Category Archives: A Little of Everything

my baby is ONE today, so I’m finally posting her birth story (Part 1)

(Just so you know– this post has ended up just being about my pregnancy and deciding where to give birth to my 6th and last baby.  I’ll have to write another one about the actual birth part.)

This birth story has been hard for me to write.  How do you put something so emotional and all encompassing into words?  It was both the culmination of the “growing babies and giving birth” phase of my life and the beginning of the life of one very unique (still) little person.

When Hunter was born and we came home that morning from the birth center I knew that he wasn’t the last.  It wouldn’t be the last time I heard those tiny, squirmy, squeaky noises nestled next to me in my bed.  It wouldn’t be the last time I lived in that miraculous and holy halo of discovery that a new spirit and fresh body bring with them to a family.

But the adjustment to 5 kids was hard.  All changes are, but I worried I couldn’t handle another baby.  I knew there was another one though.  A girl I thought… I hoped.

And then I was pregnant and not only had another little person to anticipate and dream about, but an impending birth to plan.  After having Hunter in a birth center I did not want to go back to the hospital.  I would have gone back to the birth center in a heart beat, but there is a totally arbitrary Colorado law that says a birth center can’t deliver past a 5th baby.  My options were either to just take the caregivers my insurance assigned, or pay out of pocket for a home birth.  For several months I felt like I kept having to make that decision, repeatedly falling back on the insurance assigned hospital, feeling torn about it, and praying some more.  Finally I realized that I needed more information about the home birth midwives that would be available to me to really feel at peace with any decision we came to.  I called half a dozen midwives, set up appointments, and Barry and I (with several kids in tow as well) drove all over town meeting and interviewing them.  We left the first of those meetings with a confident assurance that a home birth was what we needed.  That confidence grew with each midwife we met.  As a culmination to my childbearing I needed the friendship and care of a midwife.  I needed to follow my heart.  I needed this last of my births to be the peaceful, sacred, comfortable, natural event I knew it should be.  The money would work itself out.  We needed to live so there would be no regrets.

I’m used to making decisions that kind of go against the grain of the mainstream, but that can cause a lot of well meaning people get worried.  I am not a confrontational, in your face, take it or leave it kind of person– I just like to feel like I’m living with integrity, like my heart is at peace, like my actions coincide with my beliefs about how I should live and what I should do.  I can’t keep myself from worrying about what other people think, but I guess I worry more about what I think and what God thinks.  That’s why I homeschool.  That’s why I had a home birth.  What I do is not the right thing for everyone, I know.  I just have to make decisions that leave me with an internal sense of peace.  Once we decided Eva would be born at home and chose a midwife I felt settled.

My pregnancy was a good one.  I was tired and swollen, of course.  I often reveled in the thought that “I never have to do this again!”  I felt thankful for my body that has so reliably grown all my babies.  I felt sad for dear friends and sister in-laws that struggle with difficult pregnancies, or no pregnancies at all.

On Saturday mornings I went to prenatal yoga classes at real yoga studios.  Oh I loved that!  Often during those classes I felt a call to teach prenatal yoga myself, to share my experience of birth and breathing and parenthood with women on the cusp of the most monumental changes in their lives.  I filed those thoughts away, wondering when I would have the time to revisit them.

As my due date approached I started freaking out.  I don’t know how else to put it.  My mother in-law and sister in-law were scheduled to arrive August 24th.  My due date was on the 17th.  4 of my 5 previous births happened 5 or more days before my due date and so I was confident that I’d have at least a week with my own mom before Barry’s family came.  I wasn’t having much happen though.  No nights of 4 hours of continuous mild contractions only to peter out in the morning like I had for nearly a month before Logan, Ian, and Hunter were born.  I had near emotional breakdowns every other day or so and was filled with so much anxiety that I would have a house full of visitors that didn’t know I was having a home birth in my home when I went into labor.  Finally I just asked my mom to come the weekend before my due date whether I had a baby yet or not.  Surely she would be born while my mom was here– right?  And it would be so nice to have here experience the birth with me, since she had never had the chance to see any of the others.

She came, we kept busy, and my due date came and went.

on meeting Meg and remembering I have my dream job

meeting meg

(Thanks valet at Meg’s fancy hotel for taking our picture even if it is with a harsh flash and horrible light.)

My long time blogging  and pattern designing friend Meg from Sew Liberated came to Denver last week to film a class at Denver based Craftsy.  We went out to dinner one night while she was here and had a happy adventure.  My down town excursions to date have consisted mainly of museum visits with packed lunches.  This time I picked Meg up from her fancy hotel, wandered about looking for the parking garage, walked a few blocks in the wrong direction, and then found our restaurant (that even needed reservations).  Meg was a very good sport.  We exchanged crazy in-law stories, meeting our husbands stories, and chatted and chatted.  She is every bit as beautiful and thoughtful in real life as her blog is.   I had to pee no less than three times over the course of dinner.  They were very good at refilling water glasses at Osteria Marco.

At one point we talked a bit about business and making things.  She expressed how much she wished she didn’t have to work so much and could just focus on her boys.  As Sew Liberated has grown her and Patrick have divided parenting time and she frequently spends half the day focused just on her business.  “Oh, so that’s how you do it,” it dawned on me.  I often wish I had more uninterrupted time to focus on making things, designing things, blogging things– but the last time I had 4 hours of focused, uninterrupted time was probably in early 2000.  I don’t have a popular blog, a craft book to my name, or recent art covering my walls.

But I do have my dream job.  I’m a stay at home, homeschooling mom of the six most amazing little people that ever were.  There will be days in my future that I can focus on things other than refereeing who sits in the corner of the big couch, reading stories, feeding mouths, and examining the intricacies of the latest Lego ship.  These are the days I can never get back.  Someday these days of nursing my last baby, tickling my 3 year old, watching Ian learn to read will have seemed too short.

And I have to remind myself THIS is my dream job.

HUNDO!!

So, we had a little campout this weekend.  Barry raced the Bailey Hundo, which is a hundred mile MOUNTAIN bike race in the Colorado mountains.  We set up our camper near the finish area Friday night, ate some tacos, played some Blink!, and went to bed.  As far as camping sleeping goes, it wasn’t bad.  Barry and I made our bed like a bed instead of using sleeping bags– sheets and a down comforter.  It was super comfy except for the little girl who decided she needed to snuggle in it too and nurse all night long.  Eva and I slept pretty well once Barry got up a little after 4 to get ready for his 6:00 start.

barry at the hundo

(photo by a photographer camped out on the side of the trail.)

He did awesome!  We loaded up in the van to drive to the half way point and cheer him on.  I missed my a turn, so we ended up getting to see him cross the highway after I realized my mistake and we turned around.  He gave us a beauty queen wave as we passed.  I was worried that we’d miss him at the aid station, but when we got there only 6 pros had come through.  We took our time getting our chairs and camera out of the van.  I was loading my arms up in the back of the van a second time when I glanced over to the food and water bottle table and thought, “That guy looks like Barry, but he wouldn’t be here yet.”  Then I noticed his yellow shoes and screamed and ran over.  He hugged and kissed all of us, but I didn’t get a single picture.  He was too far ahead of schedule.

It was an hour drive back to camp.  We got back in the camper, ate some lunch, and the sky started to rumble and rain.  Then in REALLY rained– torrents accompanied with pea to marble sized hail.  (My seams got put to the test!  They dripped a little, so I need to do some seam sealing, but the entire tops were water tight and that was the big problem before.)  When it let up I went to get my rain coat and park myself at the finish line so I could get a good picture of our muddy hero.

Then he rode up.  He was done!  2nd place in the 30-39 category!  Last year he did it in over 9 hours.  This year–

7 hours and 37 minutes!!!

I really am married to a super hero.