As my fourth child, you were never going to get the fresh-faced version of your mother. You were never going to have all of my attention because you have three other siblings who really like to break things and make loud noises. You were never going to get rested Mom, well-hydrated Mom, sure-let’s-get-in-the-car-and-go Mom. Truly, every kid gets a different iteration of their mother. Your oldest sibling, for example, got the scared-out-of-my-wits version along with the young and energetic. But you, sweet boy, got me in an especially different way. A year and a half before you were born my mom – your GoGo – died and the 22 months before that I…
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It's a Boy! (dammit)
So. I’m pregnant. And full disclosure: I really wanted another girl. I wanted our eldest to have a sister to relate to, I loved the idea of my two boys being bookmarked with a little less testosterone, but mostly? I wanted another little girl to share in the thing my mom and I had. She used to buy this terribly amazing ice cream that had actual Butterfinger swirled into it. It was like our emergency fire extinguisher: we broke the glass for mean girls and stupid boys and post-fight-make-ups and really bad period cramps. Two spoons, one tub, no shame. We’d sit in her bed with our comfort food and…
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Preamble to an Explanation: Unmedicated Birth
I plan on writing a post about why we’ve chosen the out-of-hospital birth route {and now even homebirth – woo, boy!} as a part of my Folk Tales series, but before I do I wanted to make this so clear: if you choose to “do birth” another way, I support you! I read the beginning of Redeeming Childbirth when I was carrying Eli and one thing she talks about early on is this great divide among women – specifically Christian women – about birth. You have the mainstream, epidural crowd on one side of the chasm and the radical, homebirth bunch on the other side. To me, it seems like…
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Eli's Birth Story
Oh, how we do not know for what we ask! When I asked God to help me to labor well – to glorify Him and worship Him in the midst of suffering – I imagined the foggy storm of transition and pushing. I was seeking His help to get through the violence and terror. I didn’t realize I would need it so much in the calm mundane of this waiting period. I couldn’t have predicted being pregnant in mid-June because everyone thought the birth would be early like Raychel’s. When I had contractions on May 24 we thought, “this is it!” with good reason. The only contractions I felt with…
