The Booker Post

Gabriel's First Sunday at Church Callie helping Gabriel get buckled in Callie at her swim lessons Smiles all around! Callie holding Gabe at home with Daddy's help

Ok , so as I'm sure most of you know, my doctor decided it would be best to induce labor on Tuesday, June 8 in the afternoon. Which was funny, because when I got to the hospital, the nurse told me I had dilated to a 4 since being in my doctor's office that morning, putting me into the definition of "active labor". Of course, who knows how long I would have been in that on my own! We were anticipating Gabriel's arrival sometime that evening. Not so! Gabriel apparently did not want to share a birthday with his Uncle Kevin, and opted instead to wait for awhile so he could have his own special day . . . The afternoon ticked by with gradually increasing contraction strength. It was about 7:00 when I decided to get an epidural. After my epidural took effect and I no longer had to focus on contractions increasing in frequency and strength, I realized that it had been quite a while since I ate. It's amazing what your mind can do with a simple shift of focus! I was t...

So this week has proven to be a rather tumultuous one! It started last Friday when all of the sudden my feet began to swell and wouldn't go down. They stayed swollen through Monday (which was, of course, a holiday = doctor's office not open) to a pretty large size making my feet not only unsightly and purplish but very hard to walk on. I call Tuesday up to the doctor to tell them I'm not getting any relief from the swelling despite staying out of the heat, taking it easy and putting my feet up periodically, and drinking plenty of fluids, so they ask me to come in. They check me over, ask me some questions, and apparently I gave the wrong answer so the doctor sent me to the hospital for some labs and asked me to come back in on Thursday. Went back on Thursday, the swelling was down to a "reasonable" level, but they told me to call if I had any more problems, especially a more severe headache. So would you like to guess what woke me up at 3:00 am on Friday? That...