Daley Ponderings

11/6 - Noah and I were making rice krispie treats and Noah was stirring.  He asked for a marshmallow, but I said no, they had to go in the recipe and he could have one of the finished products.  Well, he decided to snitch and got a natural lesson.  I, only a few feet away in the kitchen, heard him screaming.  He had dipped his finger in the melted marshmallow to taste it!  I rushed him over to the sink and after a while of running it under the cold water, I made an ice bath in a bowl for him.  His finger turned out fine after a few minutes and he had learned a good lesson. (More)

10/3 - Jon felt the baby kick!  Since then, Jonathan and Faith have thought maybe they felt it.  If the kids were ever up when I was still in bed but awake in the morning, they would definitely be able to feel it.

10/3 - Noah counted to 20 on his own.  He is most comfortable sticking with 12, though.

10/5 - Faith, seeing a picture of Grandma on the computer said, "'Ma"

10/18 - Jonathan, talking to Noah about where to put a recipe, "I call it her biscuit cookbook because all I ever make out of it is biscuits." (More)

This morning, we drove up to the birth clinic where Jonathan and Noah were born.  Their midwife has retired (she wanted to before Noah was born, but actually did right before Faith was born) and her daughter has taken over the job.  We had met C before, when she was helping out her mom, I think during Jonathan's pregnancy. (More)

I'm definitely feeling the baby now!  Movements are most noticeable when I am lying down.

9/14 - Jon had mentioned that the next time Jonathan got sneakers, they should have laces.  Jonathan had never learned to tie his shoes because he never had tie shoes.  At almost seven years old, we figured it was time.  It took him an afternoon to get the hang of it and now he's an old pro.

9/17 - At a friend's house, Noah found a small pedal, no-training-wheels bike and successfully made a large circle without falling down!

9/18 - Despite our not being too into sports, Jonathan knows at least something about Pittsburgh.  We were visiting our friends who live on Mt.Washington and the mom turned on the baseball game on TV to see when it ended so they could go up and watch the fireworks.  Jonathan's comment, "The Pirates are winning?!?  That's weird!"

Sometime in the middle of September, Faith added the /k/ sound to the end of "milk".  Now we can distinguish between "more" and "milk"!

9/23 - Faith said "poke" sounding like "boke"

Faith hurt the pinky toe/right side of her right foot on the evening of 9/22 while running around.  She continued to limp and cry about it until 3pm the next day.  I considered calling the doctor, but she was walking on it without complaining that evening.  She still needs to be careful of it because several times since then she has mildly re-injured it.  It was rather strange to me to watch her crawl around after she has been walking so long.

9/24 - As I was falling asleep for my nap, I could hear Jonathan humming to himself - an eclectic mix of hymns, praise songs, Christmas carols, and the Imperial Death March.

Today, Noah asked me to check his shoes to make sure he put them on the right feet.  When I told him they were not, he let out an exasperated sigh.  He had tried really hard and still gotten it wrong.  Poor guy.  But I encouraged him that he'd get it soon.

Cycles did not return after the miscarriage, and that along with other symptoms leads me to conclude that I am pregnant again.  The due date I am calling March 1. (I don't really think I can count the miscarriage as LMP and I have reason to believe that ovulation was a week later anyway.)

I have mixed feelings about this, I think mostly because of the miscarriage.  I am now further along than I was at the miscarriage and I know that God is in control.  I guess I hesitate to get too excited.  Also, I get exhausted quickly by this little one - maybe it's that I'm just too tired to get excited yet.  The boys and Faith (yes, I think she does understand to some degree) are very happy.  (Jonathan's first words at my announcement were, "I hope this one doesn't die." Me, too, dear heart.)

Jonathan is hoping for a sister, and Noah a brother.  Then Jonathan acknowledges that a brother would be nice, too.  For Faith, any baby is great!

I didn't really feel like writing this, but then I thought it weird not to post it.  So I'll mostly just copy the emails I wrote to our parents.

This is happening at five weeks of pregnancy, pretty much just two days after being sure I was pregnant (though we did not take a test.)  We told our parents (on Mother's Day) and my sister, and then I had to email them Tuesday with the sad news.

From Tuesday morning's email: 

As far as I can tell (with very minimal research) a miscarriage at five weeks is very similar to a period (the placenta has only just begun to form and the baby was only a few millimeters long.)

Emotionally, I'm not sure where to be.  What if I was wrong and I wasn't pregnant after all?  But even if I was right and my little one has just died, I didn't have much time yet to know this little guy and so it is not nearly as hard as losing Isaac whom I had known for nine months and seen with my eyes and held with my arms.

But I am sad and disappointed, and especially for Jonathan.

Even though we did not have a test, this feels physically different enough that I do believe I was pregnant.  Here's my update from this morning:

Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers.

Jonathan is doing well.  Now I'd like you to pray for Noah, who was sad yesterday after dinner.  Last night and this morning he asked to pretend that he was a baby who had just come out of my tummy - and he cuddled and pretended he couldn't talk or walk.

I feel sad, but sustained, and very thankful for my three living ones (what a miracle all the stages they have survived and thrived through!)

Physically, it is definitely harder than a regular period - last night, sleep was interrupted a lot, but I am feeling ok this morning.

If you will continue to pray for me in the next couple of days, I would appreciate it.  It's still very close at hand for me as my body finishes the process.

Emotionally, I am doing better this evening.  Yesterday was grey and rainy and my emotions mirrored it, sad and kind of heavy, but not depressed. After I wrote the first email, I decided to go ahead and let myself grieve for the loss of a baby (instead of wondering if there was not one after all) and that was helpful.  I think the length of time you know someone really does make a difference in your grieving when he's gone.  It is hard and I am sad, but I am not devastated and broken as I was with Isaac.  Hey, and maybe Isaac and his little sibling know each other already! (I just thought of that.)

Naps both days have helped as well; I am definitely on the tired side.

Jon brought home roses for me this afternoon and that was very nice!

I have felt God's sustaining the whole time and I am already doing much better.

At least, it might be.  A bill recently passed the house that very specifically makes non-CNM midwifery illegal.  In 1972, (three years after they started licensing CNMs) a bill was passed declaring Mississippi to be a legal state for direct entry midwives.  I only heard about it today, and I gather that there aren't that many CNMs in the state anyway (ie. not enough to cover the population) so I wonder who is driving this legislation.  I suppose it could be the medical community that knows there aren't many CNMs, so this is really a move against all midwives, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, unlike lots of other bills Rep. Holland introduced, (my favorite is the bill to specify the state song) this bill didn't die in committee.

I routinely see articles about childbirth and the liability issues, etc. where medical decisions are made for legal reasons, and how it is hard for doctors to make the decisions they want to based on the fear of getting sued, but they aren't usually in more mainstream-type sources.

But, yesterday, someone forwarded me an article in consumer reports - which I guess I don't read CR enough to know why childbirth is one of their reports - I previously have only used them for thinking about appliance purchases.

Our first daughter was born this evening at 6:35, weighing in at 9 pounds, 3 ounces and 20 and 3/4 inches long.  She doesn't currently have a name that we know of yet, but those of you who have been around at the boys' births probably won't be too surprised at that.  So, I guess for now, I'll put this post in the "pregnancy" category, and it can get added to a new category later.

Heather is doing well, and I'll let her write up the more detailed version of her labor - she did time it quite well, we arrived at the birth center at 5:30, and left at 10:30, after the four hour post-birth required stay.

Had a midwife appointment today.  All stats are good, baby seems to be about 8 1/2 lbs (tall and skinny, the midwife thinks.)  (S)he is a bit turned posterior at the moment, but I am not too concerned because it's not very much, and as long as Mommy gets to be in whatever position she feels like for labor, babies are good at turning.  (Posterior means baby facing Mom's front instead of Mom's back - I was posterior and my mom had to push for four hours - but she was on her back the whole time.)

They had to schedule "post-dates testing" for next week, but we're all praying the baby comes sooner than that and we won't have to do it.  My body is preparing, but no real labor yet.  I declined an internal exam because I feel it's better not to know.  My body and my baby will do the right thing when the time is right.  We'll see about playing a game this evening.  (We played Settlers a little too late the night before Jonathan was born.)

This is the allergy season that is worst for me, and I've had a few sneezes that might have helped the baby along a bit. (:  (I put some loratadine in the birth bag in case it's distracting me from labor too much.)

Random strangers continue to insist that the baby is a boy.  Mom thinks she should have asked the Rite Aid cashier the date, too.

Ok, let's find a nice labor-inducing game to play.

My sister says I need to update my style.  Same shirt, same glasses, same hair...  I guess I just take after Mom that way.  Here now, for your amusement, is a collage of me near the end of each of my pregnancies.  They are labelled with letters so you can guess which is which if you'd like. (Click for a larger image.)

I have to say that the real baby is much more squashed in me than that little graphic baby is on the sidebar.  (S)he pokes up knees and heels all the time and increasingly presses on my bladder.  I am ready to go, but still have plenty of things I can do while waiting.  When Mom and Janet first arrived, I was feeling anxious to get the baby out the next day, but I am content to wait until the right time.

Here are some things I have written down on scraps of paper that haven't made it out to the blog until now:

We got ants in our car, presumably from having food everywhere on our vacation trip, and one time when we were buckling in, Jonathan exclaimed that he had an ant crawling in his ear.  I couldn't see it, but he said it was far down and wiggling.  I told him it was probably just a phantom feeling after one had crawled in and out.  However, a day or two later, Jonathan came up to me and said, "Mommy, I removed a dead ant from my ear!"

When we were at the Maggie P, the boys were playing on the top bunk with Aunt Janet's supervision.  She then needed to leave and formally announced her abdicating of responsibility.  Not 5 seconds later, we hear a big clunk.  Noah tried climbing down (but only actually fell the last foot or so because Jonathan was holding onto his arm.)  Jonathan's explanation for how it happened was, "He wanted to do it by his own accord."

8/12 - Jonathan counted backwards from 19, his own idea, and with no help.

I am starting to get used to the idea that this new house is my own, and not just someone else's with my furniture in it.  We are starting a compost pile, and there are a lot of local corn husks and cobs in it already.  Jon keeps clunking his head on low ceiling pieces, especially in the basement and coming in on the porch.  I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about it.

We have running hot and cold and drinkable water!  Jon hooked up my brand new front-loading washer two days ago and installed the dryer yesterday.  Hooray!  The washer really does dry things better and the dryer has a shorter running time.  Jon looked in two stores for an umbrella type clothes line without success, but we'll get some kind of line out sometime.  For the moment, I'm using regular detergent in the washer, but being careful to use a small amount.  I drew a line on the cup for what seems good.  It has not sudsed up too much.  Otherwise, he detergents cost twice as much (and effectively four times as much since you only use half the regular amount.)

Breakfast time!  Even when you live 5 minutes from church you can still be late, and I want to avoid that.

Having prenatal appointments every week is not giving me much leeway for blogging.  I just had another appointment today and realized that I have not blogged about last week's.

First, Noah had his 2 year appointment last Wednesday.  35.5 lb, 37"  He didn't like the poking and prodding, nor especially the ear flashlight.  But he got three pretzels at the end because the nurse didn't realize that the doctor had already given them out.

Then I had my 37 week appointment.  This one was with one of our favorite midwives in the practice, and we went over the birth plan with her.  One of the important points is that Jonathan gets to be the one to announce the sex of the baby.  Talking about our family being there, the midwife got excited, and said, "I hope I get to be there for your birth, it sounds like it will be so much fun!"  My friend said, "Then you should hope she's there, too."   They all got to hear the heartbeat again, and the baby was very active under all the prodding by midwife and brothers.

We have finished doing the patch painting in the two bedrooms and hallway.  I enjoyed having the low-VOC paint because I do like painting, though it is more work to have the boys help.  It's medium for Jonathan, but he still had a hard time keeping track of drips.   Noah had to be completely supervised, that is, holding onto the brush or roller with Mommy.  Even then, he'd get distracted and not even watch what we were doing. The color matching in the green room (our bedroom) was perfect, the purple hallway was nearly perfect, but the blue was just light enough that you can tell.  But I'm not going to do anything about it now.

Most stuff is set up, though I just brought a bunch of kitchen stuff from Carroll St which needs to be put away.  We need to get another bookcase, and when the plumbing is done Jon will make a shelf for the home entertainment stuff.  That will then be nearly all the boxes unpacked.

Today was the 38 week appointment, uneventful and quick.  Baby is estimated to be 8 lbs already.  I did lose one pound since last week, but the midwife said she wasn't surprised in the least given all I've been doing and said don't even think about worrying about that.  So I won't. (:  My blood pressure was still great, even though I drove today.  Oh yeah, this was the first time driving directly from the new house to the birth center.  It took 42 minutes.  But I won't take the 31st street bridge again because the light there at 28 was 4 minutes long.  It might be the same time taking 40th street bridge, but at least you're going somewhere and not sitting at a light.  We'll try that next week, I guess.

Ok, time to gather dinner for my crew.

Vacation was fun, see the pictures: Connecticut, New Hampshire.

7/26 - A little boy, older than Noah and younger than Jonathan, asked Noah his name.  When Noah did not say anything, the boy kept repeating, "What's your name?"  Eventually, Noah walked over to the table and got his water cup, brought it over to the boy, and pointed to his name printed on the cup.

That same evening (we were at the church picnic) all the kids got glow bracelets.  Just as we were leaving, Jonathan bit his and splashed the contents into his eye.  Someone scooped him up and rushed him to the sink, and Jon helped him rinse it for about 20 minutes.  Thankfully, the package said only to rinse and nothing about going to the ER.  His eye is fine.

35 weeks:  Today we had a midwife appointment.  Even Noah got to hear the heartbeat this time.  Everything is well.

Packing is coming along thanks to several helpers.  We're very busy and it's pretty hot, but we're getting there by the grace of God.  Closing is tomorrow.  More helpers lined up for the rest of the week.  If you want to be one of them, let us know!

We went to our 32 week appointment today and the office was much busier than when we've come before. The baby moved vigorously during the exam and the midwife had a hard time hearing his heartbeat. The first time, he obviously moved away from where she had the fetoscope; on the next try, I pushed a bit on the other side with my hand so he couldn't move away from it. The heartbeat was correspondingly fast for all his excercise. There was a student there for the appointment (yes they asked me if it was ok) and he was amazed at the movement and feeling the little foot/knee/something.

Everyone is healthy and baby's still head down. Thank you for your prayers and keep them up!

And now for a little fun: All those rooting for a girl can hang on to the old wives' tale about fetal heartrates. This baby's heartrate has been consistently higher than all of the boys'. However, those wishing for a boy can count on the tale about carrying; I am carrying exactly the same way that I have before - low and out in front.

When Jonathan saw the ultrasound pictures of Bonnie's baby, he said he wanted to find out what ours is, too! I told him he'll find out in 8 weeks or so, but he still has a hard time knowing how long that is.