I just discovered that the city of Los Angeles is picking up the tab for the Michael Jackson memorial set for tomorrow. Not only are they going to muck up the traffic for everyone but now it seems that we have to pay for it. I am surprised at the audacity to spend tax payers money so frivolously especially in this time of economic crisis and yet....I'm not because they're politicians with their heads up their asses. It's the equivalant of me taking the company credit card and charging everything for my daughter's birthday party on it. This is the quote that I read that made me so mad....Meanwhile, Los Angeles city councilwoman Jan Perry said she'd "love it" if the Jacksons helped defray some of the city's expected costs associated with Tuesday's memorial, but that officials hadn't heard from the family. So, they never thought to plan this knowing that the cost would be defrayed...how about asking the public if they wanted to pay for it. I tried calling Jan Perry's office to complain but her voice mail box was conveniently full. I will keep trying though. If anyone wants to call or email....here is the link to her website. Maybe not everyone is as angry as I am but if you are....voice your complaints. I can remember Michael Jackson just fine by buying a few songs off of Itunes and guess what?...I know right up front that I'm going to be paying for it!

link to to Jan Perry
http://cd9.lacity.org/

I am selling my parent's 5th wheel trailer and hitch for $3,000 obo. It sleeps 4, has a kitchen, bathroom (w/toilet, sink, and shower) Send me a message if you are interested.

 I'm finally able to move around without too much pain and I sucked it up and stopped taking the pain medication on Friday. Today I'm feeling much better and starting to do some normal things again. It feels good to feel like I'm back in the land of the living. Time kind of stops for the first days after you bring a baby home. Piper is doing really well and is an eating machine. We are so, so lucky that she is as easy as she is. Right now all she does is eat and sleep. She is like Tessa in that she will sleep for long stretches at a time. At first it made me a little nervous but our lactation consultant calmed my fears. As long as she is pooping and peeing as much as she is...then she is getting enough to eat. She had such a rough start that I feel very nervous about the little things. Here's a quick rundown of my labor and delivery of my beautiful baby girl. I went into labor in the early am on Friday. We stayed here until my contractions got really close together and then went to the hospital. Unfortunately, the drive to the hospital broke my concentration with the relaxation and by the time we got there I couldn't get the focus back. They did agree to give me an epidural but warned me it may not take all the way and it didn't. Instead of being completely numb from the waist down, I was partially numb in one leg and not numb at all in the other. It did help with the pain for a bit but only for a bit. I did have an overwhelming and uncontrollable urge to push which ended up really causing alot of problems. I did progress really fast though. I was admitted at 3cm and went to 8cm in less than 2 hours. Piper still hadn't dropped down and my dr. was anticipating at least 3 hours or more until the pushing became an issue. The urge to push was so intense that it made the labor pains seem like nothing. The problem with that was that every time I pushed...Piper's heart rate went from 150 to 60 and stayed there. It's normal for a baby's heart rate to go down a little but not like that. That's when it became crucial to get her out fast. At this point...I have almost no recollection of what happened. I opened my eyes at one point to see a nurse standing over me on the bed pushing on my belly to get Piper out. When it became clear that Piper's heart rate was not going back up and they were unable to reason with me was when they decided to get her out as quickly as possible. My dr.'s comment to me when I told her I couldn't remember anything was that it was probably a good thing that I didn't remember anything. Unfortunately my body took the brunt of it and I have the episiotomy from hell. My dr. said that recovery from this will take a little longer than normal. My body felt better after Tessa with 18 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing than it did with less than 10 hours of labor and about 15 minutes of pushing. However, as long as they got her out safe then I don't care how she did it. After Piper was born, I knew something wasn't right because no one would give me a straight answer and they kept trying to distract me and she wasn't crying. Her pediatrician said she came out with an Apgar of 2 and they had to bag her in the first minute to get her breathing going. By the time she was 5 minutes old though they had her Apgar up to 8. We were all set to leave to go home on Sunday when they said she had jaundice and that she had to be admitted to pediatrics. Luckily for us, they let us stay in pediatrics with her and brought us food until Monday afternoon when we all got to go home. Tessa was waiting very, very impatiently for us to come home! So, we've been home exactly a week today and I can't imagine life without my little sweet pea. She is perfect in every way. I'm kind of lucky that I seem to have the most perfect baby girls! We are starting to figure out all of this out slowly but surely. It's amazing how much of this comes back to you even if it has been 15 years since you've done this. I'm so lucky to have Casey home for the next 6 weeks (yeah for the family leave act!) and Tessa. This little girl will never lack for love in this house. We wrap her in it every minute of the day! I am also so lucky to have such amazing friends...Myra, Heather, and Darien came over and cleaned my house while I was in the hospital and every other day someone has brought us dinner. It has made a really tough recovery much, much easier! I'm off to feed my little insatiable eating machine. Hopefully, between now and the next feeding I'll be able to post some pictures and maybe even some video of my beautiful girl!

I am so happy to have gotten all of the thank you notes done! I was a little frustrated because I am missing 2 envelopes and now have to go buy a whole new box to get those 2 envelopes...dirty rat bastards! My etiquette is so not up to snuff and my aunt would probably be very embarrassed of me but I couldn't hand write all of the thank you's. My hands are too puffy these days to write them all out so I printed them out. Casey was my knight in shining armor and figured out why Windows Office is so retarded when they miss set the margins on their mailing lables. It only took 3 wasted print outs before he realized that though the margin was supposed to be .5....Office doesn't actually set it at that....dirty rat bastards!

I still have one gift that I have no idea who gave to us. It was a very soft and fuzzy stuffed duck and a baby's first year calendar. If anyone recognizes this please let me know!

We were all packed up for the hospital Wednesday night. We had Tessa's dad drive her over and we were set. My contractions were every 4 minutes for about 3 hours. We were told to come in when they were every 5 minutes for an hour but I didn't feel a sense of urgency and my dr. had said that I needed to be "very uncomfortable" before I even think of coming in. She acted a little pissy with Casey on the phone when he asked if we should come in. Like I said before, she gauges where labor is at by the amount of pain that you are in. Since we are doing the deep relaxation techniques...I feel the contractions but no pain. But, we didn't go to the hospital and I took a shower and laid down and they slowed down. I boycotted all contractions yesterday because of that tease and refused to acknowledge any at all! Haha!...so there! take that!...I'll show those contractions whose boss!

I am trying to get some last minute things finished before Piper arrives.  I am getting the phone list ready.  We're actually keeping the phone list pretty short since Casey is going to keep everyone updated on Facebook.  I'm getting our birth plan typed up and ready for the nurses to probably pay no attention to, practicing my hypnosis and relaxation, getting the thank you notes done.   I'm also trying to keep my house somewhat clean and tidy before we bring Piper home.  But, that seems to be a losing battle and one that I am the only one fighting.  Casey and Tessa are totally oblivious to the mess...sigh... Now, we really are just waiting....The bags are packed, the car seat is in the car, the camcorder is charged and ready to go....

I have my next ob appt this afternoon so I'll see if I've progressed any at all....

btw....we received 2 gifts from our shower that did not have a card on them.  One was a gift bag with several adorable onesies from Old Navy in a white gift bag with a lamb on it and the other gift was was a baby's first calendar and yellow stuffed duck...I want to send a thank you note but I have no idea who gave it to us....If this sounds familiar please let us know so I can send you a thank you not for it!

Words can't describe how wonderful Saturday was! Part of the wonderful started on Friday when Tim and Lisa arrived from Northern CA to come to our baby shower. The shower was so much fun! It was so great to see everyone! I have missed everyone so much and it was so wonderful to be around so many friends! We really felt the love and so did Piper! Myra, Heather, and Kathy are so amazing for putting on such a great party. Like any of us are surprised?? I am sure the food was amazing but I was so busy chatting and catching up with everyone that I ate almost nothing but it sure looked yummy! I did get a picture of it though! I had plans on taking tons of pictures and all I got was 3...in the first 5 minutes of the party and then put my camera down and totally forgot about it! doh! I had promised Casey that I would try to sit most of the party and though I did sit alot....I didn't really stick by that promise too well. By the time we got home...my feet were so huge that I could hardly walk. Not sexy at all!...unless you're a male sea cow. We had alot of fun opening the gifts when we had recuperated from the festivites a bit. Thank you so much to everyone for all the goodies. It was so much fun to open everything!! I'm working on the thank you's right now....I'm afraid that I have to type them out and print them because my hands do not want to write right now. Casey, Tessa, and I looked at each other after we opened everything and realized that it all seemed very real at that moment...we're going to have a baby soon!!!! The shower was amazing and wonderful and I am still a bit high from it all...what a great feeling!


Not much to report on my dr's visit. I did lose 4 lbs and my belly didn't grow at all. So, I'm now 36 weeks and measuring at 37 weeks....only a week ahead. At first I was a little worried about the weight loss but my dr wasn't and I trust her. My bp is doing great. My sea cow feet are to be expected and since they haven't changed a whole lot since Saturday then I am assuming that this will be what they are like to she arrives. The dr. checked me...."there".....and there is absolutely no sign that Piper is ready to make her appearance. My dr. was positive that I would be making my appt next week.
Less than 4 weeks to go now!!!

This morning when I went to take Tessa to school this morning we discovered a little "something" on our front lawn.  Tessa was telling me that there was a deer leg on our front lawn.  I was a little doubtful.  Yesterday, she found a "bloody"(barely) bone in the middle of our lawn which looked like a chicken bone that had come out of someone's trash.  So, as I'm walking over to her I'm thinking..."this girl needs to grow a pair and stop overreacting over a piece of a bone in our yard.  But, lo and behold...it was indeed a deer leg.  The bottom half complete with hoof was laying  in our yard.  Since we were on our way to schoo I didn't have time to dispose of it but I'm assuming that it can just go in the trash.  Casey wasn't sure what to do with it so he left it...yeah for me.

I should not still be up...things will not go well in about 4 and half hours when I have to get up to take Tessa to school.  But, I can't sleep right now and I'm so excited about a baby who is about to be born!  How could anyone sleep with that kind of excitement?!  Just you see...the minute I go to bed...Scott will post the good news and I will miss it! 

I want to thank everyone for all of their wonderful birthday wishes!  It was a quiet but very nice birthday.  My focus is so much on baby these days that a big birthday celebration wasn't necessary at all.  I shared a birthday get together with Heather on Friday which was alot of fun.  It was especially fun to get out and socialize which I realize that I miss more than I could possibly have imagined.  Unfortunately, between going to Tessa's back to school night and all of the events of Friday...I literally slept all day on Saturday.  Casey kept warning me that I wasn't going to be able to sleep that night but I had no problem sleeping all night too!  I was so out of it!  Saturday was just a complete haze.  Sunday I woke up invigorated and determined to get something done.  Even though it took me alllll day long to do it (and with Casey's help too) I cleaned the living room.  I know it doesn't sound like much (because it really isn't...) but it was worth all the pain it put me in later that night.   It's a toss up which way a day will go.  Either I can do nothing and not be in pain and go crazy because I am not accomplishing anything or...I can accomplish something and pay for it in discomfort.  I switch it back and forth so as to not go completely insane!  But I now have a pristine vacumed, mopped, dusted, and decluttered living room and am now a very happy camper!...ahhhh...I took all day on Monday to recuperate so Casey could take me out to dinner last night for my birthday. He warned me that if I was moving like I was Sunday night it wasn't going to happen but a 5 hour nap seemed to make it all okay.  We had such a wonderful time together last night.  It was just perfect.  But then again...spending any time at all with my husband is like that.  We have such an amazingly wonderful time together all the time.  I am really really really lucky!

this is our neighborhood bear...I didn't take this picture but found it on our neighborhood blog.  He's been getting into trash cans farther up in our neighborhood but it looks lilke he's looking for more now because it was very clear he was in our trash last night.  He forced open our gate and pretty much ripped the tops off of the trash cans that were bungeed to the fence.  Casey called to tell me and I asked him if he was sure it was the bear and not the raccons and he said...wait to see what it did...then you'll know it was the bear.  Sure enough...it wasn't a raccoon.  He pushed the fence so hard to get the top off  the trash cans that they are big dents in the fence.  So, now to figure out how to bear proof our trash and see how much money I have to put out to get Tessa to pick up the disgusting mess...ugh!