Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
I right this as my three day old daughter sleeps on my chest and Death Cab for Cutie plays on my iTunes. She was born on 1-26-2006. When born she was 7lbs 7oz and 19 1/5". Tonya was in labor for 12 1/2 hours. It was amazing.
We had just settled our heads for anouther night of not having a baby. Tonya was snuggling close to me and we were both about to fall asleep. She lept out of bed and ran into the bathroom. She returned and explained that she had just broken her water. However, she wasn't having real contractions yet so we had time. We both showered and put on clean clothes. We grabbed the few things from inside the house that we needed (we packed the car a few weeks ago) and left for the hospital. The first thing that happened was me getting yelled at for going to slow. Then we called my mother and Kristen and told them to show up at the hospital. At this point Tonya was contracting at 5 to 8 minutes apart. Things were moving really really fast. We got to the hospital and were led to a delivery room. The labor and delivery ward was pretty empty when we got there. That was going to change.
In the room Tonya was checked to find out where things were. She was at a little over 3cm. The contractions were about a 3-5min apart. Our Dr. (Dr. Amy Helmer) was paged so that she knew we were going to have a baby sometime in the next day.
Tonya and I were in the room alone together for a while. Her contractions went down to 1minute apart. At this point her desire for comfort overroad her fear of the epidural and I hit the call buttton to let the nurses know that we wanted an epidural. Once the epidural was administered (it was a little tricky since Tonya was contracting so quickly) the contractions slowed way down. Shortly aftward my mother showed up.
The tree of us relaxed in the room. Tonya tried to nap and so did I. My mom waited in peace. Then Kristen showed up. She and my mom hung out while Tonya tried to nap and I did. I slept for 2hours. Our Dr. showed up just after I woke up, she decided to administer pitocin (the artificial version of oxytocin) to speed up and solidify the contractions. This was about 8am or so and Tonya was 5cm dialated. The contractions slowly started to pickup, however this time the epidural had really really lessened the pain. Tonya could still feel them and her feet and legs but the pain went from a 7 to 2 (he description not mine).
At about 10:20am she was fully dialated and she was feeling the desire to push. A few minutes later the order came to start pushing. We had a wonderful ob nurse help us before our Dr came in. Her name was Katie or Kathryn. We told her we were naming our daughter after her.
Kathryn was delivered in an amazing show of strength by Tonya a few hours later at 12:25pn. It was amazing to watch her come out. Instantly I was in love. She was this perfect little bundle of love. She had dark hair and dark steel blue eyes. Her arms and legs are long and thin. Her feet and fingers are long. I got the cut the cord, which all in all will probably not stick in my mind. It was kind of a secondary distracting task given that I was getting to meet my daughter for the first time.
She is this tiny little prefect being. Her little legs curl up into her body and she likes it that way. She like to suck on her hands and anything else that gets near her mouth. To calm her down in the few times that she gets upset she sucks on a pinky or who ever is holding her and that calms here down.
Shortly after she was born she was taken to the nursery to get her first bath and her vitimin K shot. I went with her while Tonya, who was doing great was taken to the room the two of them would share. I was there for my babies first shot, her first pee, her first poop, and her first bath. It was really special that for the first 4 hours or so I was the only person who was with her at all times.
Thus far, I've been the one to change her. It was a task that I was really really not looking forward to. However, I've changed all but a few of her diapers thus far and I kind of enjoy it. It's something I can do for her that meets a need she has. At this point she has very few needs and since I can't feed her at least I can be the one to change her diapers.
Sorry to anyone who tried to post a comment to our blog. There was an entry in the spam blocker that was doing TOO good a job. It is fixed now.
Today is my baby sister's birthday. Happybirthday Meg! She just turned 21. (Damn I'm old.)
Sunday I got up at the butt crack of the butt crack of dawn to make coffee and get to Doc Wong's house by 5:30am (we were car pooling). We drove half way (just below Hollister on 25 in Tres Pinos) for Breakfast at Flap Jacks. There we met up with a large handfull of people who were joining us. Breakfast was good. I had corned beef hash. It was not what I was used to. It was LARGE chunks of corned beef with potatoe chunks and onions. I heartily recommend Flap Jacks if you are in the area. We had them so full they were turning people away at the door. It was litterally standing room only at 6:30am.
When we left Flap Jacks we headed down highway 25 to Clear Creek. We past the main Clear Creek entrance to the Salinas Ramblers property. The Salinas Ramblers allow Doc to hold the Clinics on their property so he doesn't need BLM permits for Clear Creek proper. Now would be a good time to point out that Clear Creek is in danger of being Shutdown. It is one of a VERY few places left in the country that allow all forms of recreation. The Salinas ramblers are fighting to keep Clear Creek open to offroad recreation which is being threatened at every turn. 
So that I don't get kicked off of the movabletypo main page I'll continue this in the extended...
After getting dressed to ride and saying hi to everyone it was time for the riders meeting. At this point I discovered that while yesterday the 525s battery was bad today it was HORRIABLE!. It really barely started the bike while warm forget while cold. Definately time for a new battery. After riding around to let people know that they were needed for the riders meeting, now not in 10 or 20 minutes I busted out my Rebel XT and wide angle lens (Tokina 12-24F4) for some shooting. I have pictures from everything but the group ride. That I was too busy riding myself. As the riders meeting ended we organized for a group shot. I used my superwide lens to get everyone in the shot. We had about 60 riders total. I'm in the process of processing the shots I took so that I can post and distribute them. The shot turned out pretty good for the available light.
After the meeting and group photo we rode over to the drill padock. I rode over with my full camera bag to shoot the drills. The drills are fun to watch. There were about 60 riders on everything from Yamaha TTR125s to BMW R1200GSs. It makes for a great sight, large lumbering bikes and small bikes zipping around. The most notable thing for me this year was the lack of two strokes. In years past (I've been doing these clinics for 3 or 4 years now, I've just neve actually blogged them before) there have been a large contingent of two strokes. This year two strokes were VASTLY out numbered by four strokes. Even if you take out the large dualsport bikes the two strokes were still only a handfull out of 40 or 50 bikes. I would estimate less then 20, probably around 10. It made me wish I had brought my 125SX to help the population! The drills went by quickly. I shot as much as I could without being in the way. As the drills broke up we tried to devide people into skills groups. Then we broke for lunch.
I wolfed down lunch while trying to get the 525 ready to go. I had extra gas so I topped off Phil from Aftershocks tank on his new Husqvarna TC250, then I had Phil help me get the rear shock on my 525 under control. This caused me to miss the group I was going to ride with. Originally, I was going to ride with Kari and help out managing the Cal BMW dual sport group. I have experiance with the big bikes and have helped people get out of bad situations in the past. Instead I tagged allong with Phil from After Shocks and John from Zoom Cycles. It was a mixed group with beginers and intermediates. We started out and everything was fine. We had to stop to adjust a few bikes and tweak a few things. I rode in the middle of the pack but probably shouldn't have. I was held up by beginers but I was having fun.
After a while we hit our first "rest" stop. The stops to this point had been to regroup. There we decided to break into two groups for a short while. One group would go with Phil as the intermediates the other with John as the beginers. This is where things went wrong.
We started on some single track up hill in the mud. It was actually pretty easy but slow. Lucky for me the 525 is great at slow hills if you can keep the rear from breaking loose. We get to the top of the hill to discover a HUGE mud hole to ride around. A few people got stuck. Then I got stuck and passed by the 1 person behind me. Once I got over the slippery tree root I was stuck on (for all of 30 seconds) I was all alone. I hit an intersection and no one was there to tell me whch way to go. I started making a few quick scouting loops just to see if anyone was around. I found other groups but not mine. On one of these scouting loops I was in 3rd gear ripping along over some LARGE wide woops and I cross rutted and crashed. This is where I tore the rear blinker off the left side of my bike :-(. I was lost and I crashed. I was getting unhappy. After about 10 minutes 2 other riders from my group bumped into me asking where to go. 1 was on a black XR650R the other a large Kawasaki (KLX650?). We did some further scouting to try to find the group. Eventually John roared up on his CR250R to take us back.
The way to the group was an AWESOME mix of single track and trails. We roared along to the area known as the playground. I was mostly able to keep up with John with the other two pulling up the rear. (I was on a much lighter bike!)
We got to the playground to find Phil and a large chunk of the group we not there yet. A KTM 640 Adventure crashed cracking his HUGE fuel tanks and loosing gas quickly. Lucky the crack was fairly high on the tank so once the level was below the crack it stopped leaking. With the huge size of the tank of the 640 he still had more then enough to do the rest of the ride.
We hung out at the playground a bit doing some of the big hill climbs. The 525EXC is a cheater bike for hill climbs. It has SO much power and torque that I just point it up anyhill and climb. We did this for a while.
Eventually Phil decided to take the intermediates on anouther loop. John rode sweep and the beginers stayed at the playground to recoup and play.
The trail loop was great. We got stuck a few times as some of the younger members of the party had some issues on the really hard parts but all in all it was a blast. We went up a few steep hills, one of which I had to abort and start over as the hill was too steep and the ground too soft to get traction on the big 525 after stopping for the young ones in front that had a problem. With a clear path it was a cake walk with the giant thumper under me. The other bit of real excitement was the downhill that was so steep. We took it at a diagnal and went accross and down. I actually turned off the motor and just used the front brake to descend because we were moving so slowly. This is where I experianced the wonderfull twostroke oil effect on my 4stroke 525. The hill was so steep that oil went up the crank case breather hose, back around to the air intake and was sucked into the motor with the air and gas. When I started the 525 it smoked this wonderfull white smoke as the esters and ethers in my synthetic oil burned up in the motor. FUN STUFF! When we got back to the playground we were already starting to loose light so we headed back to camp.
The trip back was a fun mix of trails and fire roads. Nothing particularly exciting with the exception of the 3 foot drop that stopped most of the small bikes in their path. The small bikes wound up being walked/caried down the drop. We kind of thinned out toward the bottom as people knew where we were and how to get back.
When we got back it was more socializing and relaxing. I ate a bit more and visited with friends. I got to ride a new R1200GS HP2 and an old R80GS back to back. It was interesting. They each have an interesting and fun roll. I would love to add either to my collection as long as I didn't have to give anything up!
As the sun went down we loaded up the truck and drove home. The ride home was sedate as we were both tired from a long day having fun.
The second weekend of the year I spent the entire weekend on my KTM 525 EXC. Saturday the 7th I went riding with a friend and his kids. This trip was set to coinside with Tonya's baby shower from her co-workers. We carpooled down to Hollister Hills in my truck, all four of us. My bike was in the bed of the truck as was everone's gear since the cab was full of full sized people and Kathryn's car seat base. The other three bikes were on a trailer. We almost didn't have lights on the trailer because I left my 8pin (truck side) to 4pin (trailer side) adapter connected to my tailer. Luckily I had a spare that I had forgotten about until I was digging in the truck for some other stuff. The ride to Hollister was uneventfull. We didn't do too much talking. Even though it was almost 10am by the time we left San Jose everyone was still kinda tired and morning oriented.
When we got to Hollister it was a zoo. We noticed a little parking in the first lot but decided not to park there since that part of the park was closed due to mud. The lower part of the park is adobe mud and when it is wet it is slicker then snot and twice as sticky. So we spend a good 15 minutes driving from parking area to parking area trying to find a place to park a 1/2 ton truck and tailer. Eventually we found a place to park that wasn't too bad. The front of the truck was down a muddy hill but with a V8 and 4 wheel drive I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get stuck. We unloaded and warmed up our bikes. This when I discovered the little battery in the 525 had gone bad. I had topped it off when working on the bike in the garage the week before but the little battery just didn't have what I needed anymore. Lucky for me with freshly adjusted valves the 525EXC kicks to life prety damn easy (provided you have the gas on, more on that later).
We spent a few minutes getting our grear out and then getting dressed in our gear. Then we roared out. I stayed on the back like I normally do. I stay in the back no matter what I'm riding but especially on the 525. It has enough power to really shower the unlucky SOB who is behind me when I crack the throttle a bit. We hit some muddy trails on our first loop. The mud resulted in a XR400 on it's side on a hill. The XR400 is a kick start only bike, so we had to kickstart it on a hill in the mud. Lots of fun! It was one of two mud related problems on the trip. After we got going again we headed back down and had lunch and relaxed.
This is where that gas on comment comes in. I decided when we stopped for lunch that I would turn the gas off on my bike and I WOULDN'T forget to turn it back on, even tough I aways forget and end up with a bike that suddenly dies when all the gas in the float bowl gets used up, but this time it wouldn't happed! Lunch was good. Tonya got my coldcuts and rolls to eat, ham and salami! I drank two redbulls (bull come!) and a gatoraid. It was good.
After we had lunch and got ready to go again we started out. We road along the main rode to get to the trail we wanted to ride. Flor some reason my bike wouldn't run with out the choke on... I figured it had just cooled too much during lunch. We stopped at a traffic control (the normally seperate two way traffic was being synconised because 1 lane was closed because of a broken trailer). While waiting my bike died and wouldn't start! Guess who forgot to turn is gas back on after lunch! Yeas, I'm just that cool! We went for a big loop and had a good time. We hit anouther muddy section. While we were riding along two CRF250Rs crashed together in the mud. We were riding along a normally wide trail. However, with all the recent rain there was a LOT of mud and efectively only 1 good clear lane to get through it. Well these mental giants decide to pass my buddies oldest at the same time two abreast. Well the kid (sort of he is 17 or so now) was in the only dry grove so the 450s were out in the nasty mud and they slammed together and both went down. One guy went over his bars and got his helmet stuck in the mud. Once it was clear he was OK it was just commical. The other guy was less funny. He was just a little mudy. However both 450s were in a pile on top of him. Quickly the bikes were moved and he was fine however, he got really pissed about the accident and the damage to his bike. It wasn't really bad but he was pissed off and turned around on the 1 way trail to go back to his car. We continued on our way. My friend's yongest son crashed his CRF230F in the mud some time later. It was aparently spectacular, I didn't see it. I was riding with his oldest sone ahead. He flipped over the bars when his front end washed out. He thought it was great. He was a little muddy and grinning from ear to ear when he cought up to us. He was dissapointed he didn't get more muddy. (He always takes an odd amount of pride in his crashes!) We finished up the loop and headed back to the truck for a drink and to relax.
Now that the 525 was ridable (with the lowered gearing of 14:52) I offered the bike around for test rides as all three kind of want to get some variant of the KTM 4stroke EXC bike. My buddy passed on the offer as he has ridden one and won't do it again on the stock seat. He loves the bike, but hates the seat! His youngest son also passed. Even though he is a few months from getting his first adult bike (he wants a KTM 400 or 450 EXC) he was intimidated by the 525. The oldest was all game. I rode his CRF250X and he rode my 525 EXC. It was very funny, we both had a blast on the others bike. He rode better on the 525 since the lowend grunt of the 525 was more like the bikes he learned to ride on then the 250 four stroke he had now. He was cornering faster and riding better. I was having a blast. His 250 felt like a toy. I was winding out the motor and using all of the suspension by hitting whoops in 3rd gear with the throttle all the way open... It was great. While riding his bike and listening to him ride mine and then talking to him I pin pointed the problem he was having with his 250. He was wasn't riding high enough in the powerband to really use the motor so the bike was harder to ride. Next time we go out I'm going to try and remind him to stay a gear low on his 250. We did a great final loop. It was a blast. No one fell or crashed or dropped anything. We got back to the truck about 30 minutes before sunset.
We loaded up in the last of the light and headed for home. The ride back was much more animated. We talked and joked and laughed. It was really great. The plan from now on is to do the carpool thing since my truck works so well.
When we got back we had dinner composed of leftovers from the party and Tonya and I headed home. When we got home I packed and arranged for Sunday. Sunday was a Doc Wong/Cal BMW dirt clinic.
The first week in January I finally had enough hours (3.5) on my almost year old 525 to require it's first service. Since I have the 125SX I hadn't put too many miles on the 525. I changed the oil making a huge mess, adjusted the valves (that was fun! finding Top Dead Center was a pain in the ass for a while), and replace the rear sprocket with a 52 (it was a 48). The new sprocket required a new chain due to the MUCH larger size of the 52. However at 14:48 it was just geared too tall for lazy trail riding. The 14:52 is MUCH better for single track and lazy riding.
After the weekend, where I broke a rear blinker in a highspeed swap out on a fire road in Clear Creek, I realized I need hand guards to keep the branches from hitting my front brake when I don't want it. I also need to replace the rear blinkers that are on stalks with flush mount blinkers. Then I won't have to worry about them when I either crash or just lay to bike on it's side (many times the ground doesn't coperate with a kickstand so the only way to step away from you bike is to lay it against a wall, rock, stump on on it's side).
I'm also working on a way to move my tool kit from my 125 to 525 and back again without using tools. I don't like wearing it as a fanny pack since I also wear a camel back. I really like having it mounted to the rear fender. The drawback is that ties it to one bike. I have TWO!
I became full term on Saturday the 7th. Meaning she can come anytime now and should be completely developed and fine. And I'm very ready for her to come into the world. This is the hardest part.....not just because physically its getting harder and harder but also the waiting, wanting her to be here and having no idea when that maybe. Unfortunatly, pre-labor symptoms can lasts somewhere between a day to weeks so even though I'm having somethings begin it is absolutely no indicator of the beginning of actual labor. And it really sucks to think I could feel this way for another 3 possibly 4 weeks.
The good thing about being pregnant for 9 months is that you stop caring about the pain of labor and just want it out. Not to say that I'm not nervous or scared......but the desire to have her out of my body is outweighing my fears. Not to say it hasn't been a wonderful experience. I've enjoyed having her inside of me, feeling her move around, feeling her react to what's happening outside of her environment. But I'm done now. I'm so looking forward to posting her pictures here so everyone can see her.......any day now....hopefully sooner than later.