Sunday, December 7, 2008

Waiting for Eliza

So, in the midst of all these animals...

Survivor with his two quiet friends.
Just a few more days and hopefully he'll have some new friends.

Sugar Brown and Stormy with the girls on a beautiful winter day!


and the holiday season busyness...

Here's the kids' tree, set up in the school room.


...we're still expecting a baby.

All I told Josiah was to make sure you could see all my belly. I guess I should have mentioned to get my head in there, too!


Pregnancy wise, I'm doing well, anxious, of course, to meet this little one. If anyone ever doubted that there could be equal amounts of enthusiasm for subsequent children, once they've had their first, well, let me tell you... it actually seems to grow. Not only am I excited to meet Eliza, I'm excited to see her with each of her siblings. Since I have a few kids now, I'm fully aware of how different each child is. Who will Eliza be? Her entrance will add new dimensions to us. She will change our family. Wow!

Visiting the huge, decorated Willamette University trees.

It seems odd that at this late in the game I've been receiving a lot of questions over our choice to have this baby at home. I'm not the best at debating or convincing people - not that others need to be convinced about my choices but I guess that's a whole other conversation!! Anyway, I came across a posting on another blog that hit the nail on the head of what I've been dealing with in regard to other people and their fears or opinions. I can't wait to tell you about my experience in hindsight but for right now I'm just full of great expectation and peace.

The other night I had 3 hours of contractions and thought, "This could be it." It was so nice to distract myself with dishes and laundry and to just be myself through it all. This of course was only a taste of what is coming but I love how empowered I feel.

The practice labor was also enough to prompt Andrew to test run the birthing tub... without water of course but we needed to see how it would fit in the room.



Men really have no clue about labor.

I don't think many "homebirthers" share about their choice because of the automatic negative/shocked response that you get so frequently. The sad thing is, I'm sure I did the same thing. (Ditto on the cloth diapers... yes, we're doing that, too! It seems so much easier these days.)


As I've asked around I've been able to hear some wonderful homebirth stories and I've also seen such a difference in the experiences I had in my hospital deliveries and the ones I
found looking online at homebirthing videos and blogs. Gentle, peaceful, loving... No nurses manhandling the little ones, moving them around like little inconvenient footballs. And, rather than being checked every hour or so during labor, my midwife and assistant will be with me the whole time, constantly monitoring the baby and I. I feel very good about that.

Well, anyway, there are some of my thoughts going into
this. Hopefully it will be soon when I can tell more about it.

5 comments:

SLMW8MAN said...

I am also excited to see the newest Nordstrom girl. Eliza, what a beautiful name.
I am a bit worried for you to have her at home. I want drugs.
I am counting the days with you.

Rooted Renaissance Girl said...

The original post didn't print the font big enough at the bottom for you to see my "birthing at home" thoughts. :) It's fixed now.

Rooted Renaissance Girl said...

I should add to this post that I do have a high regard and appreciation for the nurses that attended to me during my labors and deliveries. I doubt they'll ever hear of my comments here but I do think they are over worked and therefore often on automatic pilot. The things I would have changed I never had the understanding or courage to address. Who knows they may have been very supportive. With what I know now, if I ended up in the hospital again, I would request, and demand even, some changes to the status quo - even little things like the rough handling all my kids got after they were born.

Also, for those of you worried about emergencies, we're 30 minutes from the hospital if we had to take a longer alternate route and we faced traffic (so that's the worst case scenerio). Realistically we could get there in 15-20 minutes, we'd have called ahead to make sure they were preparing for us. The emergency turn around time would be very comparable to that of the time it would take them to prepare for me even if I was in the hospital. Anyway,just some more thoughts.

SLMW8MAN said...

I tagged you in my blog. You have to go read it to find out.

The Mussertons said...

I am getting so excited to hear Eliza's birth story and your experience with a home birth. A couple of my friends are also planning one. If you have any questions about cloth diapering, let me know. We CD'd Addy from birth to potty training. We will be CD the new LO as well. Good luck with it, it is a great choice. :)