Adelaide's Birth Story

Our second daughter was born today. We love her so very much!

The medium-ish lengthed story:

I started having contractions Saturday night just before 11 p.m. (Why? Because my body hates sleep.)
They were about 8 minutes apart and lasted until about 8 in the morning

Then they quit. Sort of. I'd have two, up to four, contractions every hour throughout the rest of Sunday. This meant we went to church so I could have choir practice and so we could attend and participate in Sacrament meeting.

Afterward, we headed to Riverton so we could be closer to the hospital and so Azucena could be with her grandparents already should Clark and I need to hustle to get checked in.

But the contractions remained irregular.

We said good night a little after 8, packed up, and headed home for the night so Clark could rest up for work. We hit a really awesome rainstorm (that made us use back roads since the highway was freakin' scary) and started to settle in about nine in the evening.

Since Clark and I had spent most of Saturday night awake/packing the hospital bags that we'd been neglecting, we were pretty tired and were both very grateful that Azucena fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when we got home. We discussed our options of when it would be good to go to the hospital. I reminded Clark that we had an appointment with my OB/GYN scheduled for the next morning, in about twelve hours. We agreed to do nothing until then. We went to bed and began to sleep.

Then the contractions got pretty icky.

Around one in the morning, I started to wake up every five minutes or so to painful contractions. Really, really painful. They weren't strong enough to take my breath away, but I couldn't move for a good 30 seconds each time they happened.

At 4:30, I gave up and woke Clark up, asking if it would be all right to drive down to the hospital to get their opinion on my condition instead of trying to hold out another five hours for my doctor appointment. Clark was a sweetheart and immediately sat up, got dressed, and packed stuff in the car.

We arrived at the hospital a little after 5:30 and were admitted to a triage room within 15 minutes. Just before 6, the nurse checked my progression, declared me dilated to a 6, with a bag about ready to burst, and told me we'd be having a baby very soon.

Immediately, the cell phone satellite over Utah got really busy. :D

Azucena left the hospital with her grandparents while we got put into a labor and delivery room. 

The nurses were sweet and helpful and one in particular made sure that she put us on the anesthesiologist's list so that we wouldn't have to wait too long for the epidural (there were several c-sections this morning). I'm just going to take a second here to plug for modern medicine: I am SO grateful that I could have that extra medicine to help me handle the last few hours of my pregnancy and the delivery of my baby girl. I have a decent tolerance for pain, but having had contractions for the past 30 hours and about 5 - 6 hours of sleep total the past two nights, I don't think I'd've had the strength to go natural. I'm not saying everyone should do it, but I am saying that I am happy it was an option for me.

8:00 - still a 6+ so my doctor asked that the on-call doctor break my bag. Done.
9:10 - 8 cm
10:15 - 10 cm, called the doctor to come in for the delivery
just past 10:25 - started pushing. During the first contraction, Adelaide lowered. During the second, she crowned. During the third, she came.

10:42 is her official time of birth.

We love her.

You can tell she's Azucena's sister.

She has lovely black hair.

She has the most gorgeous dimples in both cheeks. (The first thing the attending baby nurse said was, "does your other daughter have dimples? Because this one has dimples.")

She's wonderful and beautiful and precious.

We love her.

I can't wait to share a few pictures with you!

Some of the Story

Some of you have been asking for the story. Here's the short version:

Clark and I met through FHE in the Alta 56th Ward in the summer of 2008. He was my "dad" and in a relationship with someone else. Both of our apartments got along incredibly well so we started hanging out together nearly every day of the week. We started dating January 4, 2009. We hung out with each other's families and had a lot of fun and really enjoyed getting to know each other. Clark and I got engaged just after midnight on June 8th (technically 9th) after having a few chats about us and our relationship and where we wanted to be with life.

The really short story: I finally said yes!

Anyway, the plans that we have settled so far are that our sealing ceremony will be August 20th, 2:20 pm in the Salt Lake City temple. I am so happy to be marrying him and I can't believe how wonderful he is and his family and I have loved hearing from all my friends through phone calls, texts, e-mails and messages on Facebook. Y'all are the best and I hope that once we have our reception plans settled, that you can make it out to Utah to celebrate with us!

Geneology, I am doing it!

Today, while speaking with my abuelita, I learned that my bisabuela was a seamstress and medicinal-type person (knew how to cure lots of ailments with certains teas, etc. along with being a midwife) and my bisabuelo fixed broken bones. It was just about the coolest thing ever, and my abuelita made sure to include stories about how she got rid of cancer with vinegar and cured a twisted neck (the x-rays sounded nasty) with turpentine. I love family history. :)

Dreams

This weekend has included some really weird dreams.

Night before last: I was proposed to with a very nice silver band (aka a ring, not a musical group) and I told him no, a la Ella Enchanted (the book).

Last night: I was at home, which turned out to be a third or fourth story pent apartment. I was wearing a gold sweater (everyone knows I avoid yellow/gold/most cream-colored things due to my skin tone) and crying that my parents wouldn't play Beatles Rock Band with me like they had promised.

I mean, seriously?

I have the weirdest stories . . .

I was perusing my old e-mails (I've neglected my hotmail account so long that I had 48 pages in my regular inbox (I'm down to 25 now!)) and found this gem of a story:

So, the phone rings at work and I answer like I always do--"Creamery on Ninth, Naazju speaking, how can I help you?" And it's a guy wondering if we've gotten his application and can he get an interview? "Let me connect you with one of our managers." So I go down to the office and tell Anna she has a phone call. All the managers are there (they are actually in the middle of doing interviews) and I'm great friends with all of them, so I stay and chat for, like, two minutes while Anna is on the phone--and we kind of listen in. He's aking her what the job description is, what kind of perks you get (the only one is 50% off of our meals up to $5 a day--whopee), etc. Finally, he asks something like, do any Hispanics work there? Anna responds, "yes, we have a couple, and actually, one is sitting right in front of me, her name is Naazju, would you like to speak with her?" So she hands me the phone and says, "I think he doesn't understand something and wants it explained in Spanish." So I say, "this is Naazju, how can I help you?"
"Were you the one that answered the phone earlier?"
"Yes, I am."
"Oh, I thought you might be Hispanic, because you said my name correctly." [It's Pablo Gutierrez]
"Okay."
"Well, I was wondering if you would like to go out sometime."
"What?!" [Please note that I really did say that into the phone and my co-workers teased me about it for months.]
"I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime."
"I guess so."
"Great, I have an interview there on Friday at 7:00, would you like to meet me at 7:15? Then we can eat there [yeah, at my work!] and your manager says you have, like, a coupon or a discount? Like, a 2 for 1 deal? We can use that when we eat." [Yeah! My discount at my work!]
"Um, okay, I'll see you on Friday."
So I'm worried about it all week long--I mean, he's weird and I've never met him, and I'm teased about it all week long and everything. So I sign up to work on Friday night at 8:00. I figure that's a good 45 minutes, and if *I* want the date to continue I can just say something like, "I'm really sorry, I have to go to work, but we can hang out again tomorrow," or something really lame.
Friday night rolls around and I'm in the office with the managers waiting for him to show up. 7 o'clock. 7:15. 7:30. 7:45. Nothing. He missed his interview AND his date with me. Lol. I worked, it was good, yada yada.
The next Tuesday, I get a phone call while I'm not at work. My friend Annie answers it. It's Mr. Pablo (as we affectionately call him at work). He wanted to apologize for not coming in on Friday for the interview OR teh date, and gave his number to Annie to give to me so I could call him and we coul talk and set something else up, because he (thankfully!) has no other way of reaching me, except through work. Annie accidentally threw the number away. :)

Aw, yeah. I had completely forgotten about Mr. Pablo until I ran across that e-mail. Also, just to put it in perspective, this e-mail was sent just less than five years ago. :D But the story took place about five years ago exactly (it was right in between summer and fall semesters at the Y). And I'm still giggling! :D

The Beginning of the End . . .

Once upon a time there was a girl.

She was a regular sort of girl, shorter than most, liked to be with friends, but mostly liked to read.

One day, this girl was visiting a friend's house. There, on a chair, was a copy of TIME magazine (one of her favorites, along with the National Geographic). On the cover was an illustration of a dark-haired boy surrounded by swirls and glitter. In fact, THIS is the cover. The friend, offhandedly, said "I think you'd like the books it talks about, have you heard of them?" and the little girl picked up the magazine and immediately read the article.

This began her not-so-secret love of the Harry Potter novels.

Nearly ten years (has it really been that long?!) after finding out about these wonderful books, the series has concluded, but this young woman is starting to get excited again. Because, 6 days, 6 hours and 44 minutes from posting this, she will be sitting in a theater with some of her dearest friends, watching yet another film adaptation of these amazing books.

I. Can't. Wait.

Here it is, kids. The story, better than I could have ever told it. Enjoy.

Once upon a time . . .

Well, as some of you may know, I had a rather exciting weekend. One filled with damsels in distress, knights in shining armor, a broken dragon, distress calls for "Batman" and a few other fun elements.

But I'm still most excited that my camera can take pictures in sepia. I'ma have to steal Emily's lappy to upload pictures to this blog.

And maybe, if you're nice, I'll even let you know if folks lived happily ever after. ;)

"And you belong with me"

An apartment in our ward hosts a Treat Night every Wednesday. Last night's was especially sweet because an old friend had returned from a three month absence (hooray, internships) and another just got engaged. The following is a portion of a text message conversation I had with a friend after I left the festivities:

-You stinker being all excited about someone else's engagement and not showing me your ring!
-What are you talking about? I don't have a ring.
-Oh jk michelle made it sound like it was you.
-That girl. No, I'm sorry she mislead you.
-She mentioned your name then the next sentence was something about a ring and i said already? And we blame the noise
-I still blame her. You let her know that. :)
-she will plead her cause later but for now sticks her tongue out. :)

I think my favorite part was that I was called a "stinker." :D

Sesqui-post. Also, Mulder is cool

Once upon a time, there was an apartment of lovely girls. These girls were pretty frawesome in that they were good people, had nice friends and tried to do the right thing.

Then, one day, one of the ladies of the house was awoken by her roommate saying an FBI investigative agent was at the front door. Curious (and a little groggy), the maiden arose and went to get the scoop.

I don't know how much I'm allowed to post on the Internet but I will say that having an ACTUAL FBI agent at your front door is both thrilling and terrifying. Also, having questions like "do you know if so-and-so is loyal to the United States Government?" thrown at you will definitely mess with the mind.

Trippy, I know. But, DANG. I've met with a real FBI agent!

(And, in honor or that, here is a picture of me outside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building from my trip to DC a few years ago.)

This one time. . .

You can ask my sister--I'm a ridiculously hopeless romantic/old-school kind of person. I've always wondered what it would be like if I had been raised in the 1880s, 1920s or 1950s because, other than the fact that I'm an extremely independant lady, I think I would've fit into those eras fairly well. (Well, the first mainly for the dresses that they wore and, yes, I know that's not a legitimate reason to want to switch decades but this is a blog post, okay?)

I can't really describe it, but I've always loved how things kind of worked out "back then." I mean, I was watching a music video (yeah, yeah, you thought this blog would be completely music-reference-free? Don't you know me?) for "Dark Blue" by Jack's Mannequin and the basis of it is a dance competition--very 50s. In fact, the girls are all wearing skirts that resemble those of the poodle-variety (oh, if y'all had only known me in the eighth grade) with pony tails all done up with ribbons in their hair. I can't dance, but I love to go dancing and that was such a happy decade--everyone being relaxed (relieved that the war was over) and new (good) music was just emerging and changes in life and attitude were happening and folks just wanted to celebrate life and be happy.

Which is probably the reason I like the 20s. If you ignore all the crime (well, there's always crime and bad things, remember how I'm focusing on the good?) and the blatant nonobservance of Prohibition, the 20s were also pretty darn rad. I mean, flappers were all about dancing and enjoying themselves, women were coming into their own, families were doing pretty all right. . .I mean, if the decade weren't so darn peppy, how did it get the nickname "Roarin'"? :D

And then I'm reminded of gorgeous ballgowns and box dinners and carriages and dance cards and I swoon just a little. I mean, any girl who was ever a girl thought about living in a time where all women were demure and the guys were actual *gentlemen*. And they'd call each other Mr. and Ms. and I seriously still get a little weak in the knees when a guy I like actually calls me by my proper name. There's just something very. . .exhilarating about the whole thing.

The end.

I'll take "totally exhausted" for $500, please

Totally random: for the last couple of weeks my body has been one confused little thing. I've been ridiculously happy (with bursts of energy) but also had no appetite and odd sleeping patterns.

All this came to a head last night. Tryn and I were in our room, doing some scripture study/lesson discussion/life-catching-up. I was laying on my tummy and had propped my head up with my arms. While Tryn was talking (oh, I'm so sorry, Tryn!) the words started to blur and I could feel myself not remembering anything and my eyelids getting heavy. She, of course, asked if I was still awake. I, in an old habit picked up by years of teenage obstinance, said of course not and tried to recount what she had been sharing. The next thing I knew, my arms were knocked out from under my head and my head fell on my pillow. I think Tryn was laughing at me but I only remember waking up this morning, completely drained of energy and wondering (hoping) I hadn't embarrassed myself that much. :)

Jam Session!

I thought about making this an actual journal entry but then figured it'd be more humorous to post on here (that, and if I had tried to write in an actual journal I'd remember how slow I write and give up on the entry after writing "this one time, something really cool happened.")

So, this one time, something really cool happened. I got home and my roommates were in the living room with one guitar. I think it's Emily's secret mission in life to teach anyone she lives with how to play basic chords on the guitar (all right, all right, some of them aren't exactly basic--A sus anyone?) Anyway, we all start half singing along to whatever is being played while the guitar changes hands at least three times. Then, miracle of miracles, I end up with it and bust out my favorite four-chord song, Viva La Vida. Everyone chimes in, a water bottle is used as a percussion instrument and harmony rounds out the performance.

Then, in another moment of musical genius, Emily takes the guitar and starts pounding out some folksy chords (a few of which were reminiscent of "Froggy Went A'Courtin'"), spoons were brought out and some knee slappin' kicked in. We may have even sung about ourselves in the verses. :D

I love my roommates and mourn the fact that someone didn't grab a camera.

Freak Gasoline-Fight Accidents

**edit** Here is the other side of the tale. BE WARNED. It is extremely hilarious!

We're told to serve our fellow-men and be grateful. This would mean that, if someone serves you, you should repay them with kindness or somehow compensate them, don't you think? Not have to wrestle them against their own car to try and put a debit card into the slot? Or not have to hit "cancel" every time they tried to purchase gas with their own card? Or SOMETHING?

Someone is going to get some cash put where they don't want it and they're going to like it. Dang it.


**EDIT** I have found two bruises and a scratch on my right hand.

**EDIT AGAIN** I have found two bruises on my left elbow.

**EDIT, pt. 3** I have found a bruise on my right elbow. :)

Christmas Dragon

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted a dragon for Christmas. Luckily, her good friends and neighbors were skilled in the dying art of snow sculpting. One day, as she came home from work, she saw them carrying tubs of snow to the corner in front of her house. A bit of hope fluttered inside her but she didn't let it express itself as she returned to her apartment. Hours went by and, in the shadows of the brick building, a creature slowly emerged from snow.