The final stretch

I think the mental phases I have gone through are rather funny.  There are some days when I really look forward to a new little one joining our home . . . but most of the time, that seems like the oddest concept in the world.  Last month I was so huge that I couldn't wait to be done being pregnant . . . but now I feel like being this big is just a permanent thing and have no real desire to be done.  I remember when I was 9 months along with Kaitlyn, everyone kept asking me if I was just miserable and ready to be done and I had to honestly tell them I was just fine.  I did get the flu with two weeks to go, and that was true misery.  I remember just setting out food for Tyler and laying on the couch for hours on end.  And I told my husband that no matter how "natural childbirthing" I am, if I went into labor his instructions were to get me wheeled into a hospital and put out of my misery in a C-section.  Thankfully Kaitlyn hung on until I was feeling better.

Right now, I am in the denial stage, where I have gotten used to telling everyone that I wasn't going to have a baby for months.  And I cannot wrap my brain around this baby coming any time soon.  Somehow even going through checklists and getting things ready hasn't helped.  In fact, we just moved the date up quite a bit with the whole Leap Day concept.  I'm still not happy about inducing at 39 weeks.  I know that the baby will probably be quite ready to go, and that scheduling things makes it much easier on my mom and everyone else, but I was really hoping to actually go into labor on my own for once!

Anyway, I have been trying to get everything done.  I made a car seat canopy last week.  I haven't used one of these before, and I don't think anyone had them when I had my other babies.  But I haven't seen a car seat in the last couple of years in Utah that didn't have one on, so there we are. 

I have my hospital stuff packed in the diaper bag, and all the clothes hanging up or folded and ready to go.  I made a pocket thingy to hold my ipod and phone, so I think this bag will work.

And I finished the curtain for the kitchen window!  I say all the time that my craft projects are easy - like the two I just listed above - but I have to admit, this one was a doozy.  I knew I wanted a roman shade for this window, since most of the time I want the light to come in and occasionally the sun is right in my eyes while I am doing dishes.  So I needed something that would scroll up and down, not across.  I saw some "cheater" tutorials, but they just didn't look like they would be decent when they were finished.  And then I found this tutorial.  She says that it only took her 2-3 hours per curtain, and I think she is a liar.  Since my window was so large, even just cutting the fabric the right size took me that long.  But look!  A professional looking roman shade made out of a store bought curtain so it matches the others!  I am dang proud of this silly curtain.

That might not look impressive, but just trust me on this one.

Anyway, those were my distractions from the looming induction date.  And then on Friday night, Tyler seemed a bit tired at dinner while Daddy was on a scout trip.  While I was cleaning up the kitchen, I had to dash over and get after Kaitlyn for talking Tyler into sharing his sucker (which she was chewing the last of when I discovered this).  And when I reached Tyler I found that he wasn't just tired, he had a roaring fever.  He threw up that night, still had the fever the next morning, and has now gone into the "coughing up a lung" phase.  Flu.  When I am due in two weeks.  That's sort of my worst nightmare.  And of course, I can't think of a better way for him to give the flu to his sister than to give her his sucker to chew up.

So, as awful as this sounds, I have spent the last couple of days avoiding my own children and washing my hands constantly.  I just take care of all their needs and leave the room.  Thankfully they are rather easy going little kiddos, and old enough to take care of themselves for the most part.  Tyler spent hours yesterday just sitting at the computer playing a patterns game.  And Kaitlyn still hasn't shown any symptoms, but it would be a miracle if she could avoid it.  Well, it will be a miracle if I avoid it too.

Avoiding your kids isn't all it is cracked up to be, though.  Especially when Tyler is such a sad, miserable lump of a sick kid.  Every time I look at him I just want to curl up with him in a chair and snuggle.  And when I needed my side projects the most, I actually managed to finish them all Friday night.  I spent Saturday checking the internet every three minutes for updates on sites I didn't care about just to keep myself occupied.  And today I organized my sock drawer, for heaven's sake.  Granted, my house isn't spotless, so there are better things I could do, but I need a project to get my mind off things, not a counter to clean for the fourth time that day. 

Speaking of which . . . I better head back to sweeping the kitchen.  And chanting "don't get sick, don't get sick" over and over to myself.

Updates and Valentines

Christopher:
*Is fully into training for his IronMan now.  His current goal is to add up to an IronMan each week - meaning, in all the workouts he puts in, he has to run 26.2 miles, swim 2.4 miles, and bike 112 miles total for the week.  That means he is putting in an hour or more each and every day.  Ugh.  Thankfully, he needs a lot less sleep than the kids or I do, so many of his workouts are done after I go to bed and don't detract from family time.  I have to admit: I'll be proud of him when he acheives this, and even more happy when it is over.

*In related news, he is in love with his new toy.  He test drove one of these at CES and thought they were awesome . . . but already had a spin bike that he uses all the time in the basement.  But when he saw one come up on the classifieds for a screaming deal (seriously, it was never used once and half retail cost, but elsewhere is sold out so many places that most stores charge twice retail right now) it ended up in our basement within hours.

Basically, what makes this bike "the coolest thing ever made" is that you can map out a course on Google Maps and then the bike will run that course for you.  It changes to angle up or down for hills, and the resistance changes accordingly.  It even shows the street view for the course you are running.  So even though there is still snow on the mountains, the first thing Christopher did was bike the Alpine Loop (a nearby, challenging, 3 hour bike run).  And even though we live hours away, he can practice the St. George IronMan bike course any time he wants to.
Sarah:
*Is very, very pregnant.  But that's a good thing.  We have passed the point where I had Tyler, and I don't ever want to have a baby that early again.  So while I am huge, uncomfortable and being used as a jungle gym on the inside, that's a good thing.  I'm still going a little crazy cleaning out nooks and crannies in this house, but that's a good thing too.  We're still sorting out names for this little one, I'm almost done with the car seat canopy, and I still need to get Grandma's room ready for her, but I think we'll get everything ready.  I'm due March 7th, but of course that date means almost nothing.  Christopher says he wants a Leap Day baby.  I've always said I'm aiming for a Pi Day baby (3/14 is March 14th).  And my poor mother has no idea when to schedule her flight.  The baby has dropped down into position, but I could be like that for another month.  My Midwives did offer that they would be happy to induce on Leap Day, since I would be 39 weeks at that point, so we'll see if we take them up on that offer.  I mean, how cool would it be to have a baby on Leap Day?

Tyler:
*Is making some  funny progress lately!  I'm not sure what caused this, but about a week ago he suddenly noticed where his clothes are stored in his room.  And that he could dress himself in anything he wanted.  I have him go to the bathroom right when he gets off the bus from school.  So now, nearly every day, he goes potty, runs upstairs, and changes into an entirely new outfit.  We get PJ pants, random shoes I didn't know he could fit into, you name it.  And I end up with a pile of clothes in front of his dresser.  It is double the laundry, but still a good little independent step for him!

And then yesterday, I watched him pull a stool around the counter, use it to climb up and get a cup from the cupboard (problem solving!), put the stool back, and fill his cup up with water from the fridge to drink.  For Tyler, that is a huge step.  He has even been making enough strides in speech that he might test out of speech lessons at school!

*He loved filling out his valentines for school.  It isn't an easy task for him.  Thank heavens we gave that kid a short name, because the letters aren't always in the perfect order.  And he wasn't too concerned about the size of his letters until he ran out of room in that little tiny box.  But when I ran out of patience and told him we would work on it later, he protested until he got them all done.  "NO!  I have to write T - Y - L!"  Apparently when you are protesting, you don't need to use the whole name.  He has become more particular about the sequence of things lately.  For example, if I ask him what cereal he wants while he is still getting dressed, he tells me "No!  I don't need cereal!  I need to put on my shoes!"  Carry on, dude.

He was proud to show his valentines off when he was all ready for school.

And when I went to their Valentine's party and picked him up, he got to wear this cool heart home.

Which is much more funny when it blows in the wind.

Kaitlyn:
*Always cracks me up and impresses me with her logical discussions.  She loves learning the way things are supposed to work, and reminding me of what she learned.  "I need socks.  'Cause you 'member, when it is cold outside, we need to wear socks."  "No, you can't eat me!  I'm a person, not food!"  A couple of weeks ago she went over to a friend's house for a playdate, but ended up back home rather quickly because, as the Mom said when she dropped Kaitlyn off, "Lily is just being a stinker today.  Kaitlyn was good, but Lily was causing all these fights, and just wasn't behaving well enough to have friends over."  So yesterday, Kaitlyn told me "I want to go to Lily's house to play today.  'Cause you 'member, Lily isn't a stinker anymore.  So that means I can go play at Lily's house."

*She had fun with Valentine's Day too.  She did the whole thing all by herself - she wrote her name on them all, her friend's names on them all, sealed them up, decorated her box, you name it.  I saw a lot of really elaborate Valentine's boxes on facebook yesterday, but I liked having her do all the work.  She even liked "accessorizing" her own outfit.

I love little kid handwriting!

Kaitlyn's favorite of the day was "heart attack"ing Daddy's truck at work.  I made some apple doughnuts for him (leaving a batch of those in his truck for his birthday led us to get back together when we were dating way back when) and helped the kids cut out and decorate a bunch of hearts.  And Kaitlyn loved that it was a surprise.  We parked a block or two from Daddy's work to cut them out in the back of my Pilot, and she kept saying that "we need to hide so Daddy doesn't see us!"  and then ducking down.  And when we got out to run and put the hearts on, she told me we needed to whisper so he didn't hear us. 

And apparently, last night she told the babysitter "no!  I can't be your Valentine!  I'm a person, not a Valentine!"  Silly babysitter. 

HypnoBirthing

I have used HypnoBirthing with both of my previous birthing experiences, and lately I have been re-taking the classes to refresh my mind on the whole process.  Taking the classes now after using it for two births has been really interesting.  There are some things in the classes that, with all due respect to the die-hard fans and teachers out there, I just haven't found to be true in my experience.  But on the other hand, I think a lot of it is really valuable life-lessons for everybody, not just expectant mothers.

First of all, if you are like me, the first time I heard about HypnoBirthing, the name alone made me laugh out loud.  I thought it sounded like some stupid, hippie, "granola" sort of thing to do.  There was a flyer for the classes hanging on the wall at my midwives' office, and I thought it looked ridiculous.  But then when I mentioned to my midwife that I was more afraid of needles than pretty much anything in the world (including pain), she pointed me straight to the classes.  She told me it was all about learning to focus and calm yourself, and that in the worst case scenario it would help me focus and relax . . . while the epidural is put in.

So if you think it sounds ridiculous too, just hear me out for a few minutes.  (Or more . . . I tend to get long winded on this topic.)

First of all, what I don't believe:

*"We firmly believe that comfortable birthing is a possibility for 95 percent of birthing mothers through this philosophy and program." (Hypnobirthing, page 22)

I wish that were true.  The thing is, nothing in the world is as varied (or frankly unfair) as pregnancy and childbirth.  Some of my friends have horrible pregnancies where they puke 4 times a day for 9 months and practically get hospitalized for high blood pressure or innumerable other things, and yet some women out there barely knew they were pregnant.  And the same is true for childbirth in spades. 

I consider myself fairly lucky.  I have had Pitocin with both of my births, and while that isn't my preference, it has kept my labors down to 6 hours or so.  It was no vacation on the beach, though I would say they were both manageable.  But I have a few friends that I converted to Hypnobirthing who practiced far more than I ever did, were calm and focused to the best of their ability, and had excruciating, long labors.  It works for me, and I think that there are a lot of women out there who could benefit from it - one of those friends told me she is going to start practicing again to help herself through the part before her epidural - but it is not for everyone.  So I'm not the type to run around trying to convert everyone in the universe to it.

*"There is absolutely no substitute for the work of this course in conditioning your mind and body in preparation for birth." (Hypnobirthing, page 118)

The first half of the book talks about how natural the process is.  Historically speaking, childbirth wasn't considered a painful or medically attended procedure until fairly recently.  Part of the problem came when it was determined that a painful childbirth is a woman's way to pay for Eve's transgression and her sin that conceived the baby in the first place, and midwives were actually outlawed.  Women were almost encouraged to experience pain.  And now the concept that childbirth should be painful is enforced by movies and especially by the exaggerated tales of childbirth that women all love to top each other with.  ("You were in labor for 18 hours?  That's nothing!  I was in labor for 2 days!  And my 10 pound baby ripped me to shreds!  My epidural has caused back problems for the rest of my life!)

But you know what?  Women are designed to give birth.  We aren't all perfect at doing what our bodies were designed to do, but as a species, this is what we were meant to do.  A big part of the process is listening to your body and letting that determine the course, and not panicking because of what someone else told us would surely happen.

And I find it funny that after chapters talking about how natural the process is, they drill into you that if you don't spend an hour a day practicing relaxation, that will be what you blame when you have a difficult birth.  I'm not saying you just read the book and magically do things perfectly, but I am saying that I don't beat myself over the head with it.  This is a natural process, and once I learn how to let go of my negative feelings and let my body breathe and do what it is designed to do, I will be okay.


Enough with the negative stuff.

Things I think everyone can learn from HypnoBirthing:

*Physical things are a lot more mental than we give them credit for. 

You can ask any marathon runner (including my husband), and they will all tell you about "The Wall".  There comes a point - perhaps at midway, perhaps with a mile or so to go - when your body says "NO WAY."  Every muscle screams that it is time to quit.  The only way to get around that physical difficulty is mentally.  You have to be prepared for it.  You have to want your goal badly enough that you won't let anything stop you.  You have to focus on all of your training and power your way through it.

I think it is amazing the power that our minds have on our bodies.  Fear can make our blood pound, our face sweat, and our muscles tense, even when we are only afraid of a scene in a movie.  Of course, our bodies are often smarter than us.  We can't just will away an illness by wishing it so, because our body has a big job to do.  But we can certainly change how we feel that illness by how much we focus on the pain.

For me, I learned that this is really true in birthing.  When I was about four hours into the process with Tyler, I was starting to get weary.  Things weren't painful, per se, because I was still relaxing through things just fine.  But I was starting to look forward to being done.  And so when the midwife checked me and said that, in her experience, we were looking at another 6-7 hours or so, I panicked.  True panic.  And let me tell you, things instantly got more painful.  I was pushing about an hour and a bit later, but that was the worst hour by far.  When I was focused and calm, I could breathe deeply and relax.  When I focused on fear and tension, my body truly had a harder time functioning.  Which leads me to my next point.

*Fear of a task usually makes us worse at that task.

I learned this one when I was in 4th grade.  We had these end of the year reports that were HUGE.  We honestly spent months in my GT class researching our topic and writing our reports.  And then we each had to stand up and present our report in front of the class . . . and a camcorder.  I was terrified.  Somehow I wasn't nearly as nervous about my class or my teacher, but something about being on tape terrified me.

When it was my turn, I was shaking like a leaf.  I made it through reading my report, but stuttered quite a bit, forgot bits - the works.  And so when I finished and my teacher stepped away from the camera to tell me I did a great job and invite my classmates to ask questions, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. 

Little did I know that she didn't turn the camera off. 

When I watched the tape later I could see the clear difference.  When I was scared of the camera, I performed horribly.  But when I relaxed (assuming the camera and pressure was off), suddenly I was able to answer all the questions easily.  I cracked a joke or two with the class.  I smiled.  I was a good public speaker.

I wish I could say that knowing that made me instantly never nervous again, but it is something I practiced a lot.  Every time I got nervous in front of people, I would take a deep breath and remind myself that I wanted to do the best job possible, and that I could not do that if I tensed up.  After countless class reports, hours on speech team in high school, and a couple of years as a teacher, I can honestly say that I don't feel nervous speaking in front of people.  I know that nervousness makes me worse, so I push that feeling aside and perform better.

Now, if only I could apply that to my fear of playing piano in front of people - or my fear of needles.

In Hypnobirthing class, we talk about the "fight or fight" reflex.  It is an actual, medical state that our body enters when we are afraid.  Blood races to our hands and feet so that we can, literally, fight or flee.  And our body shuts down non-emergency functions.  That is why people who are fighting for their lives in battle aren't hungry - the body has shut down that normal need, and often even shuts out pain from injuries until we can calm down and the danger has passed.  But the danger doesn't have to be something out of a movie.  I'm pretty sure we all feel that level of fear when we see a police car behind us and think it will pull us over.  Or when you lose a child in a grocery store.

Or when you enter a delivery room in total panic, expecting to feel pain.

And guess what?  The muscles that control delivering a baby aren't considered by your body to be of any use in a panic. So they shut down a bit, just like your usual hunger.  Only you are focused on the pain, so you feel that even more intensely than usual.  And your body can't do the best job it can, because it is busy panicking.

*Stress doesn't have to follow circumstances.

I think we all know someone who truly amazes us by being upbeat and positive at all times.  And we also know someone who is a true pessimist that never loses a chance to gripe at their situation and elaborate on their horrible life.  But when I compare the actual lives and challenges of those two people - at least for the ones I know - the optimist is actually dealing with more issues than the pessimist.  Does anyone else notice that?

We all notice this (hopefully) early in life.  I don't anybody is perfect at applying it, but we know that if we remain positive through our challenges they become easier, and that if we focus on the "woe is me" tape running in our head, our situation doesn't usually improve.

With that being said, I still have many pessimistic and irrational moments.  But I am constantly trying to remind myself to breathe and look at the positive side, because that is just the only way to make it through life.

I would recite the entire story of Kaitlyn's birth and the point at which I lost my mind - because it is a funny story - but this blog post is getting way too long. Suffice it to say that I reached a point at which my physical challenge had not gotten any harder, but I put up a mental wall anyway and refused to budge.  It took a brilliant midwife (pictured above) to bring me back to a less stressful place so that my body could do it's job again.



Anyway, for anyone who actually stuck with me through this long-winded post, I hope you can see what I am saying.  HypnoBirthing might sound weird, and it might not be for everyone, but I do love the concepts that it teaches.  I love the challenge of natural childbirth.  I love being connected to my body and my baby that way, and I love knowing that I can accomplish something like this by focusing and slowly working my way through it.  I love the reminder to de-stress all aspects of my life to create a better and happier life.  And . . . I'm happiest when people don't try to stick huge needles in my back.

We'll see how this one goes.

(I just realized that this blog post contains not just one or two, but three horrible pictures of me.  Good grief.)