I'm waiting on a client to have her baby before I get a little break and have July off. Of course, that could get messed up should she go far overdue. She's not technically due until today. It's just that she's been having a lot of contractions daily for about 3 weeks. I've been to her house twice for false-start labors. Hopefully the storm system and cooler weather that has followed will put her into real labor.
Not that it's all about me! ;)
E's birthday is Monday. He'll be 3 years old already. When did that happen?
I only realized this week that his birthday is coming and that I need to organize some kind of party for him. I'm not doing friends- just family. I don't have enough brain cells for that right now.
I'm planning on taking a mini-vacation with G, sans children (can you believe it), if my client has her baby soon. My MIL strongly encouraged it and said she'd help watch the kids. Part of me feels really guilty about planning a small trip without them. My MIL told me about a couple in her neighborhood where they lived with the boys were young. This couple would take a little vacation together without their kids every year. All the other ladies in the neighborhood (including MIL) would be catty and gossip about how selfish this woman was to go somewhere without her kids. Years later my MIL realized how she should've done the same thing to better connect with own husband (who died a slow suicide before the divorce was final~so, so sad).

I wanted to do something like this when we reached our 10 year anniversary, but we didn't have the money. Now we're celebrating our 12 year anniversary in August. Now we can take a few days up North sans children. I was going to surprise G, but that would never work. He's not the type to get into a car without being told where he is going. So I told him (so that he'd quit registering for all these weekend 10Ks in July), and he's really excited.

Other than waiting for a baby to be born and putting off planing the details of E's birthday, not a whole lot going on. I'm trying to force myself to write the outline for a class I'm teaching in August on pelvic anatomy and well-woman care for midwives.

Went swimming at a small lake on Tuesday with the kids. Turns out half of the county's crunchy, granola, natural parenting community was there. We knew just about everyone there that day. It was a little strange to be in my loud Joe Boxer bikini (picked up last minute from KMart so I could swim at in-laws the other day--it was 50% off!)in front of a lot of people I normally see in more professional settings. Not to mention I had no good food in the house that day, so the snacks we brought were Minute Maid juice boxes, a bag of Better Made potato chips, a can of Diet Pepsi, and two Cliff bars.
Everyone else was eating their dark leafy greens from their gardens, with home made hummus, and organic rice cakes. And here's the homebirth midwife downing Diet Pepsi and eating greasy potato chips in her obnoxious bikini (all the women there wear more modest, skirt type of suits)and tattoos shouting at her son for pissing in the bushes a little too near someone's towel.

Sunday was Father's Day, right?

At 5am Sunday morning my phone rang. I was hoping it's my 6/28 woman calling in labor. Instead it was my old preceptor calling to ask if I could go to a birth. They had two ladies in labor and one of the midwives were sick. I had been hacking the last dregs of a AC-induced cold as well, and noticed I sounded much worse than the sick midwife on the phone (which made me laugh), but I croaked, "Sure, I'll go. Send me an apprentice."
Knowing how conservative this family is, I purposely dressed in a shirt and pants that covered my tattoos, and wasn't remotely tight.
This particular client was a woman I had met 8 years ago when she and I both had our first kids and attended a Natural Family Planning class together.She's also had 2 kids with my preceptors. One of which I attended a lot of prenatals to and did the post partum support. She's a lovely, quiet woman. A very conservative Christian. The long skirts, home schooled kids, and very traditional gender roles in their family. I have a soft spot for these families because they're just about Amish without being Amish~ if that makes any sense.
Maybe something in me longs for such a simple life with very clearly drawn lines.

At any rate, this woman was in labor with baby number 4. Oh, and nearly 43 weeks. Besides getting completely lost in the crazy farm lands for a while, everything was straight forward. Labor was going well and she and her husband were sweet together, not needing any extra support. We were there maybe 3 hours before she started to push. She's a little woman, but has 8 1/2 pound babies no problem. Before too long the baby was crowning. Crowning too slowly for baby #4. A flicker of a worry came across my thoughts. Thinking this head should just pop out in one smooth push. At any rate, the head finally cleared but then sucked up against her bottom tight. I felt for a cord around the neck and there was none. But there were no shoulders there either. The baby's head immediately turned dark purple.
Next contraction came and she pushed hard and the baby didn't budge. I told her she needed to flip over onto hands and knees. Her husband is this big army guy and sensing the urgency in my voice, flipped this poor woman over like she was a toddler. I reached in and the posterior shoulder was right there. No anterior shoulder. I felt around for the anterior shoulder and felt it high behind the pubic bone. I tried turning it into an oblique position, and then I tried the corkscrew maneuver, which thank God, worked. The baby freed up and I swiveled her out. She was such a chunky baby though, her torso was born to her hips and then kind of stuck half way (I didn't want to yank the baby out). So with one big last push, the mama pushed the baby out.

So she's out.
And with a big purple head and a white floppy body. We're all full of adrenalin. I rub and dry the baby and she doesn't stimulate at all. I'm talking to her: "Come on baby, look at me. Breathe baby. Come on..."
I tell the apprentice to grab the oxygen tank and resuscitation board which is right next to us. Seconds seem like minutes though. I put my mouth over the baby's mouth and nose and puff a breath into her. I feel her lungs inflate and see her eyes pop open like a baby doll. "That's it, baby. Look at us, stay here. You guys, talk to your baby, tell her she's safe." The parents and apprentice start talking to the baby. The baby closes her eyes and goes momentarily limp. I give her another mouth to mouth puff and again her eyes pop open like a doll.
At these scary births, when it feels like you're convincing a baby to stay in this world, time feels like it almost stops. There's this brief moment of wonder. Of true, other-worldly transition. You heart leaps when the eyes open. These crazy, timeless and ancient eyes look around the room as if summing us all up. And your own eyes plead for the baby to stay. Really baby, it's all good here. There's a lot of love waiting to soak you up here. As frightening as it is in nanoseconds, it's also truly amazing. You feel like in your hands there is something far more wise than any one else in the room.
With that second puff of breath, the baby not only opens her eyes, but also gains a little muscle tone. She gasps a fraction of a second. I look for the bulb syringe. It's about 10 feet from me. Grr! The apprentice is green and is fumbling. I get mad that the tray isn't closer to me. I leave the baby for a second to grab the bulb syringe. And say out loud, "Fuck! Fuck!" There goes my goodness. So much for covering my tattoos when I'm talking like a sailor.
The baby has eyes open, but is still floppy. I suction her quickly, and rub her up again and this time she cries. "Praise God!" I say. "Thank you God! She's alright, you guys. She's good."
All of this from the time the baby was stuck to getting her to breathe on her own was only 3 minutes.
The mom who was still on hands at knees during all of this, didn't see what was going on, but later says she knew it was urgent from my tone of voice. I apologize for swearing.
Later though when driving home, I pray thanks to God. I laugh and tell him that my mouth may utter bad things at times, but I always try to give thanks where thanks is due. I don't feel bad about swearing. I meant it when I said Fuck and I meant it when I said Praise God.
We're only human.
There's more I could say but I have to go get ready for a long day.

Anxiety: Placentas and Swim Trip While Menstruating

Ooo, yummy.
Yesterday I attended a workshop on 3rd Stage and Placentas, taught by Jennifer Williams, CPM. The Indiana midwife prosecuted for practicing midwifery. For a felon (tee hee), she was very sweet and certainly knowledgeable. She's caught over 1300 babies in the past 19 years. Indiana is currently working very hard to change their legislation regarding midwifery. But going from it being a felony to it being LEGAL is a huge uphill battle.

At any rate, the workshop was good. It was made more interesting by Jennifer and others in the class sharing stories about crazy placentas, scary hemorrhages, etc. I was very pleased with it all and was grateful for the mental stimulation of having 8 hours to talk shop.
However, I woke at 4:15 this morning completely awash with adrenalin.
Thoughts ran along the lines of placental abnormalities, surprise footling breeches, vasa previa (a rare placental issue where the vessels run through the membranes)~ which you usually can't predict, hemorrhages, and more things midwives don't want to see but have to know how to deal with. I could not shake the scary images and thoughts. I tried reading. I prayed to help me center myself and have peace of mind. That worked a bit, but I still couldn't fall asleep again.
So up, up with myself.
Made S lunch, unloaded the dishwasher, put things in the mailbox, straightened my business records and receipts.
Got Greg off to work.

Feeling much better now, but would love to have all day to dig into my textbooks (have taken a vacation from them since mad NARM studying for exams)and just read.

This is the first week of my not working for Mr. Senior Guy anymore. Some of my anxiety was about wondering if that was the right decision. How will we make our bills? I need to get more clients. What if my car blows up? E.T.C!

But I am very much looking forward to actually being home with G and the kids in the evening. How nice!! (However, I'm sure there will be nights when I would be happy to leave, even if it's only to wheel an old guy through Home Depot looking at everything and buying nothing.)
And this is S's last week of school. Half day Wednesday, then done.
I get to do Good Mom Things, like come to the ice cream social tonight. And be a driver for the swim trip tomorrow.

Ooo, the swim trip. It was supposed to be last week but was canceled because it was too cold. Now my period started and I'm having ANXIETY over this too! (I only volunteered to be a driver/chaperone because I knew my period wasn't due for another week originally.)
I can't remember the last time I had to deal with menstrual blood and a swim suit. I was probably 13 or so.
I was sitting with G on the couch last night, lamenting of the inevitable stress of swimming in public with a lot of other parents, kids, and teenage life guards while on my period. I'll be imagining that I'll have diluted-by-wet-swimsuit blood trickling down my inner thighs every 30 seconds and that I'll be a victim of the dreaded Tampon String Hanging Out of Swimsuit Bottom.
Add to that being generally bloated and my belly looking like my 3 year olds potato-shaped abdomen. (Which is really cute on a toddler but not so on a 30 something woman.)

I'm off to shower now before the kids get up. They're filthy from last night's playing at the Brewery's beer garden while we had beer and pizza with friends and their kids. We got home right around bedtime so I just put them to bed dirty.
Ooo, now bad mom anxiety.

Stupid hormones.

River rats for a day

Every once in a while, we act like what I consider, a normal family.
This means that we all 4 spend time together in the same space for more than 30 minutes, not eating, cleaning, or bickering.
No mama or dad flying out the door to work or to a birth.
No girl child needing to be taken to school.

Just a lovely, long afternoon on the river kayaking.
It was really fun.
And we met the old man who, for the past 32 years, places rocks in the river every day to make a new "composition" or visual art (the rocks are in a huge heart shape) and also audible water music/trickling. He does it as a gift to God and for every person who happens to wander near the river. He starts in the river water sometime in April and stops arranging his compositions sometime in October, when the water is deeper and much colder. He was amazing. He sang his prayer song he sings after each new arrangement. We felt like we just had a sit down with St. Francis after a half hour with him. Very cool man.

Of course, I didn't get a photo of his composition because I was sitting in a kayak and you have to be standing on the bank to really see the large, heart-shaped rock wall in the water.