Why Madeira is the best suburb of Cincinnati

I live in Whoville+Mayberry= Madeira, OH. Located right outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Seriously. It is so cute. We had a 100 year celebration of the start of our town/suburb. It was complete with Dr. Seuss-looking yellow cupcakes with blue strange sugared funky glass looking candy on top and famous Graeters icecream and Coffee Please Coffee. Our Mayor was there. Someone wrote a Madeira song and told us to get out our hankies. haha, I mean sniffle sniffle. The boy scouts and girl scouts sang. Hundreds of people stood in the sun while person after person gushed over the wonderfulness of the town.

We have only lived here for a little over 7 months so I am still taking in its cuteness.

We can walk anywhere mostly with sidewalks...the butcher, the baker, the florist, the tailor, the dry cleaner, the library, the shoe repair shop (I'm not joking), a nail salon, an autobody shop, a lawnmower shop, an old train station restaurant, the grocery store, many parks, our church, hair salon, pilates and yoga studio, coffee shops (including Starbucks), a few very delicious restaurants (one with sushi-YES.), bagel shop, hardware store, religious shop, a lot of cute boutiques, 4 pharmacies, way too many banks, the high school, middle school, and elementary school. There are kids walking and biking everywhere. It's safe and people wave to each other and are friends with their neighbors. On our street everyone wants to retire in their home. These are tiny old homes. They just love it here so much they are willing to loose tons of money and add on to their houses again and again. Someone just sold a house on my street and is desperately trying to buy another house on our street that is bigger than their 2 bedroom was. Everyone is outside and loves to keep their yards nice.

And we just met a man with 3 rottweilers down the street. Oh. My. We accidentally let Davy (our daughter) pet one of them not knowing what it was. She looked so friendly. I swear the dog was smiling. Besides the rottweilers that we just found out about. I think its a perfect street. Oh and minus the incessantly barking hound dog behind our house. Besides those animals, Whoville+Mayberry=perfect.

How to Have a Baby, Gory Details Included at No Additional Fee

April 4th Easter Sunday, 2010

Lost the "Bloody Show" or "Mucus Plug" or whatever other disgusting name you know for it. It sounds better if you sing "The Bloody Show" with gameshow theme music. We learned this with our first baby, we would joke about "The Bloody Show" all the time. This way when you loose that sucker you feel like you won something. What does loosing this mean? This can mean a new person will be arriving soon, or it can mean "soon" as in days and days away. With my first daughter Davy I lost it at Ikea. Definitely exciting, but was happy to be at home this time. What is it? Well, its mucus and blood that is in the cervix and comes out when its getting close to "show time."

April 5th, 2010

2:00AM-4:00AM ouch! I think that was a contraction...maybe. It hurt. Maybe it was my colon? Maybe I ate some dairy? Hmmm. yawn. Ouch again. Maybe I'm sick. Maybe I'm in labor. Don't want to go into the hospital for another Labor Fail. I will make sure I'm for sure ready this time...

4:00AM Laying in bed awake thinking hmmm what if my water breaks? No sooner had I thought that then....PoP! BaM! SpLaSh! I felt something happen for sure. I stood up and said to my delirious husband, "I think maybe my water broke." Then I sleep-ran to the bathroom with the waters pouring out. Yep for sure broken. Called my sister from the bathroom on my cellular (because she just delivered a baby with the same doctor) and said "Katie if I call Dr. Alarming and my water is broken, will he make me come right in?" She said yes. And I said, "Then I better take a shower first." So I went back in and told Christopher, "You are not going to work today...this is it. This baby is coming today." Eek. I always get so excited/nervous. I was shaking a little. Then I called my momma and asked her to come over to watch Davy sleep. She was over in 20 minutes. We called Dr. Alarming and he said that we should get to the hospital right away. So I took a shower, and then finished packing my bag, and left. When we got to the hospital, it was not like ER or Grey's Anatomy. It didn't even look legitimate. They didn't even ask for my name before they sent me to labor and delivery in a wheelchair down a desolate hallway with a very loud and lonely floor cleaner man. Then they (the nurses) chased me down to find out my name verbally as I slowly rolled away pushed by my husband.

6:30 AM After visiting 2 wrong floors due to human error and elevators only going to certain floors. I don't understand the point of that. (Hospital tours can be useful so that you know where to go.) We finally made it to the correct floor and I was asked to sign a lot of papers even though I pre-registered. I was sort of surprised. Everyone takes their sweet time. Finally I made it into the room at Triage and there was a woman next to me screaming at the top of her lungs and for whatever reason I had access to her contraction monitor on my screen. And they were coming fast. Mine were pretty much nothing according to the nurses so they always want to get my on that fake contraction-making pitocin as fast as I get there.

7:00AM I asked if I could have like an hour to try to see if my body will go into labor. So they called Dr. Alarming to see if I could have one hour. He asked to talk to me. He was crabby and angry and said I should have brought "this" up 6 months ago. Hmmm. I'll keep that in mind next time with a new doctor that will let you write a birth plan. Had he asked me what my plans were in the best case scenario I would have told him. Anyways.

9:00AM The nurses were distracted with something else for about 2 hours anyways before they were able to give me that wonderful contraction magic. They moved me to Labor and Delivery.

9:01AM And was it magical. I was in extreme pain before I knew what hit me. Fortunately or unfortunately, my nurse deduced from my body language and facial expressions that I was not in active labor and that I was not progressing as the 2-3 hours passed of extreme pain. * I once read this Hypnobirthing book about trying to relax your body to let the endorphins flow in. For me, usually the pain is so bad I can't move or scream or even make facial expressions sometimes. This makes nurses think I am A-ok, which is not the case.

11:40AMish So I felt sort of a lot of pressure after a while, like I had to use the restroom. I asked for a birthing ball. The birthing ball was nice because it felt like it was holding something in that was trying to get out. In hindsight, that was the baby. However, since I had an epidural with my first baby little Davy, I didn't know what to expect. My nurse told me that I was not in active labor according to her seismograph of my uterus. I said, well do you think I have a lot longer, and she said, I don't think you have progressed at all and I don't want to check your cervix until you are active. I felt like such a wuss. I felt like I was going to die. Seriously. The. pain. was. so. bad. I was sort of trying to go natural. A little bit. But I was open to an epidural if I couldn't take it anymore, especially with the lovely pitocin being pumped into my body. So I finally just gave up, in my mind and said I want an epidural. My nurse called the doctor and had those anesthesiologists in the room in a matter of minutes. No one checked my cervix before the needles came jamming into my back...

11:45AM They decided to have a nurse anesthetist in training perform my epidural, without really asking or letting me know. She kept dropping stuff. Shaking. Taking FOREVER. I had an epidural last time and it took like 3 minutes. This time it took like 25 minutes and the whole time I felt the worst pain of my life with a mixture of "I think I have to use the restroom asap." I asked my husband for my mascara and was biting down on it to try to deal with the pain. I felt like an african tribal woman. I was begging at one point for them not to touch me during my contractions. But my nurse said, they have to. I had no say and in went those needles. After they stopped touching me and left my nurse asked how I was and I replied, " I feel like a lot a lot of presssssure." Also known as, the urge to PUSH.

12:00PM She was like, oh I guess I'll take a look. Low and behold the baby's head was crowning. She was like, "I see the baby! AH! DON'T PUSH!" and ran out of the room like a crazy person to try to get in touch with my doctor. So there I was with Christopher, feeling the uncontrollable urge to push and not being able to stop. I screamed at him and said " I CAN'T STOP PUSHING! You need to catch this baby!" He was freaking out. He ran into the hallway to get someone. Finally after a few minutes, that felt like an eternity, they ran back in with Dr. Alarming and my mom made it with 2 minutes to spare and 3 pushes later with no full effects of the epidural and no tears...

12:11AM Beautiful baby girl! Gianna Maria! 6lbs. 15oz. 19 inches and no cone head. Wooohooo.

12:14AM Then my dad called and they handed me the phone. He was like, "What are you doing?" So I told him I was birthing the placenta. I bet he wasn't expecting that.

Sorry if this was TMI.

And that's all folks.

Sorry for the haitus. I had a little baby.

BABY!

So, Easter came and went and unfortunately no peep sushi was made. However, I bought all of the ingredients. Even though there seemed be a peep shortage in the small town or Madeira, Ohio. Someone seriously took all the peeps and made off with them like a bandit in the night. Thankfully some other candy companies sell peep-like products.

Anyways. I was planning to make the little suckers on Easter with my family, but I started feel a little more and more uncomfortable to the point that I wanted to move as little as possible.

Easter was a long day. We woke up, had some Easter bunny-mania, went to Easter Mass, made some food for the husband extended family party, went to my mom and dad's house with the siblings, congratulated my newly engaged sister and future BIL, then packed it up and went to the husband extended family party. Everyone there guessed when I would have the baby and just how big that baby would be and what kind of little body parts would be in the diaper. Mostly everyone was wrong. Except for the Grandma's. Grandma got the weight almost exactly and then Great Grandma guessed the date (then changed it to 2 days later due to peer pressure) and she guessed almost exactly the weight too! Momma's know best. The prize will come at the Baptism and Baptism after party this weekend.

Now for the big news. Gianna Maria made her entrance to this side of the womb on April 5th, Easter Monday, at 12:11PM. Woohooo. She was 19 inches, and 6lbs. 15 oz. She was 17 days early. Such good timing for this Momma. She came really fast! If you want to know the details I will save another post for that. I know it can be a little TMI for some.

Egg decorating or Peep sushi?

I vote peep sushi. I like decorating eggs, but I've done it my whole life and well there is only so much I am able to do with my limited egg decorating skills. But peep sushi....

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1aY331/www.momlogic.com/2010/04/make_peeps_sushi_rolls.php/r:t

now that is something I could really have fun with! Plus for those of us who cannot have dairy...this is one of the only eastery treats that looks like it could distract me away from thinking about chocolate for more than a second.

I think I may try this. I will keep you updated....the only thing that could prevent peep sushi time + me = a looming labor and delivery and 84 degree weather. Wooohoooo. Ok honestly many more things may distract me as well. It's really hard to say.