The Mama Chronicles

41 weeks, 1 day a.k.a. Patiently Waiting

I go overdue.  This is not a surprise that I am still pregnant.  I am OK with it most of the time.  I get irritated with other people more easily.  Well meaning comments that normally I would be able to filter.  Yesterday I had a conversation with my stepmom who I love dearly but, who I am trying to talk to less now that I am overdue.  My Dad and her remind me to call them when I am in labor and call to see how I am feeling.  Yesterday she told me about a dream she had that I had twins.  She said the thinks "it is because I am so massive this time, she means huge."  I am bigger this time.  But still so much smaller than most pregnant women. 

I was telling Mason about it and she said every pregnant women just needs to hear how beautiful they are and  that's it.  None of this worrying about the baby being overdue, assuming that they are uncomfortable.  Let's just focus on their glow.

Other things I wouldn't mind hearing:
I can't tell you are pregnant from behind.
You are carrying this baby with so much grace (meaning I am not waddling, which I'm not.)
That baby must know how safe and loved it is to want to stay inside.
You look like you are doing a great job being pregnant.
I am sure that when you and the baby are ready you will have a wonderful birth.

I have started telling people that I already have the baby when they ask and that I left it in the car.  I need more snappy comments.  So pass them on!  Still gestating in sunny CA.

Due Date!

40 weeks today.  Now we begin the waiting game.  Bleh!  I really hate due dates.  Because really they don't mean anything.  But, at the same time they change everything!  Now I can't call friends or family because they will automatically think I am in labor, or had the baby.  Also time changes.  Before today I would have been early, tomorrow will begin being late.  Just counting days.  1 day late, 2 days late, 3 days late...on and on in a never ending marching order.  Even though this is a third baby I feel like I will be totally surprised when I go into labor. 

We made it to CA just fine last Sunday.  The trip was pretty uneventful.  Ryan had thought we would be able to drive straight through.  That I would be able to sleep in the car and he would drive at night and then I would be able to drive during the day.  Obviously the man has never been 9 months pregnant!  There was no sleeping in the car.  We made it to Bloomington, IL the first night.  The second night we slept in Cheyenne, WY, and then the third night we slept in Lovelock, NV.  We tried to sleep in Winnemucca.  But they had the National High School Rodeo Championships going on and every hotel was booked.  Nevada was the hardest state, in my opinion.  First off there are not lot of bathrooms to stop at.  A 9 month pregnant woman squatting on the off ramp of dead end exits is not a graceful thing to watch.  At one stop it was so windy Ryan had to come help me balance (all in the middle of the night, so you can visualize easily.)  So he came around to help me stay upright.  It was slightly raining too.  He stood in front of me at first but decided the wind was too strong and that it would be better to have me sort of block the wind a bit.  I don't think he realized my hair was whipping the exact direction he decided to move to.  So while I was midstream with pregnant lady bladder control he moved downwind.  Bad Idea.  At first he thought maybe it was just raining harder, on his ankles.  Then the pieces fell into place. He ended up purelling his ankles and feet before we drove off.  I told him urine is fairly sterile, but that didn't really comfort him.  I think it is the yellow color of it that threw him.  But, it was dark so he should have been fine. 

This is how trips are for us.  A lot of fun.  A lot of memories.  I do so love him!  And am glad we can joke around.  I think a big part of the foundation of our marriage is crazy road trip stories.  So that is all from here.  Back where it feels like home waiting for baby and hubby who flew back to bank vacation days.  I know how crazy others, and even I, think it was to not just have my baby in the hospital in Ohio.  But, now that I am here I know I made the right decision.  I am doing this for the baby, for me, and because I believe in homebirth and every woman's right to choose what is bast for her in birth! 

Full Term

As I sit here with my belly swollen and stretched beyond belief I realize that the fear and anxiety that usually is keep deep down under a lid has been pushed out.  It feels like in pregnancy that you are full of fear about what to expect or about the baby and if it will stick around.  It all fits inside though because the baby is so small.  As time goes on the fear, the anxiousness morphs to be about other things but you can somehow still hold it tight between your tailbone and your growing child.  Then..you get to the end and the fear that had come up as heartburn or hiccups in small spurts flows over you as if your water has broke.  But, it is your fear waters breaking.  I think that when they talk about how your body gets looser with each pregnancy they are also talking about how much harder it is to hold in the worries.  There is something that I have heard midwives refer to at times called the third baby syndrome.  For the mother who has two wonderful babes already they begin to guess their body will betray them and something will be wrong.  That also gets coupled with the primal protective urges that you are free from in that first birth.  They are there that first time but now you see the older children as too big and mean and want to only protect the youngest.  The first time you just want to protect your child from the big bad world "out there" not "in here" with you sitting on your lap.  They can, these loved babes, in the blink of an eye go from being your sweet baby to being a monster that wants to get rid of and hurt the baby and is now double the size they were before you began to push.  This too, may not be talked about, but I notice it to be pretty universal in conversations with new moms.  It is like birth and morning sickness though:  You forget. 

For me nighttime is always scariest.  I don't lay there worried so much about the baby, well just a little, I lay there worried that ever bit of gas is labor starting that the hard kicks that still come and hurt are maybe contractions.  I worry that this baby will be born in Ohio and then I worry that Ryan won't be there for the birth and then I worry that the baby will be born in California or on the way out there.  I forget everything I know about birth and pregnant women and I simply am a pregnant woman.  I think that has been the hardest thing about living in a state where they prosecute midwives as felons currently, that as I try to be my own midwife I can not separate that I am a the client.  I am the pregnant woman.  I can be objective, palpate, ausculate heart tones, measure fundal height, monitor and chastize myself over my diet, take blood pressure.  But, I can not sit there and hold my hand.  It just doesn't work.  I can look at my fears and say they are unwarranted, but I can't give the comfort that makes the feelings go away.  So, I try to remain calm.  I don't think I will be there until July 4th though when Ryan flies into CA and we are able to have a homebirth the way we want and everyone is present and accounted for.  And then I do think I will be able to get a lid on most of my stress and anxiety until the baby is born and totally when I am tucked into my own bed, back home, nursing, and sleeping, and getting cut fruit broght to me with a more room for the new fears that come with being a new mother, again. 

I am able to have a man listen to my irrationalness and give some empathy and love.  Because I have a husband that is that good.  He is that good during the day.  At night though, when I crawl next to him crying and manipulate his arms so that he is holding me and helping me hold the fear in...well, he's a hard sleeper and not much better than a doll.  So, deep breath and I will try to keep holding my own hand until we leave next Friday and get there the week after. 

Dear full term babe,

I feel you kicking and squirming so much less now.  I think you are getting a bit crowded.  We are now in the home stretch.  You are full term now which means a lot less hassle if you come early before we get to California.  It is so different being pregnant with you.  I feel now that we are at the end that I had taken the time to exercise more and eat better.  That I had taken better care of myself and you.  I know you and I are healthy.  But, I feel bad for being distracted.  This may be the way it goes with a bigger family.  Being pregnant with you has been very emotional.  I have feel a little pulled in all directions.  I feel this way regularly with your sister and brother.  But, I have a plan and I think things will be calmer after you get here.  Separate from you I feel like I am maturing and growing so much.  That it feels like a lot is going on. 

I think the other thing I want to clarify with you is that even though we had planned on waiting to add to our family you are much loved.  This baby planning business is hairy in that way.  The words unplanned or unexpected can have such negative conotations.  What I have learned from the birth of your sister is that each of you, our children, have been a gift.  A gift and a blessing.  Really each one of you has come at such a time in my life that I felt the affirmation and love and blessing and encouragement in every area of my life.  I wonder as I wait to meet you what you will teach me.  I am open to the possibility that I may not be able to go to school in the Fall.  That the right thing may be to stay home with you and delay becoming a nurse midwife.  If it had not been the surprise of having your sister I would have never known that I was meant to be a midwife in the first place.  So it is not a bad thing to sit holding your baby and wait for better timing for things like school and such.  I know now as a mother of 2 and you that this is the blessing of motherhood to witness what goes by so quick.  So I do not at all feel like it is a sacrifice in the long run but more a gift.  A gift of time and maturity and more life experience.  I wanted to tell you all this because the fact is you were not planned and you will change our lives.  But, you are meant to be in our family and it is bearing unknown gifts that you come.  So be well baby, I love you.  I will see you soon.  Face to face. 
Love, Mom
PS. According to an online source you are now, at 37 weeks, the length of swiss chard and weigh about 6.5 pounds.  I would guess knowing us that you are that long but maybe a little lighter. 

Needing to have less

(this photo is of a coat rack our friends painted and carved for Lacy as a gift.  When we lived in the 80 year old house we couldn't hang it on the plaster walls.  This is one huge benefit to a new house I guess.  You can nail something up every 6-8 inches.)

Lately, I have found myself needing to have less.  Not that I feel like I need less or that I have gotten rid of a lot of things but that I have this need to simplify.  I have this desire to have less.  To have peace.  Which is funny in a way because I am in the process of getting ready to make all of our lives more complicated with the birth of a third child.  But, I notice when we clean a room, that I feel better.  I think relationally my life has more peace now than it has had in a few years.  Maybe it is from this emotional peace that I am starting to want to have peace in all areas of my life.  This is, I think, the blessing of my thirties that I am able to stop living in a chaotic way.  For the last 3 years we were in California we were always two weeks away from being relocated with Ryan's company.  I think this frantic unknown started to take hold in so many ways.

The other place I see this simplicity calling to me is in my desire to have rhythms.  I have been reading a book called Beyond The Rainbow Bridge that is essentially a how to on Waldorf for the first 7 years of your child's life in your home.  Although I do not subscribe to Waldorf in a lot of ways I am seeing the need of my children, especially Lacy to have more rhythm and and be able to tune in to the high energy times by recharging with low energy times.  The breathe in and breathe out of Waldorf education.  In the past I have known parents who are very strict with schedules.  I notice with these kids that they get very upset when their routine is modified slightly.  I think as a young parent I avoided routines and schedules for this reason.  I only saw the extreme.  Also, when I was having Lacy and Oliver the big thing to do in our church was Babywise, which has been shown to be so bad for kids.  So I wanted to not have any schedule or routine.  I wanted my kids to feel free.  But, as we clean out and prepare for another baby I see that our "freedom" has become restricted by what we own and by not following the kids natural emotional and physical rhythms and cues.  I think part of this realization took root when Lacy turned four and it became apparent that she had to have a nap, every day.  She hadn't napped since she was 2 and 3/4.  Something about turning four though changed that.  She is once again outgrowing naps but I see how for her these are a much larger scale of the breathing in and breathing out times utilized in Waldorf day schools. 

As for me, I need some rhythm.  What I really need are some anchors that I can depend on each day.  Ways to keep up and feel centered.  I need to have and find a rhythm to housekeeping and eating in order to be able tune into the patterns my kids and I have so that I will notice more quickly when my kids need more or less sleep.  This is instead of the scratching my head and wondering why my child has become a little troublemaker and worrying that they are doomed to a life of juvenile court and lonliness, before realizing, Oh yeah, they need 3 more hours of sleep per day now.  It reminds me of when they were babies and we would have few nights where they had trouble sleeping and were nursing all night and I would think this baby is never going to let me sleep again.  And then bleary eyed a few days later I would look down and see the runny nose and the beginning of a cold, or the tooth that starts coming through.  I think the chaos and the stuff makes it hard sometimes for me to tune into these things and I end up feeling like I am one step behind. 

The other thing that I really like in this book is that she talks about focusing on the task you are doing.  If you are washing the dishes she says you should pay attention to that and not be frantically rushing through and preoccupied with what you are going to do next.  Let me tell you right now being SO pregnant this is SO hard for me.  I am perpetually thinking of the next thing I have to do before we leave for CA to have the baby.  I am thinking of the next thing I need to get done before I have a newborn again.  I am pretty preoccupied all the time.  So, this calls to me.  As a way to start.  To be present and engaged in the task I am doing.  That is what is going on here. 

I am going to be very sporadic on the blog.  I have gotten very uncomfortable and have a lot of nesting I need to do before we fly the nest.  We leave in 2 weeks.  I am trying to learn self hypnosis for the birth  and as a way to not worry if we will be in the right place with Ryan there for the birth.  I think this pregnancy has been the hardest one because of all the legal issues with midwives here in Ohio and the result being that I have to do my own prenatal care and am lacking the emotional support that is so important in pregnancy.  It has been a really rough road and I am just now realizing the impact on me as a mother.  Having midwifery skills does not make me able to give to myself as care provider.  It means I can take all the necessary measurements and vitals but not that I can just be the mom worrying and emotional.  I think that I will feel a really big relief when the baby is in our arms and I am able to just be a mother.  It will be great to get to be taken care of as we wait for the baby in Ca and have someone else do my blood pressure, listen and palpate the baby and monitor all the diet and other things.  My other reason for absence is that I need to start journaling.  Everything is great here I just am in that really introspective huge pregnant big as a house phase.  :)

Swap Sent!

No peeking swap partners! We went to the post office this morning and sent our package to Ill. I sewed a lot yesterday. I think the fact that I actually completed a project has me unable to wait to post this until they get it. I have been sooooo tired an feeling queasy. That it is a big accomplishment to be done. My biggest project is still going well. We have reached that point where everyone tells you that if you go into labor now at least the baby will survive. COME. ON. Don't get me wrong I do not want to have to endure the grief of losing a baby. I feel really deeply for every mother who has. But, also I know how difficult it is to have a preemie from watching friends and I do not want that either. I would rather be told. Good going! Stay strong for another 13 weeks. Postitive thinking, here, people. I am trying to do this by picturing my baby only head down and thinking very strongly about not hemmorhaging this time. Because that was REALLY scary after Oliver. I go tto that point where I thoght it would be OK if I just let Ryan take care of the kids and surrendered. Luckily I had excellent medical help and when everything else didn't work my dear friend and midwife looked me in the eyes and yelled at me to STOP BLEEDING! And I did. There is actually a study that says that works. I didn't even have to get transported to the hospital. Although with someone who wasn't as emotionally close I would have. OK, sorry, this has gotten more gruesome than I meant. I could have stopped many sentences ago! On to the Swap!!!

Here is what we sent:

all wrapped up with yarn bows.

Here is what the kids (read Lacy) made:

Here is what I made, what this was supposed to be a swap for the kids? Oh, well.

I just made the frogs in the second picture. But they wanted to chill on their pads. They are quite fond of the job Lacy did.

Here it is with all the art supplies and stuff we included, unwrapped:

Details:
The cute bags are from Bend the Rules Sewing. This is the first project I have made from their and they did turn out cute and were easy! I had never done box corners or a lining before so that was fun. Or actually made a bag. The frogs are from Purl Soho (free pattern.) We may be making some frog lilly pad kits for birthdays this year. Or Christmas when you need an indoor gift. We used primed canvas from a roll and acrylic paint to make the pads. Lacy cut and painted them herself. With Daddy's help. This fed into our latest conversations about habitats. It is supposed to be a game. Where you stand in one spot and try to throw your frog onto a lily pad. Also included were beaded necklaces, and a melted beaded heart. I am not sure what these little iron together beads are called. We included supplies for the girls to make their own necklaces and lots of melted bead creations. Then there are stickers, face paper, and glue on eyes. We love these faces. We glue ours to popsicle sticks and use them like puppets. I also threw in playdough that we had left over form Halloween. We always give out playdough because then I don't eat the leftovers. I wanted to include something for the mom so I put in the book Every Mother is a daughter. This is the only new book that is fiction I have bought in a long time. It has good reviews but I could not get into it. I think that my relationship with my own mom is so broken that I couldn't identify at all with the writers. I hope my partner likes it. Because books deserved to be loved. I tried really hard to read this book. I also printed out the directions for the frogs for her. We didn't have to include anything for the moms so don't freak out if you are in the swap. My partner mentioned she liked to read.
Overall cost: 14 dollars (that includes 7.66 in shipping priority mail.) All the fabric I already have. All the art supplies were from our own stash. Then there is the leftover playdough (free.) We bought lentils to fill up the frogs, stickers for each girl, a pack of face paper, and pack of glue on eyes. The canvas is from a roll that has extra because I want to make this hopsctoch mat. So there you go. I will post what we get when it comes.

I don't remember if I mentioned it on here, but I got accepted to nursing school at Miami University (in Ohio.) I am going to start in August. Unless the baby ends up being colicky, or needing me to not be away for the 8 hours a week the first semester requires. Since then I have found out we have to buy a lot of extra stuff. Like a palm pilot! And then nursing stuff like a stethescope and such. Nervous, Excited, Accomplished, Scared, only 5 years away from catching babies as a Nurse Midwife, that's me!

(Technical note, I am uploading my pics the same way does anyone know why they are always coming up blurry on typepad now? It is not the photos. Does anyone do typepad with flickr? Can you give me directions? OK I fixed this by making my pictures smaller but I like them big so I am stilll looking for ideas!)

Slowly Gestating

Things are moving along here in belly land. The baby is getting very active. This is simultaneously exciting and annoying. I like knowing everything is OK down there. But, at the same time getting sleep and being able to go an hour without peeing is also nice. I haven't written anything about the pregnancy in a long time on here. I think the second trimester is like that. You feel better, you sleep better, you pee less. Then WHAM-O you are in your third trimester. You sleep less, you feel worse, and you pee more. I have developed this irrational fear about toilet paper in the process. I stock up way too much, then we seem to get low all of a sudden and I absolutely must drop everything I am doing before those last 2 rolls vanish. It is this crazy cycle.

Now that things are moving along I also am realizing that I am in some ways repeating the first trimester. Certain foods are repulsive, once again! I worry over silly things. For instance driving to the airport to pick up Ryan the other night I was beside myself not knowing what I would do if his plane crashed and I just sat there circling the pick up area over and over. Then I saw myself losing the house and not being able to buy food. We don't have life insurance and sometimes everything gets a bit irrational. Especially on an hour and half drive alone with bad radio stations.

In other ways I am sort of having a second pregnancy instead of a third. When I was pregnant with Oliver I didn't worry so much about how Lacy would adjust and whether or not I was being completely unfair to her by having another baby. But, now, that I am going to have more babies than hands, I think about this a lot. I also feel sort of pulled apart. Half of me really wants to be just a pregnant mom and then the other half is trying to be a mom to the kids that are running around. And as lay on the couch, tired, nauseas, I end up doing both terribly. I have entered that catch 22 of mothering. Where it is just never enough. Oliver too is totally not into this new baby thing either. He is adamant about not wanting a baby in his house. He is still firmly attached but has no interest in sharing me.

Blizzard hits Ohio!

No joke. A blizzard hit Ohio this weekend. It is over now. What is an actual blizzard? A severe snowstorm with strong winds and limited visibility. For us that meant 12+ inches in 24 hours. And being literally snowed in. Day 1: Lacy declared naked time. No joke. This hasn't happened since she was two. But, she talked Oliver into following suit. So we let him run around diaper free. When they started wrestling Ryan did ask if maybe this was going a bit far. But, it was all very innocent. I wonder if I will ever be comfortable running around naked again? I did close all the blinds though. I mean come on, we live in the most conservative county in Ohio, not in Ca anymore. No pics of day one. I do have limits. Then day two we stayed in our pajamas and made baked potato soup. This was my favorite soup when I waitressed at Bennigan's. Lacy went out in the snow a lot with snow clothes over PJs. Then last night she asked to wear daytime clothes to bed since we wore PJ's all day.

I had thought, when we were still living in CA, that being snowed in would yield great productivity. I pictured myself sitting at the sewing machine or knitting by the fire. I saw mountains of finished products and time used wisely. All to the backdrop of snow falling softly outside. Ummm, this was not my reality. The snow, and so much of it sent me into sort of a funk. I didn't do anything. I didn't study, clean house, or even go near my knitting or sewing. I did rip out the half I had knitted in the second leg of the baby pants. (Apparently an Addi turbo size 6 does not equal a Clover size 6 needle.) What I did do was cuddle a lot. With my kids, with my husband, with the new baby. And I thought a lot. I came to the conclusion that I feel like I am in a really good place right now. Spiritually, emotionally, mommily, wifely, and in life. I also let as much light into our house as I could because I felt winter type depression coming on. In the end, the blizzard thing was sort of overrated. Maybe I will do better next time!

One of the things I thought about was praise. I was sort of forced to think about it. At our unschooling meeting on Thursday we talked about it quite a bit, or maybe it just stuck out quite a bit. Then I read about it on Lori's blog. It was one of those things where you feel like saying, out loud, in a very strong voice, "OK, I will ponder this!" I thought a lot about my own kids and about myself. I feel like I never pleased my dad. In all honesty. Like I never measured up. I am an only child so this wasn't due to siblings. Also, I must say, I have a wonderful father. He has supported me even when he disagrees with me. I know he doesn't agree, but I also know that he is still my dad. But, it just never felt/ feels like enough. I received lots of affection from my dad, so that's not it. But, I think verbally, maybe I heard more no or more not like that, or this way than you keep going along your path. At least that is what I felt like what I heard most of. I made very big decisions based on what I thought would impress my dad. The one day I felt like I did totally impress him was when I graduated from college. But, in reality, I obtained a degree I will never use. In a subject that interests me but holds none of my passions. When you have one parent who is bipolar and alcoholic I think you really look to the other parent for what is normal and what it good. I think maybe I needed to hear more about what a neat person I was. From my mom I only ever heard genuineness in her voice when she was telling me how much she hated me. I don't think my dad realized he had an extra burden. So, now, as an adult, I am learning to do things for me. What this has to do with praise is: I really don't think that overpraising is the only thing that leads to creating a child who wants to seek praise, who makes decisions for others. I think under-praising can do this. I think that children will actually seek more praise if they don't get enough.

So what about me as a parent? For my kids I really tried for a long time (Not that long, my oldest is 4) to not praise, to not reaffirm and to not criticize. But, then I had this daughter who would ask for praise. She would ask me if I thought she was beautiful, and she would ask me if I thought she had done a good job. She would ask if I was proud of her. This broke my heart. I realized, not praising was not the way to go. I also am learning that she is a lot like me. So the balance I have found is to praise her. Not too much and not for socially acceptable things. I don't praise her for behaving or for doing what I want. I praise her for being willing to do her own thing, for being her own person. I tell her that she sure is a funny kid and that she makes me happy. I try to praise her like this when she hasn't done anything. Just randomly try to turn to her and say something like "Your jokes really make me laugh" or "it is a lot of fun to listen to your stories." I try to not make it about achievement or about things I want her to do. I try to make it about encouraging what I already see in her. I don't tell her that she is really is good at things she isn't, I see this, and have read about doing this, in order to get kids to do more of that thing. It is a hard balance. I don't think I over praise because she doesn't get praised everyday, it is not a clockwork thing. On our hardest days she probably gets a little more praise than on our easiest days. I think this is a result of my internal coping mechanisms. When she is being very 4, I think to all the things that have me happy in the past. I try to stop focusing on the fact that she is hitting her brother, dumping out her toys, ripping books, and driving me crazy. This praise thing is a hard deal. But, I think that children are also very smart. I think they know what is genuine and what is not. We live a very genuine life here. I think each family needs to find their own way. But, I don't want any parent to ever feel like they can not tell their child how great they are for being them. Which was where I was headed when my daughter was a toddler. What do you think? Go on over and join the discussion at Camp Creek Press or start a dialogue here if you want. I don't have any of the answers. I am muddling through too!

Baby is 24 weeks today, the length of a large corn cob. Very exciting. I am starting to get that question. You know the one "Are you having a boy or a girl." I just say I think it is a girl. I will in reality never see the people who ask again. I really do think it is a girl and I am not comfortable explaining why I am not getting prenatal care. As I gestate though I get stronger and stronger girl feelings. I feel more and more connected this babe. I respect more and more that the relationship between mother and child is so special. My husband would not want to carry a baby through pregnancy. But, I sure think he misses out on a lot. I hope you have a very peaceful day. I think that is what the blizzard brought me most of all!

And here are my three favorite blogs for very different reasons:
the first is Melissa's because she is one of my dearest friends.
Mommies Think Too
She is a recent blogger so go by and say hi.

The second is Camp Creek Press because I feel like it is really in tune with our family. Where we watercolor daily and draw all the time. And I also feel like her art lessons incorporate nicely into our unschooling.
Camp Creek Press

And the last is one that I started always reading when she posted her home summer camp last summer. I think this blog does a good job of mixing craft, with parenting, with the rest of life.
Two Straight lines

I checked these blogs this weekend and only these blogs when I was avoiding the snow!

Haircuts and Library books

There are some things I love about being a mom and some I hate. My top two hate things would have to be haircuts and clipping baby fingernails. I hate haircuts because they always seem to make my babies grow up in by years in the passing of a few moments. Oliver got his first haircut. And while he now looks handsome. He also looks SO different. Lacy, also got a haircut. Usually we do her hair at home. But, I really needed to watch someone else cut boy hair before attempting it on my own. Boy hair is a whole different learning curve. I didn't want Lacy to feel left out so we got her hair cut at the fancy children's place too. We are still trying to catch up from her scissor adventure 11 mos. ago when she whacked off a chunk towards her scalp right in the front. We are about 1/2 an inch away now. Haircuts are so hard for me that Oliver waited 13 days shy of his 2nd birthday before going under the scissor. Now he is boy. They grow up so soon.

As much as I hate to see my little ones grow up. I have to admit that we are having a lot of fun. We usually go to the library every other week. We have started picking up seasonal picture books and holiday picture books. We are reading a lot about snow. As much as I also have a hard time being in Cincinnati the Hamilton County Library is absolutely the best. I have been able to request almost all the books I would have bought in more financially careless time and have them sent to the closest library. Currently I am really interested in kid's art. I got a at least one, maybe more of these book suggestions springing from favorite blogs. First, the Reggio Emilia interest came from Camp Creek Blog's rec. reading list my library fabulous though it was did not have the specific books she listed. Other sources for the books were Melissa and The Artful Parent (her suggestions led me to try the other books, we also checked out and are loving The Dot but the kids have them elsewhere in the house right now.) If you need good resources I would check out these lists. Also for Kid's books I find a lot of good picture book suggestions on Uncommon Grace, this blog has led me to really embrace living in a place with seasons through reading.

Maybe it's the hormones...

that are making me crazy! I've been looking over my last few posts. I can see the anger, the hurt, the rejection, the fear. I on a daily basis am basically happy and functioning. I think maybe the pregnancy is exaggerating the feelings but I think they are legit also. Plus this is the forum I need to be able to let my hair down. I have been trying hard to concentrate on the bearable and good things that in Ohio. BUT, then I started to read a novel about a homebirth midwife and her first birth. It took me back to the first birth I went to. It basically has ripped my heart out. Making me feel all the above emotions. I am trying to learn from where I am at though. I have really been struggling with my decision to try nursing and nurse midwifery. I feel like a huge sell out. I know how different it is. I know how fear based the education is. And one thing I realized last night. I now know, after trying to help many women breastfeed, how much more of a chance I have of encountering women who don't want midwifing, they want medical birth. And while I support every woman's choice it is not where my heart is right now. I think the best analogy might be being a teacher who loves teaching and loves teaching Literature. But then moves to a state where it is illegal to teach or learn Literature. So she is forced to teach Math. (Don't read into anything here, I love Math and Literature.) In my heart I am a home birth midwife though. That is where my calling is. And although I know I can find joy and give good service to women in the hospital until we relocate to a place where CNM's can practice homebirth I worry how the hospital experience will influence my beliefs about low- risk normal birth. I have gone with friends to the hospital and seen hospital births. It wasn't devastating but I must admit that when they wanted to give my friend more pitocin instead of encouraging her to get out of bed, well, I felt like they weren't letting the baby come out. They even told her not to sit on the toilet because her baby would fall into the toilet and die. REALLY!!! This was at a supportive hospital too. So I just wonder. I also fear that I will not fit in the hospital. I know the tensions between the Drs. and nurses, even when it is not personal. Will I be able to keep my mouth shut being treated like I am a servant just because I am midwife with nurse in the title instead of an OB. Beyond all this, beyond all my fear and identity, turning 30 issues. Really what I miss most is birth, pregnant women, and new mamas. My preceptor and close friend keeps telling me in time I will be where I want to be. Reassuring me that women will keep having babies. But, what that doesn't fix is all these years where I am remembering what it is like to see moms go through the transition of birth and be changed forever into mothers of that child. And where I am missing the energy and joy that comes from fulfilling your hearts calling. To be doing what you are put on this earth to do. OK, sorry, still struggling here.

There is play among the struggling though. As we look through the toys and try to simplify, I have decided there is some plastic I want to keep. I am on the fence for Legos but will, for sure, keep the playmobil.