The Homebirth of Karlie Joy

It has been just over a week since the birth of our precious Karlie girl. I look back at her birth-day as one of the greatest "joys" I have ever known. I could never imagined that one incredibly hard day would be so worth it!! The whole day was exhilarating! I would like to take credit for how beautiful she is, but when I look at her there is no question that her Creator is our Heavenly Father. All the glory to Him! I have prayed and prayed and done everything I could to have a smooth, successful VBAC for my child, and I feel abundantly blessed!! The whole day was what I hoped for and more.

The night of Aug. 21st Thad and I were watching a movie and I was realizing that some of my contractions were not feeling so braxton hicksy anymore. I had to actually focus on them a little more. I thought that after that movie I better get to bed in case I wake up with actual labor. Well, I really only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Some contractions waking me up, I would time them, and they seemed about 10 minutes apart, but some of them were really not strong at all. Then about 5:30 I decided to just get up because my mind was going all night, thinking this could be the day! I went down and made some toast with peanut butter and went for a walk outside. The sun was coming up and there was a nice cool breeze. I timed my contractions on a my trusty contraction master app on my phone while listening to Hillsong. They were coming every 6 minutes! I decided that it was time to wake Thad up and start making some plans for the day. Then I don't remember much about the next two hours until my doula got there except the visual of the bathroom rug as I was on my hands and knees trying to relieve some back pain. My mother-in-law came to pick up Will, he actually slept in that morning which was really nice. Then about 8:00 my wonderful doula arrived with amazing feeling back pressure and all sorts of different positions to try to get this baby to turn from the posterior position that it so stubbornly layed in for the last couple months. She really kept me moving while Thad prepared the birthing tub. Once the tub was ready...I was in it! It felt amazing!!! While in the tub I labored leaning over the edge on my knees. Jen(my doula) or Thad would press on my back and I would squeeze their hands real tight while taking deep belly breaths. On the exhale I would concentrate on the word "open," so I would in a deep voice say "OOOOhhhh,"and try to relax every muscle in my body while visualizing my cervix actually opening up. My doula had me get out of the tub once to keep me moving with more positions. About this time I lost my mucous plug and about 15 minutes later I was ready to get back in the tub. While being in the tub my contractions went from like 5 minutes apart to 1 minute apart in less than an hour if I remember right. At this point I think I said out loud that I didn't know if I could do this anymore...although I was thinking it the whole time...also that I don't think I will ever do it again. :) Thad called my midwife and she got there about 12:15. She wanted me to get out so she could check me. I did NOT want to get out of the tub again...and the last thing I wanted to do was lay on my back and have her stick her fingers up me. "...and there is no cervix," she said..."You are at a 10, fully dilated." Wow, I remember being really surprised...then again in the last couple of contractions I remember kind of involuntarily pushing. The urge was definitely there. But compared to my first experience, I was expecting another long labor. I got back in the tub for a bit, until my midwife thought that maybe getting on the bed would be a good idea. I did not like this idea, but went with it. She had me lay back into Thad on the bed and at each contraction grab my legs and pull back as hard as I could and push. I was curled so far back on my shoulders it was like I was upside down. This really helped that baby unlodge her head and turn. Thad said he could actually see the baby turn by watching my belly. Then a couple pushes later SHE was born! At 1:59 p.m. on August 22, 2011. She was 6 lbs. 8 oz. and 19 1/2 inches long. The moment she shot out of me (literally), they placed her on my chest. She was pink and beautiful and gooey. I placed my nipple toward her mouth and she went right for it. It was the coolest thing ever. I don't think she actually latched on at this point since I was awkwardly laying down while being stitched up, but she was trying. It was like she knew exactly what to do. I think in all it was about 7 hours of labor and an hour of pushing...oh yeah and my water broke during one of those pushes too, and may have splashed a little on my midwife if I remember right. :) It really was an amazing experience. I was so much more alert. I felt nourished on watermelon and fluids and did not get sick this time. I keep thinking over and over again that I had the best birth team ever, and I believe that I would not have had this HBAC experience without each of them.(including the tub)... :)

Unfortunately the recovery has been harder than expected with a significant tear and the loss of a bit more blood than usual, but I am gradually gaining strength and healing. My biggest concern is figuring out how to deal with two children now. Especially an almost 3 year old who has been acting up with quite the attitude lately. Will loves his baby sister...almost to an overwhelming amount that he can be in her face a little too much. :) I think once I am healed and we can get back to our normal routine and get outside a little more, my hope is that he will return to his normal self. But for now we are cherishing each little squeak and facial expression from this little girl and trying to get lots of rest. Who could look into the eyes of such a miracle and doubt the reality of God? I never could.

Here are a few pictures of the big day...you can also click here for a few more.

the birthing tub all prepared

must have been between contractions

It's a girl! (sorry skipped a lot of "show-to-much" pictures)

happy ending :)

Isn't she adorable!?

meeting big brother

Will REALLY likes his new sister :)

first family pic

We love you Karlie!

Creative Christmas Day 2-Tradition

hats and mittens advent calendar by garnet hill

A native Mexican plant, poinsettias were named after Joel R. Poinsett, U.S. ambassador to Mexico who brought the plant to America in 1828. Poinsettias were likely used by Mexican Franciscans in their 17th century Christmas celebrations. One legend has it that a young Mexican boy, on his way to visit the village Nativity scene, realized he had no gift for the Christ child. He gathered pretty green branches from along the road and brought them to the church. Though the other children mocked him, when the leaves were laid at the manger, a beautiful star-shaped flower appeared on each branch. The bright red petals, often mistaken for flowers, are actually the upper leaves of the plant. Tradition! I love it...Each family and culture has their own traditions each year for celebrating Christmas. I came across this idea of an advent calendar ( I can't remember where I heard of it, but it was not my idea so I can not take the credit). Instead of the traditional advent calendar this one has a little twist. Placed inside each pocket is a piece of paper with something to do that night as a family. I came up with a list of 25 ideas that could be incorporated into the advent calendar, or just used as an individual new tradition. Some of them are probably already traditions in your family, but especially for kids there is so much excitement waking up in themorning to open up the next pocket on the calendar to see how they will be celebrating that evening. 1-put up the Christmas tree and decorate! 2-make ornaments. 3-drink apple cider and listen to Christmas music. 4-play a board game 5-feed the homeless at a local shelter. 6-make festive garland. 7-go ice skating 8-make a table centerpiece 9-make Christmas cards. 10-donate extra clothing to a shelter 11-go caroling. 12-make a button wreath 13-make a pinecone bird feeder. 14-watch a Christmas movie. 15-invite friends over for a holiday dinner 16-make paper snowflakes 17-shop for family angel tree. 18-bake cookies. 19-deliver cookies. 20-look through old holiday photos while sipping hot chocolate. 21-look at Christmas lights. 22-wrap gifts. 23-read the Christmas Story. 24-go to church. 25-go around the table and share why each person in the family is a gift to you. What traditions does your family do to celebrate Christmas?Have a lovely day.

My Inspiration

I found this video on Mothering tonight and was blown away by its beauty! This is my inspiration, along with all the other wonderful homebirth stories I have been reading. But Lindsey and I have something in common. I have experienced a Cesarean (as did she) and I am ready for a VBAC! (I am NOT telling you I am pregnant...sorry) :) I am getting educated and healthy and if anyone has any good reads or advice as far as VBAC or preferably HBAC, please let me know. thanks!...and enjoy the video.

My Journey to a VBAC from Lindsey Meehleis on Vimeo.

He is Cured!

When Will was about 3 months old he started getting horrible rashy red dry skin patches all over his body. It started on his chest and moved to his back and arms and eventually got to his face and legs. His pediatrician kept telling us that it was from his cradle cap falling down and irritating his skin...well that seemed a little sketchy because we had the dry scalp under control and it really was not all that bad and eventually went away after a month or so. We tried everything we could think of to help his skin. It was diagnosed as atopic dermatitis (eczema) which is pretty common, but my father has had it very severely his whole life. We took Will to a dermatologist after trying everything we could possibly think of including every home remedy and lotion and detergent and what not. The dermatologist told me that he will have it off and on his whole life and there is nothing we can really do about it. Ahh! I was hesitant to go to this doctor in the first place thinking he would tell me something like that, but I knew that was not true and I was determined to find out what else we could do. My poor baby was itching himself like crazy all the time and I had to consistently have his body clothed so he wouldn't scratch himself up. He had lots of gashes from scratching and was constantly irritated unless I kept him busy. Here are a couple pictures to show you how bad it actually got.

 

In the mean time Will was getting weekly adjustments at the chiropractor and that seemed to be the only thing that would help relieve a little bit of irritation...and it helped immediately! But then after a few days it would come back get really irritated again. I was done with doctors appointments all the time trying to figure this out and did not want to put him on steroids to make it look better but not fix the cause. So for a long time we just kept getting him adjusted and it was the best thing that helped...until my chiropractor suggested that since Will is exclusively breastfed for me to stop eating dairy. So for 6 weeks straight I had nothing made with milk or dairy and his skin completely cleared up! We were totally amazed! It just took a few weeks to get out of my system, and when it did Will had beautiful healthy skin! I could hardly believe it. So just to test it out I gradually brought back dairy for a week and he flared up again. So we know for a fact what the cause is and I went off dairy completely. It is amazing how many foods are made with milk! That also means no ice cream! no cheese! no pizza! no yogurt! ahhh!...oh the things we do for the ones we love. :) It took 5 whole months to figure out what the cause was, but he has now been totally cleared up for almost 2 months! yay! So as long as I am breastfeeding I will not be eating dairy. It is a hard change considering how many calories I usually get from dairy products everyday. I have learned to like almond milk and soy products. It is definitely not the same, but worth it for a healthy babe. 

...and we are back!

Well, we have been back for a few days now, but we have been getting settled and ran into some fridge problems...yes, when we got home our kitchen smelled like EWW! Our fridge broke when we were gone for a week and all our food was rotten when we got home!! EWW! So unfortunately we had to throw all our food away and thanks to our landlord we got a new one! It looks pretty much the same as the old one, but its always fun to get a new appliance, and then I got to organize all our new food in our new fridge! yay! yes... I am kind of a dork, but I love doing stuff like that. :)...anyways, besides our fridge troubles we had a wonderful vacation!

We started our trip in Des Moines spending some time with each family. We got to see some old friends, and I also had a booth at the art market downtown. There was so much going on downtown that weekend, so we thought that could be either be good or bad for the art market and unfortunately it was not very busy. In fact there were times when no one was there at all! But the good thing was that the people that came were buying stuff, so I was able to make a little money, but not as much if it were busy. I met lots of local artist and exchanged cards with them. My mom came out and helped and it was a good time. Here is a picture of what my booth looked like...I might be doing the art market again in august and september so stay posted for info on that in the next couple of months.

After spending 6 wonderful days in Des Moines we headed down to Kansas City to visit my grandparents who have been looking forward to seeing us ever since we said we were coming; planning our meals (that's what italians do best.) My sister and her husband Josh met us down there, so it was so nice to see them as well. She has the cutest little pregnant belly! I miss you sis! We ate lots of good food and had good conversation...and Will actually started eating whole cheerios! The first time he got excited to eat any sort of food!...one after another he kept wanting more. It was so cute to watch. :)...but he wants nothing to do with any other foods. We are just taking it slow.

For the 3rd and 4th of July Thad, Will, and I headed over to St. Louis on our way home back up the river. They are hosting the All-Star baseball game next weekend so there was so much going on downtown St. Louis. We had a blast walking around and just watching all the people. We went to a free Counting Crows concert under the Gateway Arch, shopped at "the loop" and had fresh root beer at Fitz's on the 3rd. The next morning (4th) we took Will swimming for the first time in our hotel pool. It was freezing!!!...so I don't think he really liked it very much. We will take him sometime this next week again. Then we visited the St. Louis Zoo and toured the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. We had lots of fun but we were super tired on the way home that night. We missed the fireworks, but we saw lots of small town fireworks on our drive back to the Quad Cities. So all in all we had a great trip!...but it is always nice to get home. Click here to see our pictures from St. Louis...and yes I got excited with almost all the animals we saw at the zoo and took too many pictures so i only included a few. They do not look as neat in the pictures. Hope you all had a wonderful forth of July as well. :)

eat rhubarb

Last night my fantastic neighbor introduced herself to Thad as he was grilling out back. She is pretty old and must have not remembered meeting us before, but since she thought we just moved in (we moved last July), she brought over some homemade rhubarb cherry jam. Yummy!! She is super sweet and thoughtful. She also mentioned that she has tons of rhubarb growing in her backyard and we can go and pick our own anytime we want. I was super excited about this and also realized that I have never picked my own rhubarb. I think the only time I have ever tasted rhubarb is my grandmothers rhubarb sauce back in the day, or strawberry/rhubarb pie from Perkins. Oh, I can not wait for the day I can experience my own garden. :)

I came across a website a while back that tells you what produce is in season each month and gives you recipes to choose from with that food in it. Eat the Seasons. -go check it out! It has been very helpful to look at before I go to the store. Why should we eat what is more local and in season?...well it's always good to support our local economy, but it also tastes better, fresher, and is more nutritious. Specifically rhubarb is in season april through july and here is some fun info I found coming pretty much straight from Nick, an editor from the website...kind of fun to know the facts. :)

"The outlandishly colored vegetable that thinks it's a fruit. Rhubarb makes deliciously comforting puddings but its sharpness works extremely well with meat and oily fish dishes (the duck recipe below is a resounding success).Forced rhubarb (grown in the dark) has yellowish leaves. The field-grown variety has greener leaves and is less tender but often more flavorful.HISTORYRhubarb was used as a medicine in ancient China. It was brought to Europe by Marco Polo and has been eaten as a food since the eighteenth century.BIOLOGYRhubarb is a member of the family Polygonaceae and is related to sorrel. It grows best in cool climates and the effect of forcing was discovered by accident at the Chelsea Physic Garden early in the 19th century.NUTRITIONRhubarb is a good source of fiber and contains moderate levels of vitamin C and calcium. Studies have linked the fiber from rhubarb in the diet with reduced cholesterol levels.TIPSBUYING:Choose crisp, firm, plump stalks with good color.STORING:Kept in the fridge, fresh rhubarb will stay in reasonable condition for 1-2 weeks. Raw and cooked rhubarb freeze well.PREPARING:Wash and trim both ends of the stalks, and discard the poisonous leaves. Rhubarb, in particular the later field-grown variety, is very tart and requires considerable sweetening. As with other relatively acidic foods it is recommended that it is not cooked using aluminum pots."

Local Harvest is a great website that helps you search for local produce in season...or click here for another site and information about farmers markets near you. Hope you all had a super weekend...now I must go enjoy some toast with rhubarb/cherry jam. :)

April 22-Heart the Earth Day...

Tomorrow is April 22nd...Earth Day! Yay! What a perfect time of year for this. Plants are growing, lots of spring cleaning happening, and everyone is much more motivated this time of year. Everyone has a right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment. That is why I think this day is so important. Having a day dedicated to this helps people to become more aware with information, new ideas and how to make more informed decisions. For those that want to be more "green" or so they call it; just knowing what is helpful and what is harmful toward the environment is key. Even just doing little things like driving less, taking shorter showers, or avoiding access packaging in the things we buy. I remember learning in school as a kid that even the simple act of turning off the lights when leaving the room can be a huge help...so I always did from that day and it is now a habit.

Being "green" has become such a trend these days. That can be a wonderful thing so that it helps more people to be aware, but unfortunately because of it's popularity there are so many "green" products or eco-friendly gear. Most of these things are great!..although it can give you the gimmies. There comes a time when we have to choose whether we are still helping the environment or are we harming it with too much consumerism. There is nothing wrong with buying a fun fashionable reusable grocery bag, or an organic t-shirt. But when we already have 12 of them and we are buying because everyone else is, then it may be a problem. So I encourage you with earth day coming up tomorrow to rethink about what you have, what you want, and what you probably don't need. I know I will be thinking about this. I am also hesitant bringing up this topic because I do not want to sound hypocritical..being American, or even just being human makes it hard to not want when I do not need, but I do know that I can try by simply being more aware of the things I buy and why I buy them. Here is an article on consumerism in America.(just the top part of the page)... it is very blunt, but will make you really think. After reading this I wondered if what people call the "American Dream" is even acheivable anymore? Interesting article.

So in summary one of the easiest ways and best ways to "go green" is to stop consuming so much stuff!...not to say that it is bad to shop because I love shopping, but to be more happy and resourceful with what you have. Below are some other great new links that I came across.

-check here for ways to recycle just about anything.

-check out an old post of mine here on how to make your own household cleaners.

-click here for guide to think more eco in just about any situation; at home, work,weddings, holidays, dorm rooms, cars, food, beauty, gift guides, and lots more.

-borrow or buy used; go to libraries, consider craigslist or freecycle.

-...and of course I talked about consuming too much in our country, but if it would truly help you waste less think about getting your own bags for grocery shopping. I have made one that is for sale in my etsy shop with the hope to make lots more. I have really got into hand embroidery so there will be lots more of that coming soon as well. Check it out here.

Have a splendid day!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Amy at Park City Girl is hosting a Blogger's Quilt Festival  running through next week.  There will be lots of giveaways, quilting and crafting. Each person joining has to post about their favorite quilt and the story behind it...so I chose this quilt below that you all have seen before. I have only made a few quilts, but this one is by far my favorite! I love waking up to the beautiful Amy Butler prints every morning. My mom got me the strips for Christmas one year and over the holiday break my sister, mom and I went to a small quilting retreat center where we quilted all day and night and then slept there. It was so much fun, and I was able to finish piecing the quilt together in that 24 hour time! The pictures are not very bright..but I added one with little Will in there...he looks so little in that picture. :) So go check out the festival over at Amy's blog, there are so many fun quilts to look at. Happy Quilting week!

Gratitude Week-Day 1 "Watermelon Stories"

One summer in college a good friend and I spent most of our time trying to figure out how to make enough money to live. Ha, sounds funny...but it is really hard when you don't have a car to get you to a job that pays well. We rode our bikes everywhere. Which looking back on now I loved that we did that, and I kind of miss it. I worked so many random jobs because it was hard to find anything close enough that was full-time, or that paid enough money for rent and food etc. No worries...I did have parents that would never let me go homeless, but I tried to do what I could. It was my responsibility. . I worked at Jimmy Johns because it was two blocks from our house, I also worked for the phonebank at the university (that was no fun trying to get money from people, I will never do that again!), and also did catering since we lived so close to campus. There were also a few other random jobs here and there that we did to get some extra money...but anyways...one day we decided we really wanted some watermelon....

 It was a hot July afternoon and we lived only a bike ride away from the grocery store. I remembered seeing the day before that for half a watermelon it was only like a $1.47 or something like that. So we gathered our change, and came up with exactly what we needed. I put on my backpack so we had some way of biking home with the huge melon and on our way we went. Well, we got there, picked out our melon and went to check out. What was I thinking? $1.47 per pound! Duh! We were both so embarrased and had to explain that we did not have enough money...until the man behind us said "I got it." He bought our watermelon for us! It was only like 3 bucks or so, but I remember that story to this day because we were determined to eat watermelon on that hot day. We biked all the way there just for that refreshing taste. We were so excited that we had just enough money, and we got shot down, until this man came in and did that simple kind deed that he did not have to do. He just told us to pass it on to someone someday. That was such a neat experience. He saw us put that melon in our backpack and bike home. I think it made him feel good too because he obviously knew that we were low on money and that made our day. We were sooo thankful. I will never forget that story and it was such a simple thing he did. What kind of stories do you have that made you feel thankful?...or maybe you were the man who bought the watermelon.