It happened! I'm heading out for a date with the husband!! Things look very different than they used to. Before kids: I take a long shower to make sure I am exfoliated, groomed, hair deep conditioned and clean. I look all through my closet to find the perfect sexy little dress to wear. It takes a while as I need to try on multiple outfits for just the right one. I take my time doing my makeup and hair making sure every strand is in place, and my makeup is flawless. The husband makes reservations at a restaurant that is delicious, expensive and will probably not have any kids there. They don't even have a kids menu! I go out with my love and linger over dinner, spending hours sipping wine and enjoying each others company. After kids: I nurse the baby down for a nap and and ask my big kid to watch the toddler so I can shower. I shower quickly because I am on borrowed time...the baby could wake up in 5 minutes or 2 hours. I just never know. Wait...is that the baby? Covered in soap I jump out and investigate to reveal a sleeping angel. Dumb phantom cries. I jump back in and hose myself off. I quickly look through my closet for something cute and sexy to wear. Wait, it has to have boob access so I can nurse the baby and not flash the whole restaurant. Surely I have something that's cute as well? Finally after sifting through clothes that still don't fit after birthing that 3rd baby, and things that I cant nurse in, I settle on something. I do not get dressed yet, that's a total rookie move. I have to get dressed 10 min before we leave the house, otherwise the toddler will get me sticky and the baby will poop, spit up, or slobber all over me. I end up with a few minutes to spare. Oh! I'll put on makeup and do my hair! But wait...where is my makeup? I haven't worn it for so long I don't even know where it is. I find some lipstick and eyeliner and call it good. I don't have time to do my hair now, I wasted time looking for the missing makeup. It's ok, I just need a run a brush through it. Hubby makes a reservation at a yummy restaurant that will definitely have kids since the nursing baby is coming along on our date. The husband gets home from work and the sitter arrives. I run upstairs to get dressed while the toddler howls downstairs. He just figured out we were leaving without him. We fly out the door and enjoy our dinner with our baby interloper. Its short, but sweet. Do I miss the pre-kid dates ? Of course! BUT I know this time with the littles is fleeting. I know soon enough I will be able to have dates like that again. Until then...its nursing friendly shirts and hurried dates. I'm so blessed to have such an awesome family.
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Today is my little man's birthday! Let me tell you about Caleb. I'm sure you have all noticed that there is 10 years between him and Trinity, that was certainly not our plan. We tried for years to have a second baby to no avail. I got pregnant once, but miscarried. Trinity as a young child had an imaginary friend she called her baby brother. She said he was on a long journey on a sidewalk, but he was coming. At a prayer meeting I very clearly heard God tell me a son was coming, but I had to wait like Hannah. So I did. I waited and trusted. Then, I got pregnant! I knew he was a boy because God said so. God named even named him. At the last moment a bunch of crazy stuff happened so at approximately 30 weeks pregnant I decided to have a home birth. We had toured the hospital I was supposed to give birth in and I was seriously freaking out. Even though it was 10 years prior, I still had major emotional trauma from Trinity's birth. I got myself an amazing midwife and I was thrilled. So this is my story of healing. My story of God's promise fulfilled. My story of strength. Sunday night we went to our church’s youth group meeting, It was a final goodbye to the youth pastor and he wanted to go out with a prayer and worship service. So I spent the evening losing myself in worship, getting prayed over and reconnecting with God. My relationship with God has suffered a lot in the past 10 months or so and I spent time repairing it. I let go of some things I was holding on to and when I walked out I felt ready. I felt good. That night I was having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions and more of them were painful than usual. This had been happening for the past few weeks, so I didn’t pay too much mind to it. Just figured my body was getting ready and was hoping I was slowly dilating. At 4:30am or so I was awoken with a painful contraction. I was like “ow”, so then I rolled over to my other side. Then I had another and it hurt too. Switched positions again. This went on for probably about an hour before my sleep muddled brain realized that every contraction had hurt and was radiating to my back. Then I felt an odd pop feeling down below. No water or anything, just a pop feeling. I decided to get up and start timing my contractions. I sat on a chux pad on the couch just in case, made a grumpy facebook post about being awake and nerded while I timed. Seems the contractions were about 4 min apart. Consistently. That’s interesting. All of a sudden I felt a gush and realized my water broke. It was 6:30am. I kind of sat there in disbelief for a few min when I realized I should probably wake up DJ. And call the midwife. I went upstairs and told a sleeping DJ I didn’t think he was going to work today. He was all confused and sleepy and I told him we were having a baby today instead. That woke him up pretty quick. I updated him on the events and I called Dina the midwife. She was going to get up, shower and head over. No rush, but she was on her way. That was fine. I decided to shower and the water felt soooo nice. I got out and realized I should give a heads up to the rest of my birthing team, Regina our photographer and Anastasia our Trinity minder and birth support. So I called them both and told them no rush or anything, but baby is coming today and get childcare etc etc. I emerged from the shower, got dressed in a comfortable dress and realized that the most epic storm had hit. I haven’t seen it rain that hard since we had a hurricane blow though. I came downstairs and watched the storm in my backyard in awe of the awesomeness of it. I felt like Caleb was being announced into the world with the storm. I ate breakfast and we straightened up the house and made room for the birth tub. Still having contractions every 3-4 min by the way. Around 9:30am the midwife arrived and checked me. I was dilated at 2 and still had a long way to go. She told me my contractions would probably slow down and that was ok, she wanted me to rest anyways. She left at 10am and I laid in my darkened room trying to sleep. Too bad I was too excited to sleep. She told me I would know when to call her back. I gave up on sleeping and came downstairs around 11:30 to lay on the couch. Around 12 midwife called again and suggested we get the contractions going again and gave us some suggestions. 15 min later I was having strong ones 3 min apart so the walking began. My birth team all took turns walking around the complex with me and rubbing my back through contractions. If I sat down, they started to space out, so I had to be standing and rocking my hips or walking the whole time. I had been in constant communication with my midwife via text and calls. I labored in the backyard for a while leaning on a chair, then sitting in the grass. But the sitting was just no good. I could not speak though contractions anymore, but I was fine in between them. At some point I had a hot dog for lunch. This is about where my sense of time starts to get messed up. Around 3:15pm I declared to DJ that he needed to call the midwife because I wanted her here now. I was grumpy even in between contractions and know I had progressed quite a bit. She was asking him questions and I just kept repeating in the background “She needs to come now. I want Dina here now”. DJ began to blow up the birth pool. Dina was at my house in a half an hour with her student midwife arriving a little later. She checked me and I was dilated at 6. Yay!!! I labored on my hands and knees for a while on the bed while my people filled up the tub. The hose was going too slow, so they were using pots and pans to fill it. This is comical in hindsight. But you gotta do what you gotta do right? Dina then asked me with a smile on her face if I would like to get in the pool. I was like yes omg right now. Into the tub I went and it felt very comforting. I labored in the in various positions. The most comfortable was sitting cross legged and rocking on my hips side to side. I had a lime popsicle. It got to hot for Caleb after a while, so I labored on the birth stool for a bit. This was about 7pm. On the birth stool I got really queasy and informed everyone that a bucket or bowl might be a good idea because puking was going to be happening. I threw up. While that’s not my favorite thing, I knew it was good and I was probably entering transition. I got back into the tub and became more vocal. I started putting the cold washcloths over my face to tune everyone out. I didn’t want people touching me because my skin hurt. My midwife was calmly watching me and knitting. She would check Caleb’s heart beat at variable times and ask me questions. Otherwise I was left alone to do what I wanted, wich is what I needed. Around this time I also declared that I didn’t want to do this anymore and I just wanted to take a break and cuddle. I had a long break in between two contractions and I rested. I kept thinking that this was really going to hurt when the next one came and it really was a big one. I kept wondering if I would know when to push. I had directed pushing with Trinity so I wondered how I would know. At 7:50pm a contraction came. I was reclining on my back and my body involuntarily rose up and pushed. Someone yelled “I think that’s pushing!!!” and everyone jumped pool side. After the contraction I confirmed that yes I was pushing apparently. I pushed in the tub till 8:20pm in a bunch of positions. I got him far enough down that he was just a fingertip from the opening. I just could not make any more progress in the tub so I moved to the birth stool. After two contractions I could not do the stool anymore it was killing my back bad. So midwife suggested to go upstairs to my bed. I knew I only had about 2 – 3 min to get upstairs and set up in bed before my next contraction so with just a little assistance from DJ I walk up my stairs with a baby in my dang birth canal. I could not understand why the midwife was telling me to spread my legs as I flew up the stairs because the reality of how far down the baby was had not hit me. In a flurry chux pads were put down and I jumped into bed in time for the next contraction to hit. I pushed flat on my back and that was working very well. 7 minites after jumping into bed he was crowning and I was howling about how bad it hurt. OMG the name ring of fire does not do that justice. Midwife was dumping tons of arnica oil on me and baby to help stretching. At 8:53pm Caleb was born into DJ’s hands and placed onto my chest. He was covered in vernix and crying like a champ. I was shocked. OMG there is a baby on my chest. I kept saying “oh my god. oh my god.” I did not cry, I was too shocked. I looked him over to make sure he had everything and make sure he was a boy. And I was just amazed. At a few minutes old DJ anointed him with oil and prayed over him. And I just still sat there gaping at Caleb. I birthed him in my home with no meds. It was amazing. I would never do this in a hospital again. I was surrounded by love, support, and calmness.
I feel empowered and strong. Welcome Caleb, my promised gift from God. I've been a follower of Jesus for a long time now... Since I was 14 actually. I have learned a lot about God and the nature of God in that timeframe. Most importantly I have learned that God can't be fully understood. I can't put Him in a nice neat box and call it my religion. My relationship with Him is very fluid and is very personal. He knows how to talk to me and I know how to hear Him (whether or not I do what his says all time is another post for another day).
There is one very important thing I have learned: He will redeem it. To clarify: God will redeem everything you lost by being obedient to his direction. The most dangerous and beautiful prayer you can ever say is "I'm yours God. I trust you. Use me." It's dangerous because God will then use you! It's terrifying and God will tell you to do things out of your comfort zone. He will stretch you and mold you into His likeness as you do the things He says. Sometimes though, obedience causes you pain. I grew up in California and when I graduated highschool at 17 years old I used my graduation money to visit my mom, sister and step dad in New Hampshire. I was supposed to be there for a month, which was how long I would usually visit. After about a week I heard God tell me to stay in New Hampshire. Surely God was joking! My entire life was in CA, my dad, my family, my friends, my church. Plus, rural NH was not high on my list for places to live. Seriously, i was a suburban California girl. Where would I find a boyfriend?? (I was 17, these things were important) So I argued with God for a week. God got louder. And louder. AND LOUDER. Finally I gave in. I didn't take the plane home. I broke my dad's heart when I told him I was staying, which broke mine as well. I left my closest friends and a gaping hole was left in their place. I left my whole life, my church, and started over completely. It hurt... badly. Amidst all this chaos and pain I just clung to the trust I had in God that He knew what he was doing. i really hoped He knew what He was doing. I am here to say...God redeemed it. I joined an Assembly of God church which showed my fundamentalist Baptist self a whole other side of God I had not previously seen. He revealed more if himself to me and my relationship with God really flourished. I made new friends whom I am still close to, and still kept the old ones through the miles separating us. My relationship with my step mom was improved by the distance so we could begin to work on healing. This relationship was eventually totally healed before she passed away. I met my husband at the Creation Festival trip my youth group went on. How's THAT for finding a boyfriend :) He redeemed it all. It was my first giant step of faith and I learned so much about trusting God through it. It was painful. It was hard. But trusting God was the right choice. My entire life as I know it right now hinged on that once decision. I thank God every day I trusted him through the pain. Since then I have done many scary things at His request. Things that caused my heart to hurt. I've left churches and lost friends because of God. I've quit jobs He told me to. I've obeyed God and gone where he told me to, knowing I wasn't wanted there. I'm currently sad because recently listening to God caused a situation where budding friendships were cut short and I miss them. It's still raw. But God will redeem it. He already is. I can tell you that if you hear God, obey. He will take care of you. He will heal your heart. It will still be hard. It will still hurt. But trust him in the situation and see what he can do with your life. It's worth it. Just close your eyes, take that trusting leap and trust that God will redeem it. So the world is a hot mess. My friends list on Facebook is a divided, angry hot mess. War and pain and terror are running rampant. So guys, let's pause. Take a moment and breathe. I want to start something good. We need some good right now.
I challenge everyone who reads this to do a random act of kindness for a stranger within the next 24 hours. Buy someone coffee, encourage a mom in the store whose kid is a screaming puddle. Give a sandwich to a homeless person. The list can go on. See what opportunity presents itself and jump on it. Be light. Be love. Then please comment and tell me what you did. Fill everyone with hope. And please share this post so others will do it too. I want to see so much love you guys. Be the light. Will you join me? |
AuthorI'm so tired. The children are so not tired. |