Progress

Well this post won't be all that exciting (sorry), but I just wanted to give a quick overview of Pre-K and how it's been going since it started last week.

The very first day was last Tuesday. Exactly one week ago today.

I excitedly dropped Brie off in anticipation of hearing all about her fun morning in a few hours. When I picked her up at noon that day, she was in tears. It had been a rough morning for her. Certainly not at all the reaction that we were expecting.

There were a lot of kinks to work out with the kids. Location (no child had been in that room before Tuesday morning), routine, recess (with the entire elementary school which was, according to Brie, full of loud and pushy kids). This is a brand new program to our town and with a new teacher and a new program, I guess it just takes a while to get into.

For the remainder of last week, the class was divided into two to help ease children into this new schedule. Each group only went one more time last week, which seemed to go much smoother.

Now this week is back to a full class again. 4 mornings a week.

Brie is absolutely loving it!

What a relief to us worried parents after last week.

She came home at lunch today with John and she was absolutely beaming. She opened up her backpack to show us all our her stuff and she threw her arms around me and gave me a giant bear hug!

How I love that girl!

She sometimes takes a while to get adjusted to new surroundings, but I am so thankful that she is back to her boisterous self again. Once she is comfortable somewhere, she is a very different child, although I suppose that is like most children.

We have set some guidelines for her that she needs to come home each day telling us about her morning. Last year with preschool, literally every week (she only went once a week) we would ask how her morning was and she would respond with "I don't want to tell you about it". How sweet from a then 3 year old.

What a difference a year makes. She is more confident. She is less shy. She is making friends on her own. She is reading, counting to 100, learning math skills, and the list goes on.

Actually her closest friend at pre-K so far is a girl named Ella. Not our Ella, a different girl with the same name. Tell me how confusing that could be! So Ella at school is now Ella M. Much easier to figure out which girl Brie is talking about. It sounds like they are having lots of fun together at school!

Now to see how she fares at the end of first busy week.....

No More Quick Trips

We are just starting to realize how flexible our lives were up until now with John's shift work.

If he starts his days off on a Sunday, we could pack up the girls and head to the city for an overnight trip. A quick visit, some shopping errands, even the occassional dinner or date with some happy grandparents watching the girls.

Well this flexibility is coming to an end.

(Insert dramatic pause here)

On one hand, I am absolutely thrilled that Brie is in pre-K for 4 mornings a week. She needs the social aspects, and hopefully some academic skills will be learned at the same time.

On the other hand, we have now entered the era of scheduling.

Pre-K is Monday-Thursday mornings.

Dance on Tuesday afternoons.

Piano on either Wednesday or Thursday afternoons, depending on the week.

Music Pups on Thursday mornings.

Gymnastics...?

Well we actually don't know much about gymnastics yet. The ad in the paper last week (Yes we only get a paper here once a week. That's sad.) said that it would start this Thursday afternoon. Now the time and day are up in the air. I'm hoping the program gets its act together and can get it figured out. Sunday was even tossed around as a possible day, but I can't imagine too many people would be thrilled with that option. Nothing like waiting until the last moment to decide!

And if we so choose, on Friday mornings, the one day that we don't HAVE to leave the house, we could go to the library for story hour. I think that both girls would love it, but I'm undecided at this point if we want to get ready 5 mornings a week to leave the house. I'm sure it will be hit and miss, depending on the week, if I choose to go.

And we're also hoping to get a women's Bible Study going in there somewhere.

My little calendar is looking quite marked up now.

I think I may need a day-timer.

Today is actually the start of 4 days off for John, and for the first time in months, we have no plans to go anywhere. I actually look forward to our little day/overnight trips because it reminds me that there really are more people out there, and sometimes it's just nice to get lost in the crowds.

There are a lot of aspects of small-town living that I enjoy, but very few stores and no entertainment make Jenn go crazy!! So in order to enjoy John's days off to the fullest, we decided to make a fun trip to go swimming tomorrow afternoon. It means a drive there, supper out, and a drive home but it will be worth it.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Garden Surprises

Yesterday afternoon was a "work in the garden" kind of afternoon.

We dug up all of the remaining potatoes, we pulled the cucumbers and we pulled the tomato and corn plants.

During the festivities, John turned around and with surprise in his voice he said "What the heck?"

So, I too, turned my head to see what all the commotion was about.

I couldn't see anything worth noting.

I was quite confused.

Then John told me to look at one of the sunflower plants.

Here's what we saw:

You might have to look closely for the fur/nose behind the largest front leaf. Close to the top, in the center of the picture.

Yep.


That's a squirrel sitting in the plant.

It was difficult to get a great picture because his movements are so fast, but he kept leaning forward to pick the seeds out which he would promtly shell and eat.

This particular sunflower plant wasn't even supposed to be there. It sprouted in the middle of my tomato plants and I just decided to leave it there since there was room anyways. It bloomed long before the others did and since it has now gone to seed, I guess it was ripe for the picking!

While we're on the topic of my garden (sort of, anyways) here's a few photos of our harvest this year.

My measly corn. These were the biggest cobs unfortunately, and although it looks tasty, it was tough and not very sweet.

The remainder of the potatoes.


My blooming sunflowers.



I would have taken a picture of my cucumbers, particularly the lemon cucumber variety, but I forgot and now it is all grinded up to make relish tomorrow. Maybe no one else actually finds it interesting anyways!!

The Story Of Us: Infertility

Welcome to Part 5 of my series "The Story Of Us".

If you have missed any of the other stories so far, here they are for your convenience:
Part 1: The Beginning
Part 2: Dating
Part 3: Getting Engaged
Part 4: Getting Married

***This post may have some delicate subject matter, so for those that are squeamish or can't handle the topic of the female body you may want to skip this post. It's not in GREAT detail, but I want you to be warned!***
***I also want to add that another fantastic post on infertility can be found at Rock's In My Dryer.***

As a little girl I always imagined how my adult life would go.

I would fall in love, get married and have babies.

I have always loved children and just assumed that having my own would be as simple as saying it.

Unfortunately for us, this was not the case.

John and I had been married for a little over 3 years when we decided that we would like to start trying for a baby. I stopped taking any birth control pills and waited expectantly each month to see any evidence of being pregnant.

After a few months of not having a period and several negative pregnancy tests, I went to see my family doctor. She was an older women and all she told me was that I was young and I had lots of time to get pregnant. She was not concerned with the lack of my period. End of story.

Fortunately I decided to get a second opinion and I found a wonderful young doctor! Right away she decided to schedule me for some bloodwork as some other physical signs were leading her to believe that I might have something called PCOS (more on that to come).

The tests came back looking like PCOS might be a reality for me so my doctor decided to refer me to a specialist. She had mentioned that it is not safe for a woman to go over 6 months without a period due to increased risk of cervical cancer, and I was already well over halfway there.

I waited anxiously to hear from the specialist, all the while continuing each month to deal with the ups and downs of more negative pregnancy tests. You see, there was almost a physical ache in me to become pregnant. As each month went by, I became more withdrawn and depressed. My head was telling me that I couldn't get pregnant if I wasn't ovulating, but my heart was telling me that I needed to have a baby in my arms. Each month I waited to see 2 lines on a pregnancy test, and each month I became a little more disappointed.

Finally the letter came from the specialist booking me in for our initial appointment. She wanted to do an ultrasound (internal) and get a good look at everything before discussing a diagnosis and any treatment. The week before the appointment I got my period, exactly 6 months to the date of my last one, . I completely believe that this was God's way of telling me that He was in control and that He was taking care of me.

So John and I went to that appointment and it was confirmed that I do have PCOS. Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome is difficult to explain as it doesn't always present itself in the same way. About 5-10% off all women have it to some degree. The main symptoms of it are: lack of period, weight gain, adult acne and insulin resistance.

The specialist had an immediate action plan. Since we knew that I just had a period we were greatly relieved about that, but she also wanted to put me on a fertility drug to make sure that I would continue to ovulate on a regular basis. She wanted to schedule an HSG for me, as well as ensure that everything was in working order with John. She was very thorough and caring throughout this process.

The HSG test was very uncomfortable. Basically they inject dye into the fallopian tubes and check for any problems or blockages. I remember feeling very sick immediately afterwards and also feeling like passing out. John was there squeezing my hand and feeling bad for me. Fortunately that sensation passed quickly and we were able to discuss the results. Everything looked normal for both of us so she wanted to start me on a drug called Metformin.

Typically Metformin is a drug prescribed to diabetics but since PCOS leads to insulin-resistance, it often helps to regulate a woman's cycle and get things back into working conditions. It is also a very strong drug, so it needs to be started in very small doses and increased very slowly. The side-effects of it are not "pleasant".

Just before this appointment with the specialist I had a small promotion at work on a temporary basis. It ended up being a job from God! The side-effects (which I won't explain on here) led me to need to leave my desk many times a day and with my previous job as a bank teller, that would not have been possible. I can just imagine all the grouchy customers glaring at me as I once again needed to excuse myself for a few minutes. I was so very thankful for this promotion for this reason, as well as it was less stressful on me.

I continued to struggle each month with not having a baby. For those of you who have never been in this situation, you are so very fortunate. The physical pain of empty arms is hard to describe. So many things could set me off into a fit of tears. Seeing a pregnant woman, baby showers, Mother's Day, and anything in between. I didn't share this pain with more than a handful of people at the time because I wanted people to think that I had it all together. I wanted them to think that I didn't have any problems. We told our parents, my sisters, a couple of friends from our small group and that was about it. These were people we trusted, and who would be able to see that I wasn't the same happy person and that something wasn't right.

My manager before my promotion, who also was a Christian, had written me a lovely card for Thanksgiving that year. It said something to the effect of "I'm not sure what you are going through right now, but I'm praying that God will be very near to you in this season". After reading that card, I went into her her office, closed the door (which was all windows) sat down and burst into tears. For the next 30 minutes, I poured out my heart to her and she listened and prayed with me. It was a small release and relief that I could open up to her and know that she would support me in prayer and encouragement. Afterwards, everyone was asking if I was okay as they could see that I was crying a lot, but I didn't feel like they would "get it" so I didn't explain anything to them. Part of it was that they knew I was a Christian and I didn't want them to see me struggle with this depressing battle and somehow link this with my relationship with God. I did end up sharing with 1 other Christian friend at work who was also considering becoming pregnant. These 2 women were great to work with and without them, work would have been a lot more challenging.

You may wonder why I write about this as if it was only my struggle, and not John's too. This is because for him it wasn't as painful. He wasn't the one waiting for the peed-on stick to show up with 2 lines, he wasn't the one taking drugs multiple times a day, he wasn't the one crying in the car after seeing a pregnant woman, he wasn't the one who desperately needed a child. This isn't to say that he wasn't sad, but for him this was not a case of urgency or depression like it was for me. He was sad for me, not really for himself.

I knew of several friends who also battled with infertility and I borrowed a book titled "The Ache For A Child". It was a good book to read, to help me understand that I was not alone, but it was still hard to read as it made our labelled infertility that much more difficult to come to grips with. I began to question if I would ever be a mom and started to push God away.

People continued to pray for us, which I am so very thankful about. My mom once gave me this bible verse from Psalms 113:9, "He give childless couples a family, gives them joy as the parents of children" (The Message). She said that she truly believed that in God's time it would happen, and that we would have more than one child. At the time, her encouragement was nice, but I still doubted and questioned why this was happening to me.

Why me? It is such a dangerous question. I guess I felt entitled to having my own children. I thought that I was a decent Christian, someone who helped out in various areas of the church. If all these teenagers could get pregnant after one slip, then surely we could get pregnant with no difficulty. I know all about the Abrahams and Sarahs of the Bible who eventually were blessed with children, but the stories don't explain the grief and despair that Sarah must have felt for all those many years. And for her, there were MANY MANY years. I didn't want that to be me. I wanted God to reward me for my efforts.

I even began to consider foster parenting or adoption. I just wanted to be able to mother someone, even if it wasn't my own biological child. (Actually even to this day, I still sometimes think that foster parenting would be something for us someday. Not right now, but maybe someday. )

I was still involved with singing at church and was asked to sing a solo one weekend. Our church back then had several weekend services so it would mean singing the same song 3 times that weekend. And...it was Mother's Day weekend. Up until that point, I hadn't sung a solo at this church so my initial reaction was excitement. When I realized the song that I would have to sing, as well as the fact that it was Mother's Day, I became apprehensive. But I had already agreed to it and decided to just pray about it and hope for the best. The song itself isn't about mothers, but it has a lot of lyrics that would be relevant to a mother. It was "Legacy" by Nichole Nordeman. It was a tough weekend, but I made it through it without melting into a mess of tears.

The very next weekend was the May long weekend. I hadn't been feeling quite right lately, including a very strange visit to Superstore where I couldn't even look at the food on the shelves without feeling sick. That Saturday morning, John suggested that I take another pregnancy test. My period, which was much more regulated with the Metformin, was late and combined with the slight nausea he thought this would be a good idea. So out came another test. Our lives were forever changed 2 minutes later when we got the positive results! After a year and a half of negative tests, we had a positive one! I literally leaped into John's arms and started weeping. It was an amazing feeling. John, the slightly more pessimistic one, suggested that I take a second test just to be sure. So after lots of water and waiting, I did. We were pregnant!!

I would love to say that this was an amazing pregnancy, and although I was extremely grateful to be pregnant with our child, I was very sick. I was on meds for the nausea for many many months, I ended up with carpel tunnel and was very swollen. My hands and feet were so very itchy that I would sometimes scratch them until they would bleed. I tried very hard not to complain because I was just happy to have a healthy baby growing inside of me. And we were blessed with a beautiful, healthy girl and we wouldn't trade her for all the world! I can't imagine not having Brianna.

Looking back, I am able to see some of the bigger picture involved in the timing of our pregnancy, but at the time all I could see was the sorrow. Just this morning I began reading the book of Job (in the Bible) and read all about the severe challenges that were placed before Job. He didn't understand why all the horrible things happening took place (losing his livestock and family, serious health issues), but instead he chose to praise God in the midst of it. I would like to say that I was also like this, but realistically I had some very low days. I wasn't perfect. I'm still not. My faith took a serious hit in this season of our lives, but God has been faithful to show himself to us over and over again.

We found this out more than ever when I was 8 months pregnant and John called me at work. It was a phone call that I will remember for a very long time. It was a call that changed a lot of major things for us.

Church Improvements

This morning, John and I became members at our church.

We had been asked to officially join the church months ago, but at that point, our hearts just weren't in the same place that they are now. Many major changes have taken place in our old church in Saskatoon so that we no longer feel connected to it, and we are finally starting to see some positive changes being made in our own. So we decided to become members for whatever length of time that we are still here.

We each had to give our testimonies, which strangely enough, I wasn't nervous for at all. 10 years ago I would have been panicking about any type of public speaking. It helps being in a small church where literally "everybody knows your name". It's a small crowd and most of them would be more nervous about getting up to the front than I would!

Another positive thing to note about church today. We took a vote regarding a pastoral candidate that came last weekend. It is a young couple and we are very excited about the possibility of them moving here and helping to revitalize our church!! Only 22 votes were cast this morning but we were 100% unanimous on the decision to pursue this option. What an answer to prayer!

So now we wait to hear if this couple is ready to make the move (from Canmore of all places!) and come serve at our church. Our denomination is pairing up with another similar denomination to help pay for a full-time pastor, otherwise this wouldn't even be an option.

Where's The Bar Of Soap?

I fear that I may need to resort to pulling out the bars of soap in my bathroom soon.

The girls are discovering new phrases in their vocabulary, complete with the correct tone and everything.

I guess the phrase itself is not THAT serious, but it's certainly not something that I want to encourage or allow to continue.

The phrase that they have learned?

"Shut up".

Yep, my sweet little girls are now yelling at each other to shut up.

How lovely.

The first time I heard it was on Saturday. We were driving to a friend's house and the girls were bickering in the van. All of a sudden Ella yells it out. So I whipped my head around and said "What did you just say?!?!?" She was ordered to apologize and I went on a small lecture of why this was not something that we are going to say to each other.

Later on that night on the drive home, I caught Brie saying it back. Thus I proceeded to give lecture number 2 and she was also ordered to apologize.

I'm guessing they must have picked this up from a movie, because it's not something that John or I say around the house. I'm not sure which movie, but I will be on the lookout for it now.

Thank you Disney. Shall I send you my bill for emotional trauma?

The Story Of Us: Getting Married

Welcome to Part 4 of my "The Story Of Us" series.

If you have missed any of the other stories so far, here they are for your convenience:

Part 1: The Beginning
Part 2: Dating
Part 3: Getting Engaged

I had easily planned out the first 3 parts of this story, and I also have stories to follow after this one, but for some reason part 4 is becoming a challenge to create. Since I can't leave this large of a gap in my story I feel that at least something is better than nothing. Although I wouldn't want to change anything from our newlywed stage, I don't recall anything much of interest. So bear with me....more good stuff is coming in parts 5 and 6!

John was away at his second year at CBC in Regina for the year that we were engaged. Most of our wedding plans were made over the phone or through letters. I remember sending him a sample copy of a wedding invitation as well as a tape (wow! a tape makes us sound quite old!) of some music to choose from. I recall from my year at CBC that packages were always highly coveted and what better to send then reminders of our upcoming wedding!

John, unlike a lot of husbands-to-be, wanted to be very involved with our wedding plans. He was quite annoyed with our photographer who would ALWAYS ask me the questions, as if it was only me who was getting married. Being involved is just John. This is one of many reasons why I chose to marry him!

I was quite opinionated about many details of our wedding, and most of those details seem so silly or mundane to me now. I'm not sure why I was quite so adamant that we were NOT having a wedding cake, especially when a family member offered to pay for it. I guess you could say that I'm a little bit "quirky" at times.

But we got married on a wonderful summers day in August. It was everything that I had hoped it would be. I walked down the aisle to "For The Love Of A Princess", which was from John's favorite movie Braveheart, as well as the movie that kind of started it all for us!

We had a wonderful honeymoon, visiting Bed & Breakfasts in BC, from the Okanagan to White Rock to Ucluelet which was amazingly beautiful! It was a great time to spend together before we settled into our new little home.

Our first home was a basement suite that we rented from a couple that we knew from church. It wasn't an attractive place with the green and orange carpets, but it was a big size and the price was excellent. We first lived underneath some quiet university girls, but when they moved out, some other newlywed friends of ours moved in. It was a neat experience for the most part. We lived there for 3 years before saving up enough for a downpayment on a house of our own.

Both John and I were working. I stayed on with the bank, and he was working with a machine shop, originally doing labor and eventually moving into a purchasing role. In our down time, we spent most nights either helping out with stuff at church (music, youth, etc) or vegging at home. (Now that we have kids, I truly wonder what on earth we did with most of our time!!)

We moved into our first house and continued to do the same things that we always did. We managed to do a couple of cheap renos to the house; replaced the warped lino in the kitchen and painted the front rooms.

After several months in the house, we decided that it was time to start a family. Little did we know that it's not always as easy as it sounds.

Cheering Myself Up

This week I am suffering through a nasty cold, so I thought I would write up a post that would help to cheer me up.

Last Friday I had a Luscious Bags purse party. It was a great time and I was almost overwhelmed with the beautifulness of it all!

Luscious Bags is a fairly new Canadian company that does home parties without catalogues. The sales rep brings about 300 items to each party. No two items are the same. So whatever you see and like, you buy and take home right away. They sell mostly purses, but also luggage, sunglasses and jewelery.

Here's a few pictures that I took while the sales rep was setting up. Keep in mind that this is only a fraction of what she had on display here and that most of this is before all the purses came out of her van.

I have never had a "fun" purse, so I decided that this was a good way to meet up with some friends and also ooh and ahh over all the nice stuff at the same time.

You should have seen how excited my girls were with each load of stuff that came into the house. If there was ever any doubt that I have girly girls, this was squashed on Friday night. They loved "modeling" the purses and trying on the jewelery. I think they had just as much fun as us adult women did!

There is currently only 1 Luscious Bags rep in Saskatchewan (the company was started in Alberta) and she is very busy, but she loves to travel around and spread the word. Obviously she hopes that someone else will want to start up a home business with this too and they can share the wealth, so to speak. Currently you can't order online, only through a sales rep. I highly recommend hosting a party!

Here's the 2 purses that I got for myself. The red one was free, with hostess credits.

I also got a free beach basket that contained martini glasses, an ankle bracelet and the makings for bruschetta mix as well as pina coladas. All just for hosting the party! Yum.

Swings and Slings

This afternoon our family went for a nice brisk walk. The girls enjoyed watching the trains closeup and we all had fun running and chasing each other

Unfortunately upon our return to our home I made the poor decision to help Ella jump over the sidewalks cracks by lifting her up by one arm. She ended up with a partially dislocated elbow and was in a lot of pain.

We quickly grabbed the keys to the van and drove to the nearby hospital for assistance. After an x-ray (which I sobbed through, by the way) the doctor came in and fixed her up.

It was a horrible scream-filled experience. Ella is such a brave little girl and it takes quite a bit to make her cry. I had a hard time trying to keep some composure while talking to the x-ray tech, as well as the doctor. I just wanted to take away her pain and felt responsible for it in the first place.

I have 2 nephews who have experienced this same injury before, but you never fully understand until it is your own child in pain.

Lesson to self: Never EVER swing children around by their arms. (Which I rarely did in the first place because of my nephews)

Ella is back to her chipper self, chatting away at 10 miles a minute. She has her arm in a sling, but I don't think it will last long. She keeps trying to prove that her elbow is okay and that she can use her arm just fine.

Now I just need to recover.

Fall Festivities

It is certainly beginning to feel like fall. I would really like to know why there was no weather transition from summer to fall this year. As a person who is "solar-powered", I really need to know when summer is coming to an end. Of course I know to watch the calendar, but seriously? It has been so frickin cold lately!!

I have been trying to come up with ways to keep my oven on each day, as John is quite opposed to turning on the furnace this early. Baking isn't really a great method either, as it means that I will eat it, which I'm trying to avoid

Well, here are some good things about fall beginning...sob...sob...sob:

Brianna has started dance again. She ABSOLUTELY loves dance and everything related to dance. She is beyond thrilled and I'm glad to see her so excited to participate in something she loves. It was quite a challenge just to get her to hold still so I could take a picture on her first day. Her class is called "Movement To Music" and is designed for 3 and 4 year olds. They learn the very basic ballet movements and have lots of fun marching and dancing to music.

Last year we had tried putting her in dance and skating with the intention of finding out what she really likes to do and continuing on with that activity in the future. Our plan is to only do 1 activity and 1 music per child. That's it. Some people can race around and take their kids to several activities. Not me...I would lose it somewhere along the way.

Fortunately last year, skating only lasted 3 weeks for Brie before she broke down in tears and said that she didn't want to do it anymore. So we definitely know that she doesn't like skating. Which is quite okay, because both John and I don't skate either.

I'm waiting to hear when Brie is going to start piano. This will be her first year of lessons and we are all quite excited. My plan is to take lessons also, but with the teacher's advice I'm going to wait until part way through the year after watching and gleaning information from what she teaches Brie. She is in the Suzuki program, which is essentially learning how to play by ear rather than reading music at this age. We listen to the Suzuki CD a lot these days! I'm sure that John could have told me the order of the songs before we ever played it because his mom is a Suzuki teacher also. He has heard it a LOT over the years!

I also will be teaching another session of Music Pups. It's not going to be a very large class this time, but I'm confident that we will still have fun anyways. I'm losing a few kids to the preschool music program, where the new teacher is using the Kindermusik program. I think this will be the first time that Ella will fully participate in class without me having to give her the evil eye as she strays from class or refuses to sit still. I always could count on Brie to sit great and participate without prompting so I will definitely miss her in class this year, but I'm glad that she will be having fun at pre-K instead.

Ella is going to feel a little lost this year, without her big sister around in the mornings and going to her own lessons for piano and dance. We are considering enrolling her in gymnastics here so give her something that is completely her own. She loves doing somersaults and everything related to jumping so I think she would have a great time. I know how it feels to be the youngest child who can't do stuff that the big sister can, so it would be nice to give her a fun activity that she doesn't have to share.

It will be nice to get back into a regular routine, although this one will be the busiest yet. I'm looking forward to it. Well, mostly. The weather could stay +20 and I would be happier!!

Labor Day Meme

For some reason, us women seem to find some sadistic pleasure in listening to other horrific labor stories. We compare, we compete, we really are insane!

Shannon over at Rocks In My Dryer has blogged about her labor experiences with her 4 children. Fortunately, I only had to go through labor twice. Both were VERY different experiences.

How Long Were You In Labor?
Brie: 15 hours
Ella: 4 hours

How Did You Know You Were In Labor?
Brie: my water broke
Ella: contractions started very quickly. In fact I was staying in Saskatoon after Christmas and John was at home working like crazy. I called him at 5 am to say he should make the drive to come have a baby and then I went to have a shower. 3 contractions later (in the shower!!) I called John back and told him to hurry! He met me ( and my mom!) at the hospital.

Where Did You Deliver?
Brie: hospital
Ella: hospital

Drugs?
Absolutely! The epidural didn't take well with Brie so they tried it a second time. With Ella, the epidural had JUST started to work and she was born.

C-Section?
Fortunately, nope.

Who Delivered?
With Brie, my doctor had been working the previous night but as it was Jan 1 when we went to the hospital she was off that night. There were 3 babies being born at the same time so we only had an intern for most of it. It was a horrific, pain-filled hour without any baby being born. Finally the OB-Gyn came in and tried the vacuum for another 15 minutes and Brie was born.

With Ella, my doctor was on her way to work in the morning and thought she would just check my progress. Shockingly she said "I guess I will be late to work this morning" and we delivered Ella soon after.


Feel free to play along and create your own Labor Day Meme! You can post the link at Rocks In My Dryer.