207 singer road

I said goodbye to a house this week.

 Kitchen door, whereupon you will most likely hear, "Hi! I didn't see you drive in!"

Mimi's house for over half a century; good old 207 Singer Road, New Freedom, PA 17331.

 This living room held both a piano and an organ for many years. ;)

It's one of the few addresses I have memorized because it's the only one that's stayed constant my entire life.

 Climbed this tree so many times. It's weirdly the same size.

My grandparents moved in 57 years ago, right before my mom was born.

 And there's been a looooot of life there ever since.

Mom and Pappap before her prom. Classic Gunne Sax.

Three kids, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

 Pretty sure there's a baby in that contraption in the middle. Is that me? 

Or wait! Is that me over Mimi's knees?! What is happening?

 The best driveway to ride down. 

You had to be careful and steer around the corner.

And even though the timing is right, and I'm so excited for Mimi to move on to a cute and manageable cottage close to friends and close to us, this little piece of earth meant a lot to me and I'm going to miss it.

 Queen of the Castle, right here.

 

 Mom, Aunt Lori, and their cousin - Fiona and Jaina

It's been a long time since I've said a "forever goodbye". It was weirdly familiar even though it was just for a house. You want to act normal and have fun in your last moments together. You take a lot of pictures and make jokes, but all the while "Nevermore" is hanging in your head.

 Pappap's shed

 I always thought that glass doorknob to the garage was magical.

A long time ago there were bunk beds in this office, 

and one night I begged and begged to sleep underneath of them for some reason. 

Mom said no, but in the middle of the night I fell off the top bunk.

And instead of crying or calling for anyone I rolled under the bed and slept there the rest of the night. 

True story.

We've actually gotten to take quite a few pieces of this house to our home. Mimi's table and chairs now sit in our dining room, and the piano takes center stage in the living room. I have Mimi's lifetime stockpile of sewing supplies, and Zach has a few of Pappap's meticulously organized tool drawers.

Maple "helicopters" are so much fun.

I'm always gonna struggle with this concept of home. Just when I think my priorities are lining up another cord severs, and I realize just how earth-bound I still am. Ouch. I really liked that anchoring point. The roots ran deep. Can we get anymore metaphors in there? ;)

How many Easter egg hunts have we done around this house? 

Pappap would always keep a list of where he hid each one to be sure we found them all.

There are a few places around the world where I've left pieces of my heart. The city streets of Hong Kong, painted all over Chiang Mai, Thailand, it beats in Dimnent Chapel at Hope College, and now Singer Road, New Freedom.

As we pulled out, Jaina yelled, "Goodbye, Mimi's house!" And I'm so glad she did, cause I couldn't.

Groovy paneling in the basement

Thank you, Mimi for always making your house a home. Thanks for all the overnights, the Thanksgiving dinners, and allllllll the Goldfish. Thanks for letting me live with you and Pappap for a year after college. In a world that was always changing 207 meant a lot.

fiona's birth and the bed-in

Introducing, my daughter, Fiona Ruth; born at 3:14am, July 29th.

 She was 7lb. 4oz., 19 in. with lots of fight in her!

Birth Timeline:

July 13th - Cervical cerclage removed at 36.5 weeks. Go out to Buffalo Wild Wings after. Leave the restaurant, and realize baby has DROPPED. Looks like that little stitch did it's job!
July 17th - Doctor declares me 3cm dilated, 80% effaced, with baby's head engaged! We expect to go to the hospital any minute.
July 18-27th - Nooooothiiiiiiing haaaappeeeeens.
July 28th 7:30am-1:00pm - What a nice chill day. Maybe I'll shave my legs and blow-dry my hair for the fun of it. Heck, let's paint our nails. Huh, I'm having more Braxton-Hicks than usual.
2:00-3:00pm - Yeaaaah, I should start writing these down. And maybe clean the kitchen.
3:00 - Call Zach on his way home from work to say I hope he wrapped everything up cause they might tell me at my doctor's appointment today that this is it. Contractions are 10 minutes apart but completely painless. Just a tightening and release. Jaina and I speed-clean the living room.
4:00 - Put bags in car on the way to doctor's appointment just in case.
4:20 - Doctor doesn't think I'm in real labor yet, but, hmmm, blood pressure is elevated... we're gonna send you to the hospital anyway.
6:00 - Meet Dad at York Hospital, say goodbye to Jaina, head upstairs. Contractions are 6 minutes apart and utterly painless.

6:30 - My good friend, Meredith, is my nurse. Yay! Labs for possible preeclampsia all come back negative, as expected, but they decide to have me check in anyway. Contractions are 4 minutes apart, moderate intensity, but still just feel like a blood pressure cuff tightening. What the what?
8:30 - We get set up in our own room. I find out that because of my prior c-section I'll need to be hooked up to a monitor constantly to record Baby's heartbeat. That's kind of a bummer cause it means I'll have to stay within steps of the bed rather than shower or walk around which I had been planning on to manage pain. I bounce on the birth ball for a while while Meredith holds my monitor in place since Little Lady was being stubborn and making it difficult for us to hear her heart.
9:45 - Midwife comes in and breaks my water. Woosh! Here we go.
10:00 - Um, yeah, this isn't comfortable.
10:05-11:45 - I AM EARTH MAMA, HEAR ME ROAR!!!! Do. not. touch me.
11:45 - Still only 4.5cm dilated. Epidural requested.
12:15 - Anesthesiologist arrives
12:45 - Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh..... Dim the lights. Zach falls asleep immediately. I close my eyes and settle in for the night.
1:15 - Nurse switches me to my other side and has me put on oxygen to help Baby's heart rate stay where it should be. I sleep between each contraction, but they're getting uncomfortable.
2:00 - Why does my butt hurt?
2:15 - I think I'm supposed to call if my butt hurts. If it still hurts at 2:30 I'm calling. ZZZzzz...
2:30 - Heyo! Baby's very ready to come out. Wake up Zach. He basically has a heart attack.
2:40 - My bed magically transforms into a piece of gym equipment, and they watch while I do a practice push. Midwife and nurse immediately gown up. For some reason I become very concerned about Zach and keep asking if he's okay.

3:14am - Roughly 10 contractions later I manhandled this baby out of me. Seriously never been prouder of any accomplishment. She was born face up (!!!!), and presented forehead first which is supposed to be quite a bit harder to push out. She also had her cord over her shoulder and across her body - Miss America sash style.

I had the most amazing epidural. I couldn't feel any pain, but I felt all the pressure and knew right where she was. That helped so much. Also the handles. Once they brought the handles up on the bed I rocked it.

She was so healthy and ALIVE when she came out, and it was pretty amazing to have her right up on my chest immediately. There were lots of perks with Jaina's planned c-section, but man, nothing beats that immediate contact with your kid.

3:30 - The midwife calls an OB in to do my repair stitches, and - yay! - it's my favorite doctor at the practice. So I got to see her while she fixed me up.

4:00-5:30 - After they finished with me and got Fiona all weighed and cleaned up she came back to me and nursed like a champ. Baby instinct is pretty incredible.

6:00am - We got to our room over in maternity and realize a new day just started. Only we didn't get to sleep the night before... It's gonna be a long day.

It took me quite a while to get over pulling that all-nighter. The highlight of that day was watching Jaina meet her baby sister. She was so sweet and basically clobbered her with kisses.

I didn't get to sleep much that night either. It felt like people were coming in my room all night long. And never while we had Fiona up to feed her. Grr.

My fancy homemade hospital gown. ;)

Then the next night Little Miss wanted to eat literally every hour. Friday morning I finally had a nap for an hour and a half. That was my longest stretch since Monday night. Yuuuuuuck. 

 Her profile is already so different since her face has come un-smushed.

That's what coming out forehead-first will do to ya.

I saw a mom online compare that first post-partum week to John and Yoko's bed-in. I totally agree, except with a lot more bodily fluids. ;p I was only steps away from a bed or couch for over a week. You're in a whole different dimension. It's uncomfortably intimate, tender, and intense. You can be deliriously happy one second and in the very depths of despair the next.

We've been this new family for over two weeks now, and I just feel like I'm crawling out of the postpartum bed-in cave. I finally returned all the texts I received. I'm beginning to be interested in what's going on in the outside world.

I don't know if other women experience this, but I feel like my mind was operating on over-drive the week after Fiona's birth, but I had no strength or will to express all the thoughts I was having. What this results in is whole essays written in my head while I sat nursing Fiona all night and day but then not being able to get any of those words down even if I got to a notebook or computer moments later. You'll just have to trust me when I say I had so many glorious thoughts on motherhood, birth, mortality, and pain. I think I mentally solved a few women's rights issues too. Too bad the world will never know... ;)

 Dressed and ready to go home!

Here's one snippet of something I was trying to work out:

People often look on postpartum women as angels. These serene madonnas holding court from their hospital beds. But what if we changed our perception of new mothers from angels to warriors? Wounded warriors who've just fought the biggest battle of their lives. Madonnas are silent, stoic; a sweet facade against which a precious baby sits. 

Warriors have a story worth hearing. People ask a warrior about the wounds received in battle! A madonna sits there LITERALLY BLEEDING, in a haze of hormones and maybe narcotics, muscles aching, body alternating between sweating and shivering, and sweetly answers questions about her baby - glossing over any of the unpleasant details of her birth.

Not sure where that was headed, but that's just a glimpse of what a brain high on adrenaline and every other hormone sounds like. There should be a nursing app that also has a voice recorder to capture all of the musings women have while they feed their children. ;)

So that's Fiona Ruth's birth story! I was soooo happy with how it went. She's doing so well. Jaina's doing great. Zach and I are getting there. ;) I'm trying not to be impatient waiting for our routine to fall in place. We'll get there.

More about Fiona's name to come. It took me two weeks to write this, so don't hold your breath. ;)

raspberries, flower crowns, and baby bumps

Today, I am 35 weeks pregnant. The fact that a living, wiggling, pooping, snuggling newborn will be in my arms soon is really sinking in. There is soooooo much left to do to get the house ready for her arrival, but since I'm not allowed to lift anything Jaina and I spend the days HAVING FUN. Which I think is a great use of the time before baby comes.

My grandma brought me the flowers that were in church last week for the anniversary of my grandpa's death two years ago. She was going to be out of town for a few days and brought them for us to enjoy while she was away.

They've been pretty, but reached their peak a few days ago. So during Jaina's nap today I thought I'd try my hand at a flower crown. These are all the rage on Pinterest, and it seemed easy enough. I didn't have any floral wire or tape, so I used regular wire and electrical tape to attach the flowers to a plastic headband.

What a fun project! I want to get a few more plastic headbands to have on hand so I can make crowns for all the Hallead girls whenever we have leftover flowers. Too bad it only lasts a day, though. I guess that's what makes it feel so special. 

 There's the neighbor's stalker cat being a creeper.

Also, the angle of this picture is deceptive. My belly is HUGE.

 This little girl was in RARE FORM today.

She's very into making "funny faces" right now, and was going through her whole repertoire.

It felt like a nice tribute to Pappap, somehow, to use his flowers to MAKE something and to HAVE FUN. He was all about having fun. ;)

The little thicket behind our house is full of raspberries every summer. There were finally a few ready today! 

None of them made it into the house. ;)

Once Daddy came home we had our very own photographer. 

"Baby" made it into a few shots. Can't wait till Jaina learns the art of actually naming her playpals. ;)

Life's about to change a lot, my love! Can't wait to go on this adventure with you.