Sacred Mundane: The Blog

*Some of you will not care about labor stories…if that’s you feel free to skip this one.  Some of us strange girls love them.

Well I am breaking my own rule, just this once, of sleeping when Dutch & Heidi are sleeping.  It’s been a week and I’m missing you!  I cannot believe it’s only been five days that dear Heidi has been with us.  How can you be so in love with someone you’ve only known 5 days!  I know it’s futile to try to convey to you how utterly captivated I am by my daughter.  I just sound like another gushing mom. But really, this little wee fairy of ours has stolen our hearts…even though she pooped on me three times today! 🙂

Speaking of, I had to post just an overview of the last five days.  No spiritual significance here, it just seems that after giving birth I have this strange desire to tell everyone about it.  And, life with a newborn, recovering from childbirth, a sick toddler, a busy pastor husband, and a house that’s for sale, there’s never a dull moment! 

First, labor.  Oh my goodness.  Every rule of how it’s supposed to be went out the window. Dutch’s labor was early, super fast, and super easy.  I still looked good afterwards!  And everyone and their mother (including my midwife) that this one would be even earlier, faster, and easier.  Sweet!  I was all set for her to arrive at least a week early and be quick and easy.  So, the night before my due date, I had contractions, painful but irregular, all night. By early Sunday morning they were 5 min. apart and consistent. Sweet! They say 2nd moms should go the hospital when they are 5 min. apart.  We get Dutch up and discover he’s come down with a horrible cold.  Are you kidding me? Not today.  Ok, that’s ok.  We call and tell my parents to stay posted, and wait.  And then…the contractions stop.  Stop.  What?!  Then all day Sunday they are off and on, 20 min apart, 30 min apart, 10 min apart.  No rhyme or reason. I go for two long walks (4.5 miles!), waddling my miserable self along the sidewalk, stopping to try to breathe through the contractions, probably looking like a crazy woman.  We wait.  And wait.  We eat an entire large pepperoni pizza and let Dutch watch Cars all day long.  And wait. 

Slowly they get stronger. By 9:30 that night they are way stronger than before, and regular, 5 min. apart. But who knows.  at 10:30 we call my parents and ask them to come.  By 11pm they are insanely strong and 2 minutes apart, excruciating.  They were ten times worse than any contractions I ever had with Dutch, and way closer, lasting a minute each and coming every 2 minutes. By the time my parents get there I am in a zone and can’t even think, trying to breathe through these.  I’m thinking, “Yes! This is going to be FAST! These are insane contractions!”  We get to the hospital, they check me.  1 cm.  ONE STINKING CENTIMETER!! You are kidding me? I was 1 cm. at my last doctor’s appointment! NO progress?  None?!  They say to walk around for an hour and they’ll check me again.  Walk??  Walk??  I try to stumble through the hospital halls, a few steps then moaning and breathing through these crazy things. After an hour, which felt like an eternity, they come back at 1am and check me.  By then I have chills and am shaky–I’ve got to be in transition by now!  Nightmare of all nightmares, she checks me…I’m STILL at 1 cm. NO PROGRESS whatsoever. Are you kidding me?  “I’m so sorry honey but you have to go back home.”  Ok, I respond, no big thing. They give me a small dose of morphine to help me relax and try to slow the contractions a bit so I can at least catch my breath in between.  Then I change back into my clothes, delirious, and stumble back outside to our car.  As soon as I sit down I begin bawling.  “I’m gonna die.  I can’t do this for 10 hours.”  I can laugh about it now.  I was just crying Jesus help me Jesus help me all the way home. 

Once home the morphine helps take the edge off and helps me relax enough so the contractions space to 5 min. apart.  So for three hours at least I can rest a little in between and text message a dear friend who stayed up that night praying for me.  By 5am the morphine is long gone and they are picking up speed and intensity again.  I figure what the heck they can send us home again but at least we have to get back to the hospital because they are worse than ever and I will get more morphine or strangle the nurses to death and get some myself.  We arrive at 5:30am, at 6am she comes to check me and says, “You’re staying!” and I thought she meant “You’re staying at 1cm” and I just about pass out…then she continues, “You’re staying, you’re 5 cm, do you want an epidural?”  And I begin weeping and crying out loud, “Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!” She seriously must have thought I was a religious nut. ALl I could do was cry and tell Jesus how much I loved Him. (I’m laughing right now remembering).  At 7am I got an epidural and at 8am I started pushing–so that part went fast.  But little Miss Heidi still didn’t want to come! With Dutch it was like 3 hard pushes, 9 minutes, and he jumped out.  No such deal with this girl. ALmost 1.5 HOURS of intense pushing, with the cord wrapped around this little angel’s neck, and finally she was born at 9:28am.  Broken blood vessels in my eye and the next day I felt like someone had taken me out back and beat me with baseball bat.  Goodness sakes.  Talk about not what I expected. Easier labor the 2nd time, eh?  🙂  Not me.  But oh so worth it! She came out beautiful, of course.  Our little wee fairy.

And speaking of our wee fairy, time to feed her.  More adventures to come… 🙂

A glimpse of our new daughter is over here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I have to admit, Jeff and I aren’t huge Valentine people.  We love eachother, of course, but I guess i”m just not into the red-heart-ballooon thing and the fact that good red roses cost $50/dozen.  But at our church a friend of mine, along with some other women, do a workshop each year on how to bless your husband for Valentine’s Day.  My friend’s mom was the one who started it, as she would do amazing and ridiculous things for her husband during the two weeks before Valentine’s Day.  FOr example, she would make huge posters saying, “Trish loves Mark!” and staple them to telephone poles along his route to work.  She’d send him packages at work, secretly drop off cookies for him and all his co-workers, or have random people like the UPS guy deliver love notes.  Basically, after probably close to 30 years of marriage she still found it hilarious to bombard him with reminders of her love…and perhaps have a little fun embarrassing him in front of his co-workers at the same time.

But the point of the workshop was all about finding ways to bless your husband.  Not just a cheesy card or a box of chocolates, and not just expecting your husband to do something for YOU, but choosing to take the first step and do something unexpectedly for him.  Something that’s tailor made for him.  I must say it was encouraging and challenging.

I wish I could say that I DID all of those things.  But, I confess, I really thought I’d be giving Jeff a daughter for Valentine’s Day and so we kind of just got wrapped up in prepping for the baby.  The day came, and…well, I gave him some Mike’s Hard Lime and a box of Cheese-its. (Hey, give me a break! Those ARE a treat for him.) 

But my husband spoke my language today.  Most everyone is familiar with the Five Love Language book. Well, I am an Acts of Service girl hands down.  Jeff knows the way to my heart is to save our money and spend a few hours scrubbing the floor instead.  Really though, what ministers to me more than anything is when Jeff is willing to lay aside his schedule, priorities, and needs to make my requests a priority.  So you want to know how he wooed me today?  Scrubbed the shower (the worst job!) top to bottom, swept and mopped all the floors, vacuumed the carpet, gave Dutch a bath, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned out my car, and swept the garage.  Yeah! Happy Valentine’s to me!  I think I told him a dozen times today that this was the best Valentine’s Day ever. 

So thank you, Hon, for speaking my language today.  Thank you for blessing me with your time and your hard work.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

What strange emotions accompany the end of pregnancy!  It’s no secret I am sooo very anxious to have this baby and hold her in my arms.  And yes, I have been struggling with the waiting, thinking maybe-this-is-it, then no it’s not.  A rollercoaster.  But a friend who recently was nine days overdue before giving birth to her second child (and her first one was 2 weeks early!) has become such an example to me.  Another friend related that how she stayed sane was just by keeping the perspective that these were the last few days of cherishing the sweet relationship with the precious two children she already has (one is adopted).  She really did maintain joy through the long 9 days of being overdue.  So that’s what I’m doing, and in the midst of this, the emotions are going crazy!  My sweet boy, who I adore beyond words…how thankful I am for him, and how I never want to rush through these last few days of Dutch-and-Mommy time. 

What I love about you, Dutch:

1. How everything is over-the-top exciting, how you exclaim “Whoa!” over even the smallest things–making life truly a grand adventure.  No detail is too mundane to celebrate.

2. That you love love love to read.  And how intensely you listen to the stories, chiming in excitedly over the details you know, pointing out the things you can pronounce, interjecting excited noises all throughout, even though we’ve read the same book a hundred times.

3.  How you look at me and smile everytime you hear a siren outside because you know I’ll get excited with you.

4. The smell of your breath.  Last night holding you at the concert, I couldn’t get close enough to your mouth, holding your cheek against mine, inhaling your sweet breath, hoping I’d never forget. Never forget.

5. Your amazing cowlick you get from your daddy.

6. How you love to sleep under your bed.  Hilarious.

7. How you so patiently go to church events, day after day, with us, spending hours in the nursery at times.  What a stellar PK you are. 🙂

8. How proud I am that I get to be the one you call Mama.

9. How you can play all by yourself at the park, loading and dumping your dump truck full of barkdust, for hours on end, with freezing hands and bright red nose.

10. Watching you play the drums.  You’re a little percussionist at heart!

11. Your favorite words and phrases:  Papa Cruck, Dada-go-work-church, chitch (fish) Marlin (from Nemo), Chuna (which means tuna AND cheese at different times), go-go (yogurt), Nana, Dumpa-Dan (Dump truck Dan from his favorite book).  And your new word for Heidi:  “hah, hah, hah”.

12. How you bow your head and pray, then sneak bites of food. 🙂

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Time to go wake you up from your nap. No doubt you’ll be found underneath your bed.  I love you son.  For however long we have, just you and I, you’re my little hero.  Let’s play…