Okay, more labor homework.

Anyone that has done transition drug free, HOW DID YOU DO IT? Did you just hang on for dear life and feel like you were losing your mind? Were you speaking, were you coherent, were you conversing? Did you open your eyes, were you aware of what was happening, were you thinking rationally at all? And how??

Transition with both girls was such an absolutely overwhelming experience, it was the only time in my life besides migraines where I felt like I was losing consciousness. Like my rational brain was floating away because I was not able to remain in my body with the pain. I was just closing my eyes and hoping I did not die from the intensity of it. I was not coherent, I was not thinking straight, I had my eyes closed except for a brief moment when I looked at the ceiling and begged/pleaded/prayed, “Save me from this because I think I’m dying!!” I was just freaking out in my own head and I felt utterly disconnected from anyone or anything around me. I knew it hurt, but I was not thinking clearly enough to form the thought, “I am pushing, the baby is coming out, it’s okay.” And apparently I didn’t seem to be losing my mind to anyone around me, they all thought I was coping well - I thought I was screaming my head off but they said I wasn’t so I guess I was screaming in my own head.

Does this not just make you want to go drug free with your next birth?

I realize my transition/pushing stages are not the norm since I go from 5 to 10 cms dilated in less than an hour and I pushed for 5 minutes with Mo and 20 minutes with Emy. I’ve heard labors that fast are more intense because there’s really no break from contractions and your body is in this crazy lockdown so yes, it’s pretty insane. Fast, but torturous. I see videos of women in transition and pushing and they are smiling in between contractions! Laughing, eyes open, looking around, coherent. I am not.

I want to know how can I cope with transition and have some small little bit of awareness and sanity so I can open my eyes and see the baby and not feel such a sense of isolation through that intensity.

So, how did you get through transition and pushing? How did you cope? Advice? You can email me, I’m loving the birth stories some of you have been kind enough to share and your brilliant labor tips - I’m learning so much.

And I should add that despite my just glowing description of transition, I think it’s absolutely 100% worth the trade off. It’s a really rough 1.5 hours or so to deliver without the drugs but the benefits for me, for the baby, for the recovery - they’re more than worth it.

“One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.”
- Sidney Howard

Just interesting quote.

We seem to have caught some virus around here, our tummies are none to happy and I’m feeling exhausted. And CRANKY. And I am not blaming this on pregnancy, I’m blaming this on the bug that is making me feel like I have morning sickness again. I’m hungry, but I don’t want to eat. I hate that feeling. And I’m EXHAUSTED, so exhausted that I had the older three on the bed playing on my laptop and I was falling asleep while helping them do some reading games on-line. They would have to wake me up to change the game when they couldn’t figure it out. And the upset tummy seems to be setting off some contractions, too. So cranky, tired, sick AND contracty. Lovely.

I want s’mores. And fruit popsicles. And a cherry limeade from Sonic. And peanut butter cups. Oh, and some potato chips. And while placing orders I would also like some sleep and some energy.

Kit and I were trying to cuddle/wrestle Emy to sleep and she seemed almost out then announced, “BABY BUNNY!” and rolled over. I looked at Kit and he explained during church when he had the toddlers in the hall he saw a bunny outside and took them to see it for a minute. I guess Emy was dreaming about the bunny?

This morning I asked Bennett where his glasses were and Emy announced, “In duh dit-den,” (in the kitchen) and Bennett said, “No, Emy, not in ditchen, in 72 hour kit drawer!” (She was right.) We have a closet in the hall we keep our 72 hour kits (cannot find link but it’s advised by our church to have emergency 72 hour kits with clothes, food, emergency needs, copies of important paperwork, etc in portable containers in case of emergency evacuation/situation stuff.) It use to be a laundry chute type cabinet - door that pulls out towards you horizontally and then regular cabinet doors under to pull out hamper. We have a child latch on the bottom drawers but no way to keep the top drawer/door closed. So when Bennett grabs something he’s not suppose to have or any other random stuff he wants to hide he races away and throws it in his “72 hour kit drawer.” Which we must check daily since he threw a lot of produce in there for awhile, glasses when he’s angry, other kids’ toys, etc. We’re working on that.

But funny to me that the two of them argued for awhile over where Bennett’s glasses were - hearing the two of them speaking was a hoot.

Christopher received a tiger flashlight for his third birthday and it’s always been a hit around here. If you squeeze the tail it opens its mouth revealing the light and it growls at you. Bennett has adopted it as his own, sleeps with it and calls it his “Tigerlight!”

I’m hearing from the other room, “Cri-cri-cri, Mo-ha, read to me, READ TO ME!!” Bennett’s in serious story mode, we find him all the time “reading” to himself. Moira we’ve also found more and more sitting around reading to herself - I found her stash of easy readers and tried to be subtle about leaving them out in an obvious place so no pressure. It worked.

This evening Christopher, without being asked, got Emiline into her pajamas. Which is truly a feat considering our “naked baby” and her aversion to clothing. Then reading more baby prep books to the kids, one says how the older kids can help with the new baby. Christopher announces, “If I can get EMY dressed, I can get a baby dressed!”

We laugh about it, but this child is truly going to be an incredible father someday.

Update: Mo said the chiggers that bit her are too small for her to see. Christopher responds, “There are some things smaller - DNA, dustmites.”

Where does he get this stuff?? Kit needs to write about their star conversation, too.

Making some changes to Mojo menu. This one is pretty heavy on the protein since we don’t normally eat a lot of meat. We also need stuff without dairy as a staple since most of our kids react badly to dairy while I nurse. And I wanted EASY, easy so I can prep meals in the few minutes I’ll have. This is also giving us our final shopping list for pre-baby, since I’m 34 weeks today and that means I’ve probably got 4 weeks until this little one is going to arrive - and possibly less! Time to get moving…

Pizza Hut (Mo’s request)
Mr. Chopstix (C’s request)
Outback steakhouse (Mommy’s request)
Chipotle (Kit’s request)

But after the take out budget dies, then what??

Dinners (add veggies and/or salad):
- creamy chicken with pasta
- beef burgundy w/pasta
- mini meatloaf with cheesy potatoes
- chicken caccitore
- spicy tropical steak
- garlic lemon chicken
- pizza

- calico bean soup
- german pancakes
- sausage rice scramble
- tator tot casserole
- stroganoff
- omlettes
- taco salad
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Working on some projects today - lemon turnovers (canned filling, frozen puff pastry, WAY easy) and a shadowbox project idea I snitched from another blog (can’t remember which!!) My Mom gave us the box and had kept the little trinkets from my shadow box as a kid - it was so neat! Tiny shoes from Holland, mugs from cities in Germany we visited, etc. Then I just went through our stack of spare pictures and cut them to fit - I knew I wanted more pictures than trinkets and it turned out perfectly.

And while working on another project (realizing NONE of these are on my “To Do Pre-Mojo” list) I came across these pictures… they really are such good friends, I love it. December 2004 (while I was on bedrest) so C was 3 and M was 18 months:

Summer 2005, M just turned 2 and C was 3.5 years old:

And I have no idea when this is because the date stamp is wrong.

And these are just funny, summer 2005. Moira was barely 2, Christopher was 3.5 years old - so almost exactly Emy & Bennett’s ages now:

I’m 34 weeks pregnant tomorrow. 34 weeks. (Which means it’s 32 weeks since I last had a vacation and let me tell you, I really need a vacation and I seriously considered emailing my midwife this morning to ask if she would allow me to leave town even though I know she would laugh at me and say NO WAY since I’ve already asked and she already said no and that was before I was this close to term and even normal pregnant women aren’t suppose to travel after 35 weeks but dang, I need a vacation.)

I thought I would relax as I got closer to term but the opposite is happening. I’m so close that I can taste it and it’s making me that much more crazy to be this close but not be safe yet. I’m not safe yet, I need another 3 weeks before I will feel safe. Just THREE WEEKS.

There is no reason to believe I won’t make it, though the contractions have arrived. Nothing atrocious. Yesterday one was strong enough as I left the hospital (visiting a friend & new baby) that I had to stop and lean against the wall until the contraction passed but I only get a few of those a day. Most contractions I can keep walking and talking and working through but they are much more often. Which is good, it’s practice. That’s what I tell myself.

But I am getting more and more nervous, now that I’m this close, to think that something could go wrong. I am struggling to fall asleep at night because I’m scared I’ll wake up in labor. Scared to go pee because I fear my water is going to break (not that those things are in any way connected, I just happen to think of it when I pee.) Terrified that I’m going to have SOMETHING come up that is going to force me to deliver too early. This is too early, I need another three weeks.

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Woke up and sent Kit off to work assuring him that I really could handle juggling all four kids by myself at breakfast with friends. I was feeing ambitious (and I wanted him home in the afternoon when I knew the kids were less cooperative.) He was willing to let me try and the kids blew me away with their sweetness and behavior! They were GREAT and I actually got to sit down and visit with some dear friends I’ve known for 6 years now - since we moved back to Texas from LA. Friends that have seen us through the various ups and downs and chaos and still love us. Good, good friends that I don’t see very often now as we are scattered a bit - four of us all lived in the same apartment complex for years, all six of us attended the same church for years, three of us were in a co-op with our kids starting when Christopher was a year old, two of whom babysat my kids weekly while Bennett was in the NICU and all of whom have loved and supported and cheered for us through our pregnancies. Good visit. Yummy food.

Then we came home and got two very exciting messages - one friend had just had her baby and another dear friend (my penpal of 15 years) was in town so I spent the afternoon visiting with my out of town friend while she moves from one country to another and then soon onto another country. Moira loved seeing her penpal (my friend’s daughter) as well. We’ve not seen each other in two years while they were abroad and it’s always so, so nice to sit down and talk in person with her…

Then when they needed to leave, after a wonderful visit and time spent talking in more detail about everything we discuss in our letters, I headed to the hospital and got to hold a sweet little 12 hour old baby. It made me baby hungry! The little tiny hands and feet and sweet smell and little squeaks. And I can only hope I have such an amazing birth story! She’s my hero, I aspire to such a great birth. It was good to sit and cuddle a baby and talk with my friend and eat chocolate. I told her it was my girls’ night out.

And when I came home, the younger three kids were all asleep. By 7pm, worn out from all their hard play.

Good day. Good friends.

Realizing I come from an unusual background in that there are two professional photographers in the family and at least four published & award winning photographers, I know my perspective is skewed. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing!

I knew I was willing to spend pretty much my entire wedding budget on a photographer (the rest of the money going to a place that was a beautiful backdrop for said pictures, and some yummy food.) I knew after the wedding our memories and those photos would be what we most held dear and I wanted GOOD PICTURES. Not just good, great. I wanted pictures so beautiful that I would be happy to blow them up and hang them up in my home. I wanted our kids to grow up surrounded by photos of the temple and our family beginning on our wedding day.

I think we succeeded in great pictures! (That one is over our fireplace now.) I heard too many horror stories about terrible pictures and people hating their albums or photographers or whatever. So after much research (remember, I was engaged before and had years to research photographers!) we found a place we loved and had two photographers come and it wasn’t my money spent but I honestly would have spent my own money for Busath and Kit and I agreed on that. Even if we paid for it ourselves, we wanted them.

We took a few pictures before and after Christopher was born at the hospital, same with Mo. Obviously we got nothing with Bennett since we weren’t planning to have him right then and I guess they don’t let photographers in for stat c-sections. It wasn’t until after Bennett was born that I realized I had missed his birth in a sense, being under general anesthesia and the whole crazy trauma of it all. So when Emy was on her way, I knew I wanted a photographer. Something in me just needed to have some way to capture the birth… Lucky for ME, my sister lives in town and happens to be an amazing photographer that I would hire for her work even if she wasn’t related to me. I love her style, I love how she captures expressions and the emotions of the moment. And she was willing to come up in the wee hours of the morning to capture some of Emy’s birth for us.

Those pictures are priceless to me, probably because (a) she really captured for me the feel of the birth (b) the photos make me smile every time I see them and remember that beautiful experience (c) it’s a reminder of how far we had come since our preemie birth (d) I know it will be a special collection for Emiline. And the pictures are BEAUTIFUL. People ask me all the time why we would want a photographer there for birth, but I realize in most cases birth is taking place in a hospital and it’s not like stirrups and IVs and monitors make for especially wonderful pictures but I have seen lovely hospital birth photos, too.

And sometimes capturing an image, however ugly or painful or hard it may be in real life, gives us a chance to step back a bit and see the beauty. I think this is beautiful, as are the other shots my sister did of Bennett in the NICU.

IV in his head, ventilator taped to my shoulder and all.

For some reason these photos were in a different spot but I just found the ones my mother took of Bennett when he was less than a day old. He doesn’t look like a 1lb 6ozs baby on a vent, eh? We used the foot one for his birth announcement:

I don’t want to forget these moments. My memory fades of things and it’s impossible to describe exactly to Bennett how tiny he was or to tell Emy what I was feeling when she came out crying - but these pictures let me show them, to some degree. His itty bitty head cupped in my hand, the relief and joy on our faces when Emy was placed in our arms. Photos give us a chance to share these moments.

That is why I think a photographer at birth is just as wonderful and appropriate as a photographer at a wedding. And why dads and random family attending the birth are great for snapping some pictures, but they have more important things to focus on and thus the incentive to have a birth photographer there, someone specifically there to take pictures and someone with the skill to snap the perfect shots. Pictures are worth getting no matter what but the difference between shots we got on our own at the first two births and the work of a skilled and talented photographer is such a difference! And why I am so exceptionally grateful my sister will be attending this next birth as well. And why when I have my unassisted birth dreams I am sad in those dreams that I deliver so fast my sister can’t get there in time for pictures!

Kit was attempting to get Emy into pajamas and I could hear the yelling from the other room. What was Little Miss screaming? “No, NAKED BABY, NAKED BABY!” She’s not really into clothes lately.

Then we took them off to bed and I caught Emy menacing Bennett saying, “Bennett, glassy OFF! Off glassy!” Which I know she was about to enforce that one, but we stopped her. The routine is run off to bed and set his glasses on the counter so he can get them in the morning and he was in bed wearing the glasses so she did not approve.

Emy’s decided she’s not cool with having her own (very cute, I might add) room to herself. Mo’s been sleeping on the bottom bunk of Christopher’s bed for months and Bennett decided back in March he wanted to be with the big kids so he’s on a mattress in the same room. In the afternoons when we hit naps I have to get both toddlers down at once and lately Emy races into Mo’s bed and crashes there while I put Bennett down. Lovely by me, but she’s no longer happy sleeping at nighttime without the big kids in the purple room on the full size bed. So yes, we have FOUR KIDS all sleeping in the same room. Wondering if we should get a second set of bunkbeds for the boys’ room (we can fit them) since the girls REFUSE to sleep in their room. Here I was worrying about enough space for the kids and we have a room sitting literally empty because they all want to be together. I asked Mo what we should do with it and she said, “A guest room?”

During the days it’s the same way most of the time (unless the big kids are doing projects they want the babiestoddlers out of or Mo’s taking some quiet time since she is an introvert. Or Bennett getting into things he knows are off limits, he sneaks off to do that.) Otherwise all four kids seem to have this magnetic pull and they must all be right on top of each other, hanging out in the same three square feet of space. We have a lot of unused space in this place but I know we’ll grow into it as they get older.

We hosted our history group today which is always chaotic fun, and due to some dietary issues I was able to inherit from Katie a freezer full of meals! Crockpot stuff, things to just heat up quickly. Delicious (I’ve tried some) and homemade and oh, what a blessing! Since making freezer meals was on my to do list, this is a wonderful perk for us (though sad for her family that they cannot put them to use since she’s about to have a baby any moment.)

AND she brought me the Blue Bell ice cream!!! I have good, good friends. I’ve said how wonderful Katie is before (Katie, you rock) but sometimes the blessing of my friends just overwhelms me anew. I am blessed.

And I have ice cream!! Woo-hoo!

Want to know what’s on my nightstand right now? Some light bedtime reading…

The Explosive Child

Quirky Kids

The Bipolar Child

Raising Your Spirited Child

I started laughing when I saw the stack, clearly I’m trying to sort out what behavior falls within the range of “normal” and what behavior (if any) is outside that realm and needs to be addressed with some outside help. Hoping and praying it’s all a stage that is outgrown or it’s just temperament and can be eventually worked with enough for said child to be a happy and functional adult.

Sigh… it’s been some challenging days dealing with our “spirited children” on top of my own anxiety/depression/current state of mind. At least we had a heads up that we were going to have passionately opinionated kids with a predisposition to the blessing and curse of some of these challenges.

Kit says he’s been working on some thoughts about bipolar disorder. I throw up blog posts left and right but he ponders and writes and reflects and then posts something wonderful and thoughtful. So his may be fewer in coming but they are worth the wait…

Okay, kids, I’m trying to be useful and fold piles of your laundry. After I got through most of them this is what I found at the bottom. Not that this was in the laundry, these were the various things you’ve all dumped on my bedroom floor or thrown into the pile of clean laundry that sat here unfolded all week when Mommy couldn’t face it but kept telling Daddy to leave it because really, she was going to deal with it.

The pile:
- a black umbrella
- a batman car
- a Little People polar bear
- a mini bottle of bubbles
- the battery cover for our tv remote
- a ruler
- a pink finger puppet pig
- a ruler
- a mini photo album
- a Christmas winter slipper
- a pink bandana/headband for an infant girl
- a piece of blue string
- a suction cup hook
- the base to a creme brulee torch (forgive the lack of accents on creme brulee) but seriously, guys, where did you find that base?? I know we hid the torch from you.

Most everything else in my room makes sense. Books, blankets, clothes, even a random stuffed animal here or there. But why in the world would you bring in these completely odd items? And I wonder why I feel like I’m constantly shuffling things around wondering where these things go.

I feel guilty for being depressed. Which is dumb, if anyone told me they were depressed I would reassure them it’s so very common and completely not their fault and especially that in pregnancy and postpartum it’s not at all unusual AND for anyone pregnant after a preemie and/or miscarriages it’s probably typical. That’s what I would tell someone else.

I feel guilty for feeding my kids popcorn and cookies for dinner. Kit’s getting the brakes fixed on the van so he has to wait at the shop (can’t move all the kids in the wagon) and I’m letting them watch tv (it’s been in the garage for almost 2 weeks now except the day Mo was sick so this is a HUGE TREAT to get tv) and I’m eating frozen cookie dough balls. But the popcorn IS air popped. I think that counts as a whole grain. And the cookies have oatmeal and craisins in them. That’s kinda healthy.

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