The gallery has some of my favorites and some of the blooper shots.

But here are my favorites of just Kit & me… these are uncropped, unretouched, just Rebecca’s beautiful work. These were all on our bed and in our yard. Kit’s not even seen them yet so we’ll see which he likes best and how we’ll print and blow them up. Hooray, I love them!

And here are some with the kids - if you want to see the family portraits you’ll have to go check out the blooper album. (Bennett, by the way, is crying in his shot. And Emy had just stopped crying. And Christopher refused to look at the camera because the flash was hurting his eyes. Poor kids.)

Okay, another one - I love the composition of this and I love how we’re laughing in the hammock and you can see my belly poking up. I love that we look like a happy couple looking forward to their new (fifth) baby!

I’m looking through these and they are beautiful but on an emotional level, these feel SO GOOD to see and to realize we’re this far along - 30 weeks tomorrow. THIRTY WEEKS. Only a couple more months to go until we’re full term and I feel like we’re doing better. Well, I mean mentally and emotionally I feel like I am doing better. The kids obviously had a rough morning with their demanding mommy asking them to be in pictures. So a huge THANK YOU to Rebecca for capturing these moments for us that I know will always make me smile to see.

I think the sunshine is helping (trying to get outside each day) and the iron pills (though we’ve not yet hit Outback Steakhouse) I think is helping with the physical exhaustion from the anemia. And I kept dreaming all night that Mojo moved out of breech and I didn’t have to hang out upside down anymore and this morning I FEEL FEET IN MY RIBS! And I cannot locate a head, which is a very good sign!! We’re debating if the baby is now transverse or head down but either way, feet in my ribs are wonderful. We’ll see my midwife Friday to see how I’m doing with the depression and she’ll check the baby’s position again and fingers and toes crossed, this baby is head down.

And on top of a good morning, I got an exceptionally sweet card in the mail that just made my day brighter. (Thank you, Jennifer!!)

Going through pregnancy portraits (more to come in next post) and saw this of Moira in one of the family shots. I cropped it and saved it to show Kit. We joke that we know we’re in trouble when our daughters grow up because they are little beauties - but when I saw this I realized our little girl is growing up way too fast for my taste!

Moira, as gorgeous as you are the most important thing is that you are a truly beautiful person - you are so kind and so thoughtful and so sweet. And ridiculously cute.

WHAT AN EXCITING DAY! This is Bennett’s due date (if someone had decided to not make a very dramatic arrival back on January 29th) and he was blessed three years ago yesterday. Happy due date/adjusted birthday, Bennett!

It’s also my sister’s birthday - Jenny isn’t here, but we’ll bake a cake in her honor. You can go oogle Jenny’s adorable baby, Aurora, and see the truly beautiful video Jenny made of her on their family blog (Jenny, I hope it’s okay to share that and this, which I snitched from your gallery.)

I thought with it being Memorial Day this week, that was an appropriate shot to share. Plus that picture makes me cry, so now you can cry, too. Jenny and Sean welcomed Aurora into the world last November and less than 48 hours later Aurora’s Daddy had to kiss his Loves good-bye while he went to serve far away for a very long time. Their family has been in our thoughts and prayers especially this week as Jenny celebrates her birthday without her best friend by her side. They are all heroes in my eyes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY! We love you!

This is why I’m nervous. I am SHORT, and my thumb is on my ribs in this shot and my pinky is on my hip bone. This child doesn’t have a lot of space to negotiate a move. I know babies can move even in the last week before labor but everyone that’s told me that story is several inches taller than me! Kit’s hoping I grow really far OUT so maybe the baby can wiggle around that way. For now this child’s feet are firmly planted in my pelvis and the head is wedged in my ribs and even with me pushing and persuading and hanging out upside down I can’t get Mojo to move even transverse. I’m hoping I have a growth spurt and my belly shoots out just before the baby has a growth spurt so Mojo can do some flipping.

Oh, and I’m 29 weeks and 5 days pregnant here. So yes, I know we still have time.

If you would like us to include you on Mojo’s birth email list then pretty please send me an email so I can make sure you are on the list. hthaden at gmail dot com

We will post a picture/announcement on the blog when Mojo comes and we’ll send out an email letting people know it’s there. But at this point we have decided to NOT post any of the labor/birth/newborn pictures of Mojo in a public gallery. Those will be posted in a private gallery so if you would like to be included in the email that gets that link for the private posting of the birth pictures (PG rated, nothing graphic) then please let me know about that. For a few reasons we are not making those public and we are not assuming everyone wants to see those, either! I realize as much as I am fascinated by birth pictures that not everyone is. So we will not be sending that email/gallery link out to anyone unless they contact us to ask for access. Seriously, even if you are family then let me know if you want to get that link because we’re not putting anyone on that list without them giving us the okay first.

If you are a blog reader/on-line friend but not someone we know in real life we really are happy to include you in the email. I’ve been getting asked that, we’re more than happy to share the announcement and photos - I just need to know how to reach you.

And if you already contacted me then let me know if you want the birth pictures or just the announcement? Sorry my prior post wasn’t clear, we were still debating if the birth pictures would be public or not.

Thanks! Another thing off the to do list! Down to just 2 months to go… eeks! (Bumping this again in case you missed it. Not that you need to see our new baby/birth pictures but just in case you wanted to I don’t want you to miss them. )

In chronological order - first, I am trying to finish up a friend’s baby gift before Bennett takes the scissors to it again. I was also doing Christopher’s math lesson with him (family bank binder in front of me) with coin counting. Emy woke up and didn’t really want to be awake so she crawled into my lap and fell back asleep in that position. She woke up to the flash of C taking a picture of her.

I’m attempting to spin Mojo out of breech and hanging out with Kit while he plays Wii. Yes, this is really how I’m suppose to be hanging out these days. It’s not working so far…

Here’s Kit “working” - haha! No, really, he’s working. He’s a very fast one-handed programmer.

We’re going through the baby’s stuff that the toddlers threw about my room in great heaps. Christopher and I are seeing if Mojo would fit into this preemie size onesie (3 to 5 lbs, one of Bennett’s.)

I decided to act on faith and shove all the preemie stuff in the very back of the drawer and pull forward the newborn sizes. Kit helped me put on the new bedskirt and put the bed on a frame - we’ve had it on just the box spring for years now so the kids can get in and out easily. Plus I’m short and like the bed lower. Now the toddlers can’t go on as easily (hooray!) and I’m hoping that means we’ll have more warning time before they attack sleeping Mojo. I should take a picture, the master bedroom is looking great. (Thank you, Kit! I directed but you did all the lifting. )

I’m pretty convinced Bennett is color blind. I gave him the little tests and C passed all of them but B failed every single one except the control sample, a black and white test. Since my father is colorblind, all my boys have a 50/50 chance of it. PLUS, a side effect of the ROP damage/surgery is that his retina is scarred so that increases the risk of color blindness.

It may be that he’s not color blind and he’s just had enough vision loss that he’s only seeing the high contrast of black and white. It’s more likely, I think, that he’s color blind. We’ll see what his doctor says at his next eye exam in November.

We’re giving the kids cookies warm from the oven (it’s a bread baking/dessert day) and Emy was begging for more milk to dip her cookie in. Bennett came into the kitchen to beg for another cookie and as soon as he got up I saw Emy eyeing his glass of milk that had been left unsupervised. While he was in the kitchen, she jumped down from her chair and ran around the table, climbed up into his chair while darting glances to see if she had been caught - then dipping her cookie into his milk!

It was too funny, she’s such a character lately as her personality becomes more expressive every day.

My midwife just called, we discussed the breech thing and the game plan is I do the exercises at home (hanging out upside down) until 32 weeks or so. If baby is still breech we add the chiropractic Webster technique in to help make sure my pelvis isn’t being weird and squishing the baby too much and all is lined up well. If not turned by 36 weeks we do an ultrasound (we plan this if breech or not) and see how things look, then schedule an external version if all is well at 37 weeks or so (unless OB advises earlier - but I want lungs on this baby and don’t want to risk a crash and forced delivery at 36 weeks.) She says the OB has a great success rate with versions and WILL do one on a VBAC mom. If that works at 37 weeks then she says we do a lot of squats to keep the baby’s head engaged and strip my membranes. Since my last two deliveries at term were right at 38 weeks it’s not that we want to push this kid out before term (and 37 weeks is NOT TERM) but we want to get things moving along so the baby doesn’t get any ideas about flipping back to breech at the last second.

If the version does not work then we decide if we attempt a VBAC breech delivery or schedule the c-section for 38 weeks. If we go later than 38 weeks for the section then we risk me going into labor and with my history of speedy deliveries, we face possible complications and extra risk from a last minute rush trying to get into the OR and the baby getting stuck & stressed out with one foot up by an ear and another foot hanging out. Scheduled c-sections have lower rates of complications than surprise c-sections and while it benefits the baby to experience some of the stress of labor, we feel it would be safer in our case to schedule a section rather than be surprised in the middle of the night with labor.

Though I sure hope to make this baby turn and be surprised with labor in the middle of the night!!

So, we’ve got a game plan. I hang out upside down for another 2.5 weeks and then we see what’s next. I like having a plan but I also still feel that the breech possibility is one I need to accept. Just in case. I hope to be proven wrong.

But she actually called because my labs are back and I am anemic. Which is dumb because I am eating a lot of spinach! Time for more red meat, I guess.

AND, duh realization of mine - anemia can cause exhaustion. Which could explain some of my crashing from the fatigue so bad I was too tired to even ponder eating, etc, etc. This is just so odd because with Bennett when I was hemorrhaging and losing so much blood volume I was on IV fluids and they wanted to transfuse me I was NOT anemic. They prescribed iron pills but they made me sick so I didn’t take them and just made sure to eat iron rich foods and they kept checking my levels. Same as I’m doing now, but then I was bleeding profusely for 3 months and NOT anemic. Even postpartum, by the time of my 6 week follow up after the c-section and placental abruption? NOT ANEMIC. And yet now I’m anemic. Weird, weird I say… I’m trying to convince Kit this means we need to do take out from Outback Steakhouse. Really, don’t I need that for the anemia? He was laughing at me, it was 10pm when I tried to convince him of that.

I’m attempting to get dressed with the “help” of two toddlers and Bennett’s pointing at my breasts and asks, “What’s that?” I tell him, explain the baby will eat there and it has milk. Bennett points to one breast and says, “Milk!” then the other breast and says, “Water!” then yells, “PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY!”

Apparently Mommy is the source of all snacks and beverages.

I’m hanging out upside, feeling this big head and realizing that Mojo flipped breech a week ago. I remember telling Kit the wild flips were knocking the wind out of my me and I’ve been getting kicked in the cervix since then. But at no point since then has Mojo flipped back head up. I’m pushing on Mojo’s head & the noggin will move from my left to right side but nothing further. It’s right there under my ribs, feet firmly planted on my cervix just as I type this.

And the thought that came to mind, as I was hanging upside down off the edge of my bed, was, “The baby may not move. And you need to make peace with that.” The baby may already be too big to get head down. Or there may be some reason for this little one to have decided to be breech. I have no idea, and perhaps an ultrasound will reveal some details.

We’ll try the baby spinning ideas, we’ll see a chiropractor and we’ll try everything suggested. If we feel it’s a safe option, we’ll schedule a version towards the end of July.

But the thought that keeps resurfacing is, “You need to make peace with this.” And since I’m sure that right now Mojo is a footling breech (which means c-section) then I have to face that reality. A rear end presenting breech we would ponder a vaginal delivery… I’m not sure what we would do. Pray a lot, research a lot, get a lot of professional opinions. Try to sort out what is the best and safest way to get this little one out.

Kit and I actually both brought this up over the last couple months. It’s occurred to both of us for whatever reason and we’ve not discussed breech in past pregnancies because the kids always headed down early. But we both thought about it this time… which now makes me wonder.

So, the possibility of a c-section. Which, as you can imagine, makes me feel really icky. But strangely enough, it’s not freaking me out the way I would expect. We’ve been hoping and planning for this out of hospital delivery but we have always, always included the disclaimer that it was if we remained complication free. We certainly know that surprises come up and though it’s too early to tell, I know now that this is something that may be an issue. A breech birth.

I’m sad at the idea, but I’m going to focus on whatever we can do to turn this baby. And if Mojo for some reason needs or wants to stay breech, then we’ll prayerfully review our options. And if we feel that a c-section is the right choice, then I will go in with a smile and a grateful heart that we are in the hands of excellent care providers whose opinions we trust. We have an OB and midwife that are skilled at catching breech babies if we want to try a vaginal birth and feel it’s a safe option. And if not, then an OB with decades of experience and an incredible reputation would be there to help us welcome Mojo into the world.

Sigh… but this kinda stinks. It’s not a huge deal, my goal is a big, fat, healthy baby. Full term. Location & method of arrival is much lower on the list of concerns.

Not literally, because it’s as dark as night outside right now with a huge thunderstorm hitting us. But figuratively, the sun is starting to come out.

Emy said her first, “I love you, too!” this morning as Kit was leaving for work.

I saw my midwife and we made a game plan for the depression. We have little steps to start with, moderate steps to try if necessary and then we pull out the big guns. But I’m optimistic that we can get a handle on this before we hit the need for antidepressant meds. In between steps we’re trying will be omega-3s, which I’ve been neglecting to take this week, walking - which we dropped because of contractions, then if those don’t make a change we move onto St. John’s Wart, progesterone cream, then we start talking zoloft. She brought up counseling but I think this is really a physically based depression so I want to try the exercise and omega-3s and such first. But talking it over with her and getting a game plan helps, and she agreed that with the hormone changes and new trimester and Bennett anxiety that this is not at all a surprising development. I am suppose to be seeing her every 3 weeks but she wants me in next week to check up on me.

I am 116 lbs! Still putting on a pound a week, 19 pounds since conception. WOO-HOO! If I keep up at this rate then I’ll have gained 29 lbs or so when I deliver, our best yet. And I’m measuring 30 weeks, so measuring bigger and weighing more than I have with prior pregnancies. I love it.

My blood pressure is just a smidge higher than normal but nothing at all of concern - just something of note. I’m consistently 90/60 and today I was 100/60. I’m guessing stress?

Not happy news but not alarming, since the baby dropped lower in my pelvis (Mojo is not engaged, just low) the baby has had lots of wiggle room and has decided to go breech. Not cool. I’m only 29 weeks so there are at least another 7 weeks or so when the baby can turn but after 36 weeks we need to do the ultrasound to check on my scar (new policy, we’re not worried - just to be sure it still looks good) and we’ll check baby’s position. If Mojo is still breech at 36 weeks then we’ve got to change plans. We reviewed options - depending on levels of amniotic fluid, how things look on ultrasound, size of baby estimated, etc then we could try a version (external pushing to flip baby) but that can stress out baby badly enough to force an immediate delivery so they don’t want to do that before 36 or 37 weeks but if we wait closer to term we risk the baby being too big to flip. We could, if the baby is in an okay position (there are many types of breech depending on which body part is presenting first) then we could attempt a breech VBAC but the midwife is not comfortable with that unless it’s in a specific position and if the OB attends the delivery at the birth center as well. But honestly, I don’t think we’re comfortable with a breech VBAC out of the hospital. So we can try a breech VBAC at the hospital with the OB. But depending on the position, a version or a vaginal delivery are not ideal and we would then schedule a c-section in either of those cases.

So, again - this isn’t an issue we’ll be deciding on for another 7 weeks. We’ve got that long to make wiggle worm wiggle into the right spot and my midwife gave me some exercises to try and encourage turning. This is not a big deal - yet - but it’s something that may become a big deal since my other kids were head down pretty early in the game and stayed put. We need Mojo to cooperate and go head down, or we will be probably be facing waiting until we go into labor (since labor is good for the baby and we want to give the baby those benefits if a c-section is necessary) and when I do hit early labor then we head on in and do a c-section.

SO MOVE IT, MOJO!! Move, move, head down. Just don’t go too far down because I don’t want your noggin making me dilate. That’s why you are breech, huh? Because I told you to move your big noggin away from my cervix?

When I came home in the dark storm I found various children draped around the furniture and floor asleep or zoning out. At 10:30am. It’s the dark weather, I’m sure. But we’re feeling good… I have hope again.