Home Sweet Home

When I was 8 or 9, I was walking home from school one day and saw a man taking pictures of our house. I went inside to find my mom sitting at the kitchen table, and I asked what he was doing. I remember her words - that man is taking pictures because we are selling our house. I was devastated. Nothing could be worse to me at the time. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Fast forward to April 2011, and my parents told me again that they were selling our house. Only this time, I’m not a little girl. I’m married and a mom, and I don’t even live in that house anymore. So why am I just as upset?

Over the course of the last couple of months, as my parents finally got an offer on their house, had an offer they made on a new house accepted and started the process of packing and moving, they have both said to me something to the effect of “the bricks and mortar don’t make the memories.” I must respectfully disagree. That house that they are leaving holds countless memories in its walls and oh, if those walls could talk.

They would say that for 22 years, a family lived there, loved and fought there, laughed and cried there. We had good times and hard times and a lot of time in between. There were birthdays and celebrations. Parties that our friends still talk about. We welcomed new people into our family and said goodbye to others. Sundays were for watching football and family dinners. My siblings and I moved out and came back and then moved out again, finally leaving my parents with an empty nest. I got ready for my wedding there and my brother was married in the backyard. A whole new generation of our family started. It was a home for not just the six of us, but for so many others who were welcomed there, so many friends who became family.

I have my own home now with my husband and children, but this change still makes me sad. Sad that I’ll never drive down New Castle Lane again and pull into the driveway at 310. Sad that I’ll never again wonder why we only open one side of the garage or why the builder put the light switch so far back in the powder room. Sad that my parents will no longer be residents of Logan Township. Sad that my kids won’t remember the house that I grew up in and that I’ll never be able to show it to them. But if God is closing the door of our old home, I guess I’ll have to peer into the window of the new one to find out what lies ahead.

“There are places I remember 
All my life, though some have changed 
Some forever not for better 
Some have gone and some remain 
All these places have their moments 
With lovers and friends I still can recall 
Some are dead and some are living 
In my life I've loved them all.” 

 

A Baby Story

In the vast list of things that I wanted to accomplish while on maternity leave, blogging was definitely one of the top. I like doing it but never make the time and thought while I'm "off" for this time, I would be posting new blogs all the time. Needless to say, that hasn't happened even once, so I'm going to backtrack a little bit here.

It's been 7 weeks now since Chloe was born, so I'm going to now tell the story of that day. This is as much for me to remember (one of my original intentions behind blogging) as it is for anyone else who might be interested.

On Friday, June 29th, 3 days after my due date, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning with a contraction. These lasted for about 2 hours but were inconsistent, so I decided to go to work in case it wasn't the real thing. (Fast forward many hours, and I would find out it was very real.) I had Kevin and my mom on notice and went to work. My officemate thought that I was crazy when I told her that I thought I was in labor but said to keep it quiet. I didn't want anyone to know in case it wasn't real or in case my boss caught wind of it and tried to send me home. (I didn't want to waste one single day of my leave.) I worked throughout the day having the occasional contraction and causing my officemate panic at my every sound. I got myself caught up on everything I could (just in case) and left about 2:30. I called Kevin on the way home and told him I still wasn't sure but that just in case this baby was coming, I thought I should go get my eyebrows done. (Yes, I may be slightly crazy, but a new mom with 2 young kids doesn't always have time for that type of thing, so I thought I should take my chance to get it done.) The contractions started to get worse by this point, and I almost had to leave with only one eyebrow done.

When you already have a kid at home and you're pregnant, you do your best to plan for that child, but there is no way to really prepare. Sure, we had someone on standby to watch Cole, a bag packed and his Big Brother shirts cleaned. But I never thought about how he would react to Mommy being in labor. At first, it was pretty funny. He copied me as I breathed through contractions and laughed at my odd behavior. Then the contractions got worse, and as my little boy could tell I was in pain, he got really upset. It honestly broke my heart to worry him like that, so I just tried to assure him that I was okay.

With my contractions still irregular, I debated calling the doctor. And something else delayed me, too. Kevin had an important school board vote at 6pm, and I didn't want him to miss it. (Yeah, yeah, I know I'm still sounding crazy.) As the pain was getting more intense, I told Kevin to go to his meeting and that I would call the doctor while he was gone. With my contractions still all over the place, the doctor told me that I could come in or not and that the choice was mine. I told her that I would come in when Kevin got home which would make it another hour or so until I could get there.

The ride to the hospital was not fun as I was in a lot of pain by that point. We got there around 7pm and went up to Labor and Delivery where I was checked. If my irregular contractions cast any doubt on the reality of my labor, when they found me at 6-7 centimeters dilated, all doubt was gone.

The next hour or so was not my best. You know when you watch those movies where the woman yells and pleads for drugs and you think that no real woman ever acts like that? Well, I did. No exaggeration. It was bad. I cried and screamed and begged my mommy to help me. (Meanwhile, my mother didn't really think I was in labor and had shown up dressed to go out to dinner with my dad. Jeez.) Kevin and my mom found my antics quite amusing and found it hard not to laugh in my face. (Nice, guys.) Waiting for the anesthesiologist to arrive, I was checked again and after being at the hospital for only an hour, I was at 9 1/2 centimeters. I couldn't believe how quickly I had progressed and of course I was worried that it was too late for an epidural. This is something else you see in the movies. The reality is that even that far along, I was still able to get the epidural. The doctor tried to tell me that we should just move forward without it, but there was no way. I pushed for 2 hours with Cole and if I had to repeat that, I insisted on doing it with an epidural. I would have liked to be tough about it, but I'm not tough. I don't like pain. I told them to get me the drugs asap. Even if that meant the baby would come a little later. Everything was smooth sailing (besides a very brief drop in the baby's heart rate) after I finally got the epidural and after less than 3 hours at the hospital and a few pushes, our daughter arrived!

Chloe Audrey Tinsley
June 29, 2012
10:06pm
8 lbs, 8 oz
20 inches
Perfectly healthy!