anticipating adventures...

Adventure is here.  My baby sister is just weeks away from meeting her first baby face-to-face.  And so we celebrate.  We celebrate this new little life.  We celebrate the beginning of motherhood.  We celebrate the growing of a family.

Our nursery theme when we were babies centered around Winnie the Pooh.  My sister and her husband are jumping off from there and going with a 100 Acre Woods kind of nursery theme.  Her use of the cross-stitches that my mom lovingly stitched over 30 years ago was my inspiration for her baby shower.

Food from the far reaches of the 100 Acre Wood: north {fruit} poles from Pooh's 'Expotition', veggies from Rabbit's garden, kanga pouch-pockets, owl eggs, honey buns and Piglet's 'haycorns'.

Baby showers are a special time to celebrate and anticipate.  It is also a fun opportunity to catch up with old friends.  Ev was surrounded with women - some she grew up with, others watched her grow up.  They brought their babies and everyone swapped stories and life updates.  And with joy we watch as she enters into this new phase in life.

Greta: A Birth Story

I have a daughter! 

It is a beautiful thing to give birth to your best friend…

The funny thing about giving birth is how your perception of it changes over time.  Greta's birth gets more and more beautiful, the further out I get from it.  To be honest, beautiful would have been the last word used to describe it in the hours and even couple of days afterwards.  It is a delight now to look at the pictures and remember back.

If you enjoy reading birth stories, I invite you to read on... 

Tuesday, September 27^th found me battling a stomach bug.  As usual, I was also having periodic bouts of contractions.  The combination made me wonder if I was in labor.  When my midwife came for my appointment that day (hurray for home visits), she confirmed that I was most likely just sick and not in labor.  I had little appetite and really wanted to be over this bug, so I just nibbled on bits of toast and a banana throughout the day.

Thankfully, I decided to get to bed early and was asleep by 9pm.  I awoke at 2am with my first contraction.  I get lots of contractions.  In fact, I started feeling them at 13 weeks and in that last month they would periodically wake me up at night.  So I didn't dwell too much on that contraction and drifted off to sleep only to be awoken 25 minutes later with another even stronger one.  At this point, my obsession with the “am I going into labor” game began in earnest.  When another strong one occurred 17 minutes later, I decided that it was probably the real thing.   I quickly determined that laying down in bed is NOT my preferred laboring position, so I ambled downstairs for a piece of toast and to try and figure out when to call my midwife, mom and sisters.  Since Treyton’s labor had been less than an hour long, timing was crucial.  No one wanted to miss the birth and the idea of an unassisted birth is not on our ‘want to try someday’ list.   The contractions started coming every 15 minutes so I called everyone by 3:30am. 

Over the next 2.5 hours contractions were manageable, but I definitely focused on relaxing through them.  My sister arrived with her camera in hand to chronicle the birth.  Turns out everyone had ample time to arrive this time around...

I was chatty and happy between contractions and calmly focused during them at this point.

Sue arrived and chatted with me for a bit to get a feel for how things were progressing.  I'm always amazed how in tune she was with me.  She checked fetal heart tones and then got everything set up for the birth before quietly slipping downstairs to rest and read until things picked up... 

I had very vivid memories of the painful trek up the stairs when I was in labor with Treyton.  Transition and trying to crawl up stairs leaves quite a memorable impression, let me tell ya.  But when contractions started to space back out to 15-20 minutes apart again while I was upstairs and not walking around, everyone convinced me to go for a walk.  I'm an outdoors kind of girl and I'm so thankful that I followed that advice, especially since it brought the contractions down to every 3-5 minutes...

Around 6am the boys woke up, giddy with excitement.  I talked with them when I wasn't busy focusing on a contraction.  They lounged around, but I was pacing.  It was agonizing to be 'trapped' sitting down during a contraction.  I wanted to be up, free.  I was pretty depressed that things weren't progressing quicker since we had just passed the 4 hour mark.  Was it ever going to end???

Finally, they intensify and I knew I was far enough along to get in the water.  The water is often called the midwives epidural and I was eager for something to take the edge off.  But if you get in too early, it can actually drag labor out so I had held out for a while...

At this point, I lost track of time.  I was relatively happy between contractions, but it took every bit of focus to stay relaxed when I felt a contraction starting to build.  With Treyton, I immediately went into the all fours position and weathered transition and pushing in that position.  I didn't want anyone touching me and made sure they knew it...  This time it was different.  I wanted Rich there.  I NEEDED Rich there for me.  Going on my knees was agonizing and I could feel shooting pain going down my legs.  It was weird to have to figure out this whole 'labor thing' all over again. 

It felt like I was in the pool forever, making no progress.  But in fact, it had been only an hour... It was now 7am.  In despair, I figured I should go to the bathroom before transition hits.  Little did I know that during the last contraction or two, my moaning had changed and the midwives were starting to mobilize.  Thinking I had another 7 minutes or so to get to the bathroom and back, I headed in.  Time between contractions apparently isn't the only indicator of where you are at in labor because transition hits in full force just moments later. 

The thought of returning to the birth pool seemed abhorrent to me.  In my mind, I kept telling myself that I loved the water, but every time I looked that way, I would shudder.  I don't want to be trapped.  I wanted to be free to move.  But I stayed fixed at the edge of the bathroom.

I hate transition.  I was getting pretty vocal and I felt wildly out of control.  Rich was amazing - my rock.  With only a bit of a breather between contractions, I made sure he stayed close.  In my head, I was having all kinds of crazy conversations with myself.  I'd convinced myself that this wasn't transition and I was going to be in agony forever.  When my midwife offered to check me, I quickly turned her down.  I couldn't bear the thought of bad news.  As another wave hit, I grabbed for Rich, desperately searching for a place to bury my head that will shield his poor ears.  hahaha.  I wish I were one of those women who labored peacefully, quietly.  But when I'm in transition it is not peaceful and it is not quiet.  Mercifully, this phase is always very short.

 

I love this man. 

I felt awful.  I pitifully moaned, "Why Eve?  Why did you eat the fruit?"  {Apparently this made Rich snicker.  I was oblivious.} While I heard myself announcing that I couldn't do this anymore, a voice inside of me assured me that it must be almost over if I'm saying that...  It's been about 10 minutes since I had exited the pool and transition hit.

 

Sure enough, it was time to push.  Suddenly the water looked inviting again.  I pushed and pushed and pushed.  It seemed more difficult this time around to get her out.  [In hindsight, we think she may have been in a less than optimal position.]  The midwives were so soothing and calmly encouraged me.  I love my midwives.

And then she's out.   While it felt like it was taking F.O.R.E.V.E.R, it only took 11 minutes of pushing.  It was 8:21, nearly 6.5 hours after the first contraction.
 
Immediately afterwards, I felt weak, very weak.  It was so strange because after Treyton came out, I instantly felt better.  Euphoria set in and after cuddling with my baby for a while, I hopped out of the pool and took a shower before settling into bed.  This time around, I was limp.  But she was perfect and in my arms.

I didn't realize until later that I was so weak because I hadn't eaten the day before.  Everyone stepped up to help me into bed and placed her in my arms.  I stared in amazement at my newest little treasure.  What will her personality be like?  I prayed that we will become best friends as I have with my own mother.  I thanked God for this beautiful gift.  {But I was still mad at Eve.}

Moments later, my boys and their cousins traipsed upstairs to meet Greta.

I soaked up the delighted and curious expressions on three little faces. 

 And we inspected our little girl.

Now that I've had almost 4 weeks to look back, I see that expectations really affected how I initially felt about the birth - both during and immediately afterwards.  While I know that every birth is different, I still somehow expected it to be like Treyton's - fast, furious and then over in the blink of an eye.  I realize now that a 6.5 hour labor is still considered short and that everything else with the birth was pretty textbook perfect.  While I wish I had prepared myself a little better, I'm also realizing the miraculous and beautiful part of birth.  I'm thankful that I was able to have her at home because that is where I feel most comfortable. {I never imagined myself the 'crazy' homebirth type, but it's turned out to be a great fit for me.} Options in childbirth are wonderful.  I am thankful that my mother was able to be with me as I gave birth to my first daughter. {She missed being there for Treyton's birth because she paused to make herself a cup of coffee and with my dad's cancer, I was afraid she wouldn't be here for Greta too...}  Both of my sisters were there.  I'm so thankful that Evie was able to watch the kids and then come up with them to see Greta so fresh out!   And in keeping with tradition, family collected that evening for a 'birth'-day party, complete with cake - a perfect cap to a busy, busy day!

While I certainly wish there was a pain-free, drug and intervention free way to give birth, she is SO INCREDIBLY worth it! 

It is pain with a prize at the end... And our family has been forever altered.

Life Learning: Lessons in Patience...

(photo courtesy of my sister, Bethany)

One of the beauties of homeschooling is how life circumstances can lead into so many learning opportunities.   When we discovered that I was pregnant back in January, I looked over my 'plan' for the rest of the year and decided to make some tweaks.  I thought this would be the perfect time to learn about the beauty of birth, pregnancy and human development.  It was fun to put together some ideas to explain and help my children delight in this process of a baby growing and developing inside of me.

I organized my ideas by month gestation and we set to work exploring this miracle of life.  Here is a sampling of what we did...

We slid down a tube slide and talked about the fertilized eggs trip down the fallopian tube.  So yes, my children know more about reproductive anatomy than almost half of my students did in the Human Anatomy and Physiology lab that I taught at the university...

One of our favorite activities was talking about how each person has their own unique, individual fingerprint and that this forms in the second month when the baby is merely the size of a grape.

So we took some time to do fingerprint art.  We are all in love with Ed Emberly's Fingerprint Drawing Book.  It is surprisingly doable for the the two older kids with very little direction or help from me.  Treyton merely enjoyed getting his fingers dirty and making fingerprints sans embellishments..

We also talked about the formation and importance of the umbilical cord.  What kid isn't interested in his belly button???  Now they all know why they have one...

We decided to make umbilical cord replica's.  This was another highlight.  You should have seen the look on the mans face at Lowe's when I purchased clear tubing in the plumbing department!!!  With tubing cut to the average umbilical cord length (~20 inches) and then three pipe cleaners to represent the two arteries and one vein.  I originally intended to lube them up in some petroleum jelly to make it more realistic, but am glad that I didn't due to the mess factor...  They enjoyed showing them off to our midwife and telling her all about umbilical cords...

~~~~~

Here are some of our favorite books on the subject:

How Did God Make Me? ~ This is my absolute favorite.  It is written in story format.  I read it when I was pregnant with Treyton and now to all three boys with Greta.  It includes beautiful photographs of unborn babies at various stages of development and is very tasteful and age appropriate for the preschool/kindergarten crowd.

The Amazing Beginning of You ~ This book is geared for older elementary kids and frankly a little 'too informative' for my tastes.  I simply taped two of the beginning pages together so that my little reader wouldn't find his way there.  I loved how it really broke down each month of pregnancy and gave some great and understandable explanations of fetal development.

LIFE ~ This coffee table style book is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!!  It is on my 'must buy' one of these days list.  Lennart Nillson's pictures are just breathtaking and we enjoyed pouring over the pictures again and again.

The Story of Me ~ This was another good book.  It is geared towards the preschool/kindergarten crowd.  I appreciated the short section on appropriate and inappropriate touch and establishing modesty as that is something that I hadn't discussed much with my boys.

~~~~~

All in all, they have been very patient during this process.  I think I'm far more antsy than they have been.  They seem to think that my swollen belly is just the new normal...

Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  And I'm gazing longingly at it...

Getting Ready for Greta...

We have been busy over here getting ready for Greta's arrival.  Last month at the cabin, Xander and I went for a walk on his birthday and I told him all about the day he was born.  Since there has been so much excitement with learning about pregnancy, babies and anticipating Greta being born I guess it was only natural that his afternoon playdough creation would be of him and his first moments in my arms!

Keegan, my little artist, has also been drawing up a storm.  He's illustrated picture after picture to be hung in Greta's room.  That is on the to-do list for tomorrow!  He is obsessed with spelling words right now and we just crack up at his use of phonetics.  Before I actually sounded out and explained how Greta's name was spelled, this was his first couple of attempts at her name!

 This is going to be one well-protected little girl.  I love all of the knights surrounding her. 

And they aren't the only one's getting ready.  There has been a flurry of laundry (I won't tell you how long it's been since I washed the car seat cover), cleaning, prepping my birth kit and some sewing projects that have kept me busy, busy, busy.

I'm thankful that my sisters have come over a couple of times for sewing afternoons as I needed some motivation to get stuff done, especially repairing old diapers. ugh.  The subsequent projects were far more enjoyable!

Just another week or two (or three).

Pregnancy Update

Well, it's been a while since I posted any kind of pregnancy update, so here is the digest version:

• 27 weeks along.
• 5 weeks past the time when I went on quasi-bedrest with the last pregnancy. (hurray!)
• Despite contractions starting at 13 weeks.  Seriously?!?!?!?
• Thrilled to be in a place of getting to take care of my family and still do some outside activities.
• But mostly staying home these days and sneaking in a daily nap.
• Loving getting to feel this little girl twirl and wiggle around inside. 
• She has a name: Greta Renee

The longer version, for those that are interested...

Anyone that has followed the blog long enough (3.5 years) or knows me is aware that my last pregnancy was a wee bit challenging.  Starting at 21 weeks, I began having bouts of contractions that were 3-5 minutes apart.  My midwife asked me to 'rest'.  It wasn't full bedrest, but it certainly felt quite close to it.  It was a humbling time, to say the least.  At 32 weeks the contractions picked up once again in frequency and intensity that caused me to start effacing and dilating, so I was on periodic full bedrest, sprinkled with more time of 'rest'.  Not being able to adequately care for my family was very difficult and while God certainly used that time to grow me, I had no desire to ever repeat that experience again.  I was not designed to lay on a couch.

Of course after my 14 weeks of 'rest', Treyton still decided to hang out inside (despite no let up in the contractions) until a day before his due date.

This time around, we know that I don't have a history of going early, but I am also trying to err on the side of caution and keep my pace slower than the norm.  I have no desire to repeat our experience with Treyton.  I cannot even begin to describe how difficult it was emotionally and psychologically.  My goal is to make it through the summer taking good care of my family, keeping the contractions at bay and being in a position to fulfill my commitment to speak at the homeschool convention here in Arizona as I cross the 30 week mark.  {Just 3 weeks away!!!!! Can you tell I'm getting excited?}

As I sit here, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.  At 27 weeks, I'm now 5 weeks past the point when I started 'resting' last time and we couldn't be more thrilled.  While I'm still having annoying and surprisingly strong contractions, there is not the level of consistency that occurred last time.  Unfortunately, my body just likes to practice - a lot.

Still counting His many gifts to me and finally making it online to post some more of them... 

796. I'm thankful that I can still get out and about with ease.

797. That our ordeal with bedrest occurred last pregnancy when Rich worked from home.
798. Grocery shopping and being able to load and unload them from the car.
799. Ability to do laundry.
800. Walking up and down the stairs whenever I need to!

801. For Natural Calm magnesium which is helping me sleep better at night (and possibly helping to keep these contractions at bay).
802. For the night and day emotional difference right now to last pregnancy.  (Thank you Jesus!!!)

803.That I can be on my feet playing with my boys.

804. Boys who love to play with together and have been content with the slower pace this summer.
805. Kiddie Pools.
806. Swimming in Opa's pool.  Oh the feeling of being weightless!
807. Boys obsessed with books.

808. Feeling this little girl squirm and move.

809. The baby {belly} hugs that this little girl (and mama) receive all thru the day from 3 excited brothers.

810. For my midwife who gently, but consistently reminds me to take it easy.

811. Enjoying and cherishing each little phase of this pregnancy!
812. That I sometimes still forget I'm pregnant and try usually simple things like 'skipping'.
813. The comical relief at seeing my lame attempts to do so...
814. Naptime with my youngest (who won't reliably take a nap these days unless he is in bed with me)
815. The anticipation of getting to meet her at the end of September or early October!

It's a...

PARTY!!!!

 

With our previous three, we usually just hopped on the phone right after the ultrasound to blurt out the news.  This time, my sister and mom had the wonderful idea to have a revealing party!

Everyone was to come dressed in either pink or blue to reflect their vote!

So on Wednesday, Rich and I woke up and dressed according to our guess before heading over for the ultrasound.

Despite my insistence on refusing to have a 'gut' feeling this time around, I couldn't help but think boy.  Rich had always told me he would only give me boys and so far, he had been spot on.  Rich shocked me when he told me a few weeks back that he was thinking it was a girl...

 Well today was the day we would find out!

TEAM BLUE!

(Xander has been pretty consistently saying girl, but when it came down to the idea of a prize, he went with the higher probability guess.)

TEAM PINK!

I bought little presents to reward those who had guessed correctly and consolation prizes for everyone else.

Inside one of these envelopes was tucked the answer for the lucky recipient to announce to everyone else!

 There was a bit of confusion, because the cute person with the correct answer didn't initially realize it...

 But then celebrating broke out...  My sister is sure that her reverse psychology on the baby worked! ;)

   

Of course, for some, the process of adjusting took a bit of time.  But there were no tears like he had threatened on the way over if it was a girl...

A girl?  A daughter? 

I'm in shock that we are no longer specialists.  I am thrilled and nervous all at the same time...  Is that normal?  Do any of you have any tips on raising daughters???

So there you have it, we now have three knights and a little lady!

Speaking of knights, I finally uploaded a pdf of our Knights Code of Conduct and Knight's Training log as I had promised, um, a couple of months ago...  

My boys are now thrilled that they will have a little girl to love, cherish and protect!  They plan to brush up again on their newfound chivalry skills!

(Thanks to my sister for taking most of the pictures!)