Nov
07
2011I’m so much better with intense experiences that have a finite end. (unmedicated labor and birth for example)
I lose faith when the situation has no resolution in sight. (my son screaming for long stretches during the day for example)
Yesterday’s Sermon tackled James 5:13-18
I needed to hear it. I needed to be reminded that I need grace. I need to plead for grace. I need to pray rather than stress. I need to breath in his presence like oxygen.
Self: Hang on to him. Obey. And simply do the next thing. Even when it’s hard.
Counting #2489-2582 of the simple graces that He gives to get me through each day.
- Doing the next thing
- Suddenly- 3 loads of laundry and cloth diapers hung
- Girls cleaning out the dregs of momma’s ice cream with their fingers
- Getting to snuggle each girl alone
- Laughing hard at the ingenuity of my daughters using a wax heart from a candle as a crayon
- Their enthusiasm in helping me clean it from the walls
- starting the time change sleep change up a week early
- my mom arriving safely
- 2 hour naps for everyone
- deciding to block feed- Sedryn’s tummy is much happier
- Showing mom how much the girls love Hobby Lobby
- Hobby Lobby and it’s vocabulary building stock
- Chick-fil-a Buy 1 get 1 free night 🙂
- Repentent girl snuggles
- chubby baby boy snuggles
- Karen calling late to answer a question in love
- certainty of a shower tomorrow
- Going to LBS with just one baby
- chatting with Tiffany in the hall
- yummy stuff at teh day old Panera bread table
- Girls and grandma really enjoying their morning
- teaching the girls to say patience with a smile on their faces
- grapes and leftovers
- overdoing it and being reminded just how dependent I am
- mustard yellow sweater
- laughing as little girls told us to put cute petti-skirts “UP!” when we asked if they’d like them
- A & B rejecting the cutes like fuschia boots with a bow
- Wishing the boots came in my size
- Finding out accidentally that I actually like Lattes: at least salted carmel mocha ones
- Half-finished owl hat
- Derek and mom teaming up for me to have a rest filled evening
- New cupcake PJs for sweet girls
- Quiet day at home
- baking muffins with the girls
- homemade water color antics
- cooking in the kitchent
- bronwyn snuggling and playing with grandma
- Aeralind sitting on my lap for a long cuddle
- Little girls climbing into brother’s crib to snuggle together
- then demanding that brother join them
- Having my mom as an extra set of hands
- wandering Target with Derek alone as a little date evening
- Sedryn in an infant gown
- Derek putting the flannel sheets on the bed
- long nap
- finally starting my Christmas tree “pants”
- quiet time at night to spend alone with Sedryn
- Derek’s grace in consoling Sedryn at night when he doesn’t have to
- Sedryn usualling only being fussy after 1 night feed instead of all
- me falling back to sleep faster after night feeds
- the keyboard/laptop that Sedryn peed on drying out and working normally- with a few new quirks
- Little Sedryn squeaks
- Block feeding working for us and my body adjusting
- opportunity to say “I’m sorry”
- a strong nursling
- having a hard time being grateful for Sedryn as he comes out of his newborn sleepy period and learns to exercise his lungs regularly
- Derek delight in little girls who squeal “Dadi!” when he comes home
- Bronwyn suddenly have a converastion with me
“B, why did you wake up last night?”
“Baby. Cry.”
“Do you need me to turn up the ocean?”
“Ocean.” (smile) - Bronwyn telling grandma: “I did that at church!” about a drawing she did almost 2 months ago!
- 2 hour comatose nap
- First 3.5 hour stretch at night in awhile
- Generous early christmast gift from mom: Children’s Museum pass
- Busy little girls
- Loving on the giant light peg thing
- Laughint at the crane together
- First corndogs
- Aeralind’s dainty and joyful “lay-DEE bug”
- Girls who smile and repeat me as I say “patience” when they fight over whose turn it is
- Brother loving his ERgo
- Big stars sewn for the tree pants
- Derek listening to me cry miserably about Sedryn’s multiple 2 hour fussy witching hours
- little girls devouring spinach
- needing to lift the camera more
- me having a thrift store shopping date schedule with Sedryn in the morning
- Girls headed hiking with daddy
- weekends
- Derek sending me to bed so early
- Finally some good sleep
- Derek graciously burping/consoling a screaming Sedryn at 1 am
- feeling like I can’t do it all-such grace for this independent stubborn heart!
- getting more sleep than when the girls were neworns
- block feeding putting feeding times down to 15 minutes or so
- Yummy food still being brought to us
- flannel sheets
- painting little toes blue
- girls who have strong opinions about potential footwear
- sleep-sleep at all
- doing the next thing
- sorting through counting the same numbers twice
- “dealing with defiance” parenting class coming at the right time
- Daddy and girls walking ahnd and hand
- Daddy exploring the children’s museum with his girls
- Terror of the elevator
- How parent snuggles cure elevtor fears
- being close to Love cures fears
Oct
31
2011I stayed up too late last night.
(It was worth it though as I was talking to a dear friend and rocking an over-full fussy baby).
But that makes mornings hard. Overwhelming. Getting out of bed was not what I wanted to do.
Julia’s personal motto is “I can do hard things.” I was thinking about that this morning, lying in bed just wanted more sleep. Hard things are overwhelming for me. It’s like looking at the whole mountain rather than grabbing on to the handhold right in front of me and getting moving.
I felt like I couldn’t do hard things. Like this morning alone with three was well beyond my ability to accomplish. How to keep them all diapered and fed and the laundry caught up and heaped clean in baskets?
And then Ann’s post came to mind.
And a my heart settled on my motto for the day (maybe even a life): Do the Next Thing.
And so I rise.
I feed the baby.
I collect the laundry.
I pull out and hang wet diapers.
I toss in a load.
I soothe the fussy baby.
I change little girl diapers.
I return a phone call.
I pick up some things from the messy floor.
I do the next thing.
Suddenly, I’m halfway through the morning, writing a blog post I didn’t think I’d get to, and realizing that I’m almost halfway up the mountain by grasping one handhold at a time.
I can do the next thing.
By His Grace.
Counting the Graces of being given 2417-2488 “next things” to enjoy.
- Baby smells
- Baby noises
- Bronwyn repeating me as I exclaimed “Holy cow!” after a giant Sedryn burp
- Toddler halloween parade
- Daddy and Aeralind playing “Where’s your toes?”
- Shrieks of “Toes!”
- Little girls asking for me in the night
- Derek working half days this first week with three
- Gaining 3.5 ounces ABOVE birth weight in 8 days.
- Being comfortable snuggling with Derek once again.
- “Bye, bye, pun kin!” choruses when we leave the house.
- Derek’s help even when he’s exhausted, too
- A partner who does life with me shoulder to shoulder
- Gratitude journal fitting perfectly in my burp cloth basket for late night feedings
- 3 healthy kiddos
- soft strokable newborn hair
- Bed time prayers with the girls as we put Sedryn to bed
- Longest stretch of sleep for momma since before his birth
- Tamara coming to visit with Lydia
- Bronwyn and Lydia learning lessons in sharing
- All 3 girls gobbling down lunch
- A husband who is so helpful
- 5 days of meals delivered which the girls devoured–even the ones I thought they wouldn’t eat!
- 5 sweet ladies preparing those meals
- Carving the pumpkin
- Power drill antics
- Pumpkin Ice cream
- Roasting my first set of pumpkin seeds
- Little girls liking the pumpkin seeds almost as much as the ice cream
- Night feedings
- Chatting via email with Julia about marriage
- Long naps for me and the girls and Sedryn
- Close-up Derek snuggles
- Sedryns tiny little stretching face
- Laughing at his giant manly burps
- Almost 4 hour stretch of sleep for me and Sedryn
- Derek cuddling Sedryn until he fell asleep after I had tried get him to nurse both sides for 1 hour
- McKayla and John entertaining and caring for the girls while I did my newborn photo session with Sedryn
- Sedryn soiling 2 pairs of my pants, 4 blankets, and one laptop keyboard (it was a perfect arch!)
- Laptop keyboard drying out and functioning again
- Barb’s chili leftover
- Singing Rich Mullins with Derek on the way to the farm
- Little catnap for the girls
- Derek’s banter in the kitchen with the women
- Sedryn sleeping on Eva for over 2 hours
- Eggplant Parmesan
- Little girls on a hayride with daddy
- Sharing stories in the kitchen
- Nursing Sedryn in a quiet room free from eye pokin adoring toddlers
- Bronwyn melting down from hunger and exhaustion
- Little B tightly wrapping her arms around my neck
- Listening to Bronwyn tell me her version of the day
- Grace that the girls got on ahold of a permanent marker on the back porch and not in the house
- Aeralind consenting to sit on my lap and tell me about her day
- Girls who cleaned their plates and started on some of the other kiddos’ plates (hysterical!)
- Sedryn curled up on Nana
- Ruthie coralling and changing the girls
- Derek kisses in the kitchen
- Everyone so exhausted from Farm Days that we were all in bed by 9:30
- Gratitude journal combating the I just want to sleep blues
- Yummy chili still leftover for lunch
- Falling asleep at naptime
- Girls super excited about a halloween festival
- Not having to wait until his due date to hold Sedryn
- Laughing as the girls slid out of the bounder at the festival over and over
- Running to Target to spend generous gift cards from Tamara for the girl’s birthday and for Sedryn
- Meal from Karen where the girls gobbled down so much rice!
- Karen generously and wordlessly cleaning my kitchen after supper
- Karen and family joining us for supper rather than just dropping off a meal
- Enjoying Karen’s converastion until 11
- Sleep
- Girls loving their lacing beads and “Choo choo” purchased with Tamara’s gift card
Oct
25
2011I was so grateful to experience and complete labor over a beautiful little boy this last week.
Labor and delivery were experiences that I was blessed to have since little Sedryn was a Vaginal Birth after a C-Section.
2 Corinthians 12:9 came to life so vividly for me.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
I was so weak. So tired. So vulnerable.
But if I stayed my heart on breathing in just the grace for the moment at hand and breathing out what thanksgiving I could find, the His power was able to sustain me in my weakness.
And if thanking Him for little graces can sustain me as contractions course through my body… then thanking Him for little graces can sustain me through anything life should bring as I labor towards Home.
Thanking Him for #2388-2416 of the sweet little graces with the power to sustain me in weakness.
- Little girl snuggles on either side of mommy
- Breathin in empowering grace and breathing out Eucharisteo through contractions
- Rochelle (my doula) being so helpf and compassionate over the phone and email
- Derek able to take a sick day when I’d had hardly any sleep
- Finally a couple solid nap chunks of sleep
- Derek keeping such good care of the girls
- Running the girls ragged on the tennis courts with sidewalk chalk and a couple of tennis balls
- Yummy beets in the CSA share
- Knitting taking away some pain through distraction
- weakness for Him to show Himself strong in the midst
- Chatting with Chanwey on Google chat
- Her blessing me with perfect timed encouragement
- Rochelle’s gentle help
- Ruthie going out of her way to care for the girls- I never worried about them once
- Coming home to a freshly mopped floor on top of well cared for daughters
- Debbie, my nurse. Lord, you know what you were doing when they called her in for me!
- The delivery I wanted in His time.
- A boy!
- A good nursling
- Girls being so sweet to baby
- The most supportive husband ever
- Derek’s gentle new way of encouraging me
- A healing tear
- The sweet smell of a newborn head
- Actually sort of enjoying night feedings alone with the boy… sometimes… when I’m not impatient
- Helpful sisters- sometimes overly so!
- A blessed birth experience
- So many people loving on and praying for us
- Snuggling in the dark with two little girls that daddy had to wake and lift out of cribs before he went to work
Oct
23
2011
The hospital policy on admittance was to do a cervical check and then let you walk for about an hour to see how you progressed before admitting a patient. I was a little disappointed when the initial cervix check came back as 2cm and only 50% effaced. I just wanted to head home and mope. But after they got me on the wireless monitor and I set out walking, I calmed down a bit. I got into a groove of focusing through the contraction pain and I was so soothed having Derek and Rochelle right next to me rather than listening to Derek snore.
About 2 hours later they finally got around to checking me again. 4cm and 80% effaced. Woohoo! The doctor admitted me and we rejoiced in knowing that a baby would be joining our family that day.
My nurse Debbie was amazing. She overlooked me eating jello and popcicles and encouraged me to drink water (all things that anesthesia go crazy over for the “just in case” scenario). She tenderly applied my dreaded hep lock (the one concession I was still pretty hostile over.. and postponed at least 3 times). And when she and Rochelle talked about my crazy focus during contractions and I quoted 2 Corinthians 12:9, Debbie quoted scripture back. I felt very safe with my labor team, even though my least favorite doctor in the practice was the doctor on call.
So the next few hours (8-12ish), I knitted, snacked on some jello, breathed on through the contractions, and got seriously annoyed with all the forms and speeches people had to give me during contractions. Time seemed fluid, measured only in the moments of rest between focused contractions.
At noon, I got out of bed to use the restroom and decided to sit on the couch for a bit and play cards with Derek. Suddenly nurses and nurse coordinators and a few other people swarmed my room. They had seen some apparent decels with the baby’s heart rate. Little one had moved off the monitor and my upright position made is so that the monitors were picking up my heart rate. To the nurses, it looked like the heart rate had dropped from 140 to 63 in the middle of a contraction. They hustled me to the bed, made me lie down on my left side (insert triple the amount of painful contractions!), and hurriedly tried to find his heart tones again. I remember squeezing Rochelle’s hand in terror knowing the baby was okay (I could feel him!) and struggling to cope with the pain lying down. The doctor walked in and I knew this was the defining moment of my VBAC. If he saw this incident as decels… I was going to be wheeled into the OR that instance.
He reviewed my contraction patterns and calmly requested to check my cervix. I was 8cm, fully effaced, 0 station. He shrugged off the ‘crisis’ and wished me luck as I entered transition. Praise God!
Derek left the room to eat, knowing the baby would be here soon and he didn’t need to have low blood sugar. I started to doubt my decision to go all-natural. So far, outside of the crisis, labor had been rather uneventful and not nearly as painful as I had been led to believe. But I knew transition and pushing were ahead of me… I asked Rochelle to describe what was coming up. I knew this was the turning point. If I didn’t get the epidural now… I wouldn’t be able to get it when I was pushing.
Derek came back after having eaten his Hot Pockets and I made him brush his teeth. I was so hungry… I couldn’t handle the thought of food and I knew eating now would probably make me nauseous. The contraction tempo started to change. They were still 3-5 minutes apart but the first one would be pretty easy while the second one would be long and monsterous. Little one was still trying to dodge the heart monitor so every so often we’d have to move that monitor to find him again.
And then came the overwhelming urge to use all my stomache muscles to bear down during a contraction. I triumphantly called out that I had the urge to push! Debbie checked me, called the doctor, and I was given the okay to push.
Pushing was hard. I didn’t want to move from my back. Derek and Rochelle held my legs, but I just couldn’t open up and surrender. My focus on His Grace was being lost. Rochelle held that baby heart monitor in the one place that it would pick up his heartbeat for almost 2 hours as I unsuccessfully pushed in that position. She was amazing. Derek held my hand and told me over and over how proud he was. I was feeling pretty great about what was going on until my sweet nurse Debbie walked in and turned on me (or so I thought).
Debbie stood at the foot of the bed and demanded that I get up and pee to empty my bladder and clear up some room for that baby. I told her I couldn’t. She put her hands firmly on her hips and told me that I would. She said “Honey, if you don’t get out of that bed, change positions, and get serious about pushing that baby out, then, we’ll have to cut it out.” I could have thrown my hospital bed at her I was so ticked. I squared my jaw and waited through two really hard contractions stifling the urge to push before waddling my tail to the bathroom just to defy Debbie.
There was no urine in there. But a monster contraction hit while I sat. Derek squatted in front of me whispering encouragement and I couldn’t help but push hard. Suddenly, my water broke. The relief was immediate. Debbie tried to hustle me back to bed, but I sat and pushed through at least one more contraction.
I crawled up on the bed finally and assumed a sort of crouching lion position, just trying to rest. Another massive contraction began and Debbie went out of the room. I arched my back and pushed hard. I felt the ring of fire; I felt the skin stretch.
“I’m crowning!” I yelled. I’m not even sure the nurses got there to guide baby to the bed as I pushed that baby out below me. Little one plopped down below and I could only see the bottom parts.
“It’s a boy.” I said in quizzical amazement as all contractions subsided. I heard him crying and the commotion of Derek cutting the cord. The doctor finally arrived and they flipped me over and stitched me up as I held Rochelle’s hand and watched Derek and the nurses with my son. Sweet Debbie stood over me and massaged my tummy to respect my request not to have pitocin. I smiled up at her grateful for her tough love c-section speech.
I finally got to hold my strong little boy with his double 9 apgar scores.
Welcome to our home, Sedryn Justice Colton!
Thank you, Lord, for so much of your grace in this process.
Oct
22
2011
As I’m sure I’ve expressed over the past few weeks… I was so tired of being pregnant. But as anxious as I was to be done, I was also pretty fearful of how delivery would occur.
When I was pregnant with the girls and realized that it was almost certain that I would have a c-section, I wrote this post. I truly wanted to have an unmedicated homebirth. Now while the c-section was not altogether a terrible experience (I did get the most amazing pair of baby girls!), it did complicate my wishes for this birth. In my state (and the two states neighboring me close enough to drive to), I cannot be attended by a midwife as a Vaginal Birth after C-Section (VBAC) patient. That resigned me to another hospital birth attended by OBs. All of this was very disappointing to discover, but I took a deep breath, asked Jesus to guide my decisions toward this birth, and entrusted the results to his hands.
I switched OB providers to the local practice that was widely recommended by other VBAC hopefuls and successes. That practice also happened to deliver at a hospital with wireless monitors, a laboring tub, and a decent rate of VBAC success (especially compared to the 40-60% c-section rate with my old provider/hospital combination). The practice was small and with only 4 doctors who all said the same things about my VBAC, I continued to prayerfully have hope.
I wrote out a lengthy birth preference plan and hired an amazing doula-in-training whose name is Rochelle. And then I waited (rather impatiently) on the Lord’s and Little One’s timing.
Monday October 17th, labor began. S…….l……oooooo…..w……l…….y. I had decently painful contractions about every 5-8 minutes. I called Rochelle to let her know. I called “Aunt” Ruthie to let her know she might be needed to spend the night with the girls. And I waited. Around 11-12 I was pretty consistently 5 minutes apart so we told Ruthie to come on over and sleep in our bed. Around 1 we laid down for a little rest. And over the course of the next 2-3 hours everything fizzled out to about every 20 minutes. Rochelle called to encourage me that oftentimes VBAC patients had longer early labors and gave me some amazing times for coping.
By 9am, nothing was happening at all. I went to sleep from 9-11 and again from 1-3. That afternoon we took the girls to a tennis court and ran them ragged with sidewalk chalk and a pair of tennis balls. At a little past 8, I crawled in bed to sleep hopefully a long good night.
By 9pm on the October 18th, it was quite apparent that I would not be sleeping the whole night. The contractions had started again and were about 20 minutes apart and painful enough that I couldn’t sleep. I came downstairs and knitted until 11:00 when we decided we’d go lie down to sleep. I could not tolerate contractions lying down. They hurt a hundred times worse because I tensed up. So I sat up in bed for an hour breathing in grace, breathing out eucharisteo (thanksgiving that He was sustaining me) and casually timing the contractions. They were consistently 5 minutes apart. Eventually, I went down to the computer. I was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before… and very frustrated that it looked like I wasn’t going to sleep again that evening.
My dear friend Chanwey, who was blessed to have a vaginal birth with her sweet twins, happened to be on Google Chat. Her words of encouragement to me from 11-12 were a wonderful type of grace sweetly received at just the right time. Thank you for being available, sweet sister!
At around 1, I moved back to the couch to knit in the dark. Around 2, I tried to lay down again. I just could not labor in that position. I finally sat up against a couple pillows on the headboard and practiced breathing in His Grace (for its power is perfect in my weakness) and breathing out thanksgiving for everything I could think of. I dozed between the contractions. Around 3, Derek woke and I asked him to make me a smoothie which I gratefully chugged. Around 4:30, I woke him to discuss whether or not to go into the hospital. We decided that the worst that could happen would be that I would wake Rochelle and Ruthie and then get sent back home… but I was more than ready for change in scenery so we decided it was time.
We called our support ladies, gathered up our gear, and headed to the hospital. We arrived on a dark cold windy morning to an empty maternity ward around 5am. The nurses were excitedly preparing for shift change…
