American Girl

She waits another week to fall apart...

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine

Happy Birthday AG!

posted by: rustymadgal at 03:39 | link | comments (8) |

I wonder who else is awake in the wee hours of the morning because the baby woke up, then the phone rang, then the toddler woke up, and now you don't dare get comfortable enough to even consider half sleep because you just know any moment now the baby will wake up again and it's so much easier to get up when you're not asleep.  Anyone?

I don't even want to get all involved in a subject because I know I'll have to stop, and I write fast with very little thought or planning so it would probably just cause me to delete and try again next week.

My next door neighbor has a pool, and it's dirty.  I don't mean that some leaves need to be slimmed out, I mean it's filthy.  I assumed that, tis the season and all, he would be cleaning it out and getting it ready for summer, but I can see it from my bedroom window and it's neon green, and there are ducks living in it, and possibly frogs.   I want to say something because I think the standing water is going to draw every mosquito in the entire tri-state area, and I personally believe that mosquitos are going to eventually lead to the demise of the human race.  Well, it's actually a toss up between mosquitos and illegal immigants pooping in the fields where our food is grown.  Either way, there is a wall between our yards, so I can't see his yard at all unless I look out my bedroom window, so how do I bring this up?  "I noticed (from my upstairs window) that your pool is the Eternal Bog of Stench, any plans on taking care of that?" 

Hmmm, just checked, she's still breathing.

I seriously need to know if people outside of New York are really as bamboozled by Rudy Giuliani as it seems.   No one's really going to vote for him, right?  Please say no.  I'm giving serious thought to registering as a Republican for the sole purpose of voting against him in the primaries.  I'm worried though, because somehow he seems to put on a good show.  I suppose it's easy when you're the (self proclaimed) "Hero" of September 11th...grumble grumble...grumble.  I don't want to do the whole anti-Rudy post, but I will if I have too.  It would make me feel good if you told me that you knew what a horrible, shrivled up, two timing, cross dressing, pedifile supporting, lying nasty little man he is.  While I always take an interest in presidential elections, I feel so strongly about this one that I'll say that if you're going to vote for Rudy, you can't be my friend.  And I'll mean it, too.  I know people were critical of the "Anyone But Bush" campaign last time around, but at this point, that's honestly how I feel.  Almost anyone would be better.  But "Amost Anyone But Rudy" is not very catchy, is it?

New topic, here's a shout out to the person who reached my blog by doing a Motime search for "Boobs".  Come on now! 

My niece is graduating high school next week.  She has really turned herself around, and I'm so impressed with the person she's become.  I think one of the hardest things my brother ever did, so far as childrearing goes, was to pull her out of school and put her in Catholic school, but it really did wonders for her.  I would love to go on and brag about her some more, but Carly just roared.  Nighty night, Motime.

posted by: AmericanGirl at 01:35 | link | comments (13) |

The Story of a Girl

Saturday night I had contractions all night long.  I thought this was grand, I would try to sleep, then wake up and head for the hospital.  The reality was that I barely slept at all, and then in the morning I got up and took a shower and then the contractions completely stopped.  Rats.  We waited around all morning, then they started again full force.  Wohoo!

My goal was to labor as long as I could possibly stand it at home.  With my doctor being "iffy" on this whole VBAC thing, I didn't want to end up with a c-section just because I was in labor, in the hospital, for longer than she liked.  I really was doing ok, in between the regular feeling of a vice grip squeezing the life out of my entire body.  We stuck it out  for hours, mostly reminding outselves how much more comfortable it was at home.  When we finally decided to go, I was still doing ok.  So ok, in fact, that we stopped for pizza on the way.  I hadn't eaten all day, and I knew I wouldn't be able to eat or drink once I got there, and hey, a girl needs her strength, right?

So we got all checked in, even though I still had this lingering fear that they would tell me this was false labor and I should go home and come back when the real contractions started.  Instead, they checked me and I was dilated to 8!  Yahoo!  That was way beyond my expectations.  For those of you who aren't experienced in such things, the goal of the whole labor process is to dilate to 10.  Then you can push the baby out.  So, here I thought we'd be done in no time.  Wrong.  They broke my water, and then the contractions got a lot more painful.  There should be a word, but there just isn't.  I also learned that while I thought it was just swell that I labored so much at home, it also meant that it was too late for me to get that epidural I had been counting on. 

Ironically, hospital beds are not a good place to labor.  I was so uncomfortable.  I got dilated to a very frustrating 9 and a HALF, and found that she just wasn't moving into position, and it stayed that way for a long, long time.  So we waited.  Ryan's mom was in the room with us, and she was wonderful, but  when every cell in your body is trying to focus on getting a baby out, you just need the rest of the world to go away.  I put on my ipod for a while and told them to talk amongst themselves, but leave me alone.  I'm glad I didn't get any meaner than that.  I really could have.

When my doctor got there, bless her heart, she decided it was time to have a baby.  I was so stuck (in my head) on this half centimeter that was in the way, and she said we could just try to push through it and move her down into the right position.  And we did!  Pushing was the hardest and best thing I ever did in my life.





Carly was born on Memorial Day, just barely.  As soon as she met her brilliant, adorable, perfect-in-every-way sister, she knew she couldn't compete, so she decided to be sick.  She came home with jaundice, which we expected, because Hope had it too, due to our blood incompatibility.  But Carly's bilirubin jumped up so high, so fast, that she got sent back to the NICU in the hospital last Friday.  We (well, she) endured a nightmare of tests and a bunch of horrible "It could be  this-es", and awful treatments for things that she didn't end up having, but we needed to be sure.  Ryan had blood drawn in preparation for a transfusion, which was the next step, when finally, her numbers peaked and then started creeping down.  She came home (again) yesterday morning. Now she is completely out of the woods, her little liver is finally catching up, but I'm not quite forgiving myself for allowing her introduction to the world to be such a brutal one.  I know we'll all be just fine, we just need some time to forget the sting of it all.

Hope happens to think she's pretty fantastic, and we think so too.

posted by: AmericanGirl at 14:02 | link | comments (23) |

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