Happy Birthday, Penelope Jane!

How time flies. Today PJ is one year old. How the heck did that happen!?



The day started early. PJ was wide awake at 4:30--the second time this week she's done this. Last time she fell asleep 20 minutes into one of our baby worship videos while we cuddled on the couch. This time she stayed awake until about 6. UGH. Once Abby was up and we were all fed and dressed we went out in the backyard, which we haven't done in a while, and I got some great photos of the girls playing. We celebrated at lunch by going to Portillo's, which is a Chicago-based restaurant that opened a location about half an hour from here. Totally worth the drive--absolutely the best cheeseburgers ever. Came home and she took a really good nap (especially considering that she slept on the way up there), and then after dinner we went for a walk around our little neighborhood park.

Tuesday was her one-year well-baby checkup. She's 22 lbs 6 oz (80th percentile) and 30 inches long (75th percentile)--the same percentiles from her 9 month exam, so she's holding steady with her growth. She's got 6 teeth in--the top four and two bottom--and ten words: mama, dada, no, yes, ming or mih (milk), Abbah or Abababa (Abby), Wig (The Wiggles), hi, bye (often with a "Heil Hitler" hand up in the air) and peek (peekaboo). She plays peekaboo, claps, dances like she really knows what she's doing, and follows simple directions like "Go get Abby!" or "Take this to Daddy." She's really good at cleaning up--anytime she sees you putting things into a container, like the blocks into the bin or the memory game tiles into the bag (or the laundry into the machine--I'm SO glad I have a front loader and the girls can help!), she comes over to help. And whenever she sees me pull out the diapers she stands up and walks away, saying, "No no no no no..." Annoying as it is, it always cracks me up.



She's so affectionate. She crawls in my lap and just sits down now, doesn't even try to nurse, just wants to hang out. The other day she was standing on my lap, facing me, and put her head on my shoulder and began to pat my back and say, "Mama."



She is a climber! She gets up on Abby's step stool all the time, she crawled onto the TV stand in Dan's office today and also into the sandbox, as you can see in the photo. She gets under and on top of things way more often than Abby ever did. She goes up the stairs with ease, and has even started going up ON HER FEET! She's also really good at going down if it's just one step, like from the foyer into the living room.



The one thing she's not doing yet is eating solids. I give her something at every meal, and she'll gnaw on it, but she still has the tongue-thrust thing going on and it almost all comes right back out. So far she's tried apple, cucumber, Cheerios, peas, carrots, broccoli, egg, toast, and pancake. She also has a sippy cup with a straw that she's quite good at drinking out of. I keep meaning to pump and put the milk in and see if she'll let someone else "feed" her that way--oh the freedom that might be just around the corner for me! WHY haven't I tried this yet! She still wakes 3-6 times a night to nurse, which is a bummer for me, but oh well.



She and Abby are really playing together now. It's so adorable. Just tonight Abby had her in total stitches. I was upstairs and could hear PJ cracking up; Dan said Abby was tickling her and just being silly, and PJ was totally into it.



She's a slapper, a screecher, a Mama's girl, and a major, major drama queen, but she's completely lovable and adorable and I can't believe she's one year old. Happy birthday, PJ!!!

Lots of updates!

So I realized I've never posted PJs 9mos. stats from her well visit last month, and then she did all sorts of fun new things, so I figured it was time to post...

She was 20 lbs, 8 oz and 27 inches. Can't remember the percentages but they weren't as high as in the past--80 for both, perhaps?

The other day she went up the stairs without the slightest hesitation. How she got so good at it without any practice I don't know. But it was fun to see the first attempt go so well, and nice to see it without panicking like we did with Abby's first foray up to the second floor.

She has four words: mama, dada, hi, and no, learned in that order.

She waves goodbye! Sometimes, anyway.

She gives high-fives, if she is so inclined. Sometimes she just leaves you hanging.

She cut another tooth. The top middle tooth on the left. Now she's only got five that are trying to get through. *ouch*

She discovered how to get onto the couch--AND how to get over the ottoman and escape from the living room! Abby has a little princess fold-out couch thing that we've been pushing in front of the big couch. Well, I looked over the other day and saw PJ standing on the princess couch to boost herself up onto the big one, and boy did she scramble up there quickly! Then yesterday I was in the bathroom, thinking she was safely sequestered in the living room, when I suddenly hear the sound of dining room dishes being clanged together. She'd used the couch again to crawl onto the ottoman, and then managed to get herself down on the other side of it without hurting herself. Never heard a thud or a whimper or anything! Needless to say, the princess couch is not being stored there anymore. (In fact, we've decided to completely turn over the living room and dining room to the girls--the dining room set stays, but the couch and recliner and cart of dishes are being banished to the garage. Now we'll have a school room!!!)

Then, the biggest news...last night, in an attempt to get a wooden spoon being dangled, carrot-like, a few feet in front of her, PJ took a very careful, deliberate step...followed by another...followed by another! Then she just sat down. But not wavering, no falling, no moving simply because momentum was carrying her; she just went from standing stock still to walking! It won't be long now before she's tottering around following Abby everywhere (and refusing to ride in the stroller anymore, no doubt--I remember those days with Abby! Oy! Target and grocery runs are about to get really difficult!)

She speaks!

She was fussy today (and yesterday, and the day before, and the day before...teething again, I suspect), and when I went to get her from Dan she looked at me and said, "Mamaaaa!"

So on this day of political horror I at least have my baby's first word--and it's for me!

Here comes trouble

Penny Jane is officially crawling! Not far--she peters out onto her tummy after about 5 or 6 "steps"--but she's definitely doing it. And sometimes she does it on hands and feet with that puffy cloth-diapered butt in the air. So cute.

And, just like Abby, at the same time as she learned to crawl, she started pulling herself up on furniture. She's not quite to the cruising stage, but she's very close. Her balance improved a thousand percent in about 48 hours, it was wild to see it happen so fast. And in fact, she stood for about 3 seconds on her own the other day.

She's also saying ma-ma-ma and we're pretty sure she's saying it to call me. And if you say it back to her slowly, you can see her studying your mouth, and then she'll mouth it back but not make the sound. It's so funny.

I took her to Dr. Jen the other day for her allergy testing. Dr. Jen uses applied kinesiology to test, rather than a blood draw or scratch test. She is also a chiropractor, so she did a chiro check on PJ and discovered that her T1 vertebrae was misaligned. That's the one associated with asthma, so I'm praying that was the cause of the asthma she's been suffering with every time that stupid cough comes around. Dr. Jen also found that the valve between her esophagus and stomach was weak and not closing all the way, and the stomach had come up a little bit through the valve. Apparently this is not unheard of, and it can cause--ta-da!--reflux! She said that was most likely what the problem was since, when she did the allergy testing, she found PJ was *not* allergic to dairy! (She is to corn and tomatoes, though.) She tested me as well and found that I'm not allergic to, but not properly digesting, dairy, wheat, strawberries, and avocado. She set me up with an enzyme to take when I eat those foods, so that should help. I was SO excited to start eating dairy again, but it's funny, I *really* notice I feel lousy after dairy now. Christian the awesome nutritionist taught us that wheat and dairy are inflammatory, and I really feel it with the dairy. I went out and bought ice cream and colby cheese and after servings of each I honestly didn't want anymore. Which is just as well, given their fat content (and sugar content in the ice cream).

Six months!

Six months?!

Hard to believe, but it's true. I took Penny Jane in for her six month appointment today. She's a whopping 27.25 inches and 17 lbs. 11 oz. Wow. Doc said she looked great, checked out fine, wouldn't be surprised if she was cruising along the furniture by the next (9 month) appointment, which would be about right if she follows in Abby's footsteps. (No pun intended.) Abby started pulling up to standing around 7 months, but, like, 3 days later she learned how to crawl and did that for a month before showing much interest in standing again. But she was full-on walking at 9.5 months. Oi!!

Unfortunately this was the second trip to the ped in the last week, because the girls got that stupid cough AGAIN. When I checked the calendar I realized they've been getting it every 8 weeks. The ped thinks it's seasonal allergies--she said the mold and pollen counts have been roller-coastering all summer--and on top of it she thinks Penny Jane has asthma. :( Each time she's gotten the cough she's ended up wheezing, and it takes twice as long for her to get over it as it does Abby. I'm taking her in for an allergy test to see if there's a food allergy causing the asthma; I'm really hoping there is so we can just cut out that food and not have to put her on medication. She was supposed to get her first of four hib vaccinations today, but I'm putting it off until she's totally over the cough so her system has time to heal and strengthen. Now I just have to remember to take her back in for it!

It's been a rough couple of months with her. This teething thing is just *killing* us. She just yells and yells and squawks and isn't happy so much of the time. It breaks my heart. It also brings me close to a psychotic episode when coupled with Abby's relentless asking. ("I want to go outside." "No." But I want to go outside!" "No." "But I *want* to!" Etc. etc. etc.) Penny Jane has also hit the separation anxiety stage, so that gives us the added bonus of wailing like she's being tortured every time I leave the room.

I've been feeling a lot of mommy guilt in regards to Penny Jane lately. I'm not nearly as patient with her as I was with Abby at this stage. I'm not as empathetic, I'm not as doting, I'm not as hands-on. I am utterly sick at the amount of television she's seen. Abby didn't watch a TV show until she was a year old! All those little neurons I've killed...it's just awful.

I resolved this week to start taking more pictures of her. The camera keeps getting put away and I just don't think of it, and then suddenly a month has passed without a single image being taken. So, from recent days...

With Cousin Gavin:


"Why yes, I do occasionally like a bit of ball before supper..."


Okay, this one isn't that recent, but it's cute. She loves the swing, just like Abby!

360

Monday morning Abby and I were playing with Penny Jane on the floor. She was on her back and she flipped to her tummy, a trick she's doing regularly now. She stayed there for a while, not too happy about her situation but not squawking about it yet, either, and then--kick, kick, wiggle wiggle wiggle--she was back on her back! And it wasn't like she hadn't quite settled on her tummy and just rolled back over--oh no, she did a whole 360. And we're noticing that, when she's on her tummy, she's totally got the crawling motion already going, but since she's beached on her belly and not up on hands and knees she doesn't go anywhere. She's sure trying, though; you should see those toes digging into the carpet!

Little Showoff

She just rolled right onto her forearms and sat there for a good five minutes, smiling and cute, while my parents and Dan snapped phone pictures of her. If only I had Photoshop, I could place her in a studio setting instead of on the floor of the La Jolla condo!

Four month stats!

Well well well. Took Penny Jane to the doctor today and boy was the ped impressed! First of all, she's at 15 lbs 1 oz, which puts her at the 80%, and 26 inches, which is, in the words of the doc, "off the charts." Her little stats sticker that the ped gives us for her baby book actually lists her in the statistically-impossible 100%! This explains why her 6 month onesies fit so well--I kept thinking it was the gDiapers I'm using on her that are a little bulkier than disposables, but apparently it's just her. She was also quite taken with PJ's ability to sit up so well on her own, and said that, given how early she's doing that, she'll most likely crawl early, too. She also said that because she's so long she'll probably outgrow the infant carseat by her 6 month appointment! I can't remember how long Abby was in hers, but it was MUCH longer than 6 months, I'm pretty sure.

Have I mentioned gDiapers before? I don't think so. Well, we started cloth diapering Abby--or tried to, at least, but Abby wets through everything SO fast, it's really remarkable (and irritating), so we're taking a break while I wait for a different kind of diaper to arrive that I ordered for her because I just got so stinkin' sick and tired of her soaking through both diaper and shorts every single time she peed. I wanted to cloth diaper PJ, too, but I couldn't bear to go through the sampling stage with her where I bought one of, like, ten different types of dipes to see which worked best. So I started buying gDiapers instead. They're "hybrid" diapers: the cover is washable, as is the plastic liner, but the inserts which soak everything up are 10% biodegradable! You can trash them, compost them (the wet-only ones, anyway) and even flush them, which makes them super-easy to deal with. Unfortunately they're about twice the price of the disposables we were using on Abby, but I justify it by knowing Abby will either be in cloth soon or else potty-trained in the next 6 months (hopefully, anyway).

Updates galore

Yikes, I've really slacked, haven't I!? Sorry about that! Here's all the latest from the land of PJ:

She sits! It's only for 60-90 second at a time, but it's a start. Proof:


She grows! I changed out her wardrobe today. I needed to do it at least a week ago, but I think I was in denial that she could already be nearly 16 weeks. And it's either the bulkiness of the gDiapers or she's even longer than Abby, because some of the 3-6 month onesies fit her perfectly in length. I'm sure the diapers have something to do with it, but just looking at her she really does look longer than Abby was at this age.

She talks! Okay, so, not really, but she coos and gurgles and babbles so much! Very very cute--except at 5 AM like this morning. Then, not so much.

She no longer refluxes! Can't remember if I've updated on this yet, but when I'm off dairy she's fine. And when I've had a little (not that I have it on purpose, but just when I've eaten something without realizing it had dairy in it) she starts spitting up quite a bit again. So, while I'm very glad to know what it was that was causing the rivers of milk to stream from her mouth, I'm so very sad to know it's dairy, because WOW do I miss it. On the bright side, I tried ghee the other day and she doesn't react at all to that, so at least I have a dairy substitute now! And I also found dairy-free chocolate chips. Score!

She's strong! Her little legs are, anyway. I've been doing tummy time with her on her boppy pillow--which she actually tolerates, unlike her sister who would scream the house down--and she digs her toes into the carpet and pushes herself right over the pillow, like so:

GOING...


GOING...


GONE!


She's teething! She chows down on anything she can get in her mouth, poor thing. The other night I dreamed that I got a good look in there and saw twelve HUGE--like, cartoon-huge--molars, six on each side. And I was like, "Well, yeah, that would make sense." Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me to find out it wasn't a dream, given how drooly and chompy she is.

She sleeps! In fact, this is her right now:

I'm kind of annoyed, really, that she fell asleep so early. If she's out before 9 she's up at 5. Ouch. She napped fairly well today, so I was pretty sure she'd make it until at least 8:30, but it's 8:20 right now and she's been out since about 7:55. *sigh* Early to bed with me...

Three months! (and a bit)

She's thirteen weeks today, so yeah, I missed the three month thing by just a little. Unless you go by dates, in which case it's not until tomorrow. So there!

Penny Jane celebrated by rolling over for the first time on the floor. You may recall her she did this once before, but the circumstances surrounding the event were somewhat suspect. Anyway, it's totally and completely official now. And, just like with Abby, I missed it. Oh well. Dan got to see it, at least.

I've been dairy-free for a month and WOW has it made a difference for her. The yellowy flaky skin on her eyebrows is almost completely gone, the spit-ups are rare, and the reflux is non-existent. Hallelujah! I, however, am craving fro-yo so bad I can barely stand it, and man, I had no idea dairy came in so many sneaky forms. Every once in a while I end up eating some without knowing it, and poor Penny Jane is right back to spitting up. But the upside to going dairy-free--besides, of course, not torturing my child--is that I'm losing weight a lot faster!

The three-month birthday girl:

Queen of Babble-On

She's talking! It's so cute! Well, baby babbling, of course, but it's adorable. I forgot how much I love those silly sounds. We got out the play pad that Abby spent so much time on at this age, and she's been kicking around in there, chatting away with the dangling animals. She's also trying (at least I think she's trying and it's not just random flailing) to grab at them. You go, girl!

A Day of Bodily Fluids

Her butt's a cannon!
Projectile poop even more
messy in the dark.

There are some events that just beg for their own haiku. This was one of them. I was changing her diaper on the bed, in the mostly-dark of 3AM, when she decided to, shall we say, "Let it go". Thing is, I had her legs in the air so I could slide the new diaper under her, so her butt was aimed quite perfectly at my chest, and wow, did she get some power behind that poop! And cleaning up in the dark was even more fun--all sorts of little 'presents' to be found...on my shorts...on my arm...on the bed...somewhere else on the bed...

But that was just the beginning a few hours later she had another Mt. Vesuvius-like reflux explosion that soaked the outfit I was all excited to wear that day, about five minutes before we were to leave for our AP moms playgroup. And that night, after putting her in the last pair of pajamas I had for her, she erupted yet again.

Both ends of her are quite powerful, I tell you what.

Bellybutton, be healed!

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has been praying for Penny J's beebo. We went to the doctor on Friday and she said it looks like it's closed up! There's a small scab still there, so we need to be careful of that, but other than that it looks like all is well. Took three weeks and three different treatments (plus a TON of prayer), but we're out of the woods. Huzzah!

We had our last check-up with Michelle last week. I was so sad when I realized I wouldn't be seeing her again until the next baby. We weighed PJ and she was 12 lbs, 1 oz. WOW. That explains why some of her 3 month outfits are starting to seem a bit snug. I got pics of PJ with Michelle:



and Karly:



for her scrapbook, which I REALLY need to get going on. Anyway, if anyone out there is considering a homebirth in the SoCal area, I urge you to check out Michelle. She's just amazing. I'm so blessed to have found her.

She's still sleeping about 6 hours at night, hallelujah, though last week she had three nights in a row of only 3 or 4 hours at a stretch, and I'm thinking that must have been a growth spurt. That was still way better than Abby ever slept, but I'm very thankful she's back to 6 hours. And yesterday she slept for an hour and a half in the crib while I cleaned and had lunch. Dan had taken Abby out for some daddy-daughter time, so I had the place to myself. It was heaven. I got so much done! And I was excited that she slept in the crib. My goal for this week is to get her down to a routine with her morning nap. I've been just letting it happen whenever and wherever, but I'm seeing a pattern, so I think I'm going to start taking her upstairs around the 2.5 or 3 hour mark in the morning and putting her in the crib for naptime. We'll see what happens...

The last bit of news is that I'm pretty sure she has some kind of food allergy. I suspect it's dairy, but only because I'm sensitive to dairy too. If it's not that I'm almost certain it will be wheat, given the issues my mom has with it. So, starting tomorrow, I'm going dairy free. Pray for me. Next to bread products, dairy products are my absolute favorite. I just bought a brand new brick of cheddar, too. Drat.

There's a hole in my baby!

(dear Liza, dear Liza)

So, yeah, that's sort of weird. Her belly button kept getting crusty, so I took her to the ped this past week and she had a look and said, "Ah, yes, there's a hole." Apparently things didn't completely heal up when her cord fell of. *ew* She was optimistic that it would heal up since it was so small and barely leaking anything as compared to most kids; apparently when that happens their shirts often end up with a huge wet spot. That's definitely not happening here, thank heavens. But she said that if it doesn't heal on its own it'll need surgery. :( She said to treat with alcohol but Michelle said to treat with the Cord Care "dust" that we used on the umbilical cord. She also said that research keeps showing that alcohol impedes the healing process. Grr. I never know who to believe! I have to admit, though, I am less likely to believe the standard medical doctor these days. So we're going with the Cord Care dust. Though we've been "dusting" it since Tuesday and it doesn't seem any better, so I'm calling her tomorrow to see how long it might take. Please God, don't let it need surgery!!!


Already showing off her personality...

Contest winners!

Ahhh, you thought I'd forgotten, didn'tcha? Well, I did. BUT! I remembered, as I eventually (usually) do. I tried a new scoring system this time--y'all started out with 100 points, and deductions were made as follows:

wrong sex = 10
wrong day = 1 point per day
wrong weight = 1 point per every 2 oz.
wrong length = 1 point per every 1/2 inch
wrong part of the day (AM or PM) = 1 point

The winner is Sam, with a score of 93! Very impressive! And to think she started her prediction with "I'm never any good at these things..." Sam wins a copy of Shauna Niequist's new and awesome book, "Cold Tangerines," as well as her choice of "Violette Between," "Worlds Collide," or my upcoming release, "Reinventing Rachel." Happy reading, Sam!

And a bonus prize goes out to Katie for guessing Penelope Jane's weight spot-on. She wins a copy of her choice of "Violette Between," "Worlds Collide," or my upcoming release, "Reinventing Rachel" as well. Hope you enjoy, Katie!

Thanks to everyone for your guesses. I'm sure PJ will have fun one day looking at all your guesses!

Our little overachiever

We were in Ventura over the weekend. Abby took off with Greena the minute we walked in the door--it's such a joy to see her so comfortable with them! She spent the whole weekend either playing blocks with Par, watching cartoons with Greena, or showing off her singing and "dancing" as she watched our Jana concert. I can't believe how many of the lyrics she knows! And how well she does the hand motions! It's SO cute, and it kills me that she stops the second she sees the video camera; I so desperately want to record her for posterity. (And for the relatives that don't get to see her.)

Penny J was her usual mellow self. Dan's afraid we're going to leave her somewhere because she's so quiet. I laughed when he told me that--except I feel the same way sometimes! She did, however, draw quite a bit of attention to herself on a couple occasions when she ROLLED OVER. Yes, at two weeks and a few days she rolled from back to front. Three times, in fact. In front of a shocked audience. And this wasn't just a serious wiggle with enough inertia to flip her. She rolled to her side (which she's been doing nearly since the beginning) and hung out there for awhile, and then suddenly started squirming and kicking--and then presto! Tummy time!

She's also been holding her head up for 30 seconds or more at a time. And not just while being held up; last night she was lying on Dan's chest and she picked up her head and just held it there, looking around. Crazy!


The girls at Gigi and Boppa's (my parents) on Easter Sunday.

Packing on the...ounces

Penny and I had our 2 week appointment with Michelle today. Penny was 9 pounds and 2 ounces! she was just 8 pounds 9 ounces less than a week ago--she really piled it on in the last 5 days! She looks so much more filled out. But even so, she doesn't look as big as Abby did at birth, and Abby was only one ounce less than Penny is now. Strange.

I checked out okay, although unfortunately some of my stitches tore right through the skin and were no longer holding anything together. Thankfully they were just "cosmetic" stitches and not fixing anything really important, so it's not a big deal. I'm so surprised I didn't know it had happened; certainly sounds like it would be awfully painful!

I've been feeling some serious mommy guilt the last couple of days. I think I had taken about 200 pictures of Abby by the time she was 2 weeks old. I've taken...maybe 20 of PJ. We have a bunch of her and Abby that I need to go through from Easter, but I swear I had the camera next to me at all times when Abby was a baby, and now I don't even know where the camera is! I haven't started Penny's baby book (though I did finally buy one), I haven't gotten a scrapbook for her yet, I haven't started writing in the journal I'll keep to give to her when she grows up...it's terrible. I always told myself I wouldn't be like this, and yet here I am. Not good.

One week down, a lifetime to go

Penny-J had her one week doctor visit yesterday. She's up to 8 pounds and 9 ounces--not bad for a kid with a lousy nursing latch who's supposedly eating in the most inefficient way possible. I've given up trying to fix it, though--the pain's not that bad anymore, and she's obviously not suffering. I have enough in my life to stress over; why add to it?

The best part, though, I gotta say, is that the child sleeps. She nursed at 11 last night and then not again until 3:30, and after that it was 7 a.m.! Unbelievable! After Abby's nighttime nursing marathons, this is a very welcome change. I actually prayed while I was pregnant that this baby would be a good sleeper--God is good! She doesn't "shut down" at night until 11ish, though--or at least that's been the pattern until tongith; right now, though, she's pretty out. Good thing, too, because I'm half asleep and desperate for bed.

Homebirth Reflections

Abby is zoned in front of an episode of Max and Ruby and Penny-J is asleep on my chest, so since they're both occupied I thought this might be a good time to post some of my thoughts about the homebirth.

Like every new experience, I went in with a lot of expectations. Most of them went out the window (bake a cake?! during labor?! what the heck was I thinking?!), mostly because of the speed of labor, but despite my laundry list of unfulfilled hopes and desires for the event, I can't imagine having done it any other way. A lot of people have asked if I'd do it this way again. Honestly, in the first few hours after the birth, I would have said there won't be a next time, but of course the intensity of things has faded over the last week and I think I can say I'm open to there being another time, and yes, I will most definitely doing it at home!

I was thinking about how different it would have been had we planned on a hospital birth. I would have gotten an epidural, no doubt. Even if I'd woken Dan half an hour earlier (and I can't imagine I would have done it any sooner than that), by the time we actually got to the hospital and I got checked into a room, I would have been at the point in my contractions when they got totally intense. Would I have started my hypnobabies scripts in time? Possibly, perhaps in the car on the way there, but given how strong they were I think the car ride would have been incredibly uncomfortable--I don't know if I would have kept my focus enough to stay in hypnosis when things got crazy.

And how would I have labored? I was on my hands and knees hugging the birth ball for the majority of the time--would I have done that in the hospital? Would I have felt secure enough to let myself go "primal"--moaning, rocking, swaying--when the staff would have been checking vitals and monitoring me? Would my OB have let me deliver on my hands and knees? I'd like to think she would--though if I'd ended up with the epidural I most likely would have been on my back.

I would have had to be vigilant about my birth plan, especially in regards to the treatment of the baby after birth--wanting her right away to nurse, keeping her with me to bond for at least an hour before being weighed and measured, not wanting her to have the eye stuff (can't remember what it's called) or Hep-B vax or a pacifier. Whereas all those things were sorted out at the home visit and there was no need to remind anyone because they all knew and respected our wishes.

The food was a lot better at home, too. :)

Not that the homebirth experience was all sunshine and roses. I had a rather romantic idea of what homebirth would be like, and the reality was anything but.My hallway carpet has bloodstains, and every time I see them it's a weird, uncomfortable reminder that I was naked in front of three people I didn't know all that well, and with my husband there, which is just strange. These people also saw me raving like a woman possessed, and while it's their job and they've seen it a million times, I have never been out of control that way before, and it's weird to think I have that primitive, animal side to me. And while the image of a woman on her back on a bed giving birth is very accepted in our society, the image of a woman on all fours is not, and the memory of it feels very...base. It's a bit embarrassing to think my husband saw me that way. It is not a sexy image. Nor is the image of my water breaking on his office floor (thankfully covered in chux pads). After the birth, my bed (also thankfully covered in chux pads) looked like the scene of a brutal murder. And it's not like I didn't think there'd be blood, it's just that I hadn't given a lot of thought to the fact that it would be right there and not on an easy-to-clean linoleum floor like in the hospital.

And in a funky way, it felt like less of a special event because there wasn't the big "Time to go to the hospital!" moment, or all the accompanying medical buzz and procedure that goes with a hospital birth. I had a baby, took a shower, got some stitches, and then everyone left and I was in bed holding a baby. 'Course the fact that it only took five hours contributes to that as well, especially when you're expecting at least half a day to be taken up. It was, in all honesty, a bit of a let-down. On one hand, that's the beauty of it--something totally natural was treated as such and not treated like a life-or-death medical event. But on the other hand, when society has taught you that it is a life-or-death medical event, the natural way seems kind of simple and plain--not nearly enough fanfare for the emerging of a new soul into the world. There should have been trumpets and a chorus of angels--which there may well have been in heaven, but we didn't get the benefit of it. Maybe midwives ought to offer a fanfare package--marching band and fireworks, or at least a CD of the Hallelujah Chorus or something.

Anyway...that's what's been on my mind. And like I said, regardless of what expectations were or were not met, I'll do it this way again, if there is an again. I hope this doesn't turn anyone off from homebirthing, though I guess if it does then you weren't meant to do it in the first place. It's definitely a commitment and requires taking a lot of responsibility for your own care--not that midwives don't take care of you, but there's an expectation on their part, and rightly so I believe, that you are an integral part of the success of your homebirth and thus need to be more involved in your own care beyond just taking your prenatals and showing up for your appointments. A lot of women sign over their pregnancy and birth experience to their doctor, and if that's your cup of tea then so be it, but I think that's the reason why we've seen such an awful increase in cesarean rates in this country. I think it's high time women started trusting their bodies more and listening to (or, more accurately, rediscovering) their instincts when it comes to birth. Hopefully my experience will encourage someone to take that leap.

Sleep, glorious sleep...

So the first two nights Penny slept pretty well. I had high hopes. And then Saturday I was minutes away from slamming my head against the wall because she wanted to nurse nonstop--at nearly midnight I'd been in bed for over two hours and still hadn't slept. As soon as I got her back in the cosleeper and got myself settled, she'd be crying to eat again. (If she'd eat for more than ten minutes at a time, this wouldn't be such a problem.) Dan came in just before I broke into a thousand mental pieces and took her to see if being in the swing would distract her from eating--and it did! I got three hours of rest before they came back in, and life was good again. She only nursed one more time that night, and we got to sleep until quarter to eight.

Then last night she made up for it by only nursing twice and letting me sleep until 7:45, and Abby even contributed by sleeping an hour later than that! Granted, I didn't go to bed until 11 because I could tell Penny was just going to keep nursing, so I guess, now that I think about it, it wasn't much different from Saturday night, except that I didn't spent two fruitless hours trying to sleep. I really hope she picks up the nursing pace so she isn't up so late eating--these little five and ten minute mini-feeds scattered throughout the day are going to get old real quick.

Greena and Par (Dan's parents) came down Saturday to spend the day with us. More pics on the other blog--they helped Abby color eggs!--but I thought this was so cute: Abby nursing the doll they brought for her:



Nancy (a.k.a. "Greena") crocheted this blanket for PJ before she was born--she was pretty confident we were having a girl:



So Eastery! Speaking of which, hope your holiday was filled with awe for the sacrifice that was made for us, for God so loved the world...