A Poet is in the House

For the past several weeks, Justin has been working on writing and putting together a poem notebook for his English class. I thought I'd share a couple that he wrote:

Montana Ranch (Imagery Poem)
Justin Zinn

In the morning you see the deer go by.
Over the mountains you see the beautiful sunrise.
You see the birds collecting food;
You can hear my Grandpa shoot his gun.

In the afternoon you see bald eagles soaring above
In the very hot sun.
The fish you see swimming in the pond.
There are pretty scenes wide and far.

In the dusk it starts to get cold.
The animals start to hunt to feed their young.
As the deer start to run
They hear the wolves come.


The Game
Justin Zinn

With the game winding down with seconds to play,
The coach says to the boys, "This is the day
We've waited our whole season for;
And this play we can not miss."

So, the players got on their helmets ready to play.
After the next huddle they did something great.
The quarterback kicked the ball with the game on the line.
You could hear the crowd as they started to cry.

The quarterback threw the ball to a wide open man.
The crowd went nuts as he got to the 10.
The team won the game with 0 seconds left.
You hear the players cheering and some wept.

The coach said to the boys in the locker room,
"Well done boys. You were able to pull me through."
After the coach's speech, they knelt down and prayed.
And after this they never lost a game.

David's Story

"Mom, tell me about when I was born?"
I have been asked this question a hundred times. Who doesn't love hearing about the day they were born! Even though my children have heard their story told many times, it never gets old.

Now it's time to tell David's story.

My labor pains began Sunday night at around 11pm. They were 20 minutes apart. I tried going to sleep thinking the pains would probably stop (as they had done the last three weeks). By 1 am, the labor was 10 minutes apart and my back was hurting. I thought, "Could this really be it?" I still wasn't getting my hopes up. I had already been sent home from the hospital once due to false labor. An hour later, I woke David up telling him that I was probably in labor and to be prepared. From 2am to 3am, my contractions increased in pain and frequency. They were now 5 minutes apart and I could barely walk.

It was off to the hospital with Justin in charge at home. It was 3:30am when I was brought to a room, where a nurse hooked me up to the usual monitors. Shortly after, I was told that I was 7cm. dilated! They certainly won't be sending me home this time. My nurse worked quickly to get me started on fluids preparatory for an epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived and did her job. Aww! Relief!
After an hour or so of watching me for any bad reactions to the epidural, we waited. My contractions slowed down to 5-7 minutes apart, but I was still progressing. The midwife, came and broke my water. I was given some other drug to speed up my contractions and by 8am I was ready to start pushing.

When David's head emerged, my midwife told me to stop pushing. I saw her cut at something and then I was told to finish pushing. Seconds later our baby was in my midwife's arms, but he was silent. Purple, lifeless, and silent. Apparently the cord had been tightly wrapped around his neck during the final minutes of delivery.
Our little David was brought to the warming table to be worked on by the nurses and midwife. Time seemed to stop. Tears ran down my face. After a couple of minutes, I heard a faint cry. Then it grew louder. Almost instantaneously, David's body turned pink. He was placed in my arms where we finally met for the first time.

I have to admit that it was
love at first sight.

Come Meet Me

A cute little ear.

A tiny hand with long fingers.

Two wrinkly feet.

A sweet tasting thumb.

A perfect baby boy.
Welcome to our family David.

David Milton Zinn
May 25, 2009
8:32 a.m.
7 lbs. 10 oz.
20 1/2 inches long

Thoughts on Being Pregnant

Yesterday, James made an interesting comment.
As I was walking past him he said, "Wow! Your back looks funny."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I curves in. It looks the opposite of a hunchback."

Of course, after a comment like that I had to check it out for myself. And sure enough, James is right. It must have something to do with the "baby fat" I've gained on my tooshie.

Kirsten gives me updates almost daily on how BIG my tummy is getting.

Steven is a pro at detecting when I'm having a contraction by looking at my belly. He takes one look and says, "You're having a contraction, huh?" He's always right, too.

Justin doesn't comment on anything. I think he finds this whole experience of seeing his mom pregnant just plain weird. Which, I think is natural. Especially since he is a teenager and doesn't remember me pregnant with any of the others. I even think it's weird to be pregnant again after so many years. Sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror and think to myself, "That can't be me!"

It's Warming Up!

Ahh! Summer is upon us. The kids are excited that it's finally warm enough to go swimming in the pool. It's still a little too cold for me, but they don't seem to mind the 72 degree water.

Do you notice the beautiful color of the pool? It's not a pond anymore! Thank you Mr. Poolman, a.k.a. David. (Now, if I could just convince him to clean it without his shirt on.)

Strike the Pose

Here are some fun pictures taken last weekend at my mother and father-in-law's house.

Venting

Today is our baby's due date. I must admit that I am surprised he has not been born yet. With the exception of Justin, who was born on his due date, all of my children have been early.

I woke up this morning feeling tired and defeated. Right now, I have many feelings overcoming my body and spirit.

I had set my expectations too high with this pregnancy.
I expected more help.
More compassion.
More sympathy.

I am tired of doing the grocery shopping. I bend over to put the groceries on the belt. Bend over to put the groceries in the car. And then bend over to put them all away.

I am tired of doing the laundry. Again, it's the bending. Bending over to pick up my husband's piles. Bending over to put and take out the many loads.

I am tired of preparing every meal, then doing the dishes, and finishing it all off with wiping the counter tops and table down.

Last night, I returned home from Steven's pack meeting to find David, Justin, and James where I left them two hours earlier. Outside playing hockey. And I entered the house to find everything as I had left it. I understand the importance of David spending time with the boys. But in my opinion a greater lesson could've been taught to them. For example, instead of playing hockey with them, David could've said, "I have a great idea. Let's surprise Mom by doing the dishes and picking up the house while she is gone."

So, the work goes on and on...There is no rest for the pregnant in my home.

And when I start to cry everyone is like, "Oh, no! Here she goes again. What's wrong now?"
Justin has even come into my room on a few occasions saying, "Of course! Whenever you don't get your way, you come in here and sulk."

Wow! Did I mention there is no compassion?

I am tired of crying tears enough to fill my own river.

May Day

Where to begin...

I had intended to write a new post on May Day, but I was too tired. The next day, I was a walking zombie.. But, I can't let another day go by or else I'll get behind.

May 1st was our wedding anniversary. Our 16th anniversary. Neither David or I can believe it's been that long. But it has. He told me that people at work are amazed to learn that we have been married for so long. It's something you don't hear about much anymore, which is sad. In fact, I read somewhere that for the first time in history there are more unwed couples than married ones.

Back to the subject... Last year, David and I spent our anniversary apart because of the move. So, this year we tried to make it more special. But that's hard to do when I am 3 weeks away from my due date. The past 2 weeks I had been feeling horrible: tired, sore, no appetite, lots of contractions, etc. I was also feeling depressed. It was spring time! I'd go outside and see the birds busy building their nests, and then I'd think to myself, "I don't have the energy to build a nest for my baby."

Things changed. My body changed. In the middle of the week, I noticed I had more energy. I wasn't having contractions. I actually felt like cleaning and picking up the house. I wanted to nest! Hooray!

So, on our anniversary, while David was at work, I took James, Kirsten, and Steven to the Tech Museum. I had to take advantage of this sudden burst of energy. They had so much fun. I forgot to bring my camera, but in a way it was nice not taking pictures. They loved the earthquake simulator and the astronaut jet pack. We returned home at 3:30pm and I crashed on the couch. An hour later, David came home bearing gifts of red roses and Sees Candy. The flowers were pretty, but the chocolate is what I was most excited about.

We decided to start our evening by picking out a wedding gift together. Kind of like when we were engaged and we registered for our wedding gifts. But, as we began walking around the store, my body was saying, "no". My legs didn't want to move. I guess it wasn't such a great idea to spend the day at the museum after all.

So, we got back in the car and drove to San Mateo where David made reservations at the Melting Pot. We had never been there before, but my sister, Deborah, highly recommended it to us. We were seated in a dim, secluded corner of the restaurant. Very romantic! The food was great and the experience even better. It was nice cooking our food together with no distractions. We reminisced about our life together and excitedly dreamed about our future.

That ended our night out. But the next day begun earlier than expected. I awoke at 2:30am feeling a bit damp. I could feel warm liquid trickle out of me. My first thought was, "I'm hemorrhaging!" But a quick trip to the bathroom erased that thought. The liquid was clear and didn't seem to have an odor. The only other explanation was, "My water broke." So, off we went to the hospital. After being hooked up to the usual machines and being stripped of all dignity, I was told that my water hadn't broke. The midwife on duty explained that it was very common for the baby to push on the bladder, which would explain my "leakage issue". I was glad to hear that the baby wasn't coming yet, but at the same time, I didn't want to admit to "wetting the bed". This had never happened with the other pregnancies. I've always had good bladder control. Oh, well. I guess there's a first for everything.

"Hi, my name is Dixie Zinn and I'm a bed wetter!" There! Now I feel better.

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