Life Lessons from Labor

When I think of never going through pregnancy again, I feel So Happy. But I am actually a bit sad about not having another labor. It is such an incredible experience. I have often thought of how helpful those breathing exercises are for every other part of life with children. Then I started thinking about all the other life lessons I learned through labor. Here are some of them.

~ Everyone says, “You will know when it is time. You will know, you will know.” And you will know...but maybe not as soon as you would like. But that’s okay, you don’t have to have it all figured out, even if you have been through this before.

~ Sharing horror stories seems to be part of human nature. Whatever you are about to experience, someone will feel it is their duty to tell you about the horrible thing that happened to them or their cousin’s sister-in-law. Seek out the good stories.

~ Listen to the truth about what is going on inside yourself. Your head may be telling you something different – I shouldn’t feel this way. It is not time yet. This is not how I expected things to be.

~ You may not handle things as well as you thought. That’s okay. How could you possibly have known what you were getting into?

~ Preparation matters. Knowledge matters. Support matters. But sometimes life still happens anyway and there is nothing you could have done to prevent it.

~ Just because things didn’t go according to your plan doesn’t mean they went wrong.

~ Other people will try to tell you how you should feel about your life experience. You should feel happy because “nothing bad happened,” but you still feel heartbroken. You should feel violated because someone else made the decision for you, but you just feel relieved. You should feel pain but you feel joy. You should feel empowered but you feel helpless. Feel what you feel. Find people who will let you feel what you feel.

~ If 1000 people go through the same thing, they will all experience it differently. Live your experience. Don’t compare.

~ You are stronger than you think. So much stronger. You are also weaker than you think, and you can be both at the same time.

~ Sometimes you just need people nearby who can hold your hand and remind you to breathe.

~ When you think too much about what is coming, you may feel your courage failing. Focus back on the moment, back on the most basic elements of life. Breathe in, breathe out, focus with all of your might. This moment is all you need to handle right now.

~ Sometimes you need to be quiet and breathe. Sometimes you need to yell.

~ The deeper you are consumed by the task, the less you care about what people think of you.

~ You have to let go of control and surrender completely to birth something new.

~ Everyone has scars. Some are visible.

~ There are some things you can control. And a whole lot of other things you can’t.

~ There is a time when the line between singing and swearing and praying nearly disappears.

~ Two people can go through the same experience together and feel very differently about it at the end. It was beautiful, it was terrible. It was holy, it was traumatic. It was the best and worst day of life.

~ In the middle of the labor and pain and overwhelm, you may lose sight of what you are even in this for. But when the end comes, it is even better than you imagined.

~ When you finally get what you were waiting for, sometimes you feel joy. Maybe you feel relief, or fear, or unaccountable sadness. Maybe you are so tired you’re not even sure you care anymore. Maybe you feel nothing. That’s okay. It will come.

~ When your whole life changes in an instant, after the hardest day of your life, in the midst of pain and exhaustion, the world expects you to keep right on with life. Hold tightly to your rest. Make space for recovery.

~ When things get really tough, you may forget about the fundamentals of life. Drinking. Moving. Breathing. You don’t need someone to tell you what to do: you need someone to give you a drink, to show you how to move, to breathe with you.

~ When you are going through something really hard, things you wouldn't even notice in normal life can drive you utterly crazy.  Noise, smells, touch, people.  What is helpful one minute might seem torturous the next.  People can't read your mind, so you'll have to let them know.  And try not to bite their head off in the process.

~ You may feel normal and pain-free one moment and doubled over the next. It doesn’t mean that the pain isn’t real, or breathing space between isn’t real.

~ You are the one experiencing all the pain, but realize it can be an exhausting, emotionally trying experience for the people around you too.

~ If what you are trying isn’t working, try something else.

~ If you are too engrossed in the process to think clearly, surround yourself with people who can think clearly and advocate on your behalf.

~ You need someone who has the expertise to handle the problems and complications. You need someone who can show compassion. And you need someone who can just clean up the mess afterwards.

~ Your mind may tell you that you can handle this, but if things are intensifying quickly and your body says this is getting out of control, don’t wait around. Get help. And it’s okay to speed.

~ Pain feels different when you can relax, when you have support, and when you feel safe. Pain does not always equal suffering.

~ When the task seems most impossible, when you are sure you cannot go on, often you are close to breakthrough.

~ The hardest experiences can also be the most awe inspiring.

The Birth of Juliana Grace (A Retrospective)

I can hardly believe that six years ago, I was still impatiently awaiting this day that would change my life in ways I couldn't possibly imagine.  I wrote up my birth story at the time, but as I have since published my other birth stories, I wanted to publish this story as well, with a few additional thoughts.  This is for all my friends who enjoy birth stories as much as I do!

On Saturday morning I woke up to my first regular contractions. “This is it!” I thought, but they stayed mild and went away after a few hours. The baby was moving a ton all morning – in retrospect, I think she was probably twisting around frontwards! I kept expecting the contractions to start up again, but since nothing was happening I went with my mom to a quilt show in a historical southern home. It was so hot that I started feeling sick, so we headed home to rest. That night we watched Star Wars: A New Hope and I finally went to bed around midnight (what can I say, I didn't actually have kids yet).

I woke up to contractions at about 2:30am, after a couple of hours sleep. I had been having a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions over the past couple of weeks, but these felt different. I timed them for about an hour and they stayed about 5-7 minutes apart so we headed for the hospital, 45 minutes away.

Looking back I realized I could have stayed at home much longer, but it was the first baby and I had no idea how things would go. I was measuring 5cm at my appointment a few days before and my midwife thought labor might progress quickly, so she suggested heading to the hospital as soon as I was having regular contractions. She also said I had a “perfect pelvis,” which is about the best compliment you can get when you are about to give birth!

I had been dreading the long car ride, but the contractions were still mild, so it was actually pretty peaceful – not much traffic at 4am. When we got to the hospital at 4:30, I was still measuring 5 cm. After monitoring my contractions for a while, nurse said to go walk around some and they'd check again in a couple of hours.

My mom had come with us to the hospital and by now my dad and cousin were in the waiting room. My dad hadn't brought anything to do; he said, “I thought the baby might be here by now!” With all four kids, my mom rushed to the hospital and the baby was usually born within the hour, sometimes before the doctor arrived. (See where Adalyn's labor came from?) My cousin walked with Kevin and I all around the hospital, where she had given birth almost exactly a year before.

I was checked again at 7:30am but was still at 5cm. The contractions were coming 3-5 minutes apart but not much stronger than before. We were officially admitted and after settling into our room, we listened Enya and tried to rest for a bit. I spent most of the next three hours walking the halls with my mom and cousin, slowing or pausing during contractions.  Every so often, the nurse or midwife would hook me up to the fetal monitor and predictably my very regular contractions would immediately stop. We would wait for ten or even twenty minutes and then as soon as the nurse left, they resumed their 3-4 minute pattern. I told the nurse my uterus must have performance anxiety (which after reading Ina May makes perfect sense).

One last pregnancy picture at the hospital

When the midwife checked me again at noon, I was 7.5cm. I was glad that there was finally more progress, though it didn't seem like much after all those hours. The midwife asked if I wanted to consider having my water broken to help things progress more quickly. She knew I wanted a natural delivery and was afraid that I would be too exhausted once we got to pushing. We discussed what would happen and any risks involved.

Kevin had gone to grab some lunch, so when he came back we talked together and decided to go ahead with it. I was a little nervous because I knew things would get more intense. The contractions had been hurting, but they had still been very manageable up until now.

My cousin offered to stay if I wanted her there. I found her presence reassuring since she had been through all this recently and really knew what I was experiencing. When my water was broken, there was meconium in the fluid. The midwife explained that probably everything was okay, but they would need to have a fetal monitor on me the rest of the time (fortunately a portable one) and the NICU doctor would be there at delivery to check out the baby.

My contractions did immediately get stronger, and I started throwing up. I was glad when that was over and I could concentrate on breathing. I decided to sit in the shower and run warm water over my belly and back to help with the pain. I found the water so helpful that I stayed there for the next few hours.

Kevin sat/squatted behind me, putting pressure on my back, guiding me in breathing, encouraging me and massaging my tensed muscles to help me relax between contractions. My cousin sat beside me with a cold wash cloth, offering encouragement, reminding me to breathe, and feeding me ice chips. During this period, the contractions were intense and I had a hard time not tensing up, but I was able to manage them pretty well with breathing and was feeling good about things.

At 3:40 pm, the midwife checked me again and told me the bad news – I hadn't progressed any further. She discovered the reason for the lack of progress was that the baby was posterior (facing forward). The midwife tried to manually turn the baby internally – the one time I remember screaming - but was unfortunately unsuccessful. Because of the baby's position, I had started having bad back pain which made the contractions much more difficult. I also felt very discouraged, thinking, “All that work and no progress. The baby is stuck. This is going to go on forever and is only getting worse.”

The midwife wanted me to get on hands and knees for a while to see if the baby would turn. I got back in the shower, kneeling on a yoga mat, but this time the water and breathing weren't doing much. The whole universe compressed into the space of one shower, the world was lost in pain, and time itself stood still in deference to the cosmic force of labor.

Because the baby's head was putting uneven pressure on my cervix, I was completely dilated on one side so my body felt ready to push, but the other side was not complete. I didn't recognize the desire to push – I just knew that during each contraction my body seized up, my concentration broke, and I found myself gasping and unable to breathe. The back pressure was unrelenting and even in the brief breaks between contractions I couldn't function clearly. I started telling the others, “I can't do this.”

The midwife said, “Just stay here for 20 more minutes. You can do it.” When I kept saying I couldn't do it anymore, she would say, “You've just got 5 more minutes,” stretching out each 5 minutes into 10 and 15 minutes more. Somewhere inside my mind I knew the game she was playing, but I was too absorbed to argue. Who was I to judge twenty minutes from two hours, when time had ceased to exist?

In reality, it was about an hour until I went back and laid on the bed. All my muscles were tensed and fatigued, but I was too overwhelmed to relax. The midwife gave me a narcotic shot, which allowed me to rest some between contractions. I was pretty out of it, but I could still feel all the pain, and I didn't think I could handle it anymore.

Though I hadn't planned to have one, I told the midwife I wanted an epidural. She told me to make sure I was 100% certain about it, and after a few more contractions I decided I was. The nurses started me on some preparatory IV fluids and the midwife checked the baby again. The baby had turned somewhat, but now her head was crooked so her ear was facing down, and I was continuing to dilate unevenly. After unsuccessfully trying to turn the baby again, the midwife had me turn on my side hoping gravity would help.

I had to wait for the IV fluids to finished, but at 5:15 I was ready for the epidural. The anesthesiologist had been called, and the midwife checked me one more time. She said, “I don't think you want this epidural – you're ready to push!” I could hardly believe it! I really thought it would be hours more before I got to this point. She asked if I still wanted the epidural and I said no. I was still in pain but I didn't feel so discouraged anymore. The end was in sight! With a bustle of activity, everyone got into delivery mode.

I found pushing much easier. The contractions weren't as bad because now I had something I could do – what my body had been wanting to do all this time. I was working with them instead of just riding them out. I pushed for about 40 minutes. I kept my eyes closed almost the whole time and concentrated. Afterward I discovered I had a big fat lip – I must have been biting down on it. I could hear the nurses and midwife calling encouragement and helping me know when to push. Kevin stood beside me and held my hand. Everyone exclaimed when they could see the baby's head with all her hair.

And then, at 5:55pm, baby was born! I heard her start crying right away, and she was whisked off to the side where it seemed like a whole pack of doctors and nurses were waiting to check her out.

At first I just felt incredible relief. I couldn't quite connect what had just happened to “I have a baby now.” I was aware of all kinds of activity – Kevin cutting the cord, the nurses telling her weight and length and apgar score. In the meantime, the midwife was still with me and I felt consumed with the final stage of labor. I had a moderate tear, and though the stitches didn't hurt as much as everything else had, I just wanted it to be done. I was shaking all over and my arms felt like dead weight, but I had returned to the land of time and space.

During the whole time, I didn't really even look at the baby. I thought this might seem uncaring, but I had the idea that when when I saw the baby I wanted to be able to really concentrate on her, and I felt like I wouldn't be able to do that at the time.

She was pretty thrilled about the examination

The midwife finished with the stitches just about when the doctors and nurses finished checking out the baby. They handed her to me, and I got to look at Juliana for the first time. I still couldn't believe that she was my baby, the baby that had been inside of me all this time. I didn't feel the rush of love – that would develop gradually – instead I felt something more like awe. I thought she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. She curled up contentedly on my chest because in this big, new, crazy world, she already knew me.

Yup, still not sold on the outside world

My birth experience was not exactly what I expected it to be. How can you really know what to expect from labor when you haven't experienced it before? It was much more difficult than I had thought, much more cosmic. In the hours afterward, when all the pain was still quite fresh in mind, mostly I just felt grateful for the experience. I was grateful to the midwife for continuing to try different things when another doctor might have just done a c-section. I was grateful for the opportunity to go through that with Kevin, really working together. I was grateful for the unflagging support of my cousin, woman helping woman as it has always been. I was grateful for the strength I didn't know I had, to keep on going past what I thought I could endure.

My other birth experiences were quite different - a whirlwind delivery and a peaceful, even enjoyable labor - but I am glad that this is my story of becoming a mother. It helped prepare me for what was ahead.

And as everyone says, in the end, it is always more than worth it!

The Birth of Nadia Charlotte

[This is a birth story, so words like dilation and placenta will be bandied about. Since apparently not everyone has dinner conversations about eating your own placenta, if this sort of thing makes you all queasy or shifty eyed, you have been forewarned.]

Nadia Charlotte

Born January 18, 2016 at 10:35am

6lb 5oz, 20 inches

37.5 weeks and no idea I was about to have a baby

I was sure this baby wouldn't come early. All my wishful "early baby" thinking with Adalyn came to nothing, so this time I was determined to have realistic expectations. At 37.5 weeks I had made very few preparations, but Sunday night as I watched Downton Abbey, I started crocheting a hat I had been planning for baby's coming home outfit. I went to bed thinking, “Tomorrow I ought to start packing the hospital bag and think some more about birth.”

My stomach wasn't feeling great when I went to bed, which wasn't too unusual these days, and I woke from contractions several times during the night. This also wasn't unusual, although these contractions did seem a bit more painful than before. I didn't think anything about it until close to 5 am, when I realized I was having some semi-regular contractions.

I still didn't think it was labor, but out of curiosity I started keeping an eye on the clock. They were ranging from 8-12 minutes apart, but they were starting to feel deeper and more in the back, which was the main difference I remembered from real labor contractions vs. the months of braxton hicks. I lay in bed debating whether to wake Kevin. After barely making it to the hospital last time, I knew I shouldn't delay too long, but I wasn't feeling any urgency.

A bit before 6am I woke up Kevin and said, “I'm having some contractions...”

He sprang up. “Should we go to the hospital?”

“Well...I don't know yet...but maybe we should pack some things?”

He hurriedly packed our hospital bag and woke my mom, who was coming with us, while I lay in bed trying to determine if this was really labor. I had a few stronger contractions interspersed with weaker ones. Juliana came in about this time, confused and a little disturbed to see our light on and us packing up.

About 6:20 I decided we'd better go to the hospital, just in case. This time it was a peaceful drive. Kevin asked if I wanted music, but I just wanted to sit in silence and think about the possibility of labor. Contractions were around 6-8 minutes apart and still varying in intensity. I was halfway certain we'd end up getting sent home, mostly because I was so sure the baby wouldn't come this early.

I had to pause for a couple of contractions as we made our way through the parking garage and waited to register. During contractions I thought, “Okay, maybe this is the real thing,” but in between I didn't feel like I was in labor.

Settled in at triage; Kevin trying out his camera

I was settled into a triage bed for monitoring and was 5cm dilated when checked around 7 am. I settled back in the bed to rest as much as possible in case this really was labor. I kept thinking about the things I had still been planning to accomplish. I hadn't really gotten around to thinking about labor or preparing for baby, and I really wanted to get her hat finished!

I decided to give the girls a quick call since we left home just as they were waking up. Adalyn listened to me say hi, but she wouldn't say anything to me. I told Juliana we were at the hospital.

“Is the baby coming?” She asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said, “We're going to see.”

“Oh. Are you having a nice time there?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. I just wanted to say hi for a minute.”

“Oh. Well I could talk for longer!”

Contractions calmed down a little for a while, a number of wimpy ones interspersed with a few stronger ones. After a while they settled into about 5 minutes apart. I was still comfortable lying back on the bed, gripping the bed rails and breathing through the stronger contractions. Kevin sat by my side and mom offered me water and juice, but mostly I just wanted to lie there and be quiet and try to mentally prepare for labor.

When I was checked a little after 8 am, I was 6cm dilated. “You are definitely progressing,” the midwife said, “So we'll get you checked into a room.” While I was starting to feel like it was real labor, this was the confirmation I needed that we really would be having our baby today.

The L&D was completely full, so we waited while a room was cleaned for us to move into. I spent a few minutes talking to mom and Kevin about my labor desires and our plans for after the baby was born, since that was one of the things we hadn't gotten around to yet.

The contractions were getting too intense for lying down. I sat on the edge of the bed, leaning into Kevin and breathing through the contractions, the hymn words going through my head: “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.” I imagined pushing the baby down with my breath which helped me feel I was working with the contractions instead of just waiting them out.

We were able to move into a room at about 9am, and I was eager to get in the water. I started in the shower but quickly decided to try a bath instead. The bathroom had a fabulous, deep birthing tub and as I sunk into the water, I immediately felt soothed by the water. I sat up and gripped the hand-holds during contractions and sank back to relax in between.

The midwife and nurse checked in occasionally but mostly they just let me labor in peace, which was what I needed. Kevin rubbed my back and mom brought me cold washcloths. They reminded me to breathe slowly and stay loose. The contractions were getting more intense and were 2-3 minutes apart, but I could still handle them well. I breathed loudly through each one, occasionally moaning but mostly staying pretty quiet. I was very inward focused. If I focused hard on breathing then the pain was quite manageable. In between contractions, I was still able to think clearly, very different from the exhausted stupor I felt as I got toward the end of my first labor.

Sometime around 10:20, I started having trouble breathing through contractions, and I realized I was feeling a little pushy. The nurse asked if I'd like to be checked but I said I'd wait a little longer. I didn't feel quite ready to push.

I was reminded of my labor with Juliana, when I felt the urge to push long before I was ready. I didn't recognize it at the time; I just knew that everything felt too hard to handle. Its hard not to feel a little panicky when your body starts to take over and feel beyond your control, but this time I reminded myself that I knew what was going on, and when I was ready, I'd be able to push.

After just a couple more contractions I said the nurse had better check me. “Oh yeah, you're complete!” The midwife asked if I wanted to get out of the bath, and I decided I'd better do it now if I was going to. Between contractions I got out of the tub and made my way to the edge of the bed.

“What position would you like for pushing?” the midwife asked. “You can stand by the bed, or you can lie down or kneel on the bed if you'd like...” “I'm not sure,” I said, “Maybe I'll just see how it goes.”

As the next contraction started, my water broke forcefully and I felt baby rushing through the birth canal. I wasn't consciously pushing but my body was bearing down on its own. I felt the impossible pressure of her head as she was crowning – then the head was out. I instinctively reached down and grabbed her head and then her body as it slid out a few seconds later. I felt the deep relief that comes with birthing a baby – plus surprise that she had come out so suddenly. The midwife dove down to grab the baby as well, so fortunately there was no danger of me dropping her. I always thought it would be cool to catch my own baby, though, so that was pretty fun!

“I thought she would come quickly once the water broke, but I didn't think it would be that quickly!” The midwife exclaimed.

I held the baby awkwardly between my legs as the midwife helped me bring her up to my belly. After a brief silence, baby started to wail loudly. I managed to get onto the bed where I could hold baby on my chest.

A few minutes after birth, still covered in a healthy coat of vernix

I kept her on my chest and waited for the placenta, which came shortly after. The midwife examined it, showed me the unusual cord attachment, and considerately asked if I wanted to keep it (I didn't, fyi). She discovered I had a second degree tear, something I was hoping to avoid, but the 30 second delivery meant there wasn't much of a chance to control the speed. That part felt like Adalyn's birth! Apparently I no longer push babies out; when they're ready they just barrel out on their own.

The nurses took the baby to the other side of the room to check her out while the midwife put in a few stitches. This really is my least favorite part of labor. You are so ready to be done and not have someone poking around at you. Also the afterbirth pains were starting up and by baby three, it almost feels like you're still in labor.

I heard them call out the baby's weight – 6lb 5oz. She was the smallest of my girls and almost identical to my size at birth. I was also born 2.5 weeks early.

The stitching was finished about the same time as baby's check up. Baby came back to snuggle on my chest where she nursed off and on while Kevin and I settled on her name: Nadia Charlotte. After a couple of hours I realized Kevin might want a chance to hold her too!

It was pretty much my ideal labor. Juliana's birth was 15.5 hours - not bad for a first labor I guess, but I found it difficult, overwhelming, and exhausting. Adalyn's birth was less than 2 hours and quite exciting - it happened so quickly I hardly even had time to process it. Nadia's birth was 5.5 hours and very peaceful. We had plenty of time to settle in at the hospital, and the only part that was rushed was her actual emergence. The labor was never unmanageable and I really felt in the zone, able to focus completely and breathe through the difficult contractions all the way to the end.

Later that afternoon, the girls came to visit, excited to see meet their new baby sister. Juliana was especially enamored – Adalyn was a little more interested in exploring the hospital room. They both gave lots of kisses and Adalyn practiced saying “Nadia, Nadia, Nadia” while playing hide and seek behind the curtain.

“So,” Juliana asked once again, “Did you have a good time today?”

“Yes,” I told her. “I guess I did.”

It wasn't the cute owl hat I had planned, but I did finish a hat for Nadia's homecoming!

Full Term

Tomorrow I will be full term, 37 weeks pregnant.  Finally, the end is in sight.  My body is gearing up and progressing well (4cm).  I'm glad to know all the contractions I've been having day and night, which have become increasingly more uncomfortable the past few weeks, have actually been doing something!  Unfortunately I know from last time that the progress doesn't necessarily mean much for either early delivery or fast labor.  37 weeks may only be the beginning of full term, but I'd still like to think I don't actually have three more weeks! And surely it couldn't be more.

Actually the end has been a little more tolerable this second time, I think because the whole rest of the pregnancy was more miserable.  But I wouldn't be at all sad if baby was a bit (weeks) early.  I may have mentioned before that I don't exactly love being pregnant.  Unfortunately, general intolerance with being pregnant doesn't seem to make baby in more of a hurry to come.  Just ask my cousin who has been miserably sick for the past 39 weeks.  I'm just super glad to not still be nauseous and throwing up all the time!  I'll take an awful lot of back aches, sleeplessness, heartburn, contractions, fatigue, and general aches and pains over being sick.  Still, there are times in life when three weeks seems like a very long time.

My cool belly henna

I have had a couple of wildly productive weeks in which I accomplished all five of the items I mentioned in my last post: got henna, borrowed baby items, bought cloth diapers, wrote newsletter, and ate more guacamole.  I even did a few other things as well, like made cloth wipes, packed a hospital bag, bought a big sister present for Juliana,  painted a big sister shirt and little sister onesie, and hung out with my very pregnant friend and very pregnant cousin, speculating how much longer pregnancy would really last.

In preparation for labor, I have been re-reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and contemplating how cool it would be to meet Ina May (a legendary midwife).  I also created a birth plan, which wasn't too hard since it was very similar to my last one.  The term "birth plan" still seems a little off, since the years in China have left me skeptical of plans in general - how often do things actually go like we expect?  I appreciate the idea though - an opportunity to contemplate and discuss your childbirth goals and ideals. 

Everything didn't go exactly as I imagined when Juliana was born (she was face-up so I had a lot of painful back labor, there was meconium in the fluid so they had to check her out and I didn't get to hold her immediately), but in general I was still able to have the kind of birth I desired.  Before having Juliana, I really hadn't thought much about childbirth until meeting with my midwives and taking a course geared toward natural childbirth.  Since then, childbirth has become a topic of particular fascination for me.  I love learning about the ways our bodies are created for birth and hearing positive birth stories.  I have come to view childbirth not just as something to get through with as little pain as possible but as an important, powerful experience in itself which results in a beautiful new baby.  Not to mention the end of being pregnant!

This time I already know one "hitch" in my plans beforehand.  I tested positive for group B strep (a bacteria up to 30% of women carry off and on, without actually being sick), which mainly means I will need to go to the hospital soon after labor starts to receive antibiotics.  I would have preferred to labor at home for a while before going to the hospital, but it shouldn't make a huge difference.  I should be able to create a comfortable laboring environment, and I feel confident in my midwife not pressing for unnecessary interventions.  I'm also not excited about being hooked up to an IV while receiving the antibiotics, since it will be harder to move around, but I'm glad it won't have to be the whole time.  Fortunately the baby's odds of receiving the infection are very small, 1 in 4000 when the mother receives antibiotics.

Aunt Becky's hand-sewn quilt with animal pictures she drew (she made a similar one for Juliana with pictures from children's books)

I still have a few more projects to keep me occupied as I wait for baby, but all of the vital things have been accomplished.  We have a car seat to take baby home from the hospital.  We have a baby sleeping basket in case baby actually sleeps on her own sometimes, and we have a bed rail for co-sleeping.  I have washed all our newborn clothes and blankets.  Baby also has a couple of really cute new blankets from Grandma Yaya and Aunt Becky.   I have a bunch of washed newborn diapers and some cloth wipes made.  I am working on a cloth book with pictures Juliana has drawn for baby, things like "babies with lots of tails" and "roads with tape."  It's supposed to be a present Juliana can give the baby, even though it will take a while for the baby to care.  We already have a big sister present for Juliana which is the important one.   So anytime baby wants to come she can just come right ahead.  Anytime baby, anytime.

Grandma Yaya crocheted this Noah's Ark afghan