some things in general

I did a whole lot of crocheting and knitting trying out this toy pattern I saw a picture of - winging the entire thing, unhappy with some of it, trying other things to push it along etc.  I learn a lot when I do these, and the knitted ones usually turn out great but the knitting takes so long and is so small and hard on my fingers sometimes.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other - since I'm not on duty at the post office I thought I'd work on it yesterday and hope I didn't strain my hand for whatever I do on Wednesday.

 

Talking yesterday I know there was a lot that I wanted to say but couldn't find the right frame of reference.  It's taken me thirty years to realize a lot of the methods I now operate by - and a lot of those were just trial and error.  I just have to make my ADHD tendencies work for me, because this is me, I'm the one getting things done in here, so knowing how it gets done best for me is the way to go.  I'm sure a lot of my methods looks painful to others, and trying to put it out in speech is really hard for me because you can't edit and insert and delete like you can in text without becoming a Mime with a whiteboard /ha - but also - in life you can get all the instructions and all the tools put on your workbench but you have to figure out yourself minute-to-minute how to get things done with them.  I think my dad said it as 'wherever you go, there you are, work with that'... I'm still working on it... and I get things done, eventually.

Then, at forty, I found out more about dysautonomia and Ehlers-Danlos, which run in my father's family and affects individuals differently.  I knew about the dysautonomia from being diagnosed with POTS at nineteen, but learning about the entire 'umbrella' of EDS disorders and genetic links was like getting to see the actual operating manual for something you only learned by hunt and peck.  And even with all I've learned so far, I still haven't completely processed that because life doesn't slow down often - and then you have to decide whether to rest or catch up on things you've set aside for the moment - to decide whether to use up your energy while you have it, and what on etc etc.. or to reserve it and hope you still have some when you need it next.

What I've learned in general about hEDS (hypermobile Ehlers Dalos syndrome, "EDS type 3"):

I can give no advice at all on healthy eating to anyone really - but diet has been about the only thing that can be managed since hEDS has no 'cure' and is genetic, and just naturally gets worse with aging, which is why more people with it start to realize and learn more about it in their thirties and forties, even though they've had it all their lives and sort of just 'got by' until they began to age.  First off every body is so different you just have to find your own middle ground over time, and my body is even worse because hEDS is just so hard to understand in the first place.  The body is always under constant repair, and as you age, your body repairs slower, so in hEDS the damage starts to build up and snowball if you aren't taking care of it.  hEDS is a problem at the base level of how the body makes collagen, slightly too stretchy and fragile, and the body replaces these structures all the time, but slower as you age.  'Dietary collagen' doesn't help because it does not replace the collagen the body is always making in every cell of your skin, muscles, blood vessels, even eyes and gums and so forth, that is just slightly wrong here and there, a little like swiss cheese.  So things break down and strain and 'degrade' in weird and unexpected ways, sometimes heal, but not always quickly or correctly without help, highly confusing unless you at least know why.  A lot of the dietary things that help are advice bodybuilders would follow - even though it isn't expending the 'exceptional' effort of perhaps a bodybuilder, the muscles are constantly still needing that kind of fuel to rebuild themselves from what is just normal activity for most other people.  I'm still figuring out the very strange needs of this condition and I'm sure it doesn't really add up to healthy, but it's healthier than before I understood why everything was going haywire trying to follow the advice a 'normal healthy person' would thrive on.

So when I'm hungry - I follow my weird-food instincts because they're usually pretty correct, high 'good' fat to process the fat-soluble vitamins, high protein, lower carb, lower sugar, lots and lots of anti-inflammatory foods and spices.  Some of the stranger things I like, green chiles, hot peppers, bananas, cucumbers, avocado, olives, peanut butter, celery seed and seaweed etc.. are because they contain specific nutrients that my body needs and are hard to get elsewhere.  I'm craving avocado, not donut - but sometimes I crave tacos or Indian type recipes because of the spices and the antioxidants that come with those foods - black beans, coconut milk, butternut squash, egg yolks, hot curry etc...  And, combinations that other people would find odd sometimes taste really good to me - because I need all those things, and tastes are made up partially by our body's responses saying 'oh yes, more of that!'  I've tried methylfolate once, but should try it again.  I hate that it has to be ordered and I can't get it locally.  There are studies saying a lot of the dietary issues can be helped by adding that, because the lack of some enzymes in EDS gene carriers can cause problems processing folic acid, which is in nearly everything, and then that also causes trouble processing copper and other micronutrients, which are necessary for the muscle repair etc.. snowball effect, too much of what the body can't process, tying up some of the things it really needs to process, and inflammation.

Coffee causes other people to be overjittery and anxious and can't sleep - but again, I'm a case of opposites.  These are things I swear my body 'knew' before I really consciously did, but I often had a very hard time 'listening' to it over the magazine and health advice that gets constantly blared at us in society.   And I always have drank so much coffee at times, you'd think I should be a constant interdimensional blur, but it also has a key anti-inflammatory in it and keeps the vascular system's constriction vs. dilation function constantly exercised which helps combat the POTS dizziness and fainting problems I had so badly years ago.  The few times I tried to stop coffee 'for my health' resulted in inflammatory nightmare weeks that I was told was 'withdrawal' and I'd feel so much better if I just waited until I 'detoxed'.. no, nope, I wasn't 'just in caffeine withdrawal', I was in pain and angry, all my joints felt like I had been thrown from a horse and I was so tired and brain-fogged but couldn't sleep well, and I felt nauseous from drinking plain water that drinking the water was a constant effort where I drink down cups of coffee before I even realize it's empty and stare into the empty cup with little cat-whimpers before levering myself up to go get more. 

Although - I'm really glad my cousin finally tuned me into corn being an inflammatory for us, because that little bit of information to cut that out wherever possible really changed a lot.  Once I started watching where that was in my diet and trying to avoid it there was a huge change in all of my healing and muscle inflammation processes.  And there is corn meal and corn starch in so many things!  It's a lot easier to manage the inflammation that is still here when I'm not actively adding to it with something I didn't realize we were 'allergic' to.  Most of all, understanding the cyclical nature of constant repair and energy expenditure that is present in hEDS really helped me understand energy-fatigue cycle that comes with it, and the exercised 'in shape' vs the overuse 'injury' of the hypermobile muscles.  It also explains why doctors would always think I was 'fine' and then I would turn into a melting type mess and they were like 'how did it get so bad??' and then I'd get back into a repair cycle and it was like 'wow, you must be better' etc etc.. In general though, I 'run myself into the ground' less often now that I know better, although it still happens - and I remind myself to stop early at 'good enough for now' on some things sometimes to assess and not OVER-overuse things that will already be needing to rest and repair later.

 

finally reached the 1000 day streak on my PC account, which I've had since 2017  I was doing French and Chinese yesterday, got Super preview and will try to finish up some sections today in the French and maybe another language.

This week:

I am not on at the office, that I know of, this week - that's good and bad.  It's bad in that I'm not getting the hours, and that will catch up to us later, but it's good in that I had been working a lot and needed a little bit of a break.  The garden is in rough shape - but still producing tomatoes and a pepper here and there.  Something took advantage of my more infrequent visits and ate some of the cucumber plants on one side of the raised beds.  I tried to pull the fencing back up there - it must have been a deer reaching over the fence since there was such an obvious bite through three of them and bits of the plant was left down on the ground with the fence pushed down.

I didn't find the biryani spice I was looking for at the supermarket yesterday, although I got the juice.  What I ordered at the restaurant yesterday was three times what I normally would, when I go to the other place I only get one set of rolls and that is more than enough, but the recipes are entirely different, too.  But I was glad to be able to use the leftovers at home for dinner.  I used five-spice powder and additional black pepper, a finely chopped shishito pepper from the garden, frozen white onion, soy sauce and a handful of the fine egg noodles to add to the leftovers I took home and make a refried fried rice for dinner while Esme and Mark made a pizza.  My food was VERY spicy.  The olive oil I'm using is Bertolli Light Cooking Olive Oil? ( The price went up three dollars a bottle since the last one I bought, which was a shock. )  But I rarely just fry any food in oil - Mark says he has no idea what kind of cooking style it is - but I add a bit of oil to the pan, maybe a tablespoon, and then actually dilute that with about twice that amount of water - heat it up, add onions and peppers and/or other vegetables, and then when they are hot and sizzling, I'll add more water and soy sauce and powdered spices (and the noodles here), sometimes add the frozen greens from the garden in this step because they get really soggy if added in the earlier one, and get that boiling again, then add the rice which I cook up a half cup or a cup at a time and store in a glass container in the fridge.  

I did that sleep four hours and check on the sick chicken thing again, and now I've been up for three hours again.  Yesterday I fell back asleep for two hours later - and today I actually got about four more after I had been up for three.

Writing this is keeping myself from getting back into that crochet and straining that hand before I get a chance to have the effect of yesterday 'hit' and tell me what the muscles feel like today.  (often a ten to twelve hour turnaround on pain there)  I don't think the poor little chicken will make it, she seemed a bit more deflated yesterday even with drinking the bit of yolk I gave her and more antibiotic water and a warm wipe down instead of the soak that I thought might have been worse for her the other day - but mostly the left leg that was hurting her still looks fine but she isn't putting any weight on it at all now that I can see.

bits

 

I woke up this morning with thoughts, things I could publish, patterns, and ideas for kits... working on some of them, sketched a whole lot of them down.  It was nice to be inspired - if I could make something of it, it will be nicer.  I started to make one bag step by step so I could take pictures of it.  Then we went and got some groceries.  Mark is going to make some dinner, and I have post office tomorrow.

 It's funny, but I can SEE where the pain is in the picture.  The hand is at rest as it gets (although holding the camera in the other hand was no fun).  The long red line down the almost center is where it hurts, right where the vein crosses over it in an arrowhead type shape.  Probably a bit of it is from this crocheting, but most of it is just driving and living and having hands built like this... hEDS is fun.

 Onward.  Yea, that.

keeping the brain on a leash

 It's been one of those mornings, I've already poured about a quarter cup of olive oil on bread and chicken, with maple syrup.  That is a sign that the anxious 'I'd like to think something but it will take SO much effort to STOP when I get started...' feelings are based more in just finances and weather.

I thought for a while that my stories for 'The House of Sunlight' had been lost, and was feeling this empty void that I could not write them again, but needed to 'feel' them again, at the same time.  But, Mark found them in a directory I would not have looked in.  'The One Hundred' is a philosophical statement that I needed to hear again, a journey of despair that turns into one of recognition of the journey - and knowledge that we need to look outside the current situation that looms upon us to realize something 'higher' - wherein possibilities begin.

Much better than picking up Moon Palace again, and throwing it against the wall (Paul Auster does that to me), or trying to read 'In the Night Country' for the fourth attempt and shutting it down after a chapter again...

And it brings me back, through a few jumping ideas, to the white room hypothesis.  All this clutter around me, but I can't clean it up, because then I lose it.  Try to organize, but then feel it is futile, because nothing really works.. and I lose things, and then woe about having too many things, things wouldn't get lost if there were just fewer things, but that doesn't work in 'real life', not like the Pinterest images of minimalism or the blogs etc.  

I'm at one of those 'walking the ridge' places - I know so far, at least, I've got my eye on the path and we're getting there... but at the same time I feel like we could fall at any minute.  I know there is so MUCH I can do but there is so much I DO and yet sometimes it seems like it will amount to not enough, if not for the moment at hand, for the future because I didn't do the things, because I KEPT myself from doing the things.. or just didn't have enough energy at the end of the day.  

Yesterday I walked up and down two long driveways to get responses for questions at my job - and this morning, walking up the stairs, I feel like Quasimodo, at least in the legs.  Stepping over the old hound laying across the stairs feels like jumping a hurdle.  The other day I went around taking pictures in the fog, and I felt like the Hunchback the entire time... dragging myself along, the dog staring at me asking 'Mom, why are you walking like that'  Eventually, it kicks back over a gear and things straighten up.. but just sleeping extra long on one side sometimes my shoulder or knee gets out of joint, and then it takes some convincing to make it work properly, or just use it as it is... often use it as it is until some miracle moment it decides to pop back.. then enjoy the juxtaposition of the earlier discomfort against the now...

A little of this is the Ehlers Danlos syndrome.  The drinking olive oil at 7 am is definitely the EDS.. although I can remember back to many specific moments when I felt terrible that about the only thing that sounded like it tasted good was olive oil and maple syrup.  If the rain stops monsooning soon, and the sun shines, that will help some.

If the Universe gets back in order with this coronavirus and economy and everything being upside-down topsy-turvy, that will help a lot.  Since I don't see the latter happening... I guess I dirnk the olive oil, then the coffee.

hEDS knee

I was thinking this is a very typical story of why hEDS is so annoying, and so inexplicable at times.  I have been running six days straight on the postal route for weeks, and at the beginning of the route several of my muscles were on FIRE from overactive use (compared to usual).  Epsom salt baths and hot compresses were good enough for that - although my steering muscles in my chest were the worst of all because they made me feel like I was having breathing issues at first.  I got through all that - the inexplicable one happened last week.

I had come home from an entire day out on the route, getting in and out of the car, walking up to houses etc.  My knee had been mostly in one awkward position in my right hand drive truck, but it didn't complain much.  After I got home I relaxed a little on the couch, and then I went outside on the porch to make a phone call.  I was walking in circles a bit, as one does, while waiting on hold for the store associate to answer.  And after I talked to her, and got my answer, I hung up the phone and made the step towards the door to come back inside.

And it struck.
My knee was twisted and giving me the worst pain I've had in it for a long time.  I could barely put any weight on it.  I had to catch the doorframe.  It was all of a sudden and with no explanation.  I looked down at it and it didn't look any different from the other knee, to my eyes.  They were the same size, *appeared* to be the same shape and such forth...

But one of them hurt a LOT.
I made it inside and sat down in a chair and took the knee in my hands and tried to massage it.  It didn't hurt any to the touch, and it seemed like maybe it was a momentary strain?  I got back up and took a few steps and BAM, no - it still hurt.

I thought maybe I'd sit down on the bed for a while and watch some TV, see if it got better.  But my better instincts started chiming in my head 'it needs heat - bath will help'.  But the bath is all the way downstairs.....

I made it there, holding onto the wall, and ran myself a hot epsom salt bath.  Again, no pain until the moment I put weight on it, and then it felt like someone was taking the long muscle on the inside of my knee and twanging it the wrong direction with every step, the pain ran up and down that muscle with each oscillation.

Just as the water began to cool in the bathtub I started to get up and I heard an AUDIBLE click from my knee, and then immediately afterward, one from my ankle as well.  Both the clicks were on the outside of my knee, and I could FEEL something sliding 'to the inward track' on both of them.  My knee and ankle had been just ever so slightly out of place.  When I got up the searing ricocheting pain was gone, left by a 'damn you pulled that muscle' feeling on the inside tendon.

The next day I had a round quarter-sized bruise on the outside of my kneecap, very dark, like I had hit it with a hammer.  No explanations.  My body was riding for that short time from the porch to the bathtub in an inexplicable 'second position' for that knee and ankle, that was just barely wrong but not able to be seen or felt.  And that short time wrecked havoc on my inner tendon so much that it was hurting all that night and all the next day - but not in the 'I cannot walk' way, just in the 'man what did you do, don't do that again' way.  That was probably how that thing started last year when my other knee swelled to twice its size and I could barely walk without a brace for months.  Inflammation is the problem there, once it sets in the swelling makes things NOT get back in their positions and grind and stretch and more inflammation.. a cycle of bad reactions.

And the thing about hEDS is that all of my joints have these second, and sometimes even third positions that they can ride in if they get 'just' the right position twisted or turned, and if I am relaxed enough for it to happen.  And because I am used to things being 'not right' in a small way, I just put up with that discomfort - it takes a LOT for it to be 'real' discomfort.  My pain tolerance has been noted as being high, and it is not that I am insensitive - I can be VERY sensitive as it builds up together - but it takes a high threshold of different pains together or one very sharp one to get me into action to do anything about it.  Because, it is 'always something'... if you fall apart over the tiny things you will never get anything done at all.

Getting the joints and connecting tendons back in place sometimes is as easy as just moving the arm or shoulder or leg the usual way, or in a wide circle stretch.  My joints pop and click all the time in just regular life for me.  I will wake up in the middle of  the night and start to turn over and it is a symphony of crackles and pops, almost all of them feeling really good as things go back where they should after a night relaxing in gravity positions.  When you sleep your body has produced the most relaxin hormones and it is the easiest and most vulnerable time for joints to move as you are not consciously holding them in the proper positions as you might have subconsciously learned to do during the daytime with hEDS.  I have a habit of building up my pillows and blankets around me to create support structures to lean on so that I can't get my arms or shoulders or knees so badly out of place.  I didn't know until I read more about hEDS that this is a very common tactic and they even MAKE pillows and things for this as preventative medicine.  It is a habit to wake up and turn over three or four times a night to get things back in place.  It is also a very good 'survival' instinct, probably.. and without it I might wake up with something severely out of place and need to do much more to get it back.

But the knee thing shows that sometimes it can take a while and the right stimuli to get them back where they belong - and it can cause damage the longer it is in the wrong place.  And that will only get worse as I get older.  It took until I was nearly forty for the normal cracks and pops (which have been around since I was like eleven years old, and I was told it was all growing pains and being gangly) to cause me much pain or problems at all. 

the amazing

I admit sometimes my brain is still ruminating on the days just before I had 'enough' and said I was done with (L)... it is in my nature to wonder what I could have done differently and 'saved' it all.. but then I flip the switch over and say 'well, what amazing has happened since then?'

I am helping fewer people even more by doing full jobs and helping as many of the pieces fall into place as I can.  I can offer them more solutions and take a stronger stance in helping them get something that will be good for them.

I am learning how MUCH tile is out there (without having to pick up hundreds of pounds of it daily) and forming a catalog in my 'mental warehouse' of all that is available, possible, etc.  I'm learning how to lay it, what materials are needed.. all while talking to many professionals about their methods and what they need to do the job.

Socially - oh boy... I am still an introvert.  But, I'm an introvert who will stretch out to accomplish things and make connections so I can help people.  I've done so much more of this that I have to stop sometimes and take a deep breath and say 'you talked to a LOT of people today, but each one needed something you could give or had something to teach you etc.. it's give and receive, connect and help.'  It's a zen thing.  And that helps me center back and say okay, what next.

I was told that was a lot like my dad, too - he was quiet and in the corner until someone needed something he could do or something he knew, or he needed to talk to people to find out what he needed to help someone.  He was an overthinker, an overplanner, but that helped him in many situations because then he could conquer the problem no one else had thought about.  He was authentic, and didn't make promises on things that he didn't have enough information about until he had went and did the footwork.. and I hope I can keep those lessons in my heart as I continue.

DENTISTRY oh fun

I went to the dentist on Tuesday and they took out another exposed-nerve tooth, and instantly, that side does not hurt now even half as much as the other side, which also needs care.  It's like I was walking around with a knife stuck in there all the time and now there is only one in the other side.  I still have to watch it for infection, but the constant nerve jab is gone.

I've also finally been able to start taking care of my teeth (another joyful side effect of EDS, loose connective tissue in the gums, increased chances of infection, teeth are easily broken and jaw-clenching TMJ is usually present putting stress on loose teeth = wonderful dental issues!)  - although slowly.  After being told that 'it sucks to be me' and having to fight and beg for a dentist appointment, after being told I was going to need serious surgery and other work because 'I hadn't been in often enough for maintenance'... that was really confidence-bashing and added to my anxiety.

Then add the several people who see me go through high fevers and visibly swollen jaw who tell me I'm not realizing how quickly that can turn into a blood or brain infection and how can I possibly not go take care of this right now etc... balanced on the hand of 'if you're gone more than 6 times a year you can be written up and then fired'... I was in such a rock and a hard place but it was only my own health on the line - and for some reason, I let that go so far it almost did kill me.  But... I'm trying to do better on that now, because I need to be here to help my family, and I can't take risks like that for some company that doesn't value me properly.  I can do my teeth a little bit by little bit now, and make and keep an appointment without having to grovel to someone for it.. and take control of my health. 

POSTURE

I have noticed myself sitting 'the bad ways' again and again and am consciously reminding myself - by writing this here! - to stop it!  Do not sit with your ankle bones entirely on the floor.  Do not sit on the edge of the chair with your feet inside the barstool rails and your knees pointed down while you read (although that is comfortable, until it isn't.. )   And the hardest one - don't sit with your entire body askew and your head on your hand with your ribcage out of whack, because it is going to come back and bite.  Sit straight, feet on the floor, knees supported by desk if possible or locked together.  Because knees and hips will thank you for it later... or the opposite, your choice.

Twelve

I know I've posted this in little bits over the years, but I was feeling it this morning.  And, I promised not to embarrass her online, which I am taking to mean Facebook.

But this isn't embarrassing.  This is gratitude.

There almost wasn't an Esme.  And we wanted her, very badly.
It was March of 2007, and Mark and I had been together for a few months.  We had decided we definitely wanted to be parents.  We had been thinking about it all that time, and we were really certain.  I was really underweight, from issues with my previous marriage, and had really low blood pressure that led to dizzy spells that were off and on all my life.  We went to the doctor to find out what I would need to do be healthy enough for a pregnancy.  And they did bloodwork and other tests, and came to tell us the results.

I remember the doctor had a funny look on his face when he came back in the room.  He asked us if we were certain we wanted to be parents, and if we could work through things health-wise to be there.  We said yes.  And I remember he looked at us with a relieved expression, and the nurses leaned in the doorway at the same time, and he said 'Because, you're already pregnant.  Only a month, give or take a week.'  And we were happy, confused, and a little worried!

AND WE WAITED.... and there were complications

They scheduled me for an ultrasound, and we went home.  We didn't tell Mark's parents yet.. but they told us later that we looked like the cat that ate the canary, and they knew something was up.  At the ultrasound a few weeks later though, they gave me some semi-bad news.  The embryo had implanted really far down in the uterine wall, in an 'odd' place, and was not attached well, and there might be problems, especially if she continued to grow there.   Of course, it was much too early to tell 'she', but I'm going to use that anyway, because it was Esme.

A few weeks after that I had unexplained bleeding.  That was a bad sign.  I was trying to do everything right, but they said I had to take it even more easy - because of how she was attached, or we might lose her.  Another ultrasound was planned for twelve weeks.. and they said they'd know for sure by then if she was going to be 'viable' or we'd have to try again.  I was pretty worried and didn't really know what to do.  Mark tried to help me the best he could.  It was out of our hands, and we had our hopes and our doubts.  I know I made a lot of art at this time, and we were doing work for his parents, programming and such.  We stuck together and waited until the ultrasound date.  The bleeding went away, and that was a better sign.  Sometimes, that just happens, they said.

The twelve week ultrasound was both good and bad.  She was in the same position, which meant she was going to be attached there for the duration.  But, she was firmly attached.  No more bleeding, no more worry that she would suddenly miscarry that way.  They scheduled the next ultrasound, the one where they tell you the gender.  We told Mark's parents finally.  They were going to have a grandchild.  We actually started planning to be parents, and asking each other about names and so forth.  Mark suggested Galadriel and Calliope for girls, and he wanted Nikola Tesla for a boy.  I vetoed Galadriel and Calliope, and we decided on Esmerelda, from the Terry Pratchett character Esmerelda Weatherwax.

AND WE WAITED.... with hope

At five months the ultrasound said we were having a girl.  Everything was fine except the way she was growing, which was sideways head to one side and feet to the other.  They said it wouldn't matter for a few more weeks because she had so much room in there, but it would begin to matter more if she didn't turn by seven months.  We went to Hamvention in Ohio.  I felt her kick while we were on the way there, like a butterfly dragging wings down the side of my stomach.   I remember that moment as cruising in a van, at 65mph on the Interstate, with Mark driving and Zeppelin playing on the speakers.   Over the next few weeks she would kick hard and press her hands against my stomach so firmly we could see them - and she loved to hear Mark laugh.  I could feel a physical bouncing rolling response from her when he laughed.

AND WE WAITED, but it was a good time....

She hated tea (so hard in the South!) and burned meat or toast etc.  Those were the only two things that made me nauseous during the entire pregnancy.  There was once she made me drink an entire gallon of orange juice in a single day.  I hate orange juice.  I drank gallons of milk, too, and craved strawberries and fresh, not cooked tomatoes.

It all went pretty smoothly from there, normal fears and such.  I gained a lot of water and they were a bit worried about that, and stresses on the heart etc.  They were worried about transept and c-section right up until two weeks before her due date.

I was sitting in the middle of our bed knitting something for her and suddenly it felt like someone had grabbed my very core of my stomach and was wrenching it.  I sat up as completely straight as I could, standing on my knees (which is hard when you're nine months pregnant and full of water) and it felt like an alien was at war with my stomach.  She turned at that point, they told me later.  She was head down and the worry of c-section had diminished dramatically.

IT LOOKED ALL GOOD .. finally!

They didn't know if she was going to arrive early, before her due date, or late, being a first baby.  I was given a wide range, two weeks of possible birthdays, and to just 'watch for the signs.'  I was FULL of water, and a bit cranky, according to Mark!

A few days before she was born we went to a Zale's jewelry store to ask them about resizing my ring, and to buy Mark a better ring.  There was a very old lady behind the counter, and she had advice for me.  She said to go home and have Mark cook up a very big kettle of spaghetti.  I was to sit down and eat as much of it as I could stand.  She said the baby would arrive within the week.  She did, and today is her birthday.

We were pretty lucky, but I was definitely feeling this today.  She's twelve!  And she is wonderful.  And we are so lucky and proud to have our lovely girl.