Wednesday, July 13, 2011

"Uriah Archibald"

During the pregnancies of my previous three children I was not offered to know the gender of the infant during my standard diagnostic ultrasounds. Understandably we picked out names for either gender during each pregnancy. We never "re-used" a name. If their genders were reversed; Danielle would have been Vincent; Jack would have been Lilian; Wesley would have been Erica.

We went for a 3D ultrasound for fun this time! I had already been feeling very much like this was going to be a girl and had prayed and asked God to give us another little girl if that was His will. In the same prayer I was asking to get pregnant quickly if we were meant to have a 4th child. I discovered the pregnancy later that very month so felt confident that God was giving me the desires of my heart! The ultrasound technician confirmed my suspicians saying that she felt quite confident that we had a little girl on the way :-D

At that point we started picking names. The idea of "re-using" past name choices came up and I just felt as though those names had been used already. I also kidded with a friend that each of our kids has their "alter-ego"! She laughed at my reasoning and joked as to whether or not we would pick a boy name for this baby so that she could have an "alter-ego" as well! Relaying the story to my husband later we laughed and he said "sure, Archibald" In throws of laughter I exclaimed "Uriah!" And so it is that we have named this baby (not yet born) Lacey, whose alter-ego is Uriah Archilbald!!

But, every now and again it really hits me that despite this ultrasound and my intuition, this COULD be a boy. Today was one of those days. Over the past few days I've been buzzing like a bee washing and sorting clothes, moving around furniture and boxes. All to prepare for this new baby. I purchased a matching crib sheet, fleece blanket and receiving blankets (pink with purple and blue flowers and butterflies), some wall stickers (flowers and butterflies) I've acquired a used infant carseat (pink), a bumbo baby chair thing (pink) I have 5 drawers of a dressor, 2 diaper boxes and a 54 gal rubbermaid bin all FULL of baby girl clothes! I don't have ANY baby boy clothes. A few of the sleepers and undershirts etc are neutral... but still on the girlie side of neutral.

So, Uriah Archibald, because of the absolute inconveniance that you would cause I do hope that you remain the alter-ego of our lil Lacey!

Monday, July 11, 2011

The best laid plans of MOTHERS often go awry!

So, I'm not entirely certain how our household has adopted this 'schedule' but I can't seem to force us out of it.

You see, when I first became a mother to Danielle some 5ish years ago I knew nothing of baby routines or feeding schedules or sleep training. I knew I had a little baby who needed my love as well as to be fed, burped, changed and bathed. Of course, because I'd not done any homework on motherhood I relied on those in my life to educate me further. At first, I faced a confusing time when she would cluster feed in the evenings, my team of educators advised me of my baby's obvious need for more food than my body could provide and I began feeding my 8 week old infant packaged baby cereal. I've since learned that cluster feeding is a normal activity for infants and is for the purpose of increasing my body's supply of milk! I've gone on to feed both my boys nothing but my milk for the first 6 months of their lives. But now I've gone and turned this into a breastfeeding lesson.

Back to the topic. I was also taught that babies need to sleep on a schedule and so I began waking up my daughter at 8 am and putting her to bed at 8pm. She didn't mind at all. So I put both the boys on this same basic schedule and of course became a lot less rigid with the implimentation of this routine as the years went on. Somehow, without my permission, this schedule has changed. I can't place the exact reason but our children now go to bed around 10pm (lets put a schocked face emoticon here!!! :-0 and then do not rise in the morning until between 9 and 10 am!!!! If you don't quite understand why this is alarming to me, the mother, the keeper of this home, please take note that I am not a night owl. Despite my antics as a teenager and young adult... I much prefer to go to bed early and rise up early. This is the schedule that society functions ideally on, not to mention that all playdates amongst my crowd are scheduled around 10am (meaning that I would have to have all three children fed, dressed and out the door no later than 9:30am to arrive in a timely manner, due to the location of our residence) Plus Sunday school and soccer both begin at 10am, so we're already looking at 2-3 morning out of the week that would require my children and I to be out of bed at an early hour. Yet, there is Thursday evening serive, which facilitates the late to bed, late to rise lifestyle.

The problem I face is, the best way to fix this problem is to wake up 3 small children early in the morning.... which of course means that I would have to be awake and parenting these small children early in the morning. I must say, I have really been enjoying lazily sauntering out of my bedroom at 8:30 or 9 am and having a cup of tea BY MYSELF :) Not to mention my husband who is self-employed much prefers the late to late life. So, my jealousy often burns into fury when I see our provider still relaxing in our bed at 10am while I`ve been up for hours with OUR small chidren. But really I haven`t a leg to stand on there because he often works later into the evening (as this is his preference) and I do not have to work outside the home at all. Regardless, I want this to change....

Soooo tomorrow... I will wake everyone up early, including myself and see if I can`t somehow FIX this ridiculous problem.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Some of my thoughts on birth.

As I'm sure you know, I'm expecting our 4th child in late Sept - early Oct. I am planning to have my second unassisted homebirth or freebirth. During my last pregnancy I was forced to choose an unassisted homebirth or a mw assisted hospital birth. For a lot of reasons, one main reason was that God gave me peace about the decision...I chose to birth at home... it was faith-affirming, empowering and soo educational! I learned so much in the last few months of my pregnancy about birth and about mid-wives vs med-wives (thats another post!) I found out that UC is perfect for me!

I tend to be a ppl pleaser in life and during my first two labors and births I was always looking to my med-wife for instruction and approval. Because of the fear of birth that society had taught me I couldn`t trust that my body could give birth. I was afraid of every complication and especially afraid of the pain. I took a real grit my teeth and bear it approach to pain management and somehow birthed two beautiful children. Afterward I gave all the credit to my midwives, ``without them I couldn`t have done it`` With Wesley`s birth I was forced to seek my guidance from my body and my God. I was suddenly so much more confident and comfortable! Not afraid or tense, I was relaxed and calm through the process. I had researched enough to know that complications are rare and had prayed and sought God enough to know that He would be with me, no matter what outcome.

I now view birth as a private and intimate event and can't imagine sharing the moment with anyone other than my husband!

Christianity is often seen as the reason why women experience pain in childbirth. I beleive that the KJV of the bible is the true inspired Word of God and that all other interpretations are merely words of men. The KJV does not curse Eve with simply "pain" in child-bearing as other translations do. God said "... I will greatly multiply thy SORROW and they conception; in SORROW thou shalt bring forth children" which to me was encouraging to see that it was not simply "pain" read on and you'll see that God gave the same "curse" of SORROW to Adam. Immediately, I was relieved. Clearly, God did not bestow upon all men excruciating pain while they work and eat! The word SORROW translates to "worrisomeness, labor, pain, sorrow, toil" We've got a hard job to do, but I believe that just as men can find satisfying work in this weary world, so women can find satisfying births! I've even read about women who have been able to abolish all their fears and hangups about birth and actually found the event pleasurable!?! I would definitely say that the moment my babies were born I felt joy, love, relief, release and yes PLEASURE! The other thing that I loved about my God was that He gave the job of child-bearing directly to WOMEN! not men. I believe that its my job to deliver my baby, not a midwife or a doctor or even my husband.

Its my work, and I take full responsibility for it!