Win a Dyson!

This blog site: http://www.5minutesformom.com/ is running a great contest to win a free Dyson vacuum. I believe the contest ends April 4th, so hurry! :) It's the Dyson Slim which looks VERY nice!

Going full term after being told we couldn't..

I decided to blog about our pregnancy experiences. We were talking about it last night and I think its important information, just in case someone out there is going through our situation.

Our first child was born in '95. We were the typical first-time parents. Went to the OB appointments, did all the testing (without asking), and so on. Our birth was managed very much like the first-time birth experiences you hear about.. IVs, internal monitoring, routine episiotomy (she was only 5lb13oz!). There was some question about due dates, we feel she was probably 36 weeks due to our very poor breastfeeding experience. We were told misinformation by the Ped, had no real-life support (lots of negatives tho! ugh!) and so on. We love our daughter to bits, but what a way to be born. Whew. I received no real useful information during pregnancy and the hospital just did things Their Way. (Btw, I'm not internal monitoring if necessary. A friend recently gave birth with some complications and it was necessary. But, in an everyday routine pregnancy? I think it was just the lazy way out for the staff). We feel that poor nutritional advice probably led to her being small and for the PROM (premature rupture of membranes -- aka water breaking early).

Our second child we had moved away. We saw a lay midwife at first, but then decided to move back east to be closer to family. I do believe we could have avoided a lot of heartache had we just stayed put and used the midwife there in CO! But, hindsight is 20/20 and not that useful. So we moved back to small-town rustbeltville *g* and found an OB. While he admitted he was horrified at the high c-section rate of the local hospital and OBs (seriously, it's outrageous, do we really believe so many women in that area are suffering from narrow pelvic bones? geez)... he still liked everyone to get an epidural for "just in case". Well, we had nubain with our last birth and knew we wanted to go drug free. After all, we had started out planning a homebirth!

During the pregnancy, again, I didn't receive a lot of info. I did get a lot of prescriptions for whatever the OB felt ailed me. If I had a stuffy nose he wrote a prescription, if I had a certain pain, he wrote a prescription. We simply didn't fill them. The one thing he did *NOT* do was actively treat for a case of bacterial vaginosis. At 32 weeks my water suddenly broke and we ended up transporting 1.5 hours away to the children's hospital. Thankfully we did live near my folks and they were able to help a lot with our 2yo and just be a great emotional support to us in the hospital. My Dad went daily to hold her and love on her.. which is a sweet story we still share. :) We do feel the infection led to the PROM. There is some valuable info out there regarding bacterial vaginosis and preemies. Many can have BV and not realize it. The upside? The children's hospital was natural birth friendly, even though I was stuck in the bed. We had our natural Bradley birth. (Birth was extremely short, even with labor being stopped with mag. sulfate to transport).

Soo.. third child.. we're now in a larger city and find a hospital that is natural-birth friendly. I find a practice that appears to be much more relaxed than the others.. and so on. Around 30 weeks I start going into labor. They say I'm around 2cm so must go on bedrest/meds and so on. (Later, near 35 weeks I'm told I was maybe 1cm). They also tell us we will *always* have preterm labor issues and need meds/bedrest. At 36 weeks our 3rd child is born, completely natural with a doula there for support.

Fourth child is another OB, regular care, again, born at 36 weeks tho we managed to avoid bedrest. We found some books with ideas on things to do to help prevent preterm labor.

However, the issue was really preterm labor as much as it seemed to be PROM. With each child my water broke early and then labor began. With our 4th labor didn't start so we ended up with pitocin.

With our fifth child I decided I wanted a doula again. We received a glowing recommendation from a friend and interviewed her. We clicked on many areas and she also went over our history. A suggestion of adding more zinc, Emergen-C, www.blueribbonbaby.org diet, and so on was recommended. We followed her suggestions and had our first full-term baby, born at 37w4days. (37 weeks is considered fullterm). Another natural birth.

Sooooo... here we are with our sixth child. Our doula is now a certified midwife so we decided on a homebirth. This was hard because our insurance covers none of it. But, we just felt this was the right choice for this pregnancy. I did basically the same routine as last time and added in fish oil. I had some low iron issues so used Floradix which worked FAST (and tastes horrible!). Along with diet we also do lifestyle changes.

And, tomorrow, I'll be 37 weeks -- FULL TERM.

I highly encourage moms who have been told they'll always go preterm to get some good nutritional information. For us it has made a huge difference. I know it sounds like the difference between 36 weeks and 37 weeks is small, but it is not. Many OBs will require antibiotics and lots of monitoring for a 36 wk birth, but nothing like that for 37. Also, the sucking reflex is developed during that 37th week making breastfeeding easier. Baby's liver is more mature which reduces jaundice, and baby has more fat helping their body temperature.

I am extremely grateful that we had a doula/midwife take the time to look over our history. Her very simple recommendations truly changed our lives, and the births for our babies. We feel that God is planning our family.. and we know that He led us to her.

Btw, there are some really interesting studies out there regarding fish oil and pregnancy. I also switched to New Chapter's Perfect Prenatals which have probiotics in them.

Now we get to officially *eagerly* anticipate the arrival of baby Elijah or Naomi!!

Noah's 2nd Birthday & Homebirth Update

Noah turned two yesterday! Obviously this birthday cake and ice cream was quite yummy. The cake had a colored band around it with lots and lots of food coloring. The kiddoes spent a lot of their time running to a mirror to check out the color of their tongues! He will get his presents this weekend because we were unable to get one thing we wanted for him. I doubt if he minds. :)











We still need to move the bed, by "we", I mean Jim. ;-) The aquadoula is there in the corner. I think we're going to set it up tonight just to see how it fits. We also have bags to sterilize (bake for about an hour at 250). There's also a list of stuff to buy like ginger and a white hose for filling up the pool.

The good news is I hit 37 weeks tomorrow. According to our midwife we could have the baby at home starting tomorrow.. the CNM said we'd have to wait til we *finish* 37 weeks, so we are double-checking that. I don't think baby is coming soon, but can't wait for the FULL green light!

Test results and so on

Hurray - Group B Strep was negative. This means we don't have to worry about doing a treatment at home. We're down to 11 days.. almost 10 *g*. Our bedroom has been re-arranged to be able to fit the birthing pool in there, plus the nice wooden rocker. Now to hope that baby gives us enough time to FILL the pool! Well, maybe not, I'd take a fast labor. :)

Nesting has begun full force in other ways.. I've been selling off stuff lately and using the money towards baby stuff that *I* want to get! With the 6th child you really don't get baby welcoming gifts, so I'm showering myself. hehe.

I bought a beautiful wrap for baby wearing, it is cooler than my other wrap. I also picked up the reversible hat, just because it called my name. It is the one that matches haumea, the orangish/pink color. I think it should look nice on a boy or a girl. I also have a new maya wrap coming, sold my old one, because I wanted some brighter colors. It is #37. I sold the #22. I love the long wraps for babywearing, but the maya wrap is very nice for easy and discreet breastfeeding.

Hmm.. we also sorted clothes into three piles today, which the girls really enjoyed - boy, neutral, and girl. Can you guess which pile/box got the most "'oooh.. this is pretty!!" remarks? :) James picked the boy outfit, Charlotte and Bethany picked the girl outfit (after lots of debate). I'm hoping to get pics tomorrow of our crazy layout of baby supplies in the bedroom! We get to sterilize three bags of items in the oven. My friends are convinced it'll catch fire. lol.

One bag has 2 sets of sheets. The 2nd bag has 4 bath towels and 12 washcloths. The 3rd bag has the girl set (gown & onesie), boy set (gown & onesie) and a neutral gown. Plus 2 booties, 5 receiving blankets and a hat.

We also have a TON of diapers! The newborns are all the cute kissaluvs with the button down area for the umbilical cord. Then we'll move into pocket diapers like www.fuzzibunz.com I have a friend that sews diapers as a business and she's making new pocket diapers for Noah that eventually will pass down to baby. He outgrew all of the fuzzi bunz that were passed down to me from a friend.

I put out an sos for a bouncy seat on Friday and received one that day from a friend! Plus she gave us a carseat (her dd just outgrew it).. and, if we have a girl, she has some girl clothes for us. She also graciously gave us sheets her mom made for the amby bed. We have that set up and it is oooooh-soooo-cute! :)

I'm really hoping we can get the bouncy attachment later on: http://www.amby-baby-store.com/us/index.php?c=3

Tomorrow we're going to start seeds for our Keeper Club project. We'll be sure to get before and after pictures! Even Noah has his own little greenhouse..

speaking of Noah...


HE TURNS 2 TOMORROW!! So hard to believe two years has passed.. and now we're days away from another baby. He's SO spoiled it is unbelievable. lol. So much for the 5th child being neglected. He's loved to bits and played with by everyone. I'll post a pic of our bday boy tomorrow.. we have cake and ice cream waiting...

Last CNM Appointment

First - we'd be thrilled to have others join us in prayer that baby isn't born early. Our goal date is 4/6. The ticker at the bottom is counting down. Today we have 18 days to go.





Today we had our final check with the Nurse-Midwife (CNM) and will just be seeing the regular midwife from now on. We had to see the CNM twice. She did basic lab work and it was fine, we'll be waiting on the Group B Strep test results. If that is positive we can do treatment at home during the birth, so that's okay.





We did a quick ultrasound, baby is headdown and has a fuzzy head of hair that showed on the ultrasound. Everything else looks nice. The tech had told me the placenta was anterior, but on the write-up said it was posterior. Turns out it is posterior which is a good thing. An anterior placenta can sometimes set baby up for a bad position during the birth.





In other news..

Charli has her first softball game tonight! I'll update with those results later! :) She's very excited about the season starting. Don't worry, she did wear shoes to the game. hehe.

Wednesday

Whew! Summer has hit here in SC, of course it is set to disappear by Friday! One foreast was calling for 80 today and rainy/60 by Friday.

The children worked hard yesterday to get extra schoolwork done so they could have friends over today. We had a great visit and spent most of the time in the yard. I'm currently at that stage where I have to pick a comfy seat or else the baby starts jabbing me the wrong way!

For the pregnancy we have a visit next week for the final bloodwork. I'm taking Floradix to help keep my iron up. The CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife) will give us the greenlight for the homebirth. The week after, the 28th, my midwife and her two assistants are coming up for a potluck lunch. I believe she'll bring the birthing pool (yay!) and we'll go over the last minute stuff necessary. It's so wonderful to know that Naomi or Elijah will be here soon.

Most of my baby stuff is still at my friends' house. :) She's keeping the swing for her baby til after ours arrives and then will bring it up. We're going to have a small pile of newborn boy clothes and another small pile of newborn girl -- no yellow outfits for this baby! Whichever gender baby is NOT then those clothes can be used by the girls for their dolls. hehe.

School is going great. We're into week 26 so only 10 more weeks to go! We do plan to school during the summer just because it is SO HOT here. That'll give us some days to take off in the fall to head to Carowinds for a visit.

On other news.. the truck is fixed and the van will be done by Friday - yay! The goal is to trade in the truck and look for a larger vehicle. We'll see how that goes. I'm just glad the vehicle repairs will be over soon.

Getting closer..

It's so hard to believe we're getting closer to baby being born! Next week we have no appointments. The week after we visit my midwife, the week after that we visit the CNM for our last labs (bloodwork, group B strep test) and the final green light on the homebirth. THEN our midwife, Lisa, will come here for our homevisit and bring the birthing pool! Jim still has some things to buy for that and I still need to get the rest of the baby items organized.

I think we've also finished our pre-baby cleaning - much to the rest of the family's joy! :) It's kinda ironic that most don't notice the odds and ends.

Today we have company coming over so we're making egg/milk free brownies. The whole house smells like CHOCOLATE. The recipe is on www.allrecipes.com and they're called Vegan Brownies. Hopefully they turn out nicely!

Overall life is still pretty smooth. Peppermint is now trying to get out whenever the door is opened. Mocha has settled in as queen and Sugar is spending time outside whenever she can in the nice weather. It is GORGEOUS today. I think its supposed to be 70. Yay!

At least having a spring baby makes the spring cleaning nicer.

Anyone else addicted to the Yankee Candle tart warmers? Yesterday we used the Linen scent. Today it is Fresh Cut Roses -- it is wonderful.