Happy birthday, Roni!

The baby was actually due October 21, so my Mom decided to come to Florida to help and she drove out with a friend. I'd had false labor and actually went and spent a few hours at the hospital before they told me to go home. Finally, when nothing was happening by the end of October, they decided to induce labor on the first of November. I went into the base hospital in the evening of Hallowe'en, meaning I would miss our second Hallowe'en. (The first year we were married, the day was on Sunday just like this year, and the children of Alamogordo trick-or-treated on the Saturday, so no one came to the door when we were ready.) They prepped me and gave me a nice mild sedative, which was all Roni needed to decide it was time!

I woke about 11, very uncomfortable. They took me to a labor room and I tried to sleep between contractions. At 4 or so they called Rich, not that he was allowed anywhere near me. I was given a saddle block, and Roni was born about 5:45 or so. They gave her a 9 APGAR, one off for color, and I fell in love right away. (I'd had rubella early in the pregnancy, so was really worried that the baby would have birth defects.)

Don't do a saddle block (I don't think this is normal any more. Things were a good deal different 30-odd years ago.) I had to lie perfectly flat for 12 hours, for fear of paralyzation. Yet I was starving! Scrambled eggs, even hospital scrambled eggs, are really not very good flat on one's back! Then I was prone to fainting, and keeled over a couple of times, once when I went to the bathroom, picked up off the floor by a nurse, and another time shuffling down the hall with Rich to see the baby in the nursery. That time I slumped against him at an odd angle, and an orderly picked me up and carted me back to my room. I woke up in his arms, whirling (I thought.) Poor Rich felt pretty inept at this point.

The hospital had all sorts of 30-year-ago rules and one of them was that my Mom couldn't see the baby except through the nursery window. (Also, nursing on a schedule: small wonder I failed at it and put her on a bottle.) Mother had to take her friend back to Laramie before I could go home. They kept us in the hospital an extra day (5 in all, doesn't THAT sound antique!) because I was anemic.

I thank God every day that Roni is healthy and normal (well, normal for THIS family.) I'm really happy I had her. Happy birthday, kid!

Yesterday we had our Nigerian pastor again. He got to talking about paying attention to the sermons, and about people checking their watches. Embarrassed giggles. He pointed out that if we went to some Protestant churches we would be singing and shouting for upwards of 4 hours, and here when the priest says "The Lord be with you" we mumble "And with your spirit". He told us people get upset because they've made appointments and they miss them. "Don't make appointments!" He didn't get into football, though. Then he said "some people are checking their watch now" and I thought to myself, "I wouldn't dare!" It was a funny sermon (only 19 minutes, says my clock-watching husband.)

Since the topic of the catechumen program was saints, we had a film about Venerable Father Solanis Casey, who as the porter of an urban monastery in Detroit seems to have performed a number of miracles. The church is looking into these to see if they might, one day, declare him a saint. Our presenter is the great-niece of this priest. Interesting discussion and I have a couple of books to look up about him. He might become the first American-born male saint. (Saints are just friends of God, and we're all called to be saints, but some are "canonized", i.e. declared as such by the Church. And no, we do not worship saints, we ask them to put in a good word for us to their friend Jesus.)

Monica writes that there was some excitement at her place this weekend. She says they got about 250 trick-or-treaters. We had a disappointing turnout here. There were only about 15 kids, and most were big ones. We had three Pez dispensers, too, which I never got around to sending out, so we were going to give these to the grandkids across the street, but they never came around. Oh, well, more Snickers bars for me. Sam enjoyed the candy I left for them.

Rich's colonoscopy which was to be tomorrow had to be postponed (till the day before Thanksgiving, oh joy) because the doctor's father had died. My law-professor-friend's father died this weekend, too.

We had KFC for dinner. There was a loooooong line. Then when we got home, we realized there was no coleslaw, so I turned around and got it.

William Raspberry wrote an interesting column on the information revolution. And Vote.com, a new site by Dick Morris, is going to shake up some things. (Though they seem to think my Congresscritter is Matsui.)
447 days.