Lillian's Birth: Labor and Delivery

Contractions started at 1am. I woke thinking, huh, so this is a contraction. Through out the early hours I switched from bed, to couch, to recliner trying to get comfortable. At some point I decided to start timing contractions and they were consistently 6-7 minutes apart.

6am comes and I decide I am not going to work. Even if it is not baby day, I have not slept all night. I call my mom to tell her what is going on, with assurances that I know it could mean nothing. My dad volunteers to come and hang out with me. We spend the morning talking.
Travis comes home for lunch and brings me a baked potato. For breakfast I had half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a few bites of cantaloupe. Hunger just was not top priority right then.

After Travis left, the contractions got harder but the timing became inconsistent. 13 minutes apart, 2 minutes apart, 10 minutes apart, 7 minutes apart. At some point I decided to take a nap, which was pretty pointless, and at that point I stopped timing the contractions because it also seemed pointless. When I got up from the nap I was so upset that nothing was happening. I had called the dr to ask about some of the things going on, and all they had to say was to come in when contractions where 5 minutes apart and getting stronger. I called Travis crying. If this wasn't it, I wanted it to end! I didn't want all this pain, when clearly nothing was progressing. It was about 4pm and he asked if I wanted him to come home. I told him there was no point, because obviously this is all just nothing.

I decided to go read one of my pamphlets about labor and it said if you could start walking and the contraction ended, then it was just Braxton Hicks. Perfect! I would start walking, and they would stop. So I walked in circles around my living room. And I started having contractions. Hard ones. So I started timing. 3 minutes apart. 2 and a half minutes a part. 3 minutes apart. 1 and a half minutes apart. After about 15 minutes of that I called Travis and told him he might want to go ahead and come home. Luckily, he hadn't listened to me and was almost here.

He got home and this had been going on for 45 minutes. He thought we should wait the required hour before we left, but I figured it would be an hour by the time we got there. At this point I had started to have back labor and it was PAINFUL! The car ride there was not a joyous occasion. The car seat was installed so I barely had any room and the back labor was coming in full force, and of course there was traffic.

When we got to the hospital Travis dropped me off and went to go valet the car. I didn't want to go alone, but didn't think I had time to wait either. I went to check in, and the nurses ignored me until they realized I couldn't even talk through getting my name out. I heard one of them say, "Do we have a room clean? We're going to need a room." They could tell there was not going to need to be any triage business. Since there was in fact no clean room, I went to a bed to get checked and I was 6 centimeters dilated. A nurse walking by said, "You're going to have a baby today!" My reaction? "Really??" I still couldn't believe today might be the day.

I got a room and the contractions were getting worse. Travis was wonderful through the whole process. The nurse told him something he could do for my back labor so he would hold me close, hold a hand and rub my back through every contraction.

My plan was to see how far I could go to see if I was going to want an epidural, but I could tell at a 6, that was going to be about the most I could handle. They called for an epidural and it took an hour to get there, so by the time I got it I was telling the nurse and Travis I wasn't sure if I could handle any more. When it was time for the shot I was so afraid it was going to hurt. The nurse had to convince me that if I could make it through the contractions, the epidural was going to be nothing.

Sure enough, I barely felt anything. After the epidural they had to tell me when I was having a contraction. It was wonderful. Then, things began to progress very quickly. I think I went from 7 to a 9 in about 45 minutes. The next time the doctor checked my progress, it was time to push. The pushing was very difficult, but it wasn't painful. It was actually kind of cool once I could feel that I was doing it right, and even better once I could feel her coming out.

The next time the dr came to check on me, I was close enough he decided to stay. Before I knew it he was pulling out the catch the baby gear. Then, in no time I hear the nurse say she is going to need a baby nurse. I still could not believe that today was the day.

They let Travis cut the cord and immediately put her on my chest. What a beautiful feeling. I think I still could not believe she was here. I don't think she could either. Instead of screaming, like I thought she would (and should) be, she was just looking around observing her surroundings. They took her to get weighed and gave her back to me. After a little while they took her out of the room, cleaned her up and let her try and nurse.

After that was all over, they let the grandparents come in a look at our new family. I look back at the pictures and it is so incredible to see how much Travis was beaming. You could just see how madly in love he was already.

Starting a Diet

Starting the SB diet at 34 weeks pregnant =/= a good idear

TC has been unsucessfully trying to lose weight for the last few months and I both got above my pre-pregnancy weight, which I was really hoping wouldn't happen, and caught myself with the attitude of, "I'm pregnant, why not!" which I was determined not to have.

Those things combined with me being freaked out by a couple of my friends and coworkers mentioning they gained 10+ lbs in the last few weeks of their pregnancy, have led Travis to start us on the South Beach Diet.

Terrible idea.

Mamma needs her carbs.

That is all.

Some Irony: Before and After Pictures

Is it irony? I'm a little worried about using the word wrong after seeing this sketch.

After complaining that before and after pictures are deceiving, below are the pictures of the dresser that I redid. I say I redid, but all I had to do was sand and clean the furniture and remove and replace the hardware. I started this project after I was already pregnant and Travis decided after I started I shouldn't paint. My dad primed and painted three coats of a paint color I decided I didn't like and Travis painted two coats of the final color you see below.

I was planning on putting a handle where you see those two empty holes, but it turns out they are too close together for any standard handles that I could find. Travis said he would fill them in and repaint, so until he gets around to it I'm just calling the holes added character.

My dad (who gets some major props for all of his hard work) also tightened the dresser. It used to be so wobbly that you could barely put your hand on it with out feeling like it was going to fall apart, now it is as sturdy as new. It was initially going to go in the baby's closet, but I love it so much we might be using this one until we get around to buying her real furniture.

I'm Mad at the Internet

I'm in love with the before and after shots you see all over the internet. One of the blogs I look at every day is just that, one picture of a before and one picture of an after of random people's home improvement projects.



I love seeing how people turn trash into treasure. The problem with the quick glances at other people's handy work is that it makes it awfully deceiving as to how long those projects actually take. All I see it the magic transformation. It's kind of like watching a cooking show and thinking you too can also make that meal in 30 minutes. Well, yeah, you can, if you already have everything pre measured, you can chop like a rock star, and you don't have to spend 20 minutes digging through your drawers looking for a tool that can substitute for what the professionals use.

Even the blogs that come with instructions are deceiving because they have four or five snapshots of their work with instructions and at they always end with the ubiquitous, "wah lah!" Easy as that. What they don't tell you is that there is no instant gratification refurbish project.

When refurbing a chair, specifically, no one tells you that removing the old fabric involves two hours of pulling old rusty staples out. Or, when adding the new fabric, if you are using a thirty year old staple gun you borrowed from your parents, it is going to take you ten times as long than if you just stop being so cheap and pony up the $30 it is going to take you to get a new one and get the job done right (lesson learned)


So, it only makes sense that I forgot to take before pictures of these chairs. Let me tell you, they were bad. My roommate and I got them from beside a dumpster when we were in grad school six years ago. They sat on my patio for three years after I got a real dining room set. The wood was so weather worn there was no stain left. The fabric was a yellow/green vinyl that had tears and paint all over it because I used them when working on a painting project.

I think they presented an extra challenge from other refurbishers' jobs because they they have curved backs, and those curved backs are exposed on the back so there is no hiding and extra bunched up fabric.

I wanted to use some bright, cheerful, funky fabric because these are going in the bedroom, so why not do something crazy, right? Well, as you see I ended up with the plain old neutrals that plague the rest of my house. I still love LOVE the way they turned out

30 weeks

So here I am at 30 weeks

A Preview of What's To Come in the Nursery

And by that I mean, this is the only thing we have done so far so I'm
taking a picture and posting it

Some Other Recipes I Have Tried Lately

I've tried some decent recipes lately so I thought I would share...

We made a mexican meal for Father's Day and here are the recipes that we used:

We made these enchiladas from Homesick Texan, they were delicious! The sauce tasted very similar to what you would get at Chuys, which I love.

picture from Homesick Texan

We also made this salsa from Pioneer Woman. I thought it was a great salsa, but best of all it was really easy to make. My brother thought it tasted like Don Pablos's salsa, so you can use that to decide if it is a style you would like :)

picture from the Pioneer Woman

I used this recipe to make homemade tortillas, the comments are not mine, they came with the recipe. For anyone wanting to try making homemade tortillas I would say that they are easy, but they are time consuming. I used a rolling pin to roll out each one and I like mine thin, so it seemed to take forever. I think for the next time I am going to invest in a tortilla press because I looked it up and they only cost about $20. While it may seem like a unitasker, I watched the tortilla espisode of Good Eats right after I made these and Alton Brown bought one, so I can too!

2 cups flour (I usually use AP, though I've thrown in some white wheat in a pinch)

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup butter (let it warm up a bit towards room temp sometimes... sometimes I don't)

3/4 cup warm water

• Mix flour, salt, baking power and butter

• Crumble together until coarse

• Add 3/4 cup warm water, mix until sticky, remove sticky clumps, add more water to bowl if needed, repeat until all dough is sticky and combined into a big mound. (play around with water amounts... it'll depend on a lot of factors how much you need)

• Kneed sticky dough in hands or in mixer for 2 minutes, until smooth and elastic (I forgot this step last night... no big whoop)

• Break dough up into 8-10 golf ball sized balls

• Dampen cloth with warm water and let cloth sit on dough for 20 minutes

• Pre-heat flat pan to medium-high

• Flatten dough into discs, roll flat, place on heat, cook 8 seconds then flip, then cook 1-1 1/2 minutes until bubbles form, flip and press edges, move to tortilla warmer.

For the sides, we made rice by cooking brown rice with salsa, and we made a pot of beans by following these quick soak directions then throwing a bunch of seasoning in the pot and simmering the beans until they were done (about 3 hours),

For dessert I made TC's grandma's strudel recipe, brought here straight from Czech. I can't share that recipe though, so you'll just have to come over to try it :) I can share however that I am really impressed with myself on how well it came out on the first try and that it tasted really yummy