Things that make me happy:

• Coffee I didn’t brew
• Vacuum lines in my carpet
• Finished scrapbook pages
• Feeling a baby’s head on my cheek
• New perfume
• Cheap pedicures
• Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
• Pig tails
• A brand spanking new (PAID) blogging gig with my Manchops at Barefootandpregnant.com !!!!

I love it when the seasons change.  Sentimental feelings well up in me as I pull out my seasonal decorations.

Dustin proposed to me in the fall so naturally it reminds me of falling in love.

I think today I’ll re-read some of the letters we exchanged during our five years of being pen pals.

Speaking of letters, why not send someone you love some good old snail mail with these super cute free printable cards over at Creature Comforts?  Go ahead, light a pumpkin spice candle and pen a letter to someone. You do remember how to write right?  It’s what we did before typing emails

Happy fall y’all

It’s fun. It’s like trying on a whole new attitude and style. I’m reminded of the time in High School when I dressed up my really conservative - people pay big bucks for this kind of babysitter- honor society member - non make up wearing - best friend, in my sluty eccentric clothes.  It was fun to see her rocking something totally different.

That’s how I feel. Goodbye Drew.

We’ve had a long cute relationship but I’m moving on to someone else.  Someone a little more organic, a little more creative.  My dark hair inspires me to be more like Elsie.

Any one else trying on a new look for the new season?

You can vote for his design by clicking here.

Please help make his design a success, click on the link and vote!
It’s super easy!

If his design is picked I’ll be giving one of those cute little shirts away to one of my lovely readers

Good: Unlike the last time I screwed up my hair, I don’t have any fancy parties to attend.

I’d like to say that my first reaction was to exchange a look with Dustin that expressed the miracle of us creating life together and how amazing the next couple of hours would be, but that look was for the end of the first pregnancy. Three pregnancies later, the first thing I said was “Hallelujah, I’m not going to be pregnant tomorrow!”.

After my water broke,

we tried to go back to sleep.  I knew it would take a while for contractions to kick in.  We called Dustin’s parents and they headed down from Page to watch the kids.  It worked out perfectly (for us) since when we called, they were packing their last bag in the car for a vacation in Utah.  Once they got our call, they just came here instead.

While we waited for them to make the five hour drive, I packed the hospital bag, cleaned the house and waited for things to start. Somewhere around 3-5pm my contractions became 5 minutes apart and I was unable to talk during them because I needed to concentrate.  After hugs and kisses for the kids and grandparents, we were off to the hospital to meet baby Lindy!

On the way, Dustin (stud and professional labor coach ) stopped by Mac’s lounge and got me a hot fudge sundae. While in the drive-thru my contractions started gaining strength. Awesome.  I was moaning and squirming in the front seat while Dustin tried to pay. I can only imagine what that poor high school employee was thinking. Birth control? Abstinence?

We’d been to the hospital where I was to deliver the week prior, so we had a general idea of how to get there and where to park. At that visit we were seeing my midwife at the medical offices, so we didn’t actually see the maternity ward.

What we didn’t expect was that for some unknown reason, the architects of St. Joe’s decided that hiding the maternity ward was a great idea.  In between having to stop every 3 minutes while I worked through contractions, we were able to get directions to triage.

“Oh it’s right over there. Walk past valet parking, take a left towards the chapel, once you are facing the chapel you must find the leprechaun. Ask the leprechaun for the key, head towards the left and only if you are worthy will the entrance appear.  Then you can use the key and proceed to the maternity ward.”

Idiots.

The rest of labor went really smooth…in a rip your nethers out and act like an animal kind of way.  This time my midwife was able to stay with me through the whole thing! She and my amazing nurse acted more like doulas and coached me through the entire labor.  They supported and encouraged Dustin too as he rubbed my back with cool washcloths and sang my praises.

This time I didn’t scream for an epidural!  This time the contractions came more regularly and I didn’t need Pittocin! This time my nurse said she wished more births were like mine!  This time my body knew what it was doing during the VBAC!  And this time…I cussed, threw up the above mentioned sundae, pooped while pushing, and gave birth hunched over the back of the bed (which basically made it look like they were pulling the baby out of my butt). Oh, I also  growled and screamed so loud people came from down the hall to make sure everything was ok.  Pretty much a textbook natural birth.

What wasn’t textbook was the ending.

On the way out Lindy’s shoulder got stuck on my pelvis.  I was so afraid of getting a hemorrhoid that I’d stopped pushing.  Everyone kept telling me “Push!”, but I was so worried I was going to push my intestines out my butt instead of a baby out my nethers, that I wouldn’t. I then heard my midwife call for NICU over the intercom and said to me very firmly “Mary, she has to come out right now“.  I sensed something in her voice that scared me so I pushed, pushed, pushed her out.

Silence.

In came NICU and I looked over to see them giving her air via a bag and trying to get her to respond.  I started bawling. I thought she was dead and that I had killed her by giving up on pushing.  I kept asking if she was ok.  They were busy working on her, so they didn’t respond.  That freaked me out even more.  Dustin just stroked my head and held me and said “She’s fine. I promise”.  What seemed like an eternity later, they placed her silent, warm, beautiful little body on my chest.  I was really confused since she still hadn’t cried, but she took to nursing instantly and I knew she was ok.  Her forehead, nose and lips were pretty badly bruised and she wouldn’t move her right arm. But other than that she was perfect.

A couple days later the bruising was gone and x-rays confirmed she hadn’t broken anything on the way out. Our pediatrician suggested physical therapy for her arm, but since she was moving it more each day, Dustin and I thought we’d just wait and see what happens.  We were right, and now her arm is perfectly fine.

So to summarize…it was the perfect vaginal birth after a c-section.  Welcome to the world precious Lindy Joy.  We love you more than words can express (and thank you for not giving me a hemorrhoid).

The end.

Sooo…if you leave me comment love, followed by it taking FOREVER for the computer to process the comment, and you are then given the error page….no worries!  It’s ok.

Hopefully I can bribe my hubbie man slave web designer to fix the problem soon

Family life is amazing. I keep waiting for things to get crazy with three kids under three years old, but it isn’t.  The only thing I’m really unsure of is how to do trips that require walking, like the mall.  I put Maddie and Christian in the stroller, but what about Lindy?  I usually sling her, but what if I want to try on clothes?  What do I do with her then?  I’m also wondering if I should revisit thoughts about cloth diapering.  Three kids in diapers is hecka expensive!!!  I really don’t want the hassle of toting around dirty diapers but the thought of buying diapers once and being done with it makes me willing to try.  My friend Vicki suggested doing cloth at home and then disposable when I’m out. That sounds good.  Anyone have any tips or suggestions?  Ideas on how to get cloth diapers cheap?

Finally, I’ll leave you with this super cute illustration Dustin drew.  He’s so adorable

When I’m no longer applying copious amounts of white eye shadow to my brow bone because the beauty addict says it makes you look more awake, I’ll be doing some real posting. Until then, I leave you with pictures of my wonderful family and a meme (thanks Perfectly Imperfect for the tag and giving me something easy to write about).

And the meme…

Seven random facts about me:

1. I don’t own two things that are common to the American household: a television and living room furniture.
2. Alligators are my favorite animal. (I used to work at Gatorland)
3. I love love love watching people dance. The only thing I love more is watching drunken white people dance. No, scratch that, animated characters dancing…yea, definitely the best!
4. I’m technology illiterate. I can’t operate a scanner, save documents, upload and download stuff…in short all I can do is blog.
5. I wiggle my toes when I’m happy.
6. I’m still shocked at how old all of my high school classmates look on Myspace.
7. I love riding on the back of my hubbie’s motorcycle with him.