5 little birds are now in my nest....(homebirth story)

This was my first homebirth.

My contractions started last month, seriously!  I would get contractions  that would get regular and painful but then stop after 3 hours. It was frustrating, exhausting and painful. I didn't want to have a baby as early as 35 weeks but once I hit 37 weeks and was full term it would really frustrate me when it would happen. I would think labor was actually starting but then as soon as they got painful and regular they would stop.

My due date came and passed, something I have never experienced with my other 4 children the days drug on.....

 My contractions would start everyday only to stop after a few hours. I was emotionally, a mess thinking everyday was going to be the day only for the sun to come up the next morning and baby was still in my belly. Luckily I was feeling pretty good no major complaints other than the typical pregnancy stuff.

On Saturday morning I had a "bloody show" a sure sign  labor is coming (according to google 1-3 days.) Thought for sure Saturday was going to be the day contractions continued on an off all day. I finally went to bed at 9 pm.

At 4 am Sunday morning I woke up to contractions I could not sleep through.  They were bad enough I needed to stop and breathe through them. I called my midwife at 7:30am and she wasn't sure it was labor either because of my sporadic contractions.  They were bouncing between 3-20 minutes apart. She said she would stop by in a few hours with some herbal tinctures to possible get contractions more regular.

So I ate some breakfast: Yogurt, OJ and a Lara bar.

She arrived at 10am and after some discussion  she decided to check me and sweep my membranes before we started with some herbal  tinctures. I was already at 5cm so she decided to stay and get her medical stuff from the car as well as call her 2 assistants.

Within 15 minutes of  her checking me  I started getting contractions 1-3 minutes apart that were pretty intense. I  sat alone in my room bouncing and rocking on my birth ball all the while watching  a weird but true animal show on  Animal Planet ( it was just what was on and I was in too much pain to care) I remember thinking in my head how funny it was that I was watching a wild animal show while I was feeling quite animalistic at that moment.

11pm came around and I new my kids were getting hungry so I cut up some apples for them. Papabird ordered pizza for everyone  and the midwives were making tea for themselves ( now I feel rude, I forgot to offer them a drink.)

11:30  despite the fact that baby was positioned well I started getting back pain that did not go away during contractions. I thought the shower would help relax me I labored in the shower on all fours for about an hour. I started bleeding and was a little worried at first but I was assured everything was okay and that it was just my cervix dilating.

12:30 back to my room and back on the ball  my contractions slowed down a bit to 3-6 minutes apart which made me wonder if labor would just fizzle out again. I tried to stay focused and went back to rocking and bouncing on the ball.

Meanwhile  Papabird  was  keeping the kids entertained with video games. They would all pop in and say hi to me from time to time but the midwives would come in after a few minutes and have them leave me be. I didn't mind the kids around but I was afraid they would get upset if they saw me in too much pain.

1 pm I started to feel like a wanted to squat while pushing and just knew that soon my water would break. I moved over to the side of my bed where I had laid out water proof pads and squatted there through contractions while resting my head on my bed. One of the midwife assistants came in and stayed with me. rubbing my back through contractions and giving me counter  pressure. I was at the point now where I don't want to do this anymore the contractions were looooooong and intense. The other assistant came in and my midwife as well. They must have known that I was close.

Not sure exactly what time the next events happened but my water broke, I looked down and it was stained with merconium I asked  my midwife if this was okay as I was a bit panicked by it. They assured me it was fine (I was still scared.) With my other babies the head came down with the my water breaking but this was not the case. About 5 contractions went by before I could feel the head moving down. I turned around toward my closet mirrors, I wanted to watch the birth and pull my own child out of me. I was pretty silent through the whole labor processes but as the head came down I got a bit loud,  moaning, yelling, whimpering, crying thinking there was NOWAY I was going to get this head out. I think I let my fear of birthing a LARGE baby get the best of me. In my head I kept saying I can't do this, what if the baby is too big, they are going to have to call  911. I then realized what I was doing so I took a deep breath and said to myself I CAN do this. Your body will not grow a baby it cannot birth. I few pushs later  baby sipped out of me. What a relief! It was the biggest rush of endorphin's I think I have ever experienced. 1. It  felt so good for the pressure and pain to be gone and 2. My baby was here. I did not catch the baby or guide her out, my midwife did.I was to focused on getting the baby out. She  laid the baby down between my legs ( I was still squatting) Baby was was sooooo blue. I was worried he/she was not okay but my midwife wiped out the babies mouth and then he/she cried. I lifted up a leg to see what it was (I expected to see boy parts) but I did not, there were  girl parts!!!!  I picked her up an fell in love.

Baby bird #5!

 Getting baby ready to be weighed.....9lbs6oz. 21 1/2 inches long. Not my biggest baby at all!!

My 2 older children really wanted to watch the birth but I was so scared at that time that there was going to be a problem I never called them in. They were just one room away playing Rock Band on the Xbox and doing the song "We Got the Beat!"

I birthed the placenta then the midwives helped me into bed so all the kids could come in and see her.Things didn't go exactly as I had planned but my baby was born safely at home and is healthy and happy and thats all that really matters.

Now I just need to give her a birdie blogoshpere name!
Canary? Hummingbird? Raven? Not sure yet......

Side note: I did eat my Placenta 2 tablesspoons of it raw. My midwife cut it up into pill size pieces for me and I swallowed them whole like a pill with cherry juice, It had no taste. Why would I eat my placenta you may ask? Well that is a blog post for another day. If you just cannot wait  ......just google it!

Will I be pregnant as long as an elephant?

I have never gone overdue with my other babies but there is a first time for everything.

Will my baby be huge? I usually have 9-10lb. babies about a week early. How big will this baby be now that I am overdue! Babies come when babies are ready I keep getting told. I am trying not to worry and just
relax

I didn't plan much school work this week with the kids because I thought I would be snuggling a baby right now but boy was I wrong.

We went to the library for a homeschool  board game day.

We went to the library for our World Travelers club presentation on Egypt. Robin typed up some facts that morning on Cleopatra then got to dress up like her as  well. Her friend brought a hot dog she mummified.

While there I collected books on Spring.

I plan to get a nature table started with the kids again. The  overall topic will be the season but I will rotate out topics with that theme.Some ideas I have are:

Spring related books about the season but each week or two I will change the topic of what goes on in  during spring. I love spring it is my favorite season everything seems so new and fresh and bursting with possibility.

First up we will be doing  Baby animals.  Other ideas are thunderstorms/tornado's, flowers/seeds, and trees. When I get it all set up I will  post pictures.

Pinterest inspiration:
Nature table 1

Some outdoor fun on a warm 40 degree day throwing snowballs - spring is on it's way!

Girl Scout Cookie Thank you Cards

It is Girl Scout Cookie time!

Of course we needed to make thank you cards to send off with our boxes of cookies.

The first ones we made were rainbow ones ( my idea.)

We used Do A Dot markers to create rainbow pages which we then cut and folded to make small thank you cards to add to our cookie packages. I got the idea here  

Not the greatest picture, my flash washed out all the colors. On the front we added the customers name and what they owe. We taped these cards to one of the cookie boxes and bagged up orders together in plastic grocery bags.

The inside.

It was Robin's idea to make Samoa cookies and add those to the card. I think they turned out so cute.

She got sick of making rainbows and said t was no longer fun so she came up with the idea of making pop up cards.

Again we put the name and amount owed on the outside of the card and thank you for your order on the inside. (The crayon is covering up her real name)

Here is a small pile of some of our thank you cards. My favorites are the rainbow cards but I LOVE rainbows. I  am happy to have them all finished. Next year I think we will spread them out over a few weeks so we are not doing so many at once.

It was a great learning experience this year for Robin 

1. She is doing multiplication now so it was a great way for her to practice her 4 times tables since GS cookies are $4.00 a box this year.

2. Working on adding and multiplying by 12's when she helped sort cases ( there are 12 boxes to every case) for our whole troop

3. Confidence in asking those she doesn't know well to buy cookies.

4. Courtesy and Grammar ( she still has issues with capitalizing proper nouns) by writing thank you cards.

Winter birds- Cardinals

Cardinals lined up on our artwork cloth line in the dining room.

Falcon use water color pencils to create his.

Robin use oil  pastels for her bird then did a watercolor back ground.

Duck used just water colors. After he drew his bird I outlined his and Owl's so it would be easier to have them paint. Ducks added a tree with a bird nest in it.

 I gave Owl his paints and instructed him to paint his bird RED like a Cardinal and when I came back in the room it was multi colored. I said "NO, Cardinals are red what are you doing?"

He replies, " I wanted it to be a rainbow Cardinal though"

Sigh, he got me at rainbow, I just love rainbows and I guess art is subjective. I was a tad bit frustrated at first because I wanted 4 RED Cardinals on my wall but I will live with 3 RED cardinals and 1 rainbow one.

 Not about Cardinals but winter themed and it had red birds.

Gosh, I just love Gail Gibbons books - educational and all about winter and snow

 We went bird watching and spotted a male Cardinal, we saw a few females but none of us could get a picture of those shy girls.

We did end up seeing a fox squirrel, those suckers are fast!

Friendship lost...

How do you deal with an ended friendship of a 7 year old girl? When your 7 year old feels unworthy of having friends or inadequate in some way to have lost a friend to another little girl.

A life lesson we all learn for sure, just a very hard one to explain to a very sensitive 7 year old.

My daughter has had a best friend, basically her first close friend since she was 3.5. For 4 years they have been very close, then one day last fall this other little girl started ignoring Robin and  hanging out with a new friend. Robin would save her a seat at events and this other little girl would ignore her and go sit on the opposite side of the room with  her new friend. Robin did not want to give up on this friendship she kept trying  only to be shut down by these 2 girls over and over. She would call her on skype to play video games together only to be ignored yet again because her friend would invite her new friend to join them (3 is a crowd) and she would be cast off and ignored once again. Many tears have been shed. It is very hard to explain to 7 year old why her friend has been cold, and unfriendly toward her.

It can be very hard for Robin at times because we see this other girl at many homeschool events we do, which is just a sad reminder to her that she is no longer her friend. 

We have worked  very hard at establishing  new friendships and discussing the many ways you should and should not treat your friends. 

Yesterday when cleaning out her room Robin made the choice to get rid of some things  that this friend had given her and take down and throw away pictures. I was very proud of her for making this final step in letting go ( a very hard thing to do.)

The newest issue of  American Girl magazine has a short article about what Robin is going through. The Friendship Fade is what it article is called,  Robin said that this helped her not be so sad about losing her friend.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.....
Robin has new friends now, she is sad about friendships lost but happy for the new friends she has  made.

The final countdown ..... 38 weeks and 2 days.

I find homeschooling in the last weeks of pregnancy extremely difficult. I am just so big, tired and uncomfortable. I have been trying to get as much done as possible but doing that along with keeping up housework, feeding my children and the extra added items that need to be done before the new baby arrives is exhausting.

The older kids have been keeping up on their math. I have been even more  relaxed with the 2 younger kids. I have always found it easier to homeschool with a newborn that being in your last trimester.

So here are a few things we  have done lately.

Went to  zoo classes and checked out the butterfly greenhouse.

Started an art project  that I came up with themed earth, air, fire and water. It is a 6 or more step art project so not quite sure when we will finish that one. We are on step one: earth.

Robin and I are working on a project that we are going to use in the state fair this summer. It is about trees we have used this great book to draw quite a few nature items, this would be a great addition to nature studies.

I plan to see if the library has more items on this series.

This book is the backbone of our state fair project. It's a great nonfiction read about how Kate Sessions overcame many obstacles to reach her goal  "making the world a better place." We are also researching  what life was like in the 1860's when Kate Sessions and Juliette Gordon Low were born.

A tree Robin drew

The weather allowed us to make it to math class this week. A friend of mine is teaching a class for 4-6 year olds using:

It is a story based math program that Duck seems to enjoy. ( sort of)

Some documentaries we have watched this week are:

Falcon is working on an easy novel right now taking a break from our harder highschool literature  course we have been using. He is reading  Holes, I am using the teacher guide to go with it making life a bit easier on me right now.

This probably has a bunch of typos but I am just glad I got something posted since I have been a slacker since being pregnant.

Surprise baby shower!

I love my homeschool friends they are always in my thoughts. I am always feeling so blessed to know them all. I love that they are always willing to help, share advice, curriculum and so much more.

A few of us had made plans to meet at a coffee shop for some mom time and adult conversation without the constant interruption of kids. What I did not know is that they had planned a surprise baby shower for me. I was so SHOCKED, they totally got me! I kept saying "I don't like surprises" but that is really not true. I do like surprises but they just don't ever happen to me and I  never know how to react because I am such a I  control freak.The idea of not being in control of a situation is very scary to me. I would rather be the one doing the surprising than  the one being surprised because I can control the surprise and am not caught off guard. I did feel so loved by this awesome outpouring of generosity from my friends. I hope they know how much I appreciate them.

I feel so blessed to have these great friends who went through all this trouble for me.

I am always early to stuff so all my friends showed up 30 min before they told me to be there AND then I even showed up late because 2 of the moms who said they are going to be there are always late. They were actually starting to worry that I wasn't  going to show.

My poor friend Amanda who actually did a lot of planning never came because I basically dis invited her! Not knowing there was a surprise I called her asking that if she was going I was not going to go. You see,  her 4 kids have had a stomach virus for about  2 weeks and I told her I did not want to risk being around her and get a stomach bug 37 weeks pregnant with 4 kids. I sure felt bad when I realized what had happened I wanted to cry!

I want to say a big

To all my friends who helped make this such a great day and surprise I am truly blessed to know all of you.

Now some pics

I love the soft pastel colors of this blanket

 from my friend Holly, she is so talented.

A tiny cloth diaper set I am not sure if my baby will ever fit into since I grow my babies  HUGE!

Wool owl soaker and hat and socks Holly made.

Some onesies washcloths and assorted baby items.

I also received an assortment of gift cards to baby stores and a massage.

I had 3 balloons; a boy, girl and unisex balloon as was putting them in the car I noticed I only had  I looked up and the blue one flew away and was already over the coffee house! I am going go take that as a sign that maybe I am having a girl!

And a funny belly picture my oldest took this morning , my kids find it hilarious that around the house I wear regular clothes that my belly sticks out of!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU !THANK YOU!