Live Journal

In case I forget, which I will... I did, in fact, transfer ALL posts from LJ to Blogger. From Madd's page, Faye's page, my page, and our community page. That's all. Thanks.

More Baby Names

Names that we took off the list are:

Corbin

Finnegan

Names we still like:

Connor

Eero

Oren

Rowan

Soren

with the middle name of:

David

Eero

Henry

William

There are a ton of different combinations that I like fine. My favorites are:

Connor William

Eero William

Oren William

Rowan William

Soren Eero

I like William as a middle name...

Girls names that we got rid of:

Gwendolyn

Names we still like:

Elise

Jane

Orla

Lorraine

with a middle name of:

Elizabeth

Elisa

Lorraine

Jane

The only combinations that I like are:

Lorraine Elizabeth

Lorraine Elise

Orla Lorraine

Orla Jane

Jane Elise

Elizabeth Jane

21 Weeks 6 Days vs 22 Weeks 3 Days

I didn't look for the pictures of when I was pregnant with Maddox, but I matched up Faye's pregnancy with this babies pregnancy the best I could. A 4 day difference.

Looks pretty darn close. I believe I was heavier when I started this PG than when I started with Faye. I think I'm a little bigger this time too. I should be, because it's my 3rd pregnancy, but I wouldn't say I'm obviously bigger.

Ultrasound Pictures!

We had an ultrasound on Monday the 16th. We did not find out the sex of the baby. We got 3 pictures to take home (the first three), but the clinic just put the rest of the images on the website and so I copied a few.

That is the babies head and the big pillow s/he is laying on is my placenta.

When I was pregnant with Maddox, I didn't feel any fear or sadness.  We were 20 and 22 when he was conceived and completely unplanned.  When I was almost 10 weeks I had some spotting, over Memorial Day Weekend, and I freaked out.  I was so scared that I was going to lose him.  He's been the perfect son and I never knew I could love someone the way that I love him.  I was perfectly content with just him, an only child.

Faelyn was planned.  I was perfectly content with just having Maddox, but eventually, Clayton was going to want another child.  Maddox was already two and a half years old, almost three and if we were having another, I didn't want them to be so far apart.  I was, of course, very excited when I found out the I was pregnant and loved her so much.  I was also completely overwhelmed with sadness.  Sadness at the loss of my only son becoming one of two kids.  The loss of one on one time with Maddox.  The loss of "my boys", now Madd, Dad, and Faye.  She is such an amazing child.  Troubling, often, but one million percent amazing.

This time around, I've only felt terror.  Complete terror and anxiety.  Fear of everything that lies ahead.  At least up until tonight.  Faye woke up and stumbled into the living room.  I brought her to my bed to sleep for a couple hours before I came to bed.  When I was ready, I brought her to her bed, gave her a kiss and told her she was my best girl.  I've always told Maddox he's my best boy and I was thrilled to be able to tell Faye she was my best girl, but it hit me tonight that I will not have that anymore.  I will have a best boy and a best oldest girl and a best youngest girl.  Or I will have a best girl and a best oldest boy and best youngest boy.

I feel love and joy for this baby.  It took me until I was 15 weeks, though, to even feel the slightest connection.  I am constantly poking and prodding this little thing to make sure s/he is still there.  I nearly jumped on the midwife when she asked if we'd like to try to hear the baby's heartbeat.  Terrified when it took so long to find.  Then ecstatic and relieved when we heard it.

Now I can feel the baby, kicking or hiccupping, and that's exciting.  But I still feel so scared and a little bit sad.

Baby Names

We've been thinking a lot about boy names. Even though we are not planning to find out the baby's gender until s/he is born, boy names are really hard for me! It was really hard and finally yesterday I sat down and made a list. Gave it to Clayton to cross off some names and ended up crossing off a couple more myself. This is the list.

Connor

Corbin

Eero

Finnegan

Oren/Orrin

Rowan

Soren

I also went through the middle name options (family names) and the only ones I really liked with any names were

Eero

David

Henry

William

Some of my favorites were

Connor William

Corbin Henry

Eero Finnegan (Finnegan is not a family name, but Eero is)

Finnegan David

Oren Eero

Orrin William

Rowan William

Soren David

Soren Eero (this makes me giggle, but I love it...)

Maddox really really really wanted me to highlight some girls names in the baby book that Santa put in my stocking this Christmas, so I came up with a list. I'm kind of stuck on one name, so that might be why it was kind of difficult, but I ended up coming up with a much shorter list than when we were pregnant with Faye. I was surprised that I didn't find a lot of girls names I liked. (Clayton OK'd these names too)

Elise (this is actually my great grandmothers name rearranged)

Gwendolyn

Lorraine (my grandma's name)

Orla

We also liked Jane (which is also my middle name rearranged), but I didn't end up liking it for a first or middle name.

Our middle name options would be

Elise

Elizabeth

Lorraine

The favorites that I came up with are

Gwendolyn Elise

Gwendolyn Lorraine

Lorraine Elizabeth

Orla Lorraine

I'd really prefer to have Lorraine in the name. If it's the first name, we'll call her Lainie.

We hired our Midwives! Yay!

We met with two midwives last night. They work together, do all prenatal appointments together, go to births together, etc. I LOVED them on paper, I really liked Emme when I talked to her on the phone for like 30-60 minutes (it was a long time) and I was really nervous to meet them because I was afraid I wouldn't like them in person (cause I really wanted to like them)... but we LOVED them! I'm sooooo glad I decided to contact them because I wasn't going to originally.

The four of us went and Faye kept telling Maddox that we were going to the "nightmares" house, haha! We kept saying "Midwives!" and then she'd say "Midwhites". Then she'd forget and call them nightmares again. We get to their house and it took us 15 min even though google said with traffic it would take 24 min so we sat in the car for a couple minutes and Faye says "are we going to see the witches?", I said "what witches?" and she says "the witch in the house!" and pointed to the midwife's house. That one I found really funny because it's kind of true. I mean not really, but so many midwives were persecuted in the witch hunts because people thought they were witches. Then when we were leaving, she really wanted to stay and she says "I want to stay at the wizard nightmares house" Haha!

We interviewed them (kind of, I asked most of my questions on the phone with Emme, so we just chatted a lot) and they asked if I had any prenatal care yet, so they offered to listen to the baby and took my BP and hemoglobin (and wrote is all down on a card for me in case I don't choose them) and so we got to hear the baby!

From Phone Photos 2011

Meet Emme

Emme began her journey to birth work with the joyous birth of her first born in 1991. Birth was transformative and empowering and she loved being a mom more than anything in the world. Emme soon discovered that her view of birth as was a rare one. Most birth stories she heard were not joyous empowering experiences. Armed with the knowledge that birth can be different Emme began to be invited to many of her friends’ births. In 2000 when her last baby was weaning Emme completed her birth doula certification with hopes of one day becoming a midwife. Emme quickly became an active doula sitting on the board of the Childbirth Collective and attending hundreds of birth in the hospital setting. Early in her doula career Emme witnessed her first home birth. She immediately knew home birth midwifery was the path she would take to become a midwife.

Emme started her formal midwifery apprenticeship in 2003 and continued it until she earned her Certified Professional Midwifery credential in 2008. Emme has had the privilege of working with many community midwives both traditionally and formally trained. Along with learning directly from midwives at over 100 births Emme attended the Farm Midwifery training Center and was thrilled to learn directly from Ina May Gaskin, Pamela Hunt and the rest of the Farm Midwifes. In 2005 Emme was accepted into a demanding and intensive internship at a busy Birth Center in the Philippines. While living and working at Mercy Maternity Center for her seven week stay Emme was able to learn directly from mothers, babies and many foreign midwives. In addition to her apprenticeships and internships Emme is trained and certified in advanced neonatal life support and cardio pulmonary resuscitation.

Emme is a member of the Minnesota Council of Certified Professional Midwives (MCCPM), MNow!, Midwives Alliance of North America, The Childbirth Collective and DONA International. She is vice President of The Childbirth Collective and is active with the Minnesota Better Birth Coalition. Emme lives and plays in South Minneapolis with her three amazing kids Noah, Levi and Sydney and her equally wonderful husband Paul.

Meet Clare

I was born and raised in Richfield, MN, the 6th child of 11, and remember well the happiness that the births of my younger siblings brought to our family. As a midwife, it is truly a privilege to share with families the joy and excitement of their journeys as they prepare to welcome a child into the world.



I worked as a labor and birth nurse from 1984-1997. I graduated from the U of M Midwifery school in 1997 and began my work as a Certified Nurse Midwife (5 years of practice at Regions, 2 years at North Memorial and one year at Fairview Riverside).

In January of 2006 I "came home" and began to attend home births in the Twin Cities. I love my Trillium partner and the new dimensions homebirth brings to my practice of midwifery. There is richness, a depth of relationship in homebirth that I believe is at the heart of the midwifery model of care.

I also love my yoga practice and students. I began my yoga studies in 1987 and taught my first class (a prenatal yoga class!) in 1998 at the St. Paul Yoga Center, where I continue to teach three general classes each week.

I also offer a "donation" class each week for pregnant women (and their doulas) at the Minneapolis Yoga Workshop ( http://www.mplsyogaworkshop.com/ ) on Sundays from noon to 1:30pm. All are welcome (all trimesters and levels). We practice yoga poses and sequences (with attention to the breath) to relieve common discomforts of pregnancy. Yoga teaches us to be present and to make friends with our bodies, and I think this connection helps women and their babies during the birth process. The prenatal yoga class also provides a space for birthing women to form relationships with other mothers and mothers-to-be. I have witnessed such wonderful support and mentoring among the women--they share information about everything (from bras to diapers)!

I live in St. Paul with my loving man, Paul, and our two cats. Our son Julian also lives in St. Paul with us.

So that's all about our midwives. I also did a little "research" on Baby Center to "explore" my due date options. My thought is that I had two 25 day cycles in a row. I created a chart for two 28 day cycles (EDD 06/12/12), two 25 day cycles (EDD 06/06/12), and a 25 day followed by a 28 day cycle (EDD 06/09/12). A lot of times when I've had an early cycle, my next will make up for it, so if I had a 25 day cycle, my next might have been a 31 day cycle, but I didn't create a chart for that because it would have resulted in the same EDD as two 28 day cycles.

Two 28 Day Cycles

From WTF?!

25 Day Followed by 28 Day

From WTF?!

Two 25 Days

From WTF?!

Baby Development according to the EDD I've chosen

From WTF?!

Has it really been 3 months?!

And a few things have happened in those 3 months as well.

As I mentioned in my last post, I signed up to be an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books. I have not made enough money to put Maddox in Karate - for a few reasons! First, I cannot NOT buy the books. I pretty much have spend any commission on the books. I have an even more plump bookshelf now. In fact, over flown (as if it wasn't already lol). Second, this job has been so much more difficult for me than I imagined. I knew it was going to be a challenge for me. Not only because I do not drive, but I am absolutely terrified getting up in front of people and doing presentations. I'm also terribly awkward in social situations. I knew all that, but I didn't expect to develop nice little cause of anxiety. Pure panic comes over me, I nearly throw up before every show I've done and I lost 5 lbs before my kick off show, worrying about it.

About a month after my Usborne Books and More kick off show, I found out that I was pregnant with my third child. A HUGE, ENORMOUS surprise. Add a couple more notches on to the anxiety and stress. Dealing with two kids in school, volunteering in school, in classrooms, etc, homework, being pregnant, planning a home birth, finding a midwife, not having any health insurance, planning on buying a house in the spring, STILL not having my driver's licenses... I'm a complete basket case.

Then about two weeks into November, I started having a weird health issue. I still have no idea what it is or even could be. I get this weird feeling in my throat and chest. Like someone is pushing down on my chest and pinching the arteries in my neck closed. I'll get this weird feeling three times in a row through out the day, some times spread out, some times clustered together. Usually it happens when I've been active and then I stop. So when I walk up the stair (or down) and then I stop walking, I get it. When I walk the kids to school, when we stop at school, it starts. When I get up and make myself food, etc and then go to sit back down it happens. It also happens when I feel emotionally tense. If I am debating a sensitive topic, etc. Then when it happens, my pulse stops. Thump, Thump, Thump, 1-3 second pause, thump thump, 1-3 second pause, etc. So anytime I feel the weird pressure, my pulse stops for the entire length. It stopped happening, almost completely for about a week to a week and a half and then a couple days ago it started up again. No change in diet, exercise, amount of anxiety or stress...

Hopefully soon I will at least have a midwife. Soon I should have insurance too. I'm due in June and am around 13-14 Weeks pregnant right now. I've met with one midwife, talked via email with a couple others, have been trying to get together with another midwife and just today I contacted one other midwife. I liked the first midwife that I met with. I feel like she is qualified and a safe option, but I'd like to know what my other options are. Two of the best things about the first midwife is that she comes to my house for appointments and she has experience with breech and twins. The second midwife (that I've been trying to meet with) has experience with breech and twins and a lot more years of experience, I would have to go to her office for appointments. That has been a problem with some of the other midwives. Their location and available times just could not work for us, so they were automatically off the list. I'm anxious and excited, but am getting impatient!

Because I have not had a confirmation test, no 'medical care' (I say that as it is not necessary at this point, but generally common practice to go in for a confirmation test and then for your first prenatal appointment at 12 weeks), have no heard the baby yet, cannot feel the baby (often, have felt the baby, but it's still REALLY early), it was such a big surprise, I took 4 (or more.. I cannot even remember anymore) tests and brought them into all different rooms of the house for different lightly - just to make sure, etc... I am having a really hard time connecting with this and fully acknowledging the fact that I am pregnant. It's only been 13-14 weeks (and I've only known for 8-9 weeks), but it has already been a really tough pregnancy. Physically, I'm sick on and off, major fatigue, sore breasts, that 'pressure' feeling in my belly, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, but harder to deal with because I wasn't ready for this or wanting it at this time (I do want more children and am grateful for this child). Emotionally, I have not been dealing with it that great. We're not finding out the baby's gender this time. Neither of us want to, but I'm feeling like I almost need to, to connect with this baby. I'm hoping that by the time we are having an ultrasound (if we are going to decide to have one) that I will not be tempted to find out. That I will not feel the need to find out, for any reason. I'm hoping after I hear this baby's little heart and start to feel it's like kicked and punches, that I will feel better.

Also, I wanted to mention, shortly before I found out that I was pregnant, I found out that my Sister In Law (husbands sister) is pregnant, just 6 weeks further along AND my husbands cousin is pregnant, 7 weeks further along! One with a girl, one with (possibly) a boy!

So this is mostly what's been going on for the past couple months. School started in Sept. Maddox is a first grader, Faelyn started her first year (of 2) of preschool. Both are loving school!

And if you'd like to check out some books, they are amazing books! - http://www.myubam.com/HOS207943

Summer?!

Summer finally caught up to us.  I've been trying to keep some learning in summer, but we were spending a lot of time at Lake Calhoun.  Faye started to feel pretty crummy and for a couple weeks she was waking up every 6 days puking and following that up with a week of diarrhea.  We brought her to the doc and though they didn't really say or do anything about it, she was feeling fine.  She was still complaining of belly aches, but no puking or pooping.

My family reunion was on July 31, so we drove up to Alexandria for that.  We spent a couple more days up in that area at Clayton's uncles cabin.  We had a great time and probably could have stayed longer.  Neither of the kids wanted to leave, but we had plans to drive down to Tennessee.  We left on Tuesday morning (much later than I wanted to) and came home, rearranged the car and took off for TN.  We got to my sister's house around 2 or so.

We had a good time in Tennessee too.  Faye found her love of Toads and didn't want to leave TN either.  It was in the upper 90's to 100's while we were there and I could have just laid at the pool all day.  I loved their town pool.  It wasn't that great for Faye, but it felt great and it was salt water instead of chlorine!  So nice!

I slammed my finger in (under the lid) tank of the toilet right before leaving and had to being ice with me for the drive home.  My poor finger throbbed for the whole 14-15 hours it took to get home.  My finger still hurts.  Other than that, the ride home went better than the ride down.  It was nice to come home to a quiet, untouched home and to my own bed!

It has been really hard to get out of lazy mode and it's been in the 70's, so I have no motivation to go to the beach or anything like that.  We've only gotten out of the house a couple times since getting back. 

I completely gave up on Faye's tumbling class.  I tried to get our money back immediately after the first class, but they wouldn't give a refund so we decided to try to stick it out.  Well, we've only been to two classes, including the very first class.  The class is all done now and we signed her up for teeny, tiny Tappers which is a much younger and more specific age group.  She is 8 days away from being too old for the class, so I'm really hoping it works out for her.  She loves dancing!

First grade starts for Maddox in 2 weeks and preschool for Faye, 2 days after that.  She'll go twice a week and she is pumped!

I signed up to be an Independent Consultant with Usborne books and hope to make enough monthly to pay for Karate for Maddox.