Drum Roll Please...

Okay, I cheated got smart and decided on a large cake instead of fifty individually decorated cup cakes. I have to thank Gabriela for the design that I recreated on the fondant and I have to thank her and Benjamin for their patient coaching of how to draw a music note correctly. You know those pesky things are not as easy as they look! I am fairly pleased how it turned out and need to thank those who prayed for me as I wrestled with a 4 yr old, 6 yr old and an 8 yr old who all wanted to help direct the decorating and test taste everything in sight.

So do I owe everyone a BIG thank you or what?

(There is one glaring error that only a music student would notice, and Benjamin tried to tell me... but I told him to be quiet - I' was concentrating....')

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Has it really been almost a week??

I have not posted since Monday - most of you must not feel like checking this blog out much. The problem is that I am trying to keep several blogs going and most of this week I really felt awful and I hate to do nothing but blog about how miserable I feel. Great encouragement o have a large family, eh?

But here is the positive side of it, while I am only managing to keep it together in the morning and by 2 or 3 pm have to crawl into my bed to rest and nurse my aching body, be it joints or ligaments or my back or worse all three, my older kids really help keep it going.

Is it always as I would like it? Nope - but things keep going. My 13 year old son the last two weeks has typically come in to my room in the morning to find out what is for breakfast and then has organized it. My other kids each take a turn making supper and they all pretty much know the afternoon drill for afternoon chores. Yes, a few forget now and then, one of them regularly forgets to clean the upstairs bathroom but a gentle reminder and it gets done.

So while the physical part of being pregnant at 46 with my 13th is really, really, really hard - it is doable because all of the kids pitch in and they are each and every one of them excited about a new baby.

I too am excited and even after 12 previous successful pregnancies, I am still enthralled with the feeling of a little life tumbling and stretching within. It hurts more this time around, than in the past. But I am still in awe of it and am often distracted from what I am doing to stop and watch my tummy rumble and roll. The kids can now see their siblings gymnastic feats from across the room and are thrilled by it.

But I do worry - will the baby be healthy? With Gracie's passing, I have worried a lot. This family did not catch anything on the ultrasound in regards to her condition. So it weighs on my mind at times. I worry - will I go into labour by myself? I would like to ask for prayers for that as most of my later babies have been induced - mostly due to my back problems leaving me almost incapacitated. So I worry maybe my body will not do this alone and since I am using a midwife this time - there is no induction with drugs or otherwise lying in wait.

The last baby was delivered by c-section and the first 24 hours was a nightmare with the staff almost rupturing my bladder through lack of proper care, amongst other difficulties. The memories are still difficult. So prayers are begged for!

There is more I can write about but it is late and I better get to bed!



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The elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room is a comment we are hearing often in the media and then they are usually referring to the economy. However in my case I am referring to my pregnancy. I say this because either 1) I feel like the elephant in the room - as I clamber across a room up up the stairs - very focused on not losing my balance - something I am very prone to these days.
And then there is 2) I am trying to ignore the elephant in the room - which is the third trimester looming ahead of me like a huge cavern filled with pits and snakes and I have to navigate it - in the dark.

I am already so uncomfortable that I am flinching daily, sometimes hourly, at the idea of another 86 days till I can start counting the days I am overdue. I have almost always gone early or on time but this time I am expecting to go over as I have typically been induced - either because I was having contractions to no end - with no progress so at about 38+ weeks - the doctor would heed my pleading and the water would be broken with a baby in about 8 - 10 hours. This time, however, we have chosen a midwife for our care and delivery and there will be no breaking of water at 38+ weeks unless there is great medical necessity of it. The certainly of this is like the that of the stone the ten commandments were etched in. Even after Moses hurled it in anger and broke it - it was still stone.

So the tiny flickering light that I am using to get through this yawning cavern of discomfort, and yes even of fear, is focusing on today. Just getting through today as tomorrow might be different. Tomorrow I might have more energy and perhaps less pain. Or it might be worse. But today is all I have and I cannot know what tomorrow brings and no amount of worry will change it. Prayer will help, but worry and fretting will not.
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S I G H

I feel miserable - absolutely miserable and completely sorry for myself. What the heck will I be feeling in 12 more weeks! Better not to think about it.


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Totally Cool Experience!

This is my13th pregnancy to progress this far along. Incredibly we are just on the heels of the third trimester. (Only today I called it the third semester! School must be on my mind.) It seems that no matter how many times you are pregnant it is never humdrum. I have been dreading the idea of this baby following in her youngest elder sister's footsteps and transverse baby necessitating a repeat c-section. As I still resent my last one and the terrible after care I received - the very idea of another almost puts me in tears. The past few weeks have been rather difficult for me as I felt as though being so close to the last trimester - I really should be bigger. Mind I looked large, but I felt very small. I felt a lot of space below my ribs and it was very easy to bend over as well as to breath. I was so worried that my baby was not growing at the right rate.

It never occurred to me that it might be her position that was allowing all of this extra room. Not even when I began to suspect another transverse lie did it dawn on me this could be the reason I would have so much space below my ribs as Elsa, you see, turned transverse late in the pregnancy. So she had already been making me uncomfortable with that huge hippopotamus feeling you get as you close in on the last few months. I only began to suspect a transverse lie when I realized how consistently the baby's movements were only being felt on the lower sides of my stomach. Not once had I felt a single punch or kick below the ribs. It was all side to side. So in addition to my worries of the idea that perhaps the baby was not growing, I now had the added worry that she was preparing to be a transverse lie baby.

However, this afternoon I had the most incredible experience. Unlike Nathaniel who, at about eight months, decided to go from head up to bottoms up causing so me so much pain I thought I was in labour - this was a very gentle experience.

So today, after a busy day at co-op and some writing on the computer, I needed to lie down for a spell. While lying on my left side I felt some gentle kicks on my lower right side. I drifted off only to be awakened again by more gentle kicks - a little higher now. I thought 'huh her stretch is getting longer'. Once more I drifted off only to be awakened again by more taping - this time while still on my right it was much higher than I had ever felt her move. Sleepily I wondered if maybe she was correcting her position and then I lazily fell back asleep. At last I was awakened by some thumps just where I should feel them - under my breast bone.

Even though I had at one point wondered if she were flipping into the bottoms up position it had not really sunk in, and when I got up from my rest I wondered why suddenly was I grunting so much when I bent over. Why, bending over this morning to pick bits of this and that off the floor had been dead easy. In fact, just before lying down I had done a quick cleaning of my bed room floor, bending with ease - comparatively speaking of course.

Still rather dense, I sat at my computer to do a little more writing on my latest book review and, wonderingly, huffed and puffed when I bent to pick up a dropped pencil off the floor. It was only as we were quickly getting the younger kids ready to join us in a quick run to Salisbury - did it dawn on my that my tummy was firm - just under my ribs. That empty space had been filled up and my stomach had a more narrow look to it. So this little one of mine and all of her 11 inches and 1.5 lbs is no longer stretching from side to side but is now up and down. The question is - which direction is her head in? But no matter - that is a little problem my chiropractor and I can handle with a small instrument called an activator. Just ask Nathaniel - he can tell you how Dr. John and I convinced him to turn bottoms up. That little popping sound of the activator was just so annoying!


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Oh me oh my....,

I am not posting as often as I would like - WHY? I think largely because I am experiencing that 'pregnant stupidness' I have heard other women talk about. I do not feel very inspired or smart or able to easily convey what I am thinking...

I am tired. I am tired of a lot of things.

I am tired of the back support I am wearing - even though it really does make a difference.
I am tired of it chaffing my sides and wearing on moles that happen to be exactly where the support chaffs.
I am tired of not having hot water.
I am tired of worrying every time it rains that the basement will flood especially when we just paid a contractor to come in a light the pilot lights - only to learn he could only get the furnace lit - which is not yet needed... But the hot water tank - needs first aid from a plumber and will not light.

I am tired of worrying.

Worrying about children and their lack of progress in certain areas and wondering how to help them do better and meet their goals.
Worrying about the tree from which HUGE limbs broke off without an apparent reason and is hanging over my bedroom ceiling... and could lose those limbs at anytime....
Worrying about money and how quickly our retirement fund is disappearing as Hugo studies and works towards his Certification in hopes htat this will help get back into the job market.
Worrying that maybe the certification won't make a difference at all
Worrying I was gaining too much weight because I was stressed and eating lots of chocolate.
Worrying because in reality I only gained .5 lbs last month (because I ate less junk food and more healthy food) that maybe that meant that the baby is not growing as she should.
Worrying about the electricity in this house and how the fuses blow often and sometimes without an apparent reason.
Worrying that I worry too much.

Do you see a pattern here?

I think I need a cup of tea and a little less worry. What do you think?



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Too funny not to share

Given that this blog is, for now, all about babies I thought you would enjoy this funny story that was sent to me tonight. Thank you Pat.

The Middle Wife

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday.'

'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. 'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

'My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

'And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!' (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, so there must be a lot of toys inside there.'

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along.

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