I must apologize for being so absent as a blogger.  I have enjoyed becoming more and more active over the past several months, but the end of June really took its toll on me.  Though my midwife and I were thinking that my due date was in fact June 30th, there was also a possibility that I would not be due until July 12 (today).  I was trying to keep my spirits up, but as June rolled on, I was starting to feel very uncomfortable and very pregnant.  Rather than take time to get things done around the house while Daphne napped, I was  running for my own bed for an afternoon nap.  The waiting game was really starting to wear on me a lot, especially when I started showing early signs of labor 8 days before he was born.  It really had me on a bit of a roller coaster.  After putting Daphne to bed, I was doing laundry, housework and other random life organization so that I wouldn’t have to worry about doing those things after the baby was born, so blogging was thrown out the window.

There were a few things that I had overlooked about having another baby that have really been taking my time and attention.  Though I knew that the delivery would be fairly trying, I thought that I would bounce back quickly and have no real troubles doing the things I normally do.  I considered making some food and freezing it for when the baby was born.  I decided against it because cooking comes so easily to me that I thought there would be no need.  After all, it is simple to put a baby in a sling to cook.  HOWEVER, I didn’t consider the fact that I would be too sore to even stand up.

Having a birth center birth was wonderful.  At the hospital they come and interrupt you at every possible minute, so it is more like being in prison than recovering from having a baby.  At the birth center, they have 24 hour postpartum care.  The staff was there to change the sheets if I wanted or draw me a bath.  I got water when I wanted it and smoothies when I requested them.  We even had the option of getting lunch and dinner as takeout from any restaurant that we desired in the area.  It was peaceful and helpful.  They also keep a good watch on the recovery of the mama and the baby to make sure things are going well.  I got some simple help with nursing so I could make sure that things were fine when I got home.

I probably would have stayed at the birth center for much longer except for the fact that Daphne was going wild.  We were in the smallest room (by choice), but Daphne had taken to running around the birth center from top to bottom.  She had way more energy than could be kept in that one small room.  Jared took her to the zoo for one Morning, which was nice.  I probably would have stayed that additional day except that it was becoming too difficult to deal with Daphne’s extra energy.

The first 2 days at home were fairly uneventful.  I was able to make a little food and take care of the baby, even Daphne was starting to calm down.  My sister came to visit the baby and help out a little bit, which was nice.

Things were definitely looking up except for the fact that I was not healing very well from my tear.  Things were still really sore and irritated, and I didn’t understand why.  I finally made an appointment to go back to have a postpartum check up.  I wasn’t thrilled about driving all the way to Portland to do it, but it turns out that it was a good idea.  All the stitches had torn out somewhere along the way, and were in need of repair.  The flesh was irritated and starting to get infected and really in need of some care.  Rather than just stitch me back up, they suggested that I be readmitted to the birth center for the night.  Daphne , Eli and my sister left without Cyprus and I.

I wasn’t prepared to be anywhere overnight.  I had no entertainment.  Nothing to read, nothing to watch and my phone was dying.  I was tired and sore, so I spent my time sleeping and taking sitz baths.  I did have my camera with me, so I took a bunch of photos of the baby while we hung out.  It was nice to be just the two of us.  I liked having the attention to devote to getting to know him, and he is pretty darn cute.

I realized that Daphne’s energy was driving me a little over the edge while I was dealing with such a painful recovery.  The peace helped me heal enough so they could fix the tear.  She spent a good 2 hours working on getting it stitched back up.  Unfortunately, the Lydocaine was not very helpful, so I felt a lot of the stitching process, which was not much fun for me.

I’ve been spending the last 8 days since she made the repair laying in bed trying to feel better.  I’m still really sore and in a lot of pain, and the truth is that it looks like some more of the stitches have started to come out again.  My midwife said this is definitely one of the most difficult recoveries that she has seen, and she’s been to over 900 births.  I am going to see her on Tuesday so she can take the stitches out and maybe try healing this thing another way.

Meanwhile, Daphne is still running around needing lots of attention.  I’ve been placating her with TV where possible, which I feel very guilty about.  Jared had to make a business trip out of town from Wed-Sat of this past week, so we have been on our own to some degree.  Luckily, I have had some lovely friends around who have been wiling to come and hang out with me and make me food.  I have been blessed incredibly by all of that help.   Daphne is trying so hard to adjust, and I love and admire her effort.  She still is my baby in many ways.  Look at these gorgeous eyes.

I even started to feel better yesterday.  Jared, Daphne and I left the house for a little while to go to a local festival.  We were gone for about an hour and a half.  We walked around very slowly and looked at some things then got some food and came home.  It was nice to get out of the house.

I edited up about 300 photos yesterday, so now I am working on getting them posted along with the stories that go with them.  Sorry about being gone, but I am starting to feel good enough to get back on the blogging horse.

Welcome Cyprus Que Anderson

It is hard to find a place to start a birth story. Since I have not written a lot about the pregnancy, I post the full story here.

The Pregnancy

My pregnancy with Cyprus was actually rougher than with Daphne. I was positive that the hyperemisis that I had with Daphne was a fluke and that I would be better prepared to handle anything sickness again. It turned out that was I wrong. As soon as I was 6 weeks pregnant, I was back into the routine of severe nausea and vomiting. I got to the point that I was vomiting 40 times per day. I tried all the same remedies that had failed with Daphne. I even tried some new ones. I was able to manage it for a while with a B-6 injection every day, but it eventually got so out of control that I ended up taking Unisom again. I took Unisom with Daphne, but only until around 20 weeks. With her, I was even able to taper off to taking 25mg every other day rather than every day, and after 20 weeks, I was able to stop. With this pregnancy, 25mg per day was not even making a dent in holding me together, so I ended up upping the amount to 50mg per day. This went on well into the pregnancy. It wasn’t until 33 weeks that I was able to taper down to 25mg per day and I was still taking 25mg every 2-3 days until the last week of the pregnancy. I was frustrated and discouraged.

Gestational Diabetes

When I was 32 weeks pregnant, I started to feel dizzy often. I went to see the midwife, and she suggested I check my blood sugar. After testing, it looked like I was dealing with a case of gestational diabetes. It was quite devastating to hear. Not only was I having a hard time with food in general, gestational diabetes puts additional severe limitations on what foods I could eat. I spent a lot of time working hard breaking my sugar addiction and revamping my diet to include many more complex carbohydrates. After doing all of that work, we discovered that I did not in fact have gestational diabetes. My glucose meter was not accurately reading the blood sugar levels, and I was actually well within normal range. I was excited to have the food restrictions lifted, but disappointed about the stress of having to revamp my diet.

Due Dates

Another pregnancy obstacle was the fact that my due date was inexactly known. There are several different ways to measure due dates. According to LMP, I was due on June 30^th, according to conception date, I was due on July 12^th and according to ultrasound, I was due on June 20^th. Considering that the due date is really the middle of a range of 3 or so weeks that a baby can be born on, I was looking at a considerable birth window that extended from the first week in June to the first week in August as a possible birthday for the baby. I spent a lot of time at the end of the pregnancy trying to “assess” what week I was in and when I would have the baby. Not really knowing where I was at was incredibly stressful to me, and it made it hard to enjoy the last trimester. Ironically, he was born ON the original June 30^th due date (only 5% of babies are born on their due dates). The midwife and I both agree, that he looks like a 40 –week term baby, not early and not late, which makes him a very punctual little man.

I had 2 midwifes, an apprentice midwife and a doula assigned to the birth of my baby. I could not have assembled a better birth team. The hitch was that the 2^nd midwife and the apprentice midwife were both taking the month of June off and would not be back on call until July 1.

Feeling Anxious/Prodromal Labor

As I was getting into the 38^th week of being pregnant, I started to feel anxious and ready to be done. I felt like the baby was ready to come out, and I was starting to have some early signs of labor. On June 23, I was having some contractions and bloody show. I was quite sure that it was all going to develop into labor, but every single night for the rest of the week I was stuck walking around the house with painless Braxton Hicks contractions that I was discouraged would never amount to anything. I was having other small signs that labor was imminent, so it made me anxious when I woke up to another day with no real signs of labor.

Water Broke

On Saturday the 27^th, I spent most of the night thinking about how it was not a big deal that I didn’t have a baby. I decided that I was going to enjoy my time with Daphne and start some other fun projects that I had put off working on. I got up on Sunday the 28^th and went outside to do some manual labor I had been working to avoid. I pulled up some bolting parsley to dry and moved some rabbit cages that were in desperate need of cleaning. As I was getting ready to do some other gardening work, I felt a large gush of water stream down my leg. I looked up to Jared and told him that I had either just peed my pants or my water had broken. I went inside to investigate and change clothes.

After a shower and a clothing change, the water was still gushing, so I was certain that my water had broken. I was worried that it was in fact a small “leak” but the fact that I was soaking an entire infant prefold every hour was an indication that it was an actual rupture. When I went back outside to see Jared, he was all but ready to head to the birth center to have the baby. I told him that I wasn’t having any contractions and that it would be a while before the baby was born. I called my midwife, and she told me that in 80% of women labor spontaneously starts within 24-48 hours of a membrane rupture. In the medical model, once the water has broken, you are put on a time clock that requires that you must deliver within 24 hours of a membrane rupture because of a belief of a risk of infection, so it is considered a failure if labor does not progress immediately. The truth is that if sterile technique is practiced after a membrane rupture, and the mother and baby are both monitored for infection, no risk is posed by waiting as long as it takes for labor to start. I do know of one woman who went for 9 days before her baby was born.

I spent the rest of the day shopping and getting things done around the house so that when we had a baby everything would be fine. I was surprised to go to bed and wake up to discover that not only was water still leaking out of me with impressive quantity, that I was having no other labor signs. I was feeling frustrated and stressed, so I spent the day hanging out with Daphne waiting for labor to begin. As I was again getting ready to go to bed, I decided that I would be able to go as long as I needed to for labor to start and that I was going to stop stressing about it.

As I crawled into bed, Jennifer (my primary midwife) called me and told me that she had just heard from Jesica (my secondary midwife) that she had decided to go back on call one day early and that if I went into labor that night that Jesica would be able to attend the birth. As soon as I hung up the phone, I experienced some mild contractions but decided to not read anything into them and went to sleep. I was occasionally woken up with a contraction here or there, but they had little intensity and not much power. I finally got up at 1 am and decided to try to time them and pay attention to the intensity in case they would develop anything. I went out to the computer and put on a TV show to watch. I spent 40 minutes watching TV only to discover that the contractions were very mild and were only 6-7 minutes apart, nothing to write home about, so I went back to bed.

True Labor

At 3:30, I woke up and decided to start timing the contractions to see how far apart they were. The intensity was increasing rapidly, and I lay in bed watching TV timing them out at 5 minutes or so, but not feeling intense. At 5 am I decided I would get up and take a shower and make breakfast because I was incredibly hungry. As soon as I was vertical and in the shower, the contractions became really intense. I found that it was necessary to vocalize through them. I had 5 contractions in the shower, and got out only to realize that I had only been in there for 15 minutes. I got out of the shower and was being hit so hard that I had to stay on my hands and knees to make it through. The contractions were right on top of one another and I was unsure I would be able to call the midwife. In the middle of contractions I ran in and told Jared to wake up and come help me. He called Jennifer and I was able to get out that the contractions were every 2-3 minutes apart and intense. She asked if I wanted to go to the birth center, and I said it sounded like a good idea if it looked like I was in labor.

We were in the car very quickly, and the contractions spaced out a bit. I hear that this is very common. Getting in a car can interrupt the labor routine a little. I was actually really glad to have the break. It is an hour drive to the birth center and we were possibly going to run into some rush hour traffic. We had left the house at 5:40.

The closer we got the more I urged Jared that we needed to be there. As we got to be about 15 minutes away, it was becoming clear to me that we needed to get out of the car and to the birth center. The contractions were close and intense, and I was actually worried that there was a possibility that the baby was going to be born in the car.

We got to the birth center to find that only the doula had arrived. Luckily, she is also a midwife, so she was at the birth center getting things ready for me. The tub was not full of water, but I was just happy that I could be somewhere that I could get back on my hands and knees. I spent a half hour leaning on the birth ball vocalizing through contractions as the tub filled and Jared and Daphne got situated.

The more intense things got, the more I wanted in the tub. It takes a while to fill up the birth tubs, and I decided to hop in and try to labor while it filled up. I really was looking for relief. Though the water wasn’t a total cure to the intensity, I felt like things were more manageable than they had been on dry land.

I was feeling a little worried that things were feeling intense but that it was possible that I wasn’t progressing. I wasn’t feeling like I was going to make it through the labor if I was only in the beginning stages, so as soon as Jennifer came through the door I asked if she would check my progress. My birth plan actually states that I didn’t want any exams during the birth because I didn’t want to focus on numbers and time, but an indication that I was far along would have been enough to keep me going. She checked and confirmed that I was 8 centimeters dilated. I was in transition and well on my way to having the baby. Things were incredibly intense, but the confirmation that I had come so far was enough to keep me going. I spent another 45 minutes laboring down before I knew that it was time to push.

Pushing

I was so relieved after one contraction when I reached in and was able to feel the head of the baby. I knew that I was making progress, and I was able to feel for myself with every contraction how far the baby was moving down. My body was working without help from me to push the baby out. I felt at total effect of everything, and the only way I could feel better was to add any extra force I could to the pushing. I could feel the baby trying to make his way through my pelvis, and it felt like my pelvis was separating. The more effort I added to the pushing, the better I felt. After pushing for about 30 minutes, I was starting to feel that things were not moving along, and I started to wonder if this was going to end up in a c-section with Daphne. I started to live in her birth a little bit because I had pushed for 4 hours with her with no effect. The only consolation I had was the fact that I could feel the baby moving through my body. With each push, I could feel as he moved past the cervix and into the pelvis. As soon as he got to the pelvis, I could feel pressure on the perineum. As the contraction ended, I could feel him move back up (babies move down and up to stretch out the mom to make a gentler exit).

It does totally feel like the baby is going to come out your bum, so I spent every contraction putting pressure against my perineum to relieve the pain and pressure. At least I felt like I was doing something about the pain.

The midwives assured me that everything was textbook perfect but I was SURE it was going too slowly and that like with Daphne, pushing would be futile. I spent a long time feeling at effect as though things would not go my way. At that point a tip from a friend popped into my head. She had told me that it would not happen unless I made it happen. I focused on pushing with intention to birth the baby, and that is when I started to feel that progress was being made. I could feel him moving down with each push, and eventually the head was not going back in after a contraction.

Jared had been playing with Daphne helping me through contractions here and there. At this point, he grabbed a mirror and held it so that I could see the head coming out. It was nice to see the progress being made. Within a few pushes, I felt incredible burning, and the head finally slid out. I knew that with the next push that the whole body would come out, and I was anxious to hold him. I waited what seemed like forever for the next contraction. I wanted to catch the baby, so as it was starting, I reached down with Jared and Jennifer’s help and pulled him out and up. He was wet and slimy and covered in vernix, but it was awesome to be holding my own baby. He did not cry at all, but he started breathing immediately, and he turned pink right away. It was so lovely to sit in the tub and hold the baby I had worked so hard to birth. Daphne was out of the room when he was born, but she came back in moments later, and she was so excited. She jumped in the tub with me and helped me hold and adore him.

After sitting in the tub for 15 minutes with him, we decided to cut the cord so that Jared could hold him and so that I could birth the placenta.

It was so lovely to be able to get cleaned up and head to bed to snuggle with the baby.

Afterthoughts

The labor was 6 hours from start to finish, and was incredibly intense. I am so excited to have had a VBAC. In fact, I have a renewed upset for the c-section I had with Daphne because I realize how close I was to having her.

I found the advice from my friend I mentioned to be incredibly helpful. I have no idea where the birth would have gone if I had not remembered what she had said.

I think that the birth went so quickly and so smoothly because of some advice from a book. Ina May recommends that when birthing that you keep the vocalizations very low, almost like mooing. I made sure to do that with the contractions and to give in to what was going on. I think that helped things go along very quickly because I was not feeling tense in my bottom.

The truth is that I get misty eyed when I think of the accomplishment of having a VBAC. If I had been seeing a doctor, I would never have even gotten the chance to “attempt” the VBAC. Even if I had been given the chance, the “risk” of having my water broken for so long before the start of labor would have gotten me to the OR with great haste.

My midwives were fantastic and never listened to me complain that I couldn’t do it or that I just needed to have a c-section. I’m sure I could have complained a lot less in labor, and it would have been more pleasant for them, but the truth is that they were just the support that I needed.

Having Daphne there was actually lovely, and there were some sweet moments when she put on some gloves and came over to help me through the birth. She was even happy to jump in the gross bloody water with me to help me admire the baby.

I love my husband and thank him for being the support I needed. He was at the right place at the right time, and offered the perfect amount of support. He really is the star of the birth because he was able to step back and let things happen.

I know that I have been lagging a little bit on posting.  It is not because I have no content.  Trust me, we have been very busy around here.  It seems that I only have so much energy in the day during my third trimester, and no matter how I might try, I am always running on empty.

Daphne goes to bed at 7, and at that point, I usually run outside and do any other animal activities that didn’t get done for the day.  I make sure everyone has food and water and fix anything that needs to be fixed.  By the time I get back inside from that, I am very tired, and all I can think about is checking my email and going to bed.  I’ve even set up a laptop in the bedroom so that I can combine the two activities.

So, though I’ve been taking photos and gathering content for the blog, the thought of sitting down and doing any mental work is enough to get me to sleep.

I am usually the kind of person that has to be busy doing something all the time, and I feel like if I didn’t do a lot during a day that it was a total waste of a day.  Lately, however, I have been running so low on energy that I have been taking naps during the day while Daphne naps.

I CHERISH the time that I get to spend alone getting one thing or another done while Daphne sleeps.  It’s not that I don’t love to have her help me, it is more the fact that it is impossible to put her toys away while she is playing with them or to mop the floor while she is standing on it.  Some household chores are simply not meant to be done with the help of a 2 year old.

So, the fact that I have been willing to give up that time seems to be a miracle in itself.  It sure does feel nice to put her down for a nap and then fall into my own bed for an hour or two of genuine rest.  I have been enjoying the rest.

So, don’t feel too bad that I have been neglecting blogging lately.  I am very sorry.  I simply am too tired to do everything that I want to do in a day, and my blogging time is currently competeting with my sleeping time.

It has been busy around here lately as I wrap up a lot of projects!

I chipped my tooth recently, so we spent Thursday heading to the Dentist in Sherwood.  It was a filling they had done, so they fixed it at no charge, which was nice, but by the time I got home the only thing left to do for the day was sew.

Friday was butchering day, so I headed out to the butcher with my 15 birds.  It really was nice to wrap up the project.  I am glad to have meat in the freezer and to have 15 less mouths to feed.  My chore time is being cut down considerably lately.  After dropping the birds off at the butcher, I took Daphne to the park to play while they did the processing.  As we were driving away, Daphne burst into tears asking me where here chickens were demanding that we go get them back.  I heartlessly told her that we would go pick them up  but that they would no longer be alive.  I didn’t know what else to tell a 2 year old.  When we went to pick up the birds to take home, she was perfectly happy to help load the car.  She carried each chicken and put it in the box happily stating that it was a chicken.  And I though she was going to be traumatized.  I guess I need to do a better job making sure she knows what is going on.

When I got home and got Daphne down for a nap I headed out to the chicken coop to rearrange some things.  The laying hens get better treatment now that I have more time for them.  We got them a new shelter a few weeks ago to solve many of the problems I was having keeping them in such an awkward space.  I took it back out and cleaned it and bedded it down with shavings for them.  I also made a door for it so that I could keep them out during the day for a while.  That side of the house is always in shade, and they don’t need the shelter during the winter.  They were trying to lay eggs in there, and they were not super easy to get out, so I decided to lock them out during the day and let them in at night.  This is all working really well.  I made the door for them out of some lovely, scrap, pink fabric.

They also got a feed and water upgrade.  They were having to eat and drink out of smaller containers, but with the meat birds gone and not needing the big feeder and waterer, the hens got it.  It is nice for them to have free choice food and water again, and I think that they are much, much happier.  Of course, being neurotic and pregnant, I spent about an hour sterilizing it for them after the meat birds had used it.

I worked on setting up the run for them more as well.  At this point, I probably won’t do much more for the summer.  The chicken coop used to block off half the run in the back, and since the birds spent the most time there, it had a lot of bedding and poop and stuff in it.  It is built up about a foot higher than the rest of the ground.  I aim to slowly have that compost down and spread it along the side of the house.  The chickens now have a lot more room to run around in, which is better for everyone.  I also need to put a top on the nesting boxes so that they are more willing to use them.  Chickens don’t like to lay unless they have privacy.

I went out on Friday night with a friend and her daughter.  I ended up getting my first pedicure.  It was a very lovely experience, especially being pregnant with such swollen feet.  It is not something I plan to do often, but it was nice and relaxing.  While the rest of me is covered in dirt, my feet don’t look right being all pretty!

Today, Jared and Daphne helped clean the back of the car out a little more.  I hope to complete the rest of it.  We then took an adventure to Portland.  I got my hair cut by a student at the Aveda Salon.  It is nice because the services are very inexpensive, but you get great service.  I got the best hair cut of my life from a girl who spent a lot of time working and learning.  It only cost me $10.  You can’t get a cheaper haircut, that is for sure.  I definitely recommend going there for anything if you live in the area.

Jared, Daphne and I then headed to a photo shoot.  My friend Christy from Studio Christy did some maternity photos and some family photos for us.  I think that she did a fabulous job, and I can’t wait to see them.  I will definitely share them when I do.

We have been having very hot weather here.  It has been record setting.  I was just complaining about the wet, but now it is very hot.  It got to be over 90 degree here today.  The garden needed  a good watering.  My peas are growing nicely.

As are my artichokes!

The rest of the garden is catching up.  It looks barren, but the plants are growing already.

This is Daphne sleeping in her own bed tonight.  She has been going to sleep in her own room as long as she gets to sleep with a baby and read any books that she wants.

Aren’t they cute when they sleep?

Ok.  My feet are swollen to great sizes, and everyone around here is tired, so Goonight!

I was really excited about being pregnant the 2nd time around.  I was so sick with Daphne and frankly so busy that I wasn’t slowed down at all until the last few weeks.  It is different to be a free spirit and to have a toddler to be accountable for.  There was one point when I looked at plane tickets out of PDX leaving that same day because I felt that everything would be better if I were on a plane to Greece.

And it’s been tough, in fact, it’s been a real challenge.  If it is even at all possible, I have been more sick this time around.  There is a 50% chance of Hyperemisis recurring with any future pregnancies if you get it one time.  I was lucky enough to draw the short straw.  Eating has been a real challenge.  I am usually really big about food.  I’m always in the kitchen making some new concotion or doing some new experiment.  When I was first pregnant, I couldn’t enter the kitchen at all, and it was still looking bad as I rounded 25 weeks.  We ate out a lot and spent WAY more on food than any 3 person family should be spending but I truly felt that I couldn’t help it.  What is worse, I was not eating good foods at all.  Any attempt at a blanced diet was always met with me only being able to eat the one thing in the fridge that didn’t make me sick full time until I found it revolting.  Things are better now, but I can’t say that I enjoy food.  Every time I go to eat something that I have made that I usually find delicious, I find it horribly mediocre.  Even if I like something one time a lot, it is generally not interesting when I try to go for it a second time around.  I can at least tolerate foods, and truthfully, the more bland the better.  I do hope that I can enjoy food again in the future.

When I got smacked with the Gestational Diabetes diagnosis, it felt like a slap in the face.  Now not only did I find food neither tasty nor fun, many of the fun foods were risky to eat, so they were out.  I had to totally reevaluate what I could eat, and it’s been a process.  At first I felt like it was totally hopeless.  There was no way I was going to make it, and maybe I could just pour on the drama.  After all, going through these two major obstacles AND adding the fact that this is going to be a VBAC is a lot more pregnancy related stress than any sane person needs.  It seems to be sorting itself out as time goes on.

I’ve had to break my terrible sugar habit.  I’ve done it before, but I feel great about it now.  After I graduated from high school I spent the next year eating almost nothing with any sugar in it, and I did great.  However, I succumbed at some point to snickers bars and ice cream.  I became a HUGE ice cream freak, and I still am today.  I never hesitated to eat any sugar though, and in fact, I had little willpower.  It has been hard to break that.  I’ve gone from needing ice cream every night to being satisfied by the occasional watermelon or strawberry.  Though I still do miss ice cream, I feel like I could make ice cream and savor it rather than gobble it.

And truth be told, it may all be for naught.  After a LOT of finger pricks, I’m learning that things are actually looking a lot better than they origionally did look.  My blood sugar is well within normal rage 2 hours after eating regardless of what I eat.  Mind you, I’m not eating any processed grains or sugars, so that helps, but  I really have nothing to worry about in that department.  Additionally, my blood sugar looks really good if I fast between meals and don’t eat a snack.  It can even get into the low normal range.  HOWEVER, the problem seems to be the 12 hour fasting levels.  Every 12 hour fasting level has failed the test.  Many of them are by less than 5 points, but some of them are by more than 15 points.  My midwives and I are starting to think it is not much to worry about, but we have to do more testing in a week to see where everything is.

And as this goes on, I only have a few more weeks to really get serious about really cleaning the house and wrapping up any projects I need to do before there is a possibility that I have another baby to care for.  The list is not long, and everything for the baby is set up, but I am wrapping up really old agreements and finising old projects.  There is also the very important project of spending time with the darling angel that I have already managed to birth and keep alive for 2 years.

The more challenging it gets, the more positive that I feel.  It seems a little backward, but I’m happy that it is turning out that way.  At the risk of sounding whiny, this is more than any mama should ever have to deal with at one time though, and I look forward to meeting the alien that has expanded my belly.

I’ve been meaning to clean the car for a long time.  It back back from California with a lot of food bits everywhere, and it really just needed a good cleaning.  Being the pregnant nesting woman that I am, of course I’ve been worried about the dust that has collected under the place where the glass hatch opens in the back.  I spent an hour this morning cleaning out the back half of the car.  It is much improved, but I still know there is a lot to be done.  I spent another hour in the evning before dinner cleaning sections of the outside of the car that were dirty.  There sure were a lot of bugs stuck on to the front of the car, and I’m not sure that all of them are ever going to come off.  A girl can dream can’t she?

It was doctor appointment day.  Jared had his yearly appointment with his surgen and I went to the midwife and to the imaging people to get an ultrasound.  I haven’t posted a lot lately about the Gestational Diabetes I’ve been working with.  That is partly due to the fact that I’ve been processing a lot and partly because I have little to nothing figured out.  It seems that the problem is my 12 hour fasting levels much more than my levels after eating.  On Saturday I eneded up eating a hamburger, fries and fried asparagus at Burgerville.  Though it was pretty good food, it really sent my blood sugar out of control.  I got really worried, upset and overwhelmed by it, but it turns out it wasn’t even that bad (167, 2 hours after eating).  I am still sorting out what to do.  After seeing the midwife today I feel more comfortable.  It turns out that there is NO glucose in my urine, not even the amount for normal people.  That is a good sign because it shows that things aren’t terribly out of control.  I think the hardest part of this whole thing is that I have had to break my sugar habit.  I have been addicted to sugar for at least 6 years.  The fact that sugar could be really harmful to me and my baby and ruin my VBAC has really stopped me from eating any of it.  Though I still LOVE to eat sweet things, I don’t really have much of an urge to sit and eat sweet things all day long.  On the flip side, I’ve really lost interest in food in general, so it has become more of a chore to eat than the culturally wonderful thing that it used to be for me.  I’m sure this will improve over the next couple of months.  Of course, I wouldn’t turn down a watermelon slice if someone offered it to me, and I do plan to pick strawberries tomorrow, so I do have some guilty pleasures still, just not the chocolate cake and ice cream of yesteryear.

I am glad that I got to meet with the midwife today.  She will not be working during the month of June, so I will likely see her next time at the birth and that is all.  I have 2 midwives, so someone is always available to me, it was just nice to meet with her and get things sorted out.

One thing that is cool is that I plan to make a birth sling that can be attached to the ceiling at the birth center.  It is something that has been used for many hundreds of years in other cultures, but it is not common here.  It is something that can be leaned on during labor or pushing to make things easier.  I am making it for me to see if it would be helpful in my own labor, but I plan to donate it to the birth center when I am done.  In exchange, they are going to set up the hardware for it to hang from the ceiling securely.  That’s a pretty good deal.  This is the room that I plan to have the baby in.  The tub is wonderfully HUGE!

Daphne came to my appointment with me.  She was really good as long as there was something to occupy her.  You have no idea how much fun a tourniquet is until you are a 2 year old!

I am very much interested in an intervention free pregnancy.  It recently was brought up to me that I might want another ultrasound to determine the placenta placement and try to see how the baby is doing.  We want the placenta and the cord to be as far away from the scar as possible.  It turns out that everything looks fine.  It was nice to see the baby and make sure that everything was fine.  I am measuring a little bit ahead, but that means nothing, it is all based on averages, and everything is well within normal range.

When we got home this afternoon it was time to dig in to make some bread.  The dough was a little bit wet, which is odd because it was a pretty dry day.

Daphne seems to think that bread dough is the best thing to eat in the house, and I couldn’t keep her away from it.  I don’t really mind at all, and it makes for a happy baby..

Look at all the dough and flour on her face!

The bread turned out perfectly though!

After dinner I turned the table over to clean it.  We got a new table from Jared’s grandma Lois.  It is a big of an heirloom.  I love the table, but it was a bit dirty, so it needs some cleaning (and possibly a sanding and restaining.  Daphne found a new use for the table.  Looking awful medieval.

Thing 1 is turning into a much better mama.  She jumped in to nurse the babies today both times I took her the box, and it made me feel better.  I think she trusts me more now.  My decision to keep them inside was confirmed when one of them held on to the teat while Thing 1 jumped out of the box.  I was busy feeding other animals and didn’t notice for a while.  The baby was very cold and limp when I got back to it less than an hour later.  I let it nurse again and then put it in with its litter mates.  It seems to be doing fine, but if I had not gone to take the box back away from her, the baby would not have made it.  This has happened on at least 3 other occasions with Daisy as well.

They are still small, but they are all getting fed and they are growing nicely.  I think we are out of the clear on losing any of them at this point, but I wouldn’t put any money on it yet.

Here is a comparison of the two boxes.  The older bunnies sure do show a difference in growth.  They have started to spread out over the litter box, and they get comfy.

All of the black babies have their eyes open now, but none of the white babies.  All in good time, I am not worried about it.  I also discovered yesterday that one of the black bunnies is not actually black.  It might be chocolate or agouti.  I need to wait a bit and ask some people who know more than me.  If it is a chocolate torte, I will keep the bunny in my own herd.

They look like little baby rabbits now rather than hairless rats.

I found a snake in the back yard today, so Jared was sent out to cut the grass.  Even though it was a harmless snake, I don’t like them, and they tend to make feasts out of baby rabbits when possible.

Strawberry picking tomorrow as well as some other gardening projects.

Until then…

I’m going back and forth a little bit on how I want to do the blog posts.  Now that I have caught up on older photos and stories, I am free to blog about things that happen throughout the day (and trust me, there is a lot).  My hope is that I will be able to post a “summary” post of the happenings of the day with any photos or updates on life.  That doesn’t mean that I won’t be making other dedicated posts about other things, but a day summary type post could help tie in photos and stories that don’t otherwise really NEED their own blog posts.

Monday was a fantastic day.  I’m entering the very end of my pregnancy, and it really is starting to take a toll on me.  I’ve been working hard trying to get everything done so far so that I wouldn’t have anything to worry about when I got to this point.  Surprise, I’m at that point, and though not EVERYTHING is done, I am at a managable stage where I can remain sane and still take it fairly easy in what I do.

One of my goals has been to get the house in order.  Generally, the house is very clean, but there are random things laying around everywhere that need to go where they belong.  It’s kind of crazy because Ihave to constantly tell everyone to not touch this or that.  If I just spent the time cleaning up and putting things away, I wouldn’t have the problem of having to contstanly clean or chase people around to get things clean.

One of the important things to do was the laundry.  I just love that my little munchkin is old enough to ACTUALLY be useful in some regards.  She puts her stool next to the washer so that she can put things in it, and she actually managed to get the whole load in without much help.

Julie came over to sew after Daphne took her nap.  I have been working on a new style of diaper that I wanted to try out making.  Though I have plenty of diapers, I figure that they always have value, so I can sell them if I realize I don’t use them or don’t like them.  I like having something to sew right now because it keeps me focused and makes me happy.  I don’t think that Jared minds too much.  The diaper I am making is a diaper that is supposed to be one-size fits all.  It is a fitted diaper, so it requires a cover over it, but the one-size concept is really nice.  The only problem is that it requires an awful lot of snaps on it to make it so adjustable.  I’m making 15 of the diapers, so I spent the afternoon getting all the snaps on them.  They are just ready to have elastic sewn in and then to be closed and I will have some new lovely diapers.  I am very happy with the colors I chose to make, and when they are done, I will be posting some photos.  Until then, check out all the snaps.

Of course Julie’s kids wanted to check out the bunnies.  They hadn’t been over since they were born, so the bunnies got plenty of socialization.  They were generally very good with them, and I am happy to have the rabbits be handled by humans.  I’m hoping to sell the Angora rabbits as wool animals, so the more gentle they are the better my case as a breeder is.  Audrey loved the black ones and Copper prefered the white.

I sort of feel like I am taking the same photos over and over of the bunnies, especially the photos of them in their nest.  It seems that the photos look the same every single day, but I’m really starting to see some changes in the bunnies.  Their ears are starting to stand up  like real rabbits, which goes a long way to make them not look like rats.  They are also growing hair at a very fast rate.  Now that we are past the week mark, I am pretty much in the clear that they will all survive.  They are starting to move around a LOT more.  They are agressive nursers now, which I find comforting because at least I know that they are all getting milk.  Mama is happy to nurse them in the morning but more reluctant at night.  Rabbits generally ignore their babies except to nurse them at dawn and dusk.  They are born in such a fragile state that if the mama was to spend time fiddling with them during the day that she would reveal their hiding place to any predators.  The buns have their eyes closed until a week and a half old, so they really have no defense against themselves.  This is why it is viable and successful to keep them inside and take them out to mama.  I don’t like them getting too cold or the possibility of the fact that one could get out of the box at night and die from exposure.  I also like to actually see the mom nurse the babies so that I can check them afterwards to see that they have all been fed.  A litter of 8 is a pretty big litter to care for.

I passed the 36 day mark for Thing 2, which means that she was not bred.  She was lactating, but she must have been experiencing a phantom pregnancy, which happens when you try to breed a doe and she does not actually get pregnant.  I put her back in with the buck, and she was VERY receptive to him, which made me comfortable to know that she was not pregnant.  I have marked my calendar, and I may be doing the baby rabbit routine with her again in 30 days.  I am disappointed that she didn’t kindle.  I have not had the best of luck in the past, but I am feeling that she is definitely bred this time.

When I came in from feeding the animals Daphne was ready to go to bed.  She likes to go into her daddy’s office and lay down on the couch and pretend to sleep.  She wrapped herself up in some fabric that Copper left here and declared she was sleeping in her daddy’s office for the night.  I should have left her there too.  She ended up waking up at 10 pm in her cradle very upset.  It took a good 45 mintues to get her back to sleep.

After I got Daphne to sleep I managed to sit down and card some Angora fiber to spin.  I spent about an hour and a half adding more to my bobbin.  I am excited to fill the bobbin completely so that I can get started on a hat for the baby.