Saturday, August 29, 2009

Scams and Ripoffs

I'm very close to posting my version of Anna's birth story with pictures so stay tuned....
Meanwhile, I wanted to rant about a couple of things.

One, apparently my Mom hasn't heard about the Craigslist housing scams. She is all excited about a rental house in Cupertino for us and she shows me the e-mail and it is one of those African scams but she still didn't even see that. A lot of people haven't heard about these apparently.

Second, so our car broke down in Aptos last weekend. We tow it to a local Toyota dealer in Capitola and they call us Sunday with the repair estimate. Needless to say, it was an OUTRAGEOUS amount!! It completely ruined our whole day and who wants a ruined Sunday? We are trying to arrange our whole financial future and just get more and more depressed about it. We tell my Dad about it and he suggests to tow it back to his mechanic in Campbell. The guy did the same repair for $3000 less!! $3000, are you kidding me? How do these people sleep at night?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Birth Story - A Husband's Perspective

Steve wrote this earlier today.
I'll post my story with some pictures later on this week.

My wife and I watched the Giants vs. Rockies game last night which ended in a walk off grand slam by Ryan Spillborgs after the Giants scored 3 in the top of the 14th breaking a 1 to 1 tie. This may seem irrelevant, but I suspect that it's no coincidence that my wife woke me 4 hours later to say she was in labor. My bleary eyed reaction? "Great, why don't you lie down and try to get some rest, you'll probably need it."
"I'm gonna have some chocolate milk," was her reply.
After laying there for a minute or two I realized that if I wasn't yet, I would soon be in the running for the creep of the year award if I didn't get up right away. For the next hour she would have contractions and we would track them using the Contraction Tracker ap on her iPhone (little shout out there). About an hour later her parents arrived to watch Eden and Emily said she wanted to head to the hospital. I felt like it was a little early, but wisely held my tongue and began slowly preparing to get us out the door. The next contraction seemed pretty severe, which quickened my pace a little. She had a contraction in the breezeway outside of our apartment, two in the car on the way to the hospital and 3 or 4 between the ER and Labor & Deliver and by that time they were quite strong.
By the time the LD nurse did the pelvic exam, Emily was 8 cm dilated and just about to go into transition. We essentially got there just in time. Less than an hour later we were holding our newborn baby.
I won't go into the gory details save to say, there are mysteries of the woman's body that, in hindsight, I might prefer to have remained a mystery. Truth be told, I was there to see my first come into this world and now my second and wouldn't miss either for the world, the moon and all the stars in heaven.
As for Emily? Make no mistake about which sex is the strongest. I'm clear that it isn't the one to which I belong. She was amazing, brave, determined, focused , undaunted (okay, maybe a little daunted, but took the coaching from the midwife brilliantly). Four hours after her first contractions started we were holding an 8 pound, 5 oz, 21 inch baby with a 5 minute APGAR of 9. Anyone familiar with the birth of our first child knows what a victory this was. All this without a single medical intervention. No epidural, no pitocin, no cervadyl.
So here's the advice I have for any expecting parents out there. First, don't bother having a first baby, skip right to the second, it goes a lot faster. Second, if at all possible, go natural, and if you do this make sure your ob is fully on board with your plan. We recommend a midwife, doula or both. Ours was totally awesome!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Wishful thinking.......


Okay, so the last post was wishful thinking on my part. We did go to another Sunday Mass as a three person family and will probably have a second one tomorrow. My babies just like to stay inside as long as possible, their early start to driving Mom and Dad crazy!!
We tried a bunch of different natural labor induction techniques this past week with no success. It started to drive me a little crazy so we are just trying to relax now.
We tried to tempt Murphy's Law this afternoon when our trip to the beach had some complications. Our car broke down and we had to wait a couple of hours for the tow truck and my parents to come pick us up. No labor still...
Eden didn't care. She LOVES the beach!!! No pictures from our adventure because we left the camera battery at home. But we're glad to know that now so we didn't take a battery-less camera to the hospital.

St. Gerard, patron saint of expectant mothers, pray for us!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Our Final Week???

We were able to visit St. Lawrence the Martyr church last night and it was so good to see Fr. Thuc again. He made a special point to invite Eden up to the altar for the Our Father and she gave him two high fives, so cute!
Entering Mass, I couldn't help but think this might be the last time we go as a family of three. I'm starting to get sad for Eden as her days of an only child are coming to an end. It's been so nice to have a lot of special time with her these last couple of weeks. Her (our) world is about to change a lot!!
Please keep us in your prayers. I'm still hoping for a birth on the Feast of the Assumption (August 15) but I'm completely open to God's will for our baby August....

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Fame - The Trailer

I can view better video on my new computer and since I'm just waiting and waiting for Baby August to come, YouTube has become my new entertainment.
Here is another upcoming movie to check out:

The Blind Side

They made a movie of the story of Michael Oher, Ole Miss Football player. Sandra Bullock is the star.
Check out the trailer:


The book was really good, but I am a huge Michael Lewis and Ole Miss fan of course.