Home Sweet Home

So having a home birth is infinitely nicer than having an average, uncomplicated hospital birth. Or at least it was in my experience.

Buster (not his real name for those of you who are new to this rodeo) was born around 6:30 in the morning on Tuesday the 31st! He was a whopping 10 pounds, 6 ounces and 22 inches long. 

The birth story:

At the beginning of the weekend, my sister, K, called to say that she thought she could come out for a week starting on Monday. C and I were super excited at the prospect that we would have family out for the birth; I think knowing she was coming relaxed me in a way that really got the labor-ball rolling. At the risk of TMI, I lost my mucus plug later that night and then felt crampy for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday afternoon I started to get contractions, but they stopped coming towards evening. On Monday, I still felt crampy and was having irregular contractions throughout the day. On Monday afternoon, we went to the airport to pick up Kath, and then I went to class where I timed my contractions, but they still weren't at all regular. Things started to pick up around 11 that evening, and by 2:00 am there was no denying that Buster was on his way. We called the midwife because my contractions were consistently four minutes apart and getting longer, stronger, and closer together. Unfortunately, our midwife was just finishing up at another birth, so it would be a little while before she would get to us. Luckily, the nurse who assists her lived closer to us and could get there sooner, although it turns out she had also just been at a birth.

I got into the pool around 3:00 right around when the nurse showed up. When she saw me go through a couple of contractions, she got on the phone and told the midwife that indeed there would be no time for rest and she had better get to our house soon. In the pool, the water felt wonderful, but the contractions were now longer, stronger, and closer together, and my legs kept cramping from being bent in the pool. My wonderful sister worked on getting some killer biceps by continually pouring water during my contractions onto the magic spot on a woman's back that helps with labor pains. The birth assistant arrived a little later and we lit candles and turned the lights down in the room with the pool, which helped me focus and breathe through the contractions. My midwife arrived around 4:30 (I think; I wasn't really watching a clock at this point), and while I kept on doing my thing in the pool, she and the birth assistant tried to catch a little shut-eye so they would be ready to spring into action, if needed, for the birth itself. 

Around 5:00, a bright and cheery Wiggle woke up and came in to see what all the commotion was about. He rubbed my shoulder and tried to comfort me through contractions. The birth pool had a floating thermometer which he used to take the temperature of my various body parts - "Mommy? Is your elbow fine? Is your cheek fine?" Finally, the urge to push kicked in, and so I did. At this point I became more vocal and more irritable, so my sister took Wiggle into the other room to play. I stayed in the pool and just followed my instincts about when to rest and when to push.

Everything was so hands-off; no ever checked my progress, no one told me when to push, the only "interference" was reminding me to breathe and to try to relax my shoulders and legs so that pushing would be easier for me. At some point, the nurse tried to check the fetal heart rate, which required me to sit up out of the water. I found being upright extremely uncomfortable, but she kept not being able to find Buster's heartbeat. I had to restrain myself from shouting "You'll have a much easier time checking it if you just wait a minute!" I got back to business and my water broke and then two or three contractions later, Buster's head and then shoulder emerged. It turns out they couldn't get the heart rate because I was further along then they had thought and he was already in the birth canal!

The midwife's assistant caught the baby and lifted him out of the water and then handed him to me. Wiggle came in and met his baby brother and was all smiles. We sat in the tub and relaxed and snuggled for a bit. C cut Buster's cord which was a little bit of a conversation piece because it was extra thick and had a true knot in it. A short while later, I shakily got out of the tub and then got into my own bed and snuggled and nursed my new baby in my own room. It was wonderful. A few hours later, I had our usual breakfast at the table with my family - back to normal(ish) by breakfast.

I really cannot describe how wonderful and relaxing it was to be in my own house. And while I don't generally go in for this type of stuff, the birth itself was quite empowering. I felt in control, in-tune with my body, and very connected to the birth. Although Wiggle's birth was not at all traumatic and he was beautiful and healthy when born, the process felt confrontational, and I felt a little powerless. The hospital and doctors made me feel like something was happening to me and that while the end result is wonderful, the process is less than wonderful, but at home, it felt like I was making something happen and that the whole tiring, painful, messy thing is part of the wonderful. 

In all fairness, some of the difference could be that my first labor was twice as long and pitocin-driven, so I was much more drained and worn out by the end than I was this time. Also, I knew what to expect, even when the minor idiosyncrasies of my birth pattern happened - I mysteriously almost passed out after both births - this time though C wasn't as worried as the first time because it had happened before. But even if some of the awesomeness could be attributed to things that would have been the case even if we were in a hospital, having Wiggle here, laboring the way I wanted and at my own pace, and going to sleep in my own bed were all awesome things that could only really happen at home, and I wouldn't choose to have it any other way.

Term-inal Velocity

So we've had three holidays come and go since my last post. I would normally feel bad about that, but given that I am 38 weeks pregnant today, I don't.

As for the last two months, we had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving full of good food and days of leftovers.

I finished up the semester with a bang and scored A's in both of my classes, which felt pretty awesome.

Christmas was lovely and magical -

We put lights on the house!

My mom came to visit!

The tree and a stocking hung by the chimney with care!

Wiggle saw Santa for the first time and asked for a candy cane, which he promptly received.

There was much loot to be had

Christmas morning with plastic French fries...

To use in your brand...new...KITCHEN! Courtesy of Santa.

Needless to say everything was awesome. But if gifts and snuggly time with a grandchild aren't enough for you, we also were productive. I should say that my mom was super productive and we just tried to stay out of her way. She painted our dining room, the baby's room, Wiggle's bathroom (which involved leveling old wallpaper glue and priming first), and our hallway. What? Your mom doesn't undertake household renovations when visiting at Christmas? Well, I guess my mom is just awesome like that.

We had an even quieter New Year's Eve which involved painting, some Champagne, and chocolate mousse. 

I should also mention that I developed a horrendous cough right before Christmas that is just barely starting to lessen now - nearly three weeks later. I even went to the doctor and took medicine for it, which for those who know me, proves I was truly miserable. I did manage to get the Christmas decorations down and put away, but the rest of the house has completely fallen apart around me in the interim. I was feeling pretty bad about it until I started to feel a little bit better today and the urge to clean finally could compete with the need to breathe. Amazingly, I immediately started to do some of the backed up laundry and vacuuming and the like. I really need to get everything put away and cleaned up since this boyo could be coming any day now. I met the birth assistant, who seems wonderful, we have the birthing pool and have gathered the main supplies, so we are pretty much ready to go, or to stay, when it happens.

In the meantime, I need to finish up my application to the MSW program, freeze some meals for during labor and after the birth, and put the baby's room in order, and if I can manage it finally prime, paint, and put hardware on some of the lower kitchen cabinets, and install dimmers in the bedrooms, and switch out our electrical plugs from cream to white, and rehang the towel bar in the bathroom, and, and, and. Hmmm, maybe nesting is finally starting to kick in. Plus it would be nice if my professor from this semester would email me the syllabus so I could try to get ahead on the readings. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

With my mind on my money and my money on my mind

I hate budgeting. I hate thinking about money, nor am I good at it. I guess there are very few people who like watching their pennies, but sometimes I wish I was someone who could get satisfaction seeing their balance grow dollar by dollar when saving money. But I am decidedly NOT one of those people.

Since we bought our house this summer, I am much more concerned about our finances. Actually, moving to a mortgage helped bring down our monthly payments, but now I have the future to worry about. How long will the roof last? We need a new water heater. The AC is on its last legs. I would love to add an outside entrance to the kitchen. The list goes on and on.

Most of the time I feel very lucky financially. I am able to stay home with Wiggle. We just bought a house. We have health insurance. We are able to have only one car, and that car is in good condition. So many families are not nearly in as good a situation as we are, especially right now. We are lucky, and I know that, but that doesn't mean that I can be careless with money. And there are still plenty of times when it would be really nice to do this AND that, but we will have to decide to do this OR that. Not really hardship, but as we approach the holidays, and we get closer to adding a new bambino to the family, and as I apply to go back to school officially, a little breathing room would be nice. This means that for the next few days, I will be looking at bills, going over receipts, trying to plan out upcoming expenses, and generally get mired in our money matters.

Afterward, I hope to have a better idea of where to and when the money is going out, and when I can expect to be able to do things like buy a new refrigerator or renovate the bathroom. I am not in a huge hurry because I don't envision having tons of time to manage any major projects in the next few years between school and the baby, but it would still be nice to know that I am working toward being able to make those changes.

It will also perhaps help me reign myself in a little more when I crave some retail therapy. I do not consider myself an extremely wasteful person, but I do have a hard time prioritizing my purchases sometimes. Also, when I need a jumpstart even though I have a million things I could do around the house for free, I would generally prefer to look for new towels or try look for the exact-sized basket for that shelf that is clearly standing between me and complete and total organization, and therefore happiness. I couldn't grow up in Dallas and not have some of it rub off on me after all.

In order to curb my retail tendencies lately, I have turned to another Dallas favorite - make-up. Feeling down? Sequined purple nail polish or bright red lipstick do seem to help a little. If nothing else, they make cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming under the couch a little more glamorous.

Once I get the money thing figured out, I can move on to the master schedule that will allow me to fix-up the baby's room/empty it of clutter, finally finish our kitchen cabinets, read all of Game of Thrones, knit a few items, whip up a few Christmas gifts, finish going through all of our photos on the computer, and generally relax during the month-long Christmas break. I mean it's just a good schedule that I need, right? I can't imagine having to adjust my expectations. That couldn't possibly be the problem.

I guess it's gonna be awhile before "Satisfice" will be my middle name.

A little fall fun in the leaves

Food for Thought

After three days of eating way too much candy, my body was starting to totally rebel. I was sluggish, my hips were hurting even more than usual, I was nauseous and downright cranky, so it was time for some real food. We went with one of our favorite recipes for fall and winter, Fried Eggs Over Warm Lentil Salad with Lardons. This is one of those recipes that is delicious, easy to make, and even includes some things that are good for you, but it's as comforting as homemade macaroni and cheese or similar artery clogging fare. We sub kale for the spinach and just add it to the water the lentils cook in and then add a little more vinegar at the end because kale is even more tasty with vinegar. I didn't take any pics because we wolfed it down before any rational thought about it could take place.

Wiggle ate his portion with gusto too; he especially liked stirring the runny egg yolk into his lentil mixture. He would say "goo, goo, gooey!" every time he stirred. That kind of makes it sound like he talks in baby talk, but let me assure you he does not.

Now that we have entered November, I am feeling a little backed up on all of the things I have to do. I have so much to do and it's so hard to keep track of all of it that I had to spend my precious library time this morning just getting things entered into my to-do list and calendar. And then, of course, the holidays are coming up, which I love and am looking forward to, but also involve planning ahead or we won't get to do a bunch of the things that I really look forward to every year.

I have been better about managing my expectations though. Normally, for Halloween I like to carve pumpkins, and this year we picked a few beauties for carving, but then Halloween arrived, and we hadn't carved them yet. I decided that carving didn't make a lot of sense anyway since Wiggle wouldn't get to carve his own, so we just decorated two of them in the 30 minutes before we went trick-or-treating. Wiggle loved it, they looked cute and festive, and we didn't have to take a family shower or mop the floors afterward. I'd call that a win.

I'm hoping I can come up with more shortcuts like that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we still get to enjoy the festivities leading up to the holidays, but that we don't have so much on our plate that we can't enjoy them.
One thing I am looking forward to and will need some advance planning is Wiggle's advent calendar. Last year we did a chocolate one, and I'm not really into the idea of his getting 24 gifts leading up to a day where he gets a lot of gifts, but I saw this one with little boxes and couldn't resist.

This awesome Santa is from IKEA.

I will put Hershey's kisses or the equivalent in at least a third of the days, but I'm having trouble thinking of things that can go in the rest of them that aren't immediate choking hazards. For 3or 4 of the days, I might have a note directing him toward a gift that would not fit in the box, like a felt ornament for his tree. He's totally into Christmas this year, so I'm pretty excited too; can you tell? Plus, we have a chimney for stockings! 

See? It's really easy to get ahead of myself. I still have tons of homework, a major paper, some home improvement tasks, and some baby preparation to get through before I can think about Christmas.

Right now, I will settle for getting through the weekend without taking a nap on both days. That would be another one I would put in the 'win' column right now.

Happenings

More time has passed, more things are happening. I have gotten permission from my insurance company to have a home birth, which I am very excited about. The idea of being in my own house, in my own bed, and having Wiggle around the whole time is fantastic. Plus, I might do a water birth!

In other news, I am kicking butt in my two social work classes. Admittedly, the material itself is not particularly challenging, but getting all the assignments done with a toddler around makes even the simplest task challenging. Also, I am enjoying the classes which makes it a little easier to put in the late nights school requires.

Then we had a visit from C's mom and his Aunt M last weekend. We went to Shenandoah National Park and drove part of Skyline Drive to see the autumn leaves. It was spectacular. The weather was cool and crisp, the leaves were red and gold and rust, and the sun even managed to come out on the way home.

Two peas in a pod

Two guys in the woods

Enjoying the mountain views

The valley

A boy and his Nonna

The rest of the weekend was spent spoiling the boy with kisses and desserts, all of which he loved immensely.
The visit was too short, and we hope they are able to come back soon.

Then, of course, there's Halloween on Monday. Our little Wiggle decided he wanted to be a "monster from the deep," more specifically an angler fish. In case you didn't already know this, there aren't a lot of angler fish costumes available at stores or even online. So in the grand tradition of parents everywhere, I made a costume and stayed up way too late fighting the beast that is my sewing machine. He hasn't been that into wearing the hat/lure that truly makes an angler fish, but that's ok because he absolutely loves his costume.

He has worn it non-stop for the past two days and spontaneously stops and thanks me for making it every few hours. Totally worth it.

Hopefully, this weekend will have more Halloween-y goodness which will mean more pics and more updates.

Fall!

So, I haven't posted in 4 months. Yikes! It really doesn't seem like it could be that long, but maybe that's because this summer was b-u-s-y.

What's new, you ask? Well, let's see. We moved into our new house! We are expecting a another baby boy in January! Wiggle started school! And I started graduate school!

That gets me off the hook of posting for at least a couple of months, right?

I would love to say that during my absence I have been really good about taking pictures, but instead I have woefully neglected most of the wonderful, fun things we did along the way. Now that fall is here and we are finally on something that resembles a schedule, I hope to remedy that problem.

I do have a couple of recent pics to share.

Wiggle waiting somewhat impatiently for Justin Roberts
 to play at the National Book Festival at the National Mall

Cutting out a flower before bedtime. Who doesn't love a little late-night craft-time?

I really need to take pictures of the house, but it is in total disarray most of the time. While we definitely have more room in this house, things don't fit as logically as before, so we keep moving big pieces of furniture around, some of which normally hold things, but we have kept empty in order to be able to move them around. This means that the house is both cluttered and that you'd better watch your shins at night because there's no telling where we might have moved that dresser during the day.

I keep feeling super behind in doing stuff to the house, but then I remind myself that we've only been in the house for a little over three weeks and some of this stuff is just going to take time. Also, adjusting to doing schoolwork with a toddler around, plus being pregnant deserves it's own adjustment period. Luckily, I am able to use Wiggle's preschool time to work on homework, but for papers and things I still need to carve time out of our evenings and weekends. Of course, C has a lot on his plate too, so we can often be found now in the evenings with the TV off, our respective computers and papers spread out around us in the family room. I really wish we had an office though; I find it very hard to transition to work at home without a defined space. Something else to add to the to-do list. Ugh.

I know I have said that I want to post more regularly before, but lately since we have been so busy, I have really felt like time is slipping by unnoticed. I want to take the time, not just to document it, but to reflect on what is going on in our lives right now. We only have a few more months of our little family of three, and while we are very excited to add a fourth, I will miss having Wiggle all to ourselves. He is not the only one who is going to have to get used to sharing!

Now, it's time to pick up Wiggle from preschool, then a nap for him, some cleaning for me, a playdate, a meeting with a potential midwife, making dinner, family dinner, putting the boyo down, some more reading, and then a little relaxation time with C. Just your typical Thursday.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

I wouldn't normally say that my life is very busy. My days are certainly full and I certainly don't get done everything I want in a given day, but I can usually sneak in an extra load of laundry or a trip to the grocery store if I get behind in those things. What I mean to say is, as the stay-at-home mom of a toddler I don't have a lot of free-time, but I also don't generally have a long to-do list. I do things as they come up. When Wiggle is tearing around the house like a maniac, we abandon the "plan" of coloring and go to the park instead. If it's raining, we run errands, etc. The week is punctuated by a few scheduled activities, music class, playgroup, the occasional doctor's appt, but mostly we go with the flow.

So imagine my surprise at coming home from vacation and realizing that a huge mountain of things had piled up in my absence. First, even though I left the house relatively clean, a week's worth of cat's hair, which they are also shedding due to the excessive heat we had, was wandering around the house like tumbleweeds. Also, despite having done laundry before we left the cottage, it seemed like there were several loads left to do when we got home. Then, of course,there were bills and general budgeting after the free-spending of vacation.

Even more than the things that actually accumulated during the week we were gone, there are a bunch of things I've been meaning to get to, but hadn't actually attempted to get done. Restringing the patio umbrella I got on freecycle, taking the bag of culled through clothes that's been sitting on the stairs to Goodwill, mending this, putting away that. It turns out, I had really needed my vacation, and now that I am rested and recuperated, I can start getting to those things I had apparently been avoiding for most of the spring. Yea?

To keep that vacation feeling going though, we immediately joined the neighborhood pool, and I plan on spending many a late afternoon lounging around in the water or on a deck chair. Take that, to-do list!