I've taken a challenge to take a photo a day for the entire month of October. I might not get to posting them every day. But I'm making my commitment public so I can be held to it.
I'm also doing a sewing challenge tomorrow, gee, life is getting busy!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Portrait updates
Our kids have aged, but they haven't for two years according to the portraits on our wall. So Saturday I tried to take some new pictures setting up a make-shift studio in our garage. Most of the kids cooperated. Eve wouldn't, so she doesn't have a new picture yet, and I want to try again with Lily...
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| From 2009_09_19 |
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| From 2009_09_19 |
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| From 2009_09_19 |
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| From 2009_09_19 |
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| From 2009_09_19 |
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Happy Happy Birthday Eve Dear!
Eve is five! She got to celebrate a couple of days early while grandma was in town. Her cousins came down to spend the evening with us too. Right now Eve's favorite things to do are color, play Barbies or Groovy Girls with Abigail and play dress-up. Eve has a very vivid imagination and makes up elaborate stories for the games she is playing.
Here is Eve through the years...
We love you Eve!
Here is Eve through the years...
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| From Eve |
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| From Eve |
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| From Eve |
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| From Eve |
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| From 2008_09_16 |
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| From 2009_07_05 |
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| From 2009_09_14 |
We love you Eve!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Grant's Birth Story
I suppose Grant's birth story began quite a while ago when we decided to have a home birth with our next child. When I discovered I was pregnant I already had an appointment made with a doctor's office. I kept it and they did the initial pregnancy bloodwork. I asked the midwife for referrals for other midwives who did homebirths, but she didn't have any names for me. I continued to go to this office while I searched for a midwife who would attend our homebirth. Having never hired a medical professional like this before I was a little nervous. I really wanted someone who came recommended and not just from an ad I found. There was another family at church who had done a homebirth, but their midwife was planning a trip right around when I was due, another midwife I heard of wasn't doing homebirths any more and only worked at the hospital.
During my search for a midwife my bloodwork results came back with some negative news. My thyroid hormone levels were off. This, I was afraid would make me too high risk to have a homebirth. At the endocrine's office it was discovered that I had a tumor on my thyroid. After a biopsy the Endocrine dr. said I would need further surgery to remove the tumor, but it could wait until after the baby was born, and my hormone levels, while outside of the normal range, weren't bad enough to need medicating and that I was a low risk pregnancy. Hooray!
Now I just needed to find a midwife. I was asking online friends and one who was a doula networked for me and found some recommendations from a doula near me. I interviewed the woman who was recommended and was happy with what I found. She was a CNM who had been attending births since I was born! She had a lot of experience and education, plus (and this was important to me) her voice was low and soothing. There is just no way I would want to have someone at my birth whose voice was high-pitched or annoying. So at just after 20 weeks I transferred my care.
There are several reasons for a person to choose homebirth for their birth. My reasons included: not having to drive anywhere while in labor; being able to avoid having random hospital personnel be part of our personal family event; being able to have a more supportive birth attendant, a midwife who I had chosen, who did the prenatal care and the delivery and wouldn't have someone else on call to cover her on the weekend or whenever I might deliver; be able to have the highest chance of a good outcome, since hospitals historically have more unnecessary interventions and issues from those interventions than homebirths.
The rest of the pregnancy progressed without incident. I had several of the normal pregnancy symptoms, but nothing out of the ordinary. We did have fun with not knowing the sex of our baby and having friends, family and random strangers guess (or knowingly inform us) the sex they guessed our baby was.
This picture was taken four days before I gave birth. I had planned to have some pregnancy portraits taken, but my baby came before my appointment.
Tuesday night I woke up in the night with contractions. They would stop went I got up but would start again if I laid down. I ended up doing housework in the middle of the night. I had an appointment with my midwife the next day. She advised me to get a nap since she didn't want me to be too tired if I happened to have a baby later that night. I don't think she thought it was too likely though, since I was three weeks before my due date. I did go home and took a nap as soon as Gordon came home from work. That evening went on as normal, we had a curriculum night at school that I went to with Lily, after that Lily and I ran to Saver's to look for some stuff for her Halloween costume. I went to bed at the normal time.
I woke up at midnight with contractions again. I got up and tried walking around to see if they would go away again like they had the night before. They didn't with walking around and they were very intense already. I ran a bath to see if the contractions would ease in warm water, they still didn't stop. So I woke up Gordon and asked him to call my midwife. She was surprised to be hearing from us and was really surprised that we were calling her already after only 10 minutes of contractions. She talked to me a little bit and was concerned that it might be false labor again. But she said she'd come if I wanted her to check me, I said I did.
Labor progressed very quickly and Gordon was hurrying to finish gathering the supplies we needed from around the house. Gordon woke up Lily who had wanted to be present for the birth. He also called my visiting teacher to come. We wanted a friend to be present in case Lily needed support, or if we needed to transport to the hospital.
I stayed in the bathtub for the entire labor. The water didn't make the pain of the contractions go away. But it did help me to be more buoyant and able to move around easily as my body adjusted to the different pressures of labor. Gordon and Lily held my hand my midwife showed up around 12:50 and my visiting teacher showed up just after her. I started pushing very soon after my midwife had set up her equipment.
I pushed him out of my body at 1:20 a.m. after only being awake for an hour and 20 minutes. He was immediately handed up to me and draped with a towel. I was the one who discovered that we had a son first. Gordon and I were both stunned. We really didn't expect a boy. I think the warm water did help me to have a better delivery since this is the first time I didn't tear during the delivery. After the tub was drained I delivered the placenta then Grant and I moved to our bed.
My midwife checked Grant out while he was resting on me. He was given a gold star for health.
Grant being weighed.
Lily and my visiting teacher
My Midwife, Hilary Schlinger
The new boy!
The big sisters meeting their new brother
We are so happy with our new son/brother. The girls love him and love to have a turn holding him. It's nice to have a newborn to hold. We are still having very interrupted sleep, but love him regardless. :)
During my search for a midwife my bloodwork results came back with some negative news. My thyroid hormone levels were off. This, I was afraid would make me too high risk to have a homebirth. At the endocrine's office it was discovered that I had a tumor on my thyroid. After a biopsy the Endocrine dr. said I would need further surgery to remove the tumor, but it could wait until after the baby was born, and my hormone levels, while outside of the normal range, weren't bad enough to need medicating and that I was a low risk pregnancy. Hooray!
Now I just needed to find a midwife. I was asking online friends and one who was a doula networked for me and found some recommendations from a doula near me. I interviewed the woman who was recommended and was happy with what I found. She was a CNM who had been attending births since I was born! She had a lot of experience and education, plus (and this was important to me) her voice was low and soothing. There is just no way I would want to have someone at my birth whose voice was high-pitched or annoying. So at just after 20 weeks I transferred my care.
There are several reasons for a person to choose homebirth for their birth. My reasons included: not having to drive anywhere while in labor; being able to avoid having random hospital personnel be part of our personal family event; being able to have a more supportive birth attendant, a midwife who I had chosen, who did the prenatal care and the delivery and wouldn't have someone else on call to cover her on the weekend or whenever I might deliver; be able to have the highest chance of a good outcome, since hospitals historically have more unnecessary interventions and issues from those interventions than homebirths.
The rest of the pregnancy progressed without incident. I had several of the normal pregnancy symptoms, but nothing out of the ordinary. We did have fun with not knowing the sex of our baby and having friends, family and random strangers guess (or knowingly inform us) the sex they guessed our baby was.
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| From 2009_08_29 |
This picture was taken four days before I gave birth. I had planned to have some pregnancy portraits taken, but my baby came before my appointment.
Tuesday night I woke up in the night with contractions. They would stop went I got up but would start again if I laid down. I ended up doing housework in the middle of the night. I had an appointment with my midwife the next day. She advised me to get a nap since she didn't want me to be too tired if I happened to have a baby later that night. I don't think she thought it was too likely though, since I was three weeks before my due date. I did go home and took a nap as soon as Gordon came home from work. That evening went on as normal, we had a curriculum night at school that I went to with Lily, after that Lily and I ran to Saver's to look for some stuff for her Halloween costume. I went to bed at the normal time.
I woke up at midnight with contractions again. I got up and tried walking around to see if they would go away again like they had the night before. They didn't with walking around and they were very intense already. I ran a bath to see if the contractions would ease in warm water, they still didn't stop. So I woke up Gordon and asked him to call my midwife. She was surprised to be hearing from us and was really surprised that we were calling her already after only 10 minutes of contractions. She talked to me a little bit and was concerned that it might be false labor again. But she said she'd come if I wanted her to check me, I said I did.
Labor progressed very quickly and Gordon was hurrying to finish gathering the supplies we needed from around the house. Gordon woke up Lily who had wanted to be present for the birth. He also called my visiting teacher to come. We wanted a friend to be present in case Lily needed support, or if we needed to transport to the hospital.
I stayed in the bathtub for the entire labor. The water didn't make the pain of the contractions go away. But it did help me to be more buoyant and able to move around easily as my body adjusted to the different pressures of labor. Gordon and Lily held my hand my midwife showed up around 12:50 and my visiting teacher showed up just after her. I started pushing very soon after my midwife had set up her equipment.
I pushed him out of my body at 1:20 a.m. after only being awake for an hour and 20 minutes. He was immediately handed up to me and draped with a towel. I was the one who discovered that we had a son first. Gordon and I were both stunned. We really didn't expect a boy. I think the warm water did help me to have a better delivery since this is the first time I didn't tear during the delivery. After the tub was drained I delivered the placenta then Grant and I moved to our bed.
My midwife checked Grant out while he was resting on me. He was given a gold star for health.
Grant being weighed.
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| From 2009_09_03 |
Lily and my visiting teacher
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| From 2009_09_03 |
My Midwife, Hilary Schlinger
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| From 2009_09_14 |
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| From 2009_09_03 |
The new boy!
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| From 2009_09_03 |
The big sisters meeting their new brother
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| From 2009_09_03 |
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| From 2009_09_03 |
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| From 2009_09_03 |
We are so happy with our new son/brother. The girls love him and love to have a turn holding him. It's nice to have a newborn to hold. We are still having very interrupted sleep, but love him regardless. :)
My Two-Year-Old
She's two in every sense of the word. Since I had a mental relapse and left my nail polish on the counter of my bathroom instead of immediately putting it back up and out of reach. I should have expected this, but I was surprised.
She also dumped the nail polish remover down the drain while doing this so as to hinder the cleaning up process...
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| From 2009_08_30 |
She also dumped the nail polish remover down the drain while doing this so as to hinder the cleaning up process...
We made an offer on a house
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| From 2009_08_27 |
It's a short sale house, so things will progress slowly. But we're excited about the home and really hope it works out. We might get to move in a couple of months, if it all goes smoothly.
First day of school
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| From 2009_08_20 |
Lily had her first day of school! She is a big third grader now! She is with a teacher that was new to the school, she has turned out to be really nice and seems to be enthusiastic and loves teaching. Lily loves her. Lily also has several of her friends in her class that have been with her since first grade, so that is really nice.
I decided not to put Eve in preschool this semester so I could avoid running around getting kids places so much. I'm hoping to have a little more time at home and less in the car for a while.
Our Drive Home
So this post is a little post-dated. But I want to finish journaling about our trip before blogging about events that happened after it.
Our drive home was as drawn out and full of stops as the drive to Lake Michigan was. We took a different route so we could see new sights.
Our first night we drive to Nauvoo and made it in time that we were able to enjoy the pageant. The next day we explored as much of Nauvoo as we could before the kids started to self-destruct, then we drove to our next stop.
Here is Carthage Jail.
Pioneer living area
This is the Wilford Woodruff house where Gordon's grandparents served their mission.
The temple was beautiful. Gordon went with my mom and some of my sisters to do ordinances and said being inside was beautiful too.
The next day we stopped by Far West, Missouri and Liberty Jail in Missouri.
The next few pictures are the girls playing with the camera
Liberty Jail
After seeing so many church history sites we had a little more understanding and reverence for what the early saints lived through. I am grateful for their sacrifice.
This last picture was the field I was looking for our entire drive through Kansas. We were just a couple of miles from the border and I had given up seeing it, then it came.
I was so happy to see a field of Sunflowers, the are so beautiful!
Our drive home was as drawn out and full of stops as the drive to Lake Michigan was. We took a different route so we could see new sights.
Our first night we drive to Nauvoo and made it in time that we were able to enjoy the pageant. The next day we explored as much of Nauvoo as we could before the kids started to self-destruct, then we drove to our next stop.
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| From 2009_07_24 |
Here is Carthage Jail.
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| From 2009_07_24 |
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| From 2009_07_24 |
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| From 2009_07_24 |
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| From 2009_07_24 |
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| From 2009_07_24 |
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| From 2009_07_24 |
Pioneer living area
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| From 2009_07_24 |
This is the Wilford Woodruff house where Gordon's grandparents served their mission.
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| From 2009_07_24 |
The temple was beautiful. Gordon went with my mom and some of my sisters to do ordinances and said being inside was beautiful too.
The next day we stopped by Far West, Missouri and Liberty Jail in Missouri.
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
The next few pictures are the girls playing with the camera
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
Liberty Jail
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
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| From 2009_07_25 |
After seeing so many church history sites we had a little more understanding and reverence for what the early saints lived through. I am grateful for their sacrifice.
This last picture was the field I was looking for our entire drive through Kansas. We were just a couple of miles from the border and I had given up seeing it, then it came.
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| From 2009_07_25 |
I was so happy to see a field of Sunflowers, the are so beautiful!
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