We went to the BYU vs Idaho State basketball game The ball flew through the air and dropped in the basket. The crowd would cheer, thus giving Brooke a fright and her first experience of a large sporting event. Brooke is wearing her new XL BYU shirt.
As we were leaving, the weather was so cold that we wrapped her up in her BYU shirt. Little orphan Brooke. She hasn’t figured out that she should squint her eyes in cold weather so her eyes were watering.
Someone told me to beware – since I had such an easy pregnancy with Brooke I was bound to have a hard labor and delivery experience. That person was pretty much right.
I was four days past my due date. I was still feeling great. I hadn’t been in any hurry for the baby to come because I had wanted to finish out teaching the school year (which I was able to do).
At about 6:00pm on June 2 I realized I was having contractions and they were coming regularly and consistently. Hooray! This was it! We started timing the contractions and they were spaced too far apart to warrant visiting the hospital. I spent the next nine hours at home pacing our condo, watching movies, groaning, timing, trying to sleep, not being able to, etc. Finally at about 3:00 in the morning I told Dallas we should head to the hospital.
We checked in and they monitored me for an hour. Good news – I was having regular contractions and I was getting more dilated. Bad news – it was happening a little too slowly for them to admit me. Instead they kept monitoring me. Dallas and I were so tired that I tried to sleep between contractions but they were painful enough that I couldn’t do that very well.
Finally they admitted me. I got an epidural before too long and felt much better. My nurse told me to try to sleep. She said I’d need lots of energy for pushing. Pshaw. I was too excited to sleep.
At about 11:30AM I finally felt the urge to push. Thus commenced the pushing marathon. I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. Two hours later I was really wishing I had heeded my sweet nurse’s advice and had slept when I could because I was beyond exhausted. I hardly felt conscious at times. FINALLY Brooke was born.
I remember being so tired. I wished I could just pause life and sleep for about 24 hours and then push play again. I knew having a newborn would be exhausting but I was not prepared to be so depleted from the very second she was born. I had been in labor for almost 20 hours and hadn’t slept much during that time. The doctor handed her to me and I remember being so weak I could hardly hold her.
Brooke was 7 lb 9 oz and 19 inches long. She was born at 1:44 pm. We were all charmed by her long hair and big eyes.
Do I look like death? Apparently my Mom thought so. Brooke was born on a Sunday. My Mom, Dad, and siblings wanted to come down and see her that day since they didn’t have anything else going on. I warned them that I was tired. I guess I didn’t warn my Mom quite enough because she thought I looked horrible. I remember when they came to visit I was sitting in my bed and the world was spinning around me and I was trying to stay with them, but I just really couldn’t. I also remember the nurse bringing me my dinner. It was a chicken breast. A whole chicken breast. I picked up the fork and knife which felt so heavy, looked at them in my hands, and realized there was no way I had the strength to cut my chicken. I helplessly put my utensils down again and hardly touched my food. Looking back on it I’m amused that I didn’t think to have the nurse help me, but the thought never crossed my addled mind.
After sleeping a bit I started to feel like I was again entering the world of the living. My Mom came for a visit the next day and was relieved to see how much better I looked.
Giving birth is serious business.
Of course we thought Brooke was the most perfect baby in all the world. Every expression and noise was adorable. I could (and did!) stare at her for hours memorizing her features. We had our perfect baby girl.
My pregnancy with Brooke was so wonderfully easy. I was never sick. I wasn’t tired. I felt great!
Dallas and I got in a car accident. We were driving from Ogden to Orem in a snowstorm and slipped on the freeway. Luckily our car just had a little bumper damage and we were fine. (Well, I did break a nail, but I guess in the grand scheme of things that’s not too bad.) I was nervous about the wreck because I was pregnant, but Brooke appeared not to have been harmed by the wreck either. Thank goodness!
It’s really hard to tie a straight bow on your own clothes so I had to teach Dallas how to tie one for me. He proved himself an able student and his first bow was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen:
I was lucky enough to have three baby showers. The first one was thrown for me by the teachers I worked with. They were so kind and generous:
My second shower was thrown for me by my mother-in-law. We got some more great stuff:
My third shower was thrown for me by my family. Laurie made an adorable diaper cake:
Abe and Klarissa and my siblings acquired an old dresser and repainted it for the baby:
The inside of all the drawers held a surprise:
Everyone who helped paint the dresser signed it and made their handprints in the shape of a heart. I loved it.
More gifts:
I think we’re ready to have a baby!
I have always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love. Sarah and I both had long hair so we decided to keep growing it until we could donate. The day finally came.
Before:
During:
After:
September 23, 2006 I woke up to find this sign hanging in our kitchen:
Dallas had a tally on his Pocket PC of how many days we had been married and he made a little celebration in honor of our thousandth day. So sweet. We had been suspecting I might be pregnant, so he thought it would be fun for me to take a pregnancy test on this most auspicious of days. Positive! Brooke was on her way!
Weeks later Dallas was reading parts of his journal to me and we got to the part where he wrote about this day. It said something like, “Today I made a big sign to celebrate being married for 1000 days. I actually forgot to do it on the real thousandth day so I did it a couple of days later but Rebecca will never know the difference.” Ha! Naughty husband trying to trick me and then exposing himself in his own lie!
Dallas and I went to St. George and visited the temple:
Here’s Dallas getting ready for Halloween. He wanted to go as Bob from the movie What About Bob?. I loved that idea. We bought him a goldfish to wear around his neck and he made a T-shirt that said, “Don’t hassle me, I’m local.”
No one knew who he was, but that’s typical when it comes to his costumes. I went as Amelia Bedelia and no one knew who I was either. Oh well.
We ended up hating that stupid goldfish. We bought it on a Friday and the family costume dinner was on Sunday. I was worried it would die before then. The pet store said we could exchange it if it died that soon. Well, little Gill ended up living way beyond Halloween. We put him in a bowl and thought it might be nice to watch him swim all around.
No. It wasn’t nice.
Gill had a horrible habit having to do with pooping. If you don’t want to read more, avert your eyes. I cannot be held responsible for any possible scarring you may have after hearing this story.
Little Gill would poop a huge string of poop and it would stay connected to him. It would get so long that Gill could chase it similar to a dog chasing his tail…and it would get so long that Gill could eat it. We were beyond grossed out by our newest family member but had no humane way of getting rid of him.
Until Dallas’s friends came by with their little son. We showed Caleb our cool fish and talked about how awesome it was and how he should ask his parents if he could have him. Bwah ha ha! It worked and before long Caleb was the proud owner of a disgusting fish and we were happy to have our counter space back.
(Unfortunately, Gill didn’t take to his rehoming very well. He died the next day. Oops! Sad to get Caleb excited about a new pet only to have it die on him hours later. I think his parents felt so bad about it they bought him another fish.)
Moving on. Here are my parents in costume. They went as white trash:
Ben stole the show in his Napoleon Dynamite costume. My aunt, Nani, also gave a good showing in her costume:
My grandparents:
Jacob, Laurie, Natalie, and Emma:
Ben stayed in character all evening:
We went to a football game. I’m writing this years after the fact so I can’t exactly remember which one…but I’m sure my brothers and Dad know exactly which game this is and who won and what the score was and how many passing yards each team had, etc, etc, etc.
I’m pretty sure it was the BYU vs. U of U game (the sea of red is giving me that idea) and BYU won (our smiles are giving me that idea).
Yep, definitely must have been a win to see this guy so happy:
After doing a candy window last year by ourselves Dallas and I just decided to help someone else this year. We helped glue candy on this cactus:
