Ginger Baby Is 10!

Another birth story.

Ten years ago today I woke up around 5am with pretty consistent contractions. Like all my babies, this one was over due by at least a week, maybe more, but unlike the others, I hadn't had days of on and off contractions. Somehow though, I knew that this was it. I woke Doug up and he helped me get our room ready, changing the sheets, getting out the baby things etc. He also got the kids up and called our awesome friends Kristin and Jason who came and whisked the other three kids away for the day (by that time we had adopted our nephew and so all of a sudden we were going to have four kids!).

And after awhile we called our midwife, who came up about mid morning. It was a beautiful hot and sunny day (nearly all summer days in Utah are hot and sunny) and after walking around as much as I could, I finally laid down on my side and enjoyed our peaceful, light filled bedroom. Doug and the midwife sat on the bed with me and between contractions we laughed and chatted. It was so wonderful, relaxed and peaceful. Finally just after 1pm, my breathing changed and even though I had noticed it too, I remember still feeling surprised when our midwife told Doug that I would soon be pushing! Oddly I was surprised that the baby was actually going to be coming out!

By this time my uterus and cervix knew exactly what to do, and so this little baby just easily came right out after about ten minutes of pushing. Even though we had chosen not to have an ultrasound during the pregnancy, I knew this one was a girl too (my instincts were right with all my babies) and sure enough I was right. The other thing I knew within moments of holding my baby was that she was the last baby we would have! It would not have been unusual for us to have another baby, or three, hehe, we were living in Utah after all! But when I looked at this baby I knew she would always be youngest in our family. It was a most interesting feeling and I still recall it to this day.

Of course some of that may have been due to the horrible hemorrhoids I had in the last few days of this pregnancy! The pain of all that even almost had me questioning my firm intent to not induce labor!!!

Anyway, we had a few names on our list for this baby. Annie, Rosie, Ramona (my favorite) but within a few minutes of looking at her, I told Doug, this is Ginger and he agreed. Our son had mentioned the name a few months earlier because he knew a girl in school named Ginger, but we didn't really think about it again until we saw her.

Ginger was in perfect health, but within an hour or so, she started humming. It was the cutest thing, but our midwife was a bit concerned and kept checking her stats and breathing. She even gave us some advice about how to handle the situation at the hospital if we had to take her in (the local hospital wasn't too happy about home births and most of the doctors wouldn't talk to the midwife), but since Ginger seemed totally perfect otherwise, she finally decided we didn't need to take her in. We all surmised that the humming was just Ginger's way of settling into her new life outside of me and we sat back and enjoyed it. She hummed for well over a day, even while she was nursing and sleeping, and eventually it tapered off. I missed it a little bit when it ended, because it really was so sweet!

Around dinnertime Kristin and Jason came back with the kids and the first thing Sophie (she was two at the time) said when she came in was "give me my baby" and she got right up on the bed and held her little sister. I still get teary eyed when I remember that. Of course eventually she bit Ginger's fingers a few times, poked her eyes and now they fight and yell and pull each other's hair fairly often but when not doing all that they are very close. heh.

The other thing that the kids talked about for years after the day Ginger was born, was how they spent a good portion of the day cleaning out our car with Kristin and Jason. I was horrified to learn they had done this because man, that car was so filthy!!! But I can't deny that it sure was wonderful to get into a sparkling clean car with my new baby. And every time we cleaned the car after that the kids talked about how much stuff they found under the seats on the day Ginger was born.

And of course Ginger has grown up to be quite the character. She keeps us all hopping with her bubbly energy and enthusiasm for everything. She has had a few close close calls too, including the time she fell out a second floor window when she was two (she broke her wrist and had a skull fracture) and of course now her Type 1 Diabetes keeps us on our toes too.

Oh and the other thing I loved about Ginger's birth was how I just woke up one day, had some labor, gave birth to a baby and went to sleep that night at my usual bedtime. The others were practically all nighters and I was always so tired from being awake for so long which was way worse than giving birth!

Painting, Health and Five Birthday Cakes

Things are really picking up around here lately, workwise and otherwise too!

Work: I have 6 new paintings for the show in August, plus a few I can pull from my inventory. I have 12 small painting (that are relatively affordable, I hope) in progress:
I hope to pretty much finish them over the weekend, or by early next week at least. I may do another 6, but will decide about that next week too. The 4'x4' painting is still sitting on the easel for 2 reasons. One is I am undecided about what to do with it. I made some adjustments to the pink swath across the field (thanks Lou!) and while it looks better, I am still not sure it has the ooomph that I want it to have. The other reason, um the main reason actually, is because I have been too lazy to drag the panel downstairs to sand it down. Anyway, I will resolve the issue this week too I think. Busy week for decisions coming up, eh???

Other: I officially got fed up with myself last February and started to see a hypnotherapist to help me with my food and health issues. I went to her thinking I was a crazy out of control sugar addict, but she seemed to think not, that my issues had more to do with self worth. So she treated me accordingly and voila! I started eating less like a crazy person and more like the health conscious person that I am actually am deep down inside. Heh. So far I have lost about 30lbs and because I am still a self conscious girl person I will refrain from posting photos OR from mentioning how much more I would like to lose. However, I will say I have more to go.

And along with all that of course, is exercise. I have always been reasonably fit underneath the extra weight until the last few years (I blame my computer heh) and so I am working on getting that back on track too. I started out by doing my 3 mile walk around the block each day, then alternated that with a 3 mile walk up a pretty steep hill every other day. And then when I reached a weight loss plateau a few weeks ago, I began to add a second workout several days a week. I still usually do the walk every day, and I vary the other workouts. I've been doing swimming, spinning, elliptical machines (I hate treadmills), weight training and a few core strengthening classes here and there. Some time in the next month or so I will probably get the nerve to do the other fitness classes at the gym and I may even try Zumba at some point. It looks fun, but I suspect I will look totally ridiculous doing it and so I definitely need some time to gather myself up to do that one!!

So between painting, all this damn exercise (which is making me feel really good, btw) and kids at home all day now, things are busy. I am making an monumental effort to not bail on the exercise though, like I usually do when I am busy preparing for a show.

PS. I forgot to mention that we are in the middle of birthday season-three of the kid's birthdays, one each week for three consecutive weeks. And because the tween girls MUST have a party we are talking five cakes in three weeks. So far it's two down, two coming up tomorrow and one more next weekend. Blech! And it is SO awesome I can now say that about cake!!! Double blech!!

Sophie and the Sun

So twelve years ago today I woke with pretty insistent labor pains. It was my second pregnancy and even though my first baby fooled me into thinking he was going to come out every day for a week, I was pretty sure it was the real thing this time! When the contractions were closer together called our midwife Chris and she got to our house within about an hour (she lived about 45 minutes away). We all hung out on the bed while she monitored me, Doug and I and our son who was 2 at the time (we hadn't adopted our oldest son yet) as we were thinking he might be old enough to watch. But in typical fashion, after Chris was there for about an hour, everything stalled. She waited for awhile longer before leaving and we agreed to call her if the contractions started up again. We decided to go about our day and since the plan had been to go to the local arts festival, that's just what we did.

By the time we got there I was having contractions again. They were fairly irregular though so I just kept going because I knew the walking would be help move things along. I was as big as a house, hot and sweaty and so naturally I saw everyone I knew there. I think most people were afraid to talk with me too long though for fear that baby was just going to fall out right in front of them!

Doug and I debated about buying a few things but not surprisingly we were distracted and couldn't make a decision, so we finally left without buying any art. Later after we were home Doug decided to go back and buy an iron cut out that we had liked. I always tell Sophie that we bought the sun for her on the day she was born.
After dinner I still had the contractions and was also feeling kind of funny, so I laid down on the sofa for a bit and then, whammo!!! Things were in high gear all of a sudden! I got myself upstairs and Doug tried to get things ready again, while I, um, spent a lot of time in the bathroom. Heh. A friend of ours who had assisted in Julien's birth came over but by that time things were getting a bit hectic and she seemed overwhelmed. Finally, we called Chris. We actually waited far too long, mostly because and get this: we didn't want to bother her since we had already had her come up earlier in the day!!! Are we polite or what?

At this point I was getting a bit flustered, the contractions were way stronger and harder than my first labor and I kept having to use the bathroom. I felt like I was screaming (I wasn't) and I made Doug close the windows because I didn't want the neighbors to hear me. He told me later he thought I was cold (I wasn't). He was also talking to Chris as she was driving up and I think she was going 90 miles an hour through the canyon (we lived in northern Utah) after he told her I was using the bathroom so often. I didn't realize it at the time but I was ready to push, this labor was so different than my first that I didn't recognize the feeling. Meanwhile, Julien was getting a bit worked up seeing all this hubbub and our friend took him downstairs and parked him in front of the tv to watch a video of about 20 episodes of Little Bear (his favorite show) that we had ready for just this situation.

Just after that, and while I was leaving the bathroom yet again I vaguely recall seeing Chris coming up the steps, pulling on her gloves and when I sat down on the bed, my water broke, I pushed about twice and there was our baby girl. She came out so fast and furious and I was breathing like I had just finished a marathon! As soon as I calmed down I saw our baby was blue and Chris was rubbing her back (I had missed seeing her unwrap the cord from around her neck) and as she pinked up, she started crying. Oddly, I wasn't worried about this at all, I just had this feeling that everything would be fine and then it was. She nursed within minutes of her birth and showed off her healthy lungs many times that night!

Julien came upstairs within minutes and was very excited to see a baby there and when we told him that her name was Sophie he kissed her and said "hi soapy". So of course that was her nickname for years!

A few other bits of info:

Sophie was born at 11:34pm on the first day of summer and it was also a full moon that night which we thought was pretty special and good luck too.

We saved the placenta in the fridge for a few days then Doug buried it in the flower bed in our backyard. More good luck.

And Chris told us years later that we still held her record for her closest arrival to the birth without going over. We like that!

I love to tell Sophie about her crazy birth and she used to love it too, but now it is highly embarrassing to her. I look forward to her enjoying the story again someday but in the meantime I will just tell everyone else about it. heh.

Good News and Bad News

Horizon Lines (38), 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 12x16

Well, the good news is that I have six nice paintings (one shown above) finished so far for my show at the Carrie Haddad Gallery in August. I have about 3 weeks left to do about a dozen small ones and one or two larger ones. So I am feeling pretty good about my progress here.

The bad news is that I put the color on the 4'x4' panel (below) that is supposed to be the "centerpiece" of the show, and I pretty much hate it! (although it does look better in person than it does in this photo) I had a few doubts about the underpainting, but since that doesn't always mean the end result will suck, I kept going. However, in this case, I can see now how much better the whole piece would be if I had not extended the tree line up on the right. I usually catch those compositional issues at the underpainting stage but I guess this one slipped by me. Blech. And if I don't catch them, sometimes I can fix them with the color, but not this time. The underpainting of the trees here is so strong that if I were to extend the sky down over the them, I would lose the translucency in that area. And I hate when that happens.

So I will decide for sure tomorrow, but I have a strong feeling this one is headed for the sand down pile, and quickly. May as well try again on that same panel, since it's already prepped.......

Burn Out!!!

Well, I guess I should just admit it. I am a bit burned out on blogging. And not only have I slowed down on posting I am also not keeping up with my lovely blogger friends either, which makes me feel very sad.

I am not going to say I will post more often, because I don't really think that I can right now. But I don't plan on quitting either. So I guess posts will continue to be a bit sporadic until I get my mojo back. Just so you know. Heh.

I am getting ready for a show in August so I will at least try to post progress images of that, k?

In the meantime a crazy cat picture is always fun. I bought these baskets for the kids to keep their excessive bathroom stuff in. Almost immediately the cats hijacked them and no one wants to put anything in them now because they are all covered in cat hair. Today though, I had to laugh when I saw Jones and Dorrie. A rare tender moment between brother and sister.....

Painting and Dumb Stupid Exercise

Last Bit of the Day, 2009, Oil on Birch Panel, 11x14

Well, I have officially started to work on the paintings for my upcoming show at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, NY, in August. I feel very relaxed about this, right now anyway! I have a lot of work on hand already, which is good, because it is going to be tough to get much done in the coming month. The kids have crazy busy schedules for the next few weeks, then school is out for the summer and they will be home more.

In addition I have been working on getting my fitness back and have been trying to work out 2x a day almost everyday. I have been doing that for several weeks and while I am feeling good, it sure does take a chunk of time out of my workday. Love/hate dumb stupid exercise......

Crazy Corsage Girl

Crazy Corsage, 2009, Oil on Gessoed Paper, 12x16

So this is the third of the most recent group of portraits from the People You Know series. I have mixed feelings about it, I like the face and gesture, but am not thrilled with the dress and not sure about the corsage. But I am going to move on to the next batch anyway, and hopefully bring along only the good parts from these last few portraits. I wish!

That's it for today's post as I have a rocking headache tonight. This morning I spent two hours in a dentist chair having two molars prepped for crowns. Luckily, no root canal was necessary in the really bad tooth, although there was some "rebuilding" involved there which worries me a bit. Heh. Anyway, I had plenty of novacaine and have some great relaxation techniques (thanks Bradley Method!) to get through crap like that, but now the novacaine has worn off and my head hurts, my jaw and tongue hurt and all my teeth seem to hurt too. Tonight, I feel incrementally better, but today was a lost day and I really didn't accomplish anything. Hoping a good nights sleep will get me back on track tomorrow, I have so much to do!!!