Let me tell you about labor

Well, everyone, I did it-- I hatched or popped or whatever you want to call it. On my due date, Friday the 28th, I started having contractions around 2pm. But I ignored them. I mean, I've been having regular contractions here and there for a couple weeks. So I decided to ignore them until they hurt a lot.

So, the day wears on and I keep having contractions about ever 15 minutes. At about 9pm I thought that maybe these would turn into real labor, so I start cleaning my house and taking care of other things that I needed to do. Come 11pm, my contractions move to 10 minutes apart and start getting more breathtaking. At 1am, Jay and I are just getting to bed, but my contractions are now 5 minutes apart and very painful. At 2:30, my water broke.

We get to the hospital and by 5am I got an epidural. I didn't want to originally-- I always wanted to have a natural labor. But since I'd already been in labor for 13 hours and had only dilated a half a centimeter, I realized that I had a long night ahead of me, especially since I hadn't had any sleep. (Also, come to find out later, Leisl was facing the wrong way-- she was looking down and forward instead of up and back-- and this is why I was having such terrible back pain while I still felt my contractions. Back labor is a killer.) So I got an epidural, and I slept. That was at 5am.

At noon, I got a dose of Pitocin to speed up my contractions. By 2, I was fully dilated. After the doctor turned Leisl so she was facing the right way, it only took another 45 minutes, and she was born!

So labor was mostly uneventful. Delivery was fun and a lot easier than I thought it would be. Leisl was born 9 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long-- quite the good sized baby (must've been t he chocolate pudding I've been eating). The picture at the top is her at about 1 hour old, and she was still puffy. She's lost her puffiness mostly.

Anyway, she's very healthy and strong, and very peaceful. I just brought her home today. She has chubby cheeks, but she's not as chubby looking as she sounds (nine pounds on 21 inches makes for a cute little round baby). And she doesn't look like either me or Jay. Yet.

Karrissa had her baby yesterday at noon. I only know her baby was around 6 pounds. I saw her husband as Jay and I were leaving, and we were in a hurry.

Anyway, life's good! If you want to see more pictures, you can go to www.spencersrock.com/leisl. Talk to you later!

jerilynn

Count down is official

Well, it's been about 10 days since my last update. I STILL HAVEN'T HAD THE BABY! ! ! Today is my due date. Tomorrow I am officially overdue. My doctor tried one method yesterday to try to induce me, but apparently it didn't work, so here I am, still nice and round. And irritable. My poor husband.

That's about it on my part. The good news is that I still have time to myself (i.e. I'm not a parent yet). Next friday, if I still haven't popped, I will be induced with pitocin. I don't want that, but at least the countdown is on. Let's hope little Leisl comes before then.

On another topic, the spiders I played with last summer in my old apartment are miniatures compared to some spiders around my new apartment. They are huge here-- so big. And of course, they're hobos. Probably. But for some reason, I'm not afraid of them here. They're big enough that they're easy to kill, and I don't live in a basement. I love my apartment, and that love supercedes my hate/loathing/fear of spiders.

I've put together a fact sheet about hobos on my blog (under Links to the left). This could save your life.

Okay, well, wish me luck, everyone. And good luck to all of you, too!

jerilynn

A muppet of Switzerland

A snippet of Switzerland

Okay so I have been reprimanded. Yeah I never really said anything on the Switzerland blog because a)I didn't have my own computer and felt guilty using anyone's computer for longer than 10 min b)I barely even got the assignments I was supposed to do up there and c)did you read how funny Sage was? I could compete with that....thus I did not even try.
So apparently people have been doing a lot of things while I was out of the country. What's up with that honestly?
I had an amazing fantastic time! I was literally in a different city everyday....there was not a single day that I just sat around and did nothing and I loved it! It was so much fun just to go and see something new everyday. Half the time our assignments were to draw something so it was difficult to sit down after you get stuck in this go go go mentality but then once I did I would get sucked into drawing and not want to leave. I took over 900 pictures while I was there....do you think that was enough? I still feel like I forgot to take pictures of some things while I was there.
So JeriLynn you requested more detail.....I really don't know where to start. Here something that didn't make it into the e-mails because I had to censor things a little bit. One day while riding on the train a small group of us decided we didn't want to walk through the whole train to sit with the group and thus we were sitting in a separate car. This car was full of some very interesting people....people that were apparently more than a little tipsy. If the clinking of bottles hadn't given them away I think the rambunctious French singing would have. So we are sitting there when we see a man and a woman (who walked like a model....and looked like one too) walk back towards the WC...together.....and opened the door and went in....together. Our poor little minds were shocked! I mean those WC aren't that big nor that clean. As we sat 3 seats away from the WC we wondered....what could those two possibly be doing in there? We heard the woman ask the man as they had passed if he had it (this was in English oddly enough)...he said yes. Had what? I guessed a condom (SCANDAL!) another guessed drugs. All we know is once they made it out of the WC (right before we got off so they nearly hit me with the door on the way out) her hair was....messed up. Anyway, that is just one small glance into my trip...maybe one of the most exciting stories. But there will be more later!!

This is one of the first pictures I took. It was at the Giannada Foundation museum....pretty much sums how I felt that day I think....:)

stay tuned!

been awhile

and this time i don't have to make any up, because i really have news to tell.

work is going swimmingly along.

my car keeps dying and it needs its oil changed. i never realized what a pain owning a car can be.

i have decided... after much thought.... to go on a mission.

i never ever pictured myself the missionary type. i'm not cheerful. i'm not out-going. i'm not ultra-spiritual either, at least not overtly. it's kind of weird.

but it feels like the right thing to do, so here i go. 18 months of ... mission... i don't have any idea what to expect.

it should be an adventure.


hollie, just remember these four words: boys are worthless scum. make them your mantra. no, they're not comforting. but they are true. ;)

everyone else, i hope you're all happy and stuff.

sidenote: since i'll be leaving on the mish in january ish, shae will need to replace me. keep that in mind, anyone who's interested in my oh-so-fabulous job.

I'm sorry if I've worried anyone

Sorry I have been MIA lately. I don't have a wonderful trip in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter) as my excuse. This will be a long post, I'm sorry about that.
My parents have stopped encouraging me to get a job because they don't trust my grandma (who lives with us) home alone anymore for varying reasons, and I gramma-sit very well, in addition to making dinner, cleaning, and tending a garden out of boredom. Still looking for a job, but not very diligently. I can't remember the last time I put in an application, and I can't tell you how much looking at job ads at varying places (I think I'm up to 5 different local and national websites I peruse) have made me want to eat my weight in chocolate.

The library closest to my house sucks, unless you adore murder mysteries. Half of the adult section is murder mysteries, and I'm not including the psychological thrillers with that. The other half is mainly comprised of LDS fiction (the cheesy kind), Romance Novels (can we say an entire stack dedicated to Daniel Steele?), Non fiction, and a few smatterings of sci fi/fantasy(when I say smatterings, I've found two). Needless to say I've been fighting a touch of depression and that makes me anti social because I don't want to tell everyone that my grand plans about after college have fallen through and I'm embarrassed about my life.

On the social front, Elsie and Mandy have already heard about part of this. Mitch, my on again off again for the last 8 years who said we'd get married after I graduated from college is now balking at the idea of moving anywhere I find a job that isn't in the Portland Oregon, or Salem Oregon area. Now he's also saying he doesn't want to get serious until I get a job, and get settled into a job. Just an endless fount of excuses. Then to add more complications there's this friend of mine from high school that we've been on 4 or 5 dates in the 4 last year. I was texting him the other day to get a guy's perspective on an argument Mitch and I were having and he wrote "What is it going to take for us to be together? I'm tired of games and I think you are too. You're the one I want in my life. You are one of my best friends and there is no one I'd rather be with." Which for me was out of left field because after our last date we had agreed (or at least I thought we had agreed) that because we live 5 hours apart we could only be friends and we are too good of friends to risk losing that.
Now its a different story. Now because we haven't really dated he wants me to spend a week in Boise (at his apartment I might add) going on real dates, him sleeping on the sofa and me in his bed until I want him in the bed with him. Yes, he is that cocky, it's part of his endearing charm if you believe it. If after a week we decide that we could get married and live happily ever after he wants to get engaged, and being engaged means I move in with him, and then 6-9 months later we get married and 9-12 months after that we start trying to have little red-haired babies. (My dad was born with red hair before it turned brown, my nephew has red hair, and James has red hair so the red haired kids would be a good chance.) Now I have a little voice inside my head that has been freaking out about this. Even while I've been typing this its been screaming, not so much that I can't think straight but loud enough that its distracting. The first text was on July 3rd and the other information, like his envisioned time table has come since then.
Needless to say, I've had a lot on my mind. I'm averaging talking to Mitch on the phone every other day (this is down from the 6-7 days a week before I graduated and he changed his rules again), James and I text or talk about that often now, which is weird to me since we've never had a talk on the phone type of relationship. We've been much more, a string of several e-mails over a few days, then nothing for months, followed by a date once a year in August.
My mom has made several ... hinting sort of comments basically trying to devise ways of convincing Mitch to marry me but sometimes it comes accross as a little desperate. I don't want to beg/force a guy into marrying me. I'd rather be single.
Since James and I are friends I've known about most of his girlfriends. There's some concerns there. How he was engaged to my best friend for a week before they both freaked out and broke it off. How this one girl he loved two years after he broke up with her, he wanted to reconnect with and contemplated trying to break her up with her current by presenting her with a diamond. Or about the girl he dated last year, who moved in with him, cheated on him (twice), left him for the bouncer at her strip club, then dumped the bouncer once she got pregnant and he actually offered to marry her, and was willing to bring up another man's child. Part of me just wonders if he wants to get married to get out of the rat race and I'm the only single girl who has been half-way civil to him recently.

Basically this whole mess has made me want to drop them both and start fresh. I actually went so far as to sign up for an online service when I was feeling really embittered. The first two men who looked at my profile were older than my dad. Until the average age of men who look at my profile get below 35 I'm not gonna get optimistic. Its down from 47 to 39 right now. Oh, and to add some icing to my pity party cake, one of my friends from high school who is two years younger than me, the one who got me into dying my hair funny colors, and acting wild and crazy, just got engaged this last week. To a guy who is a complete computer geek, who is completely devoted to her crazy-wackiness and has the potential to make them both very rich. I tried to be happy for her, but jealous, embittered rage followed by an intense desire to cry was the initial reaction.

Almost labor

Okay, the day I've predicted my daughter's entrance to this world is here, but still no little girl. Not that I'm getting impatient, because I'm not. But then again, I've been having regular contractions on a nightly basis for four days now, but these contractions go away after an hour. Take last night. In the middle of a temple session, I start shaking and the contractions started coming around ever 7 minutes or so. Not normal belly-tightening contractions, but these. . . they felt like a snake slithering tightly around my arm, except the sensation was in my belly. Weird, eh? So these keep up for over an hour. Then, I step into my house at 6:00, have one more, and POOF, they're gone. Except at 40 minutes after the hour for the next four or five hours. You can imagine that Jay and I were getting a little worked up for the actual event. It would be nice if my body would decide what's up. I wonder how Karrissa's doing.

Other news on the homefront is scarce. I'm wondering about Holly. I really miss you dear. You can call me and rant any time. And if that boy in Oregon's giving you trouble, I'll beat him up! Also, Elsie, you need to post more. The emails were great, but I need to hear all. I followed your freaking long Switzerland Blog, but you didn't really post much, and that made me mad! Okay, not really. But I'm dying to see pictures and souvenirs and stuff. Mandy, I hope you get offered that barn job because then you could take a pellet gun to work and have something to shoot during down times. Or maybe not, but it sounds fun. I have one I don't use if you want it! Vanessa, I hope you found a cozy cubby, or at least one you can spice up with your taste of deco. Chelsi, I hope married life is fun for you. Here's a picture from your bachelorette party.

To everyone else out there, I love hearing from you! My goal is to post something just before I go to the hospital so you guys can come visit me if a) you want to, and b) you're around. Wish me to pop soon!

xoxo

midday rants from Vanessa

Sorry to be too lazy to set up my own username peeps.

and Chels, I'm glad you liked my bizarre gift. It just spoke to me-- literally JUMPED OUT at me saying "I AM PINK, LET ME LIVE WITH CHELSI!" I know you aren't kidding about the gloves and bath time either, you little slattern. Dane called a couple of times but I think he has finally given up. I didn't feel the uh...spark there. He was nice, but I can def. see the "weird as hell" factor, bless his heart. You know what though, I had the most wonderful time at your reception. It was gorgeous and so well done and so YOU. Everyone thought Wilson was my hot, elusive, Lex Lutherish date. I totally played along. Afterward I had the strangest evening too. Wilson took me to a dance-a-thon where I watched a giant man wearing a pink cockatoo getup prance around a stage whilst chasing (this is me chasing) three Italian men around the club as they were my charges for the evening thanks to a random phone call from a Sri Lankan friend in Santa Cruz asking me to show them around Salt Lake. These rigazzi Italiani were passing through SLC on their way across the country and I was to show them a decent time in Salt Lake (as they were only there for one night and half a day). It's ironic that the first place we took them to was a gay nightclub in a city that is notoriously conservative and often thought of as...entirely lacking in large glittering men dressed as pink cockatoos. They were shocked. Wilson has hilarious friends, WHOM I met. that's WHOM, you bastards, WHOM.

Ok, THEN the following weekend I went to Ms. Lisa Ferrara's (the now, Mrs. Robinson) wedding which was just as amazing and just as reflective of her personality and cunning taste. I have a tendency to meet men at weddings, and I am considering a career in crashing weddings just to get a move on in the romance department. (I blame the isolation of Logan, currently). Anyway, at Lisa's fine reception I met this guy by the name of John. I won't say more, because I fear posting incriminating evidence of my infatuation on the internet, but I swear he worked some voodoo spell on me. I could think of little else after that night, and I am trying to reason with myself just to stop plotting a way to see him again. The thing is, this is my "last" weekend in Logan, he of course lives in SLC and is not partial to driving an hour and a half to cow country (not even to visit an amusing woman such as myself) so, arranging another interlude with this person is swiftly approaching the realm of impossible. WTHIGO, as good Shae would say, and I just had to vent all that. When Lisa introduced him, she told me he was Apolo Ohno's cousin (the speedskater) which of course, I gullibly embraced, because by another strange coincidence I happen to have met Apolo on several occasions as he is friends with my speedskater sister. STRANGENESS is in the air. I tried to find my horoscope to see if planet Cupidonicus was flying through the Virgoan house of Lunar Trapezoidal Glyphitronius that evening in hopes of finding some reason why I had to meet someone interesting yet shrouded in inconvenience. It's a damn shame, really.
Oh well. I'm going to NY next weekend to find a dirty little cubby (which I shall call home) if I am so lucky. I can't believe how cute VeryLynn is pregnant! Keep getting married everyone, so I can meet frustrating men.

Love you all,

vanessa

Hmmm

Ps. Has anyone heard from Hollie lately?

Marital Bliss has Arrived

Hello Everyone!
I am finally Mrs. Johnston...Well, not according to the Social Security Administration...But whatever. The wedding couldn't have been more perfect. It was more fairytale-ish than I could've ever imagined and not one thing did not absolutely delight me. (Aside from an embarrassing display from my mother and mother in-law during the speech portion when they blurted out a very tactless and simultaneous, "We'll have beautiful grandchildren!!!!!!" Ew. I would've much rather heard Wilson's speech...and since we didn't get to hear it, perhaps you could write it on our lovely blog?) I'm sorry some of you couldn't make it, but Wilson did give me your well wishes.

Jerilyn, I'm deeply concerned for you!!! Are you ok? Can I do anything? Please call me as I don't have your number! 801-388-9452

Vanessa, your signing on my frame is my favorite one...I look at it daily. I loved your present too!! It was all pink and adorable! And...those gloves, although meant for dishes, have made bath time fun.... *wink wink* (Kidding, kidding...) It meant SO much to have you and Wilson there the entire time. I'm so glad you stayed to watch me leave. It really warmed my lil heart. The last image I have in my mind is Vanessa on Wilson's back, parading down the street (...with my best friend from Junior High, leading the way with an imaginary beton, whom I haven't talked to in four years being all weird and turbo "let's rekindle our friendship..") Anyway, I love you both. As for Dane, I have some advice: STAY AWAY! I like him because he always tells Spence he has a hot wife, and he's a good friend to Spence... but that's about it....he's weird as hell. He has no game...and he's just all....weird. However, this could be slightly charming in a way. If you're into that, then go for it...but I warned you.

Mandy, I loved your card...it was my fave!

I love you all...good luck with the job hunt. You all have all my confidences.

Hugs and Love,
Chels
xo

Dangerous Times in Dangerous Climes

Chelsi's shindig was beautiful, of course. And also of course, I was there with the only two women without sleeves, and everyone was jealous out of their minds. I had to practically peel this one chap off of Van with a spatula from Chels's gift table. She and Mandy kept digging me to make a speech on behalf of everyone here, but they closed down the speech-giving right before I could. I did, however, give her the congratulations of all those who couldn't make it.
I have even less job than ever now - in other news. I was talking to my boss on the telephone and he treated me like a complete idiot. When I asked him to talk more respectfully, he started swearing, so I hung up and went home. His kids were nice though. Cuties. So, I'm unemployed again - that's for the third time this summer!
My dreams of leaving the state have been a bit curtailed, whereas I found someone to date - of course at the worst possible time in my life. Now I find myself looking at apartments and jobs in SLC. Ugh. I also find myself not having much to do when he's not around. Double-ugh. I think that school just kind of served as this big "filler" in my life for the past four years. Now that I don't have it anymore, I'm really starting to see how empty my life has been of sports, hobbies, attractions, and everything. Learning is really my only hobby now - and I'm having trouble breaking the habit - I'm actually learning C++ right now, which probably has Amelia thrilled. I'm also learning a freeware version of 3dStudioMax called gMax right now. Some days I feel like I'm getting somewhere - most I don't.
I find that I just don't want to spend the time writing individual cover letters - I haven't even gotten responses from most the companies I've applied at. It's making me very frustrated. Loves.
Good luck with the baby, Baby. ;)

Bed Rest and Lazy Bones

Hi guys. Welcome to July. My husband finally got back two days ago. It's nice having him here and everything, especially since I gave my family a scare about two weeks ago and everyone thought I was going to have the baby without him. I was at Chelsi's bachelorette party (with a limo-- fun!), and I started having cramps in my lower back. Well, the mother of the hostess told me that's a sign of early labor (which I already knew, but it helped to have someone else with the same concern). So I backtracked to Logan and got checked out. Sure enough I was dilating. At that point the baby would've been premature, and of course Jay was gone, so I was put on bed rest for a couple weeks. My family flipped out and kidnapped me and I wasn't allowed to even get myself a glass of water for about 11 days! (They would've carried me to the bathroom, but I insisted I needed some exercise!) It wasn't that bad actually, being waited on hand-and-foot, but now I'm conditioned to laziness and am more tired than ever.

So our baby could come any day. Jay and I are going out to the movies every day this week. We have so much to do around the house to prepare for little Leisl. It's frightening, this parenthood thing. Oh well. Too late now!

Congrats to all who keep getting interviews. Good luck getting the job you like.

Will someone tell me about Chelsi's reception? I was stuck on a sofa sipping ice water

hey superfreaks

Shae emailed me. She is totally engaged to this, like, punk rocker named Lyle who she met at a rave in New Jersey. I guess he gave her all of his glow in the dark bracelets so she felt some kind of instant connection and then they went back to her parents and told them they wanted to elope. Anyway,he is totally...interesting looking. Kind of borderline scary, but I think once she removes his 489 piercings and gets the last four girls he dated removed from his tattooed arse she could really make a life with this guy. I know! It totally shocked me too, but I think that's kind of what life's all about, guys. Shae, growing up, making silly choices.
The rest of us just stalling on marriage and posterity, but we are trying.

i know some of you don't like the web-type stuff

but here, anyways:

37 signals online job board

happy july.

two months gone, already.

congratulatiosn and good luck to all of you crazy people getting married. i hope wilson said hi to you all this weekend like i told him to.

my life is percolating in summer, pierced by moments of self-doubt and unrealistic dreams. i could stay here for a long time.
but do i want to?