Breck

I love my mom, she’s the best. No really, the absolute best. She is an extremely particular person. Everything has to be done just so. She is unique and carries out life in an incredibly specific manner. I can identify every move my mom will make in every situation encountered. She fulfills the responsibility of motherhood so beautifully. My mom is the type of person that actually measures flour the correct way when following a recipe. (You know the whole deal where you are supposed to spoon the flour into a measure cup and then level it off with a knife by making cutting marks like a checkerboard and then swiping that excess away.) I tend to think that my mother and I approach living life from assorted angles. Then people point out to me that I am in fact, “just like my mother”. Now that I have entered the motherhood game I assume I will continue to transform into a more visible version of my mom. I find myself looking for excuses to linger around her house just because. After racing from Mesa back to Tucson today, the leader I work with in Beehives mentioned how she noticed I spend a fair amount of my time in Mesa and wondered if I was anxious to rid myself of Tucson. I really have no distaste for Tucson and hadn’t even realized how often I was telling this leader I was “out of town” always just barely making it back in time for Tuesday and Sunday Beehive roundups. My mom really ‘gets’ life. She is a wise one who has a solution for everything. She is strong when life is hard and when I say hard I am talking really hard. Although an inadequete means by which to recognize her, she deserves a blog post.

Now to completely switch the topic...I made pumpkin cookies today. Pumpkin cookies are an essential component of October festivities. I don't know how I restrain myself from making them all year round. I think I am afraid they might lose their luster if I abuse the privelages that come with a once a year recipe. I was getting anxious because we are approaching the end of the month and I still hadn't squeezed in that baking session. Luckily, that happened today. Pumkin spice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon all came dancing off my spice shelf. I can drink that armoa all day long! Only seven more days and then it must all come to an end.

I just crave October every year! I can’t even begin to eloquently elaborate on my deep passion for the beginning of change that October brings with it. It makes life feel refreshing and new. It is my absolute favorite time of year. Every day I feel elated by the crisp air. Something about it just lifts my spirits and makes me want to start with a clean slate and conquer the world. I start concocting all of these goals and plans I have for life and feel anew with energy to make it all happen. It is like my mini New Year celebration. Arizona feels real to me again in October. After long months of heat and boredom cooped up inside, it once again becomes a place I identify with and pine for. A little time outside and life is immediately good and whole despite any stresses that might be lurking. If it isn’t clear yet: October is my slice of heaven. Oh…and Halloween, I simply can’t get enough of it. Bring on pumpkin everything!

My last post I declared I was half way done with my first pregnancy and then not another word was said after that. It is probably time to tie up some loose ends and finish the story. What eventually resulted another 21 weeks later was… a baby! Yes we welcomed baby girl Mckenley into our hearts on March 19^th. Pregnancy was something I begrudgingly struggled through all 41 weeks. That is correct, I went over my due date. Plain and simple I really hated being pregnant. There was not one second of it that I found enjoyable. My mom was nice enough to get me some prenatal massages for my birthday that were heaven sent but aside from that I pretty much cursed my way through each day. So now that I painted that grim picture lets get to the day Mckenley finally arrived. Maybe because I felt like my pregnancy was incredibly miserable is why the day Mckenley joined us went as smooth as could be. So without further adieu, the birth story:

The made-up due date of Wednesday, March 16^th came and went and I once again cursed my way through the day. I had my doctor’s appointment that day so Steve and I headed in and left the office feeling a little panicked. The doctor felt slightly concerned about my measurements and was worried that the baby was possibly no longer growing correctly. She sent us away with orders to come back for an ultrasound in a couple of hours and at that point they would make the decision if I needed to be taken into the hospital immediately and be induced or not. After the ultrasound they determined everything looked fine and no need to rush anything. Although I was very grateful we had a healthy baby, I was ready to get the labor going. I was promised that if she hadn’t come by that weekend then they would need to induce me Sunday evening because at that point they didn’t want me to go too long.

Steve and I tentatively planned on Sunday and we worked over the next few days attempting to get life all squared away and organized. Saturday morning (4 a.m.) I was very restless and cramping. Most nights I was extremely restless so I didn’t know exactly what to think of anything. At the time I didn’t quite realize that this was the beginning of labor. I went and hung out in the tub for a while, which once again was almost a nightly occurrence. Around 9 a.m. I headed out for a walk. Before leaving I warned Steve he needed to have all of his school projects wrapped up by that afternoon. I knew this baby was coming that day. My attempt at enjoying a nice stroll lasted a total of 5 minutes. First off, I could hardly walk normally which should have been sign number one to quit and go home. Second, without being too graphic, my shorts were quite soaked so back home I went. I sent Steve to the store to grab some snacks for us to have on hand at the hospital. I jumped in the shower and got ready. Then off to the hospital we went.

We arrived at the hospital around 2ish, maybe 2:30 (I can’t remember now). The lady that took all of our information asked me if I was having contractions and I honestly had no idea if I was or was not. All I knew was fluid was leaking out of me and that doesn’t typically happen on a regular basis so I assumed that might be indicating something. Plus, this constant pain in my abdomen was making life pretty uncomfortable so that also might be something to make note of. Basically, I was about as clueless as they come.

After determining I was in labor I was admitted and hooked up to Pitocin. Once that got flowing through me I was in A LOT of pain. I pretended to be tough for a couple of hours but I quickly learned I have a very low pain tolerance level. The nurse continued to encourage me to get my epidural. She couldn’t really understand the point of sticking it out if I was planning on having an epidural. Once the dry heaving began I was ready to give up the fight. While the anesthesiologist and nurse chatted about their favorite pizza restaurants, I was hunched over gripping a pillow, silently crying and trying to not move a muscle waiting for that intense needle to be prodded into my back. Lucky for me, they came to the consensus that Grimaldi’s is in fact a delicious place to dine. If only I had the energy to order silence I would have had them scared out of their mind to utter another word. As promised, about 20 minutes later and I was unable to move the lower half of my body. I lay in bed, feeling queasy, feverish and shivering for a few hours. Steve quietly sat in the corner of the room not really sure what he should be doing. It was dead silent. I tried to close my eyes and sleep here and there. I wasn’t progressing much for a few hours. Then things rapidly changed and it kind of caught the nurse off guard with how fast things were moving. Around 9 p.m. it was show time. The nurse tried out one round of pushing with me. I did one push and then she stopped me half way through the second push and rushed out to get the doctor. In came the doctor and I did 2 sets of pushes and out came our baby girl. Steve said my face looked like a bright red lobster during those 10ish minutes of pushing. At least he was staring at my face and not somewhere else. She did have the cord wrapped around her neck but our doctor quickly got that under control. She was tiny and beautiful. Everything happened so fast and all of the sudden I had this squealing baby laying on me. I really didn’t know what to think or feel in that instant; there was so much to take in all at once. I really couldn’t focus on anything going on for about the next 15 minutes. It was a whirlwind. We were eventually moved out of the delivery room around midnight. Of course, neither Steve nor I slept more than five minutes all night long. The same was the case the second night in the hospital. After a lot of love and support from our family visitors and being checked out by who knows how many nurses, we headed home early afternoon on day two.

Everyone continues to tell me I have an angel baby. I have nothing to compare it to but I can’t complain so far. She is definitely heavenly sent and brings out the affectionate side in me that I hardly realized existed. I can’t count how many times a day I smoother her with kisses.

Mckenley is now 4 months old and the first months of her life are already starting to blur. Month one was very trying for me. You are given so much advice it gets to a point you don’t even know what to do anymore. She wasn’t sleeping very well and as a result she did a lot of crying. Eventually I got that sorted out and life became much more manageable (I won’t tell you how because it goes against doctor’s orders but it worked so if I had a sleeping baby you bet I was going to do it). Now she is a fabulous sleeper and can sleep for hours on end. I won’t mention how many hours she sleeps at night because I know it will riot an endless supply of jealous moms. Although she handles almost everything wonderfully, she does have a few hiccups. One major one being her issue with traveling. We have determined she has motion sickness. Therefore, I can rarely leave the house. She can’t handle the stroller, a car or really anything of similar movement. Trying to get her into a car seat is a delicate matter. I have to put on quite the distraction in order to get her buckled in. On a good day, she can last about 15 minutes in the car. That is when things are going as perfect as possible. The scream that can come out of her mouth is potent and painful to listen to. It breaks my heart listening to that cry because I know she doesn’t feel well. For the most part I try to stay put and avoid going much of anywhere. I am currently looking into remedies that could help. So that is where I am at in the land of mommy hood.

I think I am caught up now. In summary, we have a daughter that we love and adore!

I think people confuse compliments with criticism once you are pregnant. I have successfully made it to week 20 and I’ve successfully received some of the stupidest comments from people. Take for example my work environment. Suddenly it became kosher for a lady I work with to tickle my stomach once she knew I was pregnant. I am far from a touchy feely person so every time I see her in the distance I usually change directions to avoid the dreaded tickle. Last week I came into work one day feeling really tired and looking really white trash. I had run out of time that morning so my efforts at getting ready involved slicking my hair back in a wet bun and applying no makeup to my face. The tickler lady walked in my room and declared, “You are changing. Your face looks sooo big!” I wanted to slap her with all my might. Granted I looked pretty homely but that was definitely the last thing I felt like hearing that day. I tried to ignore her but she continued to comment on my large face. Well today really topped it off with her. I wore a form fitted shirt to school. It showed every ounce of my stomach that exists. She walked up to me with her mouth wide open (I am not making that up either. Literally, her mouth was gaping wide as she approached me.) and said, “You are HUGE! Not only is your stomach huge but every part of your body is huge.“ I tried to defend myself and told her I was 20 weeks. She persisted with the large size of my self. I am completely baffled by her comment. Seriously though, does all normal human conduct go right out the window with the pregnancy card? I do feel like I suddenly look pregnant overnight. Within the last week I have a protruding gut that wasn’t there a mere week ago. However, I’d like to think that this gut can't be defined quite yet as “HUGE”.

Pregnancy has taught me that my body is no longer my own. Don’t mind the fact that I took a 7 hour nap yesterday. Yep, 4:30 pm to 11:30 pm was my nap time. Not planned in anyway shape or form. Last thing I remember was sitting on the couch to plan out a grocery list for dinner and I wake up starving in a pitch black family room very confused. Steve was equally confused when he walked in the door at 11: 45 pm assuming he would find me fast asleep in bed for the night. Nope, 11:30 last night meant dinnertime for me. I was awake long enough to chow down my food and off to bed again.

Update time…get excited! Robert Steven Reed’s birthday was yesterday, April 30th. Let’s just say depression about his birthday this year set in months before the actual day. He was bummed for multiple reasons: 1.) He came to the conclusion that being a 26 year old was the end of youth-hood. I think saying 26 makes him feel officially old. 2.) He had to take his first of many law school finals this semester which was scheduled to begin on his birthday. Not only did he have to start finals on April 30th but the first final was a writing exam that was given to him at 8 am and was due at 5 pm. So, he spent a total of 9 hours completing a final on his day of birth. What made him more upset was that there was no breather in his final schedule for the next 14 days following his birthday so there would basically be no time to celebrate in true birthday style. Much complaining has been done the last several months. I did get him to agree to a birthday dinner after he finished his final. I think he was trying to keep the mood as depressing as possible and make me wallow in his sorrow with him because he wouldn’t allow me to hype up the dinner in any way. I suggested inviting his family to Tucson for the feast, which I know they would have come in a heartbeat and he turned it down. I tried just letting his parents come and he refused. I proposed inviting a few couples in our ward to go to dinner and then play some games after and Steve also shot that down. As his birthday got closer he even toyed with the idea of dismissing a dinner with me. I wasn’t about to go along with the pity party.

Towards the end of December when Steve first called attention to the atrocity that would occur on his birthday, I started brainstorming how to combat the vindictiveness of law school. A few days later, Steve and I were in the car and his thoughts started to wander to some of his favorite memories. One memory he brought up was a spontaneous trip he took with his college friend Dave Liljenquist to Las Vegas. The purpose of the trip involved dining at Lawry ‘s Restaurant. The food had been talked up in every way possible, therefore it was a necessary expense to fly to a different state to partake of the coveted meal. While there for the day, they also made their way to a fancy shmancy barbershop where Steve claims he experienced pure bliss due to receiving the absolute best shave of his life. I had no idea shaving could be experienced in such a pampered form. Listening to him rave about living it up as a bachelor got me thinking. First off, I was somewhat jealous that his top of the list memory did not include me. Second, I figure I could one up Dave and relive the experience in an even more extraordinary fashion. Third, why shouldn’t I blow away the minute amount of money we do have and prove that being a poor newlywed is amazing? It was decided and finalized immediately in my mind that Steve was going to have an outstanding birthday whether he wanted to or not and Las Vegas would be the perfect remedy. The only problem was I had no idea how to finance a vacation because I am a school teacher hence we are poor. I started looking at our monthly expenditures and trying to sort out a way to make this trip happen. To be frank and brag about myself, I really wasn’t spending any money each month so there wasn’t going to be an easy way to pull out money for this trip without Steve noticing. The real reason I don’t spend money is I am basically too lazy to go anywhere to spend the money. There you have it folks laziness supersedes wasteful spending in my life. Ok, so there is one area that I am quite good at wasting money, groceries. My weekly grocery bill is probably ridiculously high in most people’s eyes. The bottom line is I grew up in a family where we were fed very healthy meals. Healthy, organic food is expensive. I have a hard time buying crap food. We don’t ever have much food in our fridge or pantry but the food we do have is usually expensive. I don’t feel that bad about it because I don’t really spend money on anything else so that is my justification. To make this birthday surprise happen I decided to sacrifice my love of expensive food and made a commitment to cut our grocery bill in half for the next several months. It was a hard feat. There were several nights of boxed macaroni and cheese throughout the experiment. I thought I was being majorly sneaky and oh so clever. I basically was hoarding money and Steve had no idea. That is until Steve caught me. One evening I ran to the grocery store and as I was checking out I did my regular routine of watching the total ring up and then withdrawing the remaining balance that would add up to the typical total I used to spend on groceries. As I am standing there with cash in hand I glance to my right to see Steve standing next to me staring at the cash. He had decided to come say bye to me before he headed back to the library to study. With a very curios look on his face he asked what all the cash was for. I fessed up and told him I was trying to save up for something. Since that day he has pestered me constantly about what I was saving money for and what I was scheming. Luckily, he never got close to guessing a birthday extravaganza.

I held in my plan for a total of 4 months. Fast forward through all of the planning, saving and waiting to April 30th, Steve got home from taking his final and I had 9 wrapped presents awaiting him. The first 6 boxes were just pieces of paper with clues leading up to the announcement of his actual gift. He opened them one by one and by the 4th clue he felt pretty confident he was headed to Las Vegas. When he got to the 7th and 8th box I told him he had 2 options for the final gift and he could only pick one. One box had his Las Vegas trip outlined for him. The fancier present had some random multisensory church event in Tucson that had a pretty hilarious description so I typed it up on a paper and decided to stick that in their for kicks to confuse him a little bit. As expected, he picked the fancy present and was lost for words when he opened it. He really did not know how to react. I gave out a burst of excitement and jumped up and hugged him exclaiming how fun the church program would be. He half heartedly hugged me back and had this really awkward smile on his face. I was dying; birthdays just aren’t as fun unless I get some entertainment out of it. He timidly asked if he could open the remaining box just to see what the other option was. I consented but told him he had already picked so he couldn’t have what was inside of box number 2. He quickly caught on as he opened it up and saw that Las Vegas was in the cards for him. He still was a little confused about the church event I threw in there and why I felt a need to do that. So, we are headed to Las Vegas hours after he finishes his last final on May 14th. His mood drastically changed after he figured out that there is light at the end of the tunnel and his birthday wasn’t as demoralizing as he once thought.

Oh, and as for box number 9, that was a block of Gouda cheese. My dad served his mission in Holland and has this crazy obsession with Gouda cheese. There is a constant supply at my parent’s house. Steve got addicted to it over Christmas break. The last Costco trip we made Steve spotted those enormous blocks of cheese and tried to sneak one in our cart. Being the mean wife I am, I made him go put it back and told him we couldn’t splurge on such an absurd amount of cheese. He has held that against me ever since. I gave in and got it for him as a birthday present. His reaction to receiving the smelly cheese was way more excited than getting the Las Vegas get away. I guess I figured out a cheaper way to his heart. So there you have it. Las Vegas here we come even though we are basically broke as can be!
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Ok, ok, ok here is an update just for you Anne. Ha ha, it seems that all my posts are a personal dedication to you. Well, it is a Friday morning and I am definitely not at work. I am basically useless and can’t do much of anything and I am getting sick of lying in bed so here I am at the computer. My life as of late has been a lot of poor health drama. A few weeks ago my dad and mom insisted I get my wisdom teeth pulled. I know I am way too old to still have my wisdom teeth. Basically ever time my mom would try to set it up back in the day I would somehow cancel the appointment. So my dad finally roped me in and Steve agreed I go do it because my parents offered to pay and that was one more expense we wouldn’t have to deal with. So during my spring break I headed to Phoenix to finally get it out of the way. I had a lot of feedback from various individuals with a wide range of stories regarding how the wisdom teeth experience would turn out. I got quite the spectrum of encounters starting with 1 day of downtime (that advice came from my sister Lauren) all the way to literally almost dying because air got into the bloodstream during the surgery and this person was down and out for 3 weeks (this story was told to me by a lady in my ward). The actual surgery was fine. They put the laughing gas over my nose and I actually started laughing at the nurse for no reason whatsoever. After surgery I stumbled out to the car with a lot of assistance from my dad and a nurse. Apparently I tried to talk the whole drive home to my parent’s house with huge wads of gaze shoved in my mouth. My dad just kept responding with things like, “yeah, oh really, oh, etc.” to try to appease me but in reality he could not make out one word I said. Day 1 of post-surgery went fairly well, granted I was on pain medication and didn’t move a muscle most of the day. I felt great and was thinking this was going to be a piece of cake. The best part of the whole day was having a surprise visit from Steve. He was in the middle of a busy day with law school stuff. But then again everyday is a busy day with law school. Anyway, I was completely shocked to see him walk in the room with flowers late that afternoon. He stayed for a few hours to entertain me and then headed back to Tucson that evening. He really didn’t have time do drive out to Phoenix, stay for a few hours and then drive back home. But, he did it anyway and that is totally to be expected of Steve because he is just like that, it is awesome. Day 2 and day 3 went pretty well. Then I headed back to Tucson to finish up the rest of my spring break. The second I walked in the door back home I suddenly started to feel awful. To sum it up I was pretty sick and miserable for the next week and a half, way longer than I expected! I was not a happy camper. I had to head back to work and it was torture. The second I would get home I would lie on the couch and not move an inch for the rest of the evening. Lets just say all of my responsibilities in life went out the door for a couple weeks. I was kind of a useless human being. I missed all of the Easter festivities with the Reed clan in Mesa which was a bummer. I guess the up side is I think I know every TV show that exists on cable.

So that was part 1 of my health adventures. Part 2 started a couple days ago. I am not sure if the sickness I caught was an after effect of my wisdom teeth sickness or what but I got hit with what started off as a pretty bad cold. Sure, colds are a pain in the butt but they are manageable I guess. So I struggled through the days totally congested and progressively getting worse. Then Wednesday evening the regular course of how my colds usually go drastically shifted. I started vomiting. Yuck! I hate that sensation. So up came my dinner, which I had only eaten a small amount of because I didn’t feel well. I figured that was the end of it. Nope, my stomach hurt like I could not believe. An hour later again I was hunched over the toilet. At this point there was nothing left in my stomach to regurgitate. Well, for the next 9 hours I would be clenching the toilet seat violently vomiting all through the night. It was really odd, exactly 40 minutes would pass and I would start having sharp, aching pains in my stomach then 20 minutes later I would start vomiting and then for the next 15 minutes I would have excruciating pain in my stomach. I was so dehydrated and weak because there was not an ounce of food or water in me that by the ninth round I passed out. At that point I decided to wake up Steve at 4 a.m. because I knew I needed to get some fluids in me and my body wasn’t capable of doing that on its own. We quickly discovered that urgent care facilities are not open 24 hours so the only option was the ER which of course was the more expensive option. It was that or wait 4 more hours and I decided I probably wouldn’t do so hot 4 more rounds. The next 5 hours were spent in the ER. I was pumped up with all kinds of good stuff. Steve was a trooper and sat in a mini-chair in the room with me totally tired, reading a law school book. The doctor recommended I get a CAT scan. I didn’t really want one. I felt like I knew what was wrong with my body and I would be fine once I was hydrated again and full of the medicine that would stop me from vomiting. Somehow I got talked into it. Anyway, that was the worst decision made. I had to drink 32 ounces of this awful contrast liquid before the scan. It was seriously dreadful and my little bladder could not keep down 32 ounces of that crap. The nurse insisted I had to drink the whole thing. My stomach was bulging and the liquid was creeping up my throat. I would think they would take into consideration that I am a young female who has a smaller body than say a full grown male so I probably wouldn’t be capable of drinking that much. After every gulp I would ask Steve to take the enormous cup and go dump some out in the sink for me. He refused because he is honest like that. I was being extremely dramatic about the whole ordeal. Finally, when I had about 8 ounces left my begging and pleading paid off. After asking one more time and hearing that he refused to do that, I attempted to get out of the bed myself and get the job done. Well, I was still too weak to venture out of bed and I was so frustrated and upset that he finally gave in after watching me struggle. Down the drain went several ounces and I called it quits. So off they wheeled me for the scan. As I expected the scan indicated absolutely nothing and the pains in my stomach were from the violent vomiting. What a surprise! Now, I felt way worse than before I had gotten to the hospital. They sent me home with way too many prescriptions because that is how they do it in the medical world. Overmedicate an individual seems to be the answer for everything in their opinion. I made it home and sent Steve on several ridiculous errands because he has basically turned into my servant which I feel bad about but I really needed some help. I slept the day away yesterday and still felt awful but not throwing up anymore. Now here I am today throwing in the towel for a little longer feeling a lot better than I have the last couple of days. I still haven’t eaten any real food because that sounds like the last thing on earth I would want. So sad because usually I love food more than I can put into words. Jamba Juice has kept me going though. Yes, I made Steve drive across town yesterday to get me a Jamba. As a result, he drove around for 1 ½ hours and missed one of his law classes. He acted like it was no big deal but I know in his head he was probably having a mini-melt down. The end of the semester is quite stressful for Steve so he has been a champ with all of my dramaticness. Seriously, I am not quite sure how I did life without Steve. He is great in every sense of the word.

So there you have it. My body has kind of sucked lately. Oh, that running goal I made a few posts back has totally gone out the window. Oh well, life goes on.