Three-OH!

So far turning 30 wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Just kidding, I've actually looked forward to it. I thought that being 30 would give me more clout to match the big britches I've always put on, but my 4 older sisters would probably agree that no matter what I'll still always be the annoying little sister. Only now when I look in the mirror, the age matches the wrinkles and dark circles I'm fashionably sporting.

If I insist on holding my fingers wonky for pictures, I"ll never make it as a hand model.

Maren gave me a manicure for my birthday, complete with frog and bugs stickers to boot. I love that little girl. She was making a list the day before of things she could do to earn money to buy me a gift, she couldn't fathom a birthday without a present to open. But when we've got Easter/30th birthday/Sister's wedding/Mother's Day/Kellan's birthday/10 year anniversary ALL WITHIN less than 4 weeks.... something's gotta get bumped outta there.

James made me breakfast in bed the morning of my birthay (also Easter Sunday, but the Easter bunny comes on saturdays around here.) And then he took the boys with him for a bit while I got to soak in the bath tub- heavenly little joys. Then he proceeded to do a fantastic job all day of what I usually do around here. I got to sit and watch an entire movie without having to get anything for anybody!

Then to end a great day with seriously delicious stuffed shells made from scratch by my awesome man, AND a german chocolate cake? How much better can turning 30 really get?

Frustrated

To whomever reads my blogs, I am so aggrivated with the paragraph spacing on blogger! I've tried manually editing the HTML, and resetting the text, but my next 3 posts are a long jumble of a story that I put in my blog to preserve a memory. If you read through it despite the lack of breaks, thanks for being a trooper!

Maren's birth story

As I rewrote my homebirth story, and talked with James about it after he read it, we both agreed I needed to write my other birth stories for my children to read someday. Especially my daughter, who someday hopefully will learn from my mistakes, and feel more empowered to trust her nature and intuition. As soon as I found out that I was pregnant, I started reading everything that I could get my hands on, I wanted to get as much knowledge as I could to know exactly what to expect, what process I wanted to experience, and what I needed to do to have the very best outcome. I'm a planner. In the effort to just share the birth experience, not the entire pregnancy experience, I'll briefly just say that I switched providers 3 times during my pregnancy until I found someone that I felt like was more similar to my choices and was willing to respect them. I went from a female OBGYN, to a male OBGYN, to a female CNM that I was referred to by the instructor of the hypnobirthing class I took when I was 28 weeks along in my pregnancy. I had preterm labor and was on medication along with bedrest until 36 weeks. I had no other children at home to care for, so I prolonged the bedrest until 37 weeks on my own to ensure that the baby stayed in as long as she could. I expected her born early as soon as I started going back to light regular responsibilities, like laundry, but nothing happened until 39 weeks. James and I had spent the evening with my mom on Friday, I had experienced a few painful and regular contractions, and wanted to leave for the night. They were consistent every 5-6 minutes after we left, for a few hours, so we headed over to the hospital that night. The monitored me, and encouraged me to walk for 2 hours, then they checked my cervix, but there was no change. One of the nurses said "This is your first baby, you'll know when it's time. This isn't actual labor yet." And despite the painful and intense contractions I was having every 5-6 minutes, they sent me home early that Saturday morning. Horribly embarrassed and belittled. I cried the entire way home, and James was very supportive and encouraging that entire day. I was awake the entire night with so much pain from the contractions, every 5-6 minutes still. I had gone through 2 sets of batteries playing my hypnobirthing relaxation tape over and over the entire night to get through the pain with meditation/self hypnosis. That next day, Sunday, my dad had come by to visit, and I told James I didn't want to see anyone. I still layed in my bed, with intense pain every 5-6 minutes, still listening to my tapes and zoning out. James and my dad gave me a priesthood blessing, and I was able to sleep that night off and on. I woke up around 4 AM the next morning (Monday) from even more painful and regular contractions, but I had vowed after being embarrassed by the nurses that I wasn't going to go back to the hospital until my water had broke or until God hit me on the head. Well, I felt like God was hitting me on the head. So I woke James up and made him help me take a shower, I hadn't bathed in 3 days and I was NOT going to go to the hospital to possibly stay another day or two without feeling clean. I called my CNM and explained the entire weekend (she never saw me that Friday night, the nurses never called her up because they didn't feel there was a need to after monitoring me.) So she told me that she would meet me at the hospital that morning. When we arrived around 9 AM, my CNM monitored my contractions vaginally to determine their intensity, and listened for symptoms of stress in the baby as well. Then she determined that I was in fact in labor, and my cervix was not dilating. We were admitted to stay for delivery that day, where they put cytotec gel on my cervix, as well as starting pitocin drip to increase the "effectiveness" of my contractions they said. As both of the medications began to take effect, I wanted to climb the walls, the pain was unbearable and it was only beginning. But I had in my ambition that I wanted a birth without the epidural, I didn't even give thought to all the other drugs that I already had intervening the process in the first place. But I was determined to still try. I was entirely unprepared for that intensity. My water had broke about 3 hours into the process as James and I were alone in the room while I labored. He was so scared, he didn't know if he needed to do something, or if they needed to check the fluid, so he dumped his drink cup to catch some of the waters as they flooded off of the bed to the floor. I laugh now, but he was so amazing just trying to be there, always trying to be what I needed him to be. Several hours into the process of both medications aggressively progressing me, I began to black out. I was exhausted. Sick. My CNM at one point slapped my face to get me alert and said I had to make a choice, either an epidural so I could rest, or an emergency c-section if I became unconscious. I chose an epidural. And I blacked out for a while again, I'm not very aware of the entire process as they inserted it, I only remember James helping roll me over, and hold onto me as I moaned and screamed deep in my throat with each contraction. My mom had come to the hospital at that point, and came into the room as I was sleeping and wearing an oxygen mask because the baby's heart rate had fallen very low during the process of starting an epidural. Once I could rest from the medication taking over, it had been 9 hours into the process since they first hooked me up to the drips, and the monitors, and all the bells and whistles. Somewhere around 11 PM a nurse woke me up to check me, said my cervix was fully ready, and they were ready for me to push. James tried to help me sit in the position they wanted me to be to begin pushing. They watched the monitor because I felt nothing, no urge, no instinct. And then the nurse told me when to start pushing, how long to push, how to breath or not breath while I pushed. The way she instructed me is known as "Purple Pushing" where you're holding your breath and pushing with all of your force, possibly until you see flashes of light and wear yourself out from ineffective effort. The baby was hung up so high still, the horizontal position I had slept in didn't allow gravity to help, and I pushed like that for an hour and a half. At one point, my mom was holding one knee while the nurse held the other, and James was behind me helping me to curl my head forward and hunch down to push harder. The nurse was very chatty and bonded with my mom over being mothers and grandmothers, and they talked back and forth over me, letting me know when the monitor showed that I was having another contraction. I felt like I was out of my own body. The CNM had come in toward the end of pushing, as the baby's head was crowning. She wasn't in there with me very much before that point since they started the epidural. She caught the baby, and she held her while she wiped, suctioned, flipped over and back and forth very rapidly and I remember thinking "She's a newborn! Hold her tenderly!" It was very upsetting to me as a new mother that just wanted to see and touch that child immediately. Maren was born on Tuesday January 27th, 2004 after 78 hours of labor. I finally got to hold her after a minute or two and I remember looking at her, feeling such a void of emotion, I thought that I would be so overcome and cry at the moment of seeing my child after birth. I felt no emotion at all. And then I felt horrible for not feeling anything that I had assumed I should have. The nurses took her away from me to measure/monitor/dress her and such, while the CNM stitched me. After the baby was delivered, she said there was a lot of internal tearing that they couldn't see until the baby had passed the vaginal opening, likely because I was pushing so hard for so long. No one supported the perineum. Gravity wasn't used to help the process. It was aggressive. And I paid a dear price. It was a long recovery for me, and was later discovered at my 6 week postpartum check up that I had pre-cancerous cervical cells, which likely is why my cervix didn't dilate without intervention. Then the treatment for that so soon after having a baby, I wasn't feeling myself again until nearly 3 months after the baby was born. But back to the delivery room, when they gave James the baby, he walked her over to me, kissing her face and saying the name we had chosen to give her, and I got to try nursing. The baby was very frustrated, and wasn't latching well, so they told me to just stop and try again later. I was moved to the postpartum floor, and had continual staff coming and going in my room for several hours to insert a catheter, check my legs for blood clots, take a blood test, check the baby's temperature, give me meds, and just over manage. I was insecure about breastfeeding, and all of the people coming and going interrupted the effort that I was beginning to get discouraged about. The next morning a lactation consultant met with me to help me figure out the latching for the baby, we went on to have a lot of problems with our nursing experience, but that's another blog for another day, eh? I had a few visitors from the cardiologist wing of the hospital to come and listen to my heart murmur, it was a teaching hospital I was at so they wanted to use me as a live tool for teaching I suppose. And I just wanted to go home as soon as I could. Since Maren was born at 12:30 AM, we couldn't leave at the 24 hour after the birth point, we had to wait until the following morning. I finally went home with my new baby that Wednesday. I wasn't overjoyed with having a new precious soul to kiss and love, I went through a horrible downward spiral of postpartum depression, I had left the hospital only 2 lbs lighter than when I went in before delivering because I was so swollen with saline solution. I broke a fever at home a few days later sweating out nearly 20 lbs of water retention and had an onset of mastitis. Pain at the site of the stitches for weeks, which later during Kellan's birth the CNM confessed to having stitched too tightly. I kept thinking there should have been a comment card to fill out after an experience like that. Or a counselor might have been more appropriate. Looking back in hindsight now, I've learned more about the process the body needs to take in its own way, that mine didn't. Partly was due to the cervical cells abnormality, but a large portion of it was due to the interventions and protocol of the facility. The lack of empowering the mother, and more of getting tasks done to maximize efficiency for the business aspect of it. I just needed and wanted to touch, connect, experience the mammal process of birthing my young in a natural way, not a managed way. I left that experience feeling violated. That's known as birth rape. And it was a long hard process to put aside the trauma and come full circle later in my life with the other birth experiences that I had to fight for. It was an incredibly hard recovery process, and the emotional aspect of it took months, even some lingering insecurities took years, to work through, but I got an amazing parting gift of a beautiful baby girl who was resilient and strong through every bump in the road and I wouldn't change that part of it for anything in the world.

Kellan's birth story

It was my pregnancy and birth of Kellan that taught me how much an individuals personality is present, even in that dependent infancy before they even leave the womb. I was 41 weeks, 3 days pregnant and was understandably anxious wondering when he was going to make his debut. A few days before this, I had experienced some beginning labor contractions, but they never changed into active labor. I tried so many natural remedies to encourage things to move along, and it never did. I had my mom watch Maren while James and I spent the Saturday before just walking and walking everywhere. As long as I walked, I contracted hard every so often. When we rested, it stopped. And I still had lingering fear of the birth experience that I had with Maren, so that night I made a decision, and called my CNM (certified nurse midwife) to talk about induction. We scheduled it for the morning on the following Monday. But before that arrived, I had one last day to soak in being a family of just three, and it was also Mother's Day. That Sunday night after we got home from my mom's house from a family dinner, I packed my hospital bag with everything that I wanted/needed, and then wrote in a journal I had started for Kellan. I told him about my anxiety of it all, and wasn't sure if he was ready, but I wanted to express my feelings about wanting him in my arms so basically I could stop worrying about all of the things I was afraid of. I apologized to him for being so scared, and I prayed that he would be more brave than I was. As I woke up that Monday morning, I had more of the contractions that I had on Saturday, and I prayed that they would progress, so that I wouldn't live to regret asking to be induced. But they didn't. We had an appointment to be at the hospital at 7 AM that day, after my mom arrived to be with Maren, we left. James and I prayed before we went into the hospital, but my nerves never stopped trembling. I had a little bit more confidence in myself with this birth, and I knew that James would fight harder for my voice to be heard as my advocate, and I went into the situation like a person with their eyes closed, just wanting to open them when I was done. After all of the paperwork, the initial exams (I was dilated to a 2 cm upon arriving), the waiting, the set up, 3 hours later they had finally set up an IV drip of pitocin, watched the monitor as things progressed, and left James and me in the room together in quiet to labor. I had my hypnobirthing tapes in my walkman, I layed on my side listening to them, and James watched the monitor as each contraction swelled and eased, rubbing my back in the way that I had asked to create a natural endorphin for pain relief. Nurses came in and checked periodically, but for 2 hours James would put his hand up as if to say "Stop, not now." And would motion for them to remain quiet. They would look at the monitor, see a contraction coming, and would ask me questions anyway DURING the contraction about how I was doing and if I needed anything. James kept reminding them, patiently, that I would let him know and he would let them in turn know. After 2 hours of the pitocin keeping contractions about every 4-5 minutes, my water had broke. My CNM came into the room when we requested, they assisted me to the bathroom with my IV drip in tow to get a dry gown, shower off a little, and they put dry dressings back on the bed. My midwife had checked my cervix and said I was dilated to a 4 cm, then was very discouraging when she said "It's going to be a long day of this. You're not moving along very fast." I cried. And nurses immediately came in and said "You don't have to be so brave, it's ok to get an epidural, you need to rest honey." Not a single person in the room told me that I was doing fantastic, and that I had strength within me. James stood by my side and held me as I felt afraid and tense to the first contraction that came after my water had broke. It was more intense. But they didn't want to turn down the pitocin drip for protocol to prevent stalling labor. And I began to regret my decision to request aggressive intervention in the first place. As I got to the bed again, and experienced 2 or 3 more contractions closer together than before, I looked at James and said "I can't do it like this. " I was crawling out of my skin in pain. It was torture. When I tell about my birth experience with Kellan, I say that I had pitocin to induce me but didn't have an epidural- that's the short version. I didn't like answering a lot of questions about it all. I want to clarify about it- I did ask for an epidural at this point in the labor. The anesthesiologist came into the room, and he was the first person who would wait for me to be done contracting before he would ask me any questions. James helped me to sit up, and he sat in front of me holding my shoulders forward and my arms tight so that I could remain as still as possible while they inserted the needle in my spine. My contractions continued to hammer with excruciating pain, and my body was telling me to kneel down and arch my back like a cat. But I had to remain curled in a ball for THEM. My body wanted to stretch after the contraction because my upper back was in pain, but I had to remain curled over for THEM. Then I had to lay on my side, when all I wanted to do was walk. The anesthesiologist remained in the room to complete his chart, and monitored the drip and the contractions while asking me in between if my pain level was decreasing. It wasn't. And they kept telling me to lay in that position that was causing me excruciating pain going so hard against what my body was asking me to do. The catheter ended up not being in the needed position, and the medicine only numbed down my right leg. He readjusted the catheter, again telling me to curl in a ball and don't move. Then they pushed a button for "quick increase" that couldn't be pushed for 20 more minutes. But the adjustment didn't change the epidural's affect, and I was experiencing one pounding contraction after another. Still with the pitocin turned up. I was fearfully waiting wondering if my uterus would rupture with the intensity. As he still waited in the room and watched the levels of everything, James stepped out for a minute to call both of our moms and give them an update. I asked him as he was leaving the room to have the CNM come back in and check me, I felt such intense pressure bearing down and feared I was going to rupture or something. She came back in and said "I don't want you to get discouraged, we just checked you an hour and a half ago, the change isn't going to be what you want it to be." But to her surprise, Kellan was crowning, and I was telling her that I needed to push. Still, no effect of the epidural ever occurred for the labor. That's why I said I didn't have an epidural for pain relief. To this development so quickly after the last exam, the staff wasn't ready with their supplies for the birth. She angled the hospital bed at a decline to put my heart lower, and told me not to push. That's like telling someone not to breath, the body just wants to do it. As each contraction came and I wanted to push, my CNM was pushing down on my shoulders keeping me flat, and pushing upward from the bottom of my belly, keeping the baby in. All while the nurses were getting ready. James came back into the room and the CNM said "Well Dad, we're about to have a baby." And he asks "Yeah, what is it looking like? Another few hours?" And she said "No, right now." He was shocked. He came by my side to see how I was doing, the CNM had moved out of his way to be there, and I just leaned up and pushed with the contraction anyway. She again asked me not to push. With the next contraction, Kellan had straightened his legs, and I felt like his feet were up into my chest, it was so uncomfortable being in the hospital birthing position, I instinctively wanted to stand up straight, and squat with my pelvis, but I was numb in one leg and hooked up with so many wires and machines. And with the next contraction it felt like Kellan saying to me "I know you're struggling, I got this mom." And he kept his little legs straight during the contraction, which as the muscles tightened, it pushed him out without any effort for me for it. After the CNM had assisted in his shoulders delivering, she told James to reach down and take him out. He was so surprised, wasn't planning for that at all and worried that he didn't have any gloves on. She assured him it was fine and told him to go ahead. He had such a connection at that moment, bringing his son into the world with me. Kellan was born on May 9th, 2005 at 2:40 PM. His cord was short, so all James could do was lay him in my abdomen. I leaned up so I could see him, and I wanted to hold him so badly, but the nurses were wiping and suctioning and dressing and wrapping him as I stayed basically as a table for the baby to lay on while they managed everything. The placenta delivered after a few minutes, and they then turned down the pitocin on the machine, switching the drip to saline and pitocin combo to try to manage possible hemorrhaging. Protocol. James got to cut Kellan's cord, and I got to finally hold him near my face and kiss his face. His eyes were open and he was calm, then the nurse took him from me so that they could do all of their procedures first, before I got to do what nature was urging me to do first. While they did everything with Kellan, James stayed by our son's side the entire time. The CNM was stitching me from the tears which were from my previous childbirth, not new tearing. And she then admitted to me that she wasn't going to stitch as many as last time, it was "possible that she did it too tightly" despite when I had gone back to her and told her about how uncomfortable and painful it still was months after the first birth. I was so mad. She felt it the right moment for a confessional I guess. About an hour after the birth, they handed me my baby all bundled and covered, tagged, and smeared with goo on his face, then transported my bed up to the postpartum floor. Every hour a nurse was coming in to check my temp, check my bleeding, give me meds, or take a blood test. And every opposite hour a nurse was coming in to check Kellan's temp, check his blood sugar, or check his vitals. I just wanted to sleep that night. James was exhausted too, and left late that night to go be with Maren so I could rest without his snoring too. At one point in the night, a nurse came in telling me that an alert had gone off in their system about Kellan's ankle tag, but he was right there with me, he wasn't being taken out of the building, just a glitch. Another hour or so later in the night, another nurse came in telling me she was the new one on shift and needed to check his temperature. She couldn't get a good reading under his arm, and said "Let me steal him for just a sec so I can take him to the nursery, I'll do a rectal temperature." After the glitch with the computer, and this nurse saying "let me steal him" I panicked. I wished James was there with me to go with Kellan, and I couldn't do anything. My leg was in pain, my body was abused and through the ringer, and I couldn't go with her. I handed her my baby praying the entire time that she was who she said she was, and that she would be bringing me my baby back. Thankfully, it was fine. I've watched way too many Lifetime movies. As per their protocol, every two hours they would wake me up and remind me to try nursing Kellan. I would do everything that I could to wake him up, but he never would stay awake long enough. And they told me that I couldn't go home at my requested 24 hour release until he had nursed 4 times. So I lied to them and said that he had nursed 20 minutes on each side every time. Kellan worked just as hard as I did during that labor, and this wasn't my first rodeo. I knew he was exhausted, and would wake up to nurse when he was hungry. Tell me what baby doesn't cry when they're hungry? Before James came back to bring me home, a pediatrician came into the room and said since I had declined the vitamin k shot, he was nervous to let us be released without knowing that I was going straight to our pediatrician for an oral vitamin k supplement. I wanted to tell him that the baby would have gotten vitamin k in the colostrum if they had let me nurse right after birth, and that I wasn't worried about the blown out of proportion scare tactic anyway, but I lied to him too and said that we had an appointment already scheduled, not wanting a confrontation or a challenge because I felt so hormonal, so insecure, and so ignored through the entire process. When we left, and I was finally home with our new baby, I sat in his room with him that we had prepared, with a recliner in there for nursing. He was alert and awake as we got there, and I again attempted nursing him, which he took right to doing, and I never had a single issue with learning the latch or the process with him. I'm thankful for that, because of the interventions and the delayed moment to instill that reflex in newborns, it could have been the opposite for our nursing experience. I felt the need to apologize to him for being weak, and seeking out the intervention that I felt like took away from the experience as his mother I was meant to advocate, and I thanked him for being strong enough to push his own way into the world when everyone was managing me and telling me what to do. And that is Kellan's personality. He is tender when I am not feeling well, he his helpful when I tell him sincerely that I'm having a hard day, and he just wants to be my little man, taking care of me already. He is amazing, and being his mother has given me opportunity to learn so much more about the intelligence we all have even from the beginning of our creation. It comes from our divine Creator in the first place.

Maxwell's birth story- revised

I've written the story of my homebirth with Max, but it just didn't seem like enough. There were so many empowering moments that I'm very proud of, and while I can still remember the details of it, I wanted to write it again. I had an appointment with my midwife friday afternoon, where there was no changes or softening of the cervix to indicate that my body was preparing in advance for labor. Though I knew that it didn't mean anything about the timeline, I still felt so disappointed. I was hoping to experience labor sooner than later, but I always fully accepting that the baby would come in his own time as they always do, no one stays pregnant forever after all! I was already measuring bigger at 39 weeks with this pregnancy than I had at 41 weeks 4 days in my previous pregnancy. I was thinking what another possible 2 weeks would be like, unable to walk for the most part, and I had a moment of release where I just sat and cried. I had been in so much pain with my fibromyalgia, my sister stayed with me for several weeks to help take care of the other two children and get my home ready for the baby's arrival. I could not have taken care of anything without her. Then I pulled myself together, and in my heart I knew what I had to do. We were connected, me and this baby, and I knew we needed to just have a talk. There was a hightened awareness that entire week of every movement, every emotion that I was feeling, and quite possibly the baby's emotions too. He heard my voice all day long, but when I talked very heartfelt specifically to him, he reacted very differently. So I poured out all of my feelings, I told him that I was ready when he was. I told him about his brother and sister anxiously waiting to meet him. I promised him protection, hands and arms and lips waiting to touch and know him. And I assured him that there wasn't anything to be scared about. After about an hour of meditation on the outcome of the birth I wanted to have, I started having different contractions than the braxton hicks I had throughout my entire pregnancy. (Really. Every 7-10 minutes. For 33 weeks. Exhausting!) The contractions stayed 7-10 minutes as I was used to, but they made me pay more attention. Sharper, deeper, and I had to close my eyes to release myself to them and get out of the way. I knew it was labor. It was about 10 p.m that friday night after my midwife's appointment. I was able to sleep most of the night, but I was anxious and wondering how it would go. It could be days or hours, there weren't any strong signs yet besides that change. I had plans to take the kids to a petting zoo to walk around, and I asked James to go with them instead, but he was insistant that walking around would be great and might speed things along. I agreed that it might help, however it actually stalled my labor! I had a few large contractions that I had to stop and brace myself against something, maybe 3-4 an hour. I also started to have bloody show in the cervical mucus so I knew my cervix was changing with the contractions. Definitely labor. I took the kids home and my sister got them set up for lunch so that I could go rest on my bed for a while, I was exhausted and I knew I had a long road ahead, I needed as much rest as I could. I called my midwife and explained to her the changes, she was surprised. She said "I just saw you yesterday, there was no cervical change! Are you sure?" YES, I knew. I felt the intuition that you can't describe unless you've felt it. She had a bible study that evening and wanted me to call her by 6 to let her know if she should go to it, or come to my place. So in the mean time, I got in the bath, turned on my relaxation hypnobirthing tapes, and began to melt into some rest and focus. The contractions began again to be 7-10 minutes apart as they had been the entire night before. The intensity hadn't changed at all, but the tightness began to encompass more of my massive belly and my low back was uncomfortable no matter how I stood/layed/knelt during each one. I called my midwife at 6 to let her know, and she said she would call her assistants, get her supplies, and start heading to my house which was about an hour from her. She actually didn't get to my house until about 9. The kids had gone to bed around 8, and in that hour I felt like I could focus more on the labor without hearing their voices, even if someone else was taking care of them. It's amazing how a mother's mind knows when she has other children to take care of, and when it's now time to give all of the energy and focus to birthing another one. So in that hour between the kids going to sleep, and the midwife arriving, they had increased in intensity. I told the midwife that she better lie to me and tell me that I'm dialated to a 7 after all of the work that I felt like I was doing, I didn't think I could bare to hear I was only dialated to a 2! Thankfully I was actually dialated to a 6 cm, and the midwife was still disbelieving it was happening already. She listened to the baby's heart rate, monitored my blood pressure for a few minutes, and asked me some questions about my meals and fluids during the day to know what to expect. Then she made sure I was comfortable in how I was choosing to labor. She didn't tell me how I should labor. She didn't instruct me on how to breath. She just kept a calm tone, a quiet relaxing voice, and each time a contraction came on, she prayed silently and was there giving so much love, then would wait for my cue to continue the discussions. And then she left James and me to walk, sit, massage, talk, pray, and connect with this baby during the process. She was in the living room with her assistants. She came in about every 30 minutes to check the baby's heart rate again, check my blood pressure, observe a contraction, see how things were going. About 11:30 I started to get exhausted, and each contraction became more of a challenge. But I told myself with each one that it would be over with after a minute, I focused on keeping my hands relaxed and my shoulders down. Through many of the contractions, I literally was being held up on my feet by James as I often let my legs and pelvis muscles go as well, and sort of 'swayed' my hips back and forth rocking through the pain. My water never broke, and each contraction brought a massive amount of pressure to the perenium muscle and rectum, I begged for the release of a burst of water with each one, it was quite uncomfortable. The midwife didn't want to break the water because it would increase the pain in the uterus during the contractions instead. I tried sitting over the toilet for the psychological connection that our mind has to release the pelvis and all of the muscles, but the pressure was too intense in that position, I only did that for one contraction. I then decided to try a hot shower with the massage on my back and belly. Instictively I dropped to my knees in the shower during the contraction, and I knew that was a sign of being in transition. The next two contractions made me lose my mind, and I just couldn't get my focus back with the distraction of the water and the massage, I said a few explicits and begged to be laying down in my bed. The midwife's assistant told me at that point that if I layed down in the bed, my labor would keep going on as long as I decided to lay down. She said "that's fine if that's what you want to do, but if you want this baby to come sooner, then don't lay down." I was NOT nice in the things that I said to her (I feel sort of bad now) but I knew my body. And I knew the labor went better for me when my mind got out of the way and meditated calmly, which I could only do if I layed down. So they all helped me get into the bed again, James, the midwife, her assistants. I was naked from being in the shower, but I begged to just lay down. Then they left back to the living room and told James to let them know when I was ready to "get back to it." After 2 more contractions laying in the bed, I felt the intense and instinctive urge to push, so I did, without even thinking or doing anything really, my body just did it. James went to get the midwives, I was checked, and the baby's head was crowning. At that point after another contraction, the midwife broke the waters, releasing the intense pressure, and the strength of my body bearing down and pushing without my 'trying' was amazing. I had never felt that in my other deliveries, everything was always managed more and I was told and directed what to do, when to do, how to do. My body knew how to do it, and these ladies were staying out of the way so that it could. As the head started to present further, what is known as the 'ring of fire' was actually a hurt-so-good kind of feeling, which created a massive amount of oxytocin and encouraged my body to push harder. The contractions weren't painful anymore when I pushed with them, they were strong, like a good work at the gym out with a set of weights and a massive amount of adrenaline. You don't beg for drugs with that intense workout of your muscles, you get your gusto and you PUSH harder! The midwife supported the perineum around the baby's head, and massaged olive oil around, then also applied hot wash clothes that they had prepared in a crock pot in my master bathroom for this moment. That felt AMAZING. Again, an electric shock of oxytocin ran through my body, there was no pain. Women tend to fear the contractions, because ultimately they fear the part of pushing a baby through a seemingly small portal of their body. It seems scary. But with applications and support like this, it's actually the best part of labor. His face presented anterior, and since I was laying down in a traditonal western birthing position, the midwife asked if James could get behind me, and help me to sit up. They helped me to bend my knees, and I was squating now instead, with James behind me, with his arms under my armpits to hold me up and sort of tilted to the left. I moved to bend my left knee so that I was sitting on my foot, and my right leg was bent allowing me to hold and pull my knee as I pushed, and allowed the midwife to observe the baby as he came out. After she helped his shoulders deliver, she encouraged James to pull the baby out the rest of the way. He leaned over from behind me, sort of over the side of me, and pulled the baby out laying him on my chest. It was like a shock of electricity had gone through me when I connected to that baby skin to skin. The midwives didn't take him off of me. Instead, they covered him and me with a towel, they wiped his face, suctioned his nose and mouth, and encouraged him to join us by rubbing his back gently. His eyes were open and alert, his mouth was in an "O" shape, and he just looked around. After a good minute or two, he sneezed out some fluid, and took his first breath. His face scrunched a little as if he were about to cry, but he never did. He was unbelieveably calm. They checked his heart rate, they checked mine, and they watched for his skin to pinken and react with the oxygen that he was now taking in on his own. And I just sat there in complete awe. I had never experienced that maternal connection with my other two births, the difference without the chemicals overriding the natural process was amazing, and I couldn't believe that it's done any other way, it seemed so wrong to have so much perfection at that moment. I have never felt closer to God, in creating and respecting and participating in human life as I did in that moment. And I started to cry, not because of hormones or even because of joy, but because of releasing that feeling of void that I had felt the other two deliveries, to have this experience of how it always was intended to be. After a few minutes, I'm not really sure how long with my euphoria of this moment, I began to feel slight cramping, the midwife gently checked to see if the placenta was loose, and it slid out with a gentle tug. We watched and waited for the cord to stop pulsing to know that all of the blood and life cells intended for him were transferred from that life giving organ to now his fresh breathing existance. The cord went from a thick pulsing tube, to a flat shrunken tight tube, and we then clamped both ends and James did the ritual of cutting it. All the while Maxwell was still laying on my chest, skin to skin. He started to root, and nuzzle his nose against my skin, and I knew he was ready and needing to begin that instinct to nurse. He was very aggressive with his rooting, and with a little help of James supporting him so that I could maneuver my breast, he latched on and suckled like he had been doing it for weeks. I had never seen my other two babies instinctively root and search for the breast like that against my skin- they were taken away to be measured before I was given the time to try nursing, it was usually an hour after the delivery in a hospital. The difference in nature vs. procedures was night and day. Again, I couldn't believe people would make things be any other way than that natural progression of it all. After I felt ready to allow him to be further examined, the assistants measured and scored him according to the APGAR ratings. In a hospital, he would have been rated low on alertness because he didn't cry. But the midwives took time, and patience, and watched his consciousness change, watched his connection to this life begin, and knew he was very much alert, just calm and peaceful. Shouldn't all babies be given that time and attention? He was perfect. Everything was perfect. They let James dress him, bundle him, however he wanted the baby to be, and they took the supplies and bed dressings that were used and soiled out to our garbage can. Then they cleaned up all of the supplies around the room, while another one of them made me a turkey sandwich. I will always remember how much love they put into every act that they did, slicing a fresh tomato, adding lettuce and mayo. Bringing me a peeled banana, and some yogurt, and then feeding it TO me while I nursed my baby in my arms again, relaxing in my own bed, next to my husband. My strength through all of it. I draw my confidence and sense of security from him, which allows me to listen more to my instincts because I know I'm listened to and provided a safe environment to take the lead. That is how a birth always should be like. No matter where it occurs. My midwife helped me into the shower to get cleaned up, made sure that I had normal amount of bleeding and clotting, also made sure I could urinate, and then they helped me get dressed and back into my bed. They felt my uterus to make sure there were no signs of unusual after labor complications, and they gave me instruction on how to check as well. And then they left me and my husband with our new baby. He was born at 1:29 A.M. on Sunday October 5th, 2008. They left around 3 A.M. And James then went in to wake up our other children so they could come and meet their new brother. They had slept through the entire thing, and they were so amazed and excited to see him. Their faces being woken up to meet him when just hours before he was still in my womb was the best part of all of it. Just pure innocent love and wonder. And after they went back to bed, and the house was quiet, I layed there the entire rest of the dark early morning, with this new baby, getting him all to myself. I thanked him for his courage, I thanked my Heavenly Father for my strength, and for the amazing ability that he gave women. It isn't a curse upon women for the pains of childbirth, it's amazing, and fantastic, and I was so humble to have been able to experience it in all of his glory for it.

Oh BOY!

He looks like an angel... walks like an angel... talks like an angel... But I got wise! He's a (cute) devil in desguise. ~Elvis Presley He calls them his babies, holds them, nuzzles them against his nose, kisses their heads. He LOVES these chickens.

And he's proving every day that he loves to make us all laugh. By doing ridiculous stunts and experiments all the time. He's our personal comedian!

Huh? What do you mean I have something on my face? Oh that old thing?

Every day he is smearing something on his forehead, and then tells me "I Harry Potter." He's trying to make a lightning bolt scar, and I think he's doing a fantastic job, don' t you agree? Would you like to know how many times it takes to wash A&D diaper ointment out of a child's hair? It's more than 4. It's still weird feeling a day later.

After that bath, with the wash-rinse-repeat going on, I got him redressed and started cleaning up the bath stuff. Then I hear "Mama, oh mama" in his sweet sing-songy voice. And I couldn't find him. I walked down the hall to his room and asked "Maxwell, oh Maxwell?" And he repeated his song "Mama, oh mama." So I walked back down the hall, still couldn't find him. Until the third time he sang it. Guess where I found him?

This boy! Boy oh boy.

And James made sure to tell all the children very firmly how NOT appropriate it is to play in a dryer, and if they ever see Maxwell doing it again, they have full permisison to pull him out no matter how bad he screams and fights them about it. (I'm so glad I remembered to take a picture first! I usually scold first, and smile to myself later about how creative they really are.)

My toes are tired from him always keeping me on them, that's for sure. But I am loving the 2 & 1/2 phase so much right now, I wish I could make it last forever.