Angry Bird-day

The angry bird birthday party was a huge success!  I have never had such a good time planning a party.  Thanks to pinterest, I'm already looking forward to the next one!

I think photos are probably the best way to tell you how great it turned out.

The lifesize angry birds game.  We had originally planned on painting the boxes to make them look like wood and ice, but we decided kind of last minute not to spend the extra time and money. No one cared. :)

The ammo.  Found these balls at Wal-Mart (Large size were 2.50 each, small were 1.50) and freehanded the faces on with acrylic paint.  I had to let them dry and do a couple of layers to get good solid color. 

Things like this leave me in awe of my husbands creativity.  He came up with this slingshot using scrap lumber, exercise bands and a whole foods bag!  The head swiveled too!

I made a trade with a friend from church: photography for these awesome angry bird cupcakes. Gotta love the barter system and talented baking friends! 

The popcorn bar.  Printed the faces for free off here: The Party Animal.  Air popped popcorn into one dollar buckets from Michael's and provided an array of flavors and toppings like Parmesan cheese and M&Ms.

The bags for the popcorn bar. 

The boys and I made these cute little guys to use in place of confetti when decorating the tables.  Little pom-poms, 5mm googly eyes, pipe cleaners, tacky glue and card stock. All from Michael's.  These were a cheap little touch and were a lot of fun to make. 

And the very best part, my sweet Asher.  So proud to be 5. 

The food was devoured before I was able to get photos but I can share my recipe sources.  I went with as much of an angry birds theme as I could without getting too processed in the food. I intended to make little signs with cutesy names and clip art, but alas, time ran out.  So the theme was lost on most people but they all enjoyed the taste!

Angry Birds Party Menu

Mini Pigs in a Blanket

Sweet Smoked Piggies (Bacon wrapped little smokies in brown sugar and butter)
Red Bird Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips (I put the apples and strawberries in the food processor so it would be a little more salsa-y than this recipe.  And I omitted all the sugar. It was quite sweet enough without it)
Angry Bird Rojo Roasted Salsa (Recipe below) and tortilla chips
Ham and Cheese Sliders (Did these on Kings Hawaiian rolls)
BBQ Pork Sliders (Recipe below)
Very Angry Eggs (Deviled eggs made by the mother in law)
Popcorn Bar (Angry Bird Food)
We also had a bit of randomness like some mason jars of black olives, grapes and blueberries. And a plate of Asher's all time favorite food, Cheese!




Red Roasted Salsa


6 lb. roma tomatoes
2 sweet vidalia onions
10 serrano peppers
1 bunch cilantro
a head of garlic
1/4 cup of honey
3 T. Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 350.  Slice the tomatoes and onions in half.  Cut the caps off the peppers.  Peel the garlic.
Lay it all out in cookie sheets (I use pampered chef stoneware so they don't get too charred or stick) and roast for about 30-40 minutes.  You want things to get nice and toasty, a little black around the edges, slightly caramelized.  Keep checking it though because if it burns on a regular cookie sheet, it will wreck havoc by sticking.

After roasting is done, put the ingredients through the food processor with the cilantro, salt, and honey.  You'll have to go in batches because this makes a lot of salsa.
Taste and adjust.

You could turn up the heat with more peppers.  I originally started with 20 but they were HOT so I only put 10 in.  I also made this the day before and packed it in mason jars in the fridge for the flavors to meld a bit. It was delicious.


BBQ Pork Sliders
Makes 12 Slider Sandwiches (we tripled for the party)

1 pork tenderloin (either pre-marinated or plain)
1 package Kings Hawaiian Rolls
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
a splash of apple cider vinegar
1 T. BBQ Rub (any variety either sweet or spicy, I used Pampered Chef Smoky Applewood)

If using a plain pork loin, rub it down with some additional rub before cooking. If it's pre-marinated, don't do anything extra.

Cook pork loin at 350 for 45 minutes.
Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting so juices and redistribute.
Slice thin.

Slice rolls open for sandwiches.

Mix ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar and rub together for sauce.

Serve all together on a tray for people to assemble their own sandwiches.  I stacked the rolls up on one side, spread the meat out on the other and used a little mason jar with a spoon in it for the sauce.
You can also cook the meat the morning or night before, wrap in foil and just heat it up before serving.

brothers.

That is all.

A quick hello.

The response from my last post has been amazing.

I have had so many women contact me with their personal stories of similar situations;  undetected ear infections causing developmental delays, a fractured arm that went for a week before seeing the doctor, a baby screaming in pain after eating for months before simply switching to soy formula, other failure to thrive stories.  Turns out, just about every mom I talked to had some story, some little failure, that she has been carrying on her back for years.  

I find it curious how universal guilt is among mothers.  Mom Guilt.  It deserves it's own title.  As I saw sympathy and understanding written all over my friend's beautiful faces, as they offered up their failures to me as consolation, I could see the fact that these stories still stung for them.  These stories still registered in their mind as tiny deficits: the times they let down their children. 

The weight we feel as mothers is overwhelming.  I have been blessed with many words, but I find my vocabulary wholly insufficient to describe the crushing love and guilt that grows in us with our first child.  We know we will never be what we wish we could be for our babies. We will always fall short.

I wonder sometimes if this is what God meant when he cursed Eve (Gen. 3:16).  He said "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thy shalt bring forth children" (KJV)

I've always thought this referred to childbirth, but I don't think it ends there.  Childbirth hurts. I know, I've experienced a completely natural birth and it can feel like you are being turned inside out.  But it's for your baby.  It's fulfilling your role as a woman.  It brings with it feelings of elation and accomplishment, not failure. 

My husband is one of the best dad's I know.  He loves our kids and strives to be the father God wants him to be.  In the ER with Toby, he wasn't blaming himself.  He wasn't choking on guilt and blinded to God's power by our mistake.  He just looked forward to a solution.  Because he's a man and from my experience, that's just how they function. Mom Guilt though, it is a sorrow that truly does multiply. It doesn't dissolve in the happiness of a resolution.  It keeps coming back. And without Christ, it could easily destroy your effectiveness as a parent.

It helps me to understand why I feel things.  It has helped me this week to understand that this experience was not uncommon, and that my initial reaction was shared with many mothers. 

Most importantly, it helps to know that my babies are ultimately in the hands of God.  I will surely fail them, but in taking up God's commission to raise children in His ways, I am arming them with the tools to overcome my failures and have life. 

Whew.

Enough of that. I'm ready for some not-so-heavy blog posts. 

I will end this on the lighter side of motherhood with a performance from our Mother's Day church service. 

We are in full swing with preperation for Asher's Angry Birds birthday party. More on that later. For now, enjoy the mom rhapsody....

My Sweet Tobias

I'm not really sure how to start this blog post. How do I chronicle this week which has been hectic and hard yet for which I am thankful?
I suppose I should start with the bottom line, the good news, what really matters. I have a healthy 9 week old.  He is going to be ok.

Wednesday I took Toby for his 2 months well baby check up.  I expressed concern about how skinny he was at the start of the appointment.  He's never been a big baby but over the last few weeks, the comments have been becoming more frequent; "He's awful small isn't he?" or "Look at those tiny legs."
You read on all the breastfeeding pages to nurse on demand and to allow the baby to end the nursing session instead of timing, to make sure he is having a normal amount of wet and dirty diapers.  Breastfed babies just weigh less than formula babies they all say.  I kept telling myself it was fine. This is the third child I've nursed and I tried my hardest to shrug off the comments, my confidence lying in the fact that I would know if something was wrong, that I had to knowledge to make the call.

I didn't know. I didn't know until the weight came up on the doctors scale. 7 lb, 14 oz., one ounce less than the day he was born.  I felt my heart hit the floor and I looked at the nurse.  "Something's wrong. That's under his birth weight."  And then I saw it, that look that medical professionals get when they don't get their Calm-The-Patient mask on fast enough.  She made a non-committal noise and ushered me back into our little room. I started to cry.  She was whispering in the hallway and the doctor came in, much quicker than it usually takes.  It's a blur now, but he seemed angry with me. "Why haven't you brought him in sooner?", he asked.  "He's starving", and he pinched the loose skin on Toby's rail of a thigh and stretched it out.  "Can't you see he's starving?"  And I did.  I saw completely for the first time and in the horror of the way I felt, I could only shake my head.  I texted Jeremiah, who had Asher at the salon getting a haircut. "Miah, they are going to take him away".  It's all I could think.  Of course they would take him away!  I felt like nothing more than a mother who had blindly been starving her precious son.

We drove directly to Arkansas Children's Hospital's emergency room.  They were waiting with our information.  Doctors came in, nurses came in, hours passed.  Jeremiah told me to stop apologizing.  He told me that our trust is in God and He is bigger than this. But I wasn't listening.
They took blood, they put in a catheter.  They came in to start an IV because he was dehydrated and the nurse kept blowing his tiny veins.  She kept repeating, "He's just so dry" and I wanted to hit her because he was screaming and being angry with her gave me momentary reprieve from being angry at myself.

After 10 hours in the ER we were admitted and moved to a room to stay.  The nurses fed him a bottle of formula, the first in his life.  We didn't sleep much.  He woke up hungry and wouldn't latch so I gave him pumped milk.  At 3 a.m., a hispanic family with no english was moved into the other side of the curtain in our semi-private room.  Her baby was crying and she was too. She was saying over and over "Leche para mi bebe?"  The nurse talked to her like she was a child and when the translator came, she told the woman that doctor had ordered that her baby could not have anything until morning.

The baby kept crying and I took Tobias from his crib, brought him to the pull out bed with me, and curled my legs up, encircling his little body, swaddled tight to keep the IV arm from being pulled or snagged. He slept peacefully in my arms, but I laid there dozing and being awoken again and again by a hungry child that wasn't mine until morning.

He gained 3 oz. the first night.  We met with doctors through out the next day, but mostly we just fed him while people came in, took his vitals, and recorded his intake and output.  He continued on an IV and continued to spit up the bottles of pumped milk.  We tried more formula and he kept it down. They said it's heavier, so if he was refluxing it wouldn't come up so easily.  He started looking different, his color changed and I realized how palled he had been.  In the evening, we were successful in getting him to hold down expressed breastmilk by feeding him completely upright and stopping for burping after every ounce.  He ate 3 ounces then almost 3 of formula and fell into what we call a "milk coma" for the first time in weeks.  And I realized I should have noticed the absence of that sign of sated tranquility.

In the morning he had gained 6 more ounces. I fed him after the weigh in, another feeding of a couple of oz. of pumped milk followed by a couple of formula.  They came in and unhooked his IV from the bag.  I kept dissolving into tears, replaying the thought "I've been starving my baby" in my mind.  The grotesque image of my childhood pet cat feeding her kittens, licking them all the same and not realizing one had died, kept haunting me.  I beat myself with the blunt edge of how blind and stupid I had been.

Our friends and family were overwhelming us with love while texts and facebook messages poured in.  It felt like the entire world was praying for us and for Toby and he was improving drastically before my eyes. Yet I could not fight the waves of despair and the shame of my mistake. I couldn't bring myself to answer the phone calls or update on my facebook wall.  Because my son was labeled failure to thrive and I just wanted to tell everyone, "I promise, I thought he was ok. I didn't know."

Then he woke up, and he smiled.  Not just a weak little smile but a smile that changed his whole, healthy face. And he made this loud, happy noise and the volume of it startled him so he smiled even bigger.
In that moment, I tell you, the grace of our almighty Father filled our little hospital room so fully that I started to laugh. And so Toby smiled more. He cooed again, louder and happier and I laughed and it went on for the most refreshing 10 minutes I think I've ever known.  It was as if God showed me the truth on the face of my precious boy and my guilt was gone.

Last Sunday, I led our youth kids in a study of Nehemiah chapter 2.  One of the main points was that when Nehemiah met his opposition, armed with the blessing and the military guard of the king of Persia, they attacked him with accusations of not honoring the king. "Their accusation was weak and clearly untrue," I told my high school students, "the only weapons that satan really has against us are untruths and despair."
It's easy to say these things, to teach them to people younger and say, "Trust me, I've been there", but it's so much easier to fall short when faced with the real life application.

The first morning in the hospital, a good friend sent a text to Jeremiah and me from his morning bible study.  He quoted Daniel 6:22, telling of the morning after Daniel's night in the lion's den and how he came out unscathed because he trusted in the Lord.   He asked, "What den do we find ourselves in today?  If we are in what seems like a den of lions, what kind of attitude do we have about it, and what's our attitude about God?  Psalm 18:30- As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless.  He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him."  When I first read the message I responded with thanks, and acknowledgement of the truth of it, but I did not let it break down the wall of my desperation as I should have.  However, after Toby's smiles had turned on the lights for me, after I had realized the truth of the situation and given the reigns back to my big, powerful, heavenly Father, I read that message again.  I was able to see so clearly how uselessly self serving I was being, how my lack of faith was crippling me into ineffectiveness.  I recognized the contrast between myself, capable yet too pitiful to be proactive, and the poor spanish speaking mother on the other side of the curtain. She was in the big, scary hospital with her sick baby too, but lacked the ability to communicate that I had been taking for granted.  I prayed for her.

I started to ask questions.  I requested a meeting with the lactation consultant and I started asking WHY Toby wasn't gaining because I knew I had been feeding him frequently and for as long as he would eat.
After multiple consults, it was determined that between his worsening reflux, my overactive milk letdown and forceful flow, he was in pain trying to nurse.  He was drinking just enough to no longer feel hungry, but it wasn't enough for normal growth.  That, combined with the amount he was spitting up, led to the dehydration.  He was sleeping so much not out of contentment, but due to a lack of energy.   The solution I was given was to continue to pump, supplement only what is necessary and follow up with weekly weight checks.

It really was the best diagnosis we could have hoped for.  The tests for metabolic issues came back negative.  He has no absorption problems.  He is a perfectly healthy little boy with a healthy, milk-making momma and we just had a feeding issue that needed a resolution.

We came home last night and slept in our own bed.  I can tell already how much he has grown in these incredibly LONG few days.  I like to think I grew a bit too, as has my trust in God and my thankfulness that when I get off track, He will always lead me back.

Thank you all for caring so much about our son.  We named him Tobias, which means "God is good."  Turns out, it suits him well.

Monday Monday

The weekends are generally too short for all we try to fit in them, and Mondays are generally spent catching up on the neglected house.  Because of this, it's easier for me to recap in photos than time consuming words.

The big boys had their last soccer game of the season. 

The little boy has been more freely giving grins.

Cheese and yogurt making adventures will soon follow...

Finally got the herbs potted with my helper.

Great garage sale find, a 10 dollar bread machine that had only been used once! The first loaf is baking now.

That's all for now. I'll be back soon with more time and more words. 

A Festival Full Day

Busy is good.  Exhausting, yes.  It keeps blog posts from happening until days after events take place, yes.  But I would always rather be busy than not. However, after a weekend as busy as this one was, a recoop is in order. Today I have decided to stay home for the sole purpose of writing this post and pajama snuggles with my sweet boys.

The Great Cloth Diaper Change was fantastic, as was the Earth Day Festival at which it took place.  We are still waiting for the overall numbers to come back for the world record, but the Little Rock location had 45 babies changed.  There was something really awesome about being surrounded by like-minded parents.
I wasn't taking photos considering I was changing a diaper, but Espresso Love Photography was covering the event and they've given me permission to share a couple of photos here (there are many more photos available on Espresso Love Photography's Facebook page).  This was the moment they said "Go!", we all held up our diapers then started the change.

I love calling myself part of this kind of community.

Also, there was a bit on the news with Rebecca, the precious owner of Natural Bambino, advocating cloth and the record setting.  Check it out here.

Since you already know how much I love earth day and festivals in general, I'll just show you some photos of why...

My score from the silent auction, some goodies from Crow Mountain Crafts. She's a local etsy seller (based out of Russelville) providing lots of deliciously scented soaps for all and wool care products for cloth diapering. 

I got to chat with some folks from The People Tree. They are working towards a goal of enriching our community and building a local food system. One project is the Argenta Veggie Garden, where you can rent a plot to grow your own produce.  It costs $15-$25 a year which includes water, straw & access to gardening tools.  Super cool. 

The People Tree's nifty little give-away, a "flower bomb".  It is a ball of fertilizer and wildflower seeds to throw anywhere that could use "a little life".  Love. 

Can't wait to go visit this place for lunch. Looking at their website is almost enough to make me break my plan to stay in pajamas all day. A menu full of locally sourced food?  Yes, please. 

Of course, I had to visit with the homebirth midwives from Birth Works.  

Mustard Seed Church from Conway came out with a really cool way for outreach.  Tobias and I stopped and chatted with them for a moment, all while planting a basil seedling in a planter repurposed from old fence pickets. What an awesome way to advocate caring for the earth and also sharing His love!

Yummyness from the Homegrown Food Truck. 

The girls from G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Rolling In The South) Roller Derby had a booth selling the best homemade jam ever.  I brought home a jar of strawberry (made from some delicious local berries like I blogged about a few days ago) on Saturday, and it's already halfway gone.  I'm going to have to contact them to purchase more because when it runs out, my household might just weep in mourning. 

From the Earth Day Festival, we headed over to show our support at Little Rock Etsy's 2nd Annual Indie Arts and Music Festival.  The weather was perfect and there was facepainting, food, and lovely crafts by sellers like Mindy's In-Stitches, Bearhunt, and The Little Chick.

My beautiful childhood friends Lindsay and Brandi of The Pigeons etsy shop had their booth of of fabulous vintage clothing and handmade accessories.  All their planning and hard work to make the festival happen really paid off, it was so lovely. 

Can you believe at the end of this post, I wish I had taken more photos?  I suppose that's why I love festivals so much, there is just so much to take in and so many interesting people to meet.
I have more from the weekend to share but that will have to be another day.  Pajama snuggles are going to have to take priority for now!

Grow.

Few places in the world inspire me as dangerously as garden nurseries.  The reality of my actual skill level is irrelevant here.  Somehow it is magically washed away at the door and I feel as though anything is possible. 

There have been more than a couple of occasions that I wandered into a garden center and wandered out with considerably less money and a lot of planting to do. 

The problem with me and gardening is that I love it, but I am not a green thumbed person. My mother can grow anything.  Seriously. Anything.  Last summer, she had banana trees bearing fruit in Arkansas.  She carted the huge monster plants from patio to living room during the cold months for a good few years, endured us picking on her for the way her house looked like a jungle in the winter and then stunned us all when they actually started making bananas. In Arkansas!  When she approaches the clearance plant rack of a garden center, it's like you can almost hear the little plants rejoicing that their savior has come at last.  

I, on the other hand, did not inherit this talent.  I love plants and appreciate them.  But let's just say, when I approach the clearance rack the plants droop a little more and know that I'm carting them off to hospice, aka my house, where they will surely die. 

Despite this unfortunate fact, I keep buying plants every year and learning what I can.  I can grow basil now.   And hostas. And pothos (except I don't think pothos counts, I think my dog could grow pothos.)  And I had a good long run with a Peace Lily I affectionately called Hubert, but he succumbed after a forgetful night left out in a freak late freeze. I haven't yet succeeded in keeping a hydrangea or an orchid alive but I've got goals and one of these days I'll see one to maturity.  You'll see. 

This has been a busy spring with Tobias joining our family, so though I've been anxious to go plant shopping,  today was my first trip to the nursery.  We will soon be undertaking "Operation Ugly Beds and Empty Pots" so I was mostly gathering ideas.  Plus, it's just fun to look at all the lovely things. 

Though I may not be a natural born gardener, I am quite good at nurturing imaginations.  Here's Asher winding up in his Sonic the hedgehog stance.  

And Jackson with his precious freckles for good measure.

And the beat goes on.

Hey blog.
How's it been?  I feel the need to explain my month long absence...though it's probably obvious considering my last posts were about my impeding labor and though it felt like pregnancy would last an eternity, it didn't!  We welcomed our son, Tobias James, into the world on March 9.  That combined with the catastrophic failure our computer endured over the last month has kept me away from you, blog.  My handy husband has been performing open-case surgery on the computer and finally cleared it off the kitchen table night before last, putting it back together and giving it some new life a la newegg.com.

So I come bearing photos and tales of birth and a strong desire to get some of my bloggy ideas out into the world.  I've had multiple instances in these few weeks of 3 a.m. nursing session blog brainstorms, though half of those ideas have escaped my sleep deprived brain by morning!  For now, I do have this to share...

Laboring at home as long as possible.

After a relaxed early labor that lasted over a day and an intense few hours of unmedicated active labor in the hospital, I was so ready to meet this little guy.

Daddy getting him ready for skin on skin contact with me about 10 minutes after birth.  He was so alert.

And finally home....our whole crew together at last!

This birth experience was absolutely amazing.  My contractions changed in nature on Wednesday evening and I could tell they were no longer false labor.  They didn't hurt exactly but started to cause pressure really low.  Thursday morning I woke up and told Jeremiah that I was in early labor but it could last a long time.  I spent most of the day in my room, walking around the house and taking it easy with Asher.  My sister called that afternoon and after talking to me, she decided to go ahead and start driving from OKC.  At about 6, we sent the kids to my moms to spend the night and at around 10 Wednesday night, I decided I would sleep while I could (thinking a little that the contractions would stall out, proving to be more false labor).  I woke up a few hours later though and all I could think was "OW!". I was thrilled, it was the real deal!  Jeremiah and I laid down again. I couldn't sleep but wanted him to get some rest because I really needed him to be on par for the birth.  A few hours went by and I had to get up and pace.  I finally woke him up and said I was ready to go to the hospital.  I was really worn down from not sleeping much the last two nights, I was in too much pain to rest but I knew it was still early labor.  With my previous births, early labor has lasted a very long time and active labor (from about 4 cm. to birth) lasted a very short time, generally about an hour. When it became apparent that my labor was not going to progress at a faster pace, I decided to go get checked out at the hospital and see what my options were.
We arrived and after talking with my nurse, I agreed to a very low dose of pitocin.  I have thought a lot about this decision and I don't regret it, though I would be hesitant suggest other moms take the same route without really supportive hospital staff and knowledge of your own body.  Mary, our nurse, agreed to manually set my dosage instead of putting it on to increase automatically.  She also agreed that when my body responded to the drug and moved into active labor, we would stop increasing the dosage and leave it alone.  She asked me one time, before we started the pit, if I was sure I wanted to forgo all pain management and when I said yes, she did not ask again.
About an hour after the pit started, I was starting to have to really work through the contractions.  My sister saved the day by bringing my birth ball and favorite pillow which I had accidentally left behind in my haste to leave the house.  Those two things made a world of difference.  The smell of my home was so comforting, I would bury my face in the pillow at every contraction. I spent a good two hours laboring on the ball as labor progressed, continually replaying a mental list of inspiration:  the natural birth stories from Ina May's books and from my crunchy mom friends, the idea that my body was capable and the mental image of my body opening up and pushing my son out into the world where we could meet him and love him.  With every contraction, I would replace the jerk reaction of "Ow! Ow! Ow!" with "This isn't pain, this is work. It's hard but it's got a purpose".  I'd read an interesting bit a while ago about how as the cervix opens, the uterus actually pulls up into itself and the fundus (the top of the uterus) becomes thicker and stronger to push the baby down and out.  I kept visualizing this during contractions and thinking "Up!". This lead to my visualizing running up a flight of stairs each time a contraction built and resting "on the way down".  It fascinates me that this is what I came up with in the moment, but I must say it was quite effective.
At noon, Mary came in to check my progress and shocked us all when she said I was dilated to 7 cm.  The doctor poked his head in and instructed the nurses to begin setting up because he figured the baby would come in about 30 minutes based on my history.  After this things become a blur and I can only say that it was Jeremiah staying calm and controlled that kept me grounded.  He kissed me through contractions like Ina May suggests in her books, stating that it helps sphincters to open to relax your mouth.  He applied counter pressure on my lower back and he assured me it was almost over and I was doing a good job.  Tobias was born 28 minutes after the nurse announced to the room I was at a 7.  He was, and is, completely perfect.  If I'm being honest, until they laid the little guy on my chest, I wasn't 100% sure I could do it.  After having two highly medicalized births, recovering from anesthesia and interventions, I desperately wanted to do it naturally but I just wasn't sure I was able.

 Unbelievably...3 1/2 weeks have passed since Toby's birth!  It's one of those things that just blows my mind. It feel simultaneously like time has flown and like he's been here forever.   We are finally falling into a good groove, exhausted but smitten.  God has big plans for this little boy, of this I am sure.  He has certainly blessed us.

Leap!

Prodromal Labor. I knew this was coming.  This is my third pregnancy, I've been around this block before. I know these tricks.

Wikipedia defines Pre-labor, also called "prodromal labor," as the early signs before labor starts. It is the body's preparation for real labor. It can include hours to days of consistant, highly uncomfortable contractions that do not organize enough to progress the body into active labor.


I define it as bordenline torture.  With my first son, my prodromal labor lasted for 10 days and three trips to the labor and delivery ward, all of which I was sent home deflated and disheartened.  Two nights ago, the contractions started again. Every 5 minutes, lasting about a minute each, and I just sighed.  Like I said, I'm an old dog here. 


The truth is I am just a terribly impatient woman, impulsive and rash even.  You see when I'm not the one that is massively pregnant, I am the voice of reason.  I've spent the last few weeks with my face buried in Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth,  empowering myself with her stories and words of wisdom.  I am preparing as much as possible for a birth free of interventions. Unfortunatly, births free of pitocin and doctors and scheduling require patience. And really,I believe in it. I believe that God designed women for birth, that the rates of cesareans are absurdly unnecessary and compeletely linked to our inability to just wait for our body to be ready.  I believe wholeheartedly that I was designed by my perfect creator to grow babies and bring them into the world, and that in most cases medical aid is unnecessary.  I believe that my hour will come when it is the correct time. God and I have had a few heart to hearts throughout this pregnancy concerning this and I have put it into His capable hands.  


That is, until the useless, false labor contractions started and I turned into an absolute mad-woman.  Yesterday, before my darling soulmate of a husband reminded me that I am a God-loving woman and that perhaps I should take a moment to pray about my "I've gotta have this baby now" anxiety, I decided that I did, in fact, have to have this baby now.  I googled "natural induction methods" and I decided to completely ignore the knowledge that if you're body isn't ready, the baby isn't coming.  


I think I walked miles yesterday.  My poor 4 year old said after an hour and a half at the mall that he would like to go get in the van and have a nap.  If you knew Asher, you would know how very much it takes before the child admits even the slightest bit of tiredness.  From then I just went on down the list, doing everything short of drinking dreaded castor oil.  At about 11 last night, as I bounced on the birth ball and polished off the last of a fresh pineapple (it contains an enzyme called bromelain, which is believed to work like a prostaglandin, ripening and softening the cervix), I realized that I could not put my pregnancy, birth, health and child into God's hands and simultaneously tell Him how to handle them.  And so I finally prayed, and asked that God would give me, if not active labor, some patience and perhaps some rest.  


You will be proud to know that I walked by the eggplants at the grocery today without buying one, because even if the old wives tale says that eggplant parmesan will have you in labor by the next morning, I know that I have no idea how to cook it and it probably wouldn't work anyway.  And although I am sitting on my birth ball whilst writing this blog entry, I am not doing so in desperation.  I will practice patience.  My hour will come. 

In the meanwhile, I would like to share a few of the maternity photos my good friend Leslie took for us this last weekend.  I am so pleased with them, although it was certainly odd to be on this side of the lens!