The placenta

After the umbilical cord was cut, I was helped out of the birthing tub to deliver the placenta. Since I had a home birth, I was given the option to keep my placenta. Why the hell would you want to keep your placenta, you ask? Well, apparently there a lot of things you can do with it. You can make a soup with it and eat it, you can plant it under a tree for nourishment, you can grill it (haha, that last one was a joke). Anyhow, I decided that I wanted to plant it under the apricot tree so that next season, everyone can share in the "fruit of my labor". I bet they are gonna be the biggest, juiciest, apricots in AZ! Now I am sure that you are beside yourself hoping that you get a chance to have apricots from my tree, so go ahead and email your pre-order. Mr. B was such a nice guy to dig the hole for me. He is the best!

Rio John Morel

Weighing the baby

At exactly midnight on June 17th, I was jolted out of bed by a contraction. For several weeks, I had been having on again off again contractions, some as close as 4 minutes a part but none of them compared to the intensity of the one that about threw me out of my own bed. I had been so nervous that I would not know when I was truly in labor and had even made a false alarm call to my doc the week before when they started getting close together. My previous experieces at the hospital all included them breaking my water and labor beginning almost immediately. What if my water did not break on its own? Anyhow, the doc would not even leave her house and told me over the phone that I was not in labor. The same question that I had asked her many times before came out of my mouth again...."how will I know?" Her response, "oh, you'll know." Well, she was right. I got up and walked to the bathroom, where I had another one. Attempted to brush my teeth, another one. Walked to the living room to find my phone, another one. My first call was to Mr. B who was at work, all I could say was "now!" In between bent over contractions, I made the call to the doc and a couple more people. I also managed to get a text out too. Mr. B had called Senora X from next door, who came over and grabbed Miss O and Miss P, both who had coincidentally both woke up at the same time. I had been mentallly preparing for this moment for so long, and I immediately went into action lighting my candles that had been so perfectly placed weeks prior all in between contractions. My mom arrived and then a friend, Ms. D, from church came next. Senora X came back to stay in case Miss M woke up, but she had always made it clear that she was not interested in watching and she stayed in the living room taking care of opening the door. As quickly as I was jolted out of bed, is as quickly as the contractions turned from intense to 'OMG'!!!! Mr. B was still no where to be found and neither was the doc. At 12:35 I could not take it any longer and needed to get into the birthing tub. With the help of Ms. D, I got into the tub. Whoa, what a difference the water made. Immediate change in how the contractions felt. Yes, they were still very, very intense but the water really did help ease them. In all of my preparing for my water birth, I had always pictured myself leaning back against the tub, but when I got in the first position I went into was on all 4's. It just felt like the right position. A few minutes after getting in the tub I began to feel warm water being poured on my back and I knew Mr. B had arrived without even having to open my eyes. At that point, I completely let go of trying to keep the baby in and allowed my body to fully get to work. With absolute silence in the room and small candles lighting the area I had a few more contractions. I used many of the hypnobirthing techniques to focus and really allow my breathing and body take over. There was no screaming or yelling or telling Mr. B that I hate him. The only sounds I made sounded more like exaggerated breathing. In between a few contractions, I would open my eyes and look around to see a few new faces, but still no doctor. I also took the resting period of labor to take in all of the special and sentimental things that I had placed around the room. The room that I chose to have the baby in is also the room where my grandma took her last breath last fall. I felt that it would be a full circle of life to be able to have the baby in there and that also added a very special meaning to the room. I looked to a shadow box that held flowers from my grandma's services and had a very, very real sense of peace and sense that she was there with me at that moment. With the next contractions, I felt the baby's head come out and told Mr. B. Without skipping a beat, he moved into action. I took one extreamly huge, deep breath after that and knew that my next contraction my son would make his debut. At 12:51, just 51 minutes of that first contractions our son arrived. As if he had done 1000 deliveries before, Mr. B brought the baby up from the water. I was helped into a sitting position and the baby was handed to me. There we sat in the water, staring at our little miracle. He was so quiet and calm, that Mr. B thought that he may have not been breathing and kept trying to suction his mouth and nose. I on the other hand, knew he was just fine and did not need it. I just knew that our sons gentle appearance into the world did not allow for him to be startled or fussy. There was no immediate rubbing of the baby, rushed movement in the room, loud sounds, or premature snipping of the umbilical cord, just a room full of love at the sight of a new baby. Finally after several minutes the doc arrived, but most of the work had already been done for her. After the umbilical cord stopped pulsating, she allowed Mr. B to do the honor. Then I was able to get out of the tub and deliver the placenta. Be careful which bowl you eat out of at my house, it may just be the one that held my placenta!! The doc's assistant arrived and all the checking out of mom and baby were conducted in the comfort of the bed. After everyone checked out great, everyone left. Just as quickly as they all arrived, then they were gone. It was just Mr. B, myself and our new addition who still did not have a name at that point. It all happened so fast that we were both just staring at each other, thinking....did this just really happen? Finally, I looked at Mr. B and said Rio John Morel. Without skipping a beat, he shook his head OK! Everything was just perfect and all the months of preparation paid off. It was made even more special by Mr. B delivering his first son.

Still waiting....

This has been the longest pregnancy of my life. I feel like I stopped working years ago. Why does this little boy refuse to come out? One of my most favorite male cousins (most of the time)seems to not blame him for staying in as long as he can. He seems to think life is miserable for the male species in this house. Whatever! It would be one thing for this little boy to be hanging out as long as he has if my on again off again contractions did not exist. For weeks now, my contractions have been as close as 5 minutes apart some nights, but not last longer than an hour or so. All of yesterday and until around 1 in the morning, they were exactly 10 minutes apart and more intense than all the contractions before. It is really wearing me out but I do get plenty of practice with all of my relaxation and breathing techniques. The birthing room has been ready for weeks now and I have had to replenish my fresh flowers in that room 3 times already. I certainly do not want to be looking at wilting flowers while giving birth. I go back to the doc today so she can fish around in there and see if I have dilated any further. Mr. B is off tonight, so it would be nice to not have to hope and pray that he is not in the middle of a call when I actually do go into labor. We will see how today goes.

Waiting for the arrival

I am officially off of bed rest as my goal date of June 1st has passed. Our son has been cooking long enough to avoid any type of risk for a home birth. The birthing room is set up just perfect, the birthing tub was delivered earlier this week, fresh flowers decorate the house and room, and the cameras are ready. Now we wait. It is an exciting time as it is one of the few things in life that I have absolutely no control over when it will happen. Mr. B has been home this last week as my surges have begun, but have developed no pattern. It has been so very nice to have him close to home as he was always so busy with work for the last 3 that he could barely keep his eyes open when the babies finally came. Just the idea of being able to be home has really allowed for a very peaceful and relaxed state for all of us. I practice my hypnobirthing techniques daily. Hypnobirthing is a way to redirect the tension and discomfort felt during child birth into more useful ways, to help your body work with nature instead of against it. Instead of tightening every muscle in your body, which is such a natural response to pain, hypnobirthing teaches you how to do the exact opposite and release all tightening so that the discomfort is reduced and the baby comes into a world that is just a little more peaceful free of screaming, fear, premature pushing and drugs. I also plan to have the baby in the birthing tub, which should also help my body to relax. I know some of you are thinking that I am a little cukoo, and I am certainly not suggesting everyone should deliver this way, but it sure makes sense to me.

A home birth

I have always wanted to have my children at home. In my heart, I have always felt there was a more peaceful and less invasive way to have a baby. Unfortunately, a home birth with a mid-wife is not covered by our insurance and it is hard to justify a home birth when I could do it at the hospital for free. Well, with all my new found free time I started to spend more time day dreaming of my perfect birth experience. There just had to be a way. With the encouragement of an amazing women, who also happens to be my prenatal yoga teacher and hypno birthing teacher (more about hypno birthing later) she referred me to a naturopathic doctor who does home births. Since she is a doctor and not a midwife, our insurance will actually cover the home birth!! Mr. B has never been excited about the idea, but after meeting her and discussing all of his concerns, he FINALLY gave me his support. So 30 weeks into my 4th and final pregnancy I dropped my OB/GYN and changed doctors. I am so excited to be able to be home and not have to fuss with the hospital. My girls are excited too.

I am being evaluated

So now I am home and have catching up on deep cleaning, paper work that needs to be dealt with, service calls that are long over due for our alarm system, reading more to the girls and holding my little Ms. O while she naps instead of putting her down. Am I really going to have another baby, when Ms. O is still so little. Really! Anyways, Mr. B started a very interesting conversation the other day that he started like this....." Depending on how well you do at being at home will determine how long before you have to go back to work." I was caught a little off guard at his statement and wanted him to clarify what the hell he was talking about and asked him to explain further. In his police officer/military tone he went on to say "Well, I am evaluating how you are doing around the home and the better you do, the longer you can stay home." OMG, is he serious??? Since he wasn't laughing I thought I would let him continue to dig his grave and went on to ask him exactly what I was being evaluated on. "Well, cleanliness of the house, frequency of cooked meals, variation of cooked meals, frequency of love making......." And on he went, digging, digging, digging. When he was all finished, I paused, letting him think that I was really considering his evaluation plan. I smiled very sweetly at him like it was the greatest thing I have ever heard and then I spoke. First, I had some very choice words about this evaluation process, told him to kiss my...... and said some more colorful words and told him to kiss my....again and left the room. So much for passing my evaluation. Bummer.

Bed Rest

Towards the end of every pregnancy my body starts doing all kinds of weird things. Most of them I will just keep to myself, but mainly I start pre-term labor way too early. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling soooo much tightening in my stomach and loads of pressure in that whole area. I remember showing a house and having a feeling that if I sneezed the baby was going to fall out. I went to the doc only for her to tell me what I already knew....time to stop working and get my feet up. It probably didn't help that during that week I was working real hard at getting my garden going which involved digging, shoveling and on my hands and knees trying to make those neat little hills that you see on farms. With out wasting any time after leaving to doc's office, I called my real estate friend and handed over all my files to her and put my feet up. Now my bed rest is the kind where I just have to take it easy and not spend so much time on my feet. I have absolutely enjoyed every second of it and it has been so nice to be home with the girls. I guess it is one of those things that when you are home all the time, you sometimes day dream about working and when you are working all the time, you wish you could be home. The never ending battle of being a mommy.