writer,
sometimes it's okay to be done with your mother. I wish she wasn't using the fact she cared for you when you were young as a reason why you ought to pay her now; it suggests that she didn't care for you out of love and because you are precious, but because she wanted a payback later, and I understand how hurtful that can be. 
Chapsie- Wow... That's a lot of babies! How small was the small baby? I hope all ends up ok with that little one. Catch up on your sleep and come back when you can! :D Also, I am jealous of the tummy massage you get from your midwife!
1 lb 6 oz. Truly miraculous. (I prayed and prayed and prayed during the whole birth/resuscitation.... so far so good...)
I am SO WIPED OUT! I love my job, but we are so short staffed and busy on the weekends. My body just can't handle it anymore. I am so tired and sore. With the census that we had, we could have had 6 nurses and a nurses aid, but we were so short staffed that we only had four nurses and no aid. I wrote a letter to the manager to tell her how busy it has been... maybe she can hire more staff!! I don't know what they'll do when I'm out on disability after the birth.
As for the mayan abdominal massage, here are the instructions to do it on yourself! It feels amazing and helps to even your circulation, encourage symmetric growth, and help with digestion and whatnot... But mostly, it is just relaxing. :) The baby seems to like it, too. :)
Chapsie, this reminds me of an article that I read a while back that I don't think I shared here about micro preemies, the amazing advances medical science has made in caring for them, and the emotional/ethical challenges that one mom experienced when her baby was born at 23 weeks. I was about that far along when I read the piece, and you better believe that I was a sobbing emotional mess through the whole read. I thought the story (esp part 1) was told in a really nicely balanced way.
Wait, we're on FB? Had no clue! Is it a private group? I might be interested in that. It dawned on me as I am lurking in the Feb and Jan groups and reading the beautiful birth stories that perhaps I'd appreciate the option for keeping some thing a little more private, but I do plan on sharing my birth story on here.
I am feeling A TON better. I think I drank a gallon of water over night and the BH finally let up. My back is finally feeling a little better, too.
GranolaMama: I need to do the same thing! I have baby gear all over the house in different stages of sorting. Pete is painting the crib for me today. Since this is our third baby, we're doing some accent colors in the baby's room. In all honesty, the baby's room will be the place where baby has diaper changes and I store the clothes, but baby will sleep with us. BUT, we still picked up a crib from Ikea. The walls are blue in the baby's room and when my older two were younger, we painted clouds on the ceiling and then put glow in the dark stars all over the ceiling. It's already nursery friendly and I don't need to touch the walls. I picked up these loud pink polka dot curtains for the room and we're painting the crib the same color pink. Mostly the room will be blue, but I thought the pink accents would be fun since this is the last baby. And, it would look sweet with my childhood white furniture.
babytoes: I can't believe it's already February. :) I'm looking forward to the birth stories from everyone. :)
Melany, your nursery sounds super cute! We have a two bedroom for the moment so everything baby is in our room and the other kiddos are in the other bedroom. We can't paint walls or anything but at this point it's just getting everything 'put away' wherever we decide the permanent home for that item will be.
Exactly my thoughts! Taking WLL out of the equation of course... Sorry WLL, you kinda of have a leg up on us, lol!
I am a little surprised we haven't had any babies yet, to be honest... That reminds me, I should ask Cynthia to put a sticky on the top of our board for all the new babies, just to keep track. I have been lurking on the february board and they're having babies! SQUEEE!! I adore all of the birth stories, and have been lurking on the DDC's throughout their due months to read all the stories for a while now... Theres some real incredible inspiration in some of those stories!
If everyone wants me to, I can start up a private FB for us all... We can either do it now or wait until we have a couple babies. It's up to you all.
I think it may be best to wait until after all the babies arrive so that those who don't want to join us on FB don't miss out. :)
http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html
number 15
If everyone wants me to, I can start up a private FB for us all... We can either do it now or wait until we have a couple babies. It's up to you all.
I think its a good idea to make the page and add people to this now, we just won't post on it until after babies. That way, it will be all set and ready to go before major sleep deprivation kicks in. :)
Oh my, this was a busy time on the forums to be out of touch for a week and a half! Just caught up on the chat threads - hugs all around for the various things everyone has been dealing with. 
I can't believe we are so close to potentially having babies show up in our DDC. Maybe it's partly because I'm not due until the end of March, so I have a bit of a ways to go yet! That said, sometimes I get a little freaked out that if the baby comes on the early side, it could be here in six weeks. At least we've picked what car seat we want, even if we haven't gotten it yet. 
I had a great trip to California, teaching a couple classes and giving a talk at my old grad school. While many people have moved on, it was great fun to see everyone who was still in town, and I got some really complimentary feedback from some professors in our department about my dissertation research (which is what my talk was about), and further encouragement to publish the work and get it out there. I wish academic writing wasn't so much like pulling my own teeth. And that baby planning wasn't so much more fun!
I also got to see my family while down there, which was super fun. Everybody got to ooh and aah over my belly, and most people got to feel it move. My youngest brother was the funniest - he is 29 now, but doesn't have any friends having babies yet, and the only person in my extended family to have a baby so far lives in Portland. So my brother has not been around pregnant people! At one point when the baby was kicking, I had him put his hands on the two spots that were jumping, and his surprised "OH!!!" followed by several more each time it kicked was one of the highlights of my trip. 
My dad lucked out to be around me at a time when the baby was more active than any other point on my trip, so he got to feel the baby move around a bunch. I think before this, he was more excited about me being pregnant and having a baby, than about him getting to have a grandbaby, if that makes any sense. But in addition to feeling the baby move, he sang/played guitar for several songs to the baby to help "imprint," and afterwards I got a note from him that he felt like he and the baby had mutually bonded with one another.
So fun.
And now I'm home, and happy to have no more trips planned, and so happy to see my husband again, and my new range came yesterday, so now I have a fully working stove AND a fridge that's not in my basement, and life seems to be pretty good right now. Aside from assorted aches and pains and cramps and whatnot, of course.
Oh, and Facebook! I would also enjoy a private FB group, though would be sorry not everyone could join us. I can agree it might be a good idea to set it up now, but maybe wait through March to fully switch over. Though if that's where people feel comfortable posting baby photos, that could happen over there!
Welcome back C.chip! That trip sounds like it was refreshing for you.
Does anyone have any suggestions for constipation? Tried and true? I am desperate and my kombucha, probiotics, and high fiber carrot cake aren't helping. I need like an industrial strength kick in the...you know.
I can't believe we are so close to potentially having babies show up in our DDC. Maybe it's partly because I'm not due until the end of March, so I have a bit of a ways to go yet! That said, sometimes I get a little freaked out that if the baby comes on the early side, it could be here in six weeks.
Although my official "due date" is the 17th, I have been telling everyone it's the end of March, which I have convinced myself of at this point! 6 weeks just doesn't seem like long enough away to finish prepping everything I need and to wrap my head around the fact that there'll be a LO in the house 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week...
I had a doctor's appointment today with a different doctor in the practice (I'm supposed to meet with all 4 of them, but I might not get through them all with my modified doctor visiting schedule... She was AWESOME! Actually "supportive" of my home birth plans (even though since it's not regulated here, she can't "officially" be urging me to do it. She was so kind and nice about everything - even asked me if I had any questions for her (which my regular pregnancy doctor has never done.) She didn't even blink when I told her I wouldn't be coming back in for a few weeks, if at all, but offered to help me make another appointment and told me I could always cancel it if I changed my mind. The whole thing was weird. I got a little choked up in the office because I just didn't know what to make of the support and genuine care I was receiving... The only downside is that I was kept waiting for about 45 mins and it was really cold...
Thanks Slim, I'm going to try some of those things tonight!
Welcome back C.chip! That trip sounds like it was refreshing for you.
Does anyone have any suggestions for constipation? Tried and true? I am desperate and my kombucha, probiotics, and high fiber carrot cake aren't helping. I need like an industrial strength kick in the...you know.
I've been taking epsom baths to help with the swelling and my husband pointed out that the container listed constipation as one of the usages for epsom salts. I'm adding 2-4 cups of the salts to each bath. AND, trying not to be TMI, but I've been very regular after each and every bath. I'm also taking a probiotic (switched to a new one from the refrigerator section after the GBS discussion) and I'm using plain live culture yogurt to have a fruit smoothie most mornings.
I can't say enough good things about the bath soaks, and of all the ways that might help, a long soak in the tub is one of the nicer things to try.
Welcome back C.chip! That trip sounds like it was refreshing for you.
Does anyone have any suggestions for constipation? Tried and true? I am desperate and my kombucha, probiotics, and high fiber carrot cake aren't helping. I need like an industrial strength kick in the...you know.
I made rhubarb-and-prune smoothies with raw milk kefir, nut butter, a dollop of my vitamin D fish oil, and kale. That sure did the trick! I rehydrated the prunes first (put them in a bowl of water and nuked them for 4 minutes) and used frozen rhubarb so the smoothie wouldn't be warm (which is gross). I don't do psyllium or other bulky fiber things because I find that unless I drink TONS of water, they just add to the problem. But prunes and rhubarb are both intestinal irritants and they work very well together.
Edit: Forgot to say my trip to Vancouver was awesome. My sister and I had a great time together and we went out for super-fancy dinner last night (we had the two tasting menus at the end of this - she had the wine pairings so I got sips of everything. OMG so good. I haven't had food like that for a long time. Fantastic.) The only downside was that the bed at the hotel was not all that comfortable so neither of us got a really good sleep. But aside from that, it was a lovely little mini-vacation.
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