Zoe's Birth

I started getting contractions early in the day Saturday, September 26th. Ari and I went for a walk (or waddle in my case) in Central Park around the reservoir since it was such a nice day and the contractions weren't that bad. I kept thinking they would just stop as they had on other occasions but by 3PM I had progressed to 3/1/1 contractions. As usual Ari was wonderful during the labor, he helped me stay comfortable in between contractions and supported me during them.

We went to the hospital at midnight only to find out that I hadn't progressed at all, still only 1 cm dilated, which was extremely disheartening. This lack of progress and the uncomfortable position I had to be in in triage made the contractions MUCH harder to deal with. We went till 4:30AM with the same contractions when I got an epidural (finally! after waiting for the idiot resident for 3 hours), and then the pitocin was started. I dilated to 8CM by 9PM Sunday night, when Zoe's heart rate started showing signs of distress. We went in for the csection immediately. Dr. Datta took her out of my belly and showed Ari so he got to tell me it was a girl. He was so surprised and excited, I'll never forget the way he said 'It's a girl'.

Our adventures, both good and less than desirable, were just beginning. My uterus wouldn't contract after Zoe was removed and I started hemorrhaging. Ari got kicked out of the operating room - poor guy, he looked terrible, worse than me, when I saw him after. After numerous injections and some fancy suturing I was all sewn up and we spent the night in recovery. The nurses were so kind and let Ari stay with me, even though he was supposed to leave the hospital for then night. He had to sleep in a metal chair propped up against wall, but I was so glad he was there. They brought Zoe to us and we were able to feed her and stare in amazement at the beautiful little bundle that had finally arrived a week and a half late!

Monday morning I was moved to the regular labor and delivery floor after all the monitoring Sunday night had gone well. Unfortunately by Tuesday I was really sick - I had partial paralysis of my GI (something called an Ileus) and was very distended. My belly was back to 9 month pregnant size and when the doctors tapped on it it sounded like hitting a drum. That night I started throwing up and the next day, I started leaking fluid from the csection incision after the staples were removed. Turns out the second layer of suturing (closing the outside) had opened up. Evidently they can't sew that kind of thing up again so they just opened it and it had to heal from the inside out. I had a 13 cm long, 2cm deep hole in my lower abdomen and needed to have visiting nurse service come every day to care for it. Nasty. After xrays, CT scans and various doctors pounding on my stomach I ended up being on IV fluids only until Friday and then started to slowly eat normal food until Monday when we came home.

We got to know the doctors and nurses pretty well while we were there, they were so kind to us including Jessica who taught Ari how to give her a bath and Misha who got us a window room. They all loved Ari. Dr. Bimsen came each day and cleaned my incision, I let her know she was skilled in torture. The midwives came and visited me every day as well.

Unfortunately we were back at the hospital all too soon to say hello as we had to return Wednesday night when I experienced extremely high blood pressure, headaches and blurred vision. All the tests came back normal though so I got to leave after only 7 hours instead of having to stay all night. Fortunately my Mom was staying with us for the week and was able to watch Zoe during this trip.

Staying positive during this has certainly been challenging, Ari keeps reminding me how much the situation has improved,and how much worse it could be. The wound is healing really nicely and my GI has returned to normal.

Zoe is doing amazingly well and we are so lucky.

Our Honeymoon

For our honeymoon we chartered the sailboat Safari which sails between Bonaire and these tiny uninhabited islands off the coast of Venezuela called Las Aves. The sailing turned out to be much more of an adventure than originally anticipated. The weather, engine and water challenges were more than we bargained for but the food was fantastic, the view was beautiful and there certainly is something to be said for staying 10 days in a location where few other are or have been. A few of the highlights include experiencing amazing storms as they blew threw, including one that evicted us from our bed next to the mast due to lightning, seeing the bottoms of the clouds turn green from the reflection of the amazing water and walking on a reef out in the middle of the ocean with no real land masses in site.

We ended our trip with a three day stay in Bonaire after we finally got through customs (long story, but it involves a moronic captain, no engine, and no wind on an island where there is always wind). Bonaire is surrounded by a protected marine park so all the reefs are in pristine condition. Our final certification for diving couldn't have occurred at a better location. We had such a great time!

Our Wedding

What an amazing, perfect day!

Wedding Preparation
The weather started out rainy, but by the time we were due to leave the hotel all precipitation had stopped and we were able to walk through the village to The Upper Crust. Mom and Emily came to the hotel to help me and get ready and Alison showed up a bit later with the bubbly.

The walk to the wedding was very interesting, I hadn't anticipated all the starring and comments, but it was fun anyhow.




The Wedding Ceremony
The ceremony was wonderful, everything turned out perfectly including the readings by Emily and Pia and Christopher's song.

I was VERY nervous when reading my vows and had to stop twice, how embarrassing. Ari did a fantastic job during his.


The Party
The reception was all we had hoped it would be, we had such an amazing time - it went by so very fast! We had so much fun eating, dancing, and spending time with all the wonderful friends and family who were there to help us celebrate.

We all danced the night away, including a Journey finale involving much loud singing and jumping - what a blast!


The Details
Dan, from The Upper Crust and I came up with what turned out to be a spectacular decor plan for the reception. I made three different types of votives for the tables, Mom made a beautiful runner for the main table and I also created 15 feet of strands of semi-precious beads to hang from the chandeliers. All these details combined for truly fantastic decorations.

The catering team was not to be outdone, the menu was just as amazing and extremely delicious.


And of course the cake - which was actually amazing spice, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes - looked fantastic.

Our Planners/Decorators/Caterers/Etc: The Upper Crust
Our Space: 91 Horatio Street
Our photographer: Dante Williams, see his blog here
Our Officiant: Rev. Phil Passantino

Wedding Rings

I was having a very difficult time coming up with intriguing ideas for a wedding gift for Ari. We were also trying to get so many things done in a relatively short time that I didn't have as much time as I needed to investigate really unique, fun options. I thought custom artwork would be an interesting idea, and actually found an artist who's work is beautiful, incorporating personal photos into the pieces in very unique ways. I had also been researching wedding rings - Ari wasn't interested in the standard designs you find in your standard jewelry stores - and I came across New York Wedding Ring, where you work with the studio metalsmith to design and create custom wedding rings. I decided if I could pull it off and make something that didn't look silly, it would be perfect - two birds, one precious metal stone.

I made Ari's wedding ring with Sam, owner and operator of New York Wedding Ring and am SO happy with the results. Sam and I decided on a base of white gold with a platinum inlay and a smaller silver inlay. I arrived at the studio on a Sunday morning to start what turned out to be a metalsmithing marathon. First we went over the studio basics, reviewed the metal he had purchased for me and discussed the game plan. There was no lathe in the studio so the channels that we had to carved for the platinum and silver would need to be done the hard way - and by this I mean seriously hard. We eventually (4 hours and a few blisters later) managed to file, engrave and carve something the platinum could fit in. This picture is the from this first stage of the ring - soldering the platinum inlay to the white gold base.


Since I carved the channel a bit too deep the platinum wasn't lying correctly and kept popping out of place. We used some random bits of metal Sam had lying around and steel bonding wire to keep the platinum in place while soldering. Once the platinum was securely attached to the white gold base we were able to make it into a ring shape and then solder it all together. Of course, this also turned out to be much easier said than done. The platinum anneals (done to make the metal bendable and to remove any spring in it) at a much higher temperature than the white gold. Since we didn't want to melt the white gold into a lump of uselessness we couldn't anneal the platinum all the way so, of course, when we tried to solder the ends of the ring together, the platinum still had spring in it - and thus the ends popped away from each other. The steel bonding wire saved us again - as you can see in the below picture we wrapped the ring tightly in bonding wire in the hopes that it would keep the ring together.

Everything we attempted to do turned out to be much harder than originally planned, so we shouldn't have been surprised when we tried to take the bonding wire off the ring and it was stuck. Instead of a ring we had a mildly interesting sculpture:



Thank goodness for Sam - I would have melted the stupid thing into a blob and thrown it out the window. Instead, we filed off the steel bonding wire and moved on to carving the channel for the silver (which was much smaller thank god) and soldered it into the ring. Almost done right? Almost, but not quite. Now on to 3 hours of filing, sanding, rounding, and perfecting. Fourteen and a half hours after we started the ring was done - and much more attractive than a melted projectile blob of precious metal.

Its really hard to get good pictures of jewelry, but here are some of the better ones. (The ring isn't yellow in color at all, despite the tint in the pics.)




The white gold is the darkest metal, platinum the wide stripe, and silver the smallest and lightest stripe.

Our Engagement

We got engaged in Kauai, Hawaii at the Lava Pools of Mokolea on a beautiful morning in May, just in time for our 8th anniversary. We went for a hike at the pools, which you get to by driving on a "road" (much more like a busted path) to the coast. When we got there there was only one other couple there who soon left. It was our first hike where we were the only people around to enjoy the amazing scenery. Ari even got down on his knee on the jagged lava rocks! We are so happy!

Adhesions Stink

Its been a while since I last posted. Its much harder to motivate now that I'm going back to work. Usually I just want to lay around after a day at the office.

The knee is still improving. Recently the Torturers decided it was time to get rid of the adhesions preventing me from bending my leg. This involves an extremely painful process that includes screaming and crying from me, and forced bending from the Torturer.

Today was the third time evil boss man has attempted to break the adhesions apart. This time he decided to cheat. Once I reached a point where I was yelling in pain and couldn't handle it any more you would count down from 5. Instead of letting go at 1, as he did last time, he decided it would be amusing to quickly smash my knee into a more bent position before letting it go. After attempting this a couple of times, including the cheating bit, and only getting minor snaps from the adhesions he attempted another torture tactic. He had another Therapist come over push down on my hip so I couldn't lift it. Then he picked up my leg so both the thigh and knee were off the table and then bent and lowered the knee, which he claimed wouldn't hurt (which was total crap). On the second attempt at this lots of snap crackle pops occurred.

While the torture is absolutely horrible, I must admit that is is remarkable how much more flexibility I had after the first adhesion breaking session last Friday. This time its hard to tell since my knee is super swollen now and my thigh is aching, but hopefully the improvement will be even more noticeable.

The evil boss even congratulated me and said that there weren't many people who could have handled that (I didn't even cry this time, just yelled). He was probably saying it to make me feel better, but I'm still going to tell everyone I'm a bad ass.

Here are the updates on the milestones I had left:

• Sleeping on my side - Achieved!!
  
• Sleeping on my stomach - I can also do this, though it feels weird when the fluid pushes into the knee.
  
• Moving around with 1 crutch - Done
  
• Moving around with no crutches - Done
  
• Brace Free Walking - Done
  
• Unaided Walking - Done, even though I look like a hunchback still.
  

The only one I have left from the list is:

• Sleeping through the night
  

I think I might give this one up, its mostly unrealistic unless I drug myself with sleep aids.

Now I am working towards my physical therapy goals: increasing my bending flexibility and strengthening the pathetically smaller leg.

Crazy Runners

Ari's sister Pia came to visit this weekend. She works for the Big Apple Circus and was up in the neighborhood so she stayed for dinner. We made homemade Italian bread, tarragon chicken and squash. It was all very yummy. We also found a new knitting store around the corner from me - very convenient and thus dangerous for my bank account.

Today Ari and I went to cheer for my friend who is running the marathon. Last year she ran so damn fast we completely missed her so this year we showed up 30 minutes early to improve our chances of spotting her. Miraculously, we didn't miss her in the enormous crowds of runners and spectators and she nodded our way as she passed while we screamed her name. I am pretty sure we just distracted her, but whatever, she didn't stumble or fall down or anything. I still think people who run marathons are crazy.

After that we cheered a bit, though I must say its pretty boring when you aren't looking for somebody specific. We headed home to an afternoon and evening of watching football after only a few minutes.

Yaaay Bills!

Stupid Patriots. Their coach is a real jerk, and he dresses like a loser too.