As They Grow Up

 I finally got my baby's birth story published a month ago, and she's already 13 1/2 months! Crap! I have seriously neglected this blog! Oh well.

Let me see...

I continue to be Paleo. And I am now Paleo, not Primal. I have given up dairy as it messes with my body and doesn't do good things to my milk for baby. She is intolerant/allergic/sensitive/whatever to dairy and it's not good.

I am lifting 3x a week, still Primal Blue Print (http://www.MarksDailyApple.com) and feel great!

I am working through PPD (post-partum depression) and have no idea why it is the baby with which I received the most support that I am having these issues! My main thing is rage. Yes, rage. And when I have diary, it is that much worse! I have been taking vervain tincture (from my very own back yard) to combat this, and it works wonders!! I am usually a very patient person, but the PPD has me flipping out all the time. I do my damnedest to keep my top on, and not blow up at the poor big kids, and I am winning the good fight! A main time of rage would be while changing Skylark's diapers. She, like all babies who learn to move, would roll over. This would utterly infuriate me, and I would have to leave a naked baby on the floor and walk away for a few min. Fortunately, it was almost always after a potty so very few messes!

Yes, we are doing EC (elimination communication) again with Skylark. She hasn't mastered it quite like Kanga did at this age, and I fully blame it on me and my PPD. Flarge that. I don't give a Flarge. Yes, Flarge. I have been a horrible potty mouth while working out the PPD, and Flarge is my current exploitative that is kid friendly. So, Flarge that!

Back to EC: Skylark is great when I am out and remember to take her! She will give me signals and we can go through only 1 whoops a day. She is such a happy, easy going kid!

She is still breastfed, and I introduced almond milk at 11mo. She loves it! Once we found out about the dairy, I had to cut it form my own diet, but I also had to figure out what to supplement her's with. I chose almond milk for the calcium, and have been trying to work out how to get the OMEGAs (eggs, fish) into her that are in cows milk. Frankly, there is very little need for dairy.

Let me see...

Monkey is now 10. I'm not a fan of boy-entering-puberty-10. He is a cool kid, but sometimes he is as stubborn as, well me. It gets annoying! I love the kid to pieces, and he still loves his hugs and kisses good night (don't let him know I posted that here!). He now needs to shower more often (and actually wash when he goes in there, not just stand there for a bit), and ya know, it helps if you turn on the shower!

He went to camp for the first time this year! A whole week without my dude! I missed him, he missed me, but he had a great time too. He said he loved everything except being away from me. I told him that growing up is learning to be away from your parents for periods of time and that it gets easier each time. Not so sure how that works for moms. I did okay, but I definitely missed my dude!

Kanga is now 5! Holy crap! She loves to play with her friends and invites them to the park almost daily. She still likes little toys, and we are trying to get her in the routine of cleaning up her room every night. Other wise it looks like a bomb of petshops, lalaloopsies, and ponies has gone off!

She too went to camp! She thought it was an over night camp, but it was a day camp. She had a blast and loved showing me all the things she made. :)

Oh Skylark! As I said, happy kid! Always smiling and laughing! She is already a year! She loves balls, animals, and is slowly starting to sleep longer. Being 11:30, she will be waking up soon! I'd better get this done! *lol* She is walking, and starting to run. She says about 50 words if I actually made a list, and when we went to the Toronto Zoo on the weekend she was amazed! The wonder in here eyes made it all worth while!

Seeing as she will be waking soon, I'll close up for now, and hopefully I can get into some sort of routine as to entries. Not holding my breath though! Good night for now!

We mothers love to share our birth stories. The peaceful ones, the easy ones, but also our triumphs over the harder ones. This birth, my third and final falls under the later. My son's birth was peaceful, and not too bad pain wise until it was time to push. At that point I discovered the miracle that is channeling your energy into that life giving effort, and how pain goes to effort to joy. My older daughter's birth was by far the easiest. I walked between contractions, danced with my husband through them, but never felt pain. My midwife didn't believe me that I was in labour, and when we finally convinced her to check me I was 8cm and we barely made it to the hospital. Left at 5:45, arrived at 6:10, born at 6:25.

 For my younger daughter, my birth was as different as the pregnancy. I gained half the weight, leaned out over all, and was all belly! Everyone commented on how great I looked, how low baby sat, and how big he or she was going to be! I was not prepared for the intense cramping contractions. My son's contractions were like bad period cramps, but these were crazy! I felt them for 2 days at varrying regularity and intensity. We went in to the hospital on Friday, June 22 around 7pm fully expecting to progress and bring home a baby! Baby had other plans, so home we went to wait it out.

At this point it was already 48 hours, but more like my older daughter's labour so not horrible by any means. Saturday morning at 1am I started contracting more regularly, more intense, and again we called our midwife. Again she went home after I was only 2 1/2cm. Saturday we patiently waited for things to pick up, restart, common! But nothing happened, and we figured baby had been getting her occipital posterior position sorted out (our midwife confirmed the frontal fontanel was now at 5 o'clock Friday night) and we were in for the wait again!

Sunday morning, I woke up around 2:30/3am and laid in bed debating whether to get up and move to ease the cramping again setting in. At 3:30am I did get up and started rocking, pacing and timing. 5min, 35-40sec... Not enough to call back the midwife. I woke Matt up at 4am, and he was watching me labour, obviously in more pain than with our older daughter, and asking when I wanted to call our midwife. I had said 5/5:30am, and I stuck to that. I called her at 5:30am.

She came and assessed me by 6am, and I was only 3 1/2-4cm. She noticed that my contractions were intensifying and getting closer though, so we packed up and headed for the hospital. My brother and sister-in-law were down for the weekend, so they stayed with the kids. The plan had been to bring them with us to see the miracle of birth, but also for my older daughter to see that birth doesn't have to be painful. This was not a birth that illustrated that! This was a painful birth, that while it only lasted from 3am-9am was hard work and made me a potty mouth.

We got to the hospital shortly before 7am, and I paced, danced through contractions and tried to keep my pain under control chanting 'down' as hypnobabies had taught me for my older daughter. It certainly moved baby down, and by 8am I was feeling pushy. A check found I was only 6cm, and I was seriously disappointed! With my older daughter I felt pushy, pushed, water broke, and baby.  No such luck this time!

That last hour was awful. I danced but my left calf cramp was still hurting, so I laid on my side for a bit. That made things worse. It helped get a good read on baby who was happy through contractions though. At this point I did my typical every few minutes gotta pee. At one point, I got stuck. I had 5 back to back to back contractions of extreme intensity on the toilet squatting and couldn't get up. Finally a peak passed and I was helped because I was still mid contraction, but we needed to get me up!

Shortly after, my midwife reassessed me to be 7cm, and called the second midwife. When she arrived I consented to breaking my water. Big mistake. It confirmed meconium in the water (three for three) so the respiratory therapy team was put on standby, but it made me need to push and I was NOT dilated enough! I fought my body the best I could to he-he-who through contractions to get fully dilated, but I lost. My midwife tried pushing my cervix aside so I could push, no go. It was a battle of body over will and body won. A lot of 'open your eyes and focus' with me shouting 'no!' and 'you're going to hurt yourself, focus!'

Finally (really only a few minutes but an eternity in that situation), I was fully dilated and given the go ahead to stop fighting the urge. I felt baby's head click (yay occipital posterior), and push I did! 3 minutes later baby was born. She had the umbilical cord around her neck (two for three) but loosely so after a quick slip I was told to 'Push, let's get this baby out!'

Only after baby was on my chest did I ask Matt if it was a boy, which I had thought the whole time, and after being late (like her big brother), labour being tough (like her big brother), the cord (yep, like her big brother), I was surprised (like I said I'd be), to find that there was a little girl on my chest! And a LITTLE girl! 7lbs, 7oz and 19 3/4"! I had fully expected at least 8lbs, but happy, healthy and perfect. :) She got cleaned up by daddy, nursed for an hour, and after a shower we went home! ❤