Hi all- I haven't posted since I put up the St. Louis-I-tron pics with Jess-i-tron, partly cause at 3 months postpartum I finally feel like being in the real world- I've been getting exercise and sunshine, partly cause I spent computer time figuring out and selling e-bay, and partly cause I am just trying to unplug form TV and computer in general cause I have been a screen addict since my babe was born. So I just kicked back and tried to catch up....
ANNIE & VIOLET
You must be freaking right now. Chill and watch those anxiety levels. You are such a smart and in tune mama. And Vi looks pretty "on" in those latest pics, besides being super cute, she looks like her being is fully in her body, yk? Try to just take it super easy until you find out what is really going on.
Jeni,
to you too, sounds like a crappy weekend. On PP sex, its hormones sister, the sex drive is gone for most women PP (not all, we've heard from a few of you who are lucky
) and you need really lube if you are gonna do it when you are breastfeeding. (I have never felt anything so weird, kinda yuck even, as sex PP with no lube. Who KNEW I made lube that far back? Weird...) And about the nerve damage, its possible. But give yourself a break you just had a baby- it took 9-10 months to get this way and it'll take that long to get a groove back. St. Johns wort homeopathically (Hypericum) as tablets (read instructions or ask more on how to take homeos properly) will help if it is nerves. So will Oatstraw tea- for nerves and sex drive- if you drink some every day - after 4-6 weeks you'll see the difference. But- if you are in a funny place with the relationship it's prolly more that than anything. When you are that pissed, and feeling that unsupported, who wants to get it on?! A Peter Gabriel song says "I feel it in my sex...that's the place it goes...." if there's no connection, then, um, ya can't connect! Hugs, mama, hang in there.
Andy- the e-bay thing- my account was verified years ago as a buyer so when I started selling last week there was nothing I had to do or fees I had to pay above the selling fees. I am having a blast watching the stuff, I can't wait to see if it sells. I also put my wool up on the trading post since I have to admit we don't use it. I bought it all when I was pregnant and we only used one of them once.
: I just got a bunch of PUL covers and am quite please. I am no hyena, to ANY tune!! We've been buying new dipes, but I'm all about the discount. We're into hand me down Kissaluvs seconds, thirds, and fourths and what ever mama made fitteds I can get cheap. We using lots of prefolds laid flat in covers, as I am snappi impaired. Also, Iris is using her potty
tons, that EC works! It saves us a lot of diapers. At night she kicks me until I get her up to pee.
Michelle- you rock on the milkies! Iris is starting to roll and get the volume thing down, too. Ever since she let loose and screamed her head off for 1/2 hr on the airplane to st. louis she's been LOUD when she's upset. If she'd cried like this when she first came out we would have flipped!
And Laura- WTF on the mother in law on the milk- its like the dumb comment people make about homebirth transfers- like see I knew it wouldn't work anyway. It sucks to get their still bad ideas mixed in with their false sense of "I told you so?!" But cool on the teeth. And good luck on your sling.
Lisa- you've become such the informed mama activist- it's cool as a midwife to see a mama taking the issues on! You rock. And I am still so impressed by the commitment you've shown to Lauren. I missed how the chocolate thing turned out....but glad you got to expand the diet a bit this weekend. And when my dog had a cone thing like that, I used to call her "Radar Love" like the song, cause she was like a satellite dish head. I would joke it was just to enhance our owner-pet telepathy.
I have no pets now. life too busy as midwife to feed animal, we were too unreliable for pets so we had a baby. All or nothing here! I do have a gecko that we let live in our pantry to eat the moths that sometimes come out if we buy bulk food. Perhaps that's gross, but we have come to accept, even love, our little gecko. I first saw him when we had a bad moth problem from buying lots of bulk foods. We battled the moths a long time. After he came, the moth problem stopped. I only see him occ. when I move a box or get up late at night to get water. Weird- I never told anyone about the gecko, or realized we have come to cohabitate in peace. There's also a frog that lives in our bamboo windchime, if that counts as a pet.
Karen- you're husband's a hottie! Those sensitive boys of yours are gonna be good catches- raised by you in Hawaii, super cool, and with good handsome man genes to boot. Your babe in the soaker is looking purty cute, too. And I loved the mountain view too. Will you see the friends that he did the insemination with on your trip? My friends were gonna do an insemination the same time, but "the sperm got stuck in Ohio!?" funny. She did finally get it and is waiting to hear if she's preggers now. So I wondered if yer dh's trip to CA was fruitful?
Pam, hope you enjoyed the night out, even if it wasn't the first choice place!
Jess-get Aviva Romm's guide to vaccines. Its the most complete, it will really address all your issues. Plus, my ped told me the mercury was replaced with Aluminum. Well that's just another metal, and linked to Alzheimer's. It can't be much better than mercury! She acknowledges that we don't know what effect it will have- why must they use another generation to experiment and see what havoc that with wreck?
: Other reasons people don't do vacs are that you keep a low grade illness in the body in some way (that way oversimplified, but I'm trying to be brief) so it can suppress the immune system- like if you've got measles brewing in your lymph all the time, its less energy the body has to fight of other stuff. That's my fear- that I'd suppress the immune system and get weird autoimmune problems later. Really, its a big complex issue- get Avivas book fro Amazon if you are going to go out of normal protocols. Its important to be fully informed if you are deviating form community standards! And yes, Hep B is a body fluid disease- I love quoting a family doc here that had this exchange with one of the families I serve :
family: ...so we don't really need it if it's for a blood borne disease...
doc, with dead pan humor: "well, if you get it, your baby could have sex with Asian prostitutes "
(no offense meant- he was referring to prostitution rings, I quoted this when we were in the pregnancy forum and someone with an Asian husband was a bit miffed)
Jessi- so cool to hear about the birth validation! It feels good to think it brought good to someone else! BTW, after lunch, Martin and I walked to the Vegetarian deli across the street from the restaurant. It was vegan soul food deli, and I got curious cause I used to eat vegan soul food in Tallahassee when I was in college and it was THE BEST! . Anyway, we started talking to the guy, it turned out the Tallahassee folks are his cousins, and it is the same recipes I used to love- greens, vegan mac n no cheese (mad with nutritional yeast),and vegan ice cream, too (You can order their
cook book on-line , Kathy- next party you could make some vegan Alabama food that will impress any local!!) Since we'd just ate, we got some to take as a picnic lunch the next day and ate it under the arch. But anyway, he was oooing and ahhing over the baby saying he has 4 and his friend that was there had 9. We used to do homebirths for his cousins friends in Tallahassee so I asked if they have their babies at home. He said no but they should he's tired of all the hospital crap. I told him about you, and said I'd have you call or stop by to tell him about home birth in St. Louis and give him a midwife's name. He's part of a black spiritual community that acts as health educators for the community- they are perfect homebirthers, it would be awesome for your midwife to get hooked up with them! The contact info is: Eternity Vegetarian Deli & Juice Bar 11 South Euclid (in the Central W. End) (314) 454-1851. The guy I spoke with was the owner, but he ask for him but that you could talk to anyone there, it's family owned.
bunches, So glad Torin's sitter thing went well!
And Az, sorry bout your grandma, and the MIL issues.
Well, when I got back from our trip I started teaching the water prenatal-AquaNAtal classes again. Its working out well- except its early for us, but Iris can be in a bouncy seat for the first half until she gets and bored and then comes in with me. Its in a therapy pool, so its really warm. Its the YMCA- way too chlorinated for a young baby, I am afraid, but we are doing it anyway. The mamas appreciate having me back, and I can use the exercise as pp therapy for my hips, too.
Me and DH are both Virgos. I am Virgo with cancer rising and a Capricorn moon- healthy oriented and uptight, but to others seem maternal and a but crabby with a moon that means I am really handling the logistics and taking care of business!
So yesterday my horoscope was something about how I'd feel the classic dilemma of career vs. family, but career would win. I thought well, I guess means the that birth will happen today. So indeed, last night on the full moon the mama I've been on call for had her baby. This was a "test" birth to see how it would go for me being midwife with a baby. This family was a perfect experiment- they really, really wanted ME at their birth, and they have 2 older girls experienced with little babies, so I could bring Iris if I needed. But I wanted to leave her with dh if possible, so I pumped and crossed my fingers. Well, it couldn't have gone better. Her water broke at 3pm, no contractions. I took Iris over and we checked on the mama, then we went home and got dh to come home and got everything ready- I nursed her up and loved her up all afternoon in anticipation of the separation. DH's schedule has been really hectic, and it was getting late enough that it was clear he wasn't gonna have to miss work to be with Iris. Perfect. Plus, she'd slept tons the night before and was in a generally good mood. I was gonna go to the house of birth at 7, but my partner got there first and called and said don't come-nothing much going on, so she was going to hang out an hour and see where it went, mama was only 2cm. So I took Iris to bed and nursed her to sleep, and Martin went to sleep too. At 9pm I was drifting off my boob still in Iris's mouth but she was fast asleep, dressed in my birth gear, when the dad called and said " she said call you- it's time". My partner had left the house to go get her stuff, and was gonna go back soon. I got there and the momma was transition-y and 8cm, from 2 cm just 2 hrs before! She has quick pushing usually, so we were all surprised it took a while from there, but at 10:34 pm she pushed out a 9lb girl- 1- 1/2 lbs bigger than any of her others. It was her 5th girl. It all went swell- actually there were lots of minor things that needed help- the babe needed to be resuscitated and her old epis scar tore like it does every time, so I stitched her up, but it was all sooo smooth working with my midwife friend that it was like nothing had happened! They were so glad and grateful I was there. I went to the car to get my camera in the after glow, and I was thinking it was a fortune cookie birth- like it was foretelling my future as a midwife. If it had been crappy I was gonna want to hang it up. I went back in thinking how telling this birth was, feeling gratitude for the nice birth and perfect timing, and took a pic of her. I think how it turned out was an auspicious sign that bodes well for my future as a midwife with a baby:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...rookeKraft.jpg
So, she made this peace sign for me! I was tempted to take another pic, but thought, no, leave a perfect moment alone! it felt like a sign that all was well, and being a midwife would be fine. Yeah!
And DH just got a new computer contract, that will help the super tight finances around here. But get this- he's doing three projects for this company- one is security bracelets, one is a pet toy, and the other is ~~~a sex toy activated remotely by phone~~~
So yes, MY DH is gonna help you put your partner on "vibrate" from afar!!!
:
On another note....Iris is good.
Teething=drool=chewing everything. Iris is teething- I took this this morning of her chowing the breakfast table:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...i/100_1812.jpg
And we also found out a crazy thing....background- we had this ceremony before Iris's conception with our magical midwife friend Marina, during a camping trip at the beach where she has a pod of dolphin friends she knows from 10 years of swimming with them. We camped a week at the beach and did ceremony to open for conception. It was trippy. At the camp site we had a flag flying of a gorgeous mermaid with wings, and a rainbow, coming out of a sea of dolphins. I had bought it on a whim driving back from the Florida Keys, when I had made a trip Jan 2004 to visit Marina, when we did a bunch of ceremony to start cleansing/ preparing my body to be ready for a baby. So, when we went to actually conceive we hung it up, cause it seemed apropos for a camp of merwives.
SO fast forward to pregnancy. When pregnant, we hid the potential names from everyone. But my family knew a bit about the conception trip, and they all thought we were naming the baby after Marina if we had a girl. I had thought about calling a girl Marina, but wasn't moved to actually do it. I was actually gonna name the babe Astrid, a good Swedish name. Plus Astrid goes well with Celeste which I was settled on as a middle name, and Astrid comes from latin for star, so a star-celestial name seemed cool. But I JUST COULDN"T bring myself to name my girl a name that started with "ASS" --so I changed it to Iris. At 36 weeks, after having the girl name picked out since 14 weeks, I learned "Iris" is the winged goddess of the rainbow. In Greek mythology she is the goddess of communication between human and spiritual worlds- when a rainbow appears it is Iris traveling between worlds. So, anyway- I had a winged rainbow goddess hanging at the May camp site when we conceived her!!! That I got after a Jan 2004 ceremony to prepare me for conception! So before she was born I realized how perfect the name Iris was, and wanted her to be a girl so bad! When she was born it seemed so perfect- Iris Celeste- Rainbow and Celestial name, a baby of the firmament. I was happy to feel there was serendipity to it, like IRIS is who she truly is. Like she picked the name.
So, anyway- I just found out another cool twist to the story- Marina does sacred dance, and has a "shaman"/ dancer name----and it's Iris!!!! So we did, on total accident, name her after Marina afterall!!
So I took this pic of Iris in front of the flag from her conception trip to send Marina:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...gedgoddess.jpg
OK- I was gonna say more, but this is long enough, I'll leave you with the cool magic story about my little winged goddess of the rainbow cherub!
Heidi
But it's up to you to attach it.
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Now, what's your title gonna be? 
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