A college friend of mine reminded me this afternoon that on this date twenty-nine years ago (which was a Friday), she was at her wedding rehearsal dinner and preparing for her wedding the next afternoon.  And my plan was to drive from Markle to meet another college friend in Kokomo to attend that wedding.  After all, I was three weeks from my August due date and the last ultrasound showed a September due date.  So, no worries! A trip to Kokomo was in my future. Or not......

I have to back my story up a week in order for you to appreciate it fully.  We'd been married 13 months and our very first huge fight had been about Mike not going to the doctor when he was really sick.  In my home, you went to the doctor when you were sick.  In his home, with a single mom caring for 3 boys; you were a bit more choosy about when you went to the doctor.  And once he got on his own, Mike never went to the doctor or dentist unless he was almost dead.  So with this in mind, I had to drag him to the doctor on Monday because he was having trouble breathing.  Diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis, he was handed a script for an antibiotic and sent home with orders to come back in on Friday.  If he wasn't better by Friday, Dr. Cripe was going to admit him to the hospital. I had just quit my job at Target in Ft. Wayne to prepare for the baby's arrival so we just kind of hung out at home and spent most of the day in the bedroom.  Me doing needlepoint or reading or watching tv and Mike trying to squeeze air into his lungs.  We had two cats and a dachshund, Nutmeg, and we all spent the week together in that tiny little bedroom.  The only things Mike got out of bed for was eating, bathroom needs and changing the channel on the tv (no remotes in 1982!)  Friday afternoon, I loaded my some better husband into the car and drove the 13 miles to the brand new medical satellite clinic in Ossian. He struggled into the building and I sat him down in the waiting room while I went to the ladies room. Because everyone knows that all pregnant women who are somewhere in the 9th month of their pregnancy have to go to the bathroom immediately upon arriving at their destination; no matter how short or long the journey.

This is the last picture of me taken before we headed off to Mike's doctor appt. 7/82

While in the restroom, strange things were going on with me. I emptied my suffering bladder and then stood up to finish. Hmmm, I was still going. I sat down, nothing. Nada, not a drip. Stood up, and I'm going again. So I sat down and started thinking about my birthing class where they talked about losing your cervical "plug".  I could hear Jeanne Ploetz in my head.  "It could be a trickle, or it could be a gush."  About then, I was beginning to have a light bulb moment. I cleaned up and walked out of the restroom to the counter, told them that I think my water broke: did they have any maxi pads? Someone gave me three hospital-sized pads and I went back to the bathroom.  But, it was pretty much too little, too late by this time.  I totally threw one away, used the other two and went out to find my husband; who had been escorted back to the exam room by then. They let me use the phone to call my doctor and then offered me a chair to sit down.  I looked down at the beautiful new carpet, new plush chairs and went to stand over on the mat by the door and asked for something plastic to sit on.  I stepped out of my beautiful new wooden Dr. Scholls sandals (which were the Crocs of the day) and stood there until they found a ratty old plastic chair. The woman behind the counter said more than once, "We've never had this happen here before!!" I was right there with her. I was absolutely mortified.  That new office couldn't have been a month old at that point.  I was 3 weeks from my first due date and 6 weeks from the second one and I had plans to go to a wedding the next day.  It was NOT the day to have a baby. Dr. Cripe gave Mike a shot of epinephrine and sent us home, since apparently we were about to become parents. No time for a hospitalization for Mike that day! When I'd called Dr. Shaw from the Ossian office, he told me that if I hadn't started labor by 8AM on Saturday morning to come in and he'd induce me (it was about 2:45 on Friday afternoon when I called him.) So, that is what I decided was going to happen.  I drove my shaking husband to my mom's house in Bluffton and my sister drove me to Markle to pick up the dog, cats and clothes for Mike and I.  I was fretting about all the things that I had left to do before the baby came, I remember lamenting the fact that my kitchen floor needed mopped.  I could not let that go. We didn't have our suitcase packed and we hadn't practiced our Lamaze breathing (BECAUSE, I HAD THREE WEEKS LEFT UNTIL MY DUE DATE PEOPLE!!)

This was our "family" before the human baby arrived. None of them took to the new litter-mate well.  :)

Dori and I got what we needed (or thought we needed, haha!) and went back to my mom's.  Daddy had left just that morning for the annual canoe trip to Canada with the Explorer scouts.  On Thursday before he left, I remember him admonishing me not to have that baby while he was gone and I'd laughed because it was so far to my due date. Oh boy, was he going to get a surprise when he got home! I had so much to do once we got to mom's.  I had to make sure that my husband stayed down on the couch, I had to call Deb and let her know that I wasn't going to be able to meet her in Kokomo to attend Ruth's wedding and I had to call Ruth and let her know that I wouldn't be there and why. (She told me then that I'd so far given her the best excuse of anyone for not coming to the wedding!) We had Pizza King pizza for supper (cause no one told me not to eat) and watched crazy tv for the rest of the evening with mom and the varmints. We went to bed; played cards and watched (and I am NOT lying!) The Howling on mom's old B&W tv while waiting for my labor to start or Mike's medicine effects to wear off, which ever came first.

And that's what happened twenty-nine years ago today.  :D

I honestly am not trying to sell you anything, just trying to find out if this works. I created a QR code for my business, so take out your fancy cell phones, scan it and see where it takes you?  But if you happen to see something you like, I won't stop you from buying anything. 

You should see my smiling face up in the upper right hand corner of the website. 

Reply and let me know what you ended up. Then you can leave, don't look, don't shop and definitely don't find anything that you want to own since it is BUY TWO GET ONE FREE.       Oh yeah...I forgot.  I'm not selling anything.

Have a great weekend!!!

I got bit by a dog this winter.  I can't say I've ever been bit by a dog before except when Katie or Rascal and I were playing and one of them got a bit rough.  So, that really doesn't count as a "dog bite" wouldn't you agree?  I have a friend who was bitten by a dog as a toddler and had to have plastic surgery several times; even as a young adult.  All I could think about (besides how much it HURT!!!!!!!) was Kathy and her eye and what was I going to find in my hand when I pulled it away from my face?? 

He was a big dog, about 85 pounds, but he wasn't aggressive (or so I thought.) He'd been trying to get my attention all evening and his owner kept shooing him back to his blankie and chew toys. When we were sitting at the dining room table working on the computer, he would nudge me try to get me to pet him and his head was level with my armpit (so you can see how big he was.)  If we got up and went into another room, he went with us.  We were drinking coffee and eating cookies and unlike Katie and Rascal, if we wanted to go into a different room; we had to take our cookies with us because he could just help himself to anything on the table. 

He finally got tired of following us around and jumped up on the bed in the master bedroom.  We'd gone in to try to decide which size of Uppercase Living expression to order and where exactly to put it and he watched us as we came into the room to measure and visualize.  We did not surprise him as he was following our movements with his head so at that point, I decided that I was ready to pay attention to him because we were pretty much done with our business. I walked up to the bed and started talking baby-talk to him and lightning fast, he bit me in the face.  His snout and front teeth between the canines must have hit my cheek square-on because it honestly felt like someone hit my face with a bat.  I remember saying, "Oh, oh, oh! He bit me! He bit me!"  I pulled my hand away and my eye wasn't in it so I just went back to trying not to throw up because it hurt so much and act like I wasn't in too much pain because I didn't want to upset my friend.  She was mortified and kept saying, "He's never done anything like that before..." and then took me back to the bathroom to put a cold cloth on my face.  By the time we got there, I was bleeding in two places: right under my eye and right above my lip. (Canine teeth, would be my guess.)  Oh, did it hurt.  It hurt for days.  I finished my business, got in my freezing cold car and wailed all the way home in the privacy of my car.  It hurt when I went to bed, it hurt when I ate.  You know how it feels when you go to the dentist with a big cavity in one of your top teeth and the dentist gives you a really strong dose of Novocaine?  How funny it feels while the numbness is wearing off?  And if you smile, it aches because the shot was so deep?  That's how my face felt for two weeks.  Hurt like the dickens.  Or is it all-git-out?

I had a black eye for a couple of weeks and I have a scar on my face right above my lip that is still a little bit tender at times, but I'm no worse for the wear.  And it gave me something to blog about!  I am so thankful that the dog wasn't any bigger, or any smaller.  I think if he'd been bigger; I'd have lost my eye.  If he was smaller, his teeth would have been sharper and I might have had puncture wounds instead of just scratches.  God was merciful to me.

My new co-workers didn't know what to think of my black eye.  It was only my second week in my new job so no one really knew me and one day I didn't have a black eye and the next day I did.  (And it got worse after this picture.)  I had to explain that I got bit by a dog and tell my doggie story several times as the different people would come and go.  They all wondered about my eye but no one wanted to ask me how I got it!