I Still Blog. Is That Outdated Now?

Everyone seems to be depending on instagram and facebook as their outlets these days. Almost exclusively. If they blog it's typically more devotionals or fashion blogs, and not nearly as much life updates.

But I still blog. I've been working on my new site. It's a pregnancy and parenting resource site, and since it's a little less personal it's been hard for me to figure out what and how to write on the "Village Blog" over there...

The site is called Mudpie Lullaby -- it's about the messes and the sweetness and the joy all mucking together into a beautiful disaster that pushes us to be better.

It's about being practical with the necessities so that you can be ridiculously overboard with your intentional parenting.

It's about pregnancy and about breastfeeding and about laughing and about enjoying life.

I'm hoping it will support itself so that I never have to monetize it with ads. Review articles and product roundups should let that happen.

But I also need good links for it if that's gonna work.

So if any of you want to help me out a bit, and share the news with your readers that I'm going full-bore parenting site, that'd be great.

If not, I completely understand. ;)

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I'm looking into becoming a birth assistant/doula. Crazy? A little. Almost 5 years in and the business isn't doing as well as it has been, so some extra cash would be great. And it's the field I'm passionate about. (hence the pregnancy website...) I wasn't thinking about trying for a career for another 10 years, so that the kids would be pushing into teen years, but since Quinn is still working from home and there's a need, I might try it.

What do you think?

I love birth. I love new babies. I love the power and the grit and the overwhelm of birth. I want to be a part of it. I'm just not sure I'm ready for that phase of life yet...

Another Birth Story

(All photos from Auri's birth were taken by Sarah Carter Photography)

We talked about a homebirth with our first. But there were so many reasons it wouldn't work. 

So he was born in a hospital. It was grueling and claustrophobic and the staff neglected us and we survived without an unnecessary c-section only by the grace of God and a nursing staff shift change. But he was born healthy. I tore horribly and was beyond exhausted and took a couple of weeks of drugs to get back to feeling good. 

We talked about a homebirth with our second. In fact, we hired a homebirth team and started care with them. But then we found out that our second was also our third. Twins and homebirth aren't ideal companions.

So they were induced and then birthed on an operating table with a surgical team standing by with two NICU teams and my doula and my photographer and  all crammed into the room with us. It was cold and bright and I had just enough drugs in me to let the OB do what she needed to to keep them from flipping breech and causing a section, so I was shaking and nauseated and had an awful headache for several days and had to spend 48 hours walking back and forth the length of the hospital to nurse one twin in NICU and one in my recovery room while my legs were bruising from being so swollen and my system was still trying to get the drugs out. 

We talked about a homebirth for our 4th. I begged God to pleeeease let me birth this baby without IVs and monitors and stirrups and a nasty, hard bed with scratchy sheets and bossy nurses and a scalpel-happy OB putting me on a gazillion clocks to countdown when she could cut me open. 

And He let me. 

It wasn't as planned -- our team was supposed to be a 3 person team and my photographer from the twins, but another labor with a tragic, unforeseeable outcome kept one of our team from being able to come at all, and another member from showing up until minutes after she was born.

Also, she was 11 days post due. Talk about screwing with my head. When you are due the first week of August and baby refuses to make an appearance until the third week of the month, plans start getting frustrating. I had started writing the date on her chalk board every morning and then rubbing it out the next day -- I gave up around the 14th.

So at 41 weeks we started doing some induction things. I was still only partially effaced and had a hard neck to my cervix that wasn't wanting to go away, but I had been having 6-8 hours a day of 4-5 minute contraction patterns for 2 weeks. So we did membrane sweeping and intense walking and eating spicy foods and etc. That night I had an hour of intense, active labor pattern, then it stopped. Completely. Gone. My midwives had asked us to try all of that in a day, and then take a day off to rest.  So Monday rolled around and we dropped the kids off with my Mom so we could get real serious.

 Monday morning we did another sweep... I had progressed from a tight 2 to a tight 3, but still had that pesky neck. Since we didn't have the kids we were able to take two hours to hike around the Nature Center with all its steep hills. Then we went out for dinner and during dinner the ctx picked up to a 3 minute pattern that was notably stronger, though only every 2nd or 3rd ctx was strong enough to be truly bothersome. 

So we went home. The kids were still at mom's and we were gonna choose at bedtime whether or not to bring them home. Contractions stayed consistent, so we left them. And went to bed. They didn't wake me up. 

The next morning I started using my pump on a regimented schedule. We went for a walk on some hills in our neighborhood in between pumping. We went all day like that. Contractions stayed consistant at 4-4.5 minutes, but without increasing intensity. We talked about bringing the kids home, but we were planning on trying Castor Oil (which I had put off with tears until that point. I can't tell you how much I hate the stuff) the next morning, and the twins are so routine dependent that a back and forth would have been just cruel to them. The next day was G's birthday and for 5 years in a row he had woken up to a special day and decorations and I was dying over not having him home, and potentially not even seeing him on his birthday. I sat in my room and ugly cried for an hour, but there was no way for me to see the kids that would benefit them more than it did me.  

Contractions still weren't intensifying at all, so Quinn drove a couple of gifts out to Mom's and read some books to the twins and spent a couple hours just being around. He called one of the midwives on the way out for a run down on what we were gonna do if the castor oil didn't finally kick things into gear, and to see if we were being realistic to leave the kids for another night and etc. And the other midwife called me to try to de-stress me and get a read on how I was doing. Between the two of them we actually got an emotional reset and when Quinn got home we were both doing a lot better, emotionally, than we had been doing all weekend. We watched a movie, went to bed (where I cried about Gavin's birthday some more) and went to sleep. 

I got up at 6 the next morning, walked into the kitchen where the dreaded castor oil was waiting. I started pulling out foods and fluids  -- orange juice, biscuits, diet pepsi -- and (*I can't even write this without full body shivers and retching*) poured out 2oz of the filth. I kept saying out loud "don't think about it. don't look at it. don't smell it."

So I slugged it. And then slugged orange juice. And then stuffed half a biscuit in my mouth. And then washed the biscuit down with the diet soda. and then scrubbed my teeth with a baby wipe.

And there were tears running down my face. 

But I kept it down. 

Drama, much? Sure. But I dare any one of you to slug 2 oz of castor oil, and then to do it again at a later date. The first time, anyone can do. I did that with Gavin. The second time? I triple dog dare you.  In fact, Quinn and I had a conversation about this the week before, and I believe he owes me an experience with the filth. 

And then I spent 3 hours in fetal position. It's like giving yourself food poisoning, but worse. And it's all so that you can volunteer for the most painful marathon of your life. I can't tell you how many times I said "why am I this stupid????" while laying on the bathroom floor. 

I'd rather go through labor twice than go through castor oil and then labor. 

I'm never doing it again. 

Besides, I'm not even sure it worked. There was no notable change in contractions. None. By 11 I was back to trying to eat and back to 4-5 min contractions that didn't seem to be doing anything. But then my water broke. Was that because of the CO? I doubt it. I think spending 3 of the previous 4 days aggressively encouraging things caused that. Or maybe just being 41.4 days pregnant caused that. 

So the midwife came out to check on me at 2. Still no increase in labor pattern. I was almost a 5. She sent us out for a walk. We walked to the bottom of the ravine in our back yard and I ended up completely stuck through 1 (one. yes. one.) very strong contraction that wouldn't let me move. Then we walked back up to the house. It was pushing on 4 o'clock and Eva and I stood in the kitchen talking. The contractions were still around 4 minutes, and were leaving me pretty breathless and I was leaning on the counter, but we just kept chatting and snacking and waiting to see what would happen. 

Around 4 she headed to the shower because, since my water had broken, it was likely to be a very long evening/night. I was sitting in the livingroom with Quinn and we were talking and he was getting some work stuff wrapped up. The contractions were steadily increasing in intensity, and right around 6 :00 Quinn said something and all I could say to answer was something along the lines of "I need to just do this."  Eva came back out a few minutes later and Quinn had moved over behind me to do back pressure because the next one was stinkin stout. So we did that for a while, with me on the birth ball because that's where I had been for a while anyway. 

Then Quinn stepped to his office to put some things away and I decided I would grab a protein bar out of my room. I walked a few steps to my room and stopped. Then a few more steps and stopped again.

"Rapid Labor: The most obvious difficulty with Rapid Labor is emotional turmoil. Rapid Labor can make it extremely difficult to find coping strategies and can leave the expectant mother feeling out of control. "

I didn't make it to my protein bar. I got stuck hanging on a chair halfway across the bedroom. Eva and Quinn  came in and Quinn said something about the birth pool (which I planned to labor, but not birth in) and Eva said something about "we better just use the bathtub. We don't have time for the pool." And I laughed at her. 

But every time I got to doing well with a contraction level, the next one was a step up. There was no time to settle into coping. They just piled up. Sarah got there right about the time they got me in the tub, and my brain said that that was the time to count it as real labor, but in reality I was only about an hour from transition. 

As I was hitting transition Eva asked me if I wanted to stay put and have baby in the tub or try to move to the bed. I wanted to move. So they got me out and I went to the toilet, and I knew I was feeling pushy. So we moved to the bedroom, but I was still only a 9, and STILL had a hard neck to my cervix. I'm kind of convinced at this point that my body thinks 9 cm IS complete. With Gavin a nurse had to hold my cervix open and had me push Gavin down past an 8.5. With the twins the last check I had I was an 8-9 and then I was way ready to push little Lena out. 

Eva told me to go ahead and start pushing, but be ready to stop if we started causing problems. Pushing seemed to take forever. With Gavin it was under a half hour. With the twins it was ten minutes each. This round was over an hour.  Nothing felt like it was actually moving her. Eva said I never lost that hard cervical neck. She just had to work it around Aurelia's head manually because it wouldn't soften. See what I mean? My body doesn't do a 10.  

At 9:24, just 3.5 hours after I felt like laboring was the only thing I could do, she was born. Wide eyed and quiet and taking in the world.  Her cord was looped once around her neck, and she twisted into face-up as she was being born, so she got a face full of amniotic fluid and was a little gurgly for a bit, but we got that all suctioned out. I had a bit more bleeding than expected, so I got a pitocin IV within a few minutes of her being born, but otherwise all was perfect. 

 She was little, other than her 14" head. And with the vernix, people were wondering about my due date calculation, but her foot print was a solid 41-42 week footprint, and her placenta was getting calcified, so I'm still just as confident in her due date.

I can't get over the difference between her birth and the others. The freedom to not worry about when to get in the car. The quiet of being in my own space. Moving and changing and working in whatever spot, whatever position seemed to work best at that moment. Not worrying about how long anything was taking or whether or not I was progressing.

Then getting to enjoy her. I mean, we got to hold her and love her and I got to nurse her before we did any of her weighing or measuring or anything. We got to ooh and aaah over her mile long, beautiful cord, and I was so quickly piled into my bed with her that there wasn't a thing to think about other than soaking her up.  I was so settled that when they started talking about getting a herbal bath going for me I wasn't sure it would be worth getting out of my cozy bed to soak in the tub.

 But I did. And I was glad. Because it was so much nicer than trying to get a shower, and we got the bloody stuffs all cleaned out of Auri's hair, and I didn't feel the need to stand in the shower until after we introduced her to the children and caught up on sleep and all of that.

No worries about when to go home. No stupid required videos. No nurses pulling her away from me when I dozed off with her in my arms. No hospital hallways to walk. Nobody telling me I couldn't carry my child from one room to the next. No drive home at 48 hours post birth. No tearing or stitches or threats. No incubators. No fending off shots and soaps and eye treatments with her 30 minutes old. 

Just me and my close friends and my husband and my beautiful girl. Food piled on the bed, happy tears, comfort, and peace. 

Besties For So Long Now

Becoming a teenager is such a big deal. You feel like you've lived forever already, but like your life is just starting.

When I was 13 I know I was sure I had made it. I was finally not a "runt" -- my tiny little self was almost normal height for my age for the first time, I could hit 90% of my free throws with a full size basketball, I was playing "real" piano music, I was allowed to wear 2" of heel on my dressy shoes, my ears were pierced, and I was starting to drink coffee. 

That year, boys made it on my radar for real. I had always had fairy tale dreams and daydreamed of the Lone Ranger or Indiana Jones riding into my life, but now the boys around me were actually interesting.

At least, the ones who were old enough to be "grown up". I went through a couple of pretty serious crushes that summer and the next,  but I wasn't even prepared for the level of crush that would hit when I was 15. 

See, back in that crazy 13th year of mine, we had made some new friends. A new family had come to church -- coming out of the Mennonite church and trying to settle somewhere new, they had 7 kids  and were expecting number 8, the oldest three of which lined up with me and my 3 older brothers in age range. Their oldest girl was only 4 months from my age, and it took a few months, but we were "BFFs" before the year was out. the 5 guys and we 2 girls buddied around everywhere. Ice skating, basketball, tennis, street witnessing, game nights, movie nights, coffee dates, you name it, we were there. 

Her two older brothers became my first real "guy friends" over that year. I trusted them, I was comfortable around them, we all "got" each other. 

Then, when I was 15, we all ended up on a mission trip together. That spring I had noticed that Quinn had really, really beautiful eyes, but that was pretty much all I had noticed. 

Then, all the sudden, I found myself thoroughly crushed on him. Seriously? That one caught me off guard. It wasn't too hard to break it, though, since he was interested in someone else and 5 years older than me and all that stuff. Off I went into winter with him properly back in his "friend" position. 

During that winter he made impacts on my life, unintentionally. There were situations that should have beaten him down, when he knuckled down and fought his way back to the surface. He was there for his sister through some of their worst times, when I was also trying my hardest to be good and strong friend for her, and he always had good counsel for her. When I couldn't be there to help her, he always was. He almost seemed to thrive on the hardships -- while it wasn't the greatest time for him, spiritually, he didn't sink when most would have. During that time he introduced me to Rich Mullins, and set an example for gritty determination that rocked my world. 

It was the next spring. 10 years ago now, not I realized that when I looked at Quinn I didn't see just a friend.

10 years I've had a crush on him. 

10 years I've melted a little every time we've made eye contact. 

10 years I've admired his determination. 

10 years I've known he was different, and known that whatever we had, friendship or crush or love, we worked. 

10 years we've shared favorite lyrics. 

10 years we've recommended books back and forth. 

10 years laughed at each other's favorite things, then learned to love them ourselves. 

10 years he's made me laugh with his goofy humor and antics. 

10 years he's made me feel safe by never once mocking or belittling me. 

10 years he's pushed me to be better, to learn more, to stretch my mind, to be hungry to learn, to be hungry for God. 

10 years he's brought me new songs and hymns and we've worked through them at the piano. 

10 years I've known he was my best friend. 

The next 3 years were insanity. Going from 16 and realizing your best friend was a 21 year old guy who you barely had one-on-one conversations with, to 19 and getting married barefoot in a park wasn't exactly a smooth transition. It was one of ups and downs and "dear john" letters and apologies and tears and late, sleepless nights of prayer, and each of us trying so hard to forget each other and be interested in other people, and fighting with parents, and then months of hours and hours and hours of corresponding about everything from doctrines of speaking in tongues to favorite memories to life goals and dreams of missions and ideas for helping, and then more breaking up and more tears and more fighting with parents and then more letters and more tears and never ever doubting, even for a second, that he was willing to do whatever, whenever, however, to make sure I was safe and happy. 

We had had all of three actual, official "dates" when he got down beside his little car, late at night, and looked at me with those eyes of his and said "are you actually sure that you want to be stuck with this crazy guy forever?" And I laughed at my best friend. Could a person be more sure than I was right then? I doubt it. "I'll take you home right this second if you want. Are you sure that you want to leave it all for me?" 

He slipped a little diamond band onto my finger. Simple and understated just like everything about our interactions and friendship and love up to that point. 

It's been 7 years now, since we gathered black eyed susans and queen anne's lace and went to the park to sit with our feet in the creek and pray together. 7 years since we vowed to love and honor and forgive each other until death. 7 years since he sat down with a bowl of water and washed my feet while talking about how Christ had shown how a groom should treat his bride when he washed the feet of the disciples, and how a husband is a servant and protector first. 

And now, here we are. About to birth our 4th child. Living in a happy home of joyful children and love. The "downs" we have had have been short lived and we've worked through them. We are learning how to strengthen our relationship instead of letting it gradually fade.  After 10 years of being best friends, it feels like there was never a point in our lives without "us". 

And that "grown up" 13 year old girl with freshly pierced ears is now a mommy of 4 who thanks her Savior every single day that an 18 year old Mennonite boy in suspenders and who looked like Roger from 101 Dalmations walked into her church one night in October, long ago...

Happy anniversary, precious friend of mine. You're my favorite thing. I love you more than life.

Let mercy lead,
Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave
There'll be a drop of grace.
If we can reach
Beyond the wisdom of this age
Into the foolishness of God,
That foolishness will save
Those who believe.
Although their foolish hearts may break
They will find peace,
And I'll meet you in that place
Where mercy leads.

-R. Mullins 

It's been nearly a year since I posted. That's a record. I've been blogging since 2005, and I've never gone a year without posting. 

Since my last post we:

Sold our house.
Moved to Florida. 

Celebrated the twins' turning 1. 

Celebrated our 6th anniversary. 

Miscarried a precious little 7 week baby. 

Celebrated Gavin turning 5. 

I had surgery on both arms. 

We bought a new home back in MO. 

We moved back to MO.

It's been a busy year. 

Can you believe these giant, grown up kids I have??? 

Quinn is still working from home. His business didn't grow as much this year as it did last year, what with him taking 7 months to move us to FL and play with us every day, and then single dad it for 8 weeks while I went through and recovered from two minor surgeries, but the Lord continues to bless and he's working hard to breathe some new growth into it.  I can't believe it's been nearly three years since he was pulling 45-50 hour weeks at the call center AND working 20-40 hours a week to build his online business.

He actually launched a training course this spring, also, which robbed from business building and isn't exactly a cash flow project, but has allowed several friends of ours to start making their first trickles of online profit. It's the absolute basics -- how to start blogs and how to do drag and click formatting and how to get affiliate accounts and etc. It's at CubicleHoudini.com, if any of you are interested.

Gavin learned to read this summer. He doesn't believe he can read, but he sounds out words all the time, and could read pretty well if I could get him excited about it. Not sure how to do that, though.... nothing has worked this far. I might have to start bribing him. ;)  He gets confused when I talk about how other peoples' daddies have to go to work every day, and desperately wants to be a construction worker when he grows up.

Helena is the funniest, spunkiest little booger. She chases me and her daddy around the house, begging for hugs and kisses, and waves to everybody every time she leaves the room. She loves pretty much anything fuzzy or pink and manages to be 100% girl, even when playing with her brothers' dragons and tool benches and swords.  She has an impressive little vocabulary, and loves pretend play with all of our toy animals. She mostly only uses single word questions and commands, and most of her words relate to food. She eats all. day. every. day. but is still a skinny little bug with miles of arms and legs.

Niram is the biggest snuggle bug you will ever meet. He doesn't think it counts as a snuggle unless he has both arms around your neck and is kissing your face. He talks incessantly at a very low volume, murmuring through every day. When you know the context of what he is saying you can hear complete sentences, but otherwise it sounds like gibberish.  He says thinks like "uh oh, Mom, I dropped "bob" (his 'bobby' or pacifier), it's really bad, help please!" He likes to find a quiet corner with a stack of books, a puzzle, or a crayon and paper. Crayons are his favorite. He draws circles and calls them "eyes."

So that's been the latest chapter of our grand adventure. We are currently dogless  - we all like Max, but he's TERRIBLE with babies (snaps and growls and runs away from them) and he ruined Gavin's ability to approach a dog without fear and trembling, so he's living with family and not likely to return to the twins' kingdom. Helena tackles every dog she sees, and Niram is pretty happy to follow her example. That would NOT go over with Max. We want to get a more kid friendly puppy to raise with them, as opposed to a previously-abused-rescue-who-never-integrated. I know exactly what breed/age pup I want, but it's gonna take a while to get a fence in the new back yard and a budget for a carefully bred, child safe, hand raised puppy. (Don't hate me, but I am a firm believer in pure bred pups who are chosen to meet the specific needs of a family, especially after trying the rescue route with Max.) In the mean time we might end up with some birds or fish or lizards or something -- the animal free home is just a smidgey weird. ;)


For now, over and out. Hopefully I will keep up a bit better over the next year. ;)

9 Months

9 Months? Really? 

So strange to watch them grow and learn at different paces and with different styles, in spite of being twins. Their personalities are polar opposites, with Niram being a snuggly koala bear one moment who throws monster fits the next, but has incredible hand-eye coordination and throws things and crawls, while 'Lena sings along with every bit of music that comes on, watches people so intensely, and loves to be held because she loves to have a better, higher view of the world. She isn't a snuggler, though I can get snuggles out of her a couple times a day. She doesn't throw back-arched-bloody-murder fits like Niram, but she will give a good, long, sobbing melt down when she's in the mood.

They are incredible little people.

I still can't believe it's been 9 months.

Niram crawls, and thinks he says "mamma", but it's really just jibberish.

Helena cut her top two teeth this week, and has been pulling up on furniture. She is sure she says Daddy, but her "YagAM!" noise doesn't sound like "Daddy" to me.


Anyway, that's all. Happy 9 Month Day, darling children. 3/4ths of the way to 1 year old.

Mommy loves you!

4 Months Later

I will NEVER. BE. ENOUGH. 

The laundry may never be caught up. 

The food will probably not be healthy or fresh or made from scratch. 

The floors will not be spotless. 

I'll cry from exhaustion. 

I'll hide in the bathroom and let children cry for 5 minutes while I brush my teeth for the first time in three days, and maybe even brush the dried baby barf out of my hair. 

My days will be chaotic and my nights will be sleep deprived. 

There will be more fingernails and toenails than I can keep trimmed. 

There will be more noses then I can keep wiped. 

I'll make up answers to questions like "why do waves roll over but whirlpools go in circles?" Because "I don't know" isn't good enough and my brain can't actually manage to come up with the real answer. 

And I'll drop things every evening because my arms and my back are too tired from never being empty. 

And I'll mop up seas of barf and poop and change diapers and run laundry and fix snacks. 

And I'll go a little crazy on some days. 

And I'll cry some mornings because the sun is coming up but I haven't slept yet. 

And I'll cry some nights because the sun is going down and I haven't enjoyed my children yet. 

And I'll look in each of their eyes and they will fill me with joy and the Lord will fill me with awe at what He can do. 

And I'll laugh with them because He is enough to give joy. 

And I'll tell them I'm proud of them because He is enough to let me see past the mess and the smells and the noise. 

And I'll be in awe of how beautiful they are because He is enough to clear the fog of stress and sin and exhaustion from my eyes and let me see them with the love that He has for them. 

And I'll sing to them because He is enough to fill my heart with songs. 

And I'll lift them up and snuggle them close because He has filled my arms with His most precious creations. 

And maybe.

Just maybe.

I'll get to shave my legs. ;)