And the final result...

The steps...

The porch...

Hooray! Hooray!

Wednesday was the last concrete day. This porch took many more man hours than we were expecting, but the stressful concrete part is done. Eric did a good job of ordering the right amount of concrete for the porch. He also feels he got a free stoop/air conditioner pad in the back of the house and also free stairs leading up to the house from the garage. Here are a couple pics of the overly complicated porch =)

Prepour form set up. Part of the complication was the brick ledge around the perimeter.

Eric finds troweling enjoyable, particularly if he isn't the one figuring out the quantity to order and paying for the concrete.


Eric adding texture to the concrete. His lines are so much straighter than mine would be...

And for Elena's fans, a picture of Elena taken at 4 weeks old (9/22).

Watching Concrete Set

Saturday, 9/15, we got the garage floor poured. For this one, we rented the power trowel and Skip, Eric and 2 neighbors Tom and Denny, helped a little bit. But due to the colder weather, the concrete took awhile to set up for the final trowling. In the meantime, the basement stairs and floor 2.1 stairs got built. I actually did some work between baby time and cleaned up the half basement and exterior!

We used the under concrete insulation here too. We figure with living space above part of the garage, it can't hurt. Plus, if we heat the garage it should help out a bunch.

Eric power trowling.


The little bit in the sun set quite quickly compared to the shaded part.

Elena hanging out at the house.

Where art thou finished roof...

Slowly, the shingles are appearing on the roof. Not quite as fast as all the other items we hired out... Some delay is due to rain. The underlayment we used is a synthetic and can be really slick when damp which is a little scary on an 8/12 pitch. Not quite so sure I'd use this underlayment again. I'm not sure the extra cost is worth it. However, it is suppose to hold up well for a lengthy exposure time and did handled all the rain we had since the trusses went up.

Elena in Jburg

We took a quick trip to Johnsburg last week so Elena could meet Great Grandma! We also got to meet Morgan who is 8 days older than Elena. Morgan was sleeping most of the time while Elena was awake, then when Elena fell asleep Morgan was up. Man, my heart goes out to anyone with twins!

When there's a Moon in my Winder.

After a bit of a siesta due to rain and baby, Eric was back to work this last weekend installing windows with the help of Skip, my parents, Team Gemo, Clarence and the Piotrowski's.


Here's the front sans the porch.



This is what that huge hole in the back of the family was for.

The Story of Elena's Arrival

Here is the story of Elena's arrival. This may be a little over detailed, but I like details so reader beware. =)

It all started around 4 o'clock pm Thursday, August 23rd. I was talking on the phone with my sister and had an extreme urge to use the restroom or wet my pants which revisited me 30 minutes later when I was getting off the phone with my sister and then again during a phone conversation with my mom after that. I thought "Hmm.. This is a little out of the norm even for being 40 weeks pregnant." An hour or so later the sensations (although without the urge to urinate so much) kept coming every 20-40 minutes. I was trying not to pay too much attention because I didn't want to get dissapointed if they were to stop or if it was going to carry on this way for a really long time.

Around 7pm, I figured this definitely was something. Eric was working late checking code and releasing the next version of his program. I told him he needed to finish it up that evening because he may not be at work on Friday. Eric finished work around 9:30pm and we decided to see if we could get some sleep. No can do. The contractions were just close enough and strong enough that there was no way I was going to sleep. Doh! So we decided to time them. I was getting a strong one every 15 minutes with a mild one in the middle, so roughly every 7 minutes and lasting 60 seconds or so. That was a little surprising.

Gradually, the mild in-betweens stepped up to the same intensity as the rest of the bunch. The best thing I did to cope was sit in the shower with the warm spray on my lower back. We called the oncall doctor and left a message to call us back. Over an hour later, the nurse called back. I think this is around 1am... She said to come to the hospital when the contractions are 3 minutes apart and last for 60-90 seconds for an hour. "Whoa! 3 minutes! Yikes!" and that was with telling her it was a 50 minute drive! Another hour went by and we decided to go hang out at Eric's sister's house (She's about 10-15 minutes from the hospital) because sitting in the car, seatbelt on for 50 minutes with 17-25 of those minutes being in a "contracted" state sounded a bit more uncomfortable than neccessary. As it was, they were about 5-6 minutes lasting over a minute. Yup, car ride not so comfortable, but we had the last Harry Potter on CD which aided in a little distraction.

We called Amanda when we were about 5 minutes away to warn her we were coming. Silly, Eric and I expected them to go back to bed when we got there around 3am, but we ended up hanging out in the family room. From about 4-5pm, the contractions started to be close to 3 minutes apart, but then I got sick (perfectly normal) and they slowed back down to 4-7 minutes although remained quite strong. I think they got back to around 4 minutes or so and we decided just to go to the hospital anyways. I think we went to the hospital sometime around 6ish...

Once at the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitor that checks the baby's heart rate and the uterine contractions (tocometer). For reference, I was 70% effaced and 2 centimeters at the doctor's on Wednesday. When they checked me upon arrival at the hopsital I was still about 70% effaced, but 5-6 cm. Emotions sparked... 99% Relief! The contractions I had been feeling were making progress and they were actually going to admit me and get me a room. 1% Trepidation "Holy crap this really was it!"

The birthing suites at Meriter are pretty sweet. You labor, delivery, recover and postpartum all in the same room. I hung out in the rocking chair for the paperwork portion, then in the whirlpool tub for a little bit, which was a great relief for a few contractions, but then seemed to add to it. At this point somewhere between 8-9am I decided I was tired enough from being up all night and thought I could use a little relief. I knew I didn't want an epidural. I did not want to be tethered to anything and I wanted to move freely. (They checked the baby's heartbeat periodically with the doppler rather than the continuous monitor.) The other option was Numorphan, a short acting opiod analgesic, given IM and IV which is suppose to take a little off the top. I think it shortened the length of the most intense period of the contraction and probably lowered it down a notch too, but you still felt like you were participating in active labor! Before they administered the drug, they checked me and I was a good 6cm and 100% effaced. Yeah! More progress! At the hospital, they said the drug had about a 1-2 hour duration though online I've seen 2-4 and 3-6. Perhaps this depends on dosing and body state. Does a laboring body process drugs differently?

Anyways, the next time block consists of changing positions, changing positions and changing positions. Obviously, I found this the most beneficial way to cope with the contractions. One of these positions I highly recommend if your instituion has it, is sitting and rocking on a "birth" ball (also known as an exercise ball or 1996 USFIRST ball.) Nothing like a little counter pressure =) It's also pretty neat that in-between contractions you can feel totally normal. They checked me at some point after that and I was at 9cm. I remember thinking "Whoa, this is transition. It's not too too bad." I think the drug was working.

Some time later the nurse asked me if I felt like pushing. I said "I'm not sure." Low and behold the very next contraction I was sure and yeah I was. How did she know before I did? But before getting the go ahead to actually start the pushing phase, they checked me and there was stil a wee bit of cervix in the way. Doh! They don't want you pushing until it is all gone otherwise it can swell and be problematic. Not pushing is probably the hardest thing ever. Talk about fighting your body's natural programming. This is definitely where focus and certain types of breathing come in. (The nurse or doctor will tell you how to breath.) After some amount of contractions and then 5 more, she rechecked me and "Yea! no more cervix!"

I think the pushing phase comes as a relief because you actually actively participate in the process and hopefully you are on the home stretch. Well sort of, your body tells you when to push and then you listen and go along with it. I think my mom said the pushing portion was a little over an hour...it didn't feel like it was that long to me. I do know I was in 4 different positions. I only remember things by position changes. I really liked using the squat bar for awhile. Then presto chango, the room transformed into a delivery room. Scales and incubators and trays start coming out of the closet, the bed magically changed, a pediatrician appeared, and before I knew it, I had a warm brand new baby sitting on my stomach and Eric's a little choked up. They were both cute. I felt really pretty good and pretty hungry, so while they were checking the baby and buttoning things up, I finished the rest of my orange jello I had started around 7cm...