those cute things the kids say or do that you don't want to forget, and if you don't actually write them down, then forget it... it's gone! You don't remember exactly what it was, who said it, or did it, how old they were at the time, if you remember the cute thing at all... That is part of why I decided to do a blog at all, was to have a place to keep track of all these cute things, so... I did a post about something adorable (I think most of the things he does are adorable... but some people think I'm biased or something) Liam did recently. Go check it out. I think you'll agree, it's pretty darn cute!



Tomorrow I will be traveling to Montgomery for the 2nd Annual Drive for Midwives, to the State house and we're doing a rally and talking to our legislators to try and get them to pass a law legalizing Midwives in Alabama. It will be Liam's third trip to Montgomery to the state house. I'll try to take some pic's of the kids tomorrow. What a little activist he is at such a young age... ;-) Sariah and Amanda are going with us. Rebekah is jealous! She really wants to go but has concert tickets to see Linkin Park tomorrow night in Nashville, with friends, so... that's where she's headed after school. I told her it was all about priorities. Actually she was going to go with me last week to the Senate Hearing where they read our bill SB240, but I ended up being at a birth that morning, so... she didnt' get to go see how the Government works. It's a good field trip for the kids. I jsut wish they would be able to get a school excuse signed by one of our Senators or something. Wonder if they school would accept that and not have it count against them, for a parent sick day note??? Wonder if my kids would be brave enough to ask? Rebekah actually was going to write to our Senator for last week to see if he'd be willing to sign a note. The other kids haven't done that. Don't know if they are gutsy enough. ;-) We'll see what happens.

Have a good day everyone.

Dots

Yes, we painted each and every spot! trying to find different sizes of circles to trace was fun! and then trying to have them be 'random' as well as not to close together with the colors... oh well, some will just have to have more than once dot of the same color next to each other... but I do think it looks super cute! I love how it turned out! Of course, the design for the whole room may be questionable... she wants something different on each wall. So she wanted striped on one wall, we're doing it white with the yellow, pink, purple, lavender and green stripes. I hope it blends well enough. She also wants a wall where she can splatter all the different colors of pain on it. She has a friend who got to do a wall like that. I CAN'T believe I'm actually seriously considering letting her try it! YIKES! What is wrong with me!?!?! Of course if we ever try to sell this house I will have to paint layers and layers of white KILZ paint over the top to cover it all up! The room may actually end up being a foot smaller all around with all the layers of paint on it! ;-) he he!

blog additions

I had a whole blog going in my head on the way home from church today... but now that I sit down at the computer I can't remember what it was I was going to write about!

I guess I will comment about some additions I would like to make to my blog. After looking around at some of ya'lls blogs, I liked Jennifer's reading list. I added that one, and I liked the recipe file idea on Alisha's blog. I have been thinking about compiling our favorite family recipes so that I can pass them all along to my kids when they leave home. So now I'll just do it here, and it will be killing two birds with one stone! ;-) what a deal!

I do have an issue, as I added things last night till nearly 1 am! (see I don't' have time for blogging! my husband was right!), I don't like that as I added one thing reading list, but I did it after the blog links to ya'lls blogspots, the most recent addition is put at the top. I would rather have some of those other list areas, like reading and recipes, below the list of blogspots. Does any of this make sense? Maybe I do need a tutorial or two. When my teenagers aren't around to help me with things!

maybe you will be able to teach an old dog new tricks... ;-)

I'm seeing SPOTS!!!!!!!!!!

We are fixing up Sariah's bedroom.

When we first moved into this house, I painted the big room for the three little girls. about 3 years ago, we switched things around, put the big girls in the big room so they had room to hang out with friends, and the two little girls went into Rebekah's old room, with white walls (it took me two years to paint them a really light pink/lavendar color), and Sariah moved into Amanda's old room, which had tan walls, to go with her panda bear bamboo stuff. I painted a frog pond on one wall, and a tree for her monkey's on another. Then when Liam came along, we put his crib up in her room, with froggy bedding. We are getting redy to build Liam a room of his own (we're going to floor the area over the two story front entryway. it will be a small room/lot area at the top of our stairs, but just big enough for him.

Today we spent the afternoon, finishing up one of the walls in Sariah's room. She picked the colors and the design idea. I think it turned out really cute!!! We'll see how all the rest of the walls turn out! We ordered her a new bed since she has been sleeping on the trundle bed out from under one of the other beds. It is a top bunk with a desk underneath and a bookshelf. It should take another 2-3 weeks to come in, so I at least have that long to work on her walls, a little at a time. She wants to help so... I'm not allowed to paint when she's not home; ie: when she's at school 5 days a week! so it may take a while!

I have a blog...

I'm totally new to this and don't even know for sure how to connect other peoples blogs or to let anyone know I have this blog... I'm not very computer literate, and I don't have a ton of time to spend blogging or reading others blogs, so I'm not sure why I finally did this other than I have been missing out on keeping track of so many of the cute things my kids have done or said and perhaps if I put them down in a blog then I will have them. I've heard you can journal in a blog and eventually get it bound in a book form. We'll see if I make it that far. I can hope.