Thoughts
Thoughts
Thoughts ‘Nstuff
My Monkey
Aug 16th
She will be three weeks on Wednesday and I swear she has grown and changed so much already. She brings me such joy. The difference in the postpartum period with her and with the boys is as different as night and day. I attribute so much of that positive difference to having a drug free, all natural homebirth.
Birth Story Part II
Aug 11th
T was pumped to give me my birthday gift and I am never one to deny someone the joy of giving me a gift, so even before I poured myself a bowl of cereal T was handing me a big green gift bag. I had been eying the bag for about two weeks as it sat on the top shelf of the bookcase. I resisted the urge to peek even though I felt like I was being patient enough waiting for Baby Girl that I deserved a little something something. I was able to push my feelings of birthday entitlement away and was a good birthday girl and let me tell you, it was worth the wait.
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I love to read. I chew through books at a ridiculous rate. I went through about a novel and a half a week at the end of my pregnancy. Every day while the boys napped, I read. While the boys played in the backyard, I read. When I couldn’t sleep at night because of my gargantuan belly, I read. I love to read. This was a perfect gift… little did I know how much it would come in handy just a few hours later.
After opening my gift and eating breakfast we all got ready, loaded up the van – for the last time as a family of 4- and headed to the midwife’s office. T dropped me at the office and took the boys to the park. I waited for my appointment with excitement. I was one day short of 42 weeks. The midwives were going to start the “heavy hitters” of natural induction. I knew chances were good that I would have Baby Girl on my Golden Birthday.
I went through the normal drills of peeing in a cup, weighing in (a whopping 223… I remember thinking, well at least 9 pounds of that is baby!) having my blood pressure checked and my belly measured. Finally we got down to business and the two midwives started mapping out “the plan.” I quickly turned from excited with anticipation to nervous. They hit me with a bombshell that I wasn’t prepared for and it took everything in me to not break down and start crying. Legally, midwives in Minnesota can not deliver a baby when the baby has gone past 42 weeks. Reminder, the following day was my 42 week mark. That meant I had my birthday and until midnight the following day to have Baby Girl at home. If I went past 42 weeks I would have to go to the hospital.
The pressure I felt to have the baby while both my Mom and Dad were visiting was nothing compared to this revelation. I had 38 hours. The clock was ticking.
The midwives could see the panic and fear in my eyes as I started explaining my “due date is wrong” theory. Both midwives pulled out their little circle due date calculator things and started crunching numbers. They both came to the same conclusion. Even if we conceived Baby Girl a week later than originally thought, the Biophysical Ultrasound showed that Baby Girl was well cooked and needed to come out – soon.
They started walking me through “the plan” which started with both of them stripping my membranes. Both midwives concluded that I was 4 cm dilated and my cervix was soft. This news relaxed me a bit, just a bit. At least I had made one cm of progress in the past week of trying to induce naturally. The rest of the plan consisted of a schedule of alternating tinctures every 15 minutes after downing a root-beer float laced with caster oil.
I left the birth center trying to be hopeful but still on the verge of tears. Poor T about had a panic attack when he saw my face as I heaved my pregnant body into the van. I quickly explained that I was okay, baby was okay but we were on the clock. T was angry that it had taken 41 weeks and 6 days for them to mention that they couldn’t deliver the baby at home after 42 weeks. If the boys were not in the back seat I am sure there would have been some choice words spoken. I agree it was wrong of them not to give us more of a heads up but there was nothing we could do about it now. The clock was ticking.
We headed to Whole Foods to pick up the caster oil and tinctures. (I don’t feel comfortable listing the tinctures I was told to take because I know that every pregnancy is different. Also, I am far from knowledgeable about tinctures and I don’t want to risk giving out dangerously bad advice. Ask your midwife or doctor if you are interested in inducing with tinctures)
We went out for lunch at Applebees thinking that this would be the last time in a long time we would be able to eat out as a family and it would for sure be the last time we ate out as a family of four. The boys gorged themselves on mac n cheese oblivious to the clock that was ticking away. I was able to get some food in me even though the nerves had begun to tie my stomach in knots. All I could think about was the time constraints that were now put on my natural childbirth plan.
When we got home T helped me set up camp in our bedroom. We set my phone’s alarm to go off every 15 minutes. I sipped on my caster oil/root-beer float while T showed me how to use my Nook. I changed into the tank dress I planned on wearing for labor and flipped on the TV and waited for something to happen.
I waited and waited.
I fielded phone calls from family and told them I was taking caster oil.
I tweeted to pass the time.
I prayed that either time would slow down or labor would speed up.
I checked in with the midwife 4 hours later with the defeated news that nothing much was changing. Contractions were coming more frequently but they were neither consistent or painful.
I spent a surprisingly little amount of time on the toilet even after my 2nd root-beer caster oil floats. I did have a bit of diarrhea but nothing near as bad as I had feared. I took my birthday gift with me, sat on the toilet and read book two of the Twilight series to pass the time. Someday when Baby Girl is older and asking about her birth I plan on lying and telling her I was reading one of the great classics not a novel written for teens about vampires and werewolves!
By 7pm the boys were in bed and still nothing was happening. By 8 pm I had given up hope of sharing a my Golden Birthday with my daughter. I was becoming edgy and frustrated. T and I watched episodes of Dexter as we tried to kill time. Again, I will change my story slightly for Baby Girl. Maybe instead of killing time watching a show about a serial killer, I will tell her we watched an insightful documentary. T did his best to keep me calm because stress wouldn’t help the process at all. Dexter was a great distraction. I watched him murder people while I was in cat/cow yoga poses. I watched him throw bodies in the ocean while I paced back and forth in our basement. I watched Dexter take blood samples while I took tinctures every 15 minutes. All the yoga poses, pacing, tinctures and Dexter didn’t do much besides distract me for a couple hours.
I began to fear that the natural birth that I wanted so badly, that I planned for for months, that I researched, that I defended over and over again to my doubting family wasn’t going to happen.
Just before 9 pm things began to change. My spirits instantly lifted. I became exited and T began to fill the birthing tub.
Things were starting to head in the right direction. Scratch that. Baby Girl was starting to head in the right direction!
Sunning the Jaundice Out
Aug 10th
After three trips to the doctor, two heal pokes and one session of sun bathing Baby Girl’s bilirubin is back to normal levels. She is still looking a little yellow, especially in the eyes, but overall she is doing so much better.
She is Here!
Jul 31st
I have not posted in the past few days because I have been too busy falling madly in love with the most beautiful, sweet, hugable, kissable little girl.
Baby E arrived on Wednesday July, 28th at 9:39 am. She weighed in at 8 pounds 1 ounce and measures 21 inches long. She is healthy. She is wonderful.
I will be working on writing up my homebirth story over the next few days. I am going to have to break it down into a few posts though because it was such a long, incredible and life changing experience.
For now I will leave you with this photo of my little girl
Waiting for Papa
Jun 15th
This is a typical picture of the boys at 5:40pm when they are visiting my folks. The boys worship their Papa and wait every day at the window for him to come home. I remember when I was young how excited I was for my dad to come home. He would come home, pick up my sister and I and give us whisker rubs until our face were rubbed raw. My sister and I would squeal with excitement. This happened every week day at 5:40. After the whisker rub he would put us down and change out of his dress clothes. Dinner was served at 5:45. This is the way it always was and that is the way it still is. I love that when I go back to my parents house that we all fall into the old routine. I don’t get whisker rubs anymore, but the boys enjoy a big Papa Bear hug with spins and tosses in the air. We still eat at 5:45. Some things never change and I love that about my parents home. I hope to create memories like that with my boys.
Lucy Girl
Jun 14th
Our mutt. I love her. She loves me. She and I have a special bond. She is my dog there is no question about it. Lucy and T don’t get along too well. T loves her because I love her and she tolerates T because I love him. Lucy and my connection is never more apparent then when I am pregnant, especially in the final few weeks. Lucy sticks to me like mess sticks to my boys. She is always at my side. When I take her for a walk she knows when I start to get uncomfortable and slows down her pace. If I start having a Braxton Hicks contraction she is at my side instantly. I don’t know how she knows but she is always there. At night if I am tossing and turning or as of late groaning because of the pain in my hips and pelvis she is alert and watchful.
She isn’t a lot of things. She isn’t well trained. She doesn’t do a lot of tricks. She isn’t great with strangers – especially men in hats. She hates mowers. She is a coward when it comes to thunderstorms. She isn’t the healthiest dog- thyroid issues and over weight. She isn’t a purebred by any means. But that dog, my Lucy, loves me and protects me. She is so very patient with our boys, which is her best quality. She and T may be at odds with each other. I mean seriously, she can’t help it that when she naps on his side of the bed she sheds on his pillow. She doesn’t mean it, I am almost sure of that!
I think out of all of us in the family Lucy will have the hardest time when Baby Girl decides to make her debut. I doubt she will handle me in labor well, she is concerned enough when I have practice contractions. Plans are in place for her to go to a friends house for the duration of the labor.
I can’t wait to have another girl in the family. It has been me and Lucy against T and the boys for almost 3 years. It is about time for us girls to even the playing the field!
Learning Colors
Jun 10th
We live in a suburb of the Twin Cites. Our neighborhood is predominantly white and my family is white. We are so white in fact that 85spf sunblock isn’t always enough to keep us from burning. We are glow in the dark white. You could hold a white Crayola crayon next to our skin and we would match it perfectly. Most of the neighbors that the boys play with sport the same skin tone with only slight variations.
All of that said, there is a wide variety of race in our area. The boys play with children of different ethnicity when we go to the local YMCA, we see all colors of the rainbow at Target and all the other local watering holes. In their wonderful innocent wisdom my boys have never said anything crude, asked any questions or even commented on the different skin tones of others around them. I love that about kids. I think it is a testament to nature vs. nurture. Kids don’t care about skin color until someone tells them too. Every kid is just a kid until someone points out the differences between them. I love and envy this about children.
M has known his colors for a while now and it is one of his favorite things to talk about. He prefers orange over blue and likes yellow more than red. I always knew the day would come when M would ask why one of his friends was a different color than he was, I just thought that he could bask in his innocence a while longer. I really did believe that an almost 4yo wouldn’t label people, just objects.
I believed this until yesterday. I parked on my side of the garage like usual and when I went to unbuckle M from his car seat, M looked up at me with bright excited eyes and stated, “Mom you are white!”
I froze. I had a van full of groceries. This wasn’t the time. I wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. My husband and I hadn’t had this discussion. We hadn’t decided how to handle this yet. Knowing I couldn’t avoid those bright excited eyes, I paused, collected my thoughts and replied to my son, “Yes, Mommy is white.” I figured, we call a penis a penis. We use the correct terms and don’t use baby names for most things so my bewildered pregnancy brain figured that the truth would be the easiest path.
M smiled proudly at his correct statement and agreed, “Yup. Mom is white! Mommy is white and Daddy is…. BLUE!”
I tried to remember if my husband was wearing a blue shirt that morning, but the boys hadn’t seen T yet that day. I was stumpted until I followed M’s gaze.
Hanging from the rafters of the garage were T and my bikes. Mine is white. T’s is blue.
My son is still an innocent color blind boy. I let go a breath that I didn’t know I was holding and started to laugh. “Yes, Daddy does have a blue bike. You are right!”
As I retold the story to T that night I realized that I was right, children are color blind when it comes to skin. They will not be that way forever and I hope that with my boys they stay unaware as long as possible. Nurture won in this case. It was me who was making a big deal out of nothing. M will ask me the skin color question some day, I know I can’t avoid it forever but for now I am perfectly happy that my bike is white and T’s bike is blue.
Baby Girl Delusions
May 20th
This afternoon P pulled down his shorts, ripped off his diaper and ran to the potty. He proceeded to lift not only the lid, but the seat and then pee! Folks, my 2 1/2 year old peed in the potty!!!
I applauded, cheered, hugged and kissed him. I then went to grab a pen and mark the big occasion on their milestone calendar (don’t be impressed. It isn’t nearly as organized and scrapbooky as it sounds. Every year we make a photo calendar for the boys for Christmas with all of the best candid pics from that year. Actually, we don’t even make it. I just compile the pics, upload them to Shutterfly and type in my credit card number. That is their milestone calendar) and before I could even cross the ts in potty, M screamed, “MOMMY THERE IS POOP ON THE FLOOR!” That is right. In the 2 minutes it took me to praise and document the blessed event, P had gone upstairs to my bedroom and pooped on the floor.
The boys are in their room now and I am ignoring the stomping and giggling and pretending they are asleep. To soothe my nerves and bring my angered and frustrated heart back down to a safe level, I surfed the web for cute little girl clothes.
I found this dress at Children’s Place and fell instantly in love. With the boys if I see I white shirt I turn and run away. It isn’t worth the risk. It isn’t worth the cute to time-scrubbing-out-stain ratio. But something in my naive, dreamy, fantasy world of raising a little girl makes me think that a sweet little white dress would be a wonderful thing to buy. My little girl would never spill blueberries down the front of a white dress. My little girl would never dig for worms in a little white dress. And my little girl would sure as hell never lift up that dress, pull down her diaper and shit all over my bedroom floor.
I have 8 weeks until my due date. I plan to live in this fantasy world to get me through the home stretch of pregnancy. Every time I question why we chose to have a third child as my two monsters fling their poo or dump a shovel full of sand down my shirt, I am going to think of that little white dress and my perfect little girl.
“I Can’t!”
Apr 29th
M has learned “I can’t” and this statement alone has added a whole new level of absurdity to our daily battles.
Me: Do you have to got potty?
M: “I can’t go potty.”
Me: “Can you go potty before we get in the car?”
M: “I CAN”T go potty before go in car.”
Me: “Clean up your puzzles before lunch.”
M: “No. I can’t.”
Me: “Clean up your puzzles before lunch!”
M: “Nope. I can’t clean up puzzles. I can eat lunch!”
Me: “Time to run errands.”
M: “I can’t. No errands. I need to stay home and play puzzles.”
Me: “Wipe your runny nose.”
M: “I can’t wipe my nose. I CAN”T!”
Me: “No juice for lunch, you get regular milk for lunch.”
M: “No I can’t drink regular milk. I can drink chocolate milk.”
Me: “No chocolate milk for lunch, just regular milk.”
M: “I can’t drink regular milk.”
Me: “Yes you can.”
M: “I can’t.”
Me: “Yes. You. Can.”
M: “No. I. CAN”T!”
I CAN”T TAKE IT ANYMORE! He has always been a little on the dependent side and relies on us to do more things for him than necessary, but now he can verbalize his dependence. We have arguments over the most mundane tasks now. Tasks that he did just a week ago with out a complaint. Now, I can’t has given him a one up. The fact that I can’t win an argument with my 3 year old son is beyond frustrating!
All I can think about is my Grandpa. My Grandpa was a hard working farmer and of the generation that did what needed to be done and if they didn’t know how to do it, they figured it out and got it done. My Grandpa would have a few words to say about this new “I can’t” phrase that has taken over our lives.
In fact, I can hear him saying “You got yourself in there, you get yourself out.” as he walked away shaking his head. I can see my sister looking up at him from her wedged in position under the deck, eyes wide with fear. She was stuck and instead of asking for help, she said “I can’t get out!” In the end she wiggled her way out. Grandpa was right and my sister never said, “I can’t.” in front of our Grandpa again.
I need my Grandpa to work his old school ways on my son. OR maybe President Obama could swing by our house and give M a little, Yes You Can pep talk. Between the ghost of my Grandpa and President Obama I am sure one of them could get him to shut up and drink his regular milk!
P and Poo
Apr 26th
I am having a mommy meltdown.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO!
My 2 1/2 year old, P, is taking off his diaper at nap and bed time and pooping on the floor. He then throws it all over and rubs it into the carpets, linens and walls.
I am sick of cleaning up after it but what concerns me even more is how unsanitary it is. I am also worried about the fact that it has become a habit, not just a random act. But what I am most worried about is that now that the boys (M is almost 4 years old) are sharing a room they are both striping down naked during nap and bed time. I am not sure if M is participating in the poo smearing, I don’t think he is. I don’t know why they both strip down but I am concerned that they are going to or have already started to “explore” each others’ boy parts. I do not want them to think that this is okay. We have talked about how it is wrong, but we also talk about how flinging poo is wrong and that hasn’t seem to sunk in…
I am at a loss. We have tried duct taping the diaper on him. Putting him in zip up sleepers, which he used to not be able to get out of. Either he has learned how to get out of zip up sleepers or M is helping. We have scolded him, tried to reason with him, gave time outs and even took away his favorite toys.
I Googled this topic and there was a surprising amount of hits. A lot of parents are going through or have gone through this. However, there doesn’t seem to be a fix. In most cases, the kids just had to grow out of the feces flinging stage. There was one suggestion I found that I am trying tonight. Tonight, I zipped the boys up into their pjs backward AND there was a snap at the top of the zipper. It will take team work to get out of the pjs tonight. If this doesn’t work, then I don’t know what I am going to do.
PLEASE if you have gone through this, leave a comment tell me what you did. Tell me what worked, tell me what didn’t work. At this point I am willing to try just about anything!
