It's been a while since I've checked in here. The house could use some additional cleaning and the baby is sleeping, but I'm here instead.
Not sure if I updated, but Lily does in fact have Down Syndrome. It's been a wierd time. Some days I'm totally fine, I can deal with it and all the implications. She's a beautiful baby and so sweet. I love her completely. At the same time, it's totally heartbreaking and unfair and shattering. I see pregnant women and those with new babies and I'm so jealous. I really shouldn't be, I got to experience three "typical" kids, but the feelings are there just the same.
My sister got remarried earlier this summer. She had three boys from her first marriage. She's in her early 40's and she and her new husband want to have more kids. She's pregnant now. It's a weird feeling, I'm not jealous of her per se, I don't covet her baby. She should have more and the best of luck to her. I just want to have my OWN baby not have this difficulty to deal with. Oh well.
I seem to cry so easily these days, I'm not sure if it's the Downs or just post partum stuff or what. And my moods are just so up and down. In the course of an hour I can feel so totally blissed out happy then go to full on depression. I feel those happy moments with a touch of frantic worry, that I can't capture that feeling, make it last longer. I know it's going to be brief when I feel it, so I want to hold on to it.
When I first found out about this, different people made comments to the effect that I should hash out my negative feelings and I kept saying I wasn't really feeling any. And that was true at that time. I don't know if it needed time to sink in or what, but finally those feelings came creeping in when my guard was down. Feelings like...wishing I could go back in time and not get pregnant, thinking that I'd done something to deserve this (and what's with that...she's wonderful!!). For a really bad week there, I was even a bit suicidal...again, I don't think it's just the Downs, I think I have other issues at play here. I am coming around from that low though, I don't feel *that* bad at this point. I just kept hearing that refrain from the Cure song "I'm useless and ugly, useless and ugly, I'm a fucking waste"...not a good place to be.
We have so many other stressors going on right now too. Money's tight, the other house isn't done yet though it is coming along nicely. Should be late summer I think and we'll likely be moving out there. The septic is finally, finally getting installed.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Lily will be 5 weeks tomorrow and she's beautiful and serene. She sleeps through the night already, and during the day will have alert times where she just watches the world going on around her. Obviously, we're totally smitten!

We're dealing with some issues though. When we first saw Lily, I had thoughts of Down syndrome. I knew I had an increased risk due to the rpd we saw on the ultrasound at 20 weeks, but I figured that's why it was on my mind and I let it go. The next day, I asked my husband if he saw what I did and we made an appointment to take her to the pediatrician. He said he could also see what I was seeing, but wasn't overly concerned. He ordered the test, but the lab here couldn't do the test since it wasn't a common test and they hesitated to do it on such a small baby when they weren't very experienced. Tomorrow, we'll be going down to Children's Hospital to have the blood drawn for the test. This is after my midwives also mentioned it and thought I should have the test and various friend and relatives have confided they thought the same thing. I'm almost sure she does have it.

While I've been feeling pretty okay with all this, feeling like whatever the outcome we'll manage, I'm having moments of worry. And I think it's not unfounded. I'll be fine one minute then realize this means she won't have children, likely won't marry, won't get past a certain point and into what most of us would call "normal" adulthood. Then I'm trying to be uber PC, and not say "normal" as if it's the opposite of her. Obviously she's her own normal. I start wondering what will have to change in our lives; will we still be able to homeschool our other children, would be homeschool her or would it be better for her to get more socialization through a school environment, how will this effect the plans we had made for the rest of our lives. It's silly, because no one knows what the future holds. There's no way to say we'd all have had this "normal" existence even without this one extra little chromosome...it's all just pipe dreams.

We'll know a bit more tomorrow...then the actual results can take up to 2 weeks to get back. I really think it's just a formality though.

On Monday April 24, 11 days before my due date, I was feeling crampy and just…off. But I knew I normally didn’t birth “early” so I wasn’t particularly worried. I figured my body was just gearing up for the big show in the next few weeks.
Color me surprised when I started noticing “different” contractions late Monday night. These were painful, but they were only waking me every hour or so. Too far apart to get overly excited about, and I needed my sleep so I tried my best to assume they were just strong BH contractions. At around 3:30 and during a very odd dream about a car chase and a serval cat lol I was having a contraction *in* the dream and woke to find out I was actually having it in the waking world as well. They kept coming at about 10 minutes apart. I got up to see if they continued, they did. I puttered around, doing dishes and cleaning house…looking up every now and again to make a mental note of the time with each contraction. When they went down to 5 minutes apart around 5 a.m., I decided I should probably put my midwives on yellow alert since they were all an hour away. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell them to come: I didn’t want to have them driving up for a false alarm. At about 5:30, though, I had bloody show and the contrax were 4 minutes apart and hard. I called Abby again and said “come”. She called the other two midwives and they were on their way.
In the meantime, I actually get scared. I have a fleeting thought of an epidural and the hospital lol I think it was just knowing the train was now really rolling and there were no stops until birth. Knowing these pains were only going to get worse until I pushed her out. I fight this hesitation, this fear, for quite some time, fighting the contractions as well. The pool was filling and I was really wanting to get in. At around 7, the midwives get here. We chat a bit, and I find I’m feeling better just knowing they’re here. I trust them completely. I was able to relax a bit with them here. I finally get in the pool – it’s not full but I don’t care. It helps a bit, but what helps more than anything are my midwives, taking turns talking me through contractions, reminding me to relax and not fight it. The contractions never got crazy and I was able to stay on top of them with a lot of vocalization. I was fighting with myself about getting checked; I wanted to know if I was getting close but if I was still only a few centimeters dilated I would be frustrated. I decided to get out of the water and go use the bathroom. As I stood up, this contraction hit me that seemed to go on forever, it was at least two contractions at once. Finally I was able to maneuver out of the pool and get to the bathroom upstairs. As I sat down, another strong contraction hit me and I had to stand back up and rock at the sink. I finally peed and stood back up and yet another two very strong contractions came back to back. Abby said I could do this fast taking these contractions which were obviously so much more productive or taking it more slowly by getting back in the pool where I would have more manageable contractions. I wanted back in that pool! By the time I got back downstairs into the water, the next contractions was hitting me. But…now I wanted to push! Apparently I really needed those last strong ones to get complete. It was around 8am at this point, so things were going much faster than I had thought…yet at the time, in the midst of labor, it didn’t seem so quick!
I think Kelley asked me if I wanted to birth in the pool, and I said no. I recalled with Mace I wanted to push out of water rather than in it, and the water was getting a bit cool besides. They said then I needed to get out quickly before another contraction hit. I got out and the first place I went was to my couch and lied down.

Abby checked to make sure I was indeed complete…I remember sheer panic at the thought of her saying I wasn’t complete because I knew I could not fight these pushing urges. I was not controlling them at all, they were coming from somewhere else completely. Thankfully, I was complete and she could feel my sac bulging (so it hadn’t broken in the water like we had wondered). But the head was still pretty high up. So there was lots of work ahead. I didn’t like lying down, so got up into a squatting position in front of the couch with lots of cushions in front of me to steady myself with. That was better, but not all that much. Abby asked me to stand and have Scott support me. I didn’t know how I would stand up, but somehow I did. Those pushes were very effective, though I had to be very conscious about relaxing my bottom; I could tell when I tensed up she didn’t come down as far but when I relaxed the push was more effective. Abby told me the baby had moved down about 4 inches in just a few pushes! And it was here I felt something I’ve never felt before, I could FEEL Lily moving around inside me, I could feel her head turning in there. But I was tired…I wanted to lie down again, and this time I got into a side lying position. This is where things got interesting, and my memory is a bit cloudy because she was getting ready to crown. She kept coming out a bit then retreating when I’d stop pushing so I tried to make myself push without contractions which helped a bit. I heard Abby say, with resolute calmness, “your water just broke…there’s meconium in it…when we get the head out, you need to stop pushing so we can suction her out”…I just registered what she was saying and focused on doing exactly what she told me. I pushed harder the next time and her head was out. Thankfully, that was the end of that contraction so I didn’t have another pushy urge right away; I was able to pant through until they got her suctioned a bit. Then they told me to go ahead and push and I did, with everything I had in me. This felt different than any of my other births though and at one point I screamed, something hurt. Normally, that last pushing after crowning is so easy for me and the baby just flows out. Something was different this time though. Within a few moments though, Lily was out and on my chest. She was born after just 30 minutes of pushing. She was very purple and very quiet, and covered in meconium. Kelley and Audra were working to get her pinked up and Kelley started giving her a bit of oxygen. They listened to see if the meconium had gotten into her lungs; it didn’t seem to be. Audra used the deLee to suction her mouth and nose a bit more. She gradually started making noises and turned a more normal shade of pink. As we’re holding her and getting her going, Abby tells me Lily was posterior, just like Mace was. Since my labor was not back labor, we think, again like Mace, she’d turned to posterior to get out. But she also had “sticky shoulders” (slight shoulder dystocia) and I think that’s where the pain came in. Abby had had to turn her inside me. Normally she’d have tried a positioning change, but since Lily was so purple she needed to do something more quickly. Apparently, my water was full of meconium…it had even stained the placenta. And the placenta itself was deteriorating. One of the best things about this labor and birth was how it led me to believe, even more than I did before, that nature and our bodies really know what they’re doing. My body knew it was time for this baby to come, for her own safety. Amazing.
I will be forever grateful to my wonderful midwives, who kept their cool and were able to take care of several problems that could have been much worse. They never got panicked, they just did what needed to be done.
In the end, Lily weighed the same as her brother before her, 11lbs 8oz, and was 22 inches long. She is doing great now and I’m feeling fantastic! I had no tears at all and have been so surprised at just how “normal” I feel already!

So there you have it. She's here and we're all trying to get accustomed to life with four kids. It's been easy in some ways, it seems like she's just melted into our family and everything is business as usual. But Mace is a bit unsure of her; he likes her but still wants to be the baby instead of her. And I have moments of panic, mentally ticking off my kids and their various locations throughout the day. Overall, life is good though!

Not sure why I'm still posting here but I need someplace to vent...

Or rather, I think I need some primal scream therapy. It's all financial too. Just trying to figure out how to pay bills while staying home for a bit with this baby and things are just getting out of hand. We're not even halfway through the renovations on the new place and I'm super stressed about how we're going to sell the current house, or more likely how we're NOT going to sell it and how it's probably going to get ugly. We can't keep paying for it. We'll try selling it, of course, but looking at our local housing market and the way houses on our street just NEVER sell (the one two doors down from us has been on the market over a year, several others are approaching that 1 year mark...and none sell!) it's not looking likely.

That fat tax refund was sure nice, but it's all but gone now. I keep kicking myself for paying so much for the homebirth, but I just could NOT imagine doing it anywhere else. And that amount, while not trivial, wouldn't have made major inroads in our financial situation anyway.

I just wish someone would appear and tell me what the right decision is, where is the right place to point our focus.

I know right now, my focus should really be on this baby and enjoying the last couple months of my very last pregnancy. But I feel plagued with worry.

I'm just starting to feel like I can't breathe for all this "stuff". I need to be able to let it go...but the irony is that I tend to worry MORE about these issues when I'm pregnant, the very last time period in which I should be adding more worry and stress.

I'll be 32 weeks this Friday...hard to believe there are just 2 months left. I can't wait to go through labor again and meet this little person who's been kicking me all over the place, and going breech and transverse and every which way she can. I know when I see her, I'll be able to give some of these worries up, at least for a little while.

Have few minutes and thought I'd catch up here...

Next Thursday, my oldest will be TEN! We're hitting the double digits and it's scary. I mean, 10 isn't so scary, but it's just one year closer to those dreaded teen years. I already see hints of teenage angst in him at times. I'm scared. It's cold and there are wolves after me.

Sorry, stupid Simpsons flashback...anyway...

We're having a little party on his birthday, but then he's having the big party at the local Y a few weeks after. Last year he did a bowling party, which was our first outside-the-house party. I like having the kids' parties at home, but it was nice to not have to clean and prepare at home.

I'm such a meanie to my mother in law (but you don't know her...you'd be mean too!). Usually I bake and decorate the cakes for the kids parties but this year I decided I'd bake one for his actual bday at home then buy one for his Y party. She's always asking "do you want me to get the cake?" every year, knowing full well I like to make them cakes. So this year, I'm not telling her we're going to buy one (devil horns protruding). I'm feel upset at her little unspoken dig that my cakes are not "good enough" for a bday party; and the dig is there, believe me! She also likes to step in and do things that *I* want to do for my kids. Like getting them haircuts when she takes them out, not asking ahead of time or anything. And trying to step in and pay for this birthday party at the Y. I know these don't sound like big things, and if these were the only things I'd agree with you that I sound like a little brat. But the big picture is that she still feels her son is a child and can't make decisions or take care of things himself, which in turn is extended to me. It's like she's always trying to take care of things for us, as if we can't do them ourselves. ugh!

Anyway, this wasn't to turn into a mother in law rant, it really wasn't :)

Things are moving along on our house. Scott has taken out the tacky paneling walls and is in the process of staining the new wood planks that will be our new walls. It's actually coming along and the stress I was feeling over it has abated somewhat. I think just DOING something about it has made me feel better. Knowing it's not just a pipe dream, but something that's going to happen and something that's going to be positive...I dunno, I just feel better about it all.

I'm feeling well...almost 28 weeks and feeling much better than I have at this point in my previous pregnancies. I think this is due, in large part, to my eating better and getting some actual *gasp* exercise!! I'm really looking forward to this homebirth and I feel like it's going to HAPPEN! I ordered my fishy pool today for the labor part. I don't have a desire to waterbirth; tried it last time and wasn't crazy about it. But I loved laboring in the water, so I plan on doing that again. It's funny, one of the little groups I'm in at a certain website is a due date club, with other moms also due in May. The funny part is that they're all discussing nurseries and it just hit me that I don't have to prepare a nursery! I mean, I knew that and all, but I guess it didn't register that other people DO prepare nurseries. Just an odd thing to me since we don't do cribs or changing tables and all that. Mainly, if I have clothes and dipes it's all good.

Well, I'm off home from work in a bit...still not sure if I'm coming back after this baby is born. It's very part time, but the hours wouldn't work with breastfeeding so I don't think I'm going to try to swing it...

Our new place has a new front door! Yippee!

I'm getting excited as even little improvements seem to make this feel more real. We're actually going to do it! Granted, we've still got some big stuff to do before we could theoretically move in (oh, new flooring, new walls, new ceilings, new siding, new windows...) but I still feel like we're moving in the right direction. We've pretty much found the woodword we're going to use on the walls and we just need to go ahead and buy it and start staining it. We're going to a couple of the Habitat for Humanity Restores to get cheap windows and such. It's a lot of work...but it's going to be so worth it!

I've also just found out some fabulous things...first of all, there are no building codes out there. So we can build out of strawbale, cordwood...or milk bottles for all they care! This is great news. We want to add on and were thinking cordwood because we were afraid of strawbale and the code. But now that's not an issue. So likely we'll be doing a strawbale addition (once we're moved out there, of course).

The other good news is that rainwater cisterns are allowed as well! I thought that would entail another battle with the Health Dept but it will not.

Otherwise, doing pretty well. I can't believe I'm almost in my third trimester with this little girl! I'm really excited about another homebirth...REALLY excited!

Everything feels like it's coming together. Sure, we still have a long road ahead (including trying to sell the house we're in now...it won't be easy. Not a good housing market in our area) but at least we're traveling down it!

Just a quick post holiday update...

We had the second ultrasound, she's fine. Stomach is there lol. There's still some renal pelvic dilatation, but nothing to be overly concerned about.

I'm refusing insulin treatment that's being recommended by my backup CNM's backup OB (lots of backups). My homebirth mw's feel this is fine, and all my research points to the fact that insulin therapy in pregnancy really only reduces birthweight by an average of 87 grams. Big whoop. If that's all it does, I definitely don't need to be pumping myself and baby full of it. And my numbers are not that far off the "goal" numbers. As a matter of fact, my all time low fasting number of 97 was just this morning! Wooohoo! I've been anywhere from 105-118; I'm shooting for under 110, the OB wants me under 90. Diabetes is fastings over 125. When and if my numbers get to true diabetes numbers, I'll rethink the insulin.

I do have to see this OB in a couple weeks (he got called away to a delivery when I was supposed to meet with him last week) at which time I'll ceremoniously present him with my three pages of studies showing insulin is crap in a case like mine. Have I mentioned how much they must love me at this practice? I'm actually seeing the CNM there just as backup in case I have to transport, but then she wants me to talk with the OB at least once. So that's why I have to see him at all.

But, again, my homebirth mw's are fine with my numbers and what I'm doing to bring them down. They are *fantastic* midwives I must say! I always leave there feeling confident and secure in my decisions.

Holidays went well, dealt with a bout of strep throat, didn't kill anyone.

We're moving ahead with the house. It's moved and secure and the electricity is being hooked up next week. We're shopping around, trying to figure out how we're going to re-do the house and make it more liveable.

But otherwise, not a whole lot going on ;)