Perspective: Lessons from a One-Year-Old

This winter has been rough. Very rough. We moved the first day of winter, and soon after it snowed so much that all five of us were trapped in the house for days. One of my goals for this year is to get out of the house with Evan at least once a week. By January 4th, when the biggest snow hit, that goal seemed like a joke. I see some numbers in the forecast beginning with a six, so there's hope this winter will end, but there's also more snow expected this week.

What makes this winter easier is that Evan is fascinated by the snow. He smiles at the snow, talks to it, shows it to his stuffed beaver. Even stuck inside watching it from his window, it's fun to him. As much as I'd like to just up and move to California, I am glad my kids will get to experience all four seasons living in Indiana. He'll get to play in the snow and the rain and the crunchy leaves.

Perspective. It's all about perspective.

As another illustration of this, I really do not like house centipedes. While I generally love all creatures great and small, including snakes and possums, I draw the line with the house centipede. I'm convinced they're the result of The Fall because these creepy demon bugs could not have existed in Eden. I think I've made my point.

So imagine my reaction when I came out into the living room and saw Nenya and Evan both watching a house centipede dashing across the floor, Nenya trying to snap at it. I did what any sensible person would do and grabbed a tissue and obliterated it. And how did Evan react? He was distraught. He started sobbing and threw himself on the floor, a very rare occurrence for him. While he's obviously too young to understand the concepts of life and death, he was having fun watching the centipede run across the floor with Nenya chasing after it. I had taken his entertainment away.

Now that was a good dose of perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to kill the next one I see, but what a shock to realize my son could actually find such a creepy bug fun.

While I'm teaching Evan about the world, he's also teaching me.

On Language and Learning

I love watching Evan learn and figure out his world. It's one of the best parts of being a mom. When I think about all there is to learn, especially in a language as strange as English, it seems remarkable that any of us ever learn it all.

For example, how will he learn that a baby chicken is a chick and that chickens say cluck and chicks say peep and a male chicken is a rooster and says cock-a-doodle-do?

Or that a baby goose is a gosling and a baby moose is a calf. Two geese and two moose.

And all the letters and numbers and colors we use to describe things.

A square is both a rectangle and a rhombus, but a rhombus is not a rectangle.

A platypus is a mammal that has a bill and lays eggs.

Walk, walked. Ask, asked. Write, wrote. Eat, ate. Sit, sat. Go, went.

They're putting their books over there.

You love someone with all your heart, but the organ known as a heart really is not the source of love and looks nothing like the shape we know as a heart.

Our two dogs look different from each other and different from his stuffed dogs, but they're all still dogs, who say bark, woof, and arf.

But we do learn. Well, at least most of us learn most of this. And so will he. It's just remarkable, and I love that I will get to watch it happen.

10 Things to Do Before Kids: How Many Did We Actually Do?

Six months before I got pregnant, I made a list of 10 things I wanted to do before we had kids. I referred to these as ideas instead of goals since these things didn't necessarily have to be done before we had our first child.

I thought it would be fun to take a look back at what I actually did before Evan was born.

Figure out being a family of two
I feel like our marriage did get stronger in those months before I got pregnant. Sure, pregnancy and having a baby can strain any relationship, but we're still very much enjoying being married.

Go on a relaxing vacation
This one is kind of funny. I meant to write a post about this one specifically but never did. Basically, we found out we're no good at relaxing. About four months into my pregnancy, we tried to spend less than 48 hours in Nashville, IN, staying in a cabin with no agenda, and we were bored! I guess we need to find a balance between planning too many activities and not planning any.

Start buying organic food and stop buying as much processed food
I wanted to at least buy the "dirty dozen" organically. I had a setback with this one when I bought organic potatoes and one was rotten inside. Why should I pay extra for poor quality? I'm still working on buying and making healthier foods, especially now that Evan is eating a wide variety of food and we found out Nathan has high cholesterol. I'll admit I gave Evan non-organic strawberries though. It's a process.

Get a second dog
This barely happened! I got pregnant three weeks after we adopted Adyn. At that time I was thinking it could still take awhile. Had I known I would get pregnant right away, there's no way I would have gotten a second dog. I guess it was just meant to be. Adyn's like my soulmate and archnemesis all in one. It's been an interesting ride.

Get in the habit of regular exercise
Eh...this has been off and on. I wanted to keep jogging during my pregnancy, but the crazy hot spring we had two years ago along with not feeling so great during the first trimester kind of killed my progress. I'm counting this one because I did walk the third of a mile to work until I was seven months pregnant.

Move somewhere with a washer/dryer and fenced-in yard

We sure did! And then right before Evan turned one, we moved again and no longer have a fenced-in yard. We can put the dogs out on a chain at least, and it's a much nicer area to walk the dogs (when it's not a blizzard). Having a washer and dryer was the biggest requirement!

Read and Research
I tried to limit this one so I didn't get overwhelmed. The one book I'd recommend is Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn by Penny Simkin.

Have a better community
We're getting there! We finally found a church we like right around the time we got pregnant. Several of my good friends are currently living overseas, which has been rough, but I needed the push to meet new people, especially other moms.

Do some freelance design work
I didn't actually do any freelance work before Evan was born, but once I made the jump and quit my day job last May, I found clients very quickly. It all worked out!

Continue putting all my income towards student loans and savings
During 2012, I contributed $50 into our Health Savings Account each week, and the rest of my paycheck went towards paying off student loans. I'm glad we'd had nearly three years' experience of living on Nathan's income by the time I decided to quit my job. We won't get out of debt as quickly now, but we knew we would be fine without that money.


Is there anything else I wish I'd done? Is there anything I'd encourage childless women to do before they have kids? I honestly can't think of anything I couldn't do now that I have a son. I wish I could have crossed off the two remaining items on my list, but I think I needed to quit my job to have the extra time to devote to them.

Anything you wish you'd done before you had kids? If you don't have kids yet, what's on your list? 

One Year

One year...one year from a tiny, helpless newborn who can't hold his head up to an energetic toddler who can feed himself. When I was pregnant, I wasn't sure I was ready for just how quickly my baby would grow and change. After Evan was born, I would look at babies a few months older and think, I'm going to have one of those in just months? It's been a lot of fun to watch Evan reach new milestones this past year, but when I look back, the changes are just phenomenal.

Overall, I'm loving this age. I think the word that best describes Evan now is inquisitive. While he's always loved exploring, now it's less about going and more about doing. He's slowing down (at times, anyway) and figuring out how things work. He's currently fascinated by stacking things - blocks and whatever else he can find. Several times now he has sat on the floor of his room with me before bedtime and spent a half hour building towers. Considering Evan learned to crawl before he sat up on his own, for a while I didn't think he would ever sit for a half hour doing anything. At around eleven months, he become interested in stuffed animals again after totally ignoring them for about seven months. Now he babbles to them, usually in a higher voice than he uses to talk to people. He's become very interested in books. I think I could read him all his board books (around 20 now) five times each every day and he wouldn't get tired of them. He's also figured out doors recently and shut himself in his room the last two days. Let's hope he doesn't figure out locks for a while.

His language development is beginning to take off. I started teaching him a few signs when he was six months old, and while he started doing "milk" and "eat" around seven months, by nine months he wasn't signing at all and didn't even seem to respond much to me signing them. He was just too focused on mastering walking for a couple months. Now he's signing "milk" again sometimes and is starting to figure out "water." As far as spoken words, "Dada" has taken on a clear meaning lately. He also says "Day-Day" sometimes for Adyn and often says "Duh! duh! duh! duh!" when he has a rubber ducky. "Mama" has become less common, only coming out when he wants to nurse and I'm distracted with something else.

Evan's appetite has increased immensely in the last month or so. He never wanted to be spoon fed more than a few bites until he was ten months old and refused to be spoon fed at nine months when he was teething. Now he's much more into food, both being fed and feeding himself. Meat and cheese are probably his favorite foods right now. I'm thinking we might have to raise the grocery budget soon, and he's still nursing four times a day. 

Although Evan started walking one day shy of nine months, it took him another month to walk more than twelve steps at a time. He stopped crawling (at least 95% of the time) around eleven months and is walking very well now. He loves to run from us and be chased. Another interesting part of his physical development is he's figured out how to snap his fingers in the last month. It isn't very loud, but considering I can't snap my fingers at all (seriously) I find it crazy that my son already can. 

The night of his birthday, before I put him to bed, I was singing to Evan about how we'd had a good year and we would have even more fun in the next year. As I sang, I realized I'm really excited about having a toddler! The fact that my baby is no longer a baby really doesn't make me sad at all. I'm just looking forward to what's to come.

Being Ready for Motherhood

I never had much interest in dolls when I was little. I only liked to play with stuffed animals, preferably beavers. My grandmother couldn't stand it. She bought me doll after doll, hoping to find one I would like. No luck. I just couldn't stand dolls, or anything else in the nauseating "pink aisle."

"How are you going to learn how to take care of a baby if you don't play with dolls?" my grandma asked me once. Looking back, her statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense; it's not as if my stuffed animals were preparing me for a career as a zookeeper or veterinarian. But I do understand her concern that my lack of interest in plastic babies meant I lacked interest in ever having real ones.

This should probably be the part of the story when I say that my grandmother was completely wrong, and that I grew up to be a woman who just loves babies and couldn't wait to have her own. But that's just not true. That wasn't me. Sure I liked kids and wanted two or three someday, but I'm just more comfortable with animals. If I hadn't gotten married, I probably would have become a crazy cat/dog/blue tongue skink lady and been perfectly happy with my life.

Was I "ready" for motherhood when I became a mother? I'd never even changed a diaper! Nathan had to teach me. But my lack of experience aside, I don't think I ever would have reached a point in life when I truly felt ready to become responsible to care for and raise another human. I mean, babies turn into teenagers! Is anyone ever really ready for that? I don't know if I ever will be.

Sometimes you just have to jump into the water and hope you can swim, and so far I'm still managing to tread water. I'm still not a baby person and I doubt I ever will be, but I adore my baby and look forward to having more kids. Not only have I figured out how to change diapers, I switched to cloth diapers when Evan was 5 months old!

Am I doing it all perfectly? Of course not. I doubt there's any aspect of parenting I do anywhere close to perfectly. I'm making it up as we go, and I'm sure most parenting "experts" would say I'm doing just about everything wrong, either holding him too much or too little, feeding him too much solid food or too little, etc. But you know what? Evan doesn't seem to know that I'm doing it wrong. He seems to think I'm kind of awesome, and that's good enough for me.

Do you feel ready to be a parent? If you have kids, did you feel ready to be a parent when your first child was born? 

Evan at 9 Months

I originally started writing this post as "Evan at 6 Months," but then I blinked and three months had gone by. Yikes. I guess I'd better do at least one post before he's a year old. Here's what Evan's been up to in his first 9 months.

As a newborn, the first words I would have used to describe Evan were "laid back" and "happy." As he got a little older, I would have added "engaging" because he was so social and wanted everyone to talk to him. Now that he's become much more active, I've seen "determined" come out. This kids does not give up! He's been a little less social the last few months as he's focused more on his physical development. He does seem to be developing a goofy sense of humor though.

Evan weighs about 18 pounds now. He hasn't had his 9 month checkup yet, but at about six and a half months, he weighed 16 lbs 6 oz and was 26.5" long, which put him around 20% for weight and 40% for length. He's not nearly as long and skinny proportionately as he was as a newborn, when he was about 30% for weight and 90% for length, but we're okay with that. His clothes fit much better. He's wearing mostly 12 month clothes now.

He rolled onto his stomach for the first time at three and a half months (May 2) and it wasn't long before he mastered rolling as a means of transportation and started rolling across the living room. At five and a half months (July 5) he pushed up to his hands and knees for the first time. By the time he was six months old, he was already an excellent crawler. Sitting up on his own didn't happen as early but happened very quickly. He could sit up on his own with his hands supporting him for a few seconds by six months, but he had no interest in doing so. What's the fun of sitting when you can roll or crawl all over the place? About a week after he turned six months old, he started to push up from all fours into sitting with his hands, and at six and a half months (August 2), he was sitting up with no hands. Two weeks later (August 16) Evan pulled up to standing for the first time. He started standing on his own earlier this month and took his first steps one day shy of 9 months old (October 18). I've always thought walking at 9 months sounded crazy and by no means have I tried to push him into early development, but I'm not going to hold him back either! His record is up to 12 steps in a row.

To answer what seems to be everyone's favorite question, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?!?" Sometimes. Sometimes he sleeps 12 hours straight, sometime she wakes up after 6 or 9 and goes back to sleep after nursing. He's pretty much always slept 12 hours at night, just with fewer wakings as he's gotten older. He's also gone to bed and woken up progressively earlier as he's gotten older. At first it was midnight to noon, and now it's 7:30pm to 7:30am. These days he generally takes one nap in the afternoon. It's usually two hours, but sometimes it's as long as three. Up until a few days before he turned six months old, Evan was sleeping in a pack-n-play right next to our bed. It worked great up until that point, but once he started waking up more easily and making more noises in his sleep, I decided it was time to put him in his own room. Evan's been fine with it. If anything, he liked the change of scenery.

Evan's diet is still mostly breast milk, with solids once a day most days. I wanted to hold off on solids until he was six months old, but I had no doubt he was ready at that point. He was grabbing our food at 4 months old. We started off with avocado. I just gave him a little taste, thinking if he wasn't into this solid food thing, we'd just try again in a week or so. Well, he was totally into it! He was launching forward with his mouth open and grabbing the spoon from me to stick it in his mouth himself. By 9 months old, he decided he wanted nothing to do with spoon feeding anymore, so I've just been letting him feed himself for the most part (under close supervision). I have yet to find a food he doesn't like well enough to eat as much as I give him.

It's been a joy watching this little guy grow and change and experience the world!

The Importance of Together as a Mom

I'm spending another 5 minutes of nap time writing for Five Minute Friday this week on the prompt of Together.


Together

It took me awhile to realize the importance of togetherness as a mom, of spending time with other moms. If you're a new mom or future mom, I encourage you to come together with other moms.

I didn't go to a La Leche League (breastfeeding support group) meeting until Evan was almost six months old. We weren't having any problems with nursing, so I didn't think I needed to go. But I need together. I need to be around other moms choosing to nurse past a year or even two because there are people who think nursing a baby who can walk is disgusting. I need to be reminded that I'm not alone. I go to a moms' group to remember that I'm not the only mom who's accidentally whacked her baby's head while walking through a doorway or who doesn't have a perfectly clean house.

As an introvert I'm happy being along most of the time, but I still need the togetherness.

Life as a Work at Home Mom

It's now been over five months since I left my job. Five months ago Evan wasn't yet mobile, and now he's crawling like a pro and has taken his first steps. It flies by so fast, and I'm thankful I've been able to stay home with him to watch him grow and develop.

While working full-time outside the home as a new mom just wasn't for me, I wanted to keep working. Graphic design is part of who I am, and while I may be more selective about clients and projects down the road, I don't plan to ever completely stop. I cringed when someone listed my occupation as "homemaker." There's nothing wrong with that job title, but it's just not me. However, I did give myself two months to focus on being a wife and mom, a redo of my maternity leave if you will. I bought a domain for my freelance business and made a Facebook page, but I didn't do much with either. Once I reached my July 1 deadline of when I needed to get serious about my freelance business, I realized I really had no idea how to find clients. I invited all my friends to like my Facebook page, offered my services in a couple places, and that was about it. I submitted a logo design for a contest and browsed around Elance, but nothing really came of it.

Then, three weeks into July, something really crazy happened: someone contacted me through my website about doing design work for them. And a few weeks after that someone else contacted me. A week later, someone from a local organization contacted me about working for them on a retainer. This local client has given me so much work that I haven't even made much of an effort to find new clients, and I'm able to offer my services to others at a lower rate. And just like that, I was a work at home mom. 

Balancing the work, home, and mom parts of my job has been an interesting challenge. I've found that on any given day, it's usually a choice of 2 out of the 3. If I have a lot of freelance work, I might completely forget about dinner or run the washer through an entire cycle without putting any clothes in it (hypothetically, of course). If the house is clean, I probably didn't do any freelance work that day. On the rare occasion I manage to spend a few hours working and get a lot done around the house, I don't spend much quality time with my son, which defeats the entire purpose of why I'm at home. If I find a true balance between the three, I feel like I accomplished nothing at all. I'm still working out the kinks, but overall, I'm very happy. 

Nathan has been wonderfully supportive. When I told him I ruined dinner (it turns out mixing eggs with shredded potatoes will NOT keep them from immediately turning brown), he brought home Fazoli's. One night recently I was lying in bed reading from the book we're reading for the moms' group I go to on Tuesday mornings. This particular chapter of No Perfect Moms was entitled "No Perfect Marriages." When I saw the title, I thought, "Yeah, that's for sure," yet as I was reading, Nathan was doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Our marriage might not be perfect, but my husband is pretty awesome. I never would have been able to handle working at home, let alone working outside the home, without a husband who cooks, cleans, and does whatever else he needs to do to take care of our family and home. I'm thankful he was never set on having a wife who stays home or a wife that works, and supports me no matter what I choose to do.

As for my main client, I think Evan likes that I'm home. He is very happy and healthy and growing well. We're still going strong with breastfeeding with no plans to stop anytime soon. We go to a moms' group, La Leche League meetings, and other places where he can be around other kids (and I can be around other adults). Sometimes I think I'm not providing him with enough stimulation or activities, but whenever I get down on the floor to play with him, he just climbs over me or cruises around me. It's pretty fun being his favorite toy. 

So, when will I be going back to work? I don't know. Some have misunderstood the fact that I actually resigned from my job and am not still on maternity leave. Depending on where the company is if and when I want to go back to work, they could rehire me, but there isn't a job waiting for me. At this point I don't have a set date or age of my child(ren) for when I'll go back to work. I look at this not as "taking a year off" but rather taking the next step in my career. I might want to go back to working full-time at some point, but at this point I'm happy being just a work at home mom.

Life as a Working Mom & The True Cost of Working

Evan usually wakes up to eat around 3:00 am. At 5:30 it's time to feed him again and get ready before feeding him again at 7:15 to ensure he's as full as possible when I drop him off at daycare. I haul my bags and my baby out to the car, drop Evan off at daycare, and then try to be productive at work for a couple hours. By the time I get into the groove, it's already time to go upstairs to a dirty, dusty, cold room to hook myself up to a machine to make my son's first bottle for the next day. A couple more hours of work, then I go feed Evan at daycare, grabbing some sort of fast food on my way back to work. I try to eat while working, and after a couple more hours of work it's time for another pumping break. I work a few more hours, then it's time to go pick up my son.

At home I barely have time to feed my dogs before I have to feed my baby again. By this point Nathan's usually home, and we try to see what we can scrounge up for dinner. I'm usually too worn out to cook anything. One of us usually ends up holding Evan most of the evening. My once easy-going, fairly independent baby is now clingy in the evenings. After spending most of his day lying on his back in a crib or on a play mat, competing with seven other babies for attention, who can blame him? I try to spend some time with my husband in between nursing sessions, but it's hardly quality time. I sterilize all my pump parts and bottles and get everything else ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

On Evan's second day of daycare, I got a call from one of the directors because he'd had all three of his bottles by noon. Not sure if he was going through a growth spurt or just being over fed, I stayed home with him on Wednesday. It was definitely a growth spurt, but hoping it would level off, I went back to work Thursday. I left him with 3 bottles and told them I would be back at noon to nurse him. By the time I arrived at noon, he had already taken all three bottles and was hungry for more. Unable to feed him, the daycare workers had left him crying on the floor. It was undeniable at this point that the best place for a baby, especially one fed exclusively breast milk, is with his mother.

I tried to keep working. If I could just make it eight more months, we would be 100% debt free and have an emergency fund of at least 5 months' expenses. Evan would never remember being in daycare. I thought there had to be a way to make it work. Maybe I could do freezer cooking on the weekends and clean after Evan's gone to bed. Maybe if I gave up breastfeeding and gave him formula

After four weeks back at work, I gave my two weeks' notice. It was by no means easy to do. I'm not a quitter. I'd been working there almost four years. I got comments on Facebook telling me it would get easier, to just hang in there. I just couldn't. I admire women who can make it work, but it wasn't for me.  I wasn't giving my best to anyone: not my job, not my son, not my husband, not myself.

I had to stop crunching the numbers and look at the big picture. Quitting my job was not a good move from a purely financial standpoint. Even after daycare and increased costs related to me working, I was still bringing home a decent amount of money. The thing is, there's quite a bit more to life than money. I could relate to a lot of what Amy from The Finer Things in Life wrote in a blog post about what working outside the home was costing in terms of her time, her marriage, and her health. It just wasn't worth it to me.

A lot of it came down to this: At the end of my life, what will I regret? Will I be more likely to regret having less money during this time in our lives and being in debt a little longer, or missing out on the first year of my son's life?

I don't think I'll regret this decision.

I'm a Mom?

A year after finding out I would soon be a mother, and nearly four months after meeting my baby, it still seems unbelievable that I actually am a mother. I was reading a book to Evan today about a Mama Bear and her Little Cub and in my mind, Mama Bear is still much older and wiser than I am. Even though he looks like my family and I see his dad's personality in him, it's still hard to believe that this amazing little boy who gets bigger and smarter each day is my son. I find myself constantly thinking, and sometimes saying out loud to Nathan, "We have a baby!" or "I made that!" 

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms. Does it ever sink in?

5 Favorites from the First Few Weeks of Motherhood

I have to admit, these first few weeks haven't been quite what I expected. I guess I was just naive, but I had no idea recovering from childbirth would take so long. I thought I'd bounce back after three days or so, but it took three weeks before I started to feel better. I still can't stand very long before I start to feel sore. However, some things went better than expected, like the fact that I lost most of the baby weight in two weeks, despite barely being able to move. Plus, taking care of a newborn hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected. Evan is a pretty easy-going baby. It's all kind of balanced out I guess. Who knows, maybe next time I'll have a better recovery and a high maintenance baby.

Every mother has a different opinion about which baby items are essentials and which you can live without. I wouldn't call any of these five items essential, just things I was really happy to have as I stumbled through these first few weeks.

1. Boppy Pillow 

The tag on the Boppy depicts four uses of the pillow: feeding at 0 months, propping at 2 months, tummy time at 4 months, and sitting at 6 months. I discovered a fifth use: sitting during the first week...not for the baby, for the mother recovering from childbirth. It's also been great for nursing. I can manage without it, but it helps me sit with better posture.

2. Graco Swing

Sometimes Evan just wants some kind of movement, which was difficult to give him when I could barely move. Evan loves being in his swing. Sometimes he goes to sleep, and sometimes he just sits there awake, looking at the elephants and whatever else is around.

3. WebMD Baby App

If you want to use a smartphone app to track things like feeding times and diaper changes, I recommend finding one you like before the baby is born. I downloaded at least 5 others before finding this one. It's still not perfect, but it works for what I needed. It also has other nice features like information about your baby's development, a growth tracker, and even a baby book to add photos and milestones. 

Having a smarthphone in general has been useful for these weeks of not doing much other than resting and nursing. I've liked having the OverDrive Media Console app so I can check out ebooks from the library for one-handed reading. 

4. Lamaze Panda's Pals Book

This book for ages 0+ has high contrast images of an animal on each page, along with the name of that animal. I was skeptical that a brand new baby could enjoy a book, but the first time Evan was really alert for a significant amount of time, at three days old, I decided to show it to him. Sure enough, he stared at the animals, looking back and forth between the two pages. It was a great moment for me. You could save money and just draw some shapes on paper with a black marker (which I've also done), but I love being able to "read" Evan his first book.

5. Mama Bottom Balm, from Earth Mama Angel Baby

Hemorrhoids, swelling and bruising, episiotomies...I don't think any expectant mother expects to deal with any of these things, but if you find yourself faced with all of the above, you'll be glad you bought this. I was amazed at how well it worked. It seems to be more effective than any of the stuff I got from the hospital, and it smells much better too.


I'd love to hear from other mothers about what they found fun or useful with a brand new baby and/or recovering from childbirth.

Evan's Birth Story

By the time I was 41 weeks pregnant, on Wednesday, January 16, I knew I had less than a week left of being pregnant. The midwife I saw for my prenatal care was absolutely fine with me being pregnant past 41 weeks, but it's their policy to induce labor before 42 weeks. I had an appointment with my midwife, Carrie, on Friday morning (January 18), and we scheduled an induction for the following Tuesday. In an attempt to avoid a medical induction, I decided to have Carrie sweep my membranes. She told me there was about a 1 in 8 chance it would actually put me into labor, and it could cause some pain. At this point I was willing to give it a try. I had read quite a bit about membrane sweeping online and read several accounts saying it did nothing, but many of these women were around 37 weeks pregnant and 1 cm dilated, and none were 41+ weeks pregnant and 3 cm dilated like I was.

Not knowing how I would feel after the procedure, I had taken a vacation day on Friday. I ended up not being in much pain at all, just discomfort similar to mild menstrual cramps, but I was glad I had the rest of the day off. I put a pot roast in the crock pot for dinner, ate lunch, and slept for a couple hours. I tried doing some acupressure on pressure points supposed to induce labor, but I think all that accomplished was giving me a headache. Nathan came home from work, and we took the pot roast over to friends' house, played a game, and got back home close to midnight.

I woke up at 4:00 Saturday morning. This was the fourth night in a row I'd had little sleep. Fortunately I was able to sleep off and on from 6:00 to 8:00. During this time, I started feeling cramps. I thought the symptoms of having the membrane sweep had just taken until the next morning to set in. The strange thing was, I would feel cramping for about a half a minute, then it would stop for a while. The pattern seemed like contractions, but the sensation was only in one spot. Around 8:20 I told Nathan what I was feeling and started looking at the clock when I felt the cramps. Once I realized they were coming every 5-7 minutes, I used my contraction timer app to time them and found they were lasting about 30 seconds. I was convinced at this point they were actually contractions, even though they didn't feel like what I had experienced at 22weeks. As I was lying in bed, I told Nathan I needed breakfast, but didn't know what I could eat. He knew I was in labor when I told him oatmeal didn't even sound good. I decided I could handle a smoothie. Around 9:00, I gave up on sleeping and got in the shower for some relief. Nathan called our doula, Ana, to let her know I was having contractions and started dog-proofing the house enough for us to be able to leave the dogs for two days (They have a dog door and we had someone stop by to feed them). I got out of the shower and worked on grabbing a few last minute things for the hospital bag. Nathan asked me what I wanted in my smoothie, but by that point I couldn't eat at all, so he then finished packing our bags for the hospital.

At 9:26 I got a call from the HR coordinator at work, who was using her Saturday morning to work on paperwork and wanted to know if I was going to be back at work on Monday. "Well, I'm having contractions every 7 minutes, but labor could stop..." I confirmed everything was good with my paperwork and then went back to having a baby.

My parents, brother, and grandpa had been planning on coming over that day to go out to lunch and bring me my birthday gifts and cake since it had been my birthday the previous Monday. Of course we knew that plan could change, but after being pregnant 41 weeks, I had basically decided I might as well live my life as if I'm never going to go into labor. I called my mom and told her she should hold off on coming since I was in labor and didn't feel like eating cake, or anything else at the moment.

By 10:00 I was having contractions every 3-5 minutes, but they were only lasting 30-45 seconds. I decided we should take the opportunity to get one last maternity photo at 41 weeks. After that, I went into the living room and tried to get comfortable. I had Nathan put on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for me. Everything I had read about early labor said the best thing to do is distract yourself from the contractions. I started crying two different times while watching the beginning of the movie, and I have no idea why. Crazy hormones. About 40 minutes into the movie, it was clear distraction was no longer working. Nathan and I couldn't find any positions that made me more comfortable. I told Nathan I felt like I might get sick, and he brought me a trash can.

Nathan and Ana started texting back and forth about how things were going, starting at 11:08. I told him to ask her how far I had to progress before she would come, and she suggested we check back in at noon and see how I was doing. At 11:27 I told him to just call her. My contractions were 2-3 minutes apart by this point and 1 minute long, but they hadn't been a minute long for over an hour like they're supposed to be before you go to the hospital. After I finished a contraction, Nathan started to give me the phone, but I began throwing up. Ana realized then just how quickly things were moving and told Nathan she needed to meet us at the hospital instead of going to our house. Ana called the hospital to let them know we were coming. I thought it was still too soon to go to the hospital. After all, I didn't meet the rule of contractions that were 1 minute long for over an hour yet. Nathan said we had hired a doula for a reason and we needed to trust her instincts. I was still worried we might be sent home, but I didn't argue. I went almost 10 minutes without having a contraction on the drive there, which really made me worry my labor wasn't as far along as we thought.

It was about 12:15 when we got to the hospital. The walk from the parking garage to labor and delivery triage was a long one, but I knew walking would be better during labor than sitting in a wheel chair. Ana met us at the front entrance of the hospital. As we walked past the front desk, a man asked, "Do we need a wheelchair here?" Ana told him that no, actually, walking worked to our advantage. Confused, he basically insisted we needed a wheelchair for the long walk. "Yes, we know how long it is." A little farther down the hall, I saw one of the pastors from the church we've been going to. That was kind of random. Nathan talked to him for a minute while I had another contraction.

When we got up to labor and delivery triage, Ana completely took charge. Knowing about our bad experience in triage earlier in my pregnancy, she wanted to make sure we spent as little time there as possible. She told the lady out front that she knew they had to ask questions about domestic violence, but this was a safe situation, and Nathan was let in with no protest. I started having another contraction, and by the time I'd finished, Ana had already given the person in triage my insurance card and driver's license. I was amazed she had found them that quickly in the mess of my purse. Ana talked to a triage nurse about how we'd had a bad experience in triage before. I went to a bed and was hooked up to the monitor. One of the midwives, Cheryl came in. She had been the midwife in triage the last time I was there (but had nothing to do with why I had a bad experience). As soon as she opened the curtain, she said, "I do remember you! Miss I have a huge fibroid inside me!" Cheryl checked me and said I was at 6.5 cm dilated. Wow. I was pleasantly surprised! "You're not going home!" Ana told me. Knowing I was farther into labor than I expected and with the trip to the hospital behind me, I was feeling pretty good at this point. We waited in triage awhile longer while they got the room ready. I didn't know if I wanted a water birth, or if it would even be possible, but I wanted to have a room with a tub so I could give it a try at least. We were probably in triage for less than an hour. I didn't have to get an IV or even put on a hospital gown.

I got into the tub almost immediately after getting to my labor room. I remembered my friend Amber saying she'd felt almost normal after getting into the tub for her water birth, and I could see what she was talking about. The warmth was relaxing, and the buoyancy of the water meant I could float around in all kinds of positions for relief. For about two and a half hours, I could manage the contractions really well, and in between I was just chatting with Nathan and Ana. Nathan started eating the trail mix I'd packed. Neither of us had had anything to eat that day. I asked if he would give me an almond, and he gave me two. Not long after that, I said, "I'm probably going to be throwing up soon" and I was right. Eating during labor, although permitted at our hospital, was not a good idea for me.

Things got a little tougher around 3:00. I could still handle the contractions, but I asked Nathan when he was getting into the tub, and he put on his swim trunks and joined me. I had just reached the point where I wanted him right next to me. The contractions got more and more intense, and the time between them became shorter. At times I had almost no break in between. I started getting vocal with the contractions, not crazy screaming or shouting out profanities, just making sounds. I hadn't expected to be quite so loud during labor, and neither had Nathan, but it seemed to help work through the contractions, and Ana was encouraging me to do so. At one point Ana told me I was well into transition, which surprised me. Transition was supposed to be the worst part of labor, when women say "I can't do this." I never once said or even thought that I couldn't do it, although during a couple contractions I did wonder why I was having a natural birth. But then I'd finish the contraction and be at peace for a few seconds and know I could get through it. The midwife, Jill, did another cervical check around 3:30 (yes, while still in the water). She discovered the bag of water was bulging out and suggested breaking it to help labor progress. Some meconium came out in the water when she did so, which meant NICU would have to come in when the baby was born to make sure he hadn’t inhaled any. I wasn't told how dilated I was and didn't ask, for fear of being disappointed. Because of this, I was a little shocked when I said, "I feel like I need to push!" and received responses of "That's okay!" Really? I had heard about women getting the urge to push before they're fully dilated and having to hold back, so I was worried it wasn't time yet.

We could see the head by 5:00. A mirror was brought over so I could see that amazing, bizarre sight. With Nathan holding me, the baby started crowning. The end was near...except that it wasn't. I pushed through contraction after contraction and got nowhere. We still could only see the very tip of his head. Jill, Ana and the two nurses surrounded the tub, waiting for the baby to emerge, but he didn't. Everyone was suggesting different positions to try. We ended up with three videos on our camera of what was supposed to be the birth of our son but wasn't. They were carefully monitoring his heart rate through this (with a wireless monitor held onto my abdomen), and it stayed in the 120's.

Around 6:00, Jill told me I needed to get out of the tub so we could try other positions to get me more leverage. If you're wondering how one climbs out of a labor tub with a head sticking out of them, well, so was I. They moved the bed closer so I only had a few steps and supported me, but wow was that rough. We tried different positions on the bed, including pulling on a sheet tied to a squatting bar. That head still just was not budging. It wasn't due to lack of trying, from me or the baby. At one point he started rotating his head from side to side. Thinking the difficulty getting the head out could mean a huge baby and difficulty getting the shoulders out, they brought in an obstetrician, who happened to be the head of all the obstetricians of the hospital. After trying some more positions, the doctor felt around the baby's head and recommended doing an episiotomy. When Jill told me this, all I could do in response was moan. I'm not sure what all was discussed. I could hear Nathan talking to Ana about it. Knowing that episiotomies can lead to more tearing and it's better to tear naturally, I definitely didn't like the idea, but I just wasn't tearing on my own. I knew they wouldn't be suggesting it unless they thought it was truly needed. I remember asking how much it would hurt. I don't really remember giving consent but must have. I didn't feel any pain from the episiotomy, just pressure. As soon as it was cut, I pushed one more time and felt my son being born. Not just his head, all of him! Now that was a crazy feeling! At 6:38, he was finally here. Jill unwrapped the cord, which was around his neck three times, and handed him to me.

Evan gave a little cry when he first came out, then was content on my chest, eyes wide open. I was so focused on him that when I delivered the placenta I thought, "Oh yeah! Afterbirth. Forgot all about that." The initial skin-to-skin bonding time didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. Having a second degree tear assessed and stitched up while my uterus was being forcefully pressed on was just not conducive to bonding with my baby. Of course, it was still good for Evan. He seemed oblivious to what I was feeling and was eager to start nursing.

When I found out Evan was only 7 lbs. 11 oz., I was a little surprised. I would have thought after 41 weeks and 3 days gestation and with the trouble we had getting him out, he would be a little bigger. Then we found out he was 21.25 in. long. Apparently he just got longer during his extended stay in the womb, not heavier.

Although the last hour of labor was physically and emotionally draining, overall my labor and birth experience could not have been any better. A high risk for c-section birth that almost ended up being a water birth? I was extremely blessed. My fibroid never shrank smaller than 8cm, and with the way things looked at my ultrasound at 35 weeks, I had no idea how that baby was going to get out without a c-section. I still don't know how, but I know God is gracious, which is Evan's meaning in Welsh.

I had an awesome support team for my labor and birth. Nathan was amazing throughout my labor. I knew he would be great at supporting me emotionally, but I had no idea how much he would end up physically supporting me through labor. When I was pushing in the tub, he was grabbing my legs and pulling them back to my chest, almost as if we were pushing the baby out together. Having Ana there for extra support and a smoother experience at the hospital was invaluable. She spoke words of encouragement to me throughout my labor, fed me ice chips, and even made sure to put in our food order before she left. I'm sure she did more than I even realize, and I know having her there made Nathan much more at ease. We will be using a doula next time for sure. The midwife, doctor, and nurses I had were outstanding, and I never doubted that they had Evan's and my best interests in mind.

Most importantly, my birth story ends with a healthy baby. Despite passing meconium, getting stuck crowning, and having the cord around his neck three times, Evan was perfectly fine. He is thriving in the outside world, and I love being his mother. I don’t even mind that he decided to interrupt my birthday party with his own birth. I think having birthdays the same week is pretty special. I'm looking forward to this journey of motherhood.

Evan Nathaniel

Our son Evan Nathaniel made his entrance into the world Saturday, January 19, at 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 21.25 inches long. He's a healthy and happy boy. Other than feeling like I've been beaten with a baseball bat, I'm doing well. These first few days of motherhood have truly been a joy.

Birth story and more photos to come!