The storks belated delivery...

A little over a week before my due date, we were surprised to get a text from my mom saying my dad had pneumonia. Due to this, my mom took a flight headed to our place the next day. Since I had been on the verge of having high blood pressure and had major swelling issues, we were hoping that baby would be joining us within the next week. However, I had a rude awakening when I went to my appointment and was told that my Dr. was putting money on baby arriving a week late. So, my due date came and went. The day after, we went in to the hospital for a non-stress test to see how baby was doing. I secretly hoped that baby would fail her first recorded test in this life. The nurse began the test and proceeded to destroy my hopes with comments like ... "looks like you will still be pregnant", "she has plenty of fluid". As we sat there watching the screens displaying the contractions and baby's heart rate we saw a contraction that lasted over 3 minutes. Baby's heart rate dropped during this contraction to around 70 bpm and didn't recover for a few minutes. The nurse decided this was enough of a problem to discuss it with the Dr. I was then told that my bag should be packed and I would be living in the Orem Community Hospital for a few days. I was induced around 4-5 PM on March 23rd. As the contractions started coming faster and stronger, baby's heart rate continued to drop as it had before. She told us early on that things will take place on her time frame rather than ours. I got an epidural later that night, but unfortunately I learned that it does not reduce the pain when you have back labor. The nurses were very nice and took great care of me, though I, Dave, and my mom did not get a wink of sleep that night. After being on and off pitocen all night they started having me push around 7:30 AM. After baby put up a good fight, the Dr. gave us the option of using a suction or doing a C-section. We chose the suction and battle continued. Baby arrived after a few more rounds of push and pull. The Dr, reassured us that the present cone shape and hickey of her poor little head was only temporary. Baby didn't mind the comments about her head and just looked around at those around her, probably thinking about how funny we must have looked that morning.





Since then, we have enjoyed having her home with us. She tends to sleep well with only one snack time around 4 AM. Like me, she does not like to go to sleep early. I guess the early bird philosophy means nothing to her yet. She is still very aware of her surroundings and enjoys dancing with mom and dad. She is growing and changing daily and we think she is beautiful.

Our basketball adventures of the winter...

Well where to begin... as many of you know I, Dave, have enjoyed playing basketball for years. I am not a great player by any sense of the imagination, but I enjoy a good game. I usually played on Saturday mornings with some friends to keep myself in half-decent shape during the school semesters. Back in December I woke up one Saturday to do just that and little did I know that I would be playing in a game, I will never forget, and if I do... we have pictures to remind me. I was playing defense and proceeded to block the shooters elbow with my face. I know he wasn't expecting that quick defensive maneuver and so I proceeded to fall to the floor allowing him time to adjust to my defensive skills. I later realized that by blocking his elbow with my face, something I didn't anticipate happened. I thought nothing of it until Kristen told me we should go to the urgent care center at BYU. The Dr. there told us that nothing was wrong and I should just take it easy. I took his advice until later when I went to blow my nose and had a new sensation ... my face blew up like a balloon. I figured this was no problem, maybe other people have this too, right? After talking to another Dr. at the ER, I decided that might not be true. We were told that my face was broken and the bone under my eye had 3 fractures. It took some time to heal, but it did and everything is fine.



Later in January, I played intramurals with some friends and we ended up playing in the Division 3 playoffs. We had a relatively small team, but we were defensively minded and won some tight games despite forgetting how to make lay-ups. We made it to the championship game and our offensive and defensive leaders played great. We won that game and many of us earned our first championship shirt at BYU.