Our Second Anniversary

We sort of started celebrating our second anniversary a month early. :) John surprised us with a trip to the symphony, and was thrilled when he saw that tickets were available on the 25th! The only problem was that it was the 25th of June. So, we kissed in celebration of 23 months of marriage, and saved the rest of the celebrating for another month. :)

Lawn seats at a summer concert was an excellent idea for a date with a baby. Gemma was happy to lie out on a blanket listening to the beautiful music of Tchiakovsky. I could easily nurse her, and nobody batted an eye when she made a few noises. Sweet memories.

One month later . . . we planned a dinner to Outback, thanks to gift cards from John's brother's company for helping them out (in a very small way!) at a recent convention! Perhaps there will be more on our visit with Steve and Abby later . . . so much has happened. :) Outback is special to us because it was at an Outback in February 2008 that we officially became a couple. Friends from church even volunteered to come to our house to babysit Gemma, which was awfully kind of them!

My gift to John was a chocolate peanut butter pie, the recipe for which I found through Pinterest. (Such a fun, addicting thing Pinterest is, isn't it?)

My gift to ourselves was finally framing our wedding portrait for our room. It ended up being a much less expensive project than I anticipated, too, which is always nice! Shutterfly probably isn't the best place to get wedding prints made, but I had a coupon code to stack on a gift card, and it's been two years! I was not going to wait any longer. This 11x14", one 8x10", several 5x7's and probably about 100 4x6's cost us around $11 . . . not bad.


The second big hurdle was finding a frame that I would want to remember with my wedding portrait forever. That was a little daunting! Baby and I decided to visit Michael's and investigate both their custom framing and off-the-shelf options. It helped that they were offering a 40% off promotion on both options!

I was torn between two. We'd already had a black and white portrait printed, so I wasn't sure if I should pick a frame, like this, with warm tones, or if I should choose one with more black in it. I was also unsure about the wide off-white matting. I really liked this frame, though!

And then I had an idea! I've also been wanting to make our vows into some sort of plaque or wall-hanging. I could write them out on that white space, breaking it up with the black lettering! I love calligraphy and decorating with words. What I ended up doing was just freehand cursive, not calligraphy, but I still think it came out nicely. :) The top and the bottom have the words to the questions to which John and I answered "I do," and the sides have the "with this ring" parts of the vows. (And, if at the risk of sounding totally money-obsessed, which I hope I am not, this frame ended up costing about $10 with the listed discount plus a "15% off your entire order" coupon! So . . . )

I think it's fair to say that John liked it, too. :) And we had a wonderful dinner at Outback together . . .

It's my goal to wear my white going-away-dress for every anniversary! (It even worked last year when I was 20-some weeks pregnant, thanks to the empire waist!)

"And now one kissing!" I love you, sweetie!

Bath time!

When our little one was tiny, John laughed at how he heard me trying to indoctrinate her during her baths. She would be fussing, and I would be saying, "Bath time is so much fun! We love bath time!" Either the indoctrinating worked, or Gemma figured it out for herself! Now she's more likely to fuss when it's time to get out of the tub, so you might hear me singing, "Time to get all warm and dry, time to get all warm and dry . . . "

Gemma's Birth Story, Part 2

(You can read the first part here!)

After maybe an hour we decided to see if the contractions would still come without stimulation, and they did! I sat on the birth ball for a while and breathed through them while we watched an episode or two of The Office on John's laptop. The nurse had to keep coming in to adjust the telemetry since it kept slipping or something and dropping the baby's heart rate! I snacked on graham crackers and juice between contractions. Then I moved to the chair in the room to sit there a while, but the ball really felt great! Meg came in, having been delayed by a delivery, and was very pleased that we'd gotten things started naturally. A check revealed me to be 3-4 centimeters dilated. No more foley bulb! The student midwife with her suggested I try walking some, so we headed out for the halls.

John and I circled the halls for a while, pausing with each contraction so I could lean on him and bury my head in his shoulder. :-) I felt a measure of camaraderie with the couple of other laboring women who were also walking, except I was glad that I didn't have to drag an IV pole around like they did. ;-) When I got tired of walking, we went back to the room and I settled onto the birth ball again. A nurse raised the bed so I could rest my head on it between contractions. They were definitely getting more intense and I was having to do multiple little exhales with each one. John experimented with some of the massage and other comfort measures that we practiced in our birth class, and the thing that actually helped the most was for him to apply pressure to my hip bones from behind, as if to open up the birth canal. That felt great! The sun set and the room darkened, and we were cozy.

Before ever being in labor myself, my jaw always dropped to hear other people tell me how long their labors lasted. I have to admit that I expected to go through 24 hours of excruciating pain, hopefully made better by an epidural. But every break between contractions kept me from losing my sanity, and the breathing helped tremendously, too. Somehow, we were so focused that the hours just flew by. When they checked me next, I was "very soft" and "a 5 or 6."

Then, we walked some more. There was an open box of donuts at the nurses' station which I could hardly walk by without the smell making me nauseous! Then Mom brought John Wendy's, and he really had to keep his breath away from my face while he pushed on my hips! I returned to the room and puked--John and the nurse just barely got a dish under my face in time! I decided that it was time to ask for an epidural, and I was kind of surprised that no one tried to talk me out of it! I guess I felt a little guilty, as if a midwife would think less of me for wanting pain meds. Meg and her staff were extremely supportive as long as I went naturally, but called the anesthesiologist without batting an eye. She came up pretty quickly and actually had me sit up while she put it in, unlike every description I'd read. John squeezed my leg when I had a contraction during the process, and it really helped! It was about 7 p.m.

The epi did wonders to relieve my pain, of course, and I was able to sleep for a little bit. But, from that point labor did become much more medicalized, if I can invent a word. :-) The EFM and hep lock were hooked back up to stay, a blood pressure cuff on my arm kept inflating every fifteen minutes, and of course I had to stay in bed. Even though my contractions had held steady, they hadn't really gotten closer together, so I agreed to Pitocin at this point. Apparently, my blood pressure went quite low, so they had to give me a lot of fluids, so they eventually catheterized me, too. I don't know if the low BP was more from the epi or if it's just what my body does, because it also went dangerously low when I was losing our first baby a year prior. And even though I was basically pain free, I had more sensation in one side of my body than the other.

It was approaching midnight when Meg checked me again, and I was 8 cm. (The "station" was still -1 . . . I don't think baby dropped a bit before labor started!) I'd been lying on my left side for hours, and she helped me roll to the right and adjusted my legs in case my position was slowing progress. She said to call as soon as I felt something different, and I very quickly did. In spite of the epi, I was feeling the contractions again to the point of being uncomfortable and I had a lot of pressure on my pelvic floor. Apparently, this was the urge to push! When she came back in, she said that I was complete! It was quite exciting, though I didn't feel like I had any energy to push.

At first, Meg directed me to hold my legs from the side-lying position, but I was quickly frustrated with that and scooted myself up to a squat on the bed. They were surprised that I could squat with the epi in. :-) The nurse brought a bar thing that hooked onto the bed, and it helped to pull myself up with that. Eventually I started getting tired in that position, though, so Meg helped me get into a modified squat position with my feet out (but down) and supported. Now I could sit back and rest between each contraction. Oh, and she also encouraged me to vocalize with each push, which I did.

Pushing Gemma out was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, right up there with Abstract Algebra/Number Theory in college as I told John later. ;-) Meg was so encouraging, saying things like, "That was your best push so far! Keep doing them just like that!" I pushed somewhere between one hour and two, and was getting very hot and frustrated. John kept giving me sips of water between pushes. My hair was down, and when Meg realized it was in my way, she offered me her hair tie, as in the one she had in her hair right then. I felt badly, but the second time she offered, I took it gratefully! In fact, I went from quietly resting between pushes, to expressing "I don't think I can do it!" to wailing "I CAN'T do it!" But, giving up was not an option . . .

Then with one push, Meg exclaimed, "I can see her head! She has hair!" They offered to bring in a mirror. When I'd heard stories in birth class about people doing that, my reaction had been, "ew, no thanks!" but now I really wanted it! Gemma crowned for a long time, though, and while I loved seeing her little tufts of hair emerge, it got very frustrating seeing them go back in between contractions. I heard the nurse ask, "Should we have her push between contractions?" and Meg quietly said, "No." John had been refilling my water cup, and encouraged me by saying that the baby would be born before this cup was empty. I pushed harder, and soon felt a stinging/burning on the right side where her head kept reemerging. And suddenly, there she was, crying "meh, meh, meh!" Meg pulled her out at 2:14 a.m. and I am so glad that I got to see it all in the mirror because it happened so fast! All I could say was "Oh, oh, oh!"

They had told me that Gemma would need to be suctioned out right away because of the meconium, and they had called up a first response team when I was getting close. But they actually did lay her, slimy and bloody, on my belly for just a few moments first. I was overwhelmed that she was such her own person, and had all that hair . . .

When they carried our sweet babe over to the table, they announced that she weighed 8 pounds 9.7 ounces and I announced that her name was Gemma Grace. (Meg had predicted 8-8 while I was pushing and I was impressed that she was so close!)

We'd agreed to donate cord blood to the state bank. Harvesting that, delivering the placenta, and stitching me up seemed long and unpleasant while John admired his baby girl being treated across the room. (I felt the stitching . . . I wonder if they thought I wouldn't with the epi still in. The next day, Meg told me that I would have pushed her out faster with an episiotomy, and I felt proud for doing it the harder way.

Soon my sweet newborn was in my arms and against my chest. She was awake, but so peaceful. Breastfeeding ended up being something we really had to work at. I'm really thankful for the LC's I saw three times within the next 36 hours.

Honestly, the worst part of being in the hospital was the stay afterward. Some of the nurses were wonderful, but some could have been better, and we really couldn't sleep much there. Besides that, I was very happy with our decisions and very happy with that particular hospital. The whole birth started differently than I expected, but I know that it was God's plan and I'm thankful for how it went. The fact that her heart rate was strong and steady no matter what was happening with me was a tremendous comfort --just what I needed to dispel my fears after losing our first. He is such a loving Father! I miss those days of cuddling a sweet, naked baby wrapped up in blankets. There's nothing like it. :-)

With This Ring

Two years ago today, my beloved and I stood face to face to pledge our faithfulness to one another. I hadn't looked back at our vows much since then, so I thought it was fitting to dig them out and share them with our little circle of blog followers. :) We based them off a set of vows we found on the internet, but modified them so much that they're really our own. How long we spent laboring over these words together!
______________________________________________
John, do you covenant before God to be first and foremost the spiritual leader of your home, seeking God's kingdom and righteousness throughout your life together? I do.

Do you covenant before God to study your wife in order to know her disposition so that you will provide for her emotional, physical, mental, and most importantly her spiritual needs? I do.

To strive not to allow the sun go down on your anger? I do.

To be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving? I do.

And to obey God's command to love your wife as Christ loves His Church? I do

Gretchen, do you covenant before God to love John, to be sensible, pure, and a worker at home, that the Word of God may not be dishonored? I do.

Do you covenant before God to fulfill your role as your husband's helper, to recognize his

God-given responsibility and authority as the leader of your home, and to do John good and not evil all the days of your life? I do.

To strive not to allow the sun go down on your anger? I do.

To be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving? I do.

And to obey God's command to submit to your husband as the Church is subject to Christ? I do.

John, what token do you give as a symbol of your authority, strength, protection, and love? This ring.

With this ring, I thee wed;

I take thee, Gretchen, to be my wedded wife,

and do solemnly covenant before God and these witnesses

to love, cherish, protect, and provide for you unconditionally,

in sickness and in health,

for better or worse,

for richer or poorer,

and forsaking all others cleave only unto you,

as my lawfully wedded wife,

for as long as we both shall live,

so help me God.

Gretchen, what token do you give as a symbol of your submission to John’s authority, strength and protection, and your unselfish love to him? This ring.

With this ring, I thee wed;

I take thee, John, to be my wedded husband,

And do solemnly covenant before God and these witnesses

to love, honor and obey you unconditionally

in sickness and in health

for better or worse

for richer or poorer

and forsaking all others cleave only unto you,

as my lawfully wedded husband,

for as long as we both shall live,

so help me God.

(We'll finish up Gemma Grace's birth story very soon!)

Only 7.5 Months Late . . .

Gemma Grace's Birth Story! Part 1 . . .

signs in the triage room. interesting difference between the two!

After a few days of timing "hopefully-these-are-contractions," I was lying in bed with John on Sunday night, Dec. 5. It was a few days past my due date by my calculation, and nearly a week past by the standard calculation, and now I was getting a little anxious . . . anxious for our little girl to arrive while her Grandma was still in town. :-) I'd even told John that I felt like breaking my own water *just* so I could know for sure when it was real.

Well, on Sunday night shortly before falling asleep, I suddenly felt a little trickle. I leapt out and ran to the bathroom, saying, "I REALLY hope this baby comes soon because I think I'm losing control of my bladder!" John came in to help assess the situation, and we quickly decided that this was something totally different. "I think my water broke!" It was surreal--I called the midwife pager a minute later. It was around midnight.

The midwife on call called me back shortly, but took a laid-back approach to the whole thing. She advised me to lie down for an hour or so and get back up. If it was really my water, it would pool in that time and there would be more, she said. We took her advice and I went back to bed. John told me I should try to rest in case this was the real thing, but I was too excited to sleep! When the alarm went off, there wasn't any more, but we called her back anyway. I was sure it was my water because of the dark color, and I knew that dark water probably meant meconium. Because of that and because I was expecting to need a round of IV antibiotics due to being GBS+, we decided to go in. ("GBS" or Group B Strep is a bacteria common to women but bad for babies!) I think John was a little disappointed that he didn't get to make a dramatic drive to the hospital with his wife screaming for him to go faster. :-) All I had was some sporadic light cramping.

It felt like it took forever to park the car and sign in to the L&D unit! Finally I got set up in a triage room. The midwife confirmed that my membranes were ruptured, and I think she used the word "massively." I could have told her that. ;-) With ruptured membranes, I had up to 24 hours to see if labor would start on its own. Otherwise, they would induce me. Because of the GBS, they didn't check me for dilation yet, but since I hadn't been dilated more than a fingertip a few days earlier, induction would require a foley bulb to artificially start the dilation and an IV with Pitocin to start contractions.

Of course, as the midwife pointed out, 24 hours from now would be the middle of the night! It seemed we had three options: start the induction now (middle of the night), start in 24 hrs (also the middle of the night) or try to get some sleep and pick a time tomorrow to start. The third option seemed best to us, especially when she gave us some statistic about how 80% of women go into labor on their own within 16 hours of membrane rupture. When she told me that Meg, one of my favorite of the 6 midwives, would be coming on at 7 in the morning, I was quite thankful that the Lord should be so kind to us!

While we waited to be put in an actual room, John and I looked at each other in amazement. We're going to be parents . . . are we ready?!! We were also very tired, and by the time we settled in to our room, it was close to 3 a.m. I slept all right, considering that I was wearing the monitors the whole time, and woke probably around 7 a.m. when the shift changed and the new nurse came in to introduce herself. I appreciated that they changed out the EFM belts for wireless telemetry so I could move around. They also started me on some of my IV antibiotics, but set up the IV so that it could be easily detached (hep lock). Soon Meg came in as well to discuss our options.

Now, there is a more natural means of stimulating your body's own production of oxytocin, and I had written on my birth plan that if Pitocin was recommended, I'd like to try that first. However, when I went over my wishes with a different midwife a few weeks earlier, she'd told me that they wouldn't allow that because an IV drip of Pitocin is easier to control. I'd reconciled myself to her "rule," hoping it wouldn't come to that. However, when Meg read my birth plan, she said we were welcome to try our natural method and even gave us some tips! We decided to wait a few more hours before starting, and I took a shower and ate the full breakfast they brought me. Meg agreed to check back on us around noon.

Mom came in to visit around 10 or 11, and after she left, we started attempting our natural induction method. While we didn't have to do anything until midnight, I felt motivated to get things going before Meg came back at noon. And, to our excitement, the contractions started coming . . .

Our Week with Jenni

As far as I know, the guest who traveled the furthest to be at Sarah's wedding is the one who traveled all the way from Northern Ireland, our dear former-suitemate Jenni. :-D After the wedding, Jenni drove home to spend the next week with us, and we were extremely excited to show her our home and spend some time with her!



We left PA on Sunday after worshiping with Sarah's family, hoping to make it to Richmond in time for the evening service of one of our sister churches. Sadly, after checking online, we discovered that they don't have an evening service! We didn't make it back home in time for our own church, but we listened in online and ended up going for a stroll around the Duke Gardens that evening.

Also somewhat sadly, all our photos from the week are from the semi-good iPhone camera. That seems to be how we get most of our pictures these days, since it's always around!


On Monday, July 4th, we unpacked, did laundry, visited Target and made a picnic lunch to bring to our state symphony's free patriotic concert that night. We got this iffy picture and about half of our sandwiches eaten before thunder and lightning started and the rain came down in torrents! So, the concert and fireworks were both a wash, quite literally!



Thankfully, Tuesday and Wednesday worked out as planned! Jenni was very much looking forward to getting some of the sun they rarely see at home, so we took her to the Outer Banks and spent some time on the beach. It was Gemma's first beach experience and she loved it! She slept for the first bit . . .


. . . but soon woke up to enjoy splashing in the warm water . . .


. . . and playing in the sand, which she tried to eat, so we didn't let her stay there for very long!

Back into the waves with Daddy!

For the next couple of days, Jenni stayed with a friend of hers from home who is working in our area, but we all met up for dinner each night. We had fun introducing them to some of our local favorites, and also making a big meal together on our last night together.

Goodbye, Jenni! Perhaps the next time we see you will be for your wedding!

Gemma's Fourth Wedding

Last fall, we celebrated the wedding of my roommate from freshman year. How quickly the months have flown since then! Last weekend it was time for fairest Sarah to marry her Logan. Sarah and I roomed together for two years in college and were such good friends.


It was actually Gemma's fourth wedding, but it was her Mommy's first time being a bridesmaid! I was honored to be in Sarah's wedding, and had fun spending time with lots of girls I haven't seen since college.

The gentlemen all wore suspenders, which was fun!

They had their reception in a yellow barn which is part of a historic museum in Lancaster, PA (I believe).

Gemma was soo good. She happily hung out and played all Saturday morning while the bride and her maids all got ready. And she got to spend a lot of time with Daddy during the actual wedding.

Sarah's sister made all the gorgeous bouquets. She even put little clusters of blueberries into Sarah's bouquet, which is the most creative "something blue" I've ever seen!

Happy one week of marriage to the newlyweds, and may you know many blessed years as man and wife!

7 Months Old

How is our little Gemma already seven months? Whenever I start to feel sentimental over passed time, I remember that one lady from church shared with us, "They only get more fun!" (And sometimes I remember what John has told me before, "You can always have another one . . . although there is a limit to that!")

Gemma doesn't crawl yet, but she rolls and pivots herself about constantly! She's getting better at sitting up, too, and soon I expect that she'll be able to sit on the floor independently. She loves clapping her hands and "talking." She uses a lot of ma's, ba's, da's, some ga's, and recently ya's and ha's, and she also uses other vowel sounds with those favorite consonants.

At her six month appointment, Gemma was in the 97th percentile for height and at about 75th-80th percentile for weight and head size. She's definitely getting quite attached to Mommy and Daddy! But her little sin-nature is coming out, too. Whenever she has something that we have to take away from her, she starts crying. We're trying to teach her not to fuss at these times!

One day before her six month birthday, Gemma started bananas! That's what she's eaten the most of so far, but she's also had squash, chewed on a piece of apple and a piece of canteloupe, and today she had some organic baby oatmeal for the first time! She's also getting good at drinking from a straw, and she likes to grab for her Mommy's or Daddy's cup and put the straw right in her mouth! So far, she has loved every food that she's tried.

Yay! She's clapping her hands in the last one. Perhaps she's saying "thank you" to the friends who gave us the booster, but perhaps not, so I will. It works great, and we love it!

Little Thoughts on Love

Yesterday afternoon found me boiling up potato chunks and trying my hand at making potato salad for the first time ever. If my mother knew it, her jaw would probably have dropped right open, because when I was little I couldn't stand potato salad. Believe me, we were expected to eat what was put before us when we were growing up, but Mom and Dad did mercifully tend to allow each of us an exception to that rule. I didn't like peas but I ate them anyway, but potato salad absolutely made me gag. I still remember throwing it up as a four year old and getting it on my Care Bears shirt! (You're welcome for that!) And now here I was, not only attempting to make it, but also planning to eat some of it. John likes it a lot. And that's what love can do to a person.

Before we had a baby, John declared that he was not looking forward to changing diapers. I was impressed that he even expected to help with that job! But I, too, certainly didn't offer to do diaper checks during my nursery duties. Now that we have Gemma, diapers are no burden. John doesn't mind changing her cloth diapers, and we even almost get to the point of fighting over who gets to do it sometimes! That's what love can do to a person!

I know of a King whose people all hated Him and for thousands of years were not loyal subjects. Yet the King finally went and lived with the poorest of them, and taught and loved and healed them. And when their crimes warranted capital punishment, He offered to be killed for their sakes and to let them go free. He endured unspeakable agony in that death. But it was necessary for them to live with Him--risen again--in paradise someday, so it was completely worth it to that King.

And that's what love can do.

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Philippians 2:5-11