Just About Three Weeks Ago...

We welcomed baby number 7, and boy number 6 to our family!  We're overjoyed to welcome Gideon Thomas!

My labor and delivery with him went well, but was rather long.  My sister had come into town to help out and be with me (as I was incredibly blessed to be with her two months earlier as my niece arrived into the world!), and on Monday (August 13, a week and a day before Gideon's due date) we decided to travel to Tennessee to visit the aquarium, as a fun outing for the kids.  It's a 2+ hour drive, but always fun, so well worth the drive.  That night, around midnight, Rachel woke up with a stomach bug, so I spent the night rocking her, cleaning up, doing several loads of laundry, and, go figure, after being on my feet all day, contractions started - real contractions, not Braxton-Hicks, accompanied by some spotting.  I was NOT excited at that point, to say the least!  I woke Michael up to let him know things were looking like they were starting... he took my place on "sick toddler" duty and let me go back to bed.  I took a quick shower, during which the contractions slowed some, and then went back to bed.  Contractions continued, but much more spaced out than before, so I was able to get some much needed rest.  (Oh, and thankfully, her stomach bug lasted less than 12 hours!)

All day Tuesday, the contractions remained continual, but never very consistent.  Sometimes they'd be 10 minutes apart, sometimes 30 minutes would go by without any.  Finally I gave up trying to track them and went about my day.  The problem with these contractions is that they were really strong!  Usually, I don't experience terribly painful, strong contractions until closer to transition, so I was really confused about what was going on.  I happened to have an appointment with my Midwife that afternoon, so I was eager to see if any progress was being made.  And, my hopes were quickly dashed when she said "no progress, we'll see you next week!"  Over 12 hours of painful contractions, and NOTHING?!  :(  I was so disappointed!  But, having been through false labor with Judah, I knew that even though progress wasn't being made, *something* was happening, anyway.  I just hoped it wouldn't go on for another week with the terrible contractions!

Throughout the night Tuesday and into the morning on Wednesday, the contractions continued.  Strong enough to wake me up every 10-20 minutes (with the occasional break for some longer rest here and there), but never really establishing a pattern.  Wednesday morning my sister and I decided to go for a nice, long walk.  We went to a local park with a 1.75 mile trail, and, slowly at times, made our way around the path.  During our walk, the contractions definitely picked up - 5-8 minutes apart.  But, once I got into the car to come back home, they again slowed down.  I had no idea what to think!  We went about the rest of our day, and made dinner together, and during dinner making, things definitely picked up again... now ranging from 3-5 minutes.  I was still really cautious about calling anyone, as I didn't want to give a false alarm.  Finally, though, Michael insisted, and I notified my homebirth "team" around 6:30 pm.

Everyone arrived by 8 pm - my midwife, her two assistants, and two of my dear friends.  Michael said he would have set up bleachers somewhere had he realized there were going to be 7 people attending the birth!  But having people close to me who I love and bring me joy is so helpful to me during labor.  We can laugh and chatter and enjoy the time together, which helps me to focus less on the pain!  And that's what we did!  I wanted to get into the pool, but still be unsure about how far along I actually was, I didn't want to get in too early.  During Rachel's homebirth, I was never checked for progress, but this time around, I needed some reassurance.  So my midwife checked me, and I was at a 7!  We got that pool filled ASAP and I got in - during those few minutes of waiting, the contractions really picked up in intensity, so things were moving pretty fast.

Once in the pool, it was immediate relief.  So relieving, in fact, that the contractions stopped briefly, which was such a nice break.  However, once they started again...!  They came on strong and LONG... the first one felt like it would never end, and at that point the baby gave a good kick, and my water broke.  The second one, I felt the baby come down, and all of the sudden, his head was out!  I had been kneeling at that point, but then I sat back a little and asked the midwives to help catch him... but my midwife calmly said, "Oh, you've got this!" and so I reached down and brought my little boy out into the world, up out of the water, and into my arms!  It was *incredible* to experience the delivery that way!  Really, I can't even describe how amazing it was.

I had felt strongly all through this pregnancy that it would be a boy, so I wasn't surprised in the least when I took a peek and saw my suspicions confirmed!  We were overjoyed!  Gideon Thomas was born at 9:06 pm, almost 48 hours from the first start of contractions.  The "pushing" phase lasted all of 4 minutes, during which I actually did no pushing at all - he just made his way into the world.  It was beautiful!  But, I'll admit, I was very glad for it to be done, lol!  This is my favorite picture from the birth - it was taken with a phone camera, so it's not the highest quality, but it's still my favorite:

And now we're settling in to "life with a newborn and 6 other kids".  It's a wild ride!  Michael has been able to be at home with me for the past two weeks, which has been a huge blessing.  All the kids have adjusted well to having Gideon around, even Rachel, who I was a little nervous about!  Gideon himself is having a bit of a struggle adapting to life in the outside world - he's a little on the "high needs" side of things, and spends most of his time awake being rather unhappy about it.  But, I am thankful that I've gone through this before and have learned a few things - First, that babywearing, breastfeeding, and co-sleeping are lifesavers during this time, and second, that it will get better!  Otherwise, he's doing just fine - nursing well, gaining weight, and being super cute!

Here are a few more pictures:

All wrapped up next to me - his favorite spot!

Snoozing

One of the first I was able to catch him with his eyes open!

Waking up from a nap (1 week old)

What I wake up to every morning!

We thank God for the blessing of another wonderful little boy!

7 Quick Takes Friday - Volume 15

I've really missed blogging lately!  Can you believe this post took me almost 3 weeks to write?  True story!  That's just the way life has been lately! Here's a brief summary of what's new in our world...

At the end of January, Nathan turned 5!  He's already lost two teeth (our earliest tooth loser yet!).  He has started "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and is doing really well, so far.  He was already reading a few Bob Books before then, so I am hoping the momentum gathers and reading is something that comes easily for him.  I find Nathan rather fascinating, because, in our houseful of playmates and noise... he's the introvert.  He is perfectly content playing by himself somewhere quietly while the rest of the gang are doing something else!  I had always heard one of the "pitfalls" of big families was that the children don't learn how to enjoy quiet or entertain themselves due to the constant presence of others, but Nathan proves that idea wrong!  He definitely has a knack for building complex things with legos - sometimes more complex than his older counterparts build.  I love watching him grow and can't wait to see what God has in store for him!

The little girl had her FIRST birthday and I hadn't even blogged about it yet!  How does that even happen? (Um, I'll tell you how it happened - it's called having 6 kids and being pregnant with the 7th!)  We didn't do anything big - I'm a lazy mama and don't do birthday parties until the child is actually old enough to remember them!  But it was an absolutely beautiful day, so we did celebrate by spending some time enjoying the outdoors.  She's getting so big - she's got 6 teeth, loves to climb on anything and everything, and is definitely teaching us a bit about what people mean when they say "girls are different".  There's a little more drama in the house than there used to be!  But going along with that is a lot more sunshine and sweetness, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't marvel at the fact that we have a girl!  Yes, still!

On her first birthday!

I am now 16.5 weeks pregnant, and outgrowing regular clothes.  But, I'm also at the awkward inbetween stage where maternity clothes are sort of too big and look kind of frumpy!  So, please excuse my lack of fashion for the next few weeks, if you happen to know me.  Not that I'm the queen of fashion to begin with!  I can now feel the little one move for sure, which is such a nice blessing.  No matter how many times I've felt it, I'm always excited and thankful when it happens.  I haven't gained any weight yet, for which I am super thankful for, since I started this pregnancy out with an extra 15-20 pounds of weight still leftover from Rachel!  I don't tend to fret over my weight too much, but that small detail made me a little nervous.

We are planning another homebirth, for which I am super excited.  I was thrilled for the first one, because I had wanted to try it for so long and was finally able to, and I'm just as thrilled for this one, because now I know how wonderful of an experience it can be!

Our 20 week ultrasound is next month, and I am so looking forward to it.  We're not finding out the gender, of course, but we've decided to leave all the children with a friend and actually make it a "date night", of which we only do about 2-3 times a year!  Usually we bring the whole crew to the ultrasounds, but at this point we will no longer all fit into the ultrasound room!  And I think it will be fun not having to deal with squirmy toddlers and restless preschoolers.  And, of course, I am always excited to see the little one.  The miracle of pregnancy and growing a baby becomes more and more amazing to me with each pregnancy.

Here's my growing belly!

According to general statistics, I have approximately 23 weeks left of this pregnancy... and according to my schedule, I have approximately 21 weeks left of school.  Um, yikes!  Looks like after our maternity leave, we won't be starting out fresh with a new year as I had hoped... we'll be wrapping up the loose ends of this one!  Which is... OK... but the OCD organizer in me really, really wanted to get everything tied up in a nice neat complete package BEFORE baby came!  But there really is no way that I can see that happening.  So, we'll just keep plugging along and just see how things go.  That is so hard for me! I think it's good for me, too, though.

Last year, I am sad to admit, we did not manage our finances as well as we should have.  After spending many years with no debt at all, we got ourselves into a bit of debt.  This year, after watching our tax refund go to paying that debt (instead of more useful things, like savings, or home repair, or any number of other things money is good for), we agreed that things had to change.  So we've gone back to a "cash only" lifestyle.  And, WOW!  What a difference that has made in just the two months we've been doing it.  It has definitely taken some adjustment - mostly a mindset adjustment - remembering that just because we think we "need it now" doesn't actually mean that we "need it now" - things can actually... wait!  But the savings has been tremendous!!  Several hundred dollars a month!!!  That's a big deal.  So even though it's been a little difficult, we're sticking with it, because it WORKS!

 

I love this boy!  This was how I found him the other day, during his nap.  Needless to say, that was not how I had put him to bed!  He is always a source of laughter in the house!

And no, those aren't the ones he was actually wearing at the time!

I think this has been the best winter I can remember. I think we had, maybe 10 days or less, total, of temperatures that were cold enough to make me uncomfortable (below 45 degrees or so). It has been wonderfully mild.  We have taken full advantage of this, and spent as much time as possible OUTside!  Yesterday was our first official nature walk of the season - and it was a wonderful 73 degrees by the time we finished at noon.  I love this kind of weather, and I'm especially excited about Daylight Savings Time starting!  Sunlight and I are friends :)  Here's some pictures of our nature walk!

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!

7 Quick Takes - Volume 4

In case you haven't noticed, my blog has officially become... boooorrrriinnnggg! If it wasn't already! I have had, well, less than no time to post anything now that we're back into school full-swing and little girl is quickly advancing past "sleepy newborn" phase. So, I apologize that I haven't been more faithful in posting, but higher priorities have been consuming as of late!

Speaking of school, we're up and going full-swing again! Phew! It isn't going exactly as I had hoped/planned in this post, but it is going, and going reasonably well, praise God! I came to the very obvious conclusion that it's just better to save most of the "sit down and listen" type stuff for when Judah is napping. He gets plenty of "sit down and listen" training when we have our family devotions, are in church, and other various opportunities that pop up. Trying to toddler train and keep everyone focused and stay on track and juggle a newborn baby just can't happen during schooltime! That small change has brought SO much more peace to our school day!

Oh, and speaking of Judah, he turned 2 this month! Wow! Can you believe he's gone from this:

To this:

SO fast?! He's talking up a storm, although I'd say only about 52% of it is understadable to the general public. He's adjusting wonderfully to being a big brother - in fact, his first question every morning is "Where's Rachel?"... or, if she's awake already, he wants to give her hugs and kisses before he even gets out of bed! I adore the precious love he has for her already!

And since we're on the topic of Miss Rachel, she is almost 2 months old already!! Sheesh! She is, as expected, the object of everyone's affection and doting. She's a very happy baby - except when she's in the car. Apparently, the car is the death trap from Satan himself because she screams in total terror and despair whenever we're in it. It *is* getting better, but needless to say, I have limited my outings! But really, that's the only complaint I can make, and it's such a minor one! She's healthy, growing well, sleeping GREAT (averaging 7 hours a night already, a practical miracle in itself!), smiling and cooing, and just so sweet. I love watching her grow and change! It seems that with each baby, I see the miracle of God's handiwork more than I did previously. It's so awesome! I am so blessed to be a mama!

Do you see how chubby she's gotten?! I love her cheeks and all the little rolls I find on her now!

As a shameless plug for myself and the companies I love... take a peek over to the upper left - do you see the "I Recommend" label over there? The companies I have listed are all ones that I use, love, recommend, and am (mostly) an affiliate for. Of course, I'm not an affiliate for Compassion, but I love the work they do, love being a part of what they're doing, and highly encourage others to get involved, as well! The other companies' banners also come with high kudos from me, and if you're interested in taking a peek at any of them, it does benefit me, as well. Just sayin'... ;-)

Now that I've had two months to think over my homebirth experience, I wanted to try to put into words what a difference it made for me. Yes, I loved being in the comfort of my own home, I loved not having to fight off unwanted interventions or treatments, I loved that our life wasn't "interrupted" with a hospital stay, and so on... but the biggest thing I learned from my homebirth experience was this: awe. Utter amazement at the birth process and God's beautiful design in how life is brought into the world. I know, I've had 5 kids already, shouldn't I have realized all of this by now?! But here's the thing. My midwife was really hands-off. She didn't check my dilation, she didn't hover over me... she listened to the baby's heartbeat once in a while, and otherwise... stayed really low key. At first I was nervous - I thought "how will I know how far along I am?", "what if I'm getting close?", "what if I'm not making any progress, how will we know?". Intellectually, I thought I had to "know" my status. But you know what? I didn't! Because God designed my body to do what it needed to do without my total consciousness of every intimate detail. Instinctively, I knew when we were getting closer. Pushing happened without anyone telling me to, and without counting to 10 and holding my breath. My body knew all of this without my intellect having to know. Truly natural birth is such an amazing, awe-filled experience. It brought me to a level of faith that I hadn't experienced before. I'm so, so thankful I got to experience it.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks! We'll be enjoying our second-ever Sonlight Box Day (I'm ordering Core E plus Science!), as well as going to our local homeschool convention. I haven't been to a convention in several years, but this one seemed too good to miss - we'll be able to hear both Ken Ham and Voddie Baucham speak, as well as lots of others, and of course, feast our eyes on the wide variety of vendors! My first experience at a convention was totally overwhelming, but now that I've got a good few years under my belt, as well as a solid view of our curriculum choices, I think it's going to be just plain FUN! And many of our friends from church will be there, too, so we're likely to run into a few folks we know, which always makes things nicer.

Well, if anyone is around who still reads my boring old blog, thanks for stopping in! Maybe one day soon I'll be able to get back on the ball. For now, I'll drop a note whenever I can!

Rachel's (Home) Birth Story

I apologize for taking so long to finally type this up. Go figure, life with 5 boys and a newborn is keeping me busy ;-) So... as for the details of Rachel's birth - here it goes! Just a warning, though - it's a bit long!

My due date with Rachel was January 29. My parents came to stay with us to help with the kids the week before, and were planning on staying about 10 days. Well... January 29 came and went. It was the very first time I'd ever seen my due date and still been pregnant! I was trying to keep a positive outlook, but when you add up all the people who were staring at me all day long (Michael, the boys, my parents...) and asking if I were in labor yet... it wasn't always easy!

Two things my midwife had mentioned had stuck with me - that babies tend to come on new moons, and that low pressure systems (storms) tend to bring babies, too. I checked the calendar and saw that the new moon was Wednesday, February 2. As I watched the weather, it also happened that a low pressure system was coming through that day, as well! So I started telling people that I thought Wednesday would be the day (half jokingly, but totally hopefully!).

Sure enough, Wednesday early morning, a little after midnight, I woke up to use the bathroom and noticed I was having some uncomfortable back pain. I took notice of it and went back to bed. I woke up about an hour later with the same feeling and knew it was the beginnings of labor! Knowing it was still really early, though, I went back to bed to get some more sleep. At about 3:30, I woke up, and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead, I got up and starting walking around and timing contractions. They were coming every 6-8 minutes! After about an hour, I woke Michael up and told him that it was the day! He wanted to me to call Debbie (my midwife) just to "put her on alert", so I did, and she said to call when we thought she should come over. After that, I tried to get more sleep, but discomfort and excitement didn't allow me much.

Another hour went by (it was 5:30 am or so by this time), and contractions were coming every 4-6 minutes, so we decided to start making official notifications. We called Debbie back, who said she was on her way, and I called my friend Jennifer, who I had invited to come to be a part of things, and we woke up my parents. There was lots of excitement! We had already had the pool I wanted to use for labor inflated, so we started filling it with nice hot water. We ran out of hot water when it was about halfway full, so we heated some pots of water on the stove to add to it. And, yes, we joked about having to boil water to have a home birth! ;-)

Debbie, her apprentice Whitney, and Jennifer all arrived, and there was lots of chatter and joking. Even though the contractions were coming more frequently, the intensity of pain hadn't gotten too bad (meaning, I was still smiling and being friendly, lol!). Here's Debbie checking the baby's heartbeat, notice my happy face?


(I wanted to jump in here really quickly and say that there's something to having some female company during birth. Michael is a great, great labor partner - he keeps me comfortable and keeps me laughing, but having a woman who has been through it before herself is such an added benefit! I really appreciated having Jennifer there, acting as an unofficial doula! She helped me keep my mind off of things, and when labor finally kicked into high gear, was so encouraging! My mom was also great - she helped keep the kids occupied for a bit, and then held my hand (or, was in my death grip) for the actual delivery. She wasn't sure she wanted to actually witness the birth at first, but when the time came, she was brave!)

Eventually, time became a bit of a blur, but at sometime after 8, there was a change. I had to use the bathroom, and when I sat down, a really hard contraction hit me - I had to moan through it and it felt like it lasted forever!! I knew transition was happening, and sure enough, the contractions picked up to about every 2 minutes, and some lasted nearly that long, too! I was having to moan through them, and my "labor support team" took turns rubbing my back as I leaned over my exercise ball. I decided I'd better get into the tub before it was too late, so I told the midwives that's what I'd be doing, and got in. The hot water felt SO good! And it immediately took away my back pain, too. I'm not going to lie, though - the contractions were still painful! See my "not so happy" face?


Once in the pool, I knew I wasn't going to get out. I had been on the fence about having a water birth - I had heard great things about it, but hadn't really decided that was what I wanted until that point. I had a few more contractions, and then suddenly, while I was kneeling and leaning over the side of the pool, I felt the baby drop! It was such an interesting sensation - in all of my hospital births, I've never experienced the "urge to push" - I always pushed whenever the nurses, midwife, OB, whoever, said I could. So allowing my body to be the one to tell me was amazing! There was one more contraction and I felt the baby about to crown... another contraction, and her head was out! My water broke at that point, although I couldn't tell. One more contraction, and I had to work hard to get her shoulders out, and then... she was in my arms! Michael and I looked right away to see who our new baby was...


And were SHOCKED!!! to see that she was... a she! Shocked really doesn't even describe it, actually. Amazed, delighted, awe-struck, stunned, thrilled... so many emotions all at once! I honestly never truly thought it was possible! The room was filled with tears, shouts of joy, excited exclamations... it was beautiful!

One very elated Daddy!

After a few minutes, I decided I wanted to get out of the pool (I'm going to interject here and share something that I've never seen or heard anyone else talk about when it comes to the whole waterbirth thing. There is, what I call, a "mess factor" involved. Birth is messy. It can be gross. Sitting in water in that mess - definitely a little gross for my taste. During labor I didn't care. Once it was all said and done, though, I wanted out! So there you have it, the plain truth from my perspective. Would I do it again? Absolutely! But just so y'all know, there was a definite yuck aspect to it.).

I got dried off and into my nice, warm bed. I tried nursing her, and she latched on right away and has been a great nurser from the very start! Then, Michael and I cuddled up together to get to know our little daughter.

After a little while, I was able to get up and take a shower while everyone passed around the baby and took pictures.

My mom and Rachel

Jennifer and Rachel

At that point, too, the sheets were changed, so my nice clean self was able to climb back into my nice warm bed with nice clean sheets. Heaven!

The kids came in right after that and were over the moon to meet their new sister. Isaac has been wanting a sister since, oh, about 4 babies ago, so he was almost in tears, and literally jumping up and down and shouting about how excited he was! It was so awesome, lol!

Judah, especially, is in love with her. He asks about her whenever she's not in the room, and is so gentle and sweet with her. I can't wait to see how close they'll be as they grow up together.

The midwife did the newborn exam while all the kids were in the room, and I loved being able to watch everything she did, and listen to her explain everything she was doing. The whole time, Rachel was quiet and peaceful. In fact, I don't think she cried at all for the first 3 hours of her life!

Rachel's in there! It's how she was weighed!

The homebirth experience was really everything I had hoped it would be. The best part is, Michael really enjoyed it, as well. He had said from the time he agreed to allow me to have a homebirth that it was a gift to me, because I wanted it so badly. Now, he's fully on board and told Debbie himself that we'd be calling her again for any future babies! I've also overheard him telling others about how great it was and how we'll do it again... awesome!! I truly never, ever thought I'd see the day!

The 8 of us!

I am so thankful to the Lord for our new, healthy, beautiful addition, Miss Rachel Susannah! She is already cherished and adored by all of us! :-)