this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.Have a lovely weekend!

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Have a lovely weekend!

I know I'm breaking the rules of "this moment" but I wanted to introduce "this moment". Its been quite some time since I've blogged, but every friday I take a look at soulemama.com and think "I should do that too." If you haven't ever read soulemama's blog, check it out, its beautiful and all around happy making!

So, hopefully this will continue, and at least I'll get a weekly blog post out of it. More importantly I'll get a reminder of the best moments of my week. Seems weird to encourage you to do the same, as this is my first "this moment" post, but seriously, you should think about it. :)

Mama and both boys were sick this week, but well on the road to recovery. This pic was snapped cuddling (instead of the regular nursing) my baby boy to sleep while he was fussy from his stuffy nose. Few things suck worse than seeing your babies sick, but I love the cuddles, no matter how much snot ends up wiped on my clothes and body.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

This week is World Breastfeeding Week, and I've been seeing SO much great stuff out there in cyberspace. The Leaky B@@b on facebook has been a great resource for touching guest blogs, poems, statistics, and more. I recently read an amazing article a friend posted (shout out to Autumn!) regarding how NORMAL breastfeeding is. Here's the link if you are interested: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=101949363196728&id=134844053221572&ref=mf What I found especially wonderful about this article was how it points out how truly biological breastfeeding is. Its hardwired into us. Boobs were put on us to breastfeed, not to be ogled and sexualized. Humans have evolved into what we are today as a perfect design for survival. We should not fight against our nature. Our babies want to be held so they feel safe, they want to be breastfed so that they can be nourished both physically and emotionally.

We too, as mothers, are emotionally nourished by breastfeeding as well. And lets not forget the physical benefits (lowered incidence of breast cancer being my favorite). As our children get older, we can sometimes feel tied down, or irritated by their seemingly constant nursing. This feeling can be greatly magnified when we're pregnant. I forged through my pregnancy with Will nursing Ryan the whole time. If you've done it too, you know what I mean when I say there were times I wanted to throw Ryan off me and just walk away. Breastfeeding through pregnancy is HARD, to say the least. But, I made it. Will was born, and once my milk came in, and my nipples were red and blistered (Will had a very tiny mouth) and covered with lanolin, Ryan decided it wasn't for him. He would ask all the time by either signing for milk, or more often making a noise that sounds similar to a sputtering engine, or a machine gun, but once he saw what his milkies looked like, he wasn't interested. It even became a joke to him, pretending to put his mouth on my nipple, and then pulling away at the last second and laughing. It broke my heart.

It had been our special relationship for the past 22 months. Ryan almost exclusively breastfed until he was around 14 months, when my milk started waning from the pregnancy. It was something he used for nourishment, for comfort, for sleep. And now it was suddenly a joke to him. And he was teasing me. Asking all the time, but never actually nursing. I cried every day for at least a week about it. I knew he still needed it emotionally, which was why he was asking.

Two weeks after he stopped nursing, Ryan yet again asked to nurse. I sighed, and unhooked my nursing shirt and to my utter amazement, Ryan latched on like it was completely normal. I was thrilled! I cried happy tears. I called my husband. I latched on Will and snapped a picture with my phone. I had been planning on tandem nursing, having my boys hold hands while they nursed - and when Ryan went on his nursing strike, that seemed like just a dream. Now it was happening! I knew it was so precious, as Ryan could again decide to abruptly wean.

Now Ryan nurses just as much as his baby brother. He's cut down on his solid food intake and gained a pound in two months. I have more milk than baby Will can handle sometimes. I know that when Will gets older, and nurses less so will Ryan. And being that Will isn't much of a comfort nurser, my prediction is that Ryan and Will will wean around the same time. But for now, I'm fulfilling Ryan's emotional needs by breastfeeding. I'm letting him know that Will has not taken his place. I can still comfort him when he gets hurts, so often as 2 year olds do, I can still calm him down when its time to sleep. And at the same time, though I can't quite explain it, I'm fulfilling emotional needs of my own. The first few days after Will was born, I didn't see much of Ryan. Even though Will was born at home, he and I spent a lot of time alone, while my husband, mother, and mother-in-law took care of Ryan. They played with him and fed him. My husband put him to bed for the first time, that night Will was born. I remember crying to my husband saying I didn't feel like Ryan's mommy anymore. Over these past 2 months Will has been a part of our family, Ryan has grown so much. He's more confident with strangers and shows more of his personality. I'm so proud of him. But when he comes to me with his funny sputtering engine sound, and then open and closes both hands to sign "milk", I know I'm still his mommy - and always will be.

The Welcoming of William Charles (in great detail) :)

On Friday May 21^st, Scott (my husband) went to a sleep study. He was coming home early the next morning and was planning to call me when he got home so I could make sure the dog wouldn’t bark and wake up Ryan. Ryan had woken up in the middle of the night, so I was sleeping in his bed with him when a text message from Scott woke me up. As I was reading the message from Scott, I felt my first contraction. It was 6am, and I knew this was the beginning.

Also on Friday, I saw my wonderful midwife Joyce for a regular prenatal appointment. I mentioned how I had been walking a lot, and she suggested swimming. That night, I made plans to go with my mother to the pool she goes to in the morning. Around 8am on Saturday, Scott asked me if I was going to get ready to go meet my mom, and I said, I don’t think so, I’ve been feeling kind of contraction-y this morning. Even though I KNEW I was beginning labor, I didn’t want to tell anyone else right away, because no pregnant woman wants to be that pregnant woman with a false alarm! I also called my mom to cancel, telling her I was crampy and not feeling great. I told her I would call if things changed. She was the person who would be watching Ryan while I labored.

Around 9am I was still having contractions lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, every 5-10 minutes. I called Joyce and told her what was going on. We live about 2 minutes from a mall, so she said she would head to our area and do some shopping. It was a beautiful day out, nice and warm, so Scott, Ryan and I got dressed and went for a walk around our neighborhood. When we got back to our house we all stayed outside and Ryan played. Around noon, Ryan started to ask for his milkies, (he wanted to nurse) which is his signal that he’s tired. I took him upstairs and was thrilled to be able to nurse him to sleep (like we had been doing all along) through the contractions. Keeping Ryan on as close to a normal schedule as possible was high on my priority list.

Joyce called me around 12:45 and asked if she could come by and see how I was doing. She stopped by and we chatted for a bit, and she saw me have a few contractions. She told me she was going to head back home (about 45 minutes away) and that I should try to relax and maybe sleep. She said labors usually slow in the afternoons and pick up again at night. I was skeptical - it didn’t work that way with Ryan’s labor. But she also said, most babies are born either late night, or early morning, and Ryan entered the world at 11:30pm, so I thought maybe she was right. Plus, I had only done this once before – she does it for a living! I asked Joyce if getting in the tub would slow me down too much and she said no, that sounds like a great idea.

Getting in the tub certainly did NOT slow me down. I was in the tub probably for about an hour and a half when things got a little crazy! I couldn’t just lie in the tub anymore. I was actually reading the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel, but unable to keep reading through contractions. I had to get up and move. I wrapped a big towel around myself and asked Scott if he thought I should call Joyce. I’m not sure why I thought he could tell me what I should do. He did say I should, and he was right! I called Joyce and told her things were definitely picking up. She said she would come back. I felt bad, I knew she had probably only recently gotten home, only to drive back again. She later told me she sped all the way back to me, and I am truly grateful for that!

While waiting for Joyce, my body was working hard, and I was getting HOT! I turned on the recently installed ceiling fan (thanks Dad!) and plugged in a small fan as well. I started pacing in my bedroom. I was going from the front window and back to my bed over and over and over. Every time I got to the window I thought “ooooh where’s Joyce???” I also called my mom, or had Scott call her, I can’t remember, to come and watch Ryan. Scott asked if he and Ryan could come up and see me, and I said yes. But, poor guys, as soon as a contraction hit, I told them they had to go! So, off they went back downstairs. Every time a contraction hit, I would go over to the bed, by the fan, stand on my toes with my feet far apart, lean forward with my hands on the bed, and tell myself that I was fine, and that I could do this. I was feeling a LOT of pressure, which is not something I felt with Ryan, so I was feeling like I was getting closer and closer, and here I was all by my self! In reality, I still had hours to go.

My mom was the first to arrive, and she took over for Scott with Ryan. Soon after, Joyce arrived. I was thrilled when I saw her car pull into the driveway. As soon as she came into the room, I fell apart. I hugged her, and in tears, told her I was so glad she was there! I had been doing so well handling things on my own, and then as soon as Joyce got there, I tried to rely on her to make things all better. I wanted her to tell me, oh, you are fully dialated – time to push! But of course, that’s not what happened. I continued to pace in my room and deal with the contractions at the side of my bed. Only now I had Joyce to help me through them, and provide support. There were also 3 other wonderful women there to support me, help Joyce, and do other such midwife-y things. I remember them whispering to each other. My normal reaction is to know EVERYTHING (I think I get that from my mom), but I barely cared, and I couldn’t muster the energy to bother to ask. To be honest, I still wish I knew what was being said.

By this time, it was probably around 4:30-5pm and my water still hadn’t broken. Someone suggested I try the shower, and I rushed to the shower in between contractions. I turned on the water pretty cold, and it felt wonderful, but I needed to lean on something during contractions, so I quickly got out and leaned on the counter in the bathroom. Around this time my body started involuntarily pushing. It was just quick pushes and they were accompanied by involuntary grunting. I noticed in the mirror that I had some blood dripping down my thighs and I thought “cool, that’s what I saw happen when I watched The Business of Being Born.” I’m sure this sounds weird, but after watching that movie, I felt I missed out on seeing a lot of the natural stuff the first time around. Maybe next time I’ll be bold enough to request a mirror to see the baby crowning, or take a glance at the organ that kept my baby nourished for nine months.

During this whole time, I kept whining to Joyce about all the pressure I was feeling. I really had never felt anything like it before. When they say every birth is different, they are right! She kept suggesting that I try the birthing stool, or squatting, or basically any other position, but I was honestly too scared to try. I knew that would only exacerbate the pressure. My mind knew that squatting down would bring the baby further down and even though it would hurt – it would help my labor to be over sooner. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I eventually got into the bathtub, which was still full of water from a few hours before. Of course, the water had cooled, and felt wonderful to me. After a quick temperature check by one of the midwives, they looked at me like I was crazy, and told me my baby couldn’t be born into 70* water. They started adding HOT water. This was completely incompatible with my body working the hardest its worked since Ryan was born. And gone were my dreams of a water birth with the sun shining in, windows open, gentle breeze blowing my perfectly un-sweaty hair, yielding beautiful pictures. It was probably a good thing. My neighbors were probably wondering whether to call the police and report domestic violence. I also remember Will moving around this time, he must have been getting into a better position. Nothing like getting literally kicked while you’re down!

While I was in the tub, Joyce suggested squatting. I did it for one contraction, and wow, it was intense. But, of course Joyce was right, and it was what helped bring Will down further. I quickly got out of the tub because I swear they were trying to cook me in there! It was HOT!

I rushed back to the bed and lay down. Giving birth flat on my back was not my plan, but I really needed to rest in between contractions. I wasn’t getting pain relief from pushing like I did with Ryan. That really threw me for a loop! I was really counting on that. Earlier in the tub, Joyce had checked me and told me I just had a small lip of cervix left. Normally you don’t push until it’s all gone, but I couldn’t have cared less. This baby was coming out sooner rather than later if I had anything to say about it. Which, let’s be honest, I didn’t.

While lying on the bed, Joyce checked me again - still a lip of cervix, with a “tight, bulging bag of waters”. It was about to break at any time. The midwives joked about how Joyce would soon be soaked in amniotic fluid. I think I apologized, and thought about how I would offer her one of my many shirts that used to fit before I had children, that I’m saving for “when I get my body back”. So, this whole time I was thinking all that pressure was Will’s head. Well, once my water broke, I found that was not the case. To me, this explains why I had so much pressure with Will, and none with Ryan. With Ryan my water broke around 7cm. With Will, it broke right before he was born.

I’m not sure which happened first, but my water broke and Joyce moved the lip of cervix over Will’s forehead. Well, both of those things were extremely helpful. Very soon after Will was born. I felt him crowning. Wow! The burning! Joyce was literally pouring numbing gel all over the place, and yet, Wow! The burning! I asked how much of his head they could see, and they told me a few inches. Well, to me it felt like half his head was out. I remember saying it felt like I was passing a watermelon. Cliché, but very accurate. Once I knew it was almost over, dreams of controlling my pushing so I wouldn’t tear were gone. I just kept pushing. Will’s head was born, and immediately after I felt his body, every elbow, knee, foot, and fist make its grand entrance, or exit, depending on how you look at it. I swear he came out screaming. There was certainly no dramatic pause.

Finally, on May 22^nd at 6:05pm, Will was in my arms. And there he would stay (yay homebirth!). I immediately thought of Ryan, and how I wanted him to meet Will. I asked (demanded) Scott to go get my mom and Ryan. Ryan climbed up on the bed and met his baby brother moments after he was born. Again, yay homebirth!

I was pretty anxious to deliver the placenta so I could sit up comfortably and nurse Will. Ryan had a lot of latch issues in the beginning, and I was eager to avoid that with Will – another reason I chose a homebirth. I was thrilled when Will latched on like a pro and nursed for a long, long time. After he was done nursing, the midwives took him for his newborn exam while Joyce checked out to see if I had torn. Will had his exam right next to me on the bed. I was there for everything. It was great. He weighed 7lbs and was 20 inches long. He scored 10, 10 on his APGAR scores.

Joyce found a small tear, and was deciding whether to stitch or glue it. I was a pretty big advocate for glue, as I had stitches with Ryan, and it made for a difficult recovery. Luckily, she decided to use glue. At one point, I couldn’t help but laugh. Here I am, completely naked, legs bent and wide open, and all four midwives are checking things out. One was holding a flashlight and they were all giving their opinion. I wish I had my camera. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it though!

After things were all settled down, my mom made dinner, and Joyce fed me while I cuddled with Will and she explained her rules for the next couple of days. By the time everyone left, it was truly like nothing had happened in my master bedroom/birthing suite.

Soon, it was time for Ryan to go to bed. I nursed him in my room, and then Scott took him to bed and stayed with him all night. It was the first time anyone but me put Ryan to bed successfully, and I was thrilled. Will and I cuddled in bed together, and we have every night since.

Having a homebirth was a truly wonderful experience. All the issues we had with Ryan after he was born were avoided. Maybe they would have been anyway, but I think having Will at home with a midwife was what was best for our family. All four of us!

A blog about creating this blog

Hello all!

I am a stay-at-home mom who just joined the mom of two boys club. My oldest will be 2 at the end of July and my newest cutie will be 4 weeks on Saturday! I was thinking how I don't have enough on my plate, so I'll start a blog! Ha! Right now I'm nursing my little one (W) and my toddler (R) is having an all out fit in the kitchen over some graham crackers he can't reach.

I've decided to join the ranks of mommy bloggers for a number of reasons. It looks fun to post your thoughts to the world! And I'm not talking about your immediate world. My intention is not for my mother or my mother-in-law or my best friend to read this. This is intended (no matter how it ends up) for all the other moms out there dealing with middle of the night nursing sessions, crazy toddlers, public tantrums, and unsolicited "advice". This is for the moms constantly learning about their children and from their children.

I know, the person I was before I had these wonderful boys was not only different, but truly oblivious to what it means to be a mom and love someone so much that you'd sacrifice anything for them - be it sleep, a social life, eating warm food, a clean house, a solo trip to the bathroom, your once svelte figure, modesty, privacy, frequent sex with your husband of significant other...the list goes on and on. My love for my children has inspired me to investigate everything from extended breastfeeding to homeopathic remedies to homebirth. And this is what I intend my blog to be all about - the challenges of motherhood, the controversial decisions we make or consider, and of course the joys of motherhood.