So Dawn sent me this awesome Lightening Online t-shirt. It's kind of like the roaming gnome, only those of us who receive the shirt will be able to win some money in the end (instead of a Carribean vacation?).
I tried to get a good shot of the Little Man in it, but that didn't work out so well.
California is...
warm breezes on afternoon walks filled with the scent of orange blossoms...
beautiful views and the smell of salty air...
bare feet on hardwood floors on a hot day...
lemon verbena and jasmine and lavender and rosemary all growing in my neighborhood...
friendly people and funky people...
clean air buses passing me by...
the UPS man who knows Sasha and me, and now, the Little Man, and waves as he drives by...
a bunch of Crackers all living in one giant state...
all ME.
I will always be Californian. It is who I am.
Jennifer asked me today if I will always live here. I didn't get a chance to answer her.
Sasha, Little Man and I went out for a wonderful walk this afternoon and hit all of our neighborhood "spots." It felt like summer. It was just the thing I needed to help give me a break from this winter funk that has been enveloping me for months now.
(So for the record, I MAY live somewhere else, but ya can't take the California outta the girl! (Totally!))
This is as big as I got. I am proud of my Belly.
My Belly started shrinking the next day :(
We realized that this was my last Birthday with just the two of us as our little "family." We knew I would be a 27 year old Mama, but we didn't know that Warrior would be a 33 year old Papa. We thought we would have one more just-the-couple Birthday to celebrate, Warrior's 34th, three weeks before our due date.
We went to bed with dreams of Little Bunny and parenthood racing through our heads.
The next morning, Tuesday, December 19th, was uneventful. I went downstairs and brought my cereal back up to our room to be with Sasha (we were taking our meals and living completely upstairs due to her surgery). I surfed the Internet from the La-Z-Boy and enjoyed the sun streaming in through the sliding glass doors.
As I prepared for my nap (I was constantly tired throughout my pregnancy, and napped often -- the luxuries of a first pregnancy!) I noticed a clear discharge that was "different." I thought about it for about a minute, since I had just read in one of those helpful books that you need to watch out for something of that nature, as it could one of the first signs that your water has broken, or you have a leak. I thought, "hmm, that's weird," and then went to sleep.
When I woke up about an hour and a half later, my thighs were wet. Not soaked, but wet. There were also a few small wet spots on the pillowcase of the pillow I was using between my knees. I thought, "either I've peed myself, or my water has broken." I went to the toilet and felt a trickle. I was pretty sure I hadn't peed myself.
So I called the doctor's office, and said, "Hi, this is VDog (not really), I'm at 30 weeks, and I think that my water has broken. I woke up from my nap and my thighs were wet blah blah blah, I could have just peed myself, but I'm pretty sure that my water has broken."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"Ok, the doctor is on-call at the hospital right now; I'll have her give you a call."
The doctor literally called me back within three minutes. She has always been prompt at returning my calls, but I knew this meant it was SERIOUS.
"Doctor Amy" (she actually says, "this is Amy"; I LOVE that) has a very soothing, calming voice, and it was very reassuring for me to hear her voice. Although what she had to say was not reassuring -- after I told her what had been going on, she said, "Well, it definitely has to be checked out, and the best place to do that is here in Labor & Delivery."
This concludes Part Two. Stay tuned for Part Three where I FREAK OUT!!! and get hospitalized.
I promise to not let so much time lapse between "episodes" Two and Three!
On December 11, 2006, CrackerDog Sasha went in for surgery to repair her torn right Achilles tendon. She had torn it while running after her frisbee the week before.
Sasha and I were at the park at sundown. I needed her to run off some energy. I was just going to give her a few more throws when it happened -- she abruptly stopped in her tracks and let out a yelp I had never heard from her before.
When she came home two days after her surgery, she cried all day long. Sasha had never cried for any reason before, so we knew she was in a sorry, sorry state. She was completely out of it from all of the sedatives they had given her. It was one of the saddest things I had seen as her "Mommy," and it broke my heart.
Needless to say, a lame dog was not what a twenty-nine week pregnant VDog wanted to deal with. Especially when I was the one who had to be home with her and her lame leg and our 40 million stairs.
Sasha had to be helped up and down the stairs with a towel under her hindquarters, lifting her up ever so slightly, so that not all of her weight was on either leg. This was no easy feat for either of us, Sasha fresh from surgery and me six+ months pregnant.
After one day of trying to get Sasha up and down numerous stairs (she was only allowed outside to go to the bathroom, and even then the trip was so challenging that we had to keep it to a minimum), Warrior made an early morning run to Home Depot to buy strips of sod, and a tarp to put the sod on, for the deck outside of our Master Bedroom (because here in California, even in December, the sod is all gone by 6am). It was a total Cracker maneuver, undertaken on the suggestion from our Cracker neighbor (and colleague of Warrior's), who had seen the idea in use for a dog across the street from him.
This is where Sasha and I holed up for the next week until my own unexpected hospitalization. We moved our entire living situation upstairs into our bedroom. I would make quick trips downstairs for bowls of cereal, yogurts, and microwaved food. We even set up our little TV tray and two chairs by which we ate our dinners. We moved our TV to the foot of our bed, along with our TiVo.
During the day, Sasha and I just hung out, me on the Internet and her sad in her bed. I ordered the bassinet, crib, infant car seat and stroller. I rarely ventured out as this required putting a cone on Sasha's head, which she hated, and involved much anxiety on both our parts.
I did go out to what would end up being my last OB visit on Thursday, December 14, for my 30 week check up. I was measuring the correct size, heartbeat was good and strong; everything seemed "normal." I had been excited because it was the first of my every-two-weeks appointments. I was making progress! But no, the next time I would see my Doctor would be the following Tuesday, the 19th, in Labor & Delivery at the hospital.
(Ok, back to Sasha.)
For the first few days, Sasha was so affected that she couldn't get up the will to eat. We hand fed her meals and put her plethora of medications in the tastiest stuff we could think of -- peanut butter, cream cheese, and finally, the wonder treat -- beef "pill pockets." The pill pockets are totally disgusting, and hand feeding your dog is not exactly pleasant, but at least it was minor preparation for Little Man's arrival. It was caring for a living being in a way that was very similar to caring for a baby -- doing everything for a creature that can not do anything for itself, even tasks that you wish you did not have to do.
It was an uncommonly nice stretch of weather, that week we were holed up together, so that made it more bearable. I remember having the door to the deck open with the curtains partially drawn, the sun warming my body and raising my spirits. I was taking in the situation as best I could, and trying not to get down about it.
Tearing the Achilles tendon is one of the worst injuries a dog can have. The surgeon said it is common in older Labradors and Dobermans. As far as we knew, Sasha was only supposed to be four, but she has always acted older, poor girl. The surgery sewed her tendon back together, and then the Cage cast was placed around her ankle, with pins going through her skin and bones. The Cage is basically like a miniature, semi-spherical bicycle rim and spoke set. It is disturbing and effective at the same time.
Once she had the surgery, we had to go back each week for bandage changes on the Cage. This lasted for eight weeks. After that, they wrapped her entire leg up in a splint that caused her to have even less mobility than with the Cage cast, which was eventually weight bearing (I didn't get to see that until after I came home from the hospital) and she had the unfortunate gait of Peg-Leg with it on. Which was actually pretty funny. But so sad at the same time. We were evil though, and laughed at her.
Sasha kept her Peg-Leg for four weeks, and then spent another four weeks in a soft wrap (kind of like a doggie Ace bandage). After ALL that, she got to go on very short leashed walks.
So we decided back in that first week of December, 2006, to do the surgery as soon as possible, since we were told the recovery was a three to four month minimum. "Great!" we thought, "Sasha will be pretty much recovered once we're ready to get out with the baby!" who was due February 24, 2007.
Little Man, however, had other plans.
Stay tuned for Part Two of both Sasha and Little Man's stories.
Btw, don'tcha just love my Cracker-style "Photoshop" job? Ya, I did that with MS Paint. Cuz I'm a Cracker. Totally.
