We made it

We're here.  

We have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs and 3 bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs.  

Brent, myself, and all the kids are downstairs with the hot tub and pinball machine.  Yay!

And now, the pictures. 

Living Room

Kitchen

Our room

Downstairs family room

Pinball machine

Hot tub and deck

Last, but not least... Me and baby!

Almost There - Our Vacation

Today we left at about 10 am to go to Branson with Brent's parents and his sister's family.   It will be a 4 day vacation and I'm not exactly sure what all it consists of besides a show and food.  

His family got in town last night.  We hadn't seen them for a year, and I showed up at their hotel with the kids to surprise them with something else.  Yesterday I was 37 weeks pregnant. They were shocked.  My mil joked about if we knew what caused that, and that she was going to have the talk with us about the birds and the bees.  My fil looked over and mentioned is picked up a little weight.  LOL!

Today she mentioned that she likes traveling with a pregnant woman because it gives her an excuse to have us stop and use the bathroom. 

I found out that processed foods are no good for me.  We are at Hardee's and my feet and hands instantly swelled up.  4 hours later and they're still swollen.  I can't wait to get up and move out of the band and also get some more water to drink.  

It's been a good drive so far.  We're almost there and I'm enjoying the Ozark mountains.  I miss this area, as it's where I'd spend my summers as a kid.  

35w 1d

Today I'm getting my birth kit out.  I'm picking through my stuff.  Finding what I have in there.  What I need.  I know it's late, but I've been through it before.  I bought my mistletoe tincture, since my last bottle was dumped out accidently.  

I'm making mama cloth pads.  I have begun to make some postpartum pads.  I'm excited to get those for this baby.  I really hate sposies.  

Things are going well.  I'm at 161 lbs, gaining 24 lbs so far.  Measuring perfect. Baby is crazy active.  I'm getting excited!

This is me on Friday (24w 5d). 

To my baby mouse - 32 weeks

Hello my baby mouse.  I feel you inside of me all the time.  I feel you wiggle and move about.  I feel your daily hiccups.  Your brothers and sisters have felt your tiny feet sweep across my ribs.  Last night I put my hand by my pubic bone and felt you move your little head back and forth.  I cry inside thinking of you.  You bring such unmeasurable joy to my soul.  

What a strange and amazing experience it is to feel you growing inside of me.  To know a life is formed, growing bigger and stronger daily.  That you are so unseen to my eyes, but I have been holding you for your entire life.  It seems so impossible, and yet here you are.  So real and true.  

Today I am 32 weeks along.  One day soon you will be in my arms.  I will finally have the chance to see you, to smell you, to touch your skin.  I will finally know you, instead of only seeing you in my dreams.  I will look upon you and have the opportunity to give you a name.  Your true name. 

We will both have gone through the most amazing experience of life.  You began so impossibly small.  You grew and formed into a perfect little person.  You are perfect to me.  I will always love you, baby mouse. 

I am counting down the days and the weeks until I will meet you for the first time.  I can then say, "Hello my baby mouse".  

Brigham's Birth Story

Today is Brigham's 7th birthday.  What a fast 7 years with my sweet man!  I wanted to share his story here.  

He was our first home birth and first boy. I researched all the information while we were TTC so I could 'convince' my husband to have the baby at home. When I told him I wanted to have our baby at home, he said he felt the same way.

Luckily, I didn't do all that work for nothing. All our parents were very against this. They knew I or Brigham would die. We showed them the statistics on how home birth was safer than hospital birth. They didn't get any say in the matter anyway. We found a wonderful midwife the next state over (we lived in MO and was near impossible to find a home birthing midwife.) She did all the prenatal visits at my home. She made me feel very empowered and educated me about pregnancy and birth more than I could have known. I had 3 children before and didn't know squat. Funny how uneducated I was when I put my faith in the doctors. 

I had a friend ask me to call her as soon as I went into labor so she could take pictures and document the entire thing (she's a photographer). She wanted a home birth so badly, but at that time her husband didn't like the idea very much.

I went to bed around 1am and thought, "Tomorrow morning I'll put the waterproof pad on the bed so it won't get wet if my water breaks."

I'm a procrastinator and was a few days overdue. Two hours later I woke up and water hit my knees. Funny! Too bad I didn't get that waterproof sheet on before I went to bed. :) I went to the bathroom and used a little strip to make sure my water broke (I thought what the heck! May as well make sure.) I went to my husband and kind of woke him up. I told him I had good news and bad news. The good news was I didn't wet the bed. I never told him the bad news. He guessed it on his own... No sleep tonight. 

We called the midwife and my friend. I walked around for a while in the house and ate some breakfast my FIL brought to us. I didn't want to eat but they made me. After a while my contractions stopped so Suzanne (my midwife) checked me. She said that my water broke on the top and asked if I wanted her to she could break my water again. I agreed because I was so tired and yet so excited. I couldn't wait to hold my baby.

I labored in the living room. We had a hammock stand and I hung from the hammock. I hung from my doula (who I almost bit). Glad I got my senses back before that happened. I pushed from the hammock for a while, but I was so exhausted that I just couldn't push any more.

They helped me to the couch and I decided to push while on my back. I didn't want to do this position before then, but I knew I could push from that position. I let out a huge scream and, after a few pushes, our little man's head made it into the world. I hear about the ring of fire, but I don't remember that. I do remember how bad his shoulders hurt when I pushed again. He was born a few minutes after 12pm.

What a wonderful experience. I always want our future children born at home. It was so wonderful and spiritual. I appreciated the births at home much more than those in the hospital. It is something else to feel it and know how hard your body is working to bring this wonderful little child into the world.

My First Time On Stage

I grew up as a painfully shy child.  In 5th grade I cringe remembering my English class.  My teacher had everyone recite poems in front of the class.  We couldn't JUST say the poem.  We had to say it with feeling.  Emphasize the emotion in it.  In other words, act it out.  It was miserable for me.  I broke out in tears at one point.  By the end of the year, though, I had begun to come out of my shell. I shocked my English teacher by doing an amazing job (for me anyway) of performing one of the last poems of the year.  He was so impressed, I was asked to skip part of my Science class to do it again in front of his next class. 

Years later, in high school, I wanted to go on stage.  I loved watching the plays.  They looked like so much fun.  I always found a reason to talk myself out of trying out.  To this day I still wish I would have at least tried.  

This weekend was my first time I acted on stage, in front of an audience.  I thought I would be a nervous wreck.  I had a small solo (2 lines), a small duet (2 lines), a skit, and a few jokes, along with group songs, and dancing. 

We prepared and rehearsed for weeks.  We put on Gee Haw 2 (like Hee Haw).  Come the day of our first 3 performances, I was calm.  No nerves.  Then, just as we gathered to go on, I had this overwhelming feeling of bursting into tears.  No time for that!  I took a few deep breaths, gathered myself together, and walked on stage.  

I want to say that that was the most fun I've possibly ever had.  It was a whole different experience.  The whole 3 performances on Saturday I had different little moments of nerves popping up.  Come Sunday, we only had 2 performances (1 of each, as we had 2 different shows).  I wasn't nervous at all.  I was excited to go out, to sing, to dance, and do my skit.  I am looking forward to my chance to do it again.  

Would You Eat Your Placenta?

This is my first placenta I encapsulated.  These are like gold to me.  They are my 'happy pills'; my energy pills; my pills to help my milk production.  They are a way to bring my body back to normal after birth.  The only thing I haven't done is a smoothie and actually cook with it.  However, I will say that I've come across some mighty interesting recipes using placenta... such as Placenta Chef (although it is not 'human placenta' it could be used), Chocolate Placenta Truffles (which I am tempted to make), Placenta Smoothies, and there is even a book on Amazon... 25 Placenta Recipes.

Back in 2009, when I was pregnant with Bekah (baby 6), and was planning a possible unassisted birth (due to anti midwifery laws in KY), I first heard about placentography.  My first thought was what is to be expected.  That it was possibly the grosses thing I'd ever heard of.  However, as time drew closer to her birth, and I did a lot more research into it, I decided to go for it.  I thought she could be my last baby (so wrong with that one), and if I was going to do it, I needed to do it that time.  Only once had I had baby blues (not PPD), and I was more than happy to have something natural to try that might possibly help with that.

I'm sure my husband thought I was crazy.  He still leaves the house when I'm planning to process a placenta.  I also tend to schedule my encapsulation time for when he's going to be gone a few hours, so he's not grossed out. 

I remember the first pill I swallowed.  I looked right at my husband, and said "I'm officially crazy!".  I'm sure he agreed.  I went in a skeptic.  I was just starting to study and understand natural remedies.  I was moving out of the pharmaceutical culture.  This was a HUGE step for me, in more ways than one.

I have now encapsulated 2 of my placentas. I have also made placenta jerky, as well as a tincture. It is amazing the difference I feel when I take a bite of jerky, or a couple pills from the placentas (now located on the top shelf of my freezer).  It has made me a believer, and after researching other ingredients used in widely accepted drugs, has lost it's "ick factor". The great thing is that the placenta ends up looking like any other pill you swallow. 

After all my talking, what are these possible benefits from consuming your placenta? 


Benefits Include:
• Increase general energy
• Allow a quicker return to health after birth
• Increase production of breast milk
• Decrease likelihood of baby blues and post natal depression
• Decrease likelihood of iron deficiency
• Decrease likelihood of insomnia or sleep disorders

"There are a variety of potential benefits to placentography. For one, the placenta contains vitamins and minerals that may help fight depression symptoms, such as vitamin B6. For another, the placenta is considered rich in iron and protein, which would be useful to women recovering from childbirth, and a particular benefit to vegetarian women.
Research on placentography is still in its infancy, although there is a large body of research beginning to develop on postpartum hormone fluctuations and health. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study that focused on CRH (Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone). CRH is a stress reducer, and is generally produced by the hypothalamus. 

During the last trimester of pregnancy, the placenta secretes so much CRH that the levels in the bloodstream increase threefold. However, it was also discovered that postpartum women have lower than average levels of CRH, triggering depressive symptoms.(1) They concluded that the placenta secreted so much CRH that the hypothalamus stopped producing it. Once the placenta was born, it took some time for the hypothalamus to get the signal that the CRH levels were low, and to begin producing it again. This is just another sign that there is likely a biological cause for the baby blues, directly related to hormone levels. 


Interestingly enough, in 1954, researchers conducted a study on 210 women who were expected to have insufficient milk supply. They gave dried placenta to the women, and discovered that 86% of them had a positive increase in their milk production within a matter of days."

http://www.ocdoulas.com/placenta_encapsulation_services.htm
http://placentamom.weebly.com/