Dance Recital

With the arrival of Gavin on monday it's almost been too easy to glide right over Jessica's big weekend and special events. To be fair I must dedicate this post to her. On Friday June 13th, I made the most difficult drive out to Hutto with Jessica, Lily and a young friend to help out with Lily for the dress rehearsal. I was a little nervous to be an hour further from the hospital especially after feeling contractions the whole trip out there and praying they were fake. I was miserable to say the least and cursing Jhonny's boss for making him work on what was supposed to be his day off. I survived and got home late with swollen ankles.

The next day Grandma and Grandpa Ellis came to watch the performance and to take the girls home with them in case the baby came early. Jessica was beautiful in her Ladybug costume and pink lollipop costume. She did a great job, but we left before the finale - 1 because sitting there was hard enough on me and 2 the girls had a two hour drive ahead of them.

At one point a ballet routine was performed to Butterfly Kisses. Lily got up on my lap and hugged me for a minute. Then she got off and ran away with her grandma. I started blubbering as I thought about my girls leaving for possibly two weeks. It was a bitter sweet moment. Perhaps I was also grieving the loss of Lily's babyhood. She has been so sweet. She doesn't quite understand that her role of being the baby has been stripped from her and given to another.

As Jhonny and I drove home in the silence we discussed our plans for the week and determined to go get a hotel for a few days closer to the hospital, just in case. We made plans to spend Father's Day with some coworkers of his who are from Venezuela so I could meet the wife in case I needed a ride to the hospital while Jhonny was at work. The Delgados were very nice and extremely accomodating.

As it turned out, we didn't need their services after all since the doctor decided to induce me the next day due to high blood pressure. After getting to the hotel room Sunday night, my head started pounding with pressure and nothing I could do would relieve the pain. Sometime during my sleepless night, I begged Jhonny not to leave me the next morning to go to work and to take me into the doctor early. We had a scheduled appointment for 11:30am, but I couldn't wait that long. Jhonny called in sick and took me in as soon as the office could squeeze me into the morning schedule. The protein in my urine and somewhat dilated cervix convinced my doctor to send me over to labor and delivery. What a different experience to actually be alert to answer questions for the paperwork and sign my name without a shaky hand. We were all tucked in and ready to go when the doctor showed up after lunch to break my water and put me on pitocin. The real contractions began sometime around 12:30 although I had been having some light ones of my own for a while before that.

Jessica and Lily arrived some time around 1:30 with my parents, so I didn't have too much time to miss them. I could blame the dance recital for pushing me over the edge or attribute everything to a higher power at work to put all in place for everyone to be in the right place at the right time for all to work out for our good. I'm more prone to the latter.

Anyway- after actually getting an epidural this time and not having to suffer so much through the difficult part of labor, I was complete at 5:30pm. The doctor arrived at about 5:50 and told me it was time to push. 6 minutes and 4 pushes later, he was born. No tears, no episiotomy, no bruising - just pretty easy. Wow! What a new experience.

Jessica and Lily only got to hang around for about 30 minutes after he was born and before he really got cleaned up before they went back to Houston for the rest of the week with Grandma and Grandpa.

Since the recital was complete and I didn't have to worry about hair styles and Jessica was in town near her hair stylist aunt, I told Jessica it was time for her to cut her hair. She has been wanting to donate her hair to locks of love so we've been letting it grow since January. I was nervous about her liking it short since it's been long since she was 2. I told her to let Aunt Mandy know how short she wanted it and we'd send it in if there was enough. She came back with this cute cut and loves it. Phew.

On Wednesday, Jessica officially turns six. We've been celebrating all month long so it seems like old news, but really my little girl has 3 more days of being 5. She seems much older some days. I think back to when I was six. My birthday was just after Mandy was born. I remember being a little mama to her too. Six is the perfect age to have a new baby in the family. As difficult as it must be for Jessica to be kicked so quickly out of the lime light, I'm surprised at how handy it is to pass off the baby to her and take a quick break to . . . I don't know BLOG?