Praise God For Weird Architecture

We woke up to a loud crack and boom and rumble in the middle of the night last night. In a daze, I thought maybe it sounded like an animal being dropped and then scrambling to run away. A cat with a poorly judged jump, perhaps? Or a branch maybe? Well, the baby was still sleeping in her bassinet, so we both fell back asleep.

In the morning, glancing out the windows, nothing looked different. There was a twig the diameter of my pinkie resting on one of the ceiling windows, but it couldn't have been that. Bryan went out to shovel snow for a bit, and came back in and said the snow was very sticky and heavy. "Oh, and that noise last night? A tree fell on our roof." Wait... what?!

There is a big tree just a couple of feet away from the wall of our bedroom. The master bedroom was an add-on 10 or 15 years ago, and there is a strange pop-out section with a low roof that makes absolutely no sense. It was part of the add-on, and didn't match up with any existing structure, and we couldn't figure out why it had been built that way. Maybe the people who built it wanted a cozy nook for a desk? And up until this morning, I had always thought it a bit of a nuisance.

We had a bit of a blizzard last night, with some small drifts here and there, but only a few inches of snow accumulated. For some reason, the ol' tree decided to give out in the middle of the night. It split at the base, where it had grown two main trunks, and one side fell. Since it was so close to our house already, it only had a couple of feet to fall, and couldn't have gained much momentum on its way. And, wonder of wonders, it looks like someone gently placed it on the corner of the weird pop-out of our bedroom. No crashing through the roof or ceiling. No tearing up the deck or siding. Maybe jostling a bit of insulation in the upper walls, but very minimal damage, considering.

Chloë's bassinet is a foot away from where the pop-out ends, with our bed on the other side. We praise God for His odd ways of protecting us and our home.

Humpty Dumpty Slipped On The Ice

It really is unfortunate that we don't have hidden cameras around our house and yard. Then we could have captured the hilarious moment of yesterday, and I would have a picture to accompany this post.

Since my parents bought the house next door (oh yeah, news flash, my parents bought the house next door to us!), we now have a driveway on both sides of our house that we can use. My parents driveway is actually much more convenient for unloading groceries. My own driveway means I have to walk down a few steps, into the basement, then up a flight of stairs into my kitchen. My parents driveway ends right next to a gate into our patio area, and then it's a few short steps to the door of my kitchen. So last night, it made sense to try the new route to unload a car full of groceries.

After a couple of slow attempts to make it up the icy non-plowed driveway, I succeeded. I should have listened to reason and decided that maybe it was too slick. But noooo.

So I carefully stepped out of the car in my leather boots; the cute trendy kind with zero traction, not the practical kind with major tread that Santa might be bringing me for Christmas. The closest thing to me was the crate of five dozen eggs. "I'll be safe and just take these instead of balancing and juggling several things." After all, I was holding them safely against my body with both hands. What could possibly go wrong?

I carefully stepped towards the gate. While reaching for it, I lost all traction of the slight incline, and in one graceful plop, dropped the eggs and did a belly flop right onto them. I think every one of them might have been lost, had it not been for the skin of my hand sacrificed while grabbing at the the chain links of the gate.

I laid on the eggs and snow for a moment. Wind knocked out of me, I wasn't sure if I'd broken any bones. I concluded that I must be okay, and picked myself up, expecting to have egg guts everywhere. Only snow. It looked like I'd tried to make snow angels on my belly on top of a crate of eggs. I was annoyed.

I carefully made my way inside, and beckoned my husband to fetch the rest of the groceries, but suggested he shovel the five yards of sidewalk first. I brushed off as much snow as I could, and examined the eggs. Only four fatalities. Four. Out of sixty. I really have to hand it to the egg packaging industry. Those cardboard crates are indestructible.

...and then there was pink.

Added later: Just to clarify, this is a picture of a load of laundry that turned pink after washing on warm with a very red tablecloth. Oops.

Two extra cycles with lots of oxyclean, and this is as good as we got.

The white onesie is just for contrast. It wasn't actually part of the load of laundry.

False Alarms

I have three due dates. June 15th, June 16th, and June 17th. I love it. Some women have a three or four week spread between due dates. That would just drive me crazy.

So Monday, the 7th, I had a little false alarm. I've been having lots of good Braxton-Hicks contractions for quite a while now (I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with all of the packing and moving and unpacking and nesting I've been doing). But Monday evening I noticed that they seemed a lot stronger than normal, and actually uncomfortable. I went to bed, tried to sleep, but kept thinking about the possibility of labor. So of course my brain went wild, and I had a pretty crummy night of rest, and nothing progressed. Oh well.

Then on Wednesday the 9th, I had my 39 week appointment. We're planning on doing a home birth, with an absolutely amazing midwife, and it was kind of surreal talking about labor and delivery as a real possibility of something in the near future. Our Little Girl is in the optimal position for delivery (LOA, for anyone who cares), she's "dropped," and her head is well engaged. It looks like my body just might preparing to birth a child.

The only thing is, my amazing midwife also has a life aside from delivering babies all the time, and is going to be out of town from the 13th to the 19th. And my due dates are right smack dab in the middle of those dates. I had decided quite a while ago that if things were beginning to look ready, maybe I would try to nudge nature along before my midwife leaves town. And if things didn't look very ready, I would just lay low and hope I don't go into labor until my midwife gets back in town.

So yesterday morning, Thursday the 10th, I tried a handful of labor inducers... including castor oil. Let me just say, castor oil is the most awful, horrible thing I have ever done to myself. Terrible, terrible stuff. I tried mixing and chasing it with V8 splash, and I don't think I'll ever be able to drink it again. So the afternoon passed, and not much was happening. I just figured my body wasn't ready, and I'd tortured myself for no reason. But then about the time Bryan got home from work, I noticed the contractions were picking up. He has a fancy app on his iPod Touch, so all I have to do is push a button when a contraction starts, and again when it stops. No fumbling with paper and pencils and watching a clock.

So around 9 pm, I realized that for the last several hours, contractions had been lasting 1-2 minutes, and coming every 2-5 minutes. Some were actually riiight on top of each other for 8 or 10 minutes. I thought "oh wait a second, I've seen this before... oh right, when women are in labor." So I gave my midwife a call, and she told me try to get some sleep, and to call her when I couldn't talk through my contractions. Then I threw up for the first time in three weeks. And then the contractions reeeally started hurting. I was even using some of the fancy breathing techniques I learned about in our birthing class.

I was so sure this was it. I got a few things together in between contractions, and even had Bryan set up the birthing pool. I tried going to sleep around midnight, but was waking up frequently. I almost picked up my phone to call my midwife about a dozen times, but kept thinking "I'll bet I could talk through this contraction if I had to if Bryan were awake, so I'll let everyone sleep just a little bit longer."

So I dozed in and out of consciousness for a few hours, and then woke up at 6:30 and realized I'd just slept soundly for two hours. I got up, walked around a little, tried the stairs a few times, and realized the contractions had given up. I was very confused. And extremely tired. So I went back to bed. Awoke again at 9:30, and realized I wasn't actually going to be having a baby any time soon, despite everything my body had just done. So I shook off my frustrations and disappointment, and have been mildly productive today, with the exception of a few naps.

I guess this Little Girl just isn't ready to make her grand appearance into the world. Which I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the horrible back pain and spasms I've been having (if only Ibuprofen weren't contraindicated, especially at the end of pregnancy). And if she decides to come when my midwife is out of town, there are two very wonderful midwives all lined up for back up. God is in control.

Frustrations

When B and I first saw The House listed online months ago, it was described as having an adjacent back lot as an option to include in the purchase of the house. Then the sellers took it off the market for a couple of weeks (we heard something about a baby?), and then re-listed it for a higher price that automatically included the lot, but mentioned that one of the features of the property was the "ability to split off the back portion of the 13000+ sq. ft. lot, which is suitable for a single-family residence."

We considered our predicted finances, and decided that it might be wise to give up a portion of the huge back yard to save several tens of thousands of dollars. When we first looked at the house, our realtor admitted he wasn't sure where the property line would be, but there were some clear landmarks that seemed like a logical division. For some reason, B and I didn't really considering looking into it more. After all, my parents had clearly said that they wanted to swoop in and buy the lot. And what did we care where the property line really was if we were sharing it with my parents?

So two weeks ago, a day after the property had been re-listed, we made an offer on the house, detailing the exclusion of the back lot. As far as we understood it, my parents couldn't really take any action to make an offer on the lot until some of the legalities were worked out on our end. Our realtor said he would mention my parent's interest to the sellers, and we assumed they would be thrilled to have immediate interest in the lot, so why would they consider another buyer?

Hmph. Little did we realize there was some other buyer apparently waiting for such a thing to happen. How they got wind of it, I don't know. And what prices were agreed upon, I also don't know. But when we sat down with our realtor yesterday to discuss last week's house inspection, it sort of came up that oh yeah, my parents really wouldn't be able to buy the lot after all because there was already a deal set to close when we closed on the house.

No back yard for our kids to play in? I had a hard time keeping it together.

After further investigation, we discovered that the property line extended a whopping 20 feet beyond our bedroom and back door... just to the top of the gently slopping ugly terracing that I'd already made plans to re-landscape. Visions of small children locked inside all summer while strangers played in our backyard kept flashing through my head. I somehow avoided a complete breakdown right there in our realtor's office.

We met with our wonderful mortgage broker this afternoon, and discussed our approval for a slightly larger loan. No problemo, he said. And the only good news of this short week was: B's secret agent investigation and negotiation of his unpaid phone bill had actually paid off. His credit score had gone up 90 points, which dropped our mortgage rate a bit. That was at least slightly encouraging.

So after much consideration, tomorrow we will propose a new offer to buy the whole house-and-lot package. And if the sellers won't go for it, then I guess God is clearly shutting the door.

Just a Complex Migraine

Shortly after B went to work this morning, I reached up to open the curtains and thought "whose hand is that?" And then it occurred to me that my vision was not normal. At all.

I immediately wondered if it was complex migraine-related despite the fact that my head did not hurt, and quickly made and consumed a double-shot espresso and went to lie down. But the vision just kept getting worse. There weren't any migraine-classic flashing or blinking lights, just lots of blind spots, making things like reading (or using my cell phone) almost impossible. I've had these sorts of migraines before, but at this point I wasn't having any of the other neurological symptoms, and was starting to get a little nervous since blurry or disturbed vision can be a scary thing during pregnancy. B wasn't answering his cell, so I got a message to him by texting one of his coworkers. I wasn't sure if the text said what I intended, but B quickly came home.

We were trying to decide if I should call my midwife, and then my left hand started tingling. I was strangely relieved. The numbness intensified, and the left side of my face (and nose and tongue) followed suit. And then the recognizable pain in the right side of my brain. I called my Dad (who just happens to be a doctor, and is quite familiar with my medical history) just to make sure I shouldn't freak out for the baby's sake. He said not to worry, "the migraine won't effect your uterus." I just needed to hear someone else say it.

Then I couldn't connect my brain with my mouth. Expressive aphasia. I wasn't using the weird word substitutions that I have in the past (B's favorite from a couple of years ago was when I said "macaroni" instead of "elbow"), but I couldn't really recognize my own voice, and it almost seemed like someone else was talking for me. That's when I just avoid talking. It's too weird to have such an out-of-body and out-of-mind experience. B tried offering some words of encouragement, and then I realized I wasn't really understanding what he was saying, either. Receptive aphasia. That's a complex-migraine first for me.

B made me some more coffee, bringing my caffeine intake up to four shots of espresso, and I noticed a marked increase in fetal movement. I told B it was okay to go back to work, and somehow fell asleep. I woke up a couple of hours later with some lingering blind spots and an ache in my head, but semi-functional, and relieved that what had just happened was no big deal for our baby. She just had a little taste of a caffeine buzz. Pregnancy crisis averted.

(My sister once blogged about a past experience I had with a complex migraine. She's such a great writer.)