F.Y.I.

I will be mia for a little while in the near future. Some things have arisen on the homefront that require my utmost time and attention, and they will not be ignored. Please say a quick prayer for us as a family, and I'll be back when I can.

Hellooooooooo out there!!

Well what a week it's been!! I've got to admit to my bloggy buddies: I'm dead tired. I'm running on fumes right now, although I've been trying for days to convince myself (and others around me) that sleep is highly overrated.

It's not working.

As of right now, I've been up for 8 hours, and it's just almost noon. I've got a couple errands to run this afternoon, and unfortunately, they *must* be done this afternoon...so there's no chance of catching a nap before The Boys come home. If tonight is anything like the past week, Angel Cake will be up from about 9pm on (yeah, right after The Boys go to bed...how convenient!)...last night it was about midnight when she finally slept...otherwise, she's attached to my boobs! She's a cluster-feeder. Sometimes that's a good thing, because she'll sleep for maybe 5 hours after a cluster feed. Other times, not so much...she's still up every 2-3 hours to fill her belly. Mommy's tired.

Big Boss Man went back to work a couple days ago, and that's made life harder as well. No longer can he take her during any late morning/early afternoon wakey wakey time while I grab a nap. I'm lucky to take a shower before he leaves for work. Luckily, my mom, brother and his fam, and possibly sister and her girls will be over tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to do the dishes (all of them this time, since there's a stack).

Angel Cake is just precious. The Boys are *still* in love with her, which is a miracle to me...I figured, even if she was cute (which she is), even if she didn't wake them in the middle of the night (which she doesn't), that the novelty would eventually wear off. It hasn't happened yet. But we haven't reached the girly toys all over their bedroom floor stage yet ;)



The Boys started PSR recently, and are enjoying themselves immensely. 2 weeks from now, they'll start their baptism classes, which will enable them to be christened on the same day of Angel Cake's christening, to which the whole fam appears to be coming. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone, although I'm not looking forward to planning what I imagine to be a big post-christening bash at our home. We'd tentatively planned on BBQing, but I'm going to try to convince BBM to order fried chicken from our *favorite* restaurant across the river, which has THE BEST fried chicken evah!! Saves time for me, and everyone (well, at least everyone here) knows that it's all. about. me.

**Oddly, BBM just came downstairs and I asked if he'd be against the idea of getting Moonlight chicken. His response? I can't figure out how to type the noise he made, but it loosely translates to "Yeah, NO problem with Moonlight chicken at all, thankyouverymuch."**

Speaking of downstairs, I got to the bottom of the pile of dirty laundry in our closet, and underneath it all, BBM found some motivation to *finally* move the computers/musical instruments/recording equipment down into the basement. The only things left in now-Angel Cake's room are my filing cabinets and lots of paperwork to sort through and file in said filing cabinets. That's my job. Granted, all of our posters/pictures/children's portraits are still affixed to the walls, but those won't be taken down just yet. Once they are, however, a-painting we will go, in that room AND The Boys' room.



Now, I started this post this morning...and now it's almost 5pm and I've just gotten back to it...and I still haven't slept. *Sigh*

I'm off to make dinner and quiet a crying Angel Cake. Could it be her dinner time (again) too? I guess the last one was just an afternoon snack, right?



Peace, dudes!

It's about time!! NOW INTRODUCING:

Baby Gina diNatale!!!!



Our little Angel Cake came into the world on September 3rd at 12:26am (missing Ness and Roger's anniversary by a hair!). She weighed in at 8 pounds, 9 ounces, and was a gorgeous 21 inches long.

Now I wasn't planning on telling her birth story, but I've had a couple requests (LMAO!!!) so I'll share. As you all know, I was scheduled to be induced on September 2nd, 5 days early due to Angel Cake's size, my extreme hip pain, and a history of being late. I had the 4th morning slot, which meant that they could call me technically anytime between 4:30am (the 1st slot, so not likely) and 2pm (the latest time for the 4th slot). We had planned on sending the boys off to school, then coming to get them when the hospital called. My labors generally go pretty quickly, so I figured Angel Cake would make her appearance sooner rather than later. I couldn't have imagined how wrong I was.



6am, I'm awakened by my cell phone, although I missed the call. The message was from the hospital, telling me that they were ready, and I could show up anytime between 7:30-8am. Hearing those words, my stomach felt like it was up in my throat. I woke Big Boss Man, made some coffee, and tried to settle my nerves (ya know, coffee does wonders for that). I called Mom, since she was supposed to meet us at our house at 9am, and she'd have to be earlier than that now...I think she was as anxious as I was, for she was up and would be ready to go with just some small adjustments. When she arrived, off we went, stopping by McDonalds for breakfast burritos, hash browns, and other such nonsense. This would, after all, be the last meal I'd be eating, as only clear liquids are allowed once induction starts, and even those are limited to 8 ounces an hour. And there's nothing I love more than McD's breakfasts...seriously...I'm a weirdo.



Anyhoo...we arrived at the hospital and made it up to Labor and Delivery and got things rolling, albeit a few minutes late. I think meds were introduced around 9am? The IV stick hurt like a word I can't say, and once the pitocin was loaded up, contractions started, slowly at first, then increasing in both strength and frequency, as is expected. Time frames from then on get a little sketchy, for painfully obvious reasons.



Somewhere around 5 to 6 centimeters, I lost it. I'd been stuck there for awhile, even though contractions were coming about every 3 minutes, and coming with a vengeance. Somewhere in there my sister had arrived with her girls, my brother had also come down for the show, my mom and The Boys were still there...everyone eagerly awaiting a sweet wailing sound from the waiting room. BBM was excellent, leaving only to get some air every little while, even though the mere thought of hospitals makes him want to rent his garments.



Now as most everyone knows, simply because I'm so vocal about it, I am very anti-epidural. Well, wait...I'm anti-anything near my spine, whether it's an epidural, spinal tap, etc. So I think everyone was shocked when I asked what my options were as far as pain relief (although I tried to wait until only the nurse and I were in the room). After much deliberation, a few more contractions that measured around 85 on that scale of 100, and a short video required before epidurals (that I hadn't watched earlier because "I was NOT getting an epidural!!"), the anesthesiologist was at my door, ready to rock and roll. And I was ready to throw up.



So, the epidural is in...the local to numb the area hurt like another word I can't say, and the epidural insertion itself made me more than just a little nauseous; he said it would take approximately 10 minutes to take effect, which was about 4-5 contractions. 3 contractions later, I was feeling it, or rather, I wasn't feeling it anymore. We wait. And wait some more.

Shift change finally comes around 11pm. At each shift change, the nurse comes in to check progress, even though the previous nurse checks right before she leaves. So Lizzie comes in and checks me, and says "I don't feel anything anymore...what the last nurse said she felt, I don't feel. So I'll go page your OB." I sighed, with thoughts of a 24 hour labor ending in a c-section floating around my exhausted mind. As I started to ask about a c-section and when that would become mandatory (they had already broken my water earlier in the induction, she stared at me and finally said, "No, the last nurse said you were at a 7. I don't feel anything anymore, meaning you're at a 10, and that's a good thing." Thank God I heard sarcasm in her voice, or at least imagined it. Was it possible? Had I gone from a 7 to a 10 in less than 40 minutes?



I looked at the clock, and it read 23:49. I told Lizzie we had to wait 11 minutes to deliver her, as my "overnights" start from the time of birth...have her before midnight, and the night counts as the first of two nights in the hospital for recovery. Have her after midnight, and you've got a whole "free day" ahead of you. No way was I spending the whole day in that bed and then getting nothing out of it!! She smiled and said "We'll make it happen, don't you worry!" BBM was still there, which was suprising, as I'd thought he'd make it about halfway and then have to step out. He was such a trooper through the whole thing, which gave me strength I hadn't had before. After paging my OB, he told the nurses to let me push until the baby crowned, and he'd be there by then. Angel Cake was still really high up, so I guess he thought that would take a fair amount of pushes.



3 pushes later, Doc arrived and said "Let's get this show on the road!" The rest of the time is sort of a blur. I pushed, pushed, and pushed some more, and then it was over...she screamed a quiet little raspy scream, they laid her on my belly for a few minutes, then BBM followed her with the nurses over to the warming bed to clean her up and weigh her. By that time, we had sent The Boys, Nana, my brother, and my sister and her girls home...we didn't know what was happening and they were all tired. So it was just us, sharing the joy of the miracle that had just occurred. She was perfection, sitting right in front of us. Apgar scores of 8 and 9, perfect color, lots of dark hair, blue eyes...just simple perfection.



After the main event, lots of things happened, most of them typical. We stared, in awe, at the baby we'd created. Lots of nurses came in and out, and I eventually moved upstairs to recovery...a nice private room, and stared at her some more. BBM went home, finally, because he had to help Nana get The Boys ready for school in the morning, and it was very late by that time. I remember sleeping eventually, but I'm not sure what time that was, maybe from 5-7am? How could I sleep with such an angel right next to me? The next day brought lots of excitement, and a few scares...stories of which I will save for later, as I have to go stare at someone for awhile...I'm feeling deprived.

My, how time flies!!

Little Linebacker had a neighbor friend over today...just from across the street, playing in his room. All of a sudden they come out, and LL says they're going over to Neighbor Boy's house to catch monsters in his basement. And yes, they are real monsters, because they've seen them! I tell them to be careful, because LL has a baby sister to meet tomorrow and he wants to be completely healthy for that...can't meet your new baby sister when you're tired and recovering from a hard day of monster chasing!

His eyes get big and he says, "Tomorrow?!?! Tomorrow's Tuesday?!?!?"

Yes baby, tomorrow's Tuesday, and you'll go to school in the morning, but when you're called to come down to the office, we'll be on our way to the hospital to have LMJM.

His eyes get *real* big, and his mouth drops. He walks out of the house, silent, with Neighbor Boy telling him how he has to tell LMJM that he's the friend, when she gets older, of course.

Now I'm wondering if I should inform Beanpole that tomorrow's Tuesday, and he'll have a baby sister...maybe he's lost track of time as well.