Astoria.

On an atypical sunny day on the Oregon coast for late January, we headed down to Astoria to spend the night, getting a quick jaunt in on the beach in at Seaside before winding our way back to Portland.

xoxo

K

OMSI After Dark

OMSI After Dark is a 21-and-over event held by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry once a month. On their website they boast, "Enjoy child-free, brain-building science fun featuring live demos, new exhibitions and old favorites! Guests can indulge in tasty snacks, sweets and beer and wine from regional food and beverage artisans." After reading that, and being a science nerd, I thought it would be a great idea for a date night. January's theme was Sugar.

A giant devil cupcake…mobile?

So we got our $13 a person tickets and invited our friends Stephanie and Gabe along. When we got there the entire parking lot was completely packed. At 6:30 PM there were barely any spots left. WOW, we thought. This was way more popular that we expected. It must be super cool. Unfortunately, the result was merely satisfactory.

Pulling our own taffy. Literally the best part of the night. 

What we got were small samples, an overpriced cash bar, and a lot of this:

Standing in line!!!

The only good part of the night was when we found a hidden free sample room and tasted enough bit-size bundt cake samples to satisfy our entry fee.

A caramel apple of the future! Cool science, but worth 30 minutes in line?

The main hall with free samples was so crowded you almost couldn't move. But no matter how I tried to wrap my mind around how people would pay to come get free samples, I couldn't figure out the logic. Well played advertisers. It seemed like the "hip" Portland crowd attended just so they could talk about the cool "nerdy" thing that they did. I can't blame OMSI for using this as a revenue stream for what they do (which is great by the way!), but next time I think I will stay home. Maybe I'll put a marshmallow in the microwave and do my own sugar science.

xoxo

K

gypsy jazz

On Thursday, Karl and I decided to go on a little adventure to a new restaurant in our neighborhood. He had met a new friend on the MAX while going to work with A and the guy said he was in a band that was playing there that night. We had never been to the Chameleon Restaurant & Bar before, so we thought it would be fun to try it out. It was more of a date night restaurant, so the meal was $$$, but the food was good and luckily A was well behaved (although she did try to eat the table a few times).

 The restaurant was hard to classify, at first it looked like a Thai place, but then it morphed into Italian. For example, for appetizers I had a Caprese salad and Karl had bacon wrapped dates, but egg rolls and chicken satay were also an option. Chicken curry and cilantro lime salmon for dinner, with handmade cheesecake for dessert. The food was great, but I'm not entirely sure it was worth the price. Portland is funny like that; you can get a $20 gourmet meal at a dive, whereas expensive date night restaurants offer good but 'vanilla' food by comparison.

But the music was fantastic! (Karl and I are kind of going through a big jazz phase). If we had got a babysitter we would have definitely stayed past 7:30.

You can check them out on Facebook, Le Combo Diabolique.

xoxo

K

Pinterest Worthy? A Photoblog of Charlotte's Baby Shower

(as planned by yours truly)

Close up of the "Guestbook", hand drawn by Karl

Soup Bar

Headband making station

Desert Table

The Mama-To-Be

30 years young

Happy birthday to this guy.

Love you!

xoxo

K

Birth Day

I'm feeling the love on my birthday today :)

But I'd thought I'd share a story of another birthday today, the story of Andromeda's Birth Day!

June 6th, 2014 I started to have a bit of sharp cervical pain, like someone was poking a needle into me down there, and chalked it up to my body preparing for birth as my due date was only three days away. That day I also got acupuncture to help my body naturally progress. I really enjoyed it and recommend it to any expecting mom. Although, Karl did not help my zen vibes as it was a hot day and he ran the car battery all the way down by blasting the air conditioner while I was at my appointment! Luckily his mom came to our rescue and soothed the ire of a very pregnant woman.

After my work baby shower around 37 weeks.

Sunday morning, June 8th, I started having light contractions, strong enough to feel a bit of pain, noticeable, but not really as bad as my normal period cramps but definitely timeable. As I went about my day they subsided, I would get a contraction about every 30 minutes to an hour for about 30-45 seconds. This continued over the next few days. Looking back I was probably in this "early" labor stage of light contractions for about a total of 5 days.

On Monday morning, June 9th (my due date), I lost my mucus plug when I got up that morning. At my 40 week appointment at the OB, I was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. No change from before but I was mentally ready to be about a week late anyway.  Everyday I would try to walk a mile at least once or twice, not getting much sleep at all because the light contractions, hip pain, and bladder would wake me up. My due date passed but I was enjoying spending time at home with Karl for our last few days alone. 

The last picture taken of me pregnant! This was before we went to the Portland Opera.

June 10th we came home from his parents after dinner and were sitting on the couch when I felt a pop in my lower abdomen at around 9:45 pm. I immediately though my water broke and yelled to Karl to grab a towel. Sure enough, when I stood up a gush of fluid came out. I called my doula/montrice Jocelyn and she agreed, saying she'd head over to the house to check and monitor baby in a bit. I was excited and started to get everything ready for the hospital, however by the time Jocelyn arrived 20 minutes later I had had at least 3 or 4 painful contractions I couldn't walk through. She confirmed it was my water and listened to babies heartbeat, but even just sitting still waiting for her to check became really uncomfortable. We timed the contractions and they were 5 minutes apart for about a minute. I got in the shower briefly but soon realized it was time to GO. Karl called Sunnyside as we got into the car at around 10:45 pm. I had planned to labor as long as possible at home, but I progressed so fast it wasn't for long!

At labor & delivery I couldn't even walk 10 feet from the car to the door without having a contraction, so they wheelchaired me in to triage. I was so focused on getting through contractions that I barely remember much besides blindly signing papers! Couldn't get the hospital gown on without having one or two contractions from the bathroom to the bed. My contractions were 3 to 1 minute apart at this point, definitely very active labor. Sometimes I wouldn't even get a break between them. I don't think they even checked my cervix! Karl called my mom to come in to the hospital. I was able to get a room with the deep tub and we moved there.

I labored in the tub for an hour or two before I started getting overheated and my face was tingling so I moved to the bed. I labored there in almost a reclined sitting position as I worked through contractions. I thought I was being loud with vocalization, but apparently they couldn't even tell when I was having a contraction! My doula suggested other positions like standing and knees but those were just too painful. My hormones hadn't had enough time to catch up with how fast and strong the contractions were. I ended up getting an IV because I kept throwing up (at random, never felt nauseous) and couldn't even keep water down. I did have continuous monitoring (luckily with telemetry) but I think that was because my contractions were so close together or because my water had broken. But according to babies heart rate she barely noticed I was in labor. 

At about 6 am June 11th, I had the "I don't think I can do this anymore" feeling so I asked that they check my cervix. I was 8 cm! That really helped me, whatever I was doing was working :) By around 7 ish I was complete but still didn't feel the strong urge to push, although mentally I was ready to push that baby out! I started to do self directed pushing but it wasn't as effective as it needed to be so the midwife offered her help. I pushed on the toilet with her really directing me, it was hard to push past the pain and that wall of pressure. We got baby almost all the way through the birth canal and moved back to the bed. That was a fun walk! With my mom and Karl holding my legs and supporting me Andromeda Wren was born at 9:45 AM.

Andromeda Wren Baker was 8 lbs 14 oz and 22 inches long. Her head was 14 centimeters (no wonder pushing was so hard!). My 12 hour labor was totally unmediated and I was so happy with the whole experience. We did skin to skin immediately and she barely fussed and was super alert. I tore in a few places but none were too bad, although my tailbone was a bit bruised. I would go through the whole thing over again in a heartbeat. 
Her daddy and I love her so much!

xoxo 

K