Well, it is 4:30 am and I am at OU Children’s Medical Center with my daughter, Maria. She is in labor and was going to have a home birth, but as the baby is early and the midwife could not get the labor to stop, she was brought here.
So far, they have not done anything to stop it. The midwife says since she is 36 weeks, they most likely will let her just continue. She is dilated to a 4 and is 95 percent effaced.
The doctor was just here, and we spoke for a while, but no definite decision was made, yet.
Maria came by last night and asked me about labor and asked me how to tell if it was real. She was really emotional and had been having contractions on and off since the previous night. They continued all day today and started getting consistent this evening.
It is now 6 am and she is still in labor, but is still between a 4 and a 5. They moved her to an observation room and it was decided to not stop the labor, but also to not do anything to speed it up. We are just going to wait and see what happens.
I have been so busy the past few weeks that I haven’t even had time to think about my blog.
I started coaching one-on-one in a company in OKC. There are seven people that I will coach. I will meet one hour each week with each person. Four are supervisors, one is in quality assurance, one is an administrative assistant, and one is in safety.
I did a couple of personality/conflict/team/leadership assessments on each person last week. It was extremely interesting to see how the different personality types play in to how they handle conflict, their teams, and so forth.
I am now working up individualized plans to meet the various needs and wants of each.
The whole process was very similar to the research I did for my dissertation. As I interviewed and assessed each person, I learned more about the organization, and additional pieces of information clarified the overall view of the organization as a whole.
It is also enlightening to see how each time I met with a new individual, my perspective changed on what I had been told by the previous persons. It was fascinating to see how each person viewed the conflicts and problems that the company faces, and how different their ideas and attitudes were of what is wrong, what is right, and what needs to be done.
There definitely were three integral themes that were common to all: communication, accountability, and decision making. Therefore, I will start with those and make adjustments as we progress and learn more. Also, each person is at different levels in their capacity to lead and to incorporate the skills.
I also have been approached to do a culinary team building exercise for another OKC pharmaceutical company. They do a week long company-wide training, some days are on-site, others; off-site. One day, I will do three sessions with about 40 people in each session.
I am excited about this training. We had a conference call last week and came up with some great ideas to incorporate quality, accuracy, and urgency into the cooking team building exercises. I can’t talk about it right now because there will be some surprises and I can’t afford to perhaps give away here what is going to happen.
I think I told you I am going to homeschool David (9 grade), Elizabeth (6 grade), and Rebeca (2 grade) this year due to numerous problems with our local public schools. Besides, I homeschooled the older children and had always told the younger ones that when I finished my degree, I would homeschool them.
In Oklahoma, there is a charter school that provides curriculum, support, teachers that can tutor, etc. We actually have about 15 different curriculums to choose from. I spent Saturday morning looking at the different curriculums, as well as every fee moment last week.
I finally decided on a different curriculum for each child, but will use the same math program for all three.
I enrolled Rebeca on Saturday, but we had to go a baptism, and then we had company, and by that time I did not want to be on the computer anymore.
Sunday, we had the missionaries over for lunch and then went with them to visit a family. It is a family that I always enjoy visiting. They are so funny and interesting.
Came home too late to get anything done, but to go to bed after scriptures and prayers. Fito and I stayed up until almost 11:30 talking and then Maria called to say that she thought she was in labor. She called again a couple more times, then Fito left about 2 am to go give her a blessing, and then I left about 2:30 am to go join her at the hospital.
It is now 8 am and we are still here at the hospital. We are still in limbo. The baby’s heart rate started dropping really low during the contractions, but we older ladies now have Maria on her elbows and knees, propped up with two pillows, and since then the heart-rate has been better, although, each time she moves to a new position, the rate drops again.
I made Snicker Doodles yesterday, and made sausage, potatoes, and eggs. Fito didn’t want that so he made a fish and shrimp combo. We made rice and then he fried some plantain bananas.
Thursday night, Fito and I were outside and his brother-in-law drove up. His sister was with him, too. As well as our nephew. They had a family event in Texas on Saturday and had come over to OKC first to see us. They are also coming by today on their way home.
Actually, it would be neat if the baby came today while relatives are here from Ohio, however, only if he is healthy and ready to come in this world.
One day last week, I came home to find that Matthew had made some stew and rice. The stew was incredible. I had it again on Saturday. Fito cut up some tomatoes, jalapeños, and bell peppers from our garden and put them in the stew with some crunched up chips. Wow…it was really good. I told Matthew I was really impressed!
On Tuesday, of last week, a cousin of my mom’s came to visit as her sister was in town. We had such a nice visit and we went out to the garden and picked two bags of peppers for her to take home.
This has been an incredibly busy summer. Last week, we had a wind storm and it knocked down another tree. It must have been weakened by the tornado and then came down now. It was a large tree and landed on the fort and the pile of tile we had for the house.
We also just found out the trusses on our house are not strong enough to withstand tile. We are still working with the adjuster on what the final payout will be on everything from the tornado damage.
The wind blew the insulation in the attic, too. The end of the house that took the brunt of the storm has been exceptionally hot, so I had a company come out and take thermal images.
The insulation was moved away from the edges and is bunched up in areas. Also, we finally did get rain after 30 plus days of over 100 degree weather and the roof leaks in many areas….sigh…
I need to spend time and chose materials and colors for the roof and siding and although I should be excited to do such…it just makes me tired to think of doing so.
I will try to blog more often, especially this week, to let you know the outcome of Maria and Travis’s baby.
Comments