Introducing...

 Brielle Caroline Smith

Born Dec. 21, 2010

 8 lbs 2 oz., 21.5 inches long

 And if you can believe it the 30 hour imposed fasting was surpassed.  More on that later...

Go ahead and say it.  The housekeeping lady at the hospital did...

"That baby's got a lot of hair for a white baby!"

I will blog more details when I'm not so sleep deprived and crying for no good reason.  Emotional instability should be avoided when blogging.  Don't you think?  

Baby Got Back

This gentleman, if you can call him that is Sir Mix a Lot, the rapper who decided to dedicate an entire song to big backsides.  The lyrics are pretty inappropriate and I bet if the song was ever played on the radio I could sing every single one of them.  I think it was ninth grade that I memorized them, apparently they stay with you forever because even now as I'm typing the song is playing in my head.  Maybe it's playing in your head too? 

Or if you're lucky, they're not!  I went into my last doctors appointment before D-Day on Monday morning.  I'm so excited not to have a weekly appointment.  I'm weird like that.  If I have something scheduled every single day of the week I'm pretty miserable.  I need wide open spaces!  Even on my calendar. 

I don't know if it's just SLC, but I have not been happy about seeing nurse practicioners instead of the doctor of my choice.  Five years ago when I lived in the Shire AKA Logan I saw the doctor who would eventually deliver my baby every single appointment.  I thought this was an unspoken rule.  If you're pregnant you're seeing the doctor and that's that.  So I guess I was spoiled with that experience because it certainly has not been that way here.  Like I said I don't know if it's because I go to an especially in demand OBGYN or if it would be this way with any doctor around here. 

So my face fell as Rita, the nurse practitioner waltzed into the room Monday morning...again.  I think she knows I'm not thrilled to see her.  The week before she also examined me and as we were talking my REAL doctor came into the room to talk to her for a brief second.  It was like when you were on a dance date with a boy you didn't really like all that much and you see the boy you really do like at the dance and you can't help but smile and flirt with him in passing.  May not be polite, but it happens.  And so I'm sure the look of yearning on my face was aptly apparent as Rita turned her attention back to me.  Sorry Rita, you'll never be a Doctor Van Horn.

So Rita informs me on Monday that Dr. Van Horn cannot make it because she's doing a c-section.  I grudgingly accepted that as a reasonable excuse not to examine me...I guess.  Rita measures my stomach and puts her hand on the rather hard spot on my upper right tummy and says, "What's this?"  I stared at her like she was an idiot for just a moment before I said, "I don't know, I always assumed it was my baby's bum.  It's been there for at least a month, more or less."  She says, "Hmmm," rather skeptically.  Then she feels around a bit more and says, "I can't be sure that the baby's head is down."  Although just the week before she had told me it was as if my over-productive bladder was in any doubt.  So she sends me up to the hospital to have an ultrasound because if I'm being induced in a week we better be safe.

I'm all for being safe.  Really I am, but I can't help but wonder if it had been my doctor if I would have had to go and get it checked out.  So we go up to the hospital and have an ultrasound and sure enough the baby's head is down and the enormous bump is indeed my baby's booty.  I'm very thankful it won't be Rita delivering my pear-shaped daughter. 

One of the pluses of the ultrasound was being able to see the baby's face a bit better.  She's always had her hands in front of her face in her other ones.  Her face looked a bit like it was squished up against glass and her lips were poutty and I'm sorry to say she has my nose.  Her cheeks looked especially chubby, which is a sure sign she is a Smith child.  I'm so excited to meet her.  The ultrasound tech also said she had lots of hair. 

I'm so anxious this week to get things in order and Christmas stuff done.  Those first few days home from the hospital are all a bit foggy and I'm trying to prepare myself for adjusting to my body being a total wreck for a few weeks and crying jags....mine and the baby's.  But other than that I'm super excited to meet my daughter and to hold her in my arms.  Both Ava and my husband are excited and Ava keeps saying, "We're adding a new member!"  Like it's long overdue.  She's been telling me lately she wants at least 80 siblings.  I smile and think about how many sister wives I'd have to have in order to accomplish that number.  We'll see if she still wants that many when the baby is here and stealing her five long years of sole attention. 

Until next week I'll sign off.  I hope to be able to write a coherent post after I come with the baby the end of next week.  We shall see.

Recently

I have no fun pictures to share.  No amusing stories.  No big announcements.  In fact the only real thing I have to say is I am so ready for this baby girl to get here.  I forgot how absolutely uncomfortable being 9 months pregnant is.  I'm on a no picking things up off the floor strike and will remain so until this baby pops.  I know, I know.  In 2-3 weeks from now I'll be thinking about how good I had it getting at least 6 hours of sleep and being slave to only one child, instead of two.  Then again I'll be able to sleep on my stomach again.  After I gave birth to Ava the first thing I wanted was, well, let's be honest...a sandwich.  Any piece of solid sustenance was my first priority. 

The forced hunger lie in was a grueling 30 hours. To this day my mouth still waters at the thought of hospital cafeteria food because it tasted so darn delicious after a long labor.  Bring on the steamed green beans and red jello!  Add it to my bill.  I really believed I was feasting like a king.  The fact that I couldn't get more than an hour of consistent sleep with all the nurses checking my vitals, the fact that the bath water heated up to a shiver inducing tepid temperature, the fact that those lactation nurses left me in tears with their conflicting advice...Logan Regional Hospital was A OKAY in my book because they brought me food.  So yeah, a sandwich was what I wanted at the time. 

But after that, it was to lie on my stomach.  Let the countdown begin!

Better Left Unsaid

I have to admit that I thought babies came out of a woman's belly button until sixth or seventh grade health class.  I've always thought it was better to keep your kids informed or else they will learn things on the school bus and on the playground like I did, instead of in their home.  So when Ava asked me how they get the baby out of my belly I told her.  Not graphically, but honestly.  She didn't say anything about it, so I went on my merry way thinking I had done her such a great service as a parent.  So this morning I admit I was pretty taken aback when I came into the living room to see her lying on a blanket with her stuffed polar between her knees.  As I thought Is this what I think it is?  She says, "I'm pushing him out mom!  I'm having a baby!  You're a grandma!"  I replied, "I can see that."  And then turned and walked out of the room.  I'm beginning to rethink my philosophy.  Meanwhile I am the proud grandmother of Jack-Jack the polar bear.

Grateful

I've been feeling very blessed lately.  The other morning in the shower I was thinking about the past year.  I was recalling my decision to leave with Ava and separate from my husband.  As I remembered those sad months I felt overwhelmingly ill.  So much so that I had to tell myself I wasn't back there, I was here in this moment with my little family.  I'm so grateful we are together. 

I can't really put into words the sorrow and anguish of those months.  I didn't blog much and it was because I believe every post would have made you want to run out and buy a pint of ice cream and hole up in your house for days watching Seinfeld re-runs as the stains of Moose Tracks congealed on your jammie top.  It was that depressing. 

There are many things I've taken from that terribly hard experience.  It's true I don't like to think very much about the particulars of those months.  But one thing I think both my husband and I can agree upon is how much it has made us realize that you have to make every single moment count with the ones you love.  It's ironic because on the day we were sealed in the Logan Temple, many great pieces of advice were given to us.  Many of them are a blur to me, but I do remember that we were told not to ever take one another for granted.  We obviously ignored a lot of the council given that day and the blame is two-fold. 

Losing loved ones in my life should have already taught me this.  But there is something different about making the decision to distance yourself from someone you have been so intimately connected to.  For those relatives that passed away I had no control over them leaving.  But when it came to contemplating divorce it was very much in my hands. 

I still sometimes wonder at how in those months we came from being on the cliff's edge to being pulled back at the last moment.  When we lived apart my daughter took to singing, "Families Can be Together Forever."  I can't tell you how heart breaking it was to hear that, given our circumstances.  The times we spent together as a broken little family Ava would whisper in her Daddy's ear, "Tell Mama you love her."  I really truly believe that Angels whispered in her own ear during that time. 

The biggest miracle of all is the forgiveness that has flowed like a stream through our family's parched landscape.  It has made everything new and green again.  Finding the desire to forgive my husband was the first step for us.  I had little to no faith that our relationship could be healed.  It felt so broken.  I know that Our Savior was there for us in that dark hour.  I know that He softened my heart as well as my husband's. 

But still we are imperfect people and are destined to be so for the remainder of our mortal lives.  When I realized and accepted that My Savior wanted me, just as I am, that He was willing to carry me through anything with all my sins and mistakes it opened my heart.  I could no longer with hold my love and my forgiveness from someone who I blamed for so long because he had made mistakes just as I had.  And that made all the difference. 

The holidays are approaching and there is a calm peace in our home as we await the birth of our baby girl in December.  She is as much a part of this experience as anything.  If I could give her a symbolic name is would be Hope.  We are not rich.  We do not live in an ideal home.  Some nights we whip out the Ramen Noodles because that is what we have.  But it's all okay because we are together and we love each other.  I'm not sure I could ask for much more than that. 

Pregnancy Ponderings

I know it's not always smart to blog about what is on your mind.  But I am going to subject you to some ramblings here.  But you're probably used to that by now, right?  First of all, how is it fair when I know how little sleep I will be getting when the baby actually arrives that I've began an annual 3 a.m. wake-up call from my bladder?  When I get back in bed it's inevitable that the old brain begins to make mental lists of things I need to get done when I wake up, or all the problems I can't solve...like fixing the economy, child abuse, the middle east, or how to get special interest groups from buying our elected officials.  If it's feeling especially paranoid I obsess over what horrible calamity could befall us all.

Lately it's been the old massive earthquake scenario.  If tornadoes were a problem I'd be happy as a peach living in a basement.  But an earthquake with at least a seventy year old home that's had a third level renovated onto it does not sit well with me.  We'd be goners.  Specifically me and the husband.  Directly above us is a baby grand piano.  Yes folks, I could die a cartoon death after all.  Don't worry about it though.  I'm looking into a Zoloft prescription after the baby is born and then maybe I won't worry about it anymore either.  I used to think I was normal.  HAHAHAHA!

I also didn't know that my stretchmarks could grow stretchmarks.  But since I wasn't planning on wearing a crop top or a bikini for the rest of my life I guess it's not the worst thing in the world.  No, my real concern is the distressing march of my bum southward.  I'd like to think in heading south it's looking to retire to sunnier climes.  Apparently it's conflicted though.  Poor thing.  While the southern half of my bum seeks refuge with my upper thigh, the northern half is stubbornly clinging to it's post.  I knew about love handles, but I never knew that bum handles existed.  There's no other way to describe the phenomena.   It's like the Korean peninsula back there.  A nation divided.  The north is stockpiling goodness-knows-what somewhere below my hips, while the south is slipping into the vast ocean of my thigh region.  And it's a blog first: a whole paragraph dedicated to my derriere.  You're welcome.

What I'm specifically looking forward to is what I termed the G.M. after I delivered Ava.  The Gelatinous Mass.  A.K.A. my stomach.  After you've delivered your baby your stomach has to be the freakiest feeling thing in the world.  After six months of deluding yourself that the tightness of your tummy is not merely due to the growing fetus within, you're suddenly...deflated.  Literally.  And you have one or two nurses coming in at all hours to knead that bread dough tummy of yours into submission afterward.  If that's not rubbing salt in the wound, I don't know what is.  "Honey, better run to the cafeteria and grab a pan and butter it up good because these nurses are fixin' to bake a loaf."  The indignity we suffer to bring life into the world. 

Halloween Slogging

 When I was a child I wanted to be a witch for every Halloween.  And I don't know what it says about me that whenever I thought about playing a part from a Disney Movie it was never Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella...but instead the evil crone, Maleficent, or the Wicked Stepmother.  You know...a role I could really sink my teeth into. 

 My little girl has no such leanings.  It's princess all the way.  We left the house in a downpour on Saturday at 6 P.M.  Me in a rain poncho, holding an umbrella over our little superstar and my husband with his own umbrella playing the part of bodyguard.  Can I tell you that I was roasting in that plastic poncho?  The sweat was rolling down my face and my hair was like an Andean blanket on the back of my neck.  I swear I was the only warm one out that night.  Now I know how wrestlers feel when they're trying to drop weight before a match.  Ava's mood was not dampened and she set a brutal pace.  Her bucket was half full by the time we had got half way around the block.  People were being extremely generous. 

The bucket dropped twice and broke open because of the heavy load, and I had stashes of candy in my sweatshirt pocket in an effort to lighten the bucket.  We simply weren't home yet and Ava wasn't having any let's just skip a few houses.  Because lot size in the city is so much smaller you can hit what amounts to half of my hometown in three or four blocks.  It's crazy.  But Ava had a very successful night and stayed relatively dry.  As for me...not so much.  I had to remove the hood of the poncho halfway through the night in order for the sweat streams to stop stinging my eyes.  I'm not kidding.  And so I looked like a drowned poodle with Alice Cooper makeup, but that was okay.  At least I got some relief from the plastic sauna.