Andrea’s Weblog

This story begins two days ago when I noticed Elena’s umbilical cord was gone. It was hanging by a thread, so I had covered it with a band-aid so it wouldn’t get yanked off. Her cord was longer than most (about 2 inches) because in our hurry to leave the hospital, they never came by to trim it. The next morning, the band-aid was there, but the dried up cord stump was gone. We figured that if it fell off on the floor, Finley had eaten it so we never bothered to look for it.

Fast-forward to last night. We were at Frank’s work happy hour attempting to show off Elena. I was sitting next to Elizabeth who was not the least bit interested in eating pizza–very unusual for her. Suddenly she’s throwing up and I’m furiously throwing napkins over her. When we got home I tossed Elizabeth’s clothes in the washing machine.

This morning I went to get the clothes out and swept my hand along the inside of the washing machine. I felt something wet and squishy and pulled it out only to find a totally re-hydrated umbilical cord. It was a thick blue wet noodle. Somehow in the two days it spent in the washing machine, it plumped back up and turned back into the white and blue vein it was when Elena was first born. Eeeewwww!!