Barrett Jack ~ 12/1/2009

Barrett Jack was born at home, after 2 1/2 hrs of labor on December 1st!

We had a great home water-birth, I will never do it any other way. (If it happens again that is! LOL!)

It all started Monday night (11/30) at 10:00 when my water broke. I started laughing because I had been laying there just waiting for it to happen. I had already decided that this would be the night, and it seems everybody was on the same page about that!

Called my Midwife Molly right away and she got there at 11:00. We got Mom up around then too. (Mom, Lynisha, her 2 kids & Meshayla all were there.. Meshayla went to watch my friend Sara's son though so she could be there at the birth) Sara also go there around 11:00.

At some point, the pool got filled up and I got in... It was fabulous! Didn't take it all away, but made it barable.

Barrett was born at 12:30am. I pushed one time myself to get his head out. No tears :D

A lot of people assume that a fast labor/birth means less pain. Let me set this straight: Not so!!

It just means the same amount of pain in less time, which comparing to Jessi's birth (9 hrs) almost makes it harder. I hardly had time to process what was going on. The first time Molly checked me, I only had a lip of cervix left. Next thing I know, baby's moving down, contractions are non-stop and it hurts. I remember I said "I just want it to stop!" I didn't mean the labor.. It was the big long never contraction I was having that was pushing the baby down. It was very, very intense.

I kept asking Molly if he was ok when he was born.. he just snuggled right up against me and never made a sound! Wasn't even moving. But she assured me that he was alright.

It was so nice to go from the pool straight to the bed we had blown up right next to the pool and be able to cuddle with my little family. It was nice not to have the rush of "emergency" when it came time for him to be born. Nobody freaking out, putting on some green costume, telling you when to push, when not to push, etc. Everything/body was so calm. (Except me!! :D )

Barrett Jack (Finally named after more than 17 hrs. after he was born!)

7lbs 10oz. 20 1/4" long.

Oh, and Jessi didn't make it to the birth ;) They kept asking me if I wanted them to go get her or if we should leave her sleeping. I said I didn't care. Sara went to get her up and I guess Jessi didn't want to wake up. Lol! She went and got her right after Barrett was born, told her that her baby brother was born and she jumped right out of bed. She went "Ohh... Mommy!!" and was itching to hold him right away! She's a great big sister, she's so proud of him and wants to hold and mommy him all the time!

Who knew diapers could be so fun?

All my diapers are washed and ready to go! It's funny getting excited about diapers. But they're SO tiny and cute! All of the ones here are just my newborn sized diapers.
I haven't bought ANY disposable diapers! I have 1 that I got as a sample and that's it! Haha! So these better work right away ;)
So here's my "Stash"!

Pockets/all-in-ones (No cover needed, these are the whole diaper)

4 Happy Heiney pocket diapers, (Missing 2) 4 Bum Genius all-in-ones, (Missing 1) and 5 Blueberry pocket diapers.

Fitteds: (Generally, you use covers with these. Covers don't always need to be changed, depending on how wet/dirty the diaper gets)

4 Muttaquins, 5 Kissaluv 0's, 3 Made with love (WAHM's)

Somehow these missed the picture ;) 2 drybee's bamboo

Covers & accessories
For some reason this picture won't post right. Anyways.. 1 bummies cover, 12 prefolds and 3 dozon cloth wipes.

Longies/covers: (Longies: knit wool or fleece pants.. Diaper cover and pants in one! I love them! Wool is VERY absorbent, can hold more than twice it's weight in water. Best part of all, they don't need washed all the time unless soiled!)

Fleece: one WAHM cover and a WAHM made longies set.. the set is a preemie size, so it will probably only fit on day one if at all! LOL! (Shirt is NB size)

WAHM made wool knit longies

WAHM made "Ooga Booga monsters" longie set.. I also have a shirt that says "baby monster" in blue.. also maches the longies above.

WAHM made "scrapie" (Made from wool yarn scraps) longies & hat

WAHM made longies, hat, gloves and booties set

And, my sleep sack, hat & scarf knit by Shelly!

38 weeks!

38 weeks today! Here's a few random pictures of stuff.
Sara & Amy had a "frozen dish" shower for me.. it was awsome! We got several great looking cassaroles and some soup.
The Fruit pizza was SOOOO yummy.





Much to my Mom's "disdain", I'm going to try some pre-folds for this baby. Not that she has anything against cloth diapers, but she has a hard time understanding using prefolds when the other diapers are so cute. Let me help you understand... Prefolds are about $2 each.. Others are around $7-$9-$10 each.. When they're only going to be in newborn diapers for about 6-8 weeks, well... Anywho. ;D
So here's my first attempt at a prefold! (On Boo-Boo, Jessi's bear) They were actually pretty easy- even Wade got it on the first try!

And here is Boo-Boo in a "much cuter" fitted diaper.. this one is a Muttaquin: (MOST of our newborn stash is made up of fitteds, covers and pocket & all-in-ones, we only have a dozon prefolds. So yes, most of our newborn stash are the easy cute diapers ;) )

I got the rest of my newborn diapers back from Jeanne, so I'll have to do a complete stash picture for my next post.

And finally, here's my 38 week belly picture.

As most of you know, baby was breech for quite a while. After doing everything else to try to flip him, we went in for a external version last week at 37 weeks. Thankfully it worked for us and actually went very easy. (As easy as those things can go probably!) He's stayed head down since then and has dropped waaaay down since being turned, so they think he'll probably stay head down.

We now have all our supplies for our homebirth, the Midwife is just waiting for our call! His room/clothes/diapers are all ready, we're just waiting on baby!
(He is SUPPOSED to wait until next week though, after Mom & Lynisha get up here!)

Baby's room

Done, for the most part. Probably as done as it will get for awhile. (It still needs trim around the floor!) Hanging clothes are in another room :) Hopefully someday I'll replace the plastic thingie and the wooden cupboard thingie with a dresser.





(Still have a few things to put away as you can see!)

These still need painted and put together, then put up.


I'm wanting to get this sometime: (It looks much better in person.. it looks kind of freaky here.:teehee:)

And/or some of these:

Our weekend

This last weekend, Dad, Relyssa, Meshayla & Morgen came up to see us! Mom & Kara & Kaela were supposed to come also, but Kara got sick a few hours before they were going to leave so they didn't come :(

Jessi looked like a little monster:


The kids goofed off a little: (Meshayla has "Olive eyes" here!)



Jessi was so happy to see her Aunties again!



We played clue... And as you can see, some people didn't have a clue!





Jessi played dead:


We went to town and watched a little bit of the Husker game... (Not a great game!)






After meeting, we stayed for lunch and then everybody left!




The rest of the pictures can be seen on Mom's blog

Jessi and the Baby

My kid is the kid that's going to get in trouble in preschool/kindergarten for telling other kids stuff that would "appal" their parents.

We're planning a homebirth, most of you know that. We decided a while back that if she wants to be, Jessi should be there when the baby is born. So our fist step was to have her watch a few birth video's to see how she'd react, and make sure she was at least ok seeing it on video. I don't think we could have imagined her reaction.... She loved it. After watching the mother moaning thru labor, pushing and then popping out a baby, Jessi's sitting there wide-eyed and says: "Mama!! I want to watch another baby bein' born'in!" So we watch video after video. (youtube)And she cries when we turn it off. She's hooked.
(She already seemed to grasp the baby-in-belly thing after watching Sara go thru her pregnancy and meeting Wyatt after he was born- she's the one that first brought up that Wyatt was the baby that had been in Sara's belly)

So fast forward a few months. If you don't want to hear "innaproprate" things, or read about a little girl knowing about things like birth, don't read this :)

Jessi and I are getting out of the shower. We go in my room to get dressed and I notice she's staring at me, with the look on her face that you can tell the wheels are turning... As she points she says "Mommy.. The baby comes out there?" I laughed and told her yes. Then she goes "Oh.. It looks kind of scary!!"

After seeing several new babys in the past little while, Jessi is quite impatient for her baby brother to get here. Last week we were driving and she's chattering about the baby and she asked me if she could hold him yet. I told her no, because the baby hadn't been born yet. She goes "Oh.. the baby hasn't come out of your bum?" I said no Jess, baby hasn't come out of my bum yet. She says "Oh, Ok. When he comes out, I can hold him, OK? He won't be icky."

The other day I was sitting in the recliner and she was sitting in front of me. She decided it would be fun to "squish" me. I asked her to quit because she was hurting me and she says "That's ok mommy, I'll just squish that baby right outta you."

We've been working on potty training. She's been doing so great, but she wouldn't poop in the toilet! It was so frustrating. She came up with her own little bribe that if she went poop in the potty, she'd get a big girl bike and we said ok.
But, it wasn't seeming to help. Every time after she'd poop her diaper, we'd talk about it and she'd talk more about "next time" and getting her bike.
FINALLY, one night I caught her in the act! I ran her upstairs and put her on the potty- much to her dismay. She's sitting there bawling and then, all of a sudden, PLOP. YES! She gasp's and says "Mommy! I did it!" We tell her she's a big girl, good job, blah blah blah.
She's talking about it and she says "Wow, that's STINKY! It's a big poop, Mommy! But I feel so much better! My bum feels better with the poop out of it."
As she gets wiped and climbes off the potty, I told her to flush it bye-bye. She says "Ok... Do I have to give it a hug?" I told her no and she says "Oh, ok. Good.. It stinks and it's icky. That'd be gross".

Last week she's sitting on the potty and she had already told me she needed to poop. I'm in the bedroom (Right next to the bathroom, with the door inbetween open) and she yells out to me "MOM!!! THERE'S A MONSTER COMIN' OUTTA MY BUM!!!" Wade & I busted up laughing and she says "Come see!! It's a BIG one!"

She's done awsome ever sense. She's very proud of herself and she got her big-girl bike.

Shhhh! There’s a Republican Alternative to Democrat-Care; Don’t Let Anyone Know!

I came across this today... Thought it was very intresting!
From here: http://www.northstarwriters.com/hc178.htm

The Republican alternative to Democrat-care, which liberals don’t want you to know about, has been hijacked. They don’t want people to know about it because the Astroturf, un-American crazies might like it.

The “Empowering Patients First Act” (H.R 3400) was introduced by Representative Tom Price (R-GA) and 27 co-sponsors on July 30, 2009 prior to the congressional recess. It was then referred to eight House committees.

The head hijacker is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As Congressman Price pointed out during a radio interview with me last week, the rules in the House assert that bills will remain in committees “for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker.” Thank you Nancy!

The highly contentious 1,000-plus-page Democratic health care proposal cleared the committees in a few days. The 63-page Republican alternative is stuck in committees and it can’t get out. Speaker Pelosi can simply keep it there while they continue to try to shove their proposal down the throats of the American people.

The mainstream media has aided and abetted the hijacking of the Republican alternative. In addition to not reporting on the alternative, they have helped to keep public attention away from the hidden provisions of the Democrats’ health care Trojan horse. They have also helped to keep attention on “how do we pay for it” and “what do we call it” as they proclaim it must pass.

The president and his administration, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the liberals in Congress are trying to sell the public on Democrat-care, rather than listen to what a majority of we the people are saying. The Democrats are organizing hundreds of rallies across the country to counter the thunderous disagreement that they have encountered against Democrat-care during their August recess, and they label all criticism as smears and lies.

The Obama Administration is even actively recruiting college students to join its “National Organizing Internship” program and earn college credits for helping to promote the president’s agenda of change. Hopefully, many of these college students will start asking the right questions about his agenda and the “change” he wants.

Some of us have already found answers to those questions, and we don’t like them.

Although it has taken a lot of people and organizations many laborious days and weeks to uncover what’s in the Democrats’ H.R. 3200, I was able to distill the key components of the Republicans’ H.R. 3400 in a few hours. I felt as if I were back in college solving a complex math problem (I was a math major). Here’s what the Democrats don’t want us to know.

The Empowering Patients First Act (H.R. 3400) would allow:

1. Individuals to choose their health insurance (no mandates)

2. Deductibility of health insurance premiums regardless of who pays

3. Employers to provide flexible health insurance options to employees

4. Health insurance coverage for low-income families (300 percent of the federal poverty level)

5. Health insurance for high-risk individuals (pre-existing conditions)

6. Sale of health insurance across state lines

7. Expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

8. Individual membership association health insurance plan

9. Association Health Insurance Plans

10. Medical liability limitations (Tort reform)

Unlike Democrat-care, the Republican alternative would not impose fines on workers or employers, require cuts in Medicare, increase taxes, require a new government bureaucracy, require a “government health insurance” option nor add $1 trillion or more to the national debt.

The Republican alternative is simply less government, fewer taxes and more choices, whereas Democrat-care is just another attempt to hijack more of our liberties.

But hush y’all. The Democrats don’t want you to know that.

http://covertheuninsured.org/legislative_bill/hr-3400-price

26 weeks!

I need to start doing better on pictures again! I have hardly taken any in quite awhile. This morning I went to do some belly pictures and Jessi wanted in on the action too. :D 26 weeks!





Baby seems to be doing good.. obvously growing! I started painting his room last night. Only one wall so far, but that was our "test wall" so we could see how we really wanted to do it. Once we get it painted we can start on the flooring.. and then putting everything in it!
I got a fortune cookie Friday night (The 28th) that said: "remember three months from this date. Good things are in store for you."
That would be very funny if baby came that day (Nov. 28th).. I've jokingly been guessing that day! (It's the day after the Nebraska/Colorado football game, which is always a BIG deal. Since I always get sooo into the games, I've been joking that it could put me into labor.) My actual due date is December 4th.