Snow, A Hospital Trip, and Christmas Memories

So, we’ve gotten some snow here this week. Last weekend there were a couple colder days that actually started to remind me of the Milwaukee winters a bit, but it hasn’t seemed quite as cold here the last few days. And yesterday we got the most snow of this winter yet, but Michael and I were both commenting that it didn’t seem that bad (even though everyone was commenting about what a big storm it was). I guess we got used to the Milwaukee winters, because this storm yesterday left several inches of snow, but it surprised me that here in Utah (where they should be used to snow in the winter) it took me half an hour to drive out to the hospital yesterday evening when it would normally have taken just over 10 minutes or so, because of the traffic and all the cars were moving so slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I think that this mild winter has been nice so far, and the fact that the snow actually melts here in between storms is a nice contrast to Milwaukee too. It kind of makes me want to find some little internet gadget to put on my blog that shows the weather temperatures and snowfall in the different places that we have lived and will be living in the future – it’d be kind of fun to compare the winter weather in Milwaukee, Salt Lake, Rochester, and San Diego, huh? We’ll see.

On another note, I spent several hours in the hospital last night. All day yesterday I was having what I guess you would call shortness of breath, but it was different than anything I’d had with any of my other pregnancies. I used to think that shortness of breath during pregnancy meant that you got winded after climbing a flight of stairs, but what I was having yesterday was different than that. I couldn’t take a deep breath without my chest hurting, and it lasted for several hours. In the late afternoon I finally called the midwife on call, and she said that since she couldn’t really tell much over the phone I should come in to Labor and Delivery to have it checked out just in case. So, after the half hour drive into the hospital and the long wait after checking in and again after getting into a room, I wasn’t having much pain or difficulty breathing by that point at all anymore. They took my history (the nurse did say that one good thing about my visit was that they wouldn’t have to ask me all those questions again when I come in to have the baby in February). And since it was after hours and I wasn’t just going to the clinic, they had me lay down and put on all the baby monitors and everything – which showed that the baby and I were healthy. They drew my blood, and then it was another long wait for the on call midwife to show up. Michael happened to be on a 30-hour shift in the internal medicine wards and since the snow storms seem to make his patient load a little lighter, he came over and stayed with me, waiting to be paged back if there was an admit. Luckily no new patients came in while we were there, so he got to stay with me for the entire time. When the midwife came, she said that everything looked ok. I was glad that she seemed to take me seriously, even though the problem had gotten a lot better by the time I finally got in. She asked me about a number of things, and said that she couldn’t see anything wrong with me at that point, but to call or come back in if I got a number of other symptoms that she listed. I guess that, although they are pretty uncommon, there are a few things, such as blood clots, that they would be concerned about with this kind of thing in pregnancy, so I guess it was better to have it checked out just to be safe. So, after I got home last night and went to bed, Camden woke up around 2am and I changed his diaper and put him back to bed. When I went back to bed, my heart started racing really fast and beating strongly so that it was uncomfortable for about 10 or 20 seconds. Since this has never happened to me before, you can imagine that I was a little alarmed, especially since one of the things that the midwife had asked me about at the hospital was if I had had any heart palpitations. So it took me a little while to fall asleep again after that, wondering if something could be wrong or not. This morning I called the other midwife who was on call today, and when I got ahold of her this afternoon she reassured me that she would only be concerned if the palpitations lasted for about 15 minutes and happened 2 or more times a day. So, she wants me to write down whenever it happens, for how long, and what activities I am doing at the time, and she said I only need to come back into Labor and Delivery if it happens more often or if it doesn’t go away. So, I guess everything is ok. We’ll just chalk it up to “more weird things that happen during pregnancy for no other apparent reason than the fact that I am pregnant.” Hopefully I won’t have any other problems with that, and everything else with this pregnancy will be uneventful.

So, on an entirely different note, I saw this “Christmas Tag” on a friends’ blog and decided to do it, since it is something a little different than all the other “tags” I’ve seen.

Christmas Tag
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Although I’d like gift bags for everything because they’re easier, they’re too expensive and it’s too hard to plan all the correct-sized bags when getting all the Christmas gifts, so I usually end up using a couple rolls of wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial, so far. We have a cute little artificial tree that my mom got for us when we were first married because we weren’t allowed to have real trees in our apartment complex because they’re a fire hazard. I’ve always planned on having a real tree when we get into a house and have a little more room in the future – I always loved picking out a tree with my family, and I think cutting one down together would be especially fun.

3. When do you put up the tree? If it’s up to me, it goes up sometime soon after Halloween. :)

4. When do you take the tree down the tree? In January – usually after we return home from visiting family for Christmas and New Years.

5. Do you like egg nog? Oh yes – I think that it’s probably a good thing that egg nog is not available year round, because it is often one of my impulse buys at the grocery store in the winter time. Although I like it how my family always had it growing up: half egg nog and half 7-up, I also like it just by itself.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? One Christmas that I really remember was when my parents didn’t have as much money one year and my sister got home-made doll clothes for her American Girl doll and I got a pet rabbit (I believe someone was giving the rabbits away or selling them for not very much money that year). That little bunny was so cute – it was grey and white and I named it Sweat Pea.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? I have a Willow Tree nativity which I love that my mom and grandma have given me the different parts to over the last few years. We also have a couple other smaller nativity sets – a little ceramic one that Michael’s grandma sent him when he was on his mission in the Dominican Republic and a few little ceramic ones that my grandmas sent for the boys last year. Oh, and we have the little painted wooden set that my parents had when I was growing up – it is kid-proof and so we can set that one down low and not worry about it getting broken. And, if you promise not to tell our boys, I’ll tell you what we got for one of their Christmas gifts: the Fisher Price “Little People” nativity set – it has Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men, the innkeeper and his wife, some little buildings, and lots of animals. I think they will have a lot of fun with that. Someday I’d love to have a collection of different nativity sets that are special to us – maybe from different places we have visited or something like that. I’d love to have one someday like my mom’s that she got at the yearly craft fair in Eureka Springs – they are wooden pieces with beautiful colored yarn wrapped around them and they are so unique. Someday. :)

8. Hardest person to buy for? Maybe my brothers (since I think it’s easier to buy for girls than boys in general), except I didn’t have too hard of a time thinking up ideas for them this year.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My boys – toys are always fun for them, and I enjoy getting them cute new clothes when they need them.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? We tried printing and mailing out Christmas letters the first year, but postage was so expensive that we ended up only sending them to relatives and a handful of friends. Since then I’ve sent them out by e-mail each year so we can include more of our family members and friends. (And of course I post it on the blog too).

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Can’t really think of anything at the moment.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Hhmmm . . . let’s see, I quite like the old one, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I can't think of a time.

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Egg nog, hot chocolate with candy canes and whipped cream, peppermint ice cream.

15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? I like white lights – they are so pretty and go with all the other holiday colors.

16. Favorite Christmas song? I think probably “Silent Night.”

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We have always gone to visit family in the past – alternating each year between my parents and Michael’s parents – but this will be our first year staying here, since Michael only gets one day off the week of Christmas (the day after Christmas) and this wouldn’t allow us to get there and back in time for him to get back to work.

18. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Rudolf, Commet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen – is that all of them?

19. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. (Except for the one gift on Christmas Eve that is from Santa to the entire family and is always a game that we play together after driving around town looking at the lights – that is a tradition from Michael’s side of the family).

20. Most annoying thing about this time of year? I don’t like the annoying “new” pop Christmas songs that are always on so many radio stations – why not stick with the good old ones – all the wonderful songs about Christ and the good old ones we grew up with, like White Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, etc. And why would any artist want to take those good old songs and change the tune or the words so much as to ruin them?

21. Favorite ornament theme or color? I like the traditional colors – a nice, dark red, green, white, maybe gold. Someday I’d like to have two different trees in different rooms in the house (so we can still use our little artificial tree when we start getting real ones), and the little one would just have pretty, breakable ornaments and the cute little silver frame ornaments that I put in a little family picture every year – and the other tree could have the assortment of all the children’s and other ornaments on it.

22. Favorite food for Christmas dinner? Nothing in particular – just to share it with family.

23. What do you want for Christmas this year? I am so looking forward to enjoying Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Michael and the boys and seeing them all open their gifts from me, because I know they’ll love them. (I have to admit, I’m also curious about what Michael got for me, since I haven’t figured it out, and I am notorious for figuring out my gifts beforehand, even if I’m not really trying to).

Merry Christmas!