Seis Puerqueños

Yesterday it was all beautiful and snowing, and I liked it. Even if it is spring. It’s Montana spring. We are staying out in the motorhome, and I had gone out to put on shoes so Aaron and I could go play in the snow. I thought I heard him come outside and so before coming out of the motorhome I opened the door a little and threatened him that if he hit me with a snowball he would surely die. I waited a bit and decided it was safe and came out to go down the steps. I guess I’ve never seen snow before or something, because I didn’t look, and hit the first step in my slippery sneakers and fell. Real hard. And as I am falling I am thinking “no I am pregnant I’m not allowed to fall this is bad” and trying to figure out some way to stop myself from falling, but obviously it’s too late. I managed to hit each step and the top step of the inside of the motorhome with all of my body. My butt now has the greatest bruise that is black and has scary wiggly lines coming out in all directions, my lower, middle, and upper back all have marks, and all hurt quite significantly today. It was probably the best fall I have managed in a real long time, and am glad to say that it was the backside instead of the front. Moral of the story: Don’t do this. And look before you walk down the stairs covered in a layer of ice and two inches of snow. Duh.

Well, today I am 12 weeks, based on my new due date, based on who knows what. Now I’m “due” on October 12th, which isn’t as cool as 10-10-08, nor 10-9-08 but I will deal, since who knows what day the baby will really come. Also for those of you who thought that since I was using a midwife I was having the baby at home, you are mistaken. I will have it at a birthing center which if you don’t know is like a room like unto a hotel sort of room except cozy and for the birthing of babies. We went to our first real midwife visit and she did all the normal first visit things and we got to hear our baby’s heartbeat again. She put the machine on my belly and found it the second she put it on my belly. That was cool, but then I was worried that it may be twins, because come on, what is the baby doing hanging out near the top if it could be swimming all over? Right, anyway.

I am feeling a lot better than in Ecuador, I currently follow this routine: wake up, eat food immediately, 50% of the days throw up 1-2 hours later, eat second breakfast, eat snack, eat lunch, eat second lunch, eat snack, eat pre-dinner, eat dinner, eat dessert, eat nighttime snack. I have been feeling pretty junky at nighttime, so the midwife suggested I eat when I get up to go to the bathroom. So now I do that too, just a bite or two of something and it seems to help. Speaking of which, it’s not fair to have to go to the bathroom at least 7 times a night. So that’s really exciting, I know.

We flew to Montana yesterday to hang out with Aaron’s family. It’s really pretty and still quite a lot of snow on the ground, and was snowing last night and this morning, just a bit. We should be here for two weeks or so, until someone convinces Aaron to come back and take a job with them. So if you missed us while we were in Seattle, we’ll be back, and you should use the phone to call me so we can hang out. Ok boring post, that’s all.

I asked my brother Caelin who is almost 11 to write my blog for me. I guess he didn’t want to type so I told him I would write what he said, and what did he want to say to the people who read my blog? (I’m assuming this is zero people now because we A. never post and B. post about boring things) So here is what he said:

(shoulder shrug)
(laugh)
guckkkk
are you seriously going to write this down?
why do you keep typing when i say
stop it!
i mean it!
i’m serious.
no i’m serious.
(laughing)
i’m dead serious!
stop. stoppppp.
(foot stomping)
(exits room)

I will post some pictures of a really great quilt I made (I’m overly proud) real soon. Other than that I’ve just been sitting around resting and eating foods and barfing. But mostly the first two.

Yesterday we went to interview the second midwife on Kelsey’s list. She was pretty sure she was going to use the first one we met, last week, but wanted to check out our options. I liked this midwife better, and was a little surprised to find out afterward that Kelsey did too.

Just as we finished talking with her, she said “do you want to hear your baby’s heartbeat?”

I said, with a puzzled look on my face “How — like with a stethoscope or something?” not even knowing that it could be heard at such an early stage.

It turned out to be the “something”, the name of which I won’t even try to remember, but it was basically a microphone attached to a little speaker box. She covered Kelsey’s belly with goo (I’m thinking defibrillator) and pushed the microphone around in the stuff.

After a minute we heard a heartbeat, which then sped up quite a bit.

“That’s just yours,” the midwife said to Kelsey.

After a few more minutes, we heard a small thumping, which was just about twice as fast. I grinned. Kelsey cried. The heartbeat disappeared.

“He swam away,” the midwife said. After a little more searching, the midwife put away her microphone and wiped the goo off Kelsey’s belly.

Then we went to lunch. Kelsey has pizza and salad. I had a gyro. She bought material at a craft store. I had a phone interview for a job.

I have to prep for an in person interview and wash my clothes that I spilled Tzatziki sauce on yesterday.

We made it home safely, just in case you were worried. The flights were long but not beyond the normal amount of extreme awfulness. Yesterday we got up at 4am in Quito and went to the airport, where we had a good time doing all the million steps: 1. check bags 2. pay $40.80 per person to leave the country 3. go to immigration counter to make sure you paid and get checked out of the country 4. security line 5. check in at gate with passports 6. be randomly selected for a narcotics screening and follow guy downstairs through secret doors to our waiting suitcase underneath on the tarmac where we open our suitcase and they kind of look through but mostly wonder about my radio alarm clock. Really, if I was going to have narcotics, I would have hid them better than you searched. 6. go back upstairs and wait a few minutes to get on the plane.

After 5 or so hours and two movies later we landed in Houston. We were near the front so we got off the plane and through immigration faster than most of our flight. We then went down to get our bags for customs check and could find only 3 of 4. After a half hour of waiting, all the rest of our flight filing through and getting all their bags, I did a loop of the whole place and still could not find our bag. I kindly explained my situation to the continental representative, and he came over to help. He wanted my claim tickets, which had been printed poorly and were missing the last numbers, making him exclaim “these are all the same number!”, and then asked what color my bag was. Blue on top and black on the bottom. He immediately goes to the carousel (which is full of bags, with none more coming out) and goes to the first one that is a deep blue/purple shiny all over and asks “is this your bag?” REALLY? Oh how did I miss that in the half hour we have been here, or walking around looking for it. No, that is not my bag, as mine is blue on top, and black on the bottom. He then looks like he wants to look at each tag to identify ours by number, but as I said, the numbers are missing so he can’t. Eventually he tells us to go to claim a lost bag. We go through customs and go to claim it, and they tell us we have to do it in Seattle. But the guy at the counter will bet that it will show up there with the flight. We don’t believe it, but what else is there to do?

3 hour layover plus 45 min delay plus 4 hour plane flight two more movies later we make it into Seattle. We go downstairs to find our bags and I think hey maybe I will claim my missing bag to expedite the process. Lo and behold I look and THERE is our missing bag, at the missing bag area. Somehow it has beaten both us and our flight’s luggage. Show my passport, and ta-da. Bag returned, guess the guy in Houston was right. So just remember sometime when you want to smuggle stuff into the country, just let them lose your bag so it doesn’t have to go through customs.

Picked up by Dad and Jordan, met Justin Jama and Eden at Las Margaritas (I think so we could speak spanish and not feel too out of place) managed to stay awake through dinner, picked up Caelin from where he was staying, and in bed by ten. 2am to 10pm, no naps, only some coca-cola, all bags, and we made it. We are happy and sad to be home and away from home.

It’s the lovely coca-cola classic that gives me energy. Normally it just puts me right to sleep, but for some reason it works like magic allowing me an hour or two of productivity with little pain. I should have remembered that Catrena told me that.

Finally after a week or two thinking about (dreading) packing and all the things that needed to get done, I found the energy tonight to get up and do some. I am happy to report I have one suitcase packed and about half my stuff sorted out. That means that all my things like toys & books I have used with my classes is now in nice piles in the front room waiting to go to OSSO and the kids. This is the weakest accomplishment ever, but I am proud, it has done wonders for my self-esteem, something that laying in bed for weeks just seems to drain out of you. Anyway, I hope for just a few more days of a bit of energy so that I can finish up what needs to get done.

Also here are some really important tips to remember while pregnant:
1. Don’t brush your tongue
2. Breathe through your mouth when you walk on the street
3. Chew your food extra good
4. You can live on gatorade (this is actually something I learned last time I lived here)
5. www.addictinggames.com is your best friend.
6. Make your husband eat chocolate in the other room, chop him when he laughs and thinks it is funny to put it by your face

I had some other important ones but I forgot them, just like I forgot about rule #1 tonight. I will make sure to write them later so that future Kelsey and whoever reads this blog will remember.