Will I ever get these kid songs out of my head?

Seriously.  I can't stop singing 'kid songs,' it was over a week ago that I let Magnolia play with the tablet on kids mode; she likes to play videos and listen to the same songs, over and over again.  
When I really need some time to make dinner, or just a break from playing with her all day, I break out the tablet and let her play games.  Then, while she is playing, I suffer through, "Hold Still, Wiggle-wiggle-wiggle, GO!" and "I don't wanna go slow, I go fast" while I try to cook dinner.  
Then, apparently for the next month, the price to pay for making dinner was wake up singing these songs, going to sleep singing these songs; over and over, I sing these songs.  Because I am a big dork, I will break into song and dance at random times with these silly songs, which really cracks Magnolia up, but it reminds me that I am in full-on 'mom' mode now.  All about baby, all the time.  

Monthly Milestone Photos

A few months ago I found this idea from a blogger on pinterest; take a good photo of your child and add all of their monthly milestones to it!  I loved the idea, mostly because it's easy and fun to make.  I found the idea when Magnolia was 4 months old, and created a photo for each month, even though it was hard to find photos that offered space to type.  For her 6 month birthday I did a photo shoot (basically dressed her in something cute and took a bunch of photos), chose one that I liked that offered space to type, and then waited until the end of the month to fill it in.  Magnolia will be turning 7 months old on the 5th (where did the time go?) and I'll do another photo shoot for her pretty soon.  I hope to create a frame for all of the photos, maybe for a year, or maybe longer; we'll see...

My Birth Story

The Birth of Magnolia:
Sharing this birth story is very hard for me, because I have a birth sotry that I didn't want, I wanted to deliver at our local birth center Mountain Midwifery Center (MMC) but was unable to due to unexpected circumstances.  Being an MMC client, a transfer to the hospital is a dirty word, it’s the last thing in the world you want, and it’s the worst thing possible; at least in my mind. But maybe sharing this will help me heal mentally because I don’t know how to stop grieving for the birth that I had always wanted. I know this is very long and if you get through this whole story, I thank you for reading it.  My story actually starts way back in the year 2000; I was in college and got very interested in midwifery when I was in my junior year. I took many midwifery classes and I knew that if I were to have children someday, I would not have them in a hospital setting. When Josh and I started trying to have a baby, I did some research to find a place to deliver outside of the hospital and came across the Mountain Midwifery Birth Center.

I read birth stories on their blog and loved them, the staff seemed great and the classes they required were exactly what I wanted to learn about during my pregnancy.  I knew we had found the right place to deliver our child. In Feb, 2011, we found out that we were pregnant and I scheduled our orientation at the birth center.

What's important, the birth experience or just having a healthy baby?

Sometimes, I think about a blog post for weeks before writing, while other times, it practically writes itself. I think this is my way of releasing fear and apprehension about birthing, or at least giving that fear a voice; blogging helps me think through that fear.  Yesterday I hit a pregnancy milestone of being full term, 37 weeks pregnant, I have been waiting for this week to come because I know that the baby can come anytime now and we will be able to deliver at the birth center.  Even though my pregnancy could last 5 more weeks, being full term really puts the birth right in the forefront of my mind, we need to be ready to go at any moment.  I am a little nervous, but excited too, writing this helps me let go of one of my biggest fears, that my journey into motherhood doesn't matter.

Thoughts on pregnancy from the 3rd trimester - 36 weeks.

Pregnancy has been such a learning experience for me; it was something that I had been apprehensive of, even scared of to some extent and it has definitely challenged me in many ways.  Each trimester has brought a new set questions and revelations that challenged me mentally, physically and emotionally.

The Name Game - 33 weeks pregnant

One thing that I wanted to discuss in this blog is what I call The Name Game.   Deciding on a name for your child, deciding whether to tell people the names you are thinking of, or keep them secret; or taking it to the other end of the spectrum and choosing a name while baby is in utero then calling the baby that name until they are born and creating a personality around the name you have already chosen.   Somewhere in the middle of keeping names a secret, and deciding a name right away are those folks who wait until baby is born and you meet them before choosing a name that suits them.  I guess I will start by saying we are the former of those choices; I don't know what I will choose to name this little one until I meet him or her, maybe she does look like those names I keep tossing around in my head, but maybe she/he does not?  So, I am going with the 'roll with it' philosophy and we will choose a name when we meet this little stranger.

29 weeks, catching up in the third trimester.

It's been a long time long time without posting; and there are so many reasons for that.  I haven't been so stressed about being pregnant, so the need for blog therapy hasn't presented itself as much as it did earlier in my pregnancy, but mostly because Josh and I have been busy getting ready for this little baby!    If you had read this blog in the past  (I've been blogging since 2007) you'd know that we bought a house that had lots of fixing up to do.  We have built a basement, bathroom, bedroom, landscaped most of the yard, added a deck, patio, raised gardens, and now we are finishing things up by painting and adding new flooring to the upstairs.  We will also finish drywalling the laundry room, add slate tile to the dining room and kitchen and will get new carpet for the living room.   This is a lot of work in general, but now that I am in my third trimester its making it a lot harder for me to help with the house projects, even though we need all hands on deck to complete them.  On top of just getting ready for the baby and all the house projects; our foundation which we had repaired when we bought the house is still settling and we have to have more work done on it, which was not a problem before we drywalled the downstairs, but now that the project is complete and we have to tear holes into the drywall that we hung ourselves feels like a step backward and another project that needs to be completed before baby is here. I am worried it all won't get done in time, but am trying not to stress about it. 

Breast is Best, Part 2

This is continued from my previous post from a few days ago about breastfeeding, and I wanted to share how I actually feel about nursing this baby myself, which is different than my opinion about nursing.   As I have said so many times in this blog, pregnancy is not what I expected at all, and I expect breastfeeding and childbirth will be the same way.  Just because I do think breastfeeding is best, doesn't mean that it will work out for me the best, and I wasn't saying that it would.  I don't think having a positive opinion of nursing and wanting to nurse  myself means that it will go perfectly for me at all; but I can hope right?  Isn't thinking positively about a difficult task the better way to approach it?   That attitude, combined with being stubborn (sometimes to a fault) has helped me accomplish some tasks in my life that I am very proud of, like running a marathon or hiking peaks over 14,000 feet.  So, I choose to adopt that same attitude about childbirth (our birth is planned for a birth center unless there is a medical reason that I cannot deliver there) and breastfeeding.  But I don't think that necessarily means everything will work out that way, and if it doesn't, then I will bend in the wind and change.  I don't think giving my opinion about nursing means that I am judging other people for not nursing, its just what I think, and when people comment with their opinions it helps me to learn and think about situations differently.  

Breast is best, isn't it?

It's been a few weeks since I posted, and mostly it's due to my annoyance with people taking the blog personally, but I've also been very busy trying to get the house ready for my parents visit (which has now come and gone) and of course for baby too.  But now I have some more time on my hands, and lots more thoughts in my head so I write on :)

To get it out in the open, right away, it annoys me that we are a society that doesn't breastfeed as a common rule anymore.  Instead, nursing is scoffed upon by society, I have heard words like "gross, disgusting" and "I don't want to have to see that in public;" women are requested to use the bathroom, of all places, to nurse.  Who wants to eat a meal while sitting on the toilet?  Not me, and not my child either!   Besides, how unsanitary is that?  Yet, we don't provide places for nursing mothers to feed their children at most locations, and many people react negatively when seeing women in public nurse.  Over the years, I have heard nursing mothers share their unfortunate stories of people calling them "gross" or telling them to "go somewhere private."  Even popular Victoria's Secret, who openly allows nursing mothers to use their dressing rooms, had an incident where a female employee turned away a nursing mother wanting to use the privacy and comfort of their dressing rooms; this happened in 2005 and prompted a protest by nursing mothers to breastfeed at their local VS store.  (click here and here for articles on this subject).  Some of my friends at the time participated in the "Feed-In" protest, which I thought was awesome!

Acceptance? I think so...19 weeks pregnant

It might sound awful to some that I have finally hit the 'acceptance' phase of this pregnancy; the pregnancy that we planned, tried for over a year to get pregnant, and now at 19 weeks I am finally 'accepting' it.  But its true.

I guess its the same way that I had grief/mourning when I got married, accepting that I wasn't able to fly free after getting hitched, but that I always had an attachment, my husband.  And while I wanted to get married, just like I wanted to have a child, it's still a major life change and one that brings up fears and anticipation.    Josh and I have learned to become a pretty good team over the years and its a decision that I would make again in a heartbeat a million times over even though marriage is a lot of work.  Its worth it and we get better and better at it all the time.

The "its fine" answer that annoys me more than anything!

My husband Josh and I have been together for nearly 9 years and married for 7 this October,  I am so lucky to have him in my life and he helps me to become a better person everyday.    We are similar in a lot of ways but very opposite in others, and after years spent together we've learned when to use his strengths and when to use mine in our relationship.  But every now and then we both find out things about the other person that surprise us, and now with baby in our lives we notice these things more and more because we don't seem to be communicating as well as we typically do.

In a nutshell, Josh is a very positive person; he doesn't worry about things, he brushes things off easily, doesn't take anything personally and he has a quiet confidence that I am envious of, and that I hope he instills in our child.

I, on the other hand, have a tendency to worry about things and in the last few years Josh has picked up the very annoying habit of saying to me "it'll be fine" about every single thing that I 'worry' about, no matter what the intensity of the worry is.  This makes me think that he isn't actually listening to what I am really saying.  He just assumes I worry about everything and doesn't take the time to understand the deeper concern that I have.

Maybe I should clarify...

Since starting to write about pregnancy on my blog, I have received so many comments, emails, and even a handwritten letter about my thoughts and experiences as well as other people's opinions and their experiences and I am amazed at the numerous remarks!   I have been writing blogs since 2007 and I have received more input in the last 3 months on this topic than I have for any blog that I have written in all the years combined!   Which, to me, is really exciting and interesting to have finally generated a topic of conversation and opinion; but its also a hot button topic right now.  What I didn't expect is that so many people would take this blog personally or see themselves in the blog.
My thoughts on this subject have come from years of being interested in childbirth, starting when I was taking entry to midwifery classes in college; I have absorbed every birth story from friends to hippiesew members (way back in the day) to birth stories I read on the web, and every pregnancy discussion over all the years including those with my friends,  or members of the numerous groups that I am part of online, friends from years past especially those in college or high school friends who have shared their experiences with me and their births, my family, and lots more.   This has been a subject discussed at length, because it interests me.  I am also fortunate to know many medical professionals, from doulas, to midwives to physician assistants, doctors and nurses.  All of these people have knowledge and opinions on the subject of childbirth and I have discussed it with many people at different points in time.  So when people read this blog and think they may be the topic or subject of the post, I get confused, because I am writing this about me.  I have no intention to make anyone hurt, or that I am calling out anyone in particular, or that I only have talked to *you* about this subject.  I have had numerous people think I am talking about them, and really, I am not!   I am making huge generalizations about the percentages of women who breastfeed or have epidurals, and many other things, so don't think this is about *anyone* in particular.

Controversy over everything during pregnancy; even the books don't havethe same info!

~* written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~

I posted part 1 of my blog a couple of weeks ago, it was written in part early on in my pregnancy and then 2 weeks ago.  There was so much that came up with the topic, I wanted to continue it in another post.

One point that I didn't include in my previous post is regarding the information in the pregnancy books.  There are so many books about pregnancy to choose from out there, and each one of those says something different about key information during pregnancy. I can open up 4 different books on my shelf right now and get conflicting answers about almost everything during pregnancy.  I have started to pick and choose from books the answers that I like best, and since they are in a book, well, it must be true, right?  One of my books even states as a fact that you should skip the gym because exercise during pregnancy doesn't help with labor and delivery.  I was shocked to read that, because common sense says that its probably better to be fit than not fit, why not keep up minor exercise during pregnancy?

Getting kicked out of the 'no kids' club and initiated into the 'moms' club.

~* written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~
Week 9, Written early April.
There are so many things that surprise you when you are pregnant, your body, your hormones, your feelings, but what surprised me the most was the reactions of friends/family.   I noticed pretty immediately that things with all of our friends changed after announcing the pregnancy, we didn’t get emails about happy hour or late night gatherings that we might have usually received, I didn’t receive congratulations or even a word spoken from several friends who don’t have kids.  Yet, I got a lot more emails, calls, and visits from friends with kids who were checking up on me, asking how I was doing, bringing supplies and nausea friendly foods.   This really bothered me because I don’t feel like a mom yet, I just feel like me, but with restrictions and I felt like I didn’t really belong anywhere.  Not with the moms yet, not with the ‘kids free’ friends either.  It was like getting kicked out of a club that I always belonged to, and initiated into a club that I never really knew existed.  *Now, certainly every person’s life is busy and I am generalizing as a whole with what I say here, if you are reading this and you are a friend, don’t take it personally, combined with my body surging with hormones makes a person a little more sensitive to the little things; see disclaimer above.

(First Trimester) Pregnancy; its really not how you think it'll be. For real.

~ * written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~
Weeks 7 – 8;  Written March 23rd
I noticed one thing right away when becoming pregnant, it’s not what you think it’s going to be, or what you have read about, it’s entirely different. Really!  Remember this if you have a pregnant friend, or are planning on kiddos in your future so you won’t be as shocked as I was.   I remember telling one friend in week 5 that I felt sick and nauseas already, she promptly responded that I couldn’t feel that way yet, it was too early in my pregnancy and I either had to be farther along, or just making it up in my head.   Not a good thing to say to a pregnant lady!  But I sure did feel sick, from 4-5 weeks to week 10 at least.  Everyone's pregnancy is different, from morning sickness to headaches, fatigue and delivery.  No-one is standard, text-book; and there are variations from the norm, like me, getting sick early on in pregnancy.  I had insomnia even before I knew I was pregnant!

(First Trimester) Sharing the news with immediate family!

Josh and I had taken a trip to Florida recently and I was talking with my grandmother about pregnancy; she told me that each time she announced her pregnancies (all 5 of them) she put a pair of booties on the Christmas Tree. I am not sure how she ended up having Christmas at the right time, each time, but that’s how it worked out for her. She also mentioned that my Great Aunt Hazel would say after the 3rd baby; “oh another one, really?” This cracked me up!
I wanted to share the news with my immediate family in a creative away, and after hearing her story I decided to get booties for my parents, grandparents and mother in law and send them in the mail with a note. I had already spilled the news to my sister on the phone about a week prior, she was very excited, as I expected 

(First Trimester) Consulting with the doctor, finally!

~* written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~ Week 6; Written March 2nd.
One of my biggest stressors is that Josh and I don’t have insurance until April 1^st, he changed jobs and we had a lapse in insurance until the new insurance kicked in.  This causes me a lot of anxiety, especially now that I am pregnant and I called my primary care doctor about a consult.  She was able to get me in on Monday , two weeks after I found out I was pregnant, for a consult.  This consult entailed figuring out who would deliver the baby and assume my care on April 1.  She recommended a birth center, since I preferred a midwife, near Swedish Hospital about 20 minutes from our house.  I had already found that same birth center online, and so it was great to hear her refer them.  I talked to her about the “world of no” that I was experiencing being pregnant and asked her about what I CAN do during this pregnancy.  She recommended NO medicine, no sushi, no nuthin’ during the first trimester; but then she said after that, things aren’t so strict.  She mentioned she had a few beers during both of her pregnancies and she ate the food she was comfortable with, she ate a turkey sandwich everyday during her pregnancies saying that lysteria is very rare in the US and if you are worried about it, nuke the lunchmeat for 10 seconds.   She also said she had coffee, but cautioned me against sushi, and specifically ahi tuna, which is a bummer.  I suppose the sushi will taste real good in November…

(First Trimester) Is the world trying to make a newly pregnant woman completely paranoid?

~* Written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, unsure what to expect and really hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~
The first week; Over the next four days, I tried to deal with all the things that I couldn’t have while pregnant and picked up a book that promised ‘277 stress free tips for pregnancy,’ but one of the first things that the book told me was that I couldn’t sleep on my back anymore, and that I needed to really think about my diet, protein, no junk food, etc. Here we go again, more, NO’s. I didn’t like the book anymore; every “no” caused me MORE stress, not less. Did I sleep on my back last night, did I kill my baby? This is madness! How do women deal with all of this? The final straw came when the book told me to avoid high altitude, I live in Denver at 1 mile high, and my love is hiking. Not just any hike, but I love to climb big mountains, and realized that I couldn’t hike a 14er this year, according to the book; this really made me sad. I had pictures in my head of being pregnant and still hiking; it’s something that calms me and puts me in a good head space. I needed to ask my doctor about this high altitude “no.”

Day 1, Pregnancy, A world of no? (first trimester)

~* Written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~
Pregnancy; A  World of No?  Written Feb 24th, 2011
Day 1; the positive test.  I found out that I was pregnant on Tuesday 2/22/11 at about 12:30pm…and from that moment on, it seemed to me that pregnancy is all about what you can’t do, how you can’t sleep, what you can’t eat or drink.  I don’t do well with “NO.”  And all of the pregnancy books cautioned me against doing pretty much anything that is normal for me, and coming to terms with this is going to be a journey for me, here is the start of that:

Pregnancy shocker, just when you think it won't happen, it does?

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~* Written from my perspective; being pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~

Post written Feb 23rd.

Some people say getting pregnant is easy, in fact, all of my friends say that because it (fortunately) was very easy for them; I was that person who struggled to get pregnant.  I want to share this part of our journey because I am sure there are other couples out there feeling the same way.

Josh and I always said we’d have kids when we were 30, Josh kept pushing for 29, but I wasn’t ready then.  So, when I turned 30 we tossed out the birth control to see what would happen.  Apparently nothing happened.  Some months, I was really glad I wasn’t pregnant, especially in the beginning because I couldn’t imagine being responsible for someone else quite yet.  But then as the months turned into more and more months, then a year went by and I actually started to feel a little sad when each month, I wasn’t pregnant.