Dishwashers

Ok, so home appliances aren't my normal topic of convo here, but, hear me out.

Balance. And in this case balance between housework and rest.

Also related, compromise, which is a balance between two opposing (peoples') needs.

In our case, dishwashers are also related to the balance between needs and wants financially.

It's another magnet decorating surface around these parts 

I wanted a dishwasher because the extra 30 minutes per day of doing dishes while at least one kiddo is napping is hard. Because sometimes that 30 minutes means losing out on my only 30 minutes that day to sit and even sorta relax.

And because when my husband gets home, he wants a little time to himself at some point, and I need him to take the kids even if it means me doing other housework...but I'm so tired of cracked bleeding hands. And so tired of never being able to get to my kitchen sink/faucet because both sides of the sink are full all the time - one side clean one side dirty. All the time.

But our kitchen is tiny. So tiny. And if we were to lose space to even a narrow built-in dishwasher, we'd lose almost 1/6 of our total kitchen cabinet space. So that's a giant nope.

Redoing our kitchen (and replacing the 30 year old appliances) is definitely in our goals, but not at this minute. Because we'll want to do a good job and make more space and put in a pantry, and a real dishwasher. But we definitely don't have thousands of dollars right now, lol.

Also, Eric, my husband, doesn't do many dishes. And he doesn't care about piles of dishes on the counter. Or using dirty dishes again, because "we are just putting leftovers of the same food back on them anyway." Seriously, you can't make this shit up. So spending money on a dishwasher is super low on his priority list.

SO....I found a compromise, a way to balance.

Portable dishwasher yo.

Which is extra hilarious because our poor realtor showed us so many houses for so many months and everytime we saw one with YET ANOTHER PORTABLE DISHWASHER he'd remind us that he hadn't seen one in 10 years before us. We joked that we couldn't buy our house because it didn't have one. He let me know afterward that he hasn't seen a portable dishwasher since. It's a running joke.

But, my friend had one she didn't need. And a generous relative sent us a financial gift. And we were hosting Thanksgiving.

So we picked up our brand-new-to-us-only portable dishwasher. And I washed it. And scrubbed it. And ran it empty. Oh, and I looked up the manual online, because I'm savvy and cool and stuff.

Super not fancy

Doesn't hold a ton, but every little bit helps!

It's kinda inconvenient when it's running

I am SO SO SO SO happy with it, especially as we just ran it like 10 times in the two days after Thanksgiving, and then only had maybe 2 other dishes to wash from that event. So hooray.

BUT...the manual didn't include some really important pointers for the Portable Dishwasher Rookies out there. Don't learn from us.

I mean, OK, maybe most of it is common sense, but when you've got a newborn and a toddler and they both keep getting colds, it's not as clear to you...I swear.

First, there's an adaptor that attaches to your kitchen sink to hook it up. It's NOT AT ALL efficient to take that on and off each time because screwing two wet metal pieces together sucks. Just leave it on. It doesn't look awesome, but you'll get over it.

The hoses aren't long enough, so it's just going to be in your way. Even though it's possible to hit a button to shoot some water out of your sink while it's hooked up, it's not worth it.

Related to the point above, there's an order to this madness. First put your final dishes into the dishwasher, make sure you're happy with what's in there and THEN hand wash your couple of large or delicate items, and FINALLY hook up and run the dishwasher at the end. A normal built in dishwasher you can wash stuff by hand while it's running, but not this one.

Empty the sink while it's running. No really. One single plate can and will inevitably cover up the drain and the dishwasher emptying will overflow your sink.

Turn the faucet ON after you hook up the hoses. Not before, and don't forget to do it, or it won't run.

Accept the fact that your outlet in the kitchen will probably "pop" about half the time it runs. If you're lucky like we are, it pops at the end, but if you don't notice that and try to use the outlet later for, say, a load of dishes....hitting on won't help you.

It runs a dry cycle after the wash. Don't unhook the hoses or turn the sink off for this. Seriously. If you unhook it and coil the hose - you'll flood your kitchen as it does a final pump out at the very end. If you turn the sink water off, the pump out doesn't work at well and the machine gets mad at you and beeps incessently, probably while you're sleeping, just to piss you off. Wait until it's ALL THE WAY DONE before unhooking. Trust me.

And really, the main important ones pertain to unhooking. Once it's done, you can unplug and unhook and shove cords and hoses back into it. But...turn the water off before you unhook it. Otherwise spray everywhere. Like a keg if you don't get the line all the way hooked up and you decide to turn the CO2 on. If you've never bartended, trust me on that one. Especially if you're at the beginning of a long shift and have somewhere to be afterwards, because beer showers just aren't fun. And even if you've managed to remember to turn the faucet off, you still want to hit the "let the water out" escape button because this depressurizes the hoses. If you don't, it's a SMALLER shower. And then shake the hoses out for a while. My husband taught me this, if only he applied it to other areas in life as diligently....

So there you have it, your official DON'T FLOOD ANYTHING BECAUSE IT REALLY SUCKS guide to using a portable dishwasher. 

Because sometimes both kiddos are sad and exhausted and need milkies

He needed two cups a once

We don't have enough words to describe this dog. And these two are just buddies.

Finally learning how to get stuff to her mouth to chew

Holiday Spirit/Confession

I'll try to make this brief. It's about 3 am and I just put the baby back down to sleep. Luckily, it was for the first time tonight. Frequently by now it's the second or even third time.

I'm so tired of stigma. This particular time I'm thinking of every time I'm unhappy or struggling, instantly someone thinks of or asks about PPD/A (postpartum depression/anxiety). And while that's a very real fear/concern and it doesn't exactly get talked about enough, at least for me a lot of my feelings aren't just hormonal. They're lack of sleep, loss of normal life....things, and a lack of support. It's not that people don't love me/us or care, but it's that everyone is busy in their own lives and I get that. I do. But that doesn't always make it easy.

You see, I'm tired. And not just I-haven't-slept-for-more-than-4-hours-but-usually-only-1.5-hours-in-weeks tired, but exhausted of trying to be "good."

This isn't a dig at anyone BTW, it's just an overwhelming feeling from everyone and everything.

Kids are HARD. And we have the only ones. I love my kids and they're awesome, but when the overwhelming vast majority (think every single event in our family & pre-kids friend group) of events we're invited to in our lives right now are hosted at a house with no kids, scheduled and planned by adults with no kids catering to adults with no kids. You see, our kids are the only ones in both of our families in this current generation (or at least local in this generation, and honestly the "closest" kids are still 8+ years older and live 900 miles away other than a couple of teens). And out of our friends we've had/made before having kids, we are the only ones with kids. Only ones. I love our friends and family, but guys, it's HARD. HARD when I have a young infant and a young toddler and they are only addendums in planning to everyone else, when they're my WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE right now. They're not old enough to learn to be bored hungry AND tired simultaneously without totally losing it. They are young enough that wanting to be the center of attention isn't even weird or totally wrong, and yet when we go to these events they are largely a footnote for others or even worse, an inconvenience. 

It's really hard to be trying to start up the idea of the magic of Christmas with my toddler this year when he's going to be over tired and drug around everywhere on Christmas Eve and it isn't even going to be parties/events that are much fun for him. 

Yes, we've made and are making more friends that have kids, and it's easier to see them right now because they get it. And events are at places with toys and with other kids to play with. And they "get" naptime and bedtime and meltdowns and instinctively KNOW what sorts of things are hard or easy with little ones in tow. They're easier to hang out with. They even have kid friendly/exciting food all the time.

But we love and miss our families and our old friends. And we want to see you guys and hang out. But afternoons and evenings are the pits in our house. SO HARD. Coming over right at the start of naptime is really rough whether it's at my house or yours. Missing naps is a total disaster still. And being in a non-kid-friendly space with the only kids and therefore most other people at the gathering hanging out with just adults and talking somewhere else and not being actively engaged with our kids means that my husband and I pretty much have to be 100% on and engaged with the kids at all times because they ARE bored and tired and hungry and therefore SUPER CRANKY and so to try to avoid them causing all of the ruckus in the world, I am literally unable to talk to anyone at the event, I can't hang out, I can't have fun or do adult things or enjoy myself. 

And when it comes to holidays "just get a sitter" isn't an option, lol. And when it comes to friend things, please know that we don't really have a lot of people who are able and willing to sit for free for us, especially when so few people actually regularly see our kids, so they don't know their likes, dislikes, and schedules, and our kids are still young enough that they can't communicate this to caretakers. Oh, and we live like an hour from everyone, so either kids have to get left for much much longer than event (which is expensive or difficult or both) or people have to come to us. But our house is full of kids and toys and lately people don't want to always come out to us or they want to come out late afternoon/evening....which as mentioned above is super difficult and stressful.

So it's FREAKING HARD.

And while I want to go to all the things and see all the people, we just can't. And it's sad because then we either just don't get invited to things or can't go. Or, in the case of holidays go and it's all a hot mess and I feel so bad for my KIDS that they are miserable on the holidays, which is still so so so hard for me. 

And so just know, I'm not mad at you, I'm just at a loss.

And when I invite you to come over at 9 or 10 am and go to the park, or just hang at our house know that I'm doing this in an attempt to ACTUALLY GET TO SEE YOU AND VISIT WITH YOU. Because that's when the kids are actually friendly and rested and the most likely to actually just entertain themselves/play alone nicely by themselves, so we adults can talk. 

So I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you don't see us, or when you do still feel like you didn't. And I'm sorry I've turned things down and invited you over and times of day that sound unappealing and awful. Just know that I've been up since 5 or 6 am probably and 9 or 10 am really *isn't* early anymore.

And I'm sorry if next year I just give up and tell people to come see us for the holidays because we're just staying home for everything, because I just can't anymore. It's not personal, but it's my only survival technique.

And I'm sorry there's no photos with this post, it's because it's now 3:20 am on 12/24 and I just finished writing this after starting it at 2:50 am. And I need to get some more sleep, so we can flounder today, but I think it's really really important to put this out there. 

The Dreaded Flap

So many people tell me not to worry, blah blah blah, don't be too hard on yourself, etc, but I'm not. I'm not being dramatic, I'm being realistic. Because I literally turned my entire stomach into a huge web of stretch marks, all the way across it and everywhere, the skin was totally overstretched and the texture is ruined. It cannot snap back. It's tightening up some, but it will never ever be the same. No matter what everyone says. I could become a body builder and get down to 10% body fat (I would never, but it's TECHNICALLY possible), and the skin there would still be ruined. People who lose 50+ lbs know what I mean. When people either make huge lifestyle changes, or have bariatric surgery, or both, nearly all have to have skin removal surgery, because their skin is too stretched out to ever go back. My tummy skin is like that now.

Yeah, not real excited about this.

This means, that between that, and my tight c section scar, I now have the dreaded flap. Sigh.

Not awesome, not the end of the world, but...it is a definite clothing crisis. Nothing really fits anymore. I have pre-pregnancy pants available in 6 or 7 different sizes, and shirts that are maternity or not in XS-XL, but honestly 1 pair of pants, a couple of dresses (because THANK YOU STRETCHY STUFF!) and perhaps 4 or 5 shirts fit. I typically prefer fitted style shirts, because fabric that flaps or is loose and can catch on/rub on body parts or things around me is a huge sensory problem.

Not too bad, wearing my 1 pair of pants

I'm not exactly as small anymore, but I can flex and feel athletic again

Well, now my fitted shirts, even those that are bigger sizes, all roll up over my flap. Which means I'm pulling on them all day. Irritating. The slightly looser fit shirts don't roll up, but they either catch on the skin flap OR flap in the breeze. Irk. Pants are an even bigger issue. My low rise pants, even in larger sizes just emphasize the flap and either are uncomfortable because the flap rests on the outside of them, or are being pushed down by flap and I spend all day yanking them up. I have a few mid rise things, but they are either too big at the waist and gap huge above the flap area, or a bit small in the butt/thighs and consequently fall down. I have maybe 1 pair of high rise pants, that were a gift, and I hate them. 1 - they go up to my bra. No joke. 2 - When I sit down, they try to cut me in half. If they were bigger though, even with the flap, the waist would be too big. Nope nope nope nope. So I'm at a loss. I have 1 pair of yoga pants that are comfortable, they're maternity, but have a half belly panel, and they do flap a little at the waist, but only a tiny tiny bit so far (about those 15 lbs I still need to lose), but keep my skin flap still, which is more comfortable. And they don't fall down all day long.

BUT...they're no longer made, or I would have already bought like 3 more pair. And I'm loathe to spend money on pants that I don't know if will fit, plus don't really have time to try on a bunch of stuff. So....suck suck suck suck. I hate being uncomfortable if I'm already dealing with two cranky kiddos and stuck at home on no sleep. I don't have to be "cute" I just want to be comfortable.

Of large concern (not right now, but come spring) is running. I'm taking the winter off running because I don't yet trust my pelvis, and Jade won't be jogging stroller ready until around May, so I see no reason to deal with runs in the literal freezing cold. BUT, once I do start running again, I'm used to running with only skirt and bra in the warm weather. My flap then will bounce though (seriously, it bounces when I laugh and it's really uncomfortable), and that's not ok. But I'm worried my fitted running shirts will do what my regular fitted tanks do, and just roll up constantly, so that I'm super pissed off yanking them down.

Plus, I'm worried about swim suits. I don't care about people seeing my new "front-butt" really, but it flapping around is not OK, and I can't stand t shirts in water, again with the sensory and clothing pulling on me. One pieces are notoriously impossible for me with my short torso, and high waisted again just fit...wrong. I may try to find a good tankini style, but I'm worried about the top doing that rolling up thing.

A lot of people suggest to me that the solution is a tight tank or camisole underneath all of my shirts. Sigh. I just...can't. I run too warm to be ok with layered shirts. It's 68 inside my house right now and I'm in yoga pants and 1 thin tank top. I'm not cold. I can't do two shirts when it's warm out. Also, I've tried doing this before and the feeling of the two shirts sticking to each other makes me cringe. As does the TWO layers of rolling up shirts.

I feel like I need a personal shopper to take me out and show me what styles I need to look for now, what will fit my new shape without flapping or rolling up.

Or I'm going to end up finding a seamstress to make a dozen pairs of my favorite pants and just having to tuck in all my shirts to them all the time. Or give up and live perpetually in dresses.

Sigh. I love my body and I'm happier to be cosmetically destroyed rather than functionally so. Glad my body works again. But...I want to be comfy and on the cheap.

One simply cannot have too many pictures of adorable babies in pumpkins

My little ROO!

Sometimes you just gotta kill time with filtered selfies

Vaginal Birth Recovery

It's hard to imagine having two births more different, unless I suppose I'd managed to have a medicated homebirth, lol. As much as Jade's birth was painful and hard, it was nothing as compared to Legan's.

Snoozing in bed with a fresh baby

To spare SOME details, I'll just say that I only had two very small micro tears. Not worth mentioning. They stung like hell for about 24 hours, but totally faded away in less than 2 days. No joke.

Not 20 minutes after giving birth I was getting out of a tall birth pool. I was walking to the bed and to the bathroom.

Not an hour after, I showered. All by myself!

This isn't to say it was all peaches and cream, but seriously not in the same realm as the c section recovery.

I still had bleeding. I still had a goofy mushy tummy that was sore. I had to be careful how & where I sat down for a while, but maybe only a week, 10 days? General soreness wasn't really worse than from a Tough Mudder. In fact, my shoulder was the most sore in the immediate postpartum period, probably from hanging from Eric's arms to squat. But really, it just wasn't a huge issue.

Stairs for instance. Stairs were not hard. Getting up and down off the couch wasn't hard. Even off the f3.5 loor wasn't too bad. I made a point to not bend too much at the waist, and to rely heavily on my arms to help me get up. Not because I didn't feel capable, but because I was trying very very hard to not overdo it. You see, a friend of mine had a massive bleed 10 days postpartum, nearly ended up in the hospital, and was put back onto bedrest for a couple of weeks. I really really didn't want to end up in the hospital.

The first two days I tried to do nothing. For the next week and a half, I did my best to only travel up and down the stairs maybe 2-3 times per day, carefully do some laundry, and make time for Legan while changing a ton of Jade diapers and nursing her constantly. I tried to not even have to make food for 2 weeks, I wanted to heal.

Cozy girl

The most surprising part of recovery for me though was the inability to pick up my toddler for an extended time. I figured it would be a day or two, maybe a week.

Instead, my body asked me NOT to pick up Legan for nearly 4 weeks. I tried at maybe 10 days out to just hold him if he stood up on a chair first, and that was only ALMOST ok, but still led to extra bleeding every time. Trying to lower him back down into his crib, even if I didn't lift him, didn't hurt, but it led to enough extra blood that it concerned me. It was 3.5 ish weeks before it was ok.

Physically though, by 4 weeks I felt still a bit overly heavy but basically healed up, save for my pelvis separation. By 12 weeks, the pelvis felt as put together as it did a year after Legan's birth. So that was super exciting. My core started coming back together around 8 weeks. There's still a little muscle separation, but it's literally growing back together, it's going to be ok.

So while I at the time felt like recovery was super super slow, I remember now how at 12 weeks after Legan I still felt like a total invalid that was just forcing life to happen. Not at all true this time.

That all being said, while I functionally feel great (even though I'm still working on muscle building and probably around 10-15 lbs of fat to lose still - seriously gaining almost 50 lbs is really really rough!!!!!) I cosmetically am much much more rough than after Legan. Might have something to do with those extra pounds I put on. The skin of my belly is...in a word destroyed. But that's another story....

Getting exercise, slowly getting stronger

As she gets bigger, I get a bigger workout

Great to watch them bond

Making sure to take time to just recover

Bonding with kiddos

3 weeks postpartum, relaxed

3 weeks postpartum, flexed

3 weeks postpartum, relaxed

Homebirth, VBAC, and Full Term Babies

Been a very very crazy time around here lately and I did an absolutely awful job updating blog.

A short update on how things have been: camping went pretty well other than WAY TOO MANY BUGS and a bit warm. But generally Legan was awesome, Eric was awesome, canoeing was super awesome and I had a lot of ice cream. It was nice to get home, get more clean, and actually get Legan a couple of naps.

Then our basement flooded, pretty much right when we returned from camping - like still doing laundry from that. Our basement is finished and it's half of our total house space. It also holds our only living room & couches.

We didn't lose many possessions luckily, as it wasn't very deep water, but we did lose all of our flooring down there plus the bottom foot of drywall. It was a month and a lot of help to get all of that fixed and put back together. Other than painting, I couldn't help out a ton, and we were all tired and dirty and sore and cranky from lack of space and lack of comfortable seating. Also, it was super hot (duh, July) during this, and the basement is our cool dark retreat. No fun at all. But, we survived and got it all put together before birth, which was my biggest concern.

And here starts the birth story...

TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING: gory birth details, cervical checks, and a couple concerning complications (but everything was FINE).

Just days after getting everything moved back into the basement...cue non-stop contractions. They weren't painful, but very uncomfortable tightening, and 5-10 min apart, and wouldn't stop. For hours. And I was at 34 weeks.

You can imagine I was a bit concerned, so off to L&D we went. Or at least I went. I allowed a cervical check and luckily not much going on there. So we monitored for a while and I went home. BUT not before insisting on the lung steroid shots, because of last time.

It was frustrating as half of the staff there was looking at me like, OK YAY LET'S HAVE A BABY TODAY and the other half was more like "Why are you here if you don't think you're in labor."\

But, as a preemie mom, I needed the shots and to make sure it wasn't real labor - Legan's labor didn't hurt until 7 cm, so....

After that, contractions never really stopped. If I was lucky, I got a 1-2 hour gap in the afternoon and a 2-3 hour gap overnight with none (thank you, because I couldn't really sleep through them). Otherwise every 3-20 min all day everyday. This started July 26 at 33+6. On August 17 (37 weeks exactly), I went into labor. Suddenly at 2 am they were 3-5 min apart, 1-2 min long, and painful. For hours. But, within an hour of Legan waking up and me needing to me a mom, they slowed down and intensity decreased. From there on out, every 2-3 days I would have a stint of 2-6 hours of this real painful labor that would go away again later. In the in between hours from those stints, I was still having the uncomfortable contractions too. I was now sleeping only 3-4 hours per night, usually broken up too.

On Wednesday Aug 29, they started again at 4 am. Which I fully ignored until probably 7 am. Only 2 things were slightly different from every other time things had started and stopped. First, I lost my mucous plug the night before. Second, sitting on the toilet was suddenly super uncomfortable. Like, made my inner hip joint and upper thighs uncomfortable. I told Eric to stay home from work.

This was taken Wednesday morning, in hopes that it was my last pregnancy photo (before the true birthing photos)

I let my midwife and doula know, but didn't really get too excited, I wanted to see what happened when Legan woke up. He DIDN'T WAKE UP. He's always up between 6 & 8, usually around 7. I woke him up that day, at 10:30 am. They didn't go away.

I put my mom and Eric on Legan duty generally, because I didn't want to be rude or cranky with him. I did my best to eat small meals and drink and just exist. I watched Call the Midwife all day long. Contractions from 3-7 min apart. After lunch, it was Legan naptime, so I did our normal routine, and nursed him. I wanted to make sure contractions didn't stop for my normal afternoon lull. They did not, but that nursing session was awful. Contractions were like 90 seconds long, and started every 2-3 minutes. But, I felt like there was finally a point to all my pain. The toilet was still awful, lol, I couldn't imagine how so many people love to labor there. No thanks.

After dinner and another hellish nursing session, I called my doula. I knew I wanted her there sooner rather than later, as it was now 2-4 minutes apart of contractions and I was getting pretty done with hanging out on the couch, plus wanted Eric to shut up for every contraction. My mom elected to not go to a party that night (in hindsight, she totally could have gone, but she wanted to be there for me, which was appreciated for sure).

I actually ended up kneeling on the floor with my face on the couch and Spock snuggling my face. I loved it.

It was 11 pm ish when she arrived. She and Eric got my birth pool filled up. I wasn't sure if I should get in yet, I didn't want to slow things down, but I knew I had been progressing pretty quick with Legan so Seong (my doula) told me to go ahead and get it if I really wanted to. Fun fact - we emptied water heater to get it filled up, but we started hot enough that it totally worked out just fine.

Getting in was awesome. I thought I'd want to be in a squat, but contractions really made that painful in my hip and upper thigh, so I was more just stretched out floating in pool. Did a lot of kneeling with my upper body on the side of my SUPER HUGE AWESOME PORTABLE BIRTH POOL.

Things really actually seemed to pick up for a while now, but slow and steady. Eric asked if he could take a short nap. Seong told me she'd let the midwives know when they should get there. I decided to just let people do whatever they thought was good. We sent Eric to nap. Suddenly, power surged and went out. Came back nice and fast, but I had to send Seong to make sure that Legan's window AC had turned back on - as his room can get really stuffy and hot really fast. It was, yay.

Then I had to talk mom back through getting Call the Midwife back on. There was something hypnotic about it for me. So many happy moms and babies and midwives and homebirths. I wasn't watching it, but it was nice.

After maybe an hour from power surging, contractions settled into 3 min apart, we called Barb (midwife) and got Eric back down. Between power surge and everything else, he maybe got 40 minutes to nap on the high end. Oh well.

Things just seemed like they were moving quickly and I was getting nauseous. Yay for Seong to the rescue. I know I had some somewhere too, but her peppermint oil was readily available. Just a sniff of the peppermint oil every contraction instantly made me feel better. Hooray! 

After an hour of very strong contractions that I was feeling in my sacrum, groin, and uterus, we sent for the midwives, and very shortly after had Eric come back, as it seemed things were progressing very quickly. 

I started needing hand holding for every contraction. I was sure to keep drinking water and having some energy gels every so often. Cold wash cloth on my neck was super important too, as the pool was hot. 

Midwives arrived around 2 am. Team of 3, and start the health checks. Both baby and I were doing great, but by the time I'd answered questions and had so many things checked, contractions slowed down to 5-7 minutes apart and less intense. Sigh. It'd been almost 24 hours and I was hoping we were very very nearly done. 

This was right after I had Eric come back from nap

This was once things just started to slow and I was hanging out by myself.

I had a gel with caffeine and just started kinda crawling around the tub and rocking. Pretty sure this was about two hours. Eric took a short nap here, leaning against the wall. After maybe 30 minutes of this, I decided to get out, use toilet, and consider a nap - I was exhausted and now it felt like baby wasn't coming anytime soon. I remember asking if I was doing anything wrong, it just felt like things were slowing too much. I was a little discouraged, but I knew that I could handle things. My whole previous month contractions actually picked up more when I was lying down and relaxed, and slowed down when I was up and about, so I figured either A - I would be able to nap and wake up in a bit refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of this labor, or B - trying to nap would speed things up. I think this was 5:30 am, ish.

It was totally B. I spent maybe 30 minutes lying in bed with Eric, trying to sleep. I did doze between a few of the contractions, but they were speeding up again, and getting more intense again. I remember thinking that it felt like the pieces of the rear of my pelvis were separating and stretching apart. After giving up on my nap (but was kinda excited about it and got a second wind), I decided a cervical check was the way to go. I wanted to know if we were getting super close to meeting baby or if it was more likely that trying harder to nap was a good idea, to save energy for a longer labor.

We were basically all the way thinned, and like 7.5 cm, bag was bulging out, but that was as much intervention as I was interested in. 

Barb (head midwife) suggested trying laboring in a supported squat. It would open everything up more than hands and knees/kneeling, and the fact that a squat was such an intense discomfort, there was a chance that that meant it was progressing things and moving baby down. We put a towel down, Eric helped support me, and two contractions later water broke. This was at 7:30 am, roughly. I had someone check the time for me. After hours of being in a total fog and yelling at everyone for talking during contractions, I really wanted to know the time. Labored on knees with Eric sitting in front of me on the couch, for just a few minutes, maybe 15-20? I was trying to focus on just kinda surrendering my body to the sensations, keeping my jaw loose, and letting things happen. And this is when I had the first spasm of my body trying to do it's own thing. Here I am, trying to stay relax and just accept things, and my hips and lower abdomen were seized in an indescribable jerk. The best way to word it (and I stole these words from someone in a VBAC group on Facebook), was that my body was trying to dry heave out of my butt. It wasn't exactly my butt, but that general idea. It was that strong of a jerk. Took 3 or 4 of these for me to realize that possibly my body was trying to start the pushing process. Also cue Legan waking up, but my mom was all on top of that.

I finally decided I should tell them that I felt like pushing, lol, instead of holding back. We decided to start on toilet just because I had never pushed before so hopefully I could figure out that right muscles by sitting there. The toilet was STILL SO PAINFUL to be on though. It felt like my hips were ripping out of the socket and my quads were all in an awful charlie horse. So back to the tub I went. 

Once in the tub, I was persuaded to get back into a squat. Especially again, as a first time vaginal birth, it gives extra space. The squat here was still pretty freaking uncomfortable, definitely less than on toilet though, and the water did help support my weight. Eric stood outside and helped hold me up. When I pushed, he pulled up to give me something to push against. This both felt like it took forever, and not very long at all. From the best estimates I can get from everyone there, it was 45-60 minutes of pushing. I started this process with baby reasonably far up - from my own perspective. Contractions were definitely a bit further apart now, but long. They were slightly less intense than previously, but being in a squat hurt quite a bit more than knees, so...value neutral. 

I've heard from many other moms that pushing was almost a relief, but that wasn't my experience. Actually, I think the hard work of pushing, plus the additional ouch of squat and baby moving down/out, and the longer contractions flared my asthma. I didn't have my inhaler downstairs and I honestly doubt that using it that late would have really mattered, but if I had used it just before starting to push I think that would be been helpful. Either way, it took probably 20 minutes to figure out how to kinda breathe enough to effectively help my body move baby down. The first 20-30 min ish it didn't really feel like we were making great progress, but considering how much more my pelvis/hips/back hurt I'm guessing baby just had some serious ground to cover. Right around now I was kinda wishing I had the option of some medicinal pain relief. I was feeling a bit like I had made a poor decision to not have drugs around.

All of the sudden, the pressure changed, and I knew the head was coming. Not quite crowning, but I announced to the room something to the affect of "Ok, so THAT'S a head." Also, the worst part of this whole thing was getting baby's heart rate checked between each contraction. Especially since by the time she was sure contraction was over, and I caught my breath (I spent the whole pushing process really feeling like I couldn't catch my breath at all, which was annoying, slightly scary, and really distracting, see comments about inhaler earlier!), now I'm having to shift my legs around so that doppler can get in to check, and then it took several moments to find the heartbeat, and by then the next contraction is starting and my foot is out of position. This was super annoying as well. The high sides on the tub didn't make the midwives' job easier for this process. Finally she must have adjusted some and changed her angle, because I finally stopped having to move my foot for this, so that helped. Maybe 3 contractions after I felt head really getting close, it was obvious that head was now really at the exit. This was a different and sharper pain, but the pain in my pelvis/sacrum was dying down finally, so that was nice. I did have to consciously think of not letting baby regress back in between pushes, but that at least gave me things to think about. Everyone suggested I reach down to feel the head, but I couldn't. I wasn't grossed out, but I really really needed to focus here, and felt like if I distracted myself and let go of Eric's hands and got my head out of the game that it would make it all harder. So, no thank you.

And, I felt lied to again. I feel like many women have said once the head is out, it's one more push for shoulders and isn't too bad and then the rest of the baby mostly slips out. Yeah, no. After the head, it was probably 2-3 really hard pushes for shoulders, and then still another strong push or two for the rest. There was a cord slightly around the neck, but that was removed I think before the shoulders were out. I took a very short second to register that baby was out and pain was gone, before remembering to reach down and get her (bottom of pool was very padded!). Brought her up, and here was small complication #1. She didn't cry immediately. She wasn't super pink right away, but not too scary, but she didn't breathe right away. Luckily she was still attached to cord, so that's giving her oxygen. Her head was really really coned. I held her, rubbed her, blew in her face, and midwives stepped in, while I held her, did a little suction, gave a few puffs from the ambu-bag for air, and she started coughing and sneezing and then pinked up really quick. Hooray!! She still didn't really cry, but made more noise and was definitely breathing. Just a little subdued. 

Then I realized we had no idea if baby was male or female. I realized I'd been holding with my hand under the rump, and so my verbal announcement was literally "I think it's a girl, I don't feel any testicles." I was right. Then we got us up and out of the pool pretty quick (this was complicated, but easier than it probably should have been). Moved to a bed, and again, getting placenta out was harder than I expected, but not terrible. Barb let me know that I had two tiny superficial tears, but not anything they could even call 1st degree - just slight surface abrasions.

Cue second small hiccup - bleeding didn't quite stop as fast as we would have liked. So I took some medicine, tried some herbs, and my little crazy animated baby crawled up me and latched on like a champ - all of which helped, but not enough. So I unfortunately needed some awful uterus massage. I know they wouldn't have done this if it wasn't necessary, and after everything had gone so well so far, I REALLY didn't want to go to the hospital, so OK. 

Bleeding was slowing, but still not slow enough. Now the thought was that my bladder was super full, so maybe it was in the way of the uterus shrinking down enough. Alright, so I got up to pee. Eric got to hold baby. Failed at peeing on the toilet. I really wanted to, but whether I relaxed or tried actively to pee, I just couldn't. I decided to hop in the shower real quick, hoping that that would help, as warm water and being in shower usually makes me need to go. 10 minutes didn't help, so I got cleaned up and gave up. Now I'm asking them to cath me (yeah, with no meds). That was a bit uncomfortable, but released the pressure (YAY!) and that stopped the bleeding, so I was all for it. Hooray!!!! Midwives have now taken care of all of the small issues, and we're now in great shape. So after some more nursing, getting everyone dry, and getting me a small bit of food, it was nap time. 

She wasn't named for another 3 days, but that was how Jade Taliya arrived, at 9:06 am on 8/30/18. She was 8 lbs, 6 oz, 21.5" long, born at 38+6 weeks.

Best part - didn't have to leave home, and standing up and walking to bed, toilet, shower, and bed afterwards was all pretty much less painful than walking while pregnant had been the previous day, so home birth for the win. So much more comfortable. 

It was more painful that I expected, and the pushing was harder than I expected. It wasn't nearly as painful as the awful surgical birth, and I definitely think I did what was right for all of us. Home birth was the right thing for me, and I would do it again if I ever wanted another birth. I think next time it wouldn't be surprisingly hard or scary, because it was definitely a bit scary when I was so uncomfortable, felt like I couldn't catch my breath, and wasn't done yet. But, now I've been there and done that, and it was good and right.

Getting stories on our new family, baby, big brother, and recovery written soon.

Keeping calories in, yay Izze juice!

Please hold onto me

The dreaded squat

I did feel very supported, only sad thing was no photos of my doula (who took these photos)

Got her!

Just felt like I needed to hold her hand and talk to her

Yay, breathing!

Hugs for this big little lady, and that white circle is the amazing peppermint oil that I had to sniff for hours to not vomit

Moved to bed

Daddy first gets to hold her

Pretty one

She was and still is so pink and alert

Nursing right away! This was taken later that evening, after our long nap.