The Dance Aliens Have Moved...

Courtney has the SYTYCD recap! Check it out! You know you watch the show...now let's talk about it!

Season Six Is Here! Hello??!!!

Thanks for the clarification, Tyce Deorio. Welcome back to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Dance! As we did with season 5 (congratulations, Jeanine!), every week one of the Sisters, plus a new brother, yeah Brain!!, will blog a recap of that weeks show. Most of the recap will pay homage to Cat Deeley and her awesome-ness. Please leave lots of comments and opinions! It's not a party until someone is offended, so speak your mind fellow SYTYCD watchers!

For any newcomers, here's how the show works. For the first few weeks, a panel of judges made up of regulars, Nigel and Mary, and one or two guest judges of esteemed dance caliber will watch seemingly endless auditions and pass worthy dancers through to Las Vegas. In Vegas the hopeful dancers will be dwindled down to the top 20. At that point, the performance show will be on Wednesday and Thursday (Cat Deeley's least favorite day) will be elimination for one girl and one guy...until one dancer is left standing.

Tonight, the premier featured dancers from L.A., the dance capitol of the world! Really? The world? Okay....The judges are Nigel, Mary and Adam Shankman, who we're pretty sure smokes a lotta wacky tobaccy...but without solid evidence, we'll let that slide.

The first to audition was Cole. Cole did not use music, but instead chose an extremely sensitive microphone to pick up the sound of his rustling clothes and weird utterances as his music. Not a good start....

However, a bunch of wildly talented contemporary dancers were passed through to Vegas. Next, they featured 2 tappers...Ryan (Evan from season 5's brother) and Bianca (she was cut from season 4 & 5 in the Vegas rounds). Did Bianca even audition? All I saw was an awesome "Trading" session between her and Ryan. Trading is the tapping equivalent of a duel at high noon. Way cool!

The guy who wants to be a movie producer was a total train wreck and I think too much time and editing equipment was used on him. I think this sentence was too much time spent on him. Moving on...

Day two brought a lot of talent as well....Featured was contemporary dancer Amber and Salsa dancer Christina. And ANOTHER tapper, Phillip! He was great...I so hope he can do other genres well.

I appreciate that they did not exploit horrible dancers too much...just bits and pieces to keep you interested and a funny "fall sequence" at the beginning of the show. Aside from a few awkward transitions, the show was fab.u.lous. Not enough Cat Deeley, though.

Tune in tomorrow for a recap of the Arizona auditions. I can't wait! The same sex ballroom dancers are baaaack!

****Now I feel silly! I totally thought that the show was on again tonight (Thursday)...but, unless I'm confusing SYTYCD with Bones, we'll have to wait for next week to see the Arizona auditions. Courtney will be handling that recap. See ya next week!****

Labor Day(s)...the final chapter...or is it???

This is the last tale of gore and horror and beautiful child birth, I promise! For now at least....

After working incredibly hard to shed the massive amount of baby weight I gained with Bella, we decided to do it all again! My abdomen hates me. Anyhow, Trey's story should be the shortest, I think....

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give in to an old wives tale. I totally think that women are mostly belly with boys and big all over with girls. Of course, I concede exception to this rule. But, for me it's absolutely true. Really the only part of me that got huge with Trey was the belly. I do have an impressive picture of the belly that maybe someday I'll share. It's not a bare belly picture, so don't panic. I wouldn't do that to you.

I LOVE being pregnant. Sure it has it's aches and pains, but I still love it. I can say that, though, because I've never had a difficult one. (Praise God!) This was finally the pregnancy that I beat the glucose test! Both times before I failed the initial test and had to go back for the awful 5 hour, 4 million vials of blood drawn test. Not this time! You won't get me, Gestational Diabetes! Ha!

Again, great pregnancy! Trey was due May 5th. This time around, though, my doctors were encouraging me to schedule an induction. Their theory was that since Bella came early, this one surely would and who knows? Maybe labor would not last 16 hours, and what would I do if I were stuck with the kids, yada, yada, yada. I guess they kinda hate it when you give birth NOT in a hospital. I declined the offer of Petocin in favor of letting nature take its course. Jay's never too far away, we're surrounded by family and friends...and I didn't want to get my hopes up about a short labor. At my 36 week visit, I asked the doctor about the baby coming early and she said she was absolutely sure that labor would start early...in fact, go home right now, pack your bag, get your babysitter on speed dial and wait for it, 'cause it's coming. Whoa!!! So, I did all that in addition to telling everyone that the baby would be coming any day. I waited, and waited, and waited...oh, is that a contraction? No. Keep waiting. A couple of times, I did have regular contractions, but then I would get serious about tracking them so they went away. Hmph....April ended with no baby. Surely since Bella was a week early, something would happen, right? Nope. I walked a trench through our neighborhood trying to coax this little one out. Nothing. The doctors were kind enough to look sheepish at my 40 week appointment and baffled at why this one wouldn't come out...I was already 5cm dilated for crying out loud (which I may have). May 5th came and went and my midwife scheduled an induction for Mother's Day, May 11th at 11:00 that night.

This time, my midwife was betting her mortgage that once the induction started, it wouldn't be more than 2 hours. Okay, likely story. Off to the hospital we went for the induction. Once again, with Jay's momma in toe. Everything did happen rather quickly as far as hooking up IV's, monitors, drips, etc. Everything except for the labor part. We waited and waited...and I swear it was the hottest room in America. I was so hot and uncomfortable, then I looked over and Jay and his mom were shivering and using golf jackets from Jay's trunk to stay warm. At one point I told them to go ahead and turn up the heat in the room. Five minutes later, I panicked about how hot I was and made them turn it down again. Around 8:00 in the morning, it was time to push...however, the epidural worked so well that I couldn't feel anything! So, we had to wait for the anesthesiologist to come in and turn it off! Oh..and Jay's mom got trapped in the corner and didn't want to make a scene, so she got to witness her 12th grandchild actually enter the world!

This time around, I only had to push for about an hour, but it was really difficult since Trey was holding onto my collar bones. But, here's the best part (aside from the child that was brought into the world)...NO VOMIT! I was sooo excited! After 12 hours of labor, Trey Douglas Mitlo was born on May 12th, 2008.


When it was all said and done, my midwife said "Hey, 12 hours! Not too bad. Shorter than the other ones, right? Next time will be even shorter!" I apologized later for kicking her.

Labor Day(s)...part duex

Bella's turn! Hopefully, my children will forgive me for all the things I write about them on here! Well, let's not worry about little details like that right now....onto Bella's birth story.

My pregnancy with Bella was about the same as with Joe, so not too bad. Except for the MASSIVE weight gain, and by massive I mean people started to ask me at Thanksgiving if I was excited to have a Christmas baby....Bella was due March 24th. I looked as though I was on some type of steroid treatment or had been injected with fluid. My face was full, arms, bee-hind...everywhere was B to the I to the G! Luckily, though, the McDonald's closest to us was newly open 24 hours so that I could comfort myself with cheeseburgers at midnight! I will admit it was a tad bit more difficult to haul all that belly around in addition to a not-quite-2-year-old. Jay definitely stepped up and helped a ton with Joe. He gave him his baths since I couldn't heft my bulk over the edge of the tub to reach Joe...and Jay was quick to occupy Joe so I could rest, or catch my breath....

On March 17th, Joe and I were home, just the two of us, hunkering down to watch some Dr. Phil. As I sat down on the couch, I thought I sat on a water balloon! Whoa!!!! I jumped back up...jumped may be aggressive, slowly stood up and started looking around the living room as if another person may materialize at that instant to confirm that indeed, my water just broke. Yeesh! Since it was just Joe and myself, I remained calm, confirmed that I did not just pee on myself and called Jay. Then I called the doctor's office and calmly told the nurse that even though I was a week away from my due date, I was 99% sure that my water broke. Her reaction was MUCH more panicky than I expected. She started jabbering "Okay, dear, just sit down. Oh my. I'll get the doctor right now. Oh, are you okay? Head right over to the hospital, dear." Since I was having ZERO contractions I was kinda blase about the whole thing. I said "Do I have to go right now?" "Oh yes, dear, right away!" "Uh, okay." So, I called our trusty babysitter and waited for Jay to get home. In the mean time, a friend had called and when I answered she went immediately into a story, blah, blah, blah. When she finished her tirade, she asked how I was doing. So, I told her "Well, my water just broke." She flipped out! It was awesome! We picked up Jay's mom on the way to the hospital despite my protests claiming that it could be a while since I was still having NO contractions. At the hospital, we had to wait in triage since all the beds in Labor and Delivery were being used by woman actually experiencing labor. Six hours! later we got to a room upstairs and they started a Petocin drip and fully expected things to move along quickly at this point. It's so wrong to assume. Forty seven magazines, endless Lifetime movies, and many visitors later. It was time to push. *I should note that I do not sleep well in any situation that does not involve MY bed. Especially when blood pressure cuffs and IV's are involved.* So, it had been quite a while since I had slept or ate....but fear not! My lack of food did not prevent me from throwing up....again! My humiliation knows no bounds! Seriously, what is that? After pushing for about an hour and a half, I gave birth to a 75 lb baby....alright, you caught me. After 16 hours of labor, Isabella Vance Mitlo was born on March 18th, 2005 weighing in at a disappointing 8lbs 3oz.

Labor Day(s)

In honor of Labor Day, and having been inspired by Happy, I thought it would be fun (at the very least funny) to recap the most significant labor days to me...the birth stories of our babies. I'll try my best to keep it short (is that possible?) and sweet (except for the parts about vomit and hemorrhoids)!

First, there was Joe. Joe was due March 12, 2003. I was working as an Educational Interpreter and despite the fact that I swelled up like a balloon to the point that my shoes didn't fit and I had to get my wedding rings cut off my hand, my last day of work was March 11th. As far as pregnancies go, this one was not too bad. A little sciatica here, a little eczema there...those were my only complaints. We dutifully went to Lamaze classes and paid rapt attention, until one of the other preggos started stroking my hair and crying about how beautiful the video of natural birth was. I lost focus after that. Anywho, on the D day, many, many people called all day long to check to see if the bambino was on his or her way. Really? Did you think that I wouldn't call to let you know that I was in labor? I felt nothing...not a twitch or squeeze anywhere. I started to worry that I wouldn't recognize contractions when they started. I was wrong to worry. Around 11:00 that night, I was trying to go to bed while Jay was out doing ministry when the contractions started. I thought maybe I just had to go to the potty...but no, no. This was the real thing. Jay came home shortly after that and things moved pretty quickly (notice, I said things, not labor). We called the doctor, took showers, changed our minds about the baby's name, called Jay's mom (by now it was about 4:00 a.m., sorry Mom!) and zipped over to the hospital. A surly nurse wanted me to give her a number from 1 to 10 to represent how much pain I was in. Having never been in labor before, I said "I don't know, 6?" to which she said "I'm writing down 2." to which I replied "Why did you ask me then?" Thankfully her shift was over at 6 and a new nurse was with us for the rest of the time. Jay was engrossed in the movie Rudy while the contractions became more intense....he actually missed the one that lasted for 6 minutes because I couldn't talk to get his attention and Rudy was about to take the field. A nurse quickly came in after that to offer me the epidural. That whole process was weird and felt weird and the anesthesiologist was weird. Then the doctor came in to break my water and as I rolled over, my water broke all on its own. I swear the doctor never uttered a word, he just left looking annoyed still gripping his knitting needle. Nothing happened for a while...and by awhile, I mean hours. Finally, around 2:00 in the afternoon it was time to push. This is where things get a little hazy for me. I couldn't get the hang of pushing and was pretty sure the epidural was no longer working. As it turns out, the beeping that I thought was some demented background music was the epidural machine thingy indicating that it was out of whatever it uses as a numbing agent and of course there was no time to fix that little problem. When the nurse asked me to put on an oxygen mask, I thought that was standard procedure...I kept pushing until I had to stop to throw up. That was pretty awesome and not the least bit humiliating at all. I had experienced literally every bodily function in a very short amount of time. And if one could harvest hemorrhoids, I had a farm's worth. I slipped to some quiet place in my mind and heard nothing for the rest of the time. I would push, breath through the oxygen mask, push, breath....two hours later, Joseph Clarence Mitlo, Jr. was born. As I came out of my daze, I realized that the room was filled with people. The last I knew, it was me, Jay, the Doctor, the nurse and a stubborn baby....now there was about 8 or 9 extra bodies in the room that I never heard enter or speak and did not know why they were there. I was then told that Junior's heart beat kept dropping and they knew the cord was wrapped around his neck. The neo-natal team quickly swept him a way to check him over. Thankfully, he was perfectly fine. So, all in all it was just an added bonus to have an audience for the beautifully fluid filled show called child birth. Hearing his little cry made all the stitches (and there were a lot) and 16 hours of labor totally worth it......
I've decided to wait until tomorrow and the next day to continue the other stories...apparently, I cannot keep it short or sweet.

Wordless Wednesday