Birthing

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Birth Story Time!  That means TMI and frank descriptions of female reproduction system processes.  Proceed according to your own informed consent:-)

 He's here: Baby Rory

For weeks I had been having my normal warm-up contractions 15-30 minutes apart all day, but no pain or progression.  Tuesday night I was up in the night with contractions 5 minutes apart for about 3 hours, but they were not painful or progressing, so I knew it wasn't labor unless they went anywhere from there.  All Thursday I was depressed, because I wasn't in labor, and I really wanted to pick the day I went into labor like my friend Anna did!  Friday I went in for a regular checkup.  My doctor checked my cervix because I'm curious to know what's going on.  I was dilated to a 3, so my doctor tried to give me a little pep talk that he really didn't think I would be walking around at a 3 and make it to 42 weeks.

I woke up Sunday at 5:30 to go to the bathroom.  I happened to look down after wiping and noticed the tissue was dark.  I had to flip on a light because I don't bother turning on lights to pee in the middle of the night--especially when going 6 times a night while pregnant.  It was some bloody show.  This actually surprised me because I have never had any show with my previous labors.  I tried to lay down but was having contractions about 7 minutes apart.  And these ones were accompanied with definite crampy feelings down in the lower front of my belly.  "Sweet" I said "labor contractions!"

I got in the bathtub to relax for a while in the quiet.  I was thinking how great it was that I had gotten good sleep the night before so I could be rested and not be up all night with labor like I was for Wyatt's Birth.  After about an hour Jonas and Owen woke up an came in to use the restroom.  I had my back to them and didn't say anything because I didn't know if they would even notice me or not.  --They did--  Jonas said, "Huh.  That's weird--Mom's sleeping in the bathtub."  Owen responded, "It's good for her."  (Can you tell I've been getting my own way the last little bit of pregnancy and whatever I decide I want it's because "it's good for me"!?)  I was up for about 2 more hours with the contractions.  Then I went to relax on my bed.  My three little boys were sitting on my bed with me and we were all talking.  I was thinking how this was the end of my "three boys"-- pretty soon I would have four!  Jeremy herded the crew out and I fell asleep around 8:30.

I woke up about 11:30 and the contractions were gone.  Nothing.  Back to the 20 minutes or so between with no crampiness at all.  I was so frustrated.  I had been telling Jeremy in the morning about how "show" was a really reliable sign of labor, and here I was, no longer in labor.  We missed our church from 9-12 so after 12 the phone calls started coming in, all to Jeremy's phone--Is she in labor?! Did you have the baby?

"No, she thought she was, but not anymore.  No baby."

DE-pressing!

Finally in the late afternoon we went for a family walk to see if we could try and get the contractions going again. They did start back up but stayed at 7 min, and weren't getting any more difficult. So about 11pm, pouting, I got ready for bed. After putzing around, by the time I was laying down in bed with the lights out it was 12:30am.  Then I noticed the contractions were actually coming 5 min apart.  I timed 4 of them about 6 minutes apart, then I fell asleep.  At 1am (10 minutes later) a contraction hit me that got me out of bed. I labored through a handful of contractions and at 1:30 I got Jeremy up to whine at him. He asked if things were progressing, and I told him they were, he said he was calling the babysitter then. I didn't want him to because I'd only been in active labor a whole 30 minutes.  I was stressed out about when to call someone and about going to the hospital for no reason--especially if labor was going to stop again.

After watching me labor through a few contractions Jeremy called the babysitter. I didn't think I was as far along as last time when I went to the hospital.  So I made sure to have Jeremy tell labor and delivery I wanted a room with a whirlpool tub available when he called ahead.  The babysitter came over and we finished packing and got in the car.  We were about to pull out and I said, "Wait."  A contraction was hitting me so I needed to stand up.  I'd been laboring through them by leaning against a wall or door frame, (or car) with my head down, and swaying my hips through it.  I didn't do that position at all during my last labor, but for this one it was just what came instinctually, and I did it the whole time.  Then I buckled in and we started driving.  I had one--super uncomfortable--contraction on the drive, and as soon as we arrived I got out for the next one.

We got checked in at the hospital (I think I've had the same room every time).  When the nurse checked my dilation, she asked if I was thinking I wanted any anesthesia, and I said "Not necessarily. . . ", She said "Ok because you're at an 8 or 9 and really stretchy."

So much for the tub.


So then the Dr. broke my water, and I just labored. It was getting really intense at the end and I was telling the nurse I felt pressure and felt pushy. She kept checking me and saying I had just a little bit of cervix left to dilate. She left the room a number of times--I think she was trying to convince the doctor I was ready. But the last time she was gone my body just took over, and I started screaming and felt myself pushing, and then everyone came in running and "suiting up".  I cried, "The Baby!" as in--The baby is coming, I just felt him move halfway down the birth canal, the rest of him is coming soon, so hopefully someone is going to get down there and catch him!"

As the nurse ran in she said, "OK we're going to have you push with the next contraction,"  (like I had a choice at that point!  She was tying the doctor's gown and breaking down the bed.  With the next contraction there was more yelling, and pushing by my body.  The nurse said, "Give us one more good push and the head will be out."  The funny thing was I was thinking, "Oh, I should push.  Then this will be over."  So that was my first "conscious" push, the prior two were just my body.  "Now push the body out," she said  And I birthed my baby.

He was born at 4:42am, 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches long.

They put him up on my belly and I said, "Oh, Baby!"  He was so warm and squishy, and it is just amazing every time that one minute there are 5 people in a room and the next minute there are 6.   And the process can't be reversed!  A new little person is there, ready for life on the outside.  We are so excited to have him here

Pictures!

 This is me in the "not so much fun anymore" stage of labor.  I've got my "V" on for my mom, who thinks its funny that her Chinese students always do it in pictures.

 Just born.

That's my "Oooh Baby!" face. 

 Here's baby's "Where did my nice squishy waterbed go?" face.

 My mom has deemed that all pictures composed of the above subjects be captioned, "Rory and the Doctor."

 After two "brownies" back to back it looks like Rory will be a fair-eyed boy, like Owen. Right now he's slate blue. 

 Brothers came to visit and they were besotted--the whole lot of them.

See that wasn't so bad--now that it's over.  Plus: Ice Chips!

We're all pretty excited for our new baby, and I am super happy to not be pregnant anymore!

Quiet Lunch

The older three boys are off at a friends house.

The youngest boy is sleeping.

So. . . 

If I've learned anything from mommy blogs I read on the internet, that means it's time for me to. . .

Eat a gourmet lunch--for one--with a place mat and cloth napkin.

Enjoy the serene vision of fresh cut flowers.

And immerse myself in a thought-provoking book.

It's a good thing I have the internet. . . if not for it, this new mom of four just might not know what do do with herself.  

Waiting

Life's been busy.

I've experienced this pregnancy a lot differently than my previous three.  Our life has been in an uncertain place the entire time, and so this whole pregnancy I've been more unconcerned with "getting to the end" quickly than I ever have before.   I haven't read any pregnancy books, nor religiously kept track of what week I was in or how big my baby was supposed to be, or even how much weight I've gained, and (up until about two weeks ago) have not been in any rush or hurry to get the baby here.


We had tons of fun with family in town for graduation.  After they left the next thing on our "schedule" was birthin' a baby.  So that's when my impatience began.

I'm 39 1/2 weeks now.  I passed the 38 weeks 6 days mark that I delivered Wyatt on.  I passed mys sisters' birthday which was my "goal date" for having the baby, and we left May behind.  (I was hoping he would be born in May--then the boys would all have their own birth month.)  So at this point I'm feeling like I have no idea, the baby is probably never coming, I'm going to be pregnant forever.

You know, reasonable-type thoughts.  

This morning I woke up with contractions 7 minutes apart for about 3 hours, but I laid down for a nap and woke up and they were gone. :-(  The babysitter is officially "on call".  It could be tonight--It could be two weeks from tonight. 

See you soon baby!

Spring on the Backyard Farm

 Our city farming chores began this spring with re-queening our beehive.  The colony successfully survived it's second winter, which makes us happy, and content with our version of beekeeping that is a little more hands-off than many beekeepers.  However, after the swarming and subsequent self-re-queening that occurred last summer, we ended up with a pretty  grouchy colony in the fall.  Our first attempts to check in on them this spring reconfirmed their general anti-social genepool so we made the decision to re-queen.

We ordered our new queen and tried to keep her alive long enough for it to stop raining so we could do the ol' switcheroo.  What we needed to do was systematically go through the hive to find the old queen, dispatch her, leave the hive queen-less for two days until they were getting nervous about not having a queen around, then introduce the new queen causing a wave of relief amid the bees to increase their likelihood of "accepting" her. 

We don't use marked queens, so in our three seasons of beekeeping, we've only seen our queen one other time, so we knew it was going to be difficult to find her.  Adding to that the grouchy (read: sting-happy) colony, and poor spring weather we knew we were in for quite the needle in a haystack hunt.  But we suited up, ultimately prevailed, and I was the only one that ended up getting stung.  (On my big belly of course, because I couldn't button up my bee shirt over the baby!)  But, the colony is now busily buzzing away for the season.

 The chickens all weathered the winter fine and began laying again mid-February.  But mid-March we went on vacation for spring break.  We were only going to be gone a few days so we simply filled up the chickens' water and food and left.  We came back to a big pile of 14 eggs in the laying box, and thought it had all gone off smoothly.

 Until we realized that the two bantams (our 3rd-year mini-hens) wouldn't leave the nesting box, and had stopped laying their little miniature eggs.  That big pile of eggs in the nesting box made their mothering instincts kick into gear, so all they could think about was raising baby chicks.  So they stopped laying eggs, and would sit all day in the nesting box trying to hatch the (unfertilized) eggs the other hens were laying.

Florence finally broke out of this broody nonsense about 4-5 weeks after we got back, but Gertrude, here, is still going strong in her broodiness.  We may have to take some drastic measures (more drastic than me going out a couple of times a day and just tossing her out into the run off the laying box) to get her to knock it off.

Since we don't know how long we'll be here we didn't get any laying hen chicks this year--but it's really hard to resist those baby chicks at the farm store.   Jeremy decided he really wanted to raise a few meat birds instead.  So we just picked up the one breed our store carried--the Cornish Cross.

We were already a bit morally opposed to the breed (they're the ones that have been bred to grow so quickly that they often die of heart attacks before reaching their 7-week accelerated maturation date because their hearts just can't keep up), but after raising them we are even more certain that we would never buy that breed again.  The crazy thing is, they not only grow too fast for their heart, but I think they grow too fast for their brains too!  They were so stupid--for lack of a better word--but when you thought about it, it made sense because they were really just baby chicks still, but had the bodies of full-grown chickens.

They just seemed a little more sickly as well.  We never put them around the other chickens--there's a risk of the chicks having disease from their hatchery, so since they weren't going to be permanent members of the flock, we didn't risk putting them together.  They had really watery droppings.  But once they got big enough that we let them start wandering the yard a little bit (so they were eating grass and things) their droppings solidified.  That just reconfirmed the validity of some of our chicken-raising practices as well. 

Sadly, (icky real-life stuff ahead warning) we came home from church last week to find the chickens had been attacked.  Our best guess is it was a yappy- neighborhood dog, because it attacked all four of them, they were all wounded on their back-sides (like they were running away from something), but it wasn't actually able to kill any of them--it left that job for Jeremy and me.  So, we processed the birds, cutting the meat away from their nipped backsides, freezing the rest, and making stock from the carcasses. 

One of the saddest things about this is that one of the reasons we raise our own birds, is to give them a less traumatic existence and death than the commercial alternative.  We want them to live happily and die peacefully.  So, unfortunately this was not a calm, humane death for our chickens, we don't know how long they were out there wounded after being attacked.  But, these are the realities of keeping animals, and on a country farm it would just be foxes and hawks we'd be dealing with instead.  This simply is the reality of animal husbandry.

But these experiences do make us feel like we've earned the right to call ourselves backyard "farmers". 

 

And since we have no immediate plans to leave we added summer crops to our vegetable garden.   The peas, broccoli, cabbage, onions, and kale were already doing well, so we added tomatoes, peppers, basil, and some runner beans.  We will still be adding more, but this spring was really crazy.  We got snow 10 days after our "last annual frost date" this year!  So everything is a bit behind.

And who knows with the baby coming (this week, maybe? please!) this may be all the planting we get to this summer.  But, there's always fall crops!

Vulnerable Motherhood

Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for.

I first heard this passage two years ago when Elder Neil L. Anderson quoted it in General Conference. However, recently I came across the original blog it was posted on and thoroughly enjoyed reading the whole post.  A part that stood out to me was the very next passage after the above quote.  The author writes:

Christian mothers carry their children in hostile territory. When you are in public with them, you are standing with, and defending, the objects of cultural dislike. You are publicly testifying that you value what God values, and that you refuse to value what the world values.

This really put into words some of my feelings that I have struggled to identify.  I've noticed that I feel particularly vulnerable in public when I am pregnant.  And during my current pregnancy we purposely put off telling Jeremy's PhD adviser we were expecting until about a month ago.

Within the walls of our own home we are so happy.  Sometimes when I am watching my boys play together, or listen to them talking to me, I just want to burst because of how much I love them, and how amazingly wonderful they are, and how blessed I feel that Heavenly Father has sent them to me.  And we are so, so, so excited for this new little one to join us.  It's been amazing to observe how each of our boys is different, and what they bring to our little family.  We can't wait to see what this new spirit will bring with him.

But outside the walls of our home we become "visible"--open to others' interpretation without our input.  We recognize that our children (and my pregnant state) are a statement of our values, and that other people may not value the same thing.  I  feel unstated accusations that if we'd just stop having kids, then Jeremy could be graduated by now, we could have a "real" job by now, or any number of material possessions by now.  And I take a lot of the supposed blame on myself, because I'm the one who's pregnant, and a lot of society looks down on a pregnant woman.  Like maybe I'm uneducated or unmotivated, or simply incapable of "greater" things.  And to go out with my children, particularly when they aren't being well-behaved, I feel the eyes of a million strangers saying, we told you so, what were you thinking, and why have you done it again?!

A few months ago, Jeremy sent me out of the house for a little "me" time.  I got a pedicure, and while chit chatting with the gal doing my pedicure, I let her believe I was pregnant with my third child.  I never said as much, but in the few other things we talked about we didn't make it to each of my kids.  And the truth is, I didn't want the "Wow!" or the "You're brave!" or the "I could never do that!" or whatever "polite" response she might try to offer, not to mention any impolite ones. 

But maybe it's time to change my ways.  I know how I feel in my heart and I probably need to work harder to not let others' unknown opinions make me feel any less secure.   I need to realize how important it is that I do; because in doing so I am "defending the objects of cultural dislike" and "publicly testifying that I value what God values".  In that context, it hurts to think that if I am insecure about my motherhood in front of others, then I am leaving my children undefended.  That's the last thing I would want to do.

As I make my final preparations to bring my fourth son into the world, I want to become a better mother than I have been in the past.  Particularly, I want to keep my head held high when I leave the sanctity and security of my home.  Because we love our boys, and the reason we "keep having kids" is because we want to, we choose to, we love them and we love our life with them, and also, we believe God has commanded us to bear children.  So, I will defend my values to the world--I will defend my children.  Even on their very worst days.