Stepping on Legos with Bare Feet!

2012-01-10T04:54:00.000-08:00

"Trust Birth". Here's how I feel about that BS: Would we tell someone who has miscarriages that she should "trust pregnancy?" Stuff happens in birth, sometimes bad outcomes that are noone's fault. It just is unrealistic to "trust birth." Educate yourself about birth, make the best choices you can & make sure you are repected in birth. A doula can help tremendously & so can a very intense NCB class, but trusting birth leads to lots of women feeling like crap when their plans go awry.

2011-11-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

Everybody calls the baby Bubble now, Ramsay named him that.
Bubble's fat tummy is the joy of my life. He is such a chubs & so cuddly.
All of my boys loving the same music & dancing around my kitchen is what I love.
So much fun to be with them in the mornings.
I love waking up to sweet fat cheeks in the morning!
As I deal with a tight budget at Christmas, its OK, the real riches are here at home.

2011-09-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Right at this moment I am blessed beyond belief. I have a mother's helper who is holding my baby on the playground & watching my toddler as I steal a minute away from laundry to write this!! I have been taking walks every morning after dropping the Middles off at the bus stop and have 30 lbs left to lose, hahaha. Its all complicated and its all easy, we have love, a roof & most of the time, the gift of patience.

Sep 11. 10 years later

2011-09-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

I heard the plane screaming down Columbia Pike, going towards the Pentagon. I sat right up in bed, " was that a fighter jet? It was SO LOUD!" Then we heard it crash.
I was reminded of the scene in La Bamba when the plane crashed on the playground, except we didn't see it, but we just knew we had heard a plane crash, a big plane. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard & then silence.

Larry & I looked at each other & said nothing for a minute. I was nursing 18 month old Jakob and pregnant with his brother Alistair. We had been enjoying a rare moment of the three of us sleeping in and lazing around in bed. We had one of those old fashioned answering machines where you could hear people leaving messages. My friend Tamela called & said " The World Trade Center was hit by 2 planes!!" Call me!!" My Dad called next, "There is some kind of terrorist attack, are you guys OK? The Pentagon just got hit!!"

Larry didn't have to work until 3 that day so we were trying to sleep in, plus I still had bad morning sickness. We stumbled out of bed to have all of it sink in at once, all 3 buildings hit & a plane still in the air! Where was that plane? Was it headed to DC? Would it be shot down now, over us? We were only a mile from the Pentagon.

I couldn't get my head around all of the death. People got up and went to work on a beautiful day and died in their offices with no warning. Some people jumped and none of us who saw the jumpers will ever be able to shake that image of the ultimate act of desperation. Unbelievable. I just don't have words for the horror of that day.

I went outside with my Jakob. We saw the smoke at the end of the street. All of my neighbors were outside of their apartments and everyone was talking & nervous. We actually didn't know what to say to each other, we were just shocked. Everything looked different.

I went back inside and took a shower and looked out the window at the most beautiful blue sky, my mom & I still think of it as sept 11 blue when we see super blue skies. I saw fighter jets flying by & I still had no idea where the 4th plane was, I was so scared. I wondered what kind of world my son would be living in now? What would be different in 7 months when my second son was born?

Larry came in & told me he was going to go to work later. Who goes to work on a day like this? I remember thinking. It was so scary being home alone, but I knew as the day went on that no more planes were in the air. The plane coming down in Pennsylvania was just overwhelming to me, I was just stunned that this was actually real.

Every single restaurant was closed and I was so nauseous, I could only eat a few things. I did what I did almost every night when I was on my own, without Larry. I grabbed my toddlers hand and took him for a walk. I sat and watched him play on the playground in my complex, I watched him chatter with new friends and I saw the painfully blue sky finally turn black. If I wasn't pregnant I probably would have brought a beer outside and drank it on the playground on that sad night.

Seven months later, the world felt safer than I thought it would when I tried to picture the future, back on Sept 11, 2001. But then it all went dark again.
My newborn son, Alistair was born very sick after a very hard labor. And then he died. He was 7 weeks old when he died in the summer of 2002. It seemed like every single day that I visited him in the hospital during his short life I had to walk through the same bright sunshine, the same blue blue sky as Sept 11. Everything in my life up until then had pretty much worked out fine for me. Now I felt you couldn't trust any moment not to change everything for the worse. It was June 11 when we found out that for sure, Alistair wouldn't stay.

When I think of Sept 11, I think of being a new mother, being pregnant with my second baby & still learning about my first baby. Now, the first baby is huge and the second baby is gone. My tragedy in my mind always connected to that terrible year. I have had 4 more babies since then. I am not a sentimental person, but when its that same day and it even looks the same, I remember the sadness I felt about all of the tragedies endured by so many families that day and then, having no idea that my own tragedy was about to unfold. Every one of us who was alive then has strong memories of Sept 11, these are mine.

2011-09-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my Joaquin just started kindergarten this week! He was such a sweet baby just the other day & now he rides the bus & goes to school with his older brother. Its really cool when they both come home at the end of the day together. I love hearing about their days at school.

I meant to write about our summer, but it was too busy to stop & write! I am in an action mode, not a reflection mode. But..we had a great time at the lake this year & here is a photo that shows how sweet our house is, its right on the lake & so relaxing! Its just not completely relaxing because there are lots of kids to keep track of. Considering though, that a year ago at the lake I worried a lot about the baby I was pregnant with after contracting 5th disease, it was really amazing to have him here & healthy. And my nephew, the handsome little Max, whose mom also had 5th's is also here & healthy...2 good reasons to really celebrate.

2011-07-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

One of my kids (guess who) had been expected to attend summer school because he has academic needs & is not at grade level...plus he is quirky as hell. Does whatever he wants to do! So, they recommended at his current elementary school that he attend an extended school year (free) summer school. I took him on the first day, walked him to his teacher, got attitude the whole way for doing that & he still smiled and hugged me good bye. He was ready for anything & he was open to it. When I picked him up he was upset, two teachers were manhandling him for leaving the line and looking for my car. I didn't like what I heard the more I asked him about it. I didn't like the atmosphere, it just seemed like babysitting a lot of kids with IEP's so I never brought him back. He does have to work with us to catch up, but no more summer school! I love when I find I still have the strength to protect my son from situations that would just kill his spirit. I'm sure many other parents will find the program wonderful & their kids will probably thrive there, but that was not the place for us!!

2011-07-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have had some fantastic summers as a stay at home mom, filled with sunshine, meeting friends at the pool, dinners al fresco & all that jazz :) We have also had some hellish summers, most notably 2002 & 2008. In 2008 all of the kids had whooping cough & I had a kidney stone drama that lasted from June through December. The only good thing about that summer was the unexpected addition of Ramsay to the family. Otherwise I can't think of a single good memory! So...this summer I am aiming high, to have adventures in ordinary places & give my boys lots of good memories. One of them wants to pray the rosary every day, another one wants to be read to; books about the Founding fathers are his favorite. The other 3 are content to just see neighborhood kids & play outside. The littlest just wants to nurse & cuddle.

This Friday I have my first lithotripsy procedure where I will have a few bigger (but still small, thankfully! blasted & I am nervous but very excited. If it goes well, I will be living in significantly less fear than usual! If it really does go well, I will throw a party! I will try to document as many days of fun & not so fun outings as I can!

Fun times at Burke Lake

2011-07-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

The kids rode the little train through the woods, my awesome mom was there & so were our cousins. It was actually one of our more successful outings but you wouldn't think so from these pictures. I even handled a complicated cell phone number porting drama while pacing the forest floor & keeping toddler Ram in line!

2011-07-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

My 2 oldest started aikido this week. It was cool to sign them up for something they could do together, but at their own pace. One of the boys, the one formerly known as The Creature!, got way more attention from the teacher than the other one.

On the wall were lots of articles about aikido & one had a great lesson in it about the importance of not being a planner, or getting too attached to our plans. We are much more likely to see ourselves as failures or to spend energy blaming others for thwarting our plans when they go awry. Instead, if we just appreciate where we are & the lessons in it , it benefits our development much more than a plan working out the way we wanted it to. This can be applied to daily life with a new baby (or any age kid!), birth not ending up how we wanted it to, a vacation from hell etc. etc, anything that didn't work out how we hoped it would. When the kids are in class I am going to keep studying the articles. So far I like the whole approach of aikido & I hope the boys like it.

2011-06-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

I had another kidney stone drama. 3 days (non-consecutive) in the hospital. Its a weird & creepy health problem to have, but there are worse things. The sad truth is I still have a bunch in the kidneys, but this time I have decent doctors, who are smart & know women & kidney stones too, awesome! As their patient I will never have to wait & explain my history, I just get sent straight to dilaudid land where I will live until its out.

Dilaudid is the drug in the movie drugstore cowboy, that Matt Dillon's character & his wife robbed drugstores for, its 50 x stronger than morphine. It is really a nightmare the week after, especially if you've had the misfortune of spending days on IV dilaudid. The next few days are really bad. At first you are elated that the stone is out, then everything seems vaguely challenging, then it all seems impossible & your will to live is just sapped by the narcotics. Finally, you slowly re-emerge, digging deep to get your mojo back. Music helps. a loving husband & really cute kids helps too. Man drugs suck, but its a necessary evil. I did avoid surgery & for that I'm super thankful, and I did every urine/blood test I was asked to do, so now I wait & see why I have this problem & get ready to end this process!

2011-06-02T11:07:00.001-07:00

http://www.stayathomemomologues.com/
A powerful blog post on why routine circumcision of newborn boys defies all logic.

2011-05-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

I used to wish I had an easier life, but today I am grateful for every challenging minute.

2011-02-05T16:21:00.001-08:00

"Grief is a teacher. It tells us that we are not alone; that we are interconnected; that what connects us also breaks our hearts — which is as it should be. Most people who allow themselves to grieve fully develop an increased sense of gratitude for their own lives. That’s the alchemy: from grief to gratitude. None of us wants to go through these experiences, but they do bring us these gifts." Barbara Platek

2011-01-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

Rafael Vicente!!

2011-01-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

The night I wrote the last post, the 9th of Jan, I went into labor and had my little guy in the morning by C section. It was smooth & peaceful, although I didn't have the dr I planned it with, the one who delivered the last 2 babies, it was still good overall. Pics of Rafa's first days ...

2011-01-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

I got this quote from this blog, http://a-mom-is-born.blogspot.com/2009/02/precipitous-labor.html
"I am left with the sense that I didn't so much give birth as I did give way to birth, and I am feeling far more humbled by nature than I am empowered or heroic."

She had her baby in a little more than an hour & was shocked by the intensity. So many birth stories, esp. home births are about women feeling "empowered" by their births. I like that she admits its humbling rather than empowering every time. As someone who had a challenging birth, then a horrific birth, followed by 3 very peaceful & beautiful C sections I came to birth already empowered. I didn't expect anything fulfilling from birth, I just wanted it to go smoothly, I wanted to be heard & I wanted to be able to do it again if possible.

The whole "trust birth" movement really rubs me the wrong way. I just attended the VBAC trial of a dear friend and I felt, more than ever, that birth is really luck. If you believe in it so heavily and it goes awry, then what? Did you not trust birth enough? Trusting birth is like having a kidney stone and trusting your ureters to get the stone out without surgery. Or trusting your digestive system to always work. Birth, like everything in nature, is bigger than us & doesn't always care about us. I am completely at peace with getting my babies here anyway I can & I am humbled by meeting my newborn no matter how he got here. However it works out, I am not in control & its the only birth he'll have.

Positives

2010-11-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

My little fun OB visit companion!

I have an antibody that lurks when Im pregnant & for the last 2 pregnancies it completely stayed out of the way. I just found out my number is right where they start monitoring more closely, with this, my 4th isoimmunized pregnancy. I am going t focus on the positives here, so far baby boy(what else? ;) looks good & is big, strong & active.
I am 30 weeks, which is much less scary than 20 weeks if baby needed to come out early!
I expected this 2 babies ago & was very lucky, so I am OK with extra monitoring.
I get to see him often, I see an OB one week & then the MFM/perinatalogist the next, all the way to the end, which God willing will be at least 37 weeks!

2010-11-11T12:09:00.001-08:00

2010-10-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

2010-10-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

Back in April, things were busy, very busy, but OK. We were at birthday parties every weekend, Joaqueeny was playing soccer, my oldest played an instrument, basketball & did Cub Scouts. The Creature was making it through Kindergarten, pt 2. The little guy was growing fast & cute & darling husband and I were healthy & happy.

Then, the night before the littlest guy's birthday party, Joaqueeny breaks his arm. It was a simple break that healed well & he has only good memories of the experience, but it was no fun to be back in the ER again. The birthday party was pretty spectacular, great food & drink, a moonbounce, a magician. It was a little too good though, neighbor kids were running in & out whenever they wanted & causing mayhem with nobody watching them, adult neighbors were starting fights with party guests, it all went downhill from there. In the future, back to basics, small & meaningful parties, with people that care.

In May, my oldest boy got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He was so unbelievably sick the week before he was diagnosed that I was terrified it could be something much worse than type 1. When we told him what he had, we wanted to do it right, we wanted to present it in a way where he would be as OK with it as he could be. He was not only OK then, thanks to an amazing hospital team & an awesome endocrinologist team, he has been completely OK ever since. He has such a great attitude that its contagious,he does all of his shots & glucose checks. He can go anywhere & do anything, even without us, as long as he carries his kit that hooks onto his belt. I wish could have been 1/10th as awesome of a kid (when I was a kid!) as he is now.

At the end of that first week after his diagnosis, I learned I was expecting Number 6!
So, its been absolutely eventful & I haven't even mentioned all of the testing for school that we did for the Creature for this year (so far so good for him!) and the swim team that the oldest swam on all summer, every single day! I have a lot of challenges but still feel blessed to be here to face them & learn from my unique bunch of boys!

2010-06-01T19:44:00.001-07:00

Its been such a challenging evening! I have lost my patience more than once & used language I am really trying not to use anymore. Too many hard things have happened to mothers I know. And then I went to one of my favorite blogs, Enjoying the Small Things, & I saw this quote,

"But, here's the thing. Once you become a parent...once you start feeling a little funny and you buy that pregnancy test...once you see a pink plus sign...once you know it's not just you anymore...well, you automatically carry around, for the rest of your life, an increased likelihood. To have your heart broken. And it's a constant fear that we struggle to put to rest.

And we can choose to be afraid or we can choose to live.

And I choose to live. "

love it.

2010-04-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

My friend Anne came to visit from Seattle, she was in town for a scientific conference because she is a very smart scientist, and she spent 2 nights with us. This is spring for us, outside, eating on the deck & exploring parks when we can. The boys loved her & it was fun to see someone as an adult that I had so much fun with as a teenager. We must have passed a million notes to each other back in the day! We used to explore DC together and watched tons of independent films and saw plenty of shows. We got good at finding the band after concerts and waiting by their tourbus. We discovered the Red Hot Chili Peppers were not very nice people, they probably are now :) I think of how bratty I could be back then & how unfriendly & I'm glad life knocked some compassion and cheer into me! Thanks Anne for stopping by, one day we'll get to you!

2010-04-15T05:35:00.001-07:00

2010-03-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

Cutest thing around town!!

2010-03-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

My Ramsay at a Leader day for us breastfeeding helping ladies. He plays well with others!

2010-03-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

With each baby I have a different physique and different figure flaws. In fact, my body looks worse each time, but...I have a better body image each time. I want to be awesomely fit and I try whenever I can to exercise, but its harder each time & I have to do more each time. You would think with constantly breastfeeding and babywearing that it would fly off, but I still manage to hold onto that last 15 lbs. The funny thing is I really don't care much, I care less each time. I am so glad they are here and healthy that being bigger than normal is not a big deal. As we go into swimsuit season I will keep telling myself that ;)

2010-03-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Great article in the Toronto Sun today about "minor" surgery & its complications!
http://www.torontosun.com/life/healthandfitness/2010/03/18/13277631.html#/life/healthandfitness/2010/03/18/pf-13277631.html

2010-02-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

My boys are all asleep after the most hectic suburban day ever. I am so thankful I got to leisurely wander around the National Portrait Gallery yesterday and have a great dinner with an old friend & my husband (!), mussels, shrimp, wine, crusty bread..
Anyway, today was go go go & I was already losing it by 11 am when my basketball player couldn't find his shorts. We pulled it together, dashed into Target for more shorts, ran him to his friends house & then I took Joaquin to my folks house and my Creature & my little chunk & I went off to a bowling alley birthday party. As soon as the last bit of cake was eaten we dashed across the county to catch the last 2 minutes of the basketball game. Thenm after many minor catastrophes, back to my parents' where we had dinner with my dad's cousin, her husband, my great aunt & my dear brother & his lovely lady friend. Now I am enjoying a rare moment alone

The picture is a castle in the Mosel Valley in Germany that is pretty much the same as it was 500 yrs ago. I am dying to take all of my boys to see it. Once my husband gets in that part of the world I don't think he will want to leave. This is my convoluted post for the day, but I am happy to have made it through the hectic and damn it, I miss the blizzard that shut everything down 2 weeks ago, it really made my life simple!

No such thing as recovery...

2010-01-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20340293,00.html

This is an article about John Travolta in People.com

John Travolta: 'We Work Hard Every Day' to Recover from Son's Death

By Jeffrey Slonim and Blane Bachelor

Friday January 29, 2010 10:20 AM EST

John Travolta and Kelly Preston

A year after the tragic death of their 16-year-old son, Jett, John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston say they "work hard every day" on healing – a message reinforced by their recent trip to deliver medics and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

"Once you get yourself stable, then you're able to reach out again," Travolta, 55, told PEOPLE. "And I think this whole year, every day we've been working on stabilizing ourselves. And it's been successful so far."

Added Preston: "It helps to look out and be helpful to other people … that really helps."

I agree with everything the two of them said, but then, you can't really use the word "agree" when talking about grief, because everyone's grief is so unique. As for the term "recover", that word has no place in discussing the loss of a child. A child is permanent, their soul is unrepeatable, they are not lost & replaced. It isn't like a sickness or a depression you get over one day like it never happened. Whether you parent a child here or not here, you parent them for life. A mother who has lost her only child is no less a mother than one who has one living, one dead. A person can "recover" from many losses, but I think losing a child is different, you may get some acceptance, but even that comes and goes.

Awesome letter to the Editor!

2010-01-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

This was in last week's paper, a fantastic rebuttal to the ridiculous article the Post put out last week about how newborn circumcision may be recommended again based on very flawed studies done in Africa on HIV & circ.

There's good concern for not circumcising boys

Thursday, January 21, 2010

It would be disgraceful bioethics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend circumcision for U.S. infants based on African studies ["Circumcision may receive new support," Health, Jan. 19].

Amputating healthy, vital, nerve-supplied erogenous tissue from helpless infants, based on an assumption that they will be promiscuous adults, is remarkably totalitarian medicine. It also flies in the face of epidemiological realities. The United States has high rates of HIV and the highest rate of circumcision in the West. The "experiment" of using circumcision to stem HIV infection has been running here for decades. It has failed miserably. Why do countries such as New Zealand, where they abandoned infant circumcision 50 years ago, or European countries, where circumcision is rare, have such low rates of HIV?

Circumcising infants who can then claim as adults that they are less likely to catch or transmit HIV is a foolish gamble. And if circumcised individuals still need to practice safe sex, why bother with a procedure that might make them overconfident? Moreover, in an age when "super bugs" are rampant in U.S. hospitals, the CDC needs to weigh carefully the ethics of preventing disease by amputating healthy tissue from helpless children.

John V. Geisheker, Seattle

The writer is executive director and general counsel of Doctors Opposing Circumcision

Jakob is 10!

2010-01-20T19:19:00.000-08:00

My first baby is 10!
Pictures to come... He is having his 1st sleepover to celebrate his new decade this weekend.

2010-01-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

There is a great website for parents who lost babies called "A Glow in the Woods." I am not that articulate anymore about intense grief, I am not there anymore, but I stop by and read from time to time. Tonight I read such a great essay there, "Birthing a Dying Child"
http://www.glowinthewoods.com/home/2010/1/11/birthing-a-dying-child.html

This part is great:
"As expectant parents dream up their their ideal “birth plans,” young mothers describe their birthing experiences around water coolers or playground equipment, and well-wishers congratulate new parents on Facebook walls, the birthing experience is often closely linked to merit. The fewer the interventions, the longer the unmedicated labor, the more (or less) dramatic the coping with labor pain, the bigger the baby, the higher the Apgar scores, and so on, the more heroic the birthing woman. Anyone who believes machismo is a strictly male phenomenon should listen to newly minted mothers swap their birthing stories. The natural birth movement in particular and the contemporary North American culture of parenthood in general deemphasize the unavoidable fact that no matter how much a woman takes care of her body, knows her body and trusts her body, the birthing experience may go horribly wrong."

And this, as a Catholic I love this:
"Receptivity is a central motif in Mariology across Christian traditions. "Here I am, the servant of the Lord," says Mary in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke as the birth of Jesus is foretold. "Let it be with me according to your word." Mary’s openness to the mysterious movement of God is her chief virtue and ours. But opening ourselves to that which is beyond ourselves is dangerous business. The possibility of parenthood is no exception. When a couple open themselves to reproduction, they also open themselves to the relentless pain of being unable to conceive, unable to give birth. A pregnant woman opens herself to being cruelly betrayed by her own body, to standing by helplessly while her child is betrayed by his or her own body. Opening oneself to giving birth is opening oneself to suffering and death-to managing debilitating handicaps, to burying one’s child, to being overcome with sadness at the mere sight of another parent doting on a healthy newborn. Opening oneself to giving birth is opening oneself to hell."

Being open to God's will is a huge part of my life and that's what gives me the strength to go on & be a parent to my living boys and be open to whatever plans God has for us. When I'm expecting a baby I don't care how old I am, I won't get the AFP, nuchal screen, CVS or amnio. All of my kids are equal, born or preborn. Anything really bad can be seen on ultrasound.

The essay also says this:
"Some Old Testament scholars define "lament" as the reaction to a belief-shattering experience. Even though I knew better, before I carried and birthed my daughter Cara I believed that if I did what was right, I could expect positive outcomes. This is my lament. Metaphysically speaking, I do not know why bad things happen. I do not know whether God wills them, merely allows them, cannot stop them or something else entirely. What I do know is that I am not fully the master of my own destiny and that one day I will again witness the birth of something beautiful."

I remember seeing people leave the hospital every day with healthy babies when I was stuck in there with Alistair, and I never did leave with him. Even in the worst days back then I knew one day that I would again experience the awesome feeling of leaving the hospital with a precious little person.

2010-01-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

With all of the devastation in Haiti right now, I feel self centered for blogging. I just read that its a logistical nightmare, the port is too damaged to use & the airport just opened, but its a mess because too many relief planes are coming in. Then, there's not really a safe and stable place for relief workers. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the big cruise ship companies anchored empty boats close by and helped provide shelter for Haitians and relief workers?

2010-01-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

I need to be sleeping right now! Everyone else is & that means I can too, but instead I'm here.

This picture was posted here last year, but I realize now its a picture of pure victory and joy. I had just gotten out of the hospital (kidney stone drama, big time) the day before, on Christmas Eve.

It was Christmas morning and I was healthy again. I had an unobstructed bladder for the first time in months & I narrowly avoided a stent placement that would have stayed in place for 4 months. I was on the mend and my 22 week gestation baby was OK after a night on IV morphine, and I mean lots of it.

I was and am so grateful that we made it through all that OK & as anyone knows who has had the unfortunate experience of hearing me talk about it..I am still shellshocked. I trust doctors less than ever and I know I have the possibility of more kidney stone dramas, but I will remain optimistic that it won't be that bad ever again. I may write more later (sorry!) but here is me last year, enjoying the absolute privilege of being sprung from the hospital on Christmas & here is my precious little guy & I together a year later.

2010-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

2010-01-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

I will try to write something little every other day or so, just to record that I was here!

Ram-baby loves to sit with us and play with spoons but has still not had any solid food, at 8 & 1/2 months. The time of your life when you have the sealed digestive tract of breastmilk only is so short, I'm not in any rush to break that seal. He is happy & chubby, he just nurses a lot. I don't why that doesn't help me lose more weight, but it doesn't seem to have much effect yet :(

Christmas break has been really good and really bad. I am oddly excited about returning to normal routine.

2009-12-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

2009-12-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

Facebook stole my blogging energy! Plus the whole mommy blogging world is so competitive, I didn't feel like I was up to it anymore. I am too busy living to be posting about it all. Yet its worth keeping a blog so I can se my kids through the years, I love going back & looking at their stages, since I don't scrapbook--this is my scrapbook.

Last year at this time I was in the hospital, with no idea if my baby would make it through my kidney drama. My urologists were all a bunch of lunchboxes.Thanks to my OB, the only one who knew what was wrong with me, and my own intuition, I made it home & Ramsay made it here healthy & whole!

My days are just frantic with 4 boys, breastfeeding & diapers. The only reason I am able to be here now is the snowstorm we had yesterday that dumped 2 feet of snow in Va.

Some highlights of the fall:
-my mom & I went on a silent retreat, we brought only the baby, it was amazing. I can't wait to go back.
-Jakob has become the biggest fan of Elvis
-the Creature has evolved into a kid that is enjoying school sometimes :)
-Ramsay is 8 months old, boo hooo, growing up too fast!
-JX loves preschool
-my darling husband still makes great beer & is getting to be in the best shape of his life in spite of it :) :)

Celebrating International Babywearing Week!

2009-09-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

I remember how excited I was when the Sacajawea dollar came out in 2000. I was a brand new mother who was so enamored with her little guy and so excited to do everything "naturally." Babywearing was one of the things I jumped into wholeheartedly. I wore Jakob everywhere, I had only a Maya wrap ring sling, but he was always there if we were out, and most of the time at home too. Then, here comes the new Sacajawea dollar coin celebrating a strong babywearing mama who trekked across the entire country, with only breasts and a papoose for her baby boy. I was inspired!

Since then, babywearing has become even more important to me. I can remember arguing with my mom and husband about bringing the "bucket" into a restaurant. "Just let him sleep, don't move him." (I was always trying to get him in that sling, even if it was all twisted up & crazy looking :) When my bucket car seat got too old we replaced it with a convertible car seat that doesn't leave the car, so the sling is where baby goes, even if he's asleep & baby gets used to going right back to sleep as I walk. I am freaky about it, I will sling my little Ramsay from the car to the house these days just so I can carry everything in.

What really made me a fanatic about keeping babies close was something I noticed when I sat and held my second son in the hospital every day for 7 weeks. He was in a coma after his birth and he never did wake up, and died 7 weeks later. Every day of his short life I sat and held him for hours. When I would wash up at the NICU door I could see the monitor that gave me a quick update on his health that day. Oxygen sats, heartrate, etc. Sometimes his oxygen saturation would be below 90% as I sat down next to him. As soon as I picked him up it would go to 100% and stay there until I had to go home. It was a small miracle that I got to see each time I held him. The second night of his life his doctor prepared us to let him go, but we held him the entire night and he rebounded. He was super sick that night, but for whatever reason, he stayed for awhile and I'm so glad he did. If a baby that everyone said wasn't aware of anything was able to love being held, then imagine how it would benefit any baby to be held.

Because of that experience with Alistair I never miss a chance to cuddle one of my babies. When I'm rushing to get someplace, I put on the sling, drop the baby in and go...and I'm instantly calmer...just because baby is close. I love being able to dart in out of the preschool hallways or see what I want in crowded museums. I love shopping and stopping to get sweet smiles from my littlest. I love hearing my older boys tell me, "put the baby on, mom!" I love that there is a week celebrating babywearing, it is such a great thing to get the word out about. Although I am a volunteer LC, I do think keeping a baby close may be more important even than what they eat. I can think of many babies that weren't able to get breastmilk, but were held, a lot, or kept close at night, and they are so connected and so secure. One day when I am no longer blessed to have a little baby, babywearing will probably be what I miss most.

2009-09-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

Koi madness

It was a perfect outing, everyone happy & great weather, until JX fell in the koi pond! Luckily it was shallow and mom was right there, but definitely not my finest hour.

My guy is 3!

2009-09-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

We took JX on a birthday tour of the city in a DC Ducks mobile. We all loved it, first you see all the important stuff in the city, White House, Capitol, etc & then you get in the Potomac river and see the city much more peacefully & quietly. It was amazing, and I have always been the anti-tourist. Then we had a party, which was perfect because we invited exactly 3 3 year olds. I can't believe my Joaquin is already 3.

2009-09-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

The article I wish I had written

2009-08-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Wow! I was writing this article in my head about how crazy those African HIV/circumcision studies are & then voila! Someone else wrote it for me & did an awesome job to boot:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/male-circumcision-and-the_b_249728.html

At the lake this year, rainy day pictures taken by my cousin Gale:

2009-07-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

2009-07-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

A blogger who also lost a baby boy to the same thing I lost mine to, wrote something about how he flinches and feels horrible every time he thinks of his son's birth and feels amazed that he has survived every day since. I feel the same way. There is pride in surviving all kinds of things: cancer, poverty...but there is no pride in surviving your own child. The only pride I have (and maybe pride is not the right word) is that my marriage survived the loss of our son.

It is wild for me to think I've had 5 kids. I definitely look like I've had 5 kids these days, it is very tiring & as I get older the weight doesn't come off from just breastfeeding. I am not one to feel sorry for myself, I have four very healthy boys, one of whom is just a wee bit crazier than the others, yet, I do miss my second son and I have many layers of loss involved with his death. I am not articulate about grief anymore, like I once was, I'm not in the rawest place. Sometimes I oddly miss that first year of pain though because I felt closest to my little guy then. Every day for the first year I could remember exactly how holding him felt, now I have him mixed up with the other babies.

Tonight I went to a friend's house with older kids. She kept pointing out all of the great things I could do to my house in the future when my kids are the age of hers. She seemed very worried my boys would get out of control in her house. Things improved after we had some beer. :)
I really am not in a rush to have the perfect house or the quiet of older kids who are into their own stuff. I am overjoyed to have a tiny baby, a toddler/almost preschooler, and 2 bigger boys. I breathe in the baby constantly, I just soak in his sweetness. He smiles at me no matter what, its no wonder I hold him constantly. I know what its like to have them grow and want less to do with you and I know what its like when your child is not here, at all.

Ramsay's baptism

2009-07-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Ramsay was baptised on Saturday and it was a wonderful and comical and stressful day. We were late for our own kids baptism which was embarrassing. My mom came to the car to help with the kids as I pulled up alone with 3 of them (dear husband was 20 minutes behind me!) My mom really let me have it! I had to do the walk of shame into the church where the other 4 families were already assembled with their crews, about 30 deep each. Although we were the last ones there, we had the first baptism.

They bless every kid in the church & then take each kid one by one with assembled crews, to the font in the vestibule and christen the baby. Then its back inside for candles and chrism. I love bringing Ramsay into our faith this way.

I love his Godparents so much that I miss them right now. We picked dh's oldest female friend, almost cousin, & her husband and its the first time we had an actual couple be Godparents. I can't express how seriously they took this and how much they helped with the whole day, planning & decorating for the party & cooking almost all of the food. They brought tons of Chilean wine (she is Chilean also) and she made a watermelon basket filled with fruit. The night before the party they came over with their teenage son and decorated every room, put balloons outside covering each corner of our fence & just helped me clean and do final shaping up before the big day. And they live an hour away! The party was smooth & perfect thanks to them, except for the AC breaking, which was pretty miserable, but one thing should always go wrong, too perfect is scary!

So, a beautiful day. It has been a bit of a letdown the past 2 days, but good times are ahead next week at the lake, God willing. I am just busy these days, soaking in the moments with my precious little baby and keeping bigger boys happy & occupied.

2009-06-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

For the 3rd year in a row we went to the fair! I really wanted to go b/c Naughty by Nature (among other "old skool all stars") was going to be playing & they are a lot of fun & I always had a crush on Treach. So we went, with all the kids, my brother & Ramsay's godparents. It was easier than I imagined b/c little guy slept the whole time, only waking up to eat at the end. Naughty by NAture was awesome, but the kids hated it. I always say there's no such thing as too much bass, but I think I heard too much bass, it was really thumping! My friend Jen said it sounded like the space shuttle being launched!
The big boy holding Joaquin in the pics is the teenage son of Ramsay's godparents, my boys love him. Joaquin is the only one who would go on rides, my other boys wouldn't ride a thing, they just wanted to eat fair food & people watch :)

2009-05-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

2009-05-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

In the first 2 weeks after giving birth, most women's emotions are all over the place. In fact I have never met anyone that hasn't had pretty extreme ups and downs in the first extremely hormonal weeks. And I talk to LOTS of mamas. This time, for me, the situation of adjusting to Ramsay was complicated by the fact that my due date was almost the same as Alistair's. Of all pregnancies to have to "do over" timeline-wise, it was very hard for it be that one, the one that ended in tragedy and changed our lives forever.

Maybe that's why I had all the drama of the kidney stone during the 2nd trimester & all the hell that went with it. Maybe I didn't properly face the pain and so I had to suffer physically, although I doubt it. I faced that pain pretty well and still do. I still worry all the time about the next kidney attack. But...back to the present moment. I have a healthy baby who is adorable and awesome. I have survived a huge surgery (for the 3rd time) that used to be a last ditch effort when a laboring mom was dying.

In the 1st 2 weeks I lamented the fact that I have to have C sections, the reason I have to is because my son died during a natural birth. It is horrible, but then I had no choice but to be positive about it. I am here, still, and I do need surgery, but I set goals to get through it & I made all my goals. Cath & Iv out first thing in the morning after surgery, in the shower that 1st morning too. All drugs out of my system before 2 weeks. And leading my breastfeeding support group at 4 weeks out. I made it and I'm very grateful. And all of my boys, including my precious Alistair in heaven, have a new brother, who is also unique and unrepeatable.

2009-05-18T11:25:00.001-07:00

Ramsay is one month old now and its been busy! This C section recovery has been good, but harder than the others. At 3 weeks postpartum I felt MUCH better and its been good since then, he eats constantly when he is awake & sleeps deeply and for a long time when he's asleep. Its tough with 4 boys but getting easier each day.

2009-05-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

2009-04-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

Ramsay Kieran is here!

2009-04-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

My sweet mellow little boy was born on April 16th at 8:09 am . He weighed 8 lbs 7 oz & it was a very smooth and fast C section. I think something was added to my IV b/c I was feeling more out of it during this birth than with the last 2. And I am dealing with some typical post surgical pain, but ... its nothing compared to kidney stones!!
I am just so thankful that we made it to 39 weeks and that he is healthy and strong. He is already pretty good at holding his head up. Today he smiled at me too!

2009-04-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

My Grandmother, Mary Straub, mother of my dad, died last night. She was an intense type of matriarch, a very powerful personality with a lot of strong opinions. Her husband was a surgeon and she had a great life in New York City, with summers at their house in the Hamptons. Later, they left the city for good and stayed out on the island. I miss their house on Long Island so much, after my grandfather died, she sold it.

Its a whole era that I miss, mostly because it included them. They had smart and interesting friends that would come over for cocktail hour almost every night and then we wouldn't eat dinner until late, close to 9 or 10 pm. It was not a kid-centric world and as grandparents, they wanted to be called by their names. I respect the way we were left to our own devices while they socialized. I'm pretty much the same with my kids now. Kids, go play, adults are talking now! I would try to come in and eat as much brie as I could before my grandmother caught me though...

Once my parents sent me to NYC to stay with them when I was 10. I flew alone and she picked me up and we spent every minute together for the whole week. I loved it! She took me shopping at Bloomingdales, to her hair salon, on the city bus, to an Ice Capades show at Madison Sq Gardens & she showed me Trump Tower, which she hated :). We met my grandfather for dinner at the fancy neighborhood steak house when he got off work. I was also sent to stay alone with them at their house in the Hamptons when I was about 14.

I have too many great memories of her to do her justice here on this puny blog, but in later years she suffered from dementia, so she hasn't been fully with us for awhile. Its just weird to have her completely gone. I aspire to be an awesome and powerful matriarch like her, she had her order and things she liked her way, but could also be very loving & surprisingly compassionate. Did I mention she was a beautiful woman? She was elegant and always fashionable, she subscribed to Vogue and was tall and slim. She had black hair and blue eyes & got very tan when she was living at the beach in her youth.

We will all miss her, my boys have known her their whole lives and she loved my husband. I don't look forward to telling my oldest that she is gone, when he comes home from school. Our family is less complete, but I know my grandfather and grandmother ( Ramsay and Mary) are together forever.

2009-04-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

Little boys begging for youtube fairy tale vids. Me sitting on my park bench, watching boys play. My darling husband surprised me with 2 gigantic palm trees!

And last weekend my dear friend Carol invited us to an incredible Italian dinner party and surprised us with gifts, for us, not the baby, since we have the same type of baby each time, we don't need much, It was such an amazing treat and wonderful to be surrounded by great friends.

2009-03-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

The beautiful "party tree" in our Hobbit like Shire that we luckily live in...

2009-03-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

2009-03-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

This week in the health news have been more headlines about circumcision being an important "tool" in the fight against 2 more STD's : Herpes & HPV. Of course, again, this info was based on the African studies. Studies that were done in ways that we could never do them in the US. I think its weird (of course!) to cut a newborn based on the premise that he might be promiscuous and I also think its weird to cut them knowing that in the time between now and the time he is sexually active the could easily have a cure for all of these diseases.

I also don't believe these studies are even true. Here in the U.S. we have an astronomically high rate of HPV, 80% of the women my age have it, and yet the partners of these women are from the generation that had a 90% circ rate. Again, they cut some African men, left others intact, left them alone & checked them later on. The cut men were home healing for up to 2 months after the surgery!

Here is what a guy named "Perspective" said on my mothering board today about it:

"We are a culture trying to find reasonings to continue practicing one of our most outdated traditions. And in the process are wasting the time of researchers and doctors, money, and taking unneeded risks with men's health.

Its time to let the circ issue die, and let the practice of circumcision reseed to the same level of importance as mall piercings, and dive bar tattoo's."

So well said! Its obviously a tradition that is dying out as educated parents question the practice of removing healthy tissue (that has many functions) and so the medical establishment sees a huge loss of income & is happy to do anything to keep it going in America, even though its been virtually abandoned in Canada, the UK & Australia.

2009-03-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last night I was lying on my side and I had my hand on my belly for a minute because bedtime is baby's craziest time of the day. All of a sudden I felt a fist hit me in the hand! It was bizarre and kind of creepy, but cool. The last 2 times I had the placenta completely covering the front so I never got exact parts, but this time I have a very high placenta so its been easy to tell exactly how little boy is positioned in there, and that fist was so obvious! Life in utero is definitely really life!

2009-03-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I am back from my 36 week dr visit today. I like the dr, he is the senior partner in the practice and very very sweet to my boys. He let me break their rule about doing a GBS test at 36 weeks and I can wait a week to do it, so I don't have to have a pelvic exam with my kids!
Needing to have this baby surgically is tough, but I brought up all of my worries and he gave a lot of attention to each one, and I feel OK about it all. I have to dig deep after my appointments and re-connect with the little guy and remember that I am strong and healthy and we will get through this & enjoy meeting him and taking care of him so much.

2009-03-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

2009-03-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

2009-03-05T12:40:00.001-08:00

I'm weird, I love this part of pregnancy. I am so damn big! 193 lbs last week and still growing. I wish I could maintain my size better, but I kind of don't care. After the kidney/bladder drama all of my typical pregnancy complaints are NOTHING in comparison to that. My little guy kicks and has hiccups and just gets bigger all the time. I hope he is a lot like The Creature & Teeny, and is quiet and easy. Jakob was more of a fussy guy but that's only b/c I had no clue what I was doing when it came to feeding him.

Here are some recent pictures:

10 Years

2009-03-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Our 10th wedding anniversary was last Friday night, at this French restaurant in the countryside of Virginia. It wasn't that rural, we didn't want a long drive, but it was in the fancy neighborhood where Wonder Woman lives. My parents took the kids all night and we slept in, and went out to a fattening breakfast too. Dinner was amazing, not a snobby place, great food, great lighting ( important to me!)

Things I've learned in 10 years of marriage:

-Not much!
-I do know that my mom, who has been married to my dad for 37 years, says the key to a healthy marriage is to have a spirit of service to your partner. If both people are working to make each other happy, then everybody's happy!
-I aim for the above, sometimes I succeed, sometimes not
-Definitely present a united front in front of the kids, not easy & I don't always succeed, but its worth a try & disagreements can be talked out quietly & respectfully in the other room before re-uniting the front.
-support your spouse when he wants to start brewing beer, it may seem like a waste of $$, but it could also turn out great!
-I'm still learning

http://www.ugpulse.com/articles/daily/news.asp?about=Research%20says%20implementing%20male%20circumcision%20challenging&ID=8548

2009-03-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

Since all the hoopla about circumcision preventing HIV (African studies claimed it was up to 60% protection against female to male transmission) I have been finding a lot of the research pretty suspect. For example, the 2 main researchers in the African studies had tried for over a decade to prove their hypothesis here in the U.S. to no avail. We have a much higher rate of HIV than Europe and we have a majority circumcised adult male culture & Europe has a 95% intact population. Its also insulting to all of the American men that are dead b/c of AIDS that circumcision could have prevented HIV. No American man would trust that his lack of skin would keep him safe, yet we expect Africans to believe that and then, use that same logic to have one reason left to convince Americans to cut their new babies.

The complications of circumcision have always been underreported and I always thought the numbers were way too low. I have personally seen buried penis (scary!),bleeding problems, infections & adhesions in otherwise healthy babies that I know. So, a Ugandan paper finally is reporting on the real rates of complications and shedding light on the real reason these studies showed a higher rate of transmission in the intact group-----the cut group was too busy healing to go out on the town!

I think most medical studies done in Africa are the worst form of colonialism. I hate that people are used in this way and I wish more Americans, esp. doctors & nurses would think more deeply before using these flawed studies to back up recommending surgery on perfectly healthy babies. Haven't we gotten past the point in medicine where we amputate healthy tissue to prevent disease?

As annoying as it is to cut & paste the link, I highly recommend it, I try & try & blogger never makes links work for me!

2009-02-21T20:44:00.000-08:00

As my 10th wedding anniversary approaches (next Friday) I was thinking about our awe-some honeymoon. Awe is the word for these big mountains in Banff, Canada.

2009-02-21T20:10:00.001-08:00

2009-02-21T20:09:00.001-08:00

Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

It wasn't terribly bad or scary, I'm just a nervous pregnant nellie. I have a blood incompatibility with my babies, which I've written about before & its part of why I have to have a c section. My numbers have stayed very low, but they are shifting around a little up, down, up, and that is starting to stress me out a bit. I am trying to go deep and focus on the little tough guy in there getting through this OK. I'm in good hands, the OB's are all pretty smart about my issue, but its not my favorite thing to worry about. Feel free to send "low titer" thoughts & prayers my way, :) Thanks!

I wish this was on American 60 minutes...

2009-02-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F91zuHAUoY&feature=related
The End of Circumcision

Keri & Mikes wedding

2009-02-04T17:51:00.001-08:00

2009-02-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

More wedding weekend photos

2009-02-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

My brother is married

2009-02-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

to the most awesome woman, Keri is so chill, so calm, I am utterly impressed with her. I have always liked her but on her wedding day she never broke a sweat or looked the least bit nervous. She made it seem like the day she and my brother getting married was the most normal day in the world.

It was a beautiful day, cold and icy, but clear and gorgeous. It went by way too fast! We got to see tons of cousins and family friends and I miss them all right now. Here are a few pics of the weekend that I prayed so hard I would be in good health for. Thank God, I was, and I was thrilled to be a bridesmaid and even more thrilled to be able to watch the whole wedding up close, it was powerful.

2009-01-21T17:20:00.000-08:00

Baby kicking
Kidneys working
Bladder working
Best friend does not have MS after all
Dinner was the best lasagna I ever made
No complaints today!

2009-01-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

Let's spend the day here...

2009-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

This was me about a month ago, I'm a lot bigger now. And this was how I found the little guys in my bed.

2009-01-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

2009-01-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

I'd like to point out that I have this thing on the side of the blog that shows where people are coming from who come to your blog. I can also check what they were searching for that made them end up here. There are some truly crazy things that have been searched for that brought people here by accident, as they were looking for something else. I'm about to ditch that feature, b/c I don't want to know!!

Weird wedding dreams

2009-01-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

Last night before bed I talked to my youngest brother, who is getting married on the last day of this month. The husband and I are in the wedding and that should be interesting with my parents watching the kids. So, my brother is getting married to a beautiful and nice young woman and we are so excited for both of them. He was dealing with some last minute logistics yesterday and I was trying to help him relax about the details.

I remember the last month before our wedding, the details were overwhelming, I can handle a lot of stress, but between my job as a commercial property manager and the wedding, which was not small, I had to get a prescription for Ativan. But I read the package insert and it scared me so I only took it twice.

So, last night, I think my brother slept well ( I hope) and all the stress transferred to me. First I dreamed we were in 2 cars and his bride was in her dress in our car, and she was driving. She had cut her hair off, but it looked really good on her. She looked super tall and elegant in her dress. We kept telling her where to park & finally we found a spot next to the church. Meanwhile, my brother is in the other car & my mom keeps telling him not to look at his bride before the wedding.

The alarm went off, but I went right back to sleep and into the next dream, this time we are staying at huge high rise hotel and the church is inside of another huge high rise across the street. I am now in my bridesmaid dress and it doesn't look too bad, which is good news b/c I lose my family and spend hours walking between the 2 hotels looking for the church. I am just wandering in the dress and the silver shoes I ordered to wear with it never arrived so I am barefoot & looking for shoes. I walk into an OR and there is a surgery going on that is very disturbing, so I leave and keep looking for the wedding. I am so embarrassed that they are holding the wedding off until they find me & then I find everyone, all the other bridesmaids and my mom & my kids are in a room putting their dresses on.

In reality, we are very excited about the wedding. In my dream it brought a tear to my eye to see my baby brother getting married, it will probably be the same in real life. He was my wild baby brother, he never wanted to cuddle & be held, he was on the move the minute he could move. When he came home from the hospital my mom put his carseat on the dining room table & my parents went into the kitchen. My other brother and I just stared at the little guy, he was so new & different, we were 11 & 7 when he was born. Our baby brother didn't even look like a newborn, he was over 11 lbs and he just stared right back at us. He didn't look much like us either, blonder and more like my mom. Its hard to describe, but I'll never forget the first sight of him. I learned to do so much for him that my mom stopped hiring babysitters. We had parents that were kind of over the baby stage, which worked out well because he was kind of over being a baby, right from the start.

I could say a lot more about him, but I just think of him as a baby, our family baby, and now, a grown ass man getting married, its so cool!

The rest of the story...

2009-01-03T09:16:00.000-08:00

So, since I've been in a lazy state this whole Christmas vacation, it was a challenge for me to scramble around my house cleaning before the reporter got here. I had to primp (top priority!;), dry my hair properly, wipe little faces, get boys dressed, clean the floors, put away the toys that were stacked all over the living room table & feed everyone.

At the same time I had to find one or 2 friends who were still nursing little babies, not huge 2 yr olds like mine. I found one friend who said sure, she'd be right there & one who said Oh hell no! The one who said sure showed up with her 15 month old and then 5 minutes later the other one showed up too. I was so happy to see 2 of my favorite mamas and they helped with the last minute stuff. I asked my mom to come if she could, and she showed up 5 min before the news people did. I was happy to pull it all off without needing my mommy though!

At noon on the dot the reporter arrived with one cameraman. She was very cute and easy to talk to. They wouldn't take any drinks or coffee, they had a plan, they stuck to it & they got it all done in exactly an hour, like they promised. They asked us questions first, I went first & tried to remembber what my bro the TV star told me, to make it look like a conversation--be normal. I'm petrified of public speaking & the reporter told me she is too, but she said that the camera is different. I think its about the same.

We talked about how crazy it is to still be talking about breastfeeding publicly in this day and age. I remembered what I wanted to say & it was all taped in one shot. My friends really rocked it though, they turned the camera on & these girls had it all come out so smoothly, I was impressed! Then, they took shots of us, my 2 friends nursing, me on the computer (my mom thinks I spend too much time here as it is). We chatted a bunch and then they left. It came on at 5:15 and it was pretty well done. First of all, the photographer made my house look so awesome! It looked perfect in every shot & you would never know, unless you'd been here, that all 3 of us were in the same house. We didn't look too shabby either & they only used about a sentence from each of us, but they were the better comments we had, especially my 2 mama friends, they had the perfect quotes from them.

It was definitely a fun, out of the blue thing to do on New Years Eve. I welcome any opportunity to talk about breastfeeding, after doing it for 9 straight years with no plans of stopping anytime soon, I think the more its seen as normal, the better for everyone. Ladies can feel free to nurse anywhere,they can nurse longer, they can get better support from their families & they can get help if they need it. Its still a crazy country when it comes to breastfeeding in public, and on Facebook.

Nice end to a challenging year

2009-01-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, life is so funny. I was in the hospital a week ago & then yesterday I was revelling in the feeling of feeling fine. I slept in and got ready to make the boys french toast. The husband was at work and the whole day was ahead of me & I didn't have any pressures at all.

Then, while I was talking to my mom on the phone, the other line buzzed in and I was talking to a reporter at Channel 7 news. She had found my name online because of my volunteer lactation consultant website & asked me how I felt about Facebook banning breastfeeding photos. Personally, I nurse fairly discreetly, but definitely openly--my kids won't tolerate their heads under a blanket---and some of those pics show some mad boobage. Still, breastfeeding is normal, and even if you do see a nipple, is it the end of the world? I also am not a fan of censorship in places where you ahve to choose to see stuff anyway--so the reporter was happy to talk to me. She wanted to do an awesomely pro-breastfeeding story on how its Nutz to care about breastfeeding pics on FB in this day and age. And how 80,000 people signed a petition to get FB to stop being butts about their pics and let them post whatever they want.

So. it was 10 am. I thought she wanted just to chat on the phone, but she said she and a cameraman were coming over to get some opinions on tape...at noon! more later....

2008-12-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

The Boyz Christmas photo. If all hell wasn't breaking loose over here, I would have mailed out more cards!

2008-12-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a good article about why GenX'ers like me are largely to blame for the current housing foreclosure drama, http://www.babble.com/Generation-X-nesting-to-blame-for-the-economy-housing-crash/

Sorry, you have to cut & paste, blogger won't let me link properly!

I have always found it weird that my generation expects to live at their parents level of affluence--same size house, same kind of cars etc, right away, with the very first kid. Even before the wedding, my peers are buying houses they can barely afford to be at their folks level right out of the starting gate of adulthood. Yet... their parents took sometimes decades to get to that size house, car etc. and we often forget that.

Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

and I'm thankful to be at home. I have been in the hospital since Saturday, home for Sunday night & admitted again on Monday, finally released today.

I try to keep it positive on this blog, but I am a pregnant chick with problems right now! I have known I have kidney stones since last June, and I've had a few come through without problems.

Unfortunately I had the most unbelievably hellish experience with passing a stone starting on Saturday. I was given Demerol, percosets & flexeril in the hospital. None of them worked much, but I was able to sleep and then released in the morning. The next day the pain came back in the afternoon, but my prescriptions were sort-of working so I was able to fall asleep. At 3 in the morning I woke up thinking I was dying, I can't even describe the pain. Its kind of like somebody ripping your back open and then individually ripping each muscle in half, without a break, or any rest at all. It took another 12 hours before I got relief, in the form of being in-patient with a PCA pump full of morphine that I hit every 15 minutes for 2 hours before I could even speak. I have had natural childbirth twice for a total of 80 hours of labor, but it honestly does not compare. I used to think people who described kidney stones as worse than labor were wrong, I had had both & the stones weren't that big of a deal. This time I found out it really is was way worse than labor to have a stone!

So.. I was scheduled for surgery in the morning of Tuesday the 23rd, where the urologist would go in with a laser, blast the stone and then retrieve it out of the ureter --tube that runs from kidney to bladder. Then they would put in a stent that would keep the tube from collapsing after all of the trauma & I would have to keep it in for the rest of the pregnancy.

The good news is I avoided the stent surgery, the stone moved on its own, IV hydration & morphine helped it stop blocking the ureter and the pain is gone. I am just nervous now of its possible return with a future stone & nervous about possibly having the stent placed in the future. Can you believe the drugs you are allowed to take while pregnant? I am not so worried about a little wine here and there after hours and hours of morphine. Believe it or not, its safe & my little guy was checked every hour & he is fine.

I am happy to be here and grateful that it wasn't worse.

2008-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in the ER, again. I'm fine but I was ruling out an infection after some typical symptoms. Anyway, there is no privacy with just curtains between you and the next patient. So I lounged under my warm blanket and listened to the saga next to me. The woman was 94, she lives independently with her 95 year old husband. He is taken care of completely by her, although they just hired an aide recently. She deals with catheters, wheelchairs his meds. She cooks 3 meals a day for him.

She was there because she had a dizzy spell with some chest pains. They ordered an EKG & a cat scan to check for risk of stroke & put an IV in for blood tests and drugs. She told the nurse she had never had an IV in her life. She had the cutest voice too. The most amazing thing was that she told everyone the only time in her entire life she had been a patient was when her daughter was born. Her daghter was with her and vouched for the truth of that statement. This lady was unbelievable, I would love to be her at that age, what a woman!

2008-12-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Its that time where you get Christmas cards & letters that detail every perfect moment of people's lives. I don't begrudge them the right to show all the good of the past year, I totally get it--I try to blog mostly positive--but it would be fun to get a more realistic Christmas letter. I'll do a brief one that I would never mail:

-bad bad preschooler yells the F word in music class and spends most of the rest of his school year in the principal's office.

-we take a very intense, very fun trip to Chile. OF course mom has to get super sick, but the kids had a blast, except on the plane, where every single passenger hoped we would get sucked out the window b/c the preschooler was being very BAD..

-bad bad 20 yr old stepson of husband's oldest friend moves in and manages to screw up every thing we ask of him, including the dishes, so he lays down on the sofa and stays there for a month, while scary religious cults work hard to recruit him.

-oldest boy had his First Holy Communion, which was an amazing day and a perfect occasion, except for 2 things,1. we roasted a pig in the ground which scarred our 5 year old for life. He still remembers ever single person's name who ate the pig & every person's name who did not. The other thing won't be mentioned, it was real bad.

-summer came and things looked up, preschooler made it without being expelled (that would happen in the fall), but then mom, found out she is riddled with kidney stones.

-pertussis happened. Half of July, all of August & most of September lost to the whooping cough that all 3 guys contracted thanks to a summer camp at a park in Northern Va.. Poor little preschooler coughed until he threw up all day for 30 days.

-surprise! New baby on the way. Which is awesome, except it would have been nice to get through the kidney stone and bladder drama before facing another pregnancy. But, still, we are very grateful for the miracle of another unique person joining our family.

-School in the fall, hard for the 3rd grader with tons of homework, absolutely brutal for the kindergartener who is too young to face all day school. So we try his old school's half day k program, but he (I ) am expelled after 2 weeks of the principal harassing mom for no reason. When mom told her to ease up, 5 yr old is kicked out. So, now, he is unschooled at home.

-Its been bad, its been good, it hasn't been the worst year ever, by far, but it has been challenging in all new ways. Yet, we have each other, and that's enough.

---about the bad bad folks mentioned above, including my own child--there's no such thing as a bad person, just bad actions, but it was fun to call them bad for a minute.

-

2008-11-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/21/baby.buggies/index.html

This is a link to a study that says that strollers facing away from the parent stress the baby. Did it really take a study to figure this out?

It seems like it would be fun for a little baby to be pushed around, looking at it from an adult perspective. But as a baby, I think it would be a little frightening, you have no frame of reference and you can't see any familiar faces facing forward. In the stroller the world is coming at you fast. I think human babies are made to be held and it is such a short time in the big picture that its even possible. I know its not for everyone, but I love wearing the baby and keeping them close when they are tiny.

Hard Stuff

2008-11-30T14:19:00.001-08:00

When my second son was born and died, after living for 7 weeks, I wrote in a journal/word doc on the computer almost every day. I kept it up for 2 years, with bigger and bigger spaces between postings (this was pre-blog days) and then the computer crashed and I lost the whole thing.

Last night my awesome better half fixed the computer after it crashed again & found my old journal. It is very very hard to read. I am just not "there" anymore, thank God.

I was very lucky, I had lots of signs sent from my baby and I wrote each one down. I also wrote down every time one of my friends was insensitive or mean, which wasn't good of me to chronicle, since I had forgotten about most of it.

I remember one of the many hard parts was feeling socially inept. I had no use for small talk back then. I felt like I had just come back from a horrific battle and felt horrible guilt for surviving it. It wasn't another soldier, somebody's baby--it was my baby. There is pride in surviving all kinds of tragedies, but not losing your child. There's no pride in that, its just surviving, remembering, feeling & suffering & then hopefully, finding some joy again--but never in the same way. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

All boy mama

2008-11-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

Its been a crummy week so far, I caught some kind of flu-like nightmare on Saturday and still feel bad. Homeschool hasn't happened and I needed a replacement for my meeting tonight.

But... the big ultrasound was today, this morning we looked at baby's heart, brain, limbs, stomach, bones, palate & all looks good. I'm relieved because I took a bunch of medicine for the kidneys last summer before I knew about Chunky #5. And Chunky # 5? Surprise, surprise! Another BOY! For a long minute there, we thought we were all seeing girl parts, but then baby changed position and we saw the boy baby in all his glory. So here we go again, same clothes, easy sleeping arrangements. I'm not complaining.

2008-11-12T14:51:00.000-08:00

When I can get a real working link to the video, I will post it. I apologize for the tininess of the picture too, but if you look closely it is amazing! The kiteboarder is right on top of the whale!

A sweetheart meme

2008-11-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

Exciting! I got tagged by my friend Erin at Breathe, Just Breathe

Here's more than you wanted to know about my better half:

Husband's Name: Larry

How long we've been married: coming up on 10
years

How long we dated: Dated 1 year & 1/2 & were engaged 6 months.

How old is he? 39

Taller: Him, by 3 or so inches.

Who can sing best? Him.

Smarter? That's a toss up. I know lots of random facts but he can fix anything and I am useless around the house.

Laundry: Both of us, I am very very bad at it. Luckily, he is man enough to wear his newly pink underpants though.

Paying bills: Me, I'm not much better with $$.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Him

Mows the lawn? We ditched our tiny lawn and covered it with pavers after we killed it.

Cooks dinner: He is a great cook, but I do 90% of cooking.

Who's the first to admit when they're wrong? Hard to say, probably him, hahah.

Who kissed first? Him

Who wears the pants? Probably him. He's classic alpha male, not metro, not new age.

2008-11-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Good things about being pregnant

2008-11-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

--In your 30's it seems like the years fly by in such a hurry, but pregnancy slows down time for me to a snail's pace. When its over though, the baby is a toddler in no time!

--Once I get past being sick, where I hate music, food, and anything enjoyable, all of a sudden...music sounds incredible and everything else improves too.

--My Creature has decided he is having a sister and so he constantly shows me toys he wants to buy for his sister. Sharing all of this with the kids is really fun.

--I feel less fashion pressure while pregnant, I am going to be big and enjoy it as much as I can.

2008-11-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I haven't been a huge, enormous fan of Barack Obama, like what seems like the rest of my generation. I just have a hard time in general, voting as a consistent-life-ethic Democrat, but also I get suspicious anytime big groups of people start thinking alike. In my area it was almost like Obama mind control, the ads were so constant, so extreme and so absolutely relentless, I just couldn't get on board. Ditching the funding that he and McCain agreed on & then grossly outspending McCain rubbed me the wrong way too.

I see all politicians as human and not entirely reliable, basically, just like the rest of us. I think McCain made a lot of mistakes in his campaign, but I have always admired him and I know he's a good guy from hearing about him from all the years my Dad worked in the Senate (my Dad worked for Democrats). I know he is open minded and works well with everybody, I haven't seen Obama work well with too many Republicans. The extreme bipartisanship is one of the most depressing things in America to me. I am very hopeful that that will change though.

I don't absolutely love and devote myself to McCain though & I think that's why Obama won, the utter devotion of his supporters. I do think there are some huge positives in Obama winning. Like my Dad said, it was another peaceful revolution in America. And that is really awesome. The people have spoken and I think it is infectious to see all the joy in his supporters this week. I also am hyped to see a young family in the White House. I am excited that the rest of the world seems happy about our new President elect also.

Rachel Campos-Duffy, who was on the Real World San Fran, writes a column for blogging baby & she had this to say (which I really liked :)
As a mom, I am thrilled by the possibility that Malia and Sasha, may replace Hannah Montana and other teen starlets as girlhood role models.

I'm equally hopeful that Malia and Sasha's beautiful dresses will inspire a national trend toward more age-appropriate clothing for girls and away from the sexy clothes currently being marketed to them. Though twelve year-old Malia will be 16 at the end of her father's first term, it's hard to imagine that Michelle and Barack would approve of her wearing the sleazy attire pushed by today's young celebrities or seen on MTV and BET. That will be good for girls and parents!

In fact, Barack Obama has not been shy about promoting clean fashion. On MTV, the always sharply dressed Obama, admonished "brothers" for showing their underwear and told them to "pull up their pants." Amen to that. If only Barack had been pro-life, his very sensible position on hanging off-the-butt pants might have been enough to win me over. In any case, it's safe to say that Barack may be the only president cool enough to convince teenage boys to clean up their fashion act.

more on consistent-life-ethic
Notable exponents, according to the Consistent Life organisation, include actor Martin Sheen, novelist Wendell Berry, the current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff.[5]

In 1971, Roman Catholic pacifist Eileen Egan used St. John the Apostle's phrase the seamless garment, referring to to describe a holistic reverence for life. "The protection of life," said Egan, "is a seamless garment. You can't protect some life and not others." Her words were meant to challenge members of the pro-life movement, as well as those who are in favor of capital punishment, to adopt a consistent life ethic. Egan's view was that there is a unity of Catholic teaching when it comes to human life.

2008-11-06T11:04:00.001-08:00

the boy in a basket

the boy in a blue slide

the morning primp, where I wrestle makeup away from my little friend

So, I haven't been in a very reflective place lately, more like action-mode. I am homeschooling the Creature and its taking a lot of time and energy. I am a totally reluctant homeschooler, but I realize I have to really work with him and develop my patience to get him to a point where he will be successful in school. Homeschooling can be good for kids but it can really develop character in the parents. I think homeschooling can be awful too, like in a family that punishes the kids for not learning the way the parents hoped they would. I try hard to keep it positive, but the fact remains that I am home working every day with my MOST challenging child. I do already see some improvements in his maturity so I am going to hope for the best, even though this morning at breakfast I was already so fed up I almost turned into the Hulk.

October, my favorite month...

2008-10-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

So, we've done the pumpkin patches & are finally decorating for Halloween. Our neighbor's annual Hallowwen party is this weekend. The big thing we look forward to in October though is the darling husband's birthday weekend. He took off work, we took our oldest out of school and went to the very edge of Virginia, to the empty police camp with our friend ( & Joaquin's godmother) Brunie--the same place we celebrated the birthday last year.

We fished and and my oldest caught the big one that we ate for breakfast, we had a huge Bday German dinner with real wurst from the German Gourmet in Falls Church. The man in my life brewed an Oktoberfest brew for the occasion, he brought the whole keg. Since I am expecting, I only had a few sips, but it was a great beer! The breakfasts were huge, we went to a couple of wineries and we hit a Scottish festival. The kids played with other kids, Brunie invited friends that brought their grandkids.

Here are some highlights: I relaxed, Joaquin experienced his first moon bounce in the capable hands of his godmother, the little guy loved riding across the camp field in a truck and my Creature--fun loving as always.

2008-10-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

This was a question on Babble.com today.

"Why don't pediatricians, and OB-GYNs for that matter, get educated about breastfeeding?! Mine promote the heck out of it, congratulate me for keeping up with it, and were quick to criticize me at the mere mention of weaning before my daughter turns one, yet can't hold an intelligent conversation about it, let alone answer questions. And I was shocked by the question you ran a couple of weeks ago about a doctor who criticized the "richness" of a mother's milk. Is there any movement within the medical community to get doctors up to speed? I thank my lucky stars that my community has an amazing lactation consultant who provides her services at no charge. But she'd have a lot more free time if there'd been someone in the hospital after delivery to give me some proper training. — 4 Out of 5 Doctors Don't Have a Clue!"

This is why we have La Leche League.

2008-09-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

Yoda the cookie, well, I tried...

After the Chilean Independece Day festival

Brothers hangin out on the deck

2008-09-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

My cute cousin sent me this article by Camille Paglia today and wow, I think it makes some great points about Sarah Palin and the entire presidential race at the moment. I find myself fascinated by Ms. Palin and the notion that she is a mom to many and a hard working public servant.

I don't agree with Ms. Paglia or Ms. Palin either completely, but there are some deep thoughts in here we could all learn from. Its the close-mindedness of both parties that hurts us all. I am still sad about losing one of my oldest mama friends to this presidential race only b/c we couldn't civilly discuss both candidates equally. I hope she returns one day, but I am not holding my breath. People have forgotten that we can have conversations without always "campaigning."

Here is the article, sorry, blogger won't do links--you'll have to cut & paste:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html

Here are 2 great excerpts:

"But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution? "

and this:
"Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it."