Dragon unleashed! Watch out world!

As most all of you know, we have added a new member to the Andrade Loux household.  One that for the past 40 weeks had been living IN MY BELLY.

I realize I have not posted in a while, but the last 4 weeks of pregnancy I really had nothing new to say except for the same whiny pregnancy complaints!!  Backache, leg ache, early satiety, yada yada yada.  You get the picture.  I didn't want to weigh you all down with that nonsense!

I'm happy to tell you that the dragon has finally made his appearance!  Rafael Alejandro Andrade was born on October 8th, 2012 at 1:39 pm.  Almost on time, as his due date was October 7th.  I like to say he arrived fashionably late, on Ecuadorian time, in the style of his parents of course!  At birth he was 23 inches long and weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces.  Big baby!  Mom and Dad had been laboring since the night of October 5th, so we were all grateful and relieved when it was finally time for him to come.  What a long process!

Now our lives are consumed by what, when and how much he eats, sleeps and messes.  All three of us are learning about each other...another long and somewhat difficult process!  The transformation is occurring slowly but we are getting accustomed to each other.

Here are some pics of our precious little one.

Several minutes old, snuggling with Daddy.

Day of life 2

Day of life 3, getting ready to go home from the hospital

Just got home from the hospital, snuggling with Oma!

First visit to the pediatrician

Track suit superstar!

Snuggling with Opa, day of life 7.

Monkey butt :)

The "woe is me, I have a headache" breastfeeding pose.

I've decided to write up and post my birth story, in a way to help me heal mentally from what was a somewhat traumatic process.  WARNING!  I will be describing some intimate bodily functions during this post, so if you are uncomfortable thinking about me in THAT WAY, stop reading now.  I mean RIGHT NOW.


























This is your last chance to stop reading.






























On Friday October 5th, I was 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant.  Still no signs of labor.  No evidence that the dragon was going anywhere soon.  I got up in the morning and went in to work. On the schedule for the day Dr. Yip had 6 nice cases, including several thyroids, a parathyroid and a lap adrenalectomy in two rooms.  Here's a pic of me wasting time between cases.

We finished with cases around 4pm, saw our postops and I was ready to leave the hospital around 5pm.  When I got home, my parents (visiting from Alabama for the week) and my husband were waiting for me.  We changed clothes and headed out to dinner to treat my Mom and Dad.  They had been in town helping us out around the house to get things ready for the baby.  I think they were secretly hoping I would go into labor and have the baby before they had to leave on Sunday to drive back to Alabama.  So was I, secretly.

We had a nice dinner with them, here are some pics of us at Mitchell's Fish Market at the Waterfront.

When we got home, we decided to watch a movie to pass some time before sleeping.  The choice of movie was, as always, left up to the VP of entertainment (Diego), who picked P.S. I Love You.  He couldn't have picked a worse movie for a fully pregnant woman to watch, although it might have been the best choice to hurtle me into labor.  By 5 minutes into the movie, I was blubbering like a baby.  About halfway through, I had had enough.  I couldn't take any more emotion.  I got up to go to the bathroom and found blood on the toilet paper.  I had lost my cervical mucus plug.  About 20 minutes later, around 10:30 pm, I had my first contraction.  Nothing worse than a mild cramp.  Throughout Friday night I continued to have contractions, every 7-15 minutes or so.  Not so bad I couldn't sleep through most of them, although some woke me up.  At this point, my parents decided that my Dad would fly back home to Huntsville on Sunday afternoon, and leave my Mom here to help out in case the baby came.  I thought this was a great plan!  Surely I would have the baby by then and Dad could get a first taste of his grandson before heading back down South.  (Sadly this was not to be :-P)

I continued to contract throughout the night and by 5am Saturday morning, I couldn't sleep anymore so I got up and starting cleaning off my office desk.  I wrote some thank you notes, paid some bills, threw away a bunch of junk mail and started timing my contractions, which were getting a bit stronger.  Every 5-7 minutes!

I tried to sleep a little more, not very successfully.  I took several walks in our neighborhood.  While I was walking, the contractions would pick up, every 4 minutes or so, but then when I got home, they would slow down again.  I played the piano, ate small snacks and drank tons of fluids.  By afternoon I decided I needed to get out the house, so Mom and I went to Costco.  Still contracting.  By this time, all of Diego's family was on alert.  They kept texting and videochatting with us to see how things were moving along.

Saturday night my sister arrived.  She had rented a car as soon as she found out I was contracting and driven to Pittsburgh from her home in Hoboken, NJ.  Mom had made beef stew, one of my favorites, and they had dinner while I watched enviously and sipped my juice.  Still contracting every 5-7 minutes.  Contractions getting stronger.  By 8:30pm on Saturday, I decided to call the midwife to see if she might have any advice on how to get things moving.  We basically decided at that point that I would take a Tylenol PM, try and get some sleep and give her a call back when the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart.  So I did.  I had very strong contractions throughout the Saturday night into Sunday morning, most so strong that I couldn't sleep through them.  Still not much closer than 5-7 minutes apart.  I got up Sunday morning at 4am, unable to lie in bed any longer and went to sit at my desk in the office and the strangest thing happened.  My contractions stopped almost entirely.  I had one or two, maybe three contractions in the next 6 hours.  I began to despair.  What was happening???  Was I in labor or not??  Dad, Kimmy, Mugen and I decided to take a long walk on the trails of Schenley Park to try and jumpstart things.  We walked for 2 miles.  Here's a pic of us on the trails.

Still no contractions.  When I got home, I decided I needed to center and focus myself.  I had gotten too distracted by all the excitement.  Too much (loving and well-meaning) family!  So just after lunch, I went up to my bedroom and sat down to read the Hypnobirthing Handbook.  I laid back on my bed and started thinking about the natural progression of labor and the role of relaxation and meditation in allowing labor to progress as nature deems appropriate.  I started to deepen my breathing and focus on the goal - a productive labor and a healthy baby.  Almost as if my body could hear me searching, my contractions started back up again.  Once this happened, I did not let anything distract me.  I put Pandora's Calm Meditation station on my iPhone, sat at the kitchen table and stared at it while breathing through the contractions.  By about 330pm, I was having pretty strong contractions every 2-3 minutes.  Hallelujah!  We called the midwife and decided I should come in for a check.  She was at Mercy Hospital attending another birth, but she said if she found I was ready, she could discharge me from triage there to the Midwife Center where I could continue to labor.

When I got to Mercy, they put me on a fetal heart rate and contraction monitor in triage.  Kara, the midwife on call, checked my cervix.  This was pretty painful.  She said I was completely effaced but only 1 centimeter dilated, although while checking me she was able to stretch the cervix to 3 cm.  No wonder it hurt so bad!  Then they took my vital signs.  Egads - my blood pressure was 154/80!  I had never have had high blood pressure.  Not even at my last prenatal visit.  Well, apparently, labor contractions and cervical stretching were enough to send my blood pressure through the roof, so now she had to check me for pre-eclampsia, meaning blood tests and a urine sample.  And, yea gods, since I was now having a good bit of bleeding after the stretching of the cervix, this meant she would need the nurse to straight cath me.  Ah, the poetic justice.  How many times have I done this to patients, thinking it such a benign procedure.  Well, in truth it wasn't that bad, just a little surprising...and it left a little burn behind once it was done.  But not much compared to the contractions of my uterus, which while laying on my back on the monitors, were swiftly becoming very difficult to tolerate with breathing alone.  Lying down is (in my experience) the worst position for laboring.  To handle the pain, you really need to be up and moving around, able to change positions, sway, rock, whatever you need to do.

At any rate, all my labs were fine, and with some rest, my blood pressure began to come down a bit, so she checked me again and found I was now 4 cm dilated.  She considered me now progressing into active labor, so she decided to send me to the Midwife Center to continue my labor.  She called the backup midwife since she would have to stay at Mercy to help with the other delivery.  We stopped at a pizza joint in Bloomfield to pick up some dinner for Diego and then headed to the Midwife Center where Abby and Shannon were waiting for us.  They got us settled into one of the labor rooms.  They checked my vitals, listened to the baby through several contractions and taught me some techniques to help breathe and move through the pains.  After a couple of hours of laboring, my contractions slowed down a bit and when she checked me I was still only 4 cm.  And my blood pressure was high again.  She told me she was going to have to send me back to the hospital to deliver there.  A bit disappointed, we packed up our bags and made our way back to the car and back to Mercy, where Kara was awaiting us.  We got there about 10pm, checked in, got all hooked up to the monitors again, and got into bed.  I continued to have a lot of variability in the timing of the contraction, sometimes every 2-3 minutes, but then other times slowing down to every 5 minutes apart, or sometimes even longer intervals, 10 or 15 minutes.  By 3am Sunday morning, Kara recommended that we do something to help move labor along.  Although the baby's heart rate tracings looked fine and my blood pressure was stable, she thought I had been in some form of labor for long enough to try and get things to progress further.  So we decided she would break my water to see if that would help speed things up.

Once my water was broken, the contractions came on POWERFULLY.  Every 2-5 minutes, but so intense I could hardly keep up my breathing through them.  There were a few that almost made me cry.  After about 2 hours of this, and over 48 hours almost entirely without sleep, I just couldn't stay focused anymore.  The pain was so intense and the intervals for recovery so short, I was just worn out from the effort it was taking to try to center and focus myself.  I felt like I was losing the battle.  I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologists came right away and within 30 minutes the epidural was in.  I cannot explain the sensation of relief when the epidural took effect; I looked at the monitor screen and could see I was having a contraction but could not feel it.  I felt an enormous bliss wrap around me as I was able to finally relax all my muscles.  My body was still doing the work, but I could not feel it.  I still had to lay on my back, but it just didn't hurt anymore.  It even took away my back pain.  It felt out-of-body, surreal, and I did feel a touch guilty that my body was laboring away but my mind was no longer participating in it.  They put in a Foley and then checked me again, and I was still 4 cm.  They started me on a Pitocin drip to augment the labor and help my cervix progressively dilate.

Shift changed at 7am and the new nurse, Aileen, and midwife, Kathy, came in to greet me.  Still only 4cm.  Kathy decided to put a pressure catheter inside my uterus to measure the strength of my contractions so they could titrate the Pitocin drip upward to try and get me to dilate.  Once I got the epidural, Diego decided to call my mother and sister and ask them to come spend some time with us.  I think both of us needed the support and he did not want to leave me alone so that he could take a shower or get something to eat.  I agreed; now that I was not in pain, I felt like I could handle more people around me without getting distracted.  Mom and Kimmy were thrilled to be invited to share the experience and rushed over to the hospital.  Once the shift change rush was over, I was able to get a good 3 hours of sleep in and woke up feeling refreshed.  They checked me again, and somehow miraculously I had progressed to 10cm!  The baby was still high so they decided to let my body labor him down a bit before I started pushing.

After an hour he had descended a centimeter and they thought I was ready to start pushing.  I told Mom and Kimmy to stay with me if they wanted to stay.  Kimmy took a perch in the back right corner of the room, where she could man the communications, keep the Dragon fans updated and take some pictures.  Mom stayed in an armchair, except for when the nurse at my right side needed to step away to take care of some other task, then she would step up and hold my right leg during a push.  Diego was by my left side the entire time, holding my leg, feeding me ice chips, and touching my jaw whenever he could see me clenching it, to remind me to relax my face.  He was exactly the labor partner I needed; he did everything I needed him to do, without even being asked.

Because of the epidural I didn't feel pain with the contractions, but I could feel some pressure in my posterior pelvis with each contraction.  With some coaching by Kathy, I was able to feel when a contraction was coming on and use it to push effectively.  Within an hour and a half, I had pushed the baby all the way down to the end of the birth canal, but there just at the end, he seemed to get stuck a bit.  As we continued pushing, she started to prep us for what would happen when the baby was born.  She told us that if everything went smoothly, she would put the baby directly on my belly once he was out, and that she would let the umbilical cord stay connected until it stopped pulsating.  Then, she would clamp it and let Diego cut the cord.  He would stay there until he was able to breast feed, and then they would take him to have him weighed, measured and cleaned up.

With every successive push over the next 45 minutes or so, he seemed closer and closer to being born, but then once the push was over, he hadn't actually moved.  I could feel his head grating upward as he moved forward under my pubic bone.  Kathy told me that this part was more difficult because he was face up (occiput posterior), which meant that he wasn't quite in the perfect position to come out, but things were still progressing forward, and she could see his head wiggling around as he attempted to move face down to get out more easily.  Throughout the pushing, Kathy was doing some very aggressive perineal massage, but even this had not helped stretch me out enough to get his head through.  Towards the very end, I started to get more and more tired, and Kathy decided my introitus was just too small to let his head pass.  He was starting to have some heart decelerations with the contractions.  She thought an episiotomy would allow his head to emerge so that we could get along with the business of being born.  She tested my perineum, and I was not able to feel pain, only pressure, thanks to the epidural.

This is where things get a bit blurry for me.  All of a sudden, so many things happened at once.  She did the episiotomy, the next contraction began, and with the very next push his head delivered, along with a gush of green-stained fluid (when my water had been broken 8 hours prior, the fluid had been clear).  As though from far away, I heard her ordering to call the NICU.  I heard her telling me to push again, and she delivered his anterior shoulder, and then one more time, as she delivered the posterior shoulder.  All of a sudden, I felt the rest of him flow out of me, like a waterfall out of my pelvis.  My stomach deflated.  I think I said, "Oh my god, oh my god!"  I looked down between my legs and saw his head.  He blinked his eyes.  His bottom lip began to quiver.  Quickly, Kathy clamped and cut his cord and handed him over to the NICU nurse, who rushed him to the newborn resuscitation room just outside the delivery room and began to suction his nose and mouth of the meconium-stained fluid.  I could see half of the newborn incubator from where I was lying in bed, but my mother and sister rushed over to be with him and this blocked my view.  I was told later he needed about two minutes of positive pressure mask ventilation before he began to breathe on his own.  After what seemed like many minutes, but was probably closer to 90 seconds, we heard the baby cry, and all of us, me, my mother and my sister began to cry too.  Here are some pictures Kimmy snapped of him in those first minutes.

Suctioning out the nose and mouth, with Oma on the right side holding his little hand.

First cries. 

As soon as he was born, I began to tremble uncontrollably.  I heard Kathy say, "I think it may be a fourth degree tear."  I heard Diego say "Is all that her blood?"  Kathy said "Don't look down there."  She began to quickly deliver the placenta and then had her midwife student begin aggressive fundal massage on my stomach.  She called for the newborn nurse to help run the Pitocin wide open, give me a shot of Methergen and get some rectal Cytotec.  I could feel her holding pressure on my perineum.  Diego stayed by my side.  He told me later that he thought I was going to die - he had never seen that much blood before.  From the newborn resuscitation room, I heard the nurse say, "9 pounds and 12 ounces!"  And I promptly said, "Holy fuck!"  Not super polite, but all this time they had been back and forth about how big he truly was.  They thought probably not bigger than 8 1/2 pounds, but they couldn't be sure.  Of course, according to all the ultrasounds I had had, he was on target for 9 1/2 pounds, but they told me ultrasounds were notorious for overestimating.  HA!  I should be so lucky!

Kathy told me because of the extent of the perineal tear, she was going to ask for her back-up OB doctor to repair the muscle layers, which went pretty smoothly because I was still mostly numb from the epidural.  As the blood loss slowed and they finished up the repair, Diego went over to see the baby.  After he began to breathe on his own, he did great, and within 30 minutes they were able to bring him to me and put him on my chest.  Here are some initial photos of us.

My first contact with Daddy

First time meeting exhausted Mommy
(outside the womb)

For the next four hours or so, they let me rest with him in the delivery room.  I moved my gown aside and put him naked on my chest, hoping that he would still be able to self-latch.  He was a bit sleepy, and he wiggled a lot but did not make much progress towards latching.  They continued checking my blood pressure, which had gone down when the epidural was placed, but began to rise again once they turned it off.  They brought in a tray of food and Diego began to feed me, and I ate  every single bite on the tray voraciously.  The breastfeeding nurse came in to help me get him started with his first meal, and we tried latching for the first time.  Not a huge success, he wasn't very interested.  They checked the baby's blood sugars since he was so big, and they were pretty stable.

After about four hours, they made me get up to the bathroom.  As soon as I got out of bed, I was trembling again.  The feeling was coming back with a vengeance in the bottom half of my body.  Ouch.  I spent the next two days in the hospital under observation due to the extent of the hemorrhage and tearing I experienced.  We went home on Wednesday October 10th, to an excited Oma and fur brother Mugen.

The first week at home was pretty difficult.  I could barely walk from the pain in my bottom, my boobs started getting painfully HUGE, and yet he was not getting enough to eat and losing weight.  We started having to supplement him with formula.  He didn't sleep a whole lot :P.  The good news is, both he and I are doing just fine now.  At his 5 week checkup, he measured 24.5 inches and weighed 10 lb 15 oz.  What a monster!!!  Still gets up 1-2 times during the night to feed, but that's not unexpected.


Now, I'm back to work.  My mom and dad are staying with the us and taking care of the baby during the days.  Dad's alternate job description is gourmet chef and Mom's is housemaid extraordinnaire.  They have helped us immensely - to be honest, I don't know how people do it without the extra hands!!!  Babies need a lot of attention, that's for sure.  We are so fortunate to have them living with us right now.  I can go to work with no worries about the care the little dragon is getting....because I know Oma loves that little dragon as much as or more than I do myself!!!

I started back running when he was 5 weeks old.  Slow and awkward (wins the race though!).  More recently, I started a Beachbody workout program call Slim in 6 to help me gain upper body and core strength in addition to my runs.  I've been running 1-3 times per week so far; my longest run was 3 miles and it wore me out pretty good, but I know I'll slowly build up to the distances I could do before, once upon a time.  Slow and steady, I'll work back up - all the way up til the Marathon in May 2013!!!

Now that I'm back in the game, I'll keep you posted on my running successes and (hopefully few and far between) failures!  Send me an email if you want to run together!  Team Awesome is always looking for more running company.

Winston has come to visit me a few times in my dreams.  One time I was walking him around Seattle. Another time we were together at my parents' house in Huntsville.  I still miss him every day.  I still think about him some late nights, after the 2 am feeding, and remember his last days with us as tears roll down my cheeks.  It is seductive for me to allow that sadness to throw me headlong into despair, depression and existential angst, but I know Winston wouldn't want that.  So instead, I'm going to channel that emotion into something more positive.  Together with Team Steel City Greyhounds, I'll keep running for you, my sweet Winston!  And we'll keep promoting and raising funds for greyhound adoption with the goal that, some day, no hound is ever put down for lack of a forever home.  I know that's what Winston would want us to do in his memory.

Thank you all for your support!  To donate to my marathon fundraising effort, follow this link!

http://www.crowdrise.com/teamsteelcitygreyhounds2013/fundraiser/taraloux

Winston and Mugen thank you!!!

Winston and Mugen visiting Niagara Falls!

Beginning the countdown to unleash the dragon!!!

36 weeks pregnant!  Many of you have already seen I'm getting as big as the proverbial house.  Or the long side of a barge.  My abdomen is officially on no vacancy status right now.  There's not much room for my lungs, my meals or my bladder....and yet the dragon continues to grow!!!  He learned a new trick this past week - using my gallbladder as a punching bag!  My right sided rib cage is taking the heat too.  Swollen feet, puffy hands.  My belly button has almost completely disappeared.  It's getting really tough to get comfortable, especially at night...all the ever-pregnant ladies put your hands up if you identify!!!  Thank goodness, my pregnancy thus far has been completely uncomplicated, apart from all the normal pregnancy moans and groans. I have been very fortunate!  And I'm sure it will continue to be the case.

At this point, I am trying to come to grips with the fact that labor could start virtually at any moment.....and we have not yet strapped the car seat in or packed our labor bag!!! I haven't prepared and frozen any meals!  We haven't picked out a name!  It will all get done I'm sure.  Thank goodness my parents were here this past week and left the house and yard spotless, washed all the new baby clothes, put together our jogging stroller, cleaned out the basement, assembled the Pack-and-Play, and packed up many boxes of books in our study and office to make room for our new guest.  Oh, and Dad put a huge dent in our collection of half-empty bottles of flavored vodkas.  Don't want to be carting those all down to Miami next year, that's for sure!!!  Thanks Dad!  

Anyhow, I'm also trying to remind myself that labor might NOT start for another 5 weeks.  During which time, the dragon will CONTINUE to grow!!!  Just when I thought I couldn't get ANY bigger!  Unlike my previous major life events, this one doesn't really have a true deadline.  I mean, yes, eventually, the baby HAS to come out, and there is a window...but it's not like I can put up a countdown clock because the actual date and time are still unknown.

The element of mystery is unsettling for someone with control issues.  What if I start labor early and leave all my colleagues in a lurch?  What if my water breaks while I'm in the OR, or even worse when I'm in clinic???  I'm starting to see why some people schedule themselves a nice, predictable C-section.  Takes the guesswork out of it.  To a certain extent, you get to pick your child's birthday!  (As long as it falls Monday-Friday 7am-3pm and is convenient for your obstetrician, of course).

I don't know what labor feels like, but my instinct is telling me it's not going to happen any time soon.  Yes, I'm definitely have plenty of Braxton-Hicks contractions.  But the dragon is riding high and seems pretty comfortable in there.  I don't think he's planning on going anywhere soon.  Though he is super big, he continues to buck like a bronco and bounce around like a Mexican jumping bean.  The lack of space doesn't seem to be cramping his style yet.  I'm not sure what he's doing in there (Katelyn thinks he's practicing kick-boxing in preparation for his Team Awesome initiation).  He's gonna be a squirmer, just like his dad, I can tell that for sure.

For now at least, I'm taking things one day at a time....letting go and waiting to see what happens.

Thanks again to all my friends and family for your support!!!  Steel City Road Runners and Steel City Greyhounds are sponsoring a training run this weekend, Saturday September 15th from 7-10am with 6, 10 and 16 mile distances, beginning and ending at Riverfront Place.  Check out this website if you are interested in participating in any way!

http://steelcityrrc.org/scrrcevents?eventId=548254&EventViewMode=2&CalendarViewType=1&SelectedDate=9/9/2012

Mugen, the dragon and I will be there to welcome runners back from their training runs.  Maybe this will be the moment you decide you'd like to run the marathon this year!  Keep it in mind!

Team Awesome!

This post is a shout-out to my running club, formally known as Team Awesome. 

Team Awesome's origins date from January of 2011, when Amanda and I (strangers at that time) ended up throwing a baby shower for mutual friends of ours (Jake, Mike and William, we miss you!  Come visit Pittsburgh!). 

At some point in the party planning, Amanda and I realized that we were both hoping to run the Pittsburgh Marathon that year, and that our running pace was similar.  We planned on getting together to do some of our longer training runs together, because everyone knows that there's nothing to motivate you to to get your bumpkiss out of bed to go running at 8 am on a (VERY) chilly Sunday morning like knowing that someone is also getting their bumpkiss out of bed and will be waiting on you to get there and run too. 

I had convinced Diego to run with me and train for the marathon in support of Steel City Greyhounds that year.  Since adopting Mugen from SCG, I had become more and more involved with Steel City in their volunteer efforts.  I would often take my boys to meet-and-greets at PetCo or on Walnut Street, and volunteered in the Home & Garden Show as well.  They are such good diplomats of the breed!  So I had that extra motivation to get me out to train for the race as well.  My donors were counting on me to finish!!!

During one of our first training runs together, Amanda brought her friend Katelyn.  Amanda and Katelyn had actually met each other during the Marathon the previous year while each of them was struggling to finish.  They ended up running side by side when they were both struggling through the most difficult part of the race and at the finish, they exchanged contact information and continued to get together for training runs. 

The four of us really clicked, and we ended up spending the rest of the winter getting ready for the race together. 

During that very snowy winter, Diego and I found ourselves really looking forward to those weekly training runs, when we would get to see Katelyn and Amanda, exchange stories of the week, try new sports nutrition, and feel the burn together!  We began to refer to ourselves as a group with the name Team Awesome, because we always felt so awesome when we were hanging out!  As we continued to run together, we each took on various roles in team management and leadership, each according to our different personalities.  I became the vice president of hydration, because I always came with my water belt strapped on.  Katelyn is the VP of sports nutrition (i.e. CANDY CONSUMPTION!), because she would always bring new snacks for us to try.  She is personally responsible for my addiction to sports beans (jelly bellies artfully packaged so that healthy people will buy and consume them).  Diego is the VP of entertainment, because he spends all week saving up crazy stories, news reports, books he's read and funny things that happened to him, to keep us all engaged even during the toughest parts of our runs.  And Amanda is the VP of navigation.  She basically tells us where to run and we follow like sheep.   She is VERY organized and knows lots of great routes around the city and through the parks.  She is the anchor that keeps us all from floating away!  Here's a photo of us at the marathon expo - don't we all look so fit???

With team awesome's help, Diego and I managed to finish the marathon.  Here's a video we took at mile 18, thanking all our generous donors.  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=688705177189&set=vb.4813256&type=2&theater.  Thanks also to my sister Kimmy for her awesome videography skills and for being the captain of the world's best cheer team (with Mugen and Winston)!

This is Diego and I "slappin' da bass" at mile 21, courtesy of very good friend Mark Roberts who ran us in to the finish.

Team Awesome remained leader-less until early 2012, when we finally elected our president.  We had thrown around various options for the preceding year, but never found someone we could settle on unanimously.  Candidates included Barack Obama, Chuck Norris, Angelina Jolie and Jesus, but at the end of the day they were all too unimpressive.  Then Diego, as part of his weekly entertainment series, told us about a planet that was essentially one solid chunk of diamond.  I mean, literally, one solid 14 bazillion carat diamond, just floating out there in outer space.  This diamond planet has the advantage of being gender-neutral, universal and totally, cosmically bad-ass.  So in late January 2012, we unanimously voted that the diamond planet would be the President of Team Awesome.

Our (un)official sponsor is PowerThirst, a make-believe sports beverage that will make your sweat glow so you can throw SWEET RAVE PARTIES and make 400 BABIES who will run like KENYANS!  You'll be uncomfortably energetic!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs.

If you're especially thirsty, check out PowerThirst 2.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk  Unacceptable! You'll win at running, arson, weddings, art, irony!!!!!!!!  TOP SCORE!

We continued to train together after the marathon.  Here are some fun pics of us running together:

February 2012

Montour Trail Run Half Marathon September 2011

We dream of making our very own Team Awesome PowerThirst video, only we are still saving up for the explosives that would require.  We can fill miles worth of conversation brainstorming for new flavor names though.  This past winter and spring have been very busy for Team Awesome, with traveling, pregnancy and some injuries getting in the way of our running addiction, so we have not been doing a lot of running together lately, but we did have a team reunion dinner recently to catch up.  Here's a picture!

Team Awesome truly lives up to their name.  They have all signed on to run the Pittsburgh Marathon next year with me in support of Steel City Greyhounds, in honor of Winston.  So we have a lot of work to do to get ready for next May!!!  They are super-excited for the arrival of the Dragon, who will add more testosterone to the balance (PREPOSTERONE!)  And my Aunt Kitty, Uncle Dave and their gang all pitched in to get Diego and I this super-duper running stroller!  We are all ready to get back onto the horse once he makes his tiny arrival! 

I would also like to thank from the bottom of my heart these other folks who have promised to run for Steel City next year, either the marathon or half marathon:  Oriana Hunter, Kimberly Loux, Alex Parilli, Ana Quintana, and Patty Souza.  You are all champs!  You can do it!  Together we will make Winston proud!

Team Awesome always has room for new members!  (That is if you feel you're up to the hazing process required for admission).  And, if any of you readers out there feels inclined (or a tad crazy), the contact person is Korryn Mozisek; to sign up as a member of the Steel City Greyhound charity marathon team email her at:  scgmarathonteam@gmail.com.

Don't do it for me!  Don't do it for Team Awesome!  Don't even do it for Winston!  Do it for YOU!  You'll feel like a rocket ship made out of BICEPS!

Mugen and Winston in the swimming pool at the end of summer greyhound pool party - August 2010

Walking for Curesearch

Today I am writing about my friends Martina, Emilia, Gaby and Javier Barreiro.  In April of 2011, Martina was diagnosed with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.  She was 14 months old at the time.  The past 15 months have been a challenging time for the Barreiro family.  Martina has undergone two major surgeries, had multiple indwelling catheters placed and has undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy.  Despite all the trials, the side effects, the worry, the appointments, she and family have continued to remain amazingly upbeat, positive and energetic.  And, miraculously, all signs of her cancer have disappeared.  She underwent her last chemotherapy in July.

On August 25th, she and her family will be participating in a 5-kilometer walk for Curesearch, a foundation that funds and supports research to diagnose, treat and prevent children's cancers.  Diego, Mugen, the dragon and I will also be walking to support Martina's team.  Please consider a small donation in support of us!  Check out this website to donate.  Click on donate to a person on the right hand side and enter my name, which will take you to my donation page.  Or click on donate to a team and enter Martina's Happy Feet.

http://www.curesearchwalk.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1022699&lis=0&kntae1022699=F9C42AE5886045D8AE4FE395B8CBEE66


I'm considering this the first of my training opportunities for the marathon.  Of course, I can't begin training seriously until after the baby is born.  But I'm trying to keep up my stamina, despite being pretty tired and pretty darn big.  I'm 33 weeks along now, and we had another ultrasound.  The dragon is currently weighing in at just under 6 pounds, still > 95 percentile.  Oh boy.  I almost choked on my gum when the ultrasound tech told me that.

Still, I'm trying to get to at least one prenatal yoga class each week, and also trying to get into the swimming pool, where the extra weight melts away and I can swim laps and feel like my old self again (almost).  And I've been getting on the exercise bike, though Diego has forbidden me from getting on an actual bike because he's afraid I'll crash (such a worrywart!).

Here's a recent pic of me getting ready to go to the gym!

32 1/2 weeks

The good news is that everything looks healthy, we got to see his little heart beating again, and saw his abdomen expand and contract as his diaphragm moves while he practices trying to breathe.  Way to go, little dragon!!!

This past two weeks work has been somewhat slow, so I have had more time to think about and miss Winston.  On Wednesday, when I got home from work, I found this on the kitchen countertop.  Our vet had called us and asked us to come pick it up.  One of the vet techs there made it for us.  It is a beautiful tile mosaic of Winston's name.  We couldn't believe how thoughtful this gesture was.

Winston made an impression on everyone with whom he had contact.  The outpouring of love we experienced when we lost him was more a function of who he was than anything we have ever been or done.    This outpouring has been ongoing.  Everyone who met him loved Winston....what was there not to love?  Here's a picture of the discharge instructions we got for him once after he had his teeth cleaned.  This still makes me laugh!

Winston was a special soul.  When he was good (most of the time) he was VERY, very good, and when he was bad....well, he was AWFUL!  Just like the nursery rhyme.  But we adored him because of it.  I still don't quite understand how that complex, beautiful soul could be...just gone.  And it still surprises me how much it hurts to think about it.  Being faced with death head-on, it launches me into that existential mental swamp of questions - what does it all mean, where does it go, is this really it?  His body was failing him, but we felt his soul there, up until the last second.  What is this thing we use the word "soul" to describe?

Believe me, I realize I'm not the first person to struggle with these questions.  Many more intelligent and famous people have done this before me and come up with various and sundry esoteric non-answers.  Seize the day! is probably what is all comes down to.

This is my moment.  Right now is my reality.  Today my reality consists of my side porch, with the sun peaking in and out of the clouds and a cool breeze blowing across my shoulders, listening to my favorite Pandora station, with my remaining baby, who is never bad.  He loves to hang out on the porch and listen to the cicadas and crickets and birds and watch the butterflies visit our neighbor's flower bushes.  The dragon is sleeping, for now.  Diego's going to grill burgers.  I'm feeling pretty fortunate right now, and pretty satisfied with my current reality....

Mugen on the porch

You're a good boy Mugen, we love you so much!!!

The grillmaster at work!!!

Sweet Home Alabama

This weekend Diego and I took a road trip.  We drove the "mascota" (pet in Spanish, in reference to our Audi TT) down South, a 12 hour drive from Pittsburgh on Friday.  Since Diego went back to school, we had sold the car to my Dad.  It was a nice long drive, and due to an unscheduled detour (oops, the navigator fell asleep!), we got to take the Kentucky Bluegrass Parkway, see a lot of beautiful horse farms and back country corn fields and eat at Cracker Barrel.  Oh, those country corn muffins!  Bless my clogged arteries!

When we turned onto 565-W heading towards Huntsville, we were welcomed home with a rising harvest moon, enormous and rust colored, sitting just above the cotton field horizon with three stringy wisps of clouds floating past it. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it to post here.  I knew we were in the South again.

When we got home, we found my parents, my sister and her good friends Katrin, Dave and Ellie watching the Olympics in my parents' basement.  They may or may not have been approximately 2 sheets to the wind at this time, and yes, Ellie, there was definitely cheese.  It's always good to be home in Huntsville!

The real purpose of going home for the weekend was to attend a baby shower hosted in part by my sister, my mom and some very good friends from my parents' church.  The baby shower was Saturday afternoon, and it was so wonderful to see all my and my parents' church friends, my mom's birthday club group and even some of my old high school friends!  We played a couple of fun baby shower games, ate a delicious meal and opened what seemed like a million presents and cards, wishing us many years of happiness with our new baby.  We felt so fortunate to have such loving and generous friends and family to share our joy with us!  What a fun time we had!  Here are some baby shower pics (thanks Ellie for being paparazzi, Katrin for organizing the mountain of gifts and Kimmy for transcribing like a champ!)

Mrs. Provancha made many of the beautiful Noah's ark-themed decorations by hand.

The gift table (before anyone had even arrived yet!)

Mrs. Wick, Mrs. Mueller, Chrissy Provancha and Louise Provancha Brooks

Kathy Seidler Enberg, Mary Seidler, Karen Rodriguez, Katie Rodriguez Wardman, Ann Wardman, Lin Seidler

Cindy Aulds and Missy Aulds Grayson

Libbie and Elissa Hicks, Vickie Eversmeyer, Kim and Cathy Meeks, Kathy Ontiveros

Mrs. Palm, Mrs. Wingo, Mrs. Shergy, Mrs. Reynolds

Mrs. Reiger, Mrs. Jensen, Mrs. Fakes, Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. Dana, Mrs. Skrenes

Auntie Kimmy's going to take this one home to practice - she failed the nursery rhyme game!

A selection of some beautiful handmade things by talented members of our church.

Mom and me

That night after the baby shower, we headed back to the house to meet back up with the boys, and take stock of the generosity of all our friends and family.  Truly we have been blessed to be associated with such generous and talented people.  We are so fortunate.  Here are some pics of the time we spent together, including some of the lovely things we received at the shower.

Dave

Katrin, Ellie and Dad

Mom, me and Kimmy - I think at this point the conversation might have turned towards the benefits of epidural anesthesia during labor.

This is Katrin's impression of her shock at discovering this quilt was handmade!

Diego's favorite shower gift - the monkey with the devil scream.

Auntie Kimmy is going to be such a good influence on the little dragon!

Dave - looks like promising daddy material!

One of Dad's favorite places to be!  Mmmmm....mouthwatering teriyaki steak.

A ladybug decided he wanted to say Hi! to the dragon.  

The next day as we got ready to go, we took some family pics in my parents' driveway.  It's always sad to leave sweet home Alabama.

Have you ever seen two more excited first time grandparents-to-be???

I miss Huntsville.  The pace of life is slower there.  There are no car horns (you would think).  The people are gentle.  There is always an attempt made to be polite and pleasant.  People make you feel like you are part of their family.  Maybe we will get back there some day for good... but if not, I want to carry the spirit of Huntsville in my heart with me forever, the spirit of hospitality, of gathering people close over taco dip and chicken salad, of fanning yourself with a church bulletin while you sip sweet tea or lemonade over ice and talk about how all those teenage youth group boys you were so worried about have grown up into fine young men, and maybe we shouldn't have been so worried after all.  Huntsville reminds me to be gracious, patient, generous, loving, tolerant.  No matter where I go in this world, I want to take Huntsville with me and share it with all the poor lost souls out there.