Nesting?

So we have been busy!  So many things we want/need to do before the baby comes, we've been packing them in as much as possible lately.  I am finally starting to feel like the end is in sight and we will get everything done.  Hopefully in the next week, and then we can just sit back, relax, and wait for the baby.....as long as the baby decides to wait that long!  I am really looking forward to just having some time to think and reflect and prepare mentally for this baby.  I don't feel like I've really had a chance to do that yet.  I keep seeing mom's with new babies and I tell myself, I will have one of those any day now...its just now starting to sink in.  I have less than 3 weeks to the due date, 18 days to be exact.  But I keep worrying that the baby will come early, since Elaine was 10 days early.  Ideally I think I do want the baby to be early, in August would be nice, but I don't want him/her to come before that last week in August.  I really want to get to a point like I feel the house, our plans/schedules, and we are mentally ready for this baby.  And that can't happen until my list is complete!

The first major item we tackled was painting.  When we moved into our condo a year ago, all the walls were new construction white.  We've discussed colors ever since then, but up until a week or so ago, the only room that had been painted was our bedroom.  We decided if we were going to get it done, we just had to "bust it out".  So we sat down 2 weeks ago, picked out the colors, bought the paint and went to work.  We did it all ourselves and most of the credit goes to Andy.  I helped in the prep work and did a little rolling, but really almost all of it was done by him and one room while he had a really bad head cold!  What a man!  But now the kitchen, dining room, and living room are in color so to speak and its really nice!  Its amazing how much of a difference color can make.  See for yourself.

We also decided to make one last trip downtown before the baby last weekend.  Cedarville had an alumni event on a ship that goes out on Lake Michigan from Navy Pier.  So we rode the train downtown, took a free trolley to Navy Pier, and then went for a boat ride.  Lots of modes of transportation used that day, with none involving a car!  We tried to take it easy, not sure how much walking I'd be up for being 9 months pregnant, but it actually turned out really well.  The weather was perfect for being outside, not too hot at all for August.  And after the boat, we had dinner at a favorite restaurant we hadn't been to in years.  Then we took our time has we headed back to the station to catch our train and stopped for dessert and coffee on the way.

This Saturday we did some shopping to get all the needed items for homebirth.  Just some towels for delivery, items to waterproof the mattress and the floors of our room.  We also bought 2 little blue outfits incase baby is a boy, since I already have plenty of pink.  If we don't need the blue I can just return them.  I don't think I'll wash them until I know I need them, since the doctors are big on you having skin to skin contact with the baby the first few hours/ days anyway.  Now we just need to set up the co-bed and I need to do some organizing in Elaine's room (soon to be the kid's room!) to make room for all the baby stuff.  I also bought a box of Newborn diapers and was amazed at how small they are!  And it hurt to plunk down all that cash and realized I was going to be buying those things again for another 2 years!

Updates

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks without the use of a diaper!!  I think we have rounded the bend and Elaine is officially a big girl!  We had a couple of random accidents a few days ago that are unexplainable in my mind.  I now know how to clean a matress.....Elaine decided to go in our bed one morning while standing above her daddy's head!!  I'm glad it was him and not me. :)  But it doesn't sound like a fun way to wake up!  Other than that, she's done really well and I am enjoying this new phase.  I'll enjoy a diaperless home for the next 2 months while I can!

We even took a trip downtown this Monday with some friends to the zoo.  Lincoln Park Zoo in downtown Chicago is one of the last free zoos in the nation.  God even blessed us with free parking along the street!  The zoo is pretty nice and quite managable in one day.  I think we like it even better than Brookfield, which is the other main zoo in the Chicagoland area.

Here is a picture of me at 30 weeks.  Tomorrow I start week 32.  I know these last few weeks are going to fly!  We still haven't really done anything to prepare for this baby!  We haven't even made it through the list of girls names yet, let alone started on boys.  Yesterday Andy informed me (half jokingly) that from now on he's going to refer to the baby as 'herm'.  'Herm' being a combination of him and her since we don't know the gender.  I don't think I like it....

I also wanted to update you all on the status of my body pillow purchase a few months back.  I still am not getting uninterrupted, blissful sleep each night.  But I think that is because I just really enjoy sleeping on my back.  However, this pillow has been a huge help!  So I have deemed it worth the expense.  I also broke out all my old 4-H sewing skills as well as the sewing machine my grandmother gave me as a wedding present (still in the box after 5 years) and made a gi-normous pillow case for it.  I didn't have a pattern, but just kind of worked it out as I went.  I must say, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  I owe all my skills to my wonderful mother who taught me everything I know!                                                                          

                      Before                                                    After

Potty Training

Dare I say it? .....Elaine is potty trained!?!?  Did I just jinx myself?  Up until last friday we had been real casual with the potty training thing.  Let her sit on a potty when she wanted to or before a bath, but always keeping her in a diaper.  She had been showing over the past 2 months an increased interest in going to the bathroom and letting us know when her diaper was wet.  Some friends recommened Toliet Training in Less Than a Day to us, so I checked it out from the liabrary.  It basically advocates a very intensive, yet brief and encouraging method of training.  After reading it, I was skeptical that it would work so quickly, but I decided to give it a try.  I didn't follow it legalistically, but I set out to do as much of it as possible so that I could say I at least tried my best if it didn't work.

Friday was the big day of training.  After breakfast, Andy left for work and it was just Elaine and I to spend the day focusing on the potty.  I put her in underpants and we set out training.  The first step is to have her help me train a dollie to use the potty.  We worked with the dollie and let her see what to do when you need to tinkle and what happens when you have an accident (dollie had to practice 10 times going to the potty quickly from different areas in the house, clean up her accident, and then change her wet pants).  I think the dollie was a big help.  Next it was Elaine's turn.

She actually did really well, but don't read that like we didn't have our struggles and it wasn't hard work.  There were no big accidents, just little ones where she'd start to wet, realize it, and then head to the bathroom to finish up.  To my amazment, she even stayed dry through her nap.  But let me tell you there were times I wanted to give up and just slap a diaper on her.  It just would have been easier.  I really had to commit to devote my day to potty training.  Friday night I decided to just put her to bed in her underpants and she what happened.  I fully expected to wake in the middle of the night and have to change a 2 year-old and her bedding.  But when she awoke Saturday morning, she was just a little wet. 

Saturday went even better.  We only had 2 minor accidents in the morning.  I needed to run to Wal-Mart for a few things, so I decided to give it a try.  It wasn't exactly easy/fun (we made 3 separate 'false alarm' trips to the restroom), but we made it home dry!  That afternoon we had a graduation party to go to, so out we went again and she did fabulous!  No accidents the rest of the day and made it through the night dry!

I decided to bring her to church today in underwear, not sure how'd she do without Andy or I around, but all went well.  We've had an accident free day and she even had her first BM on the potty.  That still requires a little extra coaching, but I think it will come around.  I am not ready to pronounce her officially trained.  I'll give it a few more days and she how it goes, but she hasn't worn a diaper since Thursday!  It was a lot of work and it wasn't fun for me, although I think Elaine enjoyed the process.  The book emphasizes that it should be enjoyable and rewarding for the child.  But I think most of the hard work is over.  It is my goal to have her be self-sufficent by the end of the week.  Meaning she's able to go unprompted by me and do it all by herself without any assistance.  We'll see how it goes.  It could all change....I'll let you know.

Since I haven't posted pictures in awhile, here's one of Elaine and I at her swimming lessons 2 weeks ago.

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last posted and I am even more amazed that June will shortly be over!!  These past 2 months have FLOWN by and life has been busy!  We've officially transitioned to the summer schedule at church, which means that some ministries have stopped for the summer and the schedule has been rearranged a little bit.  Its nice to switch it up and have a few more evenings free. 

God started working in my heart this spring to lead a women's study over the summer.  Our women's group usually breaks for the summer but I was feeling a desire to keep it up if there were other interested women.  I also knew it would be good for me to get some experience leading a study (I never have before) and the summer seemed like the perfect time.  It would be more casual and laid back b/c it was summer, plus it is before the baby comes.  I know that life is going to be too crazy after the baby for a little while to try to take on that responsibility.  Anyway, the response from ladies was good and we are having the study.  This Wednesday morning was our second meeting.  It has already been such an encouragement to me and it has been awesome to see God work and guide my lesson preparation.  If God calls you, He will equip you.  I can testify to that.

On the baby front things are going well.  We are finally starting to discuss names, but the process is long!  And its going to be harder this time around because we don't know if baby is a boy or girl!  We had an ultrasound in May, but they weren't able to tell because the baby was turned and kinda had his/her legs crossed.  The practice doesn't do ultrasounds unless they are medically necessary (even the first one was per our request so we could determine the gender), so hopefully we won't be needing another one before the baby comes.  We just finished up a 3 week class with a Homefirst delivery nurse on labor, delivery and post partum care.  It was a good refresher and it was very helpful in understanding more of what to expect in a home delivery.  Its going to be different, but I'm actually really excited about it.  Believe it or not, I'm looking forward to the experience!!

Currently Watching The Business of Being Born By Ricki Lake, Dr. Michel Odent, Abby Epstein, Cara Muhlhahn, Dr. Marsden Wagner see related

Having Babies Part II - Homebirth....what??

So I set out on my quest to find a new practitioner that would be more supportive of my desire to have a natural birth experience and take an interest in me as a person.  My mother recommended I try to find a midwife, as that was who she used for at least my littlest sister.  Maybe I'm spoiled, but I don't want to drive more than 30 minutes to go to my doctor, so that left me with 1 midwife option in my area.  I was shocked that in such a metro area, I couldn't find more.  Perhaps there are more out there, in fact, I'm convinced there are....I just wasn't able to run across them. 

Then a friend at church was telling me about a practice one of her nurse friends works for.  She is a midwife and the practice really believes in natural childbirth.  In fact, many of the practitioners are Christians and even will spend time praying with you!  Sounded great!  But the only catch was, they only do homebirths, so I'd have to be willing to go for that.  Homebirth!?  Wait a second, I thought.  I'm not a hippy.  I had a friend who had a homebirth with her first child, born about the same time as Elaine.  At the time I thought hers was a weird choice, but if its what she wanted, she's free to make those choices.  Homebirth just wasn't for me!

But I thought about it some more and decided it wouldn't hurt to get some more information.  Sure I wasn't going to go through with it, but I should at least be educated about what I am rejecting here.  So I went home and told Andy about it.  His reaction was the same as mine.  Homebirth?  No.  I don't want to have a baby in our house!  But he also agreed that it wouldn't hurt to have an initial consultation with the doctor.  I set up the appointment and a few weeks later, there Andy, Elaine and I were, outside his office ready for our informational visit.  We sat in the car thinking, "We're not really considering homebirth."  But we prayed before we went in, asking God to give us wisdom and to help us make the right choice.

It turns out we'd been connected with Homefirst, the largest homebirth practice in the nation.  This practice specializes in homebirths that are performed by doctors, not midwifes.  A team comprised of a doctor, a nurse and (if desired) a doula, will come to your home for labor and delivery.  We met the doctor and he spent 1 hour sitting and talking with us…getting to know us as people and what we were looking for and explaining his practice and thoughts on childbirth.  It was such a contrast from my 2 minute appointments at our previous practice.

It turns out he is a believer as well, so we also felt an instant bond with him because of that.  He was able to answer a lot of our questions on homebirth and provide us with lots of information about the process so we could make an informed decision.  Information like:

• the cesarean rate in area hospitals is as high as 30 - 40%
• for 90% of women, it is just as safe (if not safer) to have a baby at home
• for those 10% not included above, it is due to high risk factors in their pregnancy which would cause them not to qualify for homebirth in the first place
• America has the second worst infant death rate among developed countries
• in Europe and other developed countries midwifes attend 70 - 80% of all births
• the Homefirst practice will arrive at your home with all the necessary medical and equipment and medications needed for a safe delivery for mom and baby
• should complications arise that would require a hospital, they are prepared for immediate transport
• less than 1 % of all second births require transport to the hospital

We (surprisingly to both of us) left the doctor's office that day seriously considering homebirth!  I was still curious just what a homebirth would "look" like.  The doctor recommended that we rent the new documentary, The Business of Being Born.  I found the film VERY interesting and would recommend it to anyone who will ever give birth to another child.  It provided a lot of information on the state of giving birth in America and what alternatives there are to the way it is currently practiced.  It also gave me a good feel on what homebirths "looked" like.  I will warn you that there are a lot of naked women giving birth shown in the film, so be prepared for some pregnant nudity.

Regardless, the encounter with the doctor at Homefirst and the movie opened our eyes to the fact that the "American" birthing process is not the only way.  Prior to this, I had assumed all developed country's practices were similar to ours and if they weren't, surely ours was better.  That however, proves not to be the case when it comes to labor and delivery.

So, after much prayer and consideration, we are opting for a homebirth.  Crazy, I know!  At least that's what I would have said if you told us that is what we'd be doing just 2 months ago.  But maybe we're not the crazy ones after all?  I'm sure many of you will have questions and want to discuss this more.  I'd love to!  I may not have all the answers or I may be asking or have asked some of the same questions you have.  I just want to make an educated decision about what is best for me and my baby.  I don't want to and can't make that decision for others.  And I know that what's best for us, is not necessarily best for the next woman, but I just desire to see all women have the resources to make an informed decision.  I hope that by me sharing my experience, it will bring more information to the table.

A helpful link to more information on homebirth.

A link to an article about Homefirst.