I am here to tell you that parenting, once begun, never ever stops. You have a baby, then another, and another, and think to yourself that one day, maybe in twenty years or so, that you will have your life back and be able to just sit back and relax. But let me tell you right now—that is not the case.

I had my babies when I was very young. I was 19 when my son was born, and turned 23 just three short weeks after the birth of my third child. My two daughters are very close in age—R  is 38 and E is 37. There is only 15 short months difference in their birthdates.  That is where the closeness ends though.

E, my youngest, left my home and set up housekeeping with her then boyfriend when she was 17 and still in high school. She and her guy got married and had a baby boy when she was 25. R chose to go to college and grad school, and live the single girl life in a big city, until she met her True Love a couple of years ago. My two girls rarely see each other face to face, mostly because one live on the east coast and the other lives in Canada. They talk infrequently to each other. They get their news of what is going on in each other’s lives through me, their mother.

This has been going on for about twenty years. Now that we all have Facebook, my four children (a stepdaughter joined our family when I married her Dad in 1992) keep in touch that way. And I write my blog.

I am in a weird place now. I want to be happy and giddy and shout about E’s newly announced pregnancy to anyone and everyone who will take the time to read it. She is so very happy!  Her son will be 10 years old in April, and she has suffered through two miscarriages in those years. She asked me to go to her last OB appointment with her, I am sure, because she was afraid of being alone if the doctor found anything wrong during the ultrasound. It was the first time I have seen one of my grandchildren via ultrasound, and it was soooo amazing!

But, I feel like very squeeee and pic of a new baby thing I have made or mention of Baby to Be is a slap in the face to R. She wants a baby so very much, and I want it for her because she wants it so much. She also had a miscarriage last spring, and took it very, very hard. She was so depressed in November, when her miscarried baby would have been due, that she wasn’t able to get out of bed on many days. I understand, and I as her mother wish so much that I could kiss away the hurt.

I’m still parenting. And as usual, there are no instructions. How do you stay so happy for one, while being hopeful for the other? Do I back off posting my happiness for one to prevent sadness of the other? It is so very hard to know what is the right thing to do.

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Karen writes at Fabgrandma, where she tells the world way too much about herself whether they want to know it or not. She writes about her life of living full time in an RV, eating a gluten free diet, things she does for fun, and things that are important to her. She makes you look at photos of her grandchildren, talks about her husband’s survival of oral cancer, shows you things she has made. You know you want to look.

So much of our life has just sorted it’s self out, regardless of our preferences and just as soon as we relinquished control over the situation. This story is no different.

Nathan’s career was taking an unexpected turn and we became a family of three living off no work income. Self sufficiency was always a passion of ours so this chance to see how well we’d do with limited resources was interesting. We surprised ourselves by still being able to make ends meet. Taking the work we could get, budgeting, growing our food and couponing insured we never missed a single bill’s due date while Nathan was between careers for 6 months.

With the distraction of career out of the way we embraced the importance of savoring moments shared by our little family and getting back to simple living. Hanging with our baby girl in the kiddie pool in our backyard while sipping iced tea was bliss. Most our days followed the same trend. We stayed home, didn’t spend money and just focused on enjoying the moments and memories.

The idea of possible having another child was lingering but we weren’t actively trying by any means. By the fall of 2010 I was pregnant and the posibilities were exciting as well as daunting since we had no health insurance and no stable financial future. Eventually we warmed up to the idea of welcoming another baby and we shared the news with everyone.

Unfortunately, the pregnancy was short lived and I suffered miscarriage at about 6 wks in. It was November 17th 2010. It was sad but also so early in the pregnancy that we hadn’t grown too attached to the idea… So we took me to the ER, confirmed the baby was gone and headed home to let nature run it’s course. We had no idea what was in store.

After talk with my midwife about the miscarriage I was told to not plan on trying to conceive for several months, not because I couldn’t but because my body would need a rest. After the emotional toll of a surprise pregnancy and then pregnancy loss we were not eager to dive right back in to trying for another baby. Instead we resolved to let destiny take the lead.

If it is meant to be it will be.

A year ago this week we were recovering miscarriage and also conceiving our second child, Adalyn. She is about 3 months old now and is a unexpected blessing that is taking us by storm.

I have seen a whole slew of pumpkins having children on the social networks today. Kind of made me laugh and want to reshare. Here are a few of them:

Via Lustik

Via BlessedBirthDoulas

Via www.extremepumpkins.com

Via i am bored

Want to see more pumpkin photos? How about newborn Everly in a pumpkin? View the post here.

Note: These aren’t my photos, just resharing them since they made me smile.

Five days ago my labor started, actually it was more like six days ago but I didn’t have much real progress on that first day. Adalyn is now four days old and we are seeming to kind of already be in a nice groove. It is really odd and unexpected actually. We’ve been fully anticipating a replay of Everly’s first weeks of life.

Miss Adalyn is 100% opposite of Everly as far as infant behavior goes. She… (dare I say) sleeps independently for the most part, nurses like a champ then sleeps some more. I feel rested and kind of useless actually since she not needing holding or ’round the clock comfort nursing.

Adalyn’s first night of life was hard but not nearly as difficult as it was with Everly. She fussed of course but it wasn’t an all night ordeal and it was cure-able with co-sleeping and nursing to sleep. In those first few days and nights before your milk comes in and while baby is adjusting to life outside the womb with her own organs doing their work, it is typically rough.

Babies don’t sleep for long stretches and they cry, it is their only chance to insure their survival. Human babies are most vulnerable of all mammal babies. All they can do is keep breathing and cry to bring their protectors near if there is danger. They cry to signal needs or if scared. So we basically resolved to have fuss and seemingly incurable crying with newborn Adalyn.

Everly cried lots and needed much “kangaroo care”, being constantly in our arms or lap most all the time. We assumed this was true for all babies until Adalyn came along. I still think her behaviors are NOT the norm when it comes to the majority of babies.

Of course, with Everly my milk took four or five days to come in. This time my milk was in on about day two with full on engorgement by day three. I had my weepy-hormone drop time a day earlier that what is common my midwife says. Another thing that was way easier this time is getting baby to latch and nurse painlessly. Last time we struggled for a few days with latch and I  am sure this also had an impact on how long it took for my milk to come in.

Nursing and milk supply no doubt play a major role in how smoothly things settle in to place for baby and parents in that first week or so. This is why we were so set on the skin to skin contact and the access to boobs immediately following birth. I had no intention of giving Adalyn to anyone until she had latched on a suckled for a bit right after being born.

Things have remained surprisingly calm for us in these five days days since the birth, we are very thankful and kind of amazed by it.

Recovery wise I am doing well. Not hurting or having too many pains these days. After pains have cleared up, bones are still hurting in the lower back, pelvis and hips but ice helps them. I am counting down the days till I am clear for a chiropractic adjustment.

I still have five more days of bed rest to adhere to so that I can properly heal. I did tear again, 2nd degree this time. I tore around the previous tear’s scar tissue, after crowning.

My midwife said crowning was well controlled but when Miss Adalyn’s ears and the rest of her began to come out she actually had her right hand on her right cheek and basically extended her arm and grabbed hold of my midwife’s hand before her shoulders or arms were anywhere close to being delivered. That is when I tore. Got about 11 stitches this round, much less than my 4th degree tear and massive stitches with Everly.

I actually think the majority of swelling is down and healing is going quite fast. I’ve been feeling much better and my energy is up so keeping immobile is annoying but I am doing my best to keep still and rest myself.

We are still working to add the 2nd part of the birth video to the website but are missing our DV to USB cable right now. The first part of the birth/ labor is already online for those interested.

Baby Adalyn is finally here. Some of you may have witnessed her birth live here in the blog August 29th-30th. If you missed it recorded video of the birth is still to come (at the above link) as it requires some uploading effort and brain power that we’ve not mustered the energy for yet.

We’ve hardly come up for air since the birth and lots has been going on that has required energy & attention like the fact that all you lovely people overloaded my site and actually crashed the server my site was on, thus breaking the sites of other unsuspecting site owners.

*smile* & *giggle*

This makes a site owner quite happy and is a huge compliment but it does also require some work to get things back up and running. Sorry the site has been offline for so long.

The birth details: Miss Adalyn Elizabeth was born early 8/30. She weighed 7lbs. 14.5oz and was 20 inches long. She’s got thick black hair and some very dark blueish eyes. She’s a champion nurser already with her first latch just moments after her short cord was cut and she could reach the breast.

I’m ordered to 10 days of bedrest & recovery and can’t wait to enjoy my first post birth bath to relax… I have to wait another day for that though. Will share more about that later.

We are all doing well and enjoying getting to know Miss Adalyn. Everly is elated and speaks of her sister often. Shes also recounting the tale of the birth complete with reenactment sounds and positions. She’s a good big sister and can’t wait to start playing with her sister.

All really went well and continues to be on track so we are one happy, sleep deprived family right now. Stay tuned for more details, stories, videos, photos and more to come. Also, thank you for all the well wishes kind words and encouragement. They mean more than you know.

Here are the fun announcement cards we made up for the birth announcement:

All Around Girl Birth Announcement

Create photo birth announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Just a quick update for those that want to hear it straight from the “horse’s mouth”…  Actually, I pre wrote most of this so I wouldn’t need much brain power when the time came.

Anyway, it seems the birthing time has come and we are so excited to meet our baby girl!

I am in labor finally!!! Yippie.

Here are the details:

I am 40 weeks pregnant, it is hard to say when labor started at exactly. We thought I had a slow amniotic fluid leak but it wasn’t enough to get realy excited about. Yesterday was filled with contraction timing. the day ended with surges going from 6-12 min apart. Nothing terribly regular or promising.

After an early bedtime last night I was woken up to some intense sweating and some more intense surges/ contractions. I timed the ones I wasn’t sleeping through and they were about 10 min apart but not keeping me from sleeping or anything. The insane heartburn did choke me and force me to sit up for a bit though.

This morning I am having surges under 10 min apart and expect them to continue to intensify and quicken. We are having a baby today! After a check from the midwife this morning we’ll likely begin the live streaming fun, pending my cervical dilation progress.

Exciting news: 

What? A laboring woman can’t be expected to labor with her laptop! Geeze.

It was a normal morning around here. Daddy and munchkin woke did their morning routine stuff, I was up shortly after. Had breakfast, touched base with family via video chat and went out on to the deck for a bit.

All the sudden after just hours of being awake I cannot seem to keep my eyes open anymore and promptly go to lay down for a nap, an all morning nap.

Exciting news: 

Then I wake ravenous and go to make myself some lunch. Nathan comes to greet me and tells me he spoke with my midwife on the phone while I napped. He had the phone conversation outside the house as to not wake me duing my nap since she thought my napping was a very good sign about labor and something my body clearly needed.

Anyway, my midwife was calling about a person that had approached her insisting we are close friends and that she’s going to be a part of my upcoming birth but that she needs a means to reach me. Of course my midwife wont divulge my info without my consent and she was calling to see if this person was indeed someone I’d invited to be involved…

This person, is the exact person I was dreaming about… Someone I’ve never met before but was considering doing so. Is that not crazy that I was dreaming about some impending conflict while the red flags were being raised over the phone? So my intuition seems to be in full force today.

I thought, well maybe I overheard the phone conversation in my sleep and then began dreaming of what I’d heard being discussed… When I asked Nathan if the call happen within earshot he informed me he took the call outdoors as to not wake me and the napping munchkin.

My energy and mood are off the charts too. One moment I am anxious and busying myself with everything I can manage, the next moment I am napping part of the day away and I simply cannot stop eating.

So I sit with my heating pad on my upper back here in the bed trying to be as comfortable as possible with a baby wedged down between your pubic, tail and hip bones. She’s all a flutter in there kicking me in all the uncomfortable places, probably trying to release those membranes. Stay tuned, it has to be anytime now I think.

Expectations sure can lead to sabotage so I normally try to avoid speculating and getting set on one certain outcome or scenario in my head.

With pregnancy and childbirth expectations sure run rampant. Well meaning people around you get excited about the big event and begin speculating about the sex of the baby, the baby’s hair color, how much weight you’ll gain, how fast you’ll drop the weight, how much baby will weight, when baby will be born, how long you’ll labor, what time of day you’ll labor and so on…

Exciting news: 

For this pregnancy I’ve had lots of outside expectations and speculations launched my way and I am sorry to say I’ve kind of allowed them to imprint on me.

First, I was said to deliver earlier than I previously did because I’m a 2nd time mom. I worried about early labor and not being near my midwife when labor started. Well, this is my “due date week” and there has been no unusually early labor so that wasn’t correct.

Then it was also said that labor will come on faster and will go quicker also because I am a 2nd time mom and my body knows the drill. My water may or may not break but the contractions will leave no room for confusion about the true onset of labor and blah, blah, blah…

Friends and family are speculating about all the unknowns and I am over here at 40 weeks pregnant wondering if this baby will ever come (and seriously wishing I’d never listed to any of the speculations in the first place).

It’s not so much the lack control over the birth that kills me it is more the stress and anxiety that comes along with the possibilities of things going longer than we anticipated.

Like Nathan’s work schedule and the allotted time off he has, the finances of affording to rent a place out here, the cost of food, the fact that Nathan wont have the time to be home to settle in with us once we get back from The Farm and so on…

The devastation and disappointment of off target expectations are enough to drive any woman to waver or even consider & consent to other options for achieving the desired goal.

I wouldn’t change my decision to birth with midwives and would never entertain the thought of inducing (aka rushing) my baby out of the womb for my own conveniences. It is just stressful and a bit unnerving to go all this time hearing about how it will be one way (and believing it) only to learn first hand that the expectations weren’t quite on target. It is my fault for not taking it all with a grain of salt I suppose.

Luckily, I have the knowledge and first hand experience of what a natural, unmanaged birth can be. This is what will get me through. My baby girl, for whatever reason needs some extra “cooking time” and isn’t quite ready to emerge. We are lucky enough to not have a provider breathing down our backs about going past due dates and such so we count our blessings and cool our heels. Despite the major suckage.

Baby Girl, we will follow your lead and will wait until you are ready to come to us. Everything is set and we anxiously await your arrival, take your time and we will see you soon!

Much Love,
Your Family

Seriously, the last few weeks of pregnancy suck… Waiting sucks and when you are actually FEELING the changes leading up to labor it’s so damn annoying waiting and waiting.

What makes the waiting even more annoying is the speculating about the serious what-ifs (by ourselves and others). As I write this Baby Sister is still in not in optimal position for birth.

I am annoyed that we are checking on and worrying about the baby’s position when really it is not the end of the world to have a sunny side-up baby. Actually it seems most everything is annoying me about this stinking waiting game this time around. It is presumably because I’ve got an antsy toddler and an irritated husband out here with me just waiting and waiting too.

If I wasn’t so stinking uncomfortable with this low riding baby I wouldn’t be as bitchy I bet… but it is what it is. So we wait and I bitch.

Actually, while we are on the topic of Baby Sisters incorrect position I want to throw something out there. I am fairly certain it is due to some uterus mechanics and spacial constraints.

You see, (brace for the TMI cervix talk) my cervix is actually just off my left hip this pregnancy (rather that being the lowest point of my uterus) and the baby’s head is actually lower in the uterus than the cervix. She is actually so low her head can be felt without really reaching up in there at all. My cervix is another story… So, in having her sort of slanted down and laying with her back on my right side she is actually keeping her head (her ear or something) closest to the cervical opening where it will need to be.

As my midwife explained it, as the cervix widens and opens it will allow the baby to take a more upright position in the uterus and move up off my left pubic bone. I am betting once she’s off that pubic bone she’ll be able to rotate to a more backward facing position too, if she feels inclined. I am no expert but I am guessing pressing her head against that pubic bone and in my hip crevice makes it kind of hard to turn much.

So with that reasoning we are just sitting back and trying to trust the process of all this. Even if Baby Sister doesn’t move she’s still birth-able it could just be more work I guess. Either way I am just stoked to get this show on the road and meet my baby girl.

By the OBGYN’s ultrasound due date estimation and the date counting based upon my LMP date (that was also the day I miscarried with the last pregnancy) I am “due” August 23rd, 2011. Based on my fertility awareness charting we conceived 12/3/10 which would put Baby Sister due on August 26th, 2011. So labor watch continues…

And now for some birth affirmations and positive vibes about all this:

Exciting news: 

Peace and trust in the natural process of childbirth is (in my opinion) the difference between having a medically managed birth and allowing your body to dictate the process (whether you birth in a hospital or not). It is a scary time (being about to have a baby), our hormones are all crazy and we are super uncomfortable.

It is easy to get excited or anxious about impending labor and to confuse false labor for real labor as more body changes, aches, pains and symptoms surface. Some doctors will be okay with speeding the process along and will see your reactions to false labor symptoms as an opportunity to speed things along, others will just send you home to wait it out.

This is the time to just look within yourself and to you baby. Talk, bond, read or sing to baby and rest, rest, rest. This will be the last time you have to get some good sleep for a while.

Your body has gotten you this far and has grown a nice strong baby from just a few cells (so amazing!). When the time is right your body will birth the baby all on it’s own. Trust your body and allow your baby the time it needs to make those last minute preparations & developments. Nobody can be expected to adhere to an obscure and generalized time table. I mean are you always on schedule for everything?

Trust, trust, trust.

You have gotten this far like nature designed and you’ll get through the next part too. This post is for myself and anyone else expecting a baby right now.

We are officially 39 weeks pregnant with Baby Sister and are trying to patiently await her arrival. It is absolutely beautiful here at The Farm and very relaxing.

After a sleepless night with the munchkin we managed to get her to sleep in her own room here at the house.

She requested to be put in the pack n play and after about an hour of whining and fighting the sleep she passed out and slept though the night perfectly. This in turn let us sleep which was amazing.

Exciting news: 

Last night I also did have some pretty consistent, yet possible to sleep through pangs and cramps that are still going today. This is a good sign for impending labor as it probably means baby is moving down and in to position more.

I am ready to have the little one born and can’t wait for labor to begin. I figure the work of childbirth is way better then the prolonged discomfort of staying pregnant… I’d rather just get it over with and meet my baby girl already, but she’s calling the shots (the way nature intended it), so we wait…

We met with an ambitious photographer last week who was photographing The Farm and hoping to hone in on the homebirth aspects and possible find a homebirthing mama’s labor to photograph. We welcomed her to come take photos of the birth if she was still here when labor had begun.

If the timing is right we will have some pretty cool photos of the experience and might end up in print somewhere. If it spreads the word about homebirth and educates people it is for a great cause so we are stoked to help her out.

Oh, and the sleepless stuff is over for the time being it seems (crap I hope I didn’t just jinx it). Everly is sleeping in the pack n play in her room just fine out here at The Farm. She’s zonking out to a kiddie DVD as I write this and hasn’t cried a peep over it. We might finally be in a groove about the sleep and are stoked that she’s resigned to doing it in another room.

This will make life much easier when the crying, all night feeding Baby Sister comes out and will hopefully disrupt Everly’s sleep and daily routine less. Yay. It amazes me how much the little victories give us joy but when you live with kids they sure make a world of difference!