One Week Down

Last week, about this time, our precious little baby showed up. It was a real adventure. I checked in to the hospital Sunday night. They got me prepped, which ended up being more painful than I had expected. It was a long, sleepless night for me. Bright and early on Monday morning we started the pitocin. It took longer than I thought for the contractions to get really painful. But they did. I labored all day long. At about 5:00 they popped my water. Then things started to get a little more intense. At 9:00 that night I finally got an epidural. The first try didn't go in right. The second try was better. At 1:00 in the morning they turned off the pitocin to give me a bit of a break. But I was still in labor and the epidural was no longer working. So we tried a third time. Somehow the little tube had gotten kinked and so I wasn't getting any medicine. At 6:00 in the morning on Tuesday we started up the pitocin again. A few hours later the epidural stopped working on my right side. They gave me a different medicine that took the edge off enough that I got a little sleep. I finally got to where I needed to be. It took 2.5 hours to push him out. No epidural, it had stopped working. But he finally showed up. He is perfect.

This last weekend my family came and saw the new baby. I think everyone is rather smitten with him. Except for when he cried all night. He has his nights and days mixed up right now. And we had a hard time getting the eating thing right. But I think we are finally getting there. He is the most expressive baby I have ever seen. It is fun to watch his face. I am extremely sleep deprived, but am doing pretty well. I think I may have some nerve damage since I still don't have feeling in parts of my legs. But I am optimistic that it will return with time.

We are moving on Thursday. That will be interesting. But my mom is here packing for me and doing everything I should be doing. I'm so thankful for her. I have some pictures of Cormac for you to enjoy.

Happy 1 week birthday Cormac.

Cormac Ammon Dahl

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to our son, Cormac Ammon Dahl! He was born at 2:52 this afternoon. 8 lbs 8.5 ounces. 21 inches long. Mother and son are doing very well. Pictures will follow when we don't have such a slow internet connection.

Prepared

I can't sleep. Instead, I'll blog. Today is Sunday. At 5:00 this evening Ammon and I will walk into the hospital in the hopes that when we walk out we will no longer be pregnant. I am nervous. But I'm also excited. We are as prepared as could possibly be. The house is clean.

Our suitcase is packed. We bought a new camera! It is amazing. We have been having a lot of fun with it. It will be so much better when we have a cute little guy to take pictures of.

I'm huge and ready to be done. My blood pressure is climbing. My pain is getting worse. And this baby is still growing. Basically my body just can't do this much longer. I will miss feeling him move. But I think that is about it. Now we just need to try to rest until it is time to go in. Ammon is sleeping. I envy him. I can't shut my brain off. After they check us in today they will set me up to get my body prepped. It will likely be a long night tonight. Hopefully not too uncomfortable. But not exactly pleasant. Then Monday morning, bright and early, I'll start pitocin. We will see if between the prepping and the pitocin we can't get my body into labor. If nothing has happened by noon on Monday we will go home to rest. Then Tuesday night we will go back to the hospital and this time a more invasive method will be used to prep me. Then Wednesday morning we will start all over again. Because of the size of our baby the doctor is determined to get him out one way or another this week. I just hope it happens on the first try. Remember when the doctors were concerned that I wasn't gaining enough weight? You were all right. Everyone told me not to worry, that the baby would catch up when he was ready. Well, we have a big boy on our hands now. And he seems to be very healthy as well. We did an ultrasound almost 2 weeks ago and our little man is doing everything he should be and is looking healthy. He scored a perfect 8 out of 8. He was measuring 7 pounds 10 ounces from what they could tell. But those tend to be less than accurate. Let's hope they were a bit over, since it's been 2 weeks!

My parents will be on their way shortly. All other family is standing by, waiting for phone calls. We have had good luck wishes pouring in from friends and family, which have been helping us to gear up. And today we finished up preparations.

I'll keep updating as things occur. When next you hear from me I hope to be able to call myself a mom.

Books, Books, Books

I have loved books ever since I was a little girl. Now, I must explain that a little bit. You see, I never liked books the way a normal kid likes books. My love of books has evolved over time to become something entirely different than it was when I was young.

When I was in elementary school I loved books. I hated to read. As a young child I loved having my mom read to me. I loved story time at school. I always liked to be read to. But I never enjoyed picking up a book to peruse the pages on my own. I did, however, love books. I loved owning books. I loved the way they felt when I would hold them in my hands. I liked stacking and reorganizing my shelf of books. I loved the way they smelled. I loved the way that the pages felt. I loved flipping through pages. I loved walking into libraries and seeing the books. Buying books was my favorite. I loved getting new books. When I was young what I wanted was to own and posses books. And lots of them. They symbolized the type of person I wanted to become, even if I wasn't then willing to do the work.

Somewhere in my teenage years I discovered that reading was a good thing. I am reluctant to admit that I found this love of reading through reading John Weyland books. If you aren't familiar with John Weyland let me just say that he writes Mormon, teen, popular literature. Very cliche, very predictable, and very corny. But I loved those books. I loved the drama. I loved that it always turned out all right in the end. There was always a romantic ending; just how I thought my life should be. For a few years I devoured those books. I didn't go through hundreds. Since I didn't start reading until I was older it took me a while to get through any book. I am still a slow, meticulous reader. But I was reading.

Then I left for college. I didn't know what I wanted to do or to be. But English was my best subject, so I started there. I read some interesting books the first semester. But nothing too thrilling. I think it was about this time that my mom bought me the unabridged version of Les Miserables. I would like to say that my intentions were pure curiosity when I started lugging that thing around and reading it. But that would be a lie. I loved being seen with a book that was several thousand pages long. I took that thing with me to Russia and all over Europe. But I did read it. It took me nearly a year, but I did read it.

During my reading of Les Miserables I learned a few things and evolved some as a reader. I learned how beautiful literature can be. It can be so much better than the cliche that I had been reading. But I also discovered something about myself that has changed my life. I love language. I love the way that some authors can take words and string them together in such a way it makes your spine tingle. I love experiencing the mundane and every day through the words of someone who has thought about it and nailed it with a simple sentence so beautifully constructed it sings.

I discovered many a wonderful book at this time. Then I went back to school and studied literature. Recently I read Peace Like a River. That book does it for me. Beautiful sentences, amazing characters, strong voice. Ah. It's like a warm shower after going sledding and getting soaked clear through. There are very few things about books that I don't love. I will admit that I have become a snob in what I will and won't read. I will admit that I judge books rather harshly. But even a cliche, quick read can have it's place. And I love that books fill all needs. I still love to own books. Ask Ammon. I have to have a specific amount alloted in the budget to keep myself under control. I still love to hold a book in my hand. I still love to move the pages around. But now, I also love reading the words, feeling the language, and visualizing the picture the author has painted in words.

And today what I love about books: well, I have about 2 more days until the biggest event that has ever taken place in my life will take place. Today, I love that I can lose several hours without missing them while I read the pages of a beautifully constructed book.

The Final Countdown

We went to the doctor this last week to discover that I'm 36 weeks measuring 40 weeks. So, once again, we have this problem of having a rather large baby. We still aren't sure if he is fat or if he is long, or both. I am still having regular contractions, but don't seem to be going anywhere. The doctor is afraid that if we wait until 40 weeks that I won't be able to have the baby naturally. At 38 weeks you are considered full term. So we are scheduled to go in to be induced on the 19th, unless something happens on it's own before then.

On the 19th they will start me on pitocin. If nothing happens, or if things just don't progress like they should, they will send me home, still pregnant, and we will try again in a few days. This scenario is by far the scariest to me. I don't want to go through labor pains just to get sent home and try again later. But the doctor is optimistic that this should work.

Now that we have a date to count down to, I am trying to figure out what to do to fill my time. The baby's clothes are washed and folded. Our clothes are washed and folded (though that will probably happen again before the end here). The house is clean, I'm just maintaing at this point. I have a few books to read, which I have been doing. I am updating my journal. I have started writing in the baby book. I need to scan some pictures, but they shouldn't take more than a day or two.

What else can I do to pass the time? Any suggestions. I hear that making meals to freeze is a good choice. The only meal I can think to freeze is lasagna. But Ammon and I are both lactose intolerant and all that cheese...well, you can imagine. Does anyone have any projects they like to do before the baby comes. And does anyone have any good recipes that do well frozen and don't involve mass amounts of cheese? What are other things you wish you would have done in the final weeks before your baby showed up? Aside from sleeping. I'm doing as much of that as my body will allow.

Our New House

This will not be a short post. Which is typical of me. But I thought I'd warn you anyway. As many of you know, Ammon and I like a good project. When we were house hunting this last time, our goal was to find a place that needed some fixing up. We wanted a big lot, a nice neighborhood, and a lot of potential. We found that. The house is in pretty rough shape right now, but we have big plans for it. We have a half acre in Lindon. We are really close to the base of the mountain. Our lot is very secluded. We have tons of fruit trees, a chicken coop, and lots of room to improve. All the neighbors have chickens, dogs, peacocks, turkeys, geese, and other various animals. We will not be getting chickens. I can't even imagine how that would go over with our dogs.

The house is in rough shape. The gentleman who owned the house before was a pack rat, and the family didn't exactly finish getting it all cleaned up. So we have a lot of stuff lying around that will need to be hauled to the dump. Ammon has torn out the carpet already, so we will be getting that replaced. We are going to do some minor remodeling now, get the place cleaned up and cozy, and then sit on it for a while. We will be doing lots of landscaping next summer. In about 5 years or so, we hope to have saved up enough money to do a massive remodel on the place. We want to add on and do some other repairs. In the meantime though, we are pretty excited about all the fun projects we have to keep us busy. We are weird like that.

This is one of our pear trees. We are going to have to get about half of them sprayed next year. Possibly more. There is simply no way I can keep up with that many pears. We couldn't even find enough people to give them away to. And while I like a good pear and plan to can many, once you get a 5 years supply of pears and are still going you know that you just have too many.

This is the front of the house. Lots of bushes and weeds to pull up. The tree is also way too close to the house for comfort, so all of this must go. Those bushes are way too friendly to spiders for me to allow them to stay right there.

We also have a wood shop on the property. It is huge. I think it may be bigger than the first place Ammon and I lived in after we got married. Notice the huge wood stove and blower. Ammon has all kinds of benches. There is a small room built on the side as well that is going to be my garden room. We are pretty excited about it.

This is the side of the woodshop. We want to make it look nicer eventually, but it is a project that can wait a while. We've got a basketball hoop though. So Ammon can teach his son how to play.

This is a view from the backyard looking out toward the house. As you can see, there is a lot of junk. They left their hot dog cart in our yard too, which is unfortunate since it is nasty! The storage shed on the left is going to get torn down.

This is our huge back yard. There are many thing in the middle of the backyard, like wild roses and pine trees. We are going to clear it out so that we have a nice big open field in the back for football and soccer games. And, of course, big family BBQs.

This is the side of the kitchen and the back of the detached garage.

The fabulous garage. That golf cart didn't get to stay. Too bad.

This is the view looking down our lane from the garage. It is very private and secluded.

This would be the front door. We have a sort of little sunroom thingy that you walk in to before you head in to the main room where the kitchen, dining, and living room is.

This wood stove is in the living room. It has a huge blower on it too. Now we just need to figure out where to go to get firewood.

This is the cold storage under the stairs in the basement. It needs cleaning, but it is very roomy and will allow us to finally start building up a food storage.

This is one of the bedrooms in the basement.

Here are the stairs and the very scary closet above the stairs. We are going to block off the closet so that it isn't usable (we can access it from the other side which is safer anyway) and build something here so that little baby boys don't feel the need to crawl out on the ledge that is almost big enough, but not quite.

This is the side of the house on the right, and the woodshop on the left. This is the view looking into the backyard. What a mess.

This is the side of the house. We think this was supposed to be the front door, but it isn't very clear. So, we are going to make it into a private balcony and put our master bedroom on the other side of it.

This room will eventually be the master bedroom. We will be putting up a wall where the stair rail is. I'm not sure what we are going to do with the closet just yet, but it will be great.

Another view of the future master bedroom. We are pretty sure it was intended to be a formal living room (thus the pink carpet?). But since the layout of the house is so strange, we have decided to make it into what we want.

This entire bathroom will be gutted and redone. We have to replace a wall because of dry rot. The toilet is black and must go. The sink and tub are disgusting. All of this is going to be replaced. But this is our second bathroom we have had to totally re-do, so it will be a breeze.

This is the office. Ammon has already taken down the shelves. Don't let the picture fool you, they were not nice shelves and really needed to go.

This is the laundry room and half bath. The toilet in here has already been replaced by my masterful husband. There is plenty left to do though.

This kitchen is a mess, but is actually in great condition other than that. There is a huge pantry off to the right as well. I'm so excited to finally have enough space and storage in my kitchen.

Like I said before, the man was a pack rat and they really didn't bother to clean up too much. It looks so much better than it did, but there is still plenty to haul off.

This is the big living room. I took this picture standing in front of the bar of the kitchen in the dining room. I love how open it is. I think we are going to put down a wood floor in here.

And here is a view of the place looking up the lane in front of the neighbors house. As you can see, it is very private. It has lot of trees, lots of space, and lots of potential. Just what an Ammon and Melanee need. We are supper excited about it. Yeah, it needs some love. But that is something we excel at. The best part is that there is plenty of room for us to grow into. We have a big backyard for puppies and little boys to explore. Oh, and the neighbors have a chicken castle. But I'll save that story for another day.