iMama

Everybody loves little Samuel.  Naomi might love him a little too much sometimes.  I'm not quite sure she understands the difference between him and her baby doll du jour.  The other day I managed to smash a doll with a door and she was nearly frantic to get it free.  She yelled, "Hurt baby!" at me quite a few times while holding and rocking and shushing and patting it.  She also loves to poke Sam's eyes, squeeze his cheeks, and bite his toes.  I can't blame her.  He's a super delicious baby.

Her new thing is to sit on the floor and pat her lap and say "I Mama?"  She's asking to hold Samuel, and it's really cute when she does.  She is such a little mama.

But when it comes to doing lunch and nap for four kids, the older two are actually helpful.  Today, I got Samuel pottied, into a fresh diaper, nursed and swaddled, and then called in the troops to settle him while I got Naomi ready for her nap.  By the time she was laid down, Sam was already down for the count.  They're pros.

Family dinner

Tonight was the first time we've been able to sit down, all six of us, each in his own seat, and enjoy an uninterrupted meal together since Samuel was born.  There's just something so civilized about taking a half hour out of the day to look at each other, to give attention to each person, to hear each other.  And for me, to sit with my own body and nobody else's body on me.  For an entire meal together. Ahhh.

After dinner we had a little bike riding time.  Check out Sam--he's ready to run!

And Fiona, who is so proud of herself and her athletic pursuits lately <3

Naomi's Birth

I have always told my patients that every labor is different, and Naomi's birth showed me just how true that is.  With Fiona, I had a 40 hour unmedicated labor that ended in a transfer to the hospital and a c-section.  With Elijah's labor, we planned a home birth and did things a little differently prenatally, and God blessed us with a 5 hour labor and successful vbac at home in our tub.  I would describe the first labor as slowly building up and fairly easy to cope with, and the second as a freight train rolling through me and all I could do was hold on until it was over.  But Naomi has already asserted that there is a third option between the lengthy labor and the fast and furious labor.

We went to our last prenatal on Tuesday, and I was 3cm in the office.  We had a few errands to run that day and did a lot of driving.  I had a chiropractic visit and was feeling good, with occasional contractions, but nothing different from the past several weeks.  I've had a lot of practice contractions throughout this pregnancy, some intense and some not so much.  We ended up meeting my mom and my aunt for dinner at a restaurant, and when the inevitable "When is this baby coming out?" conversation started, I told Fiona that I planned to go home, put everyone to bed, chop up some veggies for soup, sleep well and wake up in the morning in labor.  "I think we should have the baby tomorrow," I told her, and she was very excited even though I was joking.  But we did just that.

After chopping up the veggies and watching a movie, Dan and I went to bed fairly late and I had a hard time getting comfortable.  At 3am the first contraction woke me, but I was able to go back to sleep.  Another woke me at 4am, and another at 5am, but then they started coming more frequently.  By 5:45 I woke Dan and started timing them, and for the next hour and a half they were 3-6 minutes apart.  Our midwives are an hour's drive away, so we called Jenny (the midwife on call) and let her know that things were getting started so she would have time to get her day prepared before coming over.  During the period we were timing them, the pressure waves were fairly intense and it helped to be on my hands and knees during them.  Jenny wanted us to call her back in an hour and let her know how things were progressing.

Around 7:30 I laid on the couch on my side and started listening to my Hypnobabies birthing scripts, and I felt soooo relaxed.  They were still intense, but I was dozing and relaxing between them and it felt like the muscles that needed to work were working and everything else was just chilling out, waiting for baby.  It was wonderful.  However, the pressure waves were spacing out to 10 or 20 minutes apart.  This was very discouraging to me since I felt like I was getting in a good labor pattern and now it seemed like it was going away.  Jenny said she was still going to head on over, since she'd rather be here too early than too late, and if she needed to, she'd find something to do in the Franklin area for the day.  I had already told my mom that today was the day, even though I didn't need her to watch the kids yet, and now my contractions were disappearing. 

The Seven Cities Midwifery crew, which consisted of midwife Jenny and apprentices Jen and Lori, arrived around 10ish, and my mom was there just before that.  She took the kids out shopping for a bit, and the midwives came in and made sure all the necessary supplies were set up and available.  Since my contractions were so spaced out, Dan and I decided to take a walk.  We went around the block once and had a couple of mild ones between two very spaced out but strong ones.  We came back because I had to pee.  The tub had been set up, and I remember looking at it throughout the day thinking I'd like to get in it.  But, in my experience, getting in the water can slow things down and I certainly didn't need to relax anymore.  I felt I needed to do something to get labor going.  So, I kept shuffling around the house, sitting on the ball, leaning over the back of the couch.  My cousin came over, my mom and the kids came back, we ate some food.  Through it all I had very intense pressure waves anywhere from 6 to 30 minutes apart.  No real pattern ever got established, and I was very discouraged.  I was also tired, so everyone else went out to lunch--midwives, family, everyone except Dan and Elijah (our 2 yr old) who laid down for a nap in the kids' room while I laid down in my bed.  I was able to sleep for a while, but the intense waves would wake me up, and it was much harder to deal with them coming out of a dead sleep, so I eventually got back up.  When I was awake, I was able to stay focused and relaxed, and never really had any pain. 

After everyone got back from their afternoon outings, we settled in to some knitting and conversation.  My aunt came by and stayed for the rest of the day, which worked well to help mom with taking care of Fiona and Elijah.  The kids were able to do their birth project, which was a gingerbread house set we purchased for them to put together.  We'd been saving it for a few weeks, and every day the kids would ask if I could have the baby soon so they could put the gingerbread house together.  As the afternoon progressed, I never really felt like I got into a good pattern, but I kept eyeing the birthing pool thinking how nice it would be to get in and just relax for a while.  I went ahead and got in and thought well, if they completely disappear, I'll just get out.  I wasn't in the pool but a few minutes when I had a nice strong pressure wave, and it felt wonderful to be able to completely relax in the water and feel my body doing its work, fully supported by the water.  Another strong wave and I felt the first pushing urge.  I remember looking up and meeting Jenny's eyes while the urge to push rolled through me.  It was time to get my cervix checked.  

I stepped out of the tub and headed to my bedroom, and was thankful for contractions that were so spaced out I could just walk around and lay on the bed and completely relax between them.  When Jenny checked me, she grinned and said how effaced I was with a bulging bag of water, and finally she said a "conservative" 8cm because I was dilating more as she was checking me.  Woo Hoo!!   Apparently, all this time that I'd been so discouraged about not being in labor, I was laboring just fine!  This was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and I laid on the bed a while before heading back to the tub.  I just felt so laid back and relaxed and even though I was 8cm, I felt like it could be a few hours yet.  The pressure was there with each contraction, but it was just never painful or overwhelming, and I felt like it could still be a while before we were ready to deliver. 

I got back in the birth pool, loved the heat and the water and just had a good time waiting on my body to be ready to push.  We had set up the pool in the middle of our big open floor plan and brought in the lawn furniture to have more seating and a bigger table space for supplies.  We had a blanket under the pool and terry cloth bathroom rugs all around it.  The Christmas tree was lit and the curtains drawn after the sun set, and everyone was gathered around the pool.  The kids were finishing up their gingerbread house in the kitchen and my mom was running the video camera.  Dan was staying nearby to help with relaxation cues and my hypnosis tracks were playing on the iHome nearby.  The midwives were putting together their supplies and there was general bantering and conversation as we all waited. 

I think my contractions may have picked up the pace somewhere in the next hour, but they were still very comfortable and easy to deal with.  I just draped my arms over the tub and turned off my switch while the pressure rolled through, and was able to sit up and talk in between contractions.  Eventually they started feeling very pushy, and I could feel my uterus pushing down while I just relaxed through the contractions.  Finally, a little after 5:30, the first real pushing started where I couldn't not push.  There was no more relaxing, and I could feel baby moving down and out. 

For the next 15 minutes, I pushed with the contractions and felt tremendous pressure between them.  The first pain I felt all day was as her head was moving through the pelvic outlet and everything had to adjust to let her through.  I remember feeling like my legs were in the way.  If I just didn't have legs, everything would work out fine.  Sometime around the second or third big push, my water broke and the fluid was clear, but I didn't know it until the midwives announced it.  I was leaning forward over the tub, holding on to Dan and pushing mightily with each wave, biting down on a towel.  With Elijah's birth, I was in a different position with each contraction as he worked to come down.  This time, though, I stayed right where I was to push for several contractions, until I suddenly felt it wasn't right to be in that position anymore.  I remember saying out loud that I didn't know what to do, what should I do?  And then her head was coming out and I had to MOVE, so I flipped back to a reclining position, and her head was right there, coming out.  Once her head was out, I opened my eyes for the first time since I had started pushing and was surprised to see everyone gathered around--the three ladies of the midwifery team, the kids, Dan, my mom, my aunt--I was surrounded by supportive hands and faces.  It was amazing.  Jen, one of the apprentices, was supporting the bottom of my perineum while I supported the top, and I ended up with no tears.  I was able to feel a nuchal cord at about the same time I pushed out the rest of her body and pulled her up to my chest.  She was out!  She was born after 12 hrs of "labor" and 15 minutes of pushing at 5:50 pm on Wednesday, December 14, 2011. 

We wrapped her in warm blankets and waited for her to pink up a bit before I got out of the tub.  I felt pushy again and squatted over some chux pads to deliver the placenta.  Then we made our way down the hall to the bedroom to clean up, nurse and get some food for me.  Fiona cut the cord after we were settled in the bed.  Naomi was weighed and measured after we had a while to nurse and cuddle.  She was 20 1/2 inches long, and weighed 9 lbs even--my smallest baby yet.  We are settling in to life as a family of five and thanking God for our second HBAC birth and this beautiful addition to our family--He is so good!

Watching Birds

My Grammy (as opposed to Fiona's Grammy) gave us a nice bird feeder for Christmas with a bag of birdseed.  This was a really cool gift for us because we have a window seat with large picture windows looking out of the north and west sides of our house, and everyone loves to watch the world go by.  Sammy's favorite perch is on the wide sill of the windows there, and the kids climb up every morning to wave goodbye or welcome home their Daddy.  Even Cocoa likes to sneak up and check things out every so often.

When the hubbub of Christmas was over, we hung our new feeder, plus a suet feeder that was in the kids' stockings, in front of the windows, and it didn't take long before we had new visitors.  We've been watching the birds and squirrels play, and this week I realized I don't really know a lot of the visitors we have.  I mean, I can tell a blue jay from a cardinal from a robin, but that's about as far as I go (unless you get into domesticated poultry :).  

Our new favorite website this week is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds.org  There's a lot of neat info on identifying different species, and you can even listen to the songs they make, and get pointers on telling them apart from look alike species.  

Elijah, who is fascinated with all things flying, loves to alert us when birds have arrived at the feeders by yelling out, "Caw, caw!  Fwy, sky!"  A toddler version of "Squirrel!" also tops his vocabulary this week.  Fiona tends to lunge at the birds, wanting to be even closer, while Sammy stealthily stalks them, but hasn't yet figured out how to get to them.  Cocoa keeps checking out the dog door for the squirrels, but not finding them.  The winter blues definitely have less of a hold this year =)

Music Together Chesapeake--love it!

One of the items on our Christmas Wish List is Music Together Chesapeake Classes.  We went to a demo today, and LOVED it!.

They have a very unschooling-like philosophy when it comes to children learning and experiencing the world, which is helpful with active toddlers.  The teachers are very respectful of the fact that some children are quiet and taking things in while others are active participators from the start.  There's a big emphasis on experiencing music throughout the class, but not on participating in a specific way.  They let kids run around and be kids, and I absolutely loved how musical instruments were set out to play and cleaned up.  The kids were able to choose what they wanted, play with them, and then put them away with no fuss!  The instructor sang about the instruments, and sang goodbye while they cleaned up--it was a beautiful lack of coercion :)

We went with friends, which Fiona and Elijah adored, but they also had fun playing with new kids and got plenty of dancing time before transitioning to a lullaby and singing goodbye to the class.  Overall, it was a very pleasant class, and the kids have been asking when we're going back.

So, if you don't know what to get them for Christmas... gift certificates are available by contacting them at office@mtchesapeake.com!

Which Floor?

We're going for Pottery Barn appeal.  Our big room has a warm beigey white color (antique white, I think) as the walls and crisp linen white as the trim (the trim appears white white next to the walls).  We've painted the base of the island, the base of the computer cabinet and the window seat black (cushion is gone).  All the green trim is gone (all white now).  The cabinets are still the stained knotty pine with white knobs.  The island top is still oak, computer desk top still walnut.

Question:  Which floor color?  We're just trying to choose the best looking of the cheap options, not the most phenomenal of all the options.

A) American Classic Oak

 

B) American Cherry

 

C) Medway Park Merbau

D) Slatten

P.S.  I think we're going to get a little 4-6 seat dinette from Ikea that looks like this for a steal, and use a sisal area rug under it and another for the couch area.

How many horses?

Today we were able to visit the farm in Pennsylvania that supplies our raw milk and some of our meats and cheeses.  It was encouraging, for several reasons, the first of which being that we found basically what we expected to find in terms of farming models--a grass based farm raising dairy and beef cattle with an intensive grazing paradigm, as well as layers, broilers, and pork.  The family is Amish, and the farmer who is 39, has 7 children ranging in age from 2-15.  It was a picturesque little farm in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country, with rolling hills and old stone buildings.  The family seemed to be well integrated into the workings of the farm, and the other animals included several horses, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs.  (The guinea pigs are a pet project of the children's.)  They have a nice garden plot for their own produce, and while they do have some modern amenities, the phone he uses for business is still out in a little shed with all of his business papers.  Sort of brings work to the level of one of those things you do in an outhouse :)  It was a beautiful, if crisp day spent outside, and we had lots of new ideas to discuss on the way home.

We're talking a lot about farming these days, making plans, and studying what others do.  Therefore, my three year old sponge has been thinking about how she'd like to participate.  Tonight in the car she asked, "Are we farming yet?"

"Not yet, honey." Dan replied.  "You'll know when we're farming because our house will be a lot smaller and our yard will be a lot bigger.  And there will be animals in it."
"Animals in it?  Can we have horses on our farm?"
"I don't know.  How many horses do you want?"
"Um, three horses."
"Why three horses?"
"Because... Because my... my how-old-is-me is three!"

Shoulda known :)

p.s. If you live in the Maryland/DC/NoVa area and would like information on raw milk, grassfed beef, and other clean foods produced on the farm, you can contact me directly.  The food police have been harassing our farmer despite the completely legal set up we use.  We are members of a group that leases the farm, and pays the farmer to produce foods for us from our farm.  So, the cost per gallon of milk is not to purchase the milk (we already own it) but to pay the farmer for keeping the cows, moving them twice daily, feeding them hay in the winter, milking them twice daily, bottling the milk, and packaging it for delivery.  We also pay a separate per pound delivery charge for the guy who actually delivers it to our neighborhood.  All these shenanigans are in place just to get around a government that is way too big, but that's another post.  This is the reason I've kept our farmer's name off of my site, but will happily share details if you'd like to join the club :)