The Weather Of My Mind - Forecast subject to change

It’s the first snow of the season in Wyoming… November 14th, that’s a record as far as I can remember. It’s also Olyvea’s first snow! YAY!

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Shyla went to change Olyvea’s diaper around 9pm only to find bloody discharge. Shyla asks me if this is normal and me being the cool-headed person I am… I instantly freak out and tell her to dress her and we’ll go to the hospital. I know… calm and collected, right?

Well turns out I freaked out over nothing… and I shouldn’t of freaked out, she wasn’t crying in pain and was fairly happy, she’d let me know if something was wrong. But what was going on is that Olyvea has a bit of mommies hormones in her and she’s doing what adult females would do. in time they will fade out and her hormones will take over her body. Phew.

I’m a dad and I freak out with my new daughter… I’m so wrapped around her finger.

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Pics here - http://picasaweb.google.com/jfreeland00/BABY#

So after being bounced out of the hospital a few times due to Shyla just not being close enough, they finally decided to keep her until she delivers (we’re thinking tomorrow maybe). Right now I’m at home taking care of the animals and doing a few small things to get ready to go back up and start camping out. Hopefully Shyla is doing better… they were doping her up on Morphine when I left. I’ll post any updates/pictures I get here. Hope to talk to you all soon =)

10:53PM 10/3/08: Shyla is still in hanging out… nothing has changed. She was checked while I was out and she was still 4cm. The morphine (two shots) isn’t doing much for her pain. They want her to get some sleep but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

11:17PM 10/3/08: Woman next to us is in labor, pretty hard to hear her screaming. Good sound proofing

2:15AM 10/4/08: Shyla just received her epidural and is doing well. She had hoped to avoid it but the pain was too much for her to endure. I think she might of gotten by without it leading up to the pregnancy but I have no idea how she would of handled the actual child birth - my reasoning for this is she had been screaming in pain for almost an hour before they did the epidural. Once they rolled her onto her side to give her the insertion she stopped. It was clear by the look on her face she was still having contractions but it was clear they were far more manageable then they had been before. It was something I should of clued into considering she has laid on her side the entire pregnancy and has had horrible back labor.

Now for a brief rant I had wanted to make as the main topic while I had dinner alone in the cafe downstairs - I hate hospitals. They are neither places of life or death but consistent change. Regardless of the reason you are in one, you will never exit one being the same person. My grandmother died in one and my daughter will be born in one, these places contain my saddest lament and my greatest joy. Perhaps what truly eats at me is knowing that I can never revisit the places of their life and birth because both will be wiped down with anesthetic or remodeled to fit the next administrations definition of what this floor should be. The only tangible things I take with me are the things I fear will be stripped of me in old age, that I will live my life in full measure only to forget my greatest joys and be unable to recall them even as they stand before me.

For weeks I had nightmares that Shyla would die in childbirth and that Olyvia would never know her mother save for the brief nine months they shared together. I’m still scared but at the same time there’s a disturbing calm going through me, one that I’ve tried to even begin to grasp at but I find any sort of words fail to describe it.

All I can ask for now is that whatever blessings have been bestowed upon me be passed in full measure to my daughter.

3:20am 10/4/08: 7cm, 100% effaced. Epidural wife = happy wife

4:13am 10/4/08: Fully dilated. Soon to be a father

5:08am 10/4/08: I’m a father

Mother and daughter are doing well. Shyla had a rough pregnancy as Olyvia decided to come “sunny-side up”. She suffered 2nd degree ripping but there’s nothing major to worry about which is good. Currently baby and mother are working on their feeding routine, baby Olyvia is having issues latching on. Then again I’d have some issues doing anything after I was pushed out of my warm bed of nine months. Hell I have issues getting out of my bed every day, so all things considered things are well.

I know every parent says this but our daughter is just darn beautiful, in this regard she takes after her mother for sure. I’ll upload pictures once we get home as the hospital internet is fairly limited in where I have access to.

10/5/08 - It’s 9:33am and we’ve just been told we can bug out whenever we want… woohoo! We never did get our fancy dinner thing but that’s fine by me just get me home and let me sleep in my own bed. I’m off to pack things up and get ready too get us out of here =). Time to take baby home!

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I’ve been slacking at posting updates… I know… and the whole 3 readers I have out there suffer greatly I’m sure A bit of an update so here we go.

September was a month where I had a bit of cash left over to plurge on things for me before the baby came, things to do while I take two weeks off with my wife and daughter (whenever she decides to come out. She’s now over-due… improper postage? Return-to-sender?). So I decided to upgrade my computer to play Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning which has been a blast so far and Shyla plays it with me too… though she’s nowhere near as “dedicated” as I am ;). I also picked up Rock Band 2 which is even more fun then Rock Band thanks to the improvements they’ve provided. I’m tempted to pick up a wireless guitar.. but it’s $70, oy. The things I do to be in a fake rock n’ roll band playing a squeaky plastic guitar. I also picked up Civilization 4: Colonization… more on this later.

Shyla is very anxious to get the baby out of her… I think at this point she’d preform major surgery on herself to get the baby out - needless to say I’ve hid all of our dull butter knives (which makes for an amusing side note. For like a year all we had was butter knives before we finally got steak knives. So every once in a blue moon when we’d think of having steak or something we’d cook it and then give each other awkward glances as we really had no way to cut it except to use the butcher knife. You’d think we’d learn). I suspect Shyla and I will be parents within a week… I can’t imagine her going past this weekend.

Work is going as well as it can be… frustrating and rewarding. The frustrating part comes from my co-worker who feels every right to step in and work on projects I’m taking care of (or have moved to the back burner for reasons) but never bothers to ask. Which leads to frustration and parts that I order going missing (being given to other people for any number of reasons… to which I have to go reclaim and give to the proper person… or make the person who did put in the order wait longer while I get another) and general hostilities amongst us. I think it’s being in such close quarters for two years with people having such different philosophies about work/life that just don’t mix. I think things will get better once we’re in our own offices, whenever that is. The rewarding part comes from my continuing frustrated relationship with Exchange - awesome program, confusing as hell. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve locked out users on mistake… oops.

So way way way way way way back in the day (circa 1993) there was a sweet game that came out called Colonization by Sid Meier (I happen to know for a fact that Brains played this… I saw it on a game post he made on his blog a year or so back… maybe longer). So jump ahead 15 years and good ol’ Sid has given us a re-make of it. YAY! Or so I thought. Either I have become stupidly stupid about tactics and economics in the last 15 years or the game just owns me that bad. I have never recalled being so steam rolled by Europe when I declared independence. Or maybe time has dulled the memory of my poor colonies getting stomped and re-claimed.

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http://www.legacy.com/Statesman/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=116242924

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I’ve gone a wonderful 25 years without a death in the family… and now this shenanigans? First it was my grandmother on my mothers side, then my fathers mothers sister, now it’s my fathers father. Oy! I’m ready for this to stop now… any time is good for me, thanks.

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Today I played my first game of Dungeons & Dragons in almost 12 years. The last time I played it was D&D 2.0 and tonight we played with 4.0 rule sets… a great deal of fun. We have a Warlock, Wizard, Fighter, Cleric, Ranger, and Paladin (me). I did become unconcious once but that was alright… I had horrible dice rolls as usual, but ah well. We’re hoping to play games on Wednesday and Saturdays, I’m really excited to play this more often with my good friends

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http://www.sysadminday.com/

Huzzah!

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My grandmothers funeral is in 14 hours or so and I think for the most part I’m over it, though if it will really “hit” me that she’s gone I don’t know. She was such a wonderful woman and I have so many great memories of growing up around her, I still have the baby blanket she sewed for me - though I’m fortunate enough to not have any scars or damage from the very hot oven she let me touch as a child

From her I got my most notable trait - stubbornness. She was never supposed to live into adulthood or ever be able to have children and yet despite all of the health troubles she had in her life she not only lived into her 70s but also raised four beautiful women, one of which being my mother.. so I have to give the woman some credit.

She was such a very kind and sweet woman and I thank her for influencing the person I’ve become. I wish I could write more but it’s all so jumbled and confusing, though I’m happy to have Shyla here by my side. She gives me a reason to keep my composure and stay clam when I think I’d just be in a ball crying. She is, if nothing else, my rudder and compass.

Goodbye grandma. I miss you and I love you. I’m sorry we never got to see you meet my daughter but I know we’ll all see each other again soon enough.

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So true…. so so true.

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Filed under: Life