Amelia's Arrival

Well it has been a very long time since I have blogged but reading Cathryn’s blog made me remember my birth story.

Amelia was due on April 17^th 2010. I had her on April 23^rd. Going went a week past my due date I was mad as a hornet. People at work are asking me everyday why I am at work and when is the baby is going to pop out. One guy even poked my belly with a pencil, I almost slapped him. My mom had been trying to plan her flight around Amelia’s due date but she didn’t want to schedule her flight for before the due date then have to leave early. My mom’s flight was to arrive at 8 pm Thursday April 22.

I had been having mild contractions since Wednesday night and by Thursday at 6pm I was having contractions every 7-10 minutes. They were light but I wasn’t sure how hard they would get since I had never had a baby. I called my grandma and she said to go to the hospital. So I had my neighbor drive me to the hospital and then pick my mom up from the airport. She had never met my mom so I told her to look for an older version of me and it worked. I get to the hospital and sign in and I am there a few hours before they send me home since I am only dilated about 2 cm.

We went to dinner at Denny’s and I get spicy chicken strips and biscuits and gravy. My pregnant friend Jocelynn is also with us and she is drinking a giant chocolate milk shake. Next mom and I go back to my place and I try and go to sleep but I am pacing the floor. I just keep walking back and forth and bending over the chair so mom says that’s it and we go to the hospital again. It is 4 am this time and I check in and I am dilated 4 cm so they emit me. I take a few walks around the ward of the hospital. Then my nurse Rebecca arrives around 6am and gets me in the shower to relax. I stay in there a while trying to manage through the contractions. Around 9 am Jocelynn arrives and I talk to matt on the phone. I am still doing ok and am still convinced I can make it without drugs. I am talking to Matt and breathing….then when contractions come I am just starring at the light bulb and breathing and moving my legs. I do this for a while and around 11 am my mom talks me into getting some drugs. I talked to the dr and ask him how much longer. He says at the rate I was going (dilating one cm per hr it will be 3 before I am ready to push then even longer to push it out) about 5 more hours. When he says that I ask for the drugs.

I ask the nurse what my options are and she says the drug that could also drug Amelia or the epidural. I am thinking about it and tell her the epidural because I didn’t want to drug Amelia. It takes 2 hours for the drugs to get to me because there is an emergency and all the anesthesiologist are in the ER. By the time I got an epidural I was dilated 8cm. In the middle of me getting the epidural I had a contraction and the dr had to wait till it was over to give it to me. After I got that it was like I didn’t have a pain in the world. I started laughing and talking to Matt on the phone and I felt great.

My mom keeps looking at the contractions on the monitor and says they are getting heavy. I don’t feel them of course. Then I start feeling a slight pressure and heavier pressure and I tell mom that I feel like I need to push. The nurse comes in and she checks me and says yes it is time. It is about 3 pm at this time. The nurse brings all the equipment in and gets the midwife to come and I begin pushing. I push and I push and I push and two hours later I am still pushing. They have maxed out how much patosin I am getting. Amelia was turned sideways plus she had both her hands up to her chin making her head come out with her chin up instead of down. They kept trying to turn her and turn her head but they couldn’t get it. Finally the mid wife had to give me an episiotomy to get her out and out she came. The midwife was not supposed to do that but all the doctors on call were in the ER so she had to do it to get Amelia out. As soon as I saw her I was laughing and crying all at the same time.

She was screaming and looked just like matt did in his baby pictures. It was love at first site. I felt an unbelievable feeling of love for her. They cleaned her off and my mom got to cut her cord. My mom was such a trouper and so was Jocelynn. They helped out a lot while I pushed. I had one foot in moms arms and one in the nurses arms and I was bearing down. My mom said it looked totally different from that end. We were all crying and happy it was finally over. So at 5:15 pm exactly Amelia Belle Roeder was born. It was 1:15 am in Dubai where her father had been on the speaker phone the whole time. I wouldn’t let them take her out of my room the whole time. I wouldn’t let her out of my site. I slept with one hand on her consoling her through the night. She cried a lot since she wasn’t getting much milk from me.

Getting up for the first time after having your insides fall out was a site and feeling I didn’t prepare for. Around 7pm the nurse came in to bathe Amelia and to get me up after the Epidural wore off so I could walk and go to the bathroom. I remember getting up and looking at where I was sitting and it looked like some murder scene off CSI. I almost puked and passed out. Then I had to sit on the toilet and pee. I am telling you that wiping your VaJayJay after it has gone through that is quite the experience. They give you a saddle to wear and a bag of ice and a pair of granny panties and a water bottle all to help you feel less comfortable when you sit and when you go potty. Well all those things help but you still feel uncomfortable. So you squirt the water down there you don’t wipe….then you put the huge saddle in the granny panties and the ice pack on top of that and all while you have an iv attached to your hand that hurts! And trebly legs and a gown with your ass hanging out. You really don’t care who sees what at this point since everyone has just seen all of you for a long time so you let your ass continue to hang out.

The nurses come in every hour to check you and the baby and to push on your stomach and check your VaJayJay and your stitches and make sure you go potty. They check how often you and your baby go number one and number two.

We never could get her to latch on for some reason. After many contractions and many nurses and many tears we gave up on the breastfeeding feeling defeated and broken. Amelia was born exactly 24 hrs to the minute after her cousin Alyssa. My sister had her baby 5 weeks early in an emergency csection 24 hours before in Mississippi and my mom was there for that and then jumped on a plane and was here for Amelia too. That was one crazy week. We took Amelia home and my dad drove 14 hrs straight to see her. He got to Va at midnight and just had to see her. Of course I was up feeding Amelia. We took Amelia to a few dr’s visits for weight checks. She was born 7lb 7 oz but dropped to 6lb 10 oz when she left the hospital two days later. Then we headed for Mississippi on what would be the longest most stressful road trip I have ever been on. I will separate that one into another blog….lol

Strong Women New Adventures

So I had an adventure yesterday.
As most of you or as I should say the two people who read this know I am pregnant. I am indeed 7 months along and I am having trouble seeing what we will call in this blog my VaJayJay. So to see my VaJJ I have to bend way over and it is uncomfortable. As you can imagine Landscaping this area is even more of a struggle which involves a mirror, a yoga stance, and a razor held very close to my VaJJ.

Well for the past few weeks my hubby I decided to grow out the lawn and see what happens. My hubby is gone on deployment so I can go hippy style for a while. I started noticing in-grown hairs and itching because it has been a while since the lawn has not been mowed.

Yesterday I was fed up and thought I would try something new, Waxing. I had in the past discussed this new idea with a friend who said she had been brave enough and that this didn’t hurt too badly. I have had my brows waxed before and it hurts for a second but then the pain is gone. I am also about to give birth and wanted to know what my pain tolerance was and if I am indeed a sissy or a tough woman.

So I go in and the small Asian lady is getting the wax ready. I ask will this hurt? She says in her little Asian tone, if you relax it hurt less so just relax. I am laying there spread eagle letting a little Asian lady dissect my VaJJ and I am supposed to relax knowing that in a few seconds she is going to put hot wax on my very sensitive area.

She begins her task and the first few were not that bad. I could feel the warm wax which was not bad and then the strip was placed and then I braced myself for the rip! When she got further and further down into her task that is when I thought to myself I wonder how many more? I wonder if I am bleeding? I wonder if I will have any skin left? What will happen if I get her to stop now and not finish? All of these thoughts went through my head.

Next thoughts of the Forty Year Old Virgin movie came across my mind. Thoughts of Steve Carell yelling “Lindsey Lohan” after the wax lady pulled the hair off his chest. I could see every comedy movie and tv show I had ever watched where some idiot thought it would be a good idea to rip hair off their body only to find out it HURT LIKE HELL! They would scream and the audience all laughed…yea why didn’t I think of that before I decided to pay this little Asian lady for this? Why would anyone pay for this type of torture?

Well I survived without punching her, yelling any profanities, or flinching too much. I guess I am strong enough to be considered a woman. Now I have a well landscaped area that I have to use a mirror to see and I have no one to show it to.

Women are crazy. No man would go through that amount of pain for beauty. I guess I will see just how tough I am when I have this baby in 2 months. Men definitely would not reproduce if they had to go through labor.

So I give a big high five to all the strong women out there.

First Post in over a year.....Weird Dream

So this Indian girl bought this weird slimy snake like plant from a medicine man looking dude who looked really shady and she looked scared to death. She planted it in the mud and the medicine man and her hurried up the hill. She beat him up the hill and the plant too root quickly and began climbing the hill like a slimy vine. It caught him and she just kept running as it killed him. She lived in a place that was mud everywhere. She hit the other side of the hill and slid through the mud all the way down on her butt past her village with everyone watching as the vine grew bigger and bigger killing everyone. She kept running to another land which was not mud it was forest and in the forest was a fiery bird bath and it sent out a force field of fire every few seconds and on the other side was another bird bath with a shock force field that sent out a shock every few seconds it was the forest peoples means of protection I guess. Well she made it through but the sheep that were roaming there did not.

She made it to a clearing with a big giant log house. Inside the house were all these aristocrat people all dressed up in large dresses and suits from the 1900’s. She ran upstairs and the vine kept coming killing all of them and she jumped from the roof to the ground and found a man who had a Winnebago and they got in the Winnebago and tried to outrun the killer vine.

I don’t know what I ate before this dream but that is some messed up shiz
This is what probably occurs on the planet next to one where they filmed Avitar.

Architects giving bad gifts and good liquor

I got a yard stick that can be used for measuring the depths of puddles and many other useful things but is not to be put back in anyone's yard.  Needless to say I traded it for a bottle of scotch that had rules....it had to be drank at the office and could not ever leave the office.  It appeared every year just like the yard stick.

Architecture Office Christmas party was more like a really bad fashion show with booze





This party was slightly different from the TMP gift exchange, slightly wouldn't you say?

It has been a while

So today and yesterday I was all bummed up with a catch in my back.  I dont know what triggered it but I know I will be visiting a chiropractor in the near future. I have been so busy at work only using 0-5 internet minutes per day and I usually use them to read others blogs so I dont have time for mine. 

This past week I went to a meeting in Arlington, VA which is near D.C. to present our work in Revit to our client.  It was fun and I got overtime for the long trip so cash in my pocket.

I have been a little lazy and bummed since Matt has been gone. I eat cereal for dinner or have a milkshake or a beer.  I know it is not healthy but I just dont feel like eating anything and so if I crave something I eat it because anything is better than nothing.

Last night I made the dreadful trip to Wal-Mart even though last time I was in there I swore that I would never be back in that store.  I went to get Matt's oil changed in his truck since I have been driving it because my tags are expired on mine and I don't want a ticket.  So I dropped off his truck and hobbled around for 2 hours buying groceries with my kinked up back.

I came home and fixed something Matt would be proud of for dinner.  He gave me the idea last week and so I decided to make it.  I thawed out a chicken breast and stuffed it with pesto and used toothpicks to hold it together.  Then I put it in a baking dish and put artichoke hearts, and  fresh grated Parmesan cheese on it.  I baked it for 15 min or so and then put it on a bed of spaghetti with some feta cheese sprinkled on top.....mmmm good.  I had it with some Carolina Red Dublin wine made out of muskedines.  It had a weird unique flavor and I know it wasn't a white wine and I had chicken but I didn't have any white so I drank what I had and it was delicious.

I am tired of the winter, I am tired of the LEED study material haunting me, I am tired of Matt being gone and us having to communicate via emails, I am tired of a messy house with dog hair on every surface, I am tired of not feeling like or having the time to exercise, and most of all I am tired of dreading the 6 months he is going to be gone.

ok I tried to load pics but no matter how many times I clicked the add image button nothing happened....oh well

Whispering Thief

So this weekend SoCal and I decided to treat ourselves to an early Christmas gift. We rationalized that in order to buy for others we are going to need internet access since our family and friends live so far away. We purchased a new IMac desktop computer. I have no idea how to use a Mac but we also rationalized that in our past computer lives SoCal’s laptop has lived and died with more viruses than a streetwalker.
SoCal has been tinkering and fooling with the gadget since we brought it home Sunday night even though we don’t have any internet access as of now. Today is the day the cable guy comes to bring the magic. As soon as we have the magic we can begin our Christmas buying extravaganza. I have already planned on getting both our families webcams so on Christmas we can all see each other. I have a lot of other gifts in mind and hope to find some good deals online for my first year of cyber shopping.
Ok so on our first night of computer ownership I was watching tv in bed and about to turn in for the night when I heard a man’s voice whisper something. SoCal was already asleep so I turned off the television and listened thinking my ears were playing tricks on me. I wanted to get up and check out the house to make sure no one was about to make off with our new computer. Sparx got up to get some water and I took this as my opportunity to follow her thinking the crooks would be scarred of a giant black dog waddling through the dark house. So I looked in the office and the computer was still there and everything looked locked up and secure everywhere else. I went back to bed deciding that I had imagined it all.
Yesterday when I got home I sat down next to SoCal on the sofa and I heard the whisper again. I said did you hear that what is it? Is it your phone? He said oh it is the computer it tells you the time. So evidently every 15 min or so a weird robot like man’s voice whispers the time in our office, and I thought I was going crazy. I was actually trying to protect our new computer from itself.

My color of the day

What color is your sky today?
What is your personality color today?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could see someone’s personality color on the outside like if they could wear a shirt of that color and it would change throughout the day?
This would come in handy at work; you would know that your co-worker is having a great day or a bad day before you talk with them. For instance if they took their LEED exam and failed you could see that they were wearing a sad colored shirt like black and know that they must not have passed so everyone in the world wouldn’t have to ask them. When you come into work and you really feel like crap and are really down in the dumps everyone would know and they wouldn’t give you suck a hard time about little minute things like the curve of a roof drain and downspout.
This may be a bad thing though, if you tend to be going through a lot of crap in your life would you start to purposely try and change your color so no one knows how sad you are? Would you try and hide it or try and fake happiness with a yellow shirt? Maybe you could just have a mood ring and you could reveal it to whomever you chose and they would know exactly how you were and what mood you were in that day.
When my sky is black and there is no sun in sight sometimes I just need a hug and if someone knew that maybe I wouldn’t have to ask for one. If you don’t have close enough friends and you are forced to ask for a hug your sky gets even blacker. Day by day my sky gets blended with more white and it goes from black to gray to dull blue slowly and gradually until one day the sun will show its face for a second and then it is gone again. I want to wear a bright yellow shirt and play in the sun under a brilliant blue sky but it will take time. It will take time.

Things Change

So I was never one of those employees that brought in treats on Tuesday for everyone to enjoy. I was always busy working in the yard or on the house or just too lazy for all that baking. Well things change. SoCal is out to sea and I am at home procrastinating on studying for LEED or my licensing exams by baking treats for our Canstruction bake sales every Monday morning or by making a crock pot full of chili for our chili cook-off.

I made a terrific batch of white chicken chili in my crock pot….Cathryn you can do it too. I have made poppy seed muffins, SoCal and I made carrot cake cupcakes from scratch, and this week I made these delicious German Chocolate Cupcakes with a cream cheese and coconut filling. You make the cupcakes as the box says, yes when SoCal is out to sea you wont see me making things from scratch, then you mix mini chocolate chips, cream cheese, sugar, an egg, and coconut together. You put the batter in the cups and then drop a spoonful of the cream cheese mix on top and magically in the oven the cream cheese drops to the middle of the cupcake leaving a creamy surprise inside.

So yesterday I had my two plastic containers of cupcakes and a big brown bag of pigs in a blanket in tow and I was on my way into my office to distribute them to the masses. Well I was wearing my black Bandolino’s that had the replaced heel tip. The heel tip that needed to be replaced again due to the clickity, clank the metal made on tile when I walked. Girlfriend is broke and needs new black pumps, don’t judge. I drooled over Jessica Simpson shoes a few weekends ago but could not part with $60 so I clickity clunked along. So I guess my broken heel tip got caught in a crack or something because the last thing I remember I was tripping on an imaginary line and landing cupcake first into the damp sidewalk. I did not drop anything, the cupcakes were tossled about but not too damaged. I cursed loudly dropping the F bomb, dusted off my knees and then continued inside. That is when I noticed my ankle bleeding pretty badly and I stopped at my desk to get a tissue. So I took the bloody canklecakes into the kitchen to be sold for .50 which was a steal compared to the amount of trouble they had caused.

During lunch I moseyed over to the addictive TJ Max and found myself a new pair of black pumps with a perfectly good heel and I tossed the black straps of death in the trash. They had lasted me two years and I had worn down two heel tips wearing them so they were well worth the $50 SoCal paid for them. Maybe I will go buy those dark purple Jessica Simpson pumps if they will last me 2 years that is longer than a pair of running shoes.

Hello again addictive habit….

Well it has been a very long time since I have blogged. One reason was because I was in the process of moving and had no computer and the second reason is my new job takes up all my time and I only get on the internet about 5 min. a day on average.

So here’s the scoop.
SoCal got transferred to Norfolk, VA by the Navy. He is stationed on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower which is an air craft carrier. He is still waiting on his radiation detector before he can go into the reactor so he has been toughing it out doing minimal tasks appointed to him, studying for his qualifying exams, doing random things and basically who knows what he really does anyways.

Whatever he is doing it is a whole hell of a lot better than recruiting and I have only wined one time so far. I wined because he has to do 24 hours shifts sometimes and he was going to miss my softball tournament, but the tournament was cancel because of the pseudo hurricane turned tropical storm Hanna, of which I called Hanna Montana because looks can be deceiving and I have seen worse weather conditions on a sunny day in the south. (Wow that was a really long sentence that should probably be multiple sentences but anyone who reads this will know in advance that I don’t really strive for excellent punctuation and grammar.)

As for my job I am doing basically what I did at TMP which is a CADD monkey except here I have caught a lot of things on my own. Well at TMP someone (DC) would get out their red pen and redline everything so that someone in high school home economics class could fix it. Here I have to redline my own things and they just tell me to go do the plan details and I do. My project architect will redline them but I have brought up new details that we need and new issues that have not been found. Basically the things I learned at TMP come in handy here since the project that I am working on needs a little help. I also got taught how to do a spec section last week which is a new one for me.

My office is a lot of fun as well and like TMP it is the people that make it that way. Most of the people that sit in my area are a lot of fun to work with. We have our occasional few that are not favorites as does TMP. I have not encountered so much brown nosing political friendships here as at TMP but I have not met the high-uppity people yet.

Our house is still for sale and empty so if you know anyone looking to buy send them our way. We are paying rent on a small 3 bedroom house in a neighborhood for retirees in Norfolk as well as mortgage. For this reason I am thankful that both of our new jobs pay more and we are also trying to cut back on things like cable, internet, and going to the movies to help.

A few weekends ago SoCal invited me on his ship for family fun day. It was a day where the sailors could invite their entire family on the ship and see what it is like. We had to be on the ship at 4am where we had breakfast and then watched as Norfolk and Virginia Beach passed by. After that we hung out in the lounge area with SoCal’s nuke friends and yes they are a nerdy bunch. Then we took a nap in SoCal’s tiny bunk, and yes we both fit if we spooned really tight. Then we ate lunch and SoCal gave me a tour of the ship and the only area I could not tour was the area that SoCal works in. We all went out onto the flight deck middle of the Atlantic Ocean and launched and landed a few planes and of course a few maneuvers with fake bombs and such. Last we just hung out in SoCal’s berthing and watched as the guys got bored and started lighting things on fire and taping each other to chairs. So all in all I had a great time meeting SoCal’s friends.

We have been out to eat a few times with a couple of the guys that SoCal hangs out with most.

I have made a few friends at work as well. Sara, Emilee and I have been to the beach together and out to dinner followed by dessert at The Boot which is an Italian restaurant hence the name. We ate at this restaurant called Ibeza which is a Spanish inspired restaurant that serves tapas. I had no idea what tapas were but apparently they are way over priced small portions of food that you are supposed to share around the table like an appetizer except there is barely enough to share. The two highlights of the night out with the girls was the Date pudding dessert at The Boot and Emilee getting toasted and almost getting in a fight with this girl at The Boot over a sip of wine. Long story….

This weekend we are doing a practice run at the beach for our sandcastle competition idea. I am helping out with my first sandcastle competition and it is Sept. 28th. I am so excited but also nervous because it seems like it would be very hard. Our theme is Neptune’s Olympics and we were initially going to do King Neptune with sea creatures but then we simplified our idea and are going to do the creatures racing after a wreath or a metal of some kind. Anyways….

So I guess that is all I can remember right now to catch up on but I will try and keep up with my blogging.

Peace out

Have you ever bruised someone's ear lobe?

Some of my co-workers and I were having a conversation about… well I started a conversation about Matt and I wrestling yesterday. We were just goofing off and freshening up my yellow belt when he had me down and I was trying to retaliate. I know he hates when I grab is ear lobe because he is always afraid that his ear skin will rip. So I grabbed both of them and he grabbed under my arms and we were both applying pressure until one of us give in. Well I don’t remember who finally give up but later in the evening we sat down to eat dinner and I looked at Matt’s ear lobes and noticed something on the bottom. I thought it was stain from the deck but no, no it was bruises on each ear lobe. I felt so bad; I apologized, since we usually don’t end up with evidence of wrestle mania. Well my co-workers laughed at this story and swore that normal people do not wrestle with their spouses. I guess it is just a Mississippi girl thing.