She's here!!

Better late than never... 

On July 11, Rowyn Elizabeth was born!  She arrived via c-section, for many reasons, but she was/is perfectly healthy.

The reality of homesteading, parenting, and working

At first I thought I could do it all.  Plenty of people work full-time and raise happy, well-adjusted kids, I told myself.  Hell, I was one of them!  My mom was a single parent, so she worked full-time out of necessity.  My grandmother helped with childcare when I was little, then I went to an after school care at our local Salvation Army after we moved to Indiana.  My mom still came home every night and made dinner, and we always spent time together in the mornings too.  I'm sure the arrangement was sometimes difficult for her, and I know now that she would have stayed at home with me (and any potential siblings) if my parents had remained married.  But I never felt like we didn't have enough time together or that I was in any way neglected, and we are still very close.

When I got pregnant with Ethan, I just sort of assumed I would send him to daycare and continue with my career.  I'd never really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and I felt like we'd be able to provide a better quality-of-life for ourselves and our family if we had two incomes.  We are fortunate enough to have family who watches Ethan when I am at work, and because Shayne works midnights, he can watch Ethan in the evenings.  The time the little guy has to be away from home is pretty minimal, so we were mostly satisfied.

But what became apparent in the two years we both worked full time was that our quality of life did suffer, just not in the ways we expected.  I still made time to garden, preserve food, and cook from scratch.  We even managed to refinish our floors and get some work done on the house.  But we suddenly became "time poor", and this is even more evident now that I'm pregnant and Ethan needs more supervision.  We don't spend much time together as a family.  Ethan is always with family, but not often with both mom and dad at the same time.  Housework has suffered.  It's a constant struggle just to keep up with putting away laundry and dishes, let alone keeping the house fairly clutter-free.  I refuse to not allow my kid to be a kid, so on many mornings, instead of doing housework or cooking, we are both outside playing in the dirt or exploring the bit of woods left behind the house.  This means that we eat out more often, but something has to give somewhere. It's not ideal, but I cook as much as possible on my days off, and when the leftovers run out we just make do. 

There are certainly days when I can't wait to go to work.  Toddlers can be frustrating, and Ethan is no exception.  But as I've analyzed the real reason for my frustration, it's less because of his behavior and more because I am trying to get something done that is necessary for us to get out of the house, and whatever he is doing is impeding my progress.  If I wasn't in a rush, if I could put off packing a lunch, if I wasn't trying to find diapers/wipes/extra clothes to put in a diaper bag, so many of our little conflicts could be avoided.  I can't and don't expect a toddler to understand time constraints, but unfortunately they are a very real thing in our life right now. 

Here's a sample day, assuming both Shayne and I are working:

6:30 - 7 am - Ethan  wakes up.  Sometimes he's already in bed with me, others he sleeps the whole night in his own.  If it's 7 or later, Shayne is home from work and gets Ethan breakfast.  I go back to sleep.

8:30 - I get up, shower, and try to keep a rambunctious toddler from drowning himself in the sink.  Shayne goes to sleep as soon as possible after I'm out of the tub.  I used to be able to shower without someone watching Ethan, but he discovered he could reach the handles on the new sink...

9 - 10:30 - Play time.  Sometimes I am able to use this time to clean up the kitchen a bit (Shayne rarely has time to do this on days that he's working, since he has to leave about 20 minutes after Ethan goes to sleep) or accomplish some other housework.  Ethan will help me vacuum or sweep the floor, and he also likes to empty the dryer.  If it's nice, I skip or shorten the housework and we go outside to play.  I usually spend the first 20 minutes just sitting on the porch, drinking my coffee.  Ethan plays with his trucks in the garden or scoots around on his tractor.

10:30 - 11:30 - I try to give myself at least an hour to get out the door.  If we were outside, Ethan needs his hands washed and often a change of clothes.  If I'm not dressed for work, this is when it happens.  Lunch gets packed (with Ethan standing on my feet and wanting to help or grab all the food off the counter), and I try to pack or grab something out of the freezer to take to work to eat.  Often, Ethan needs some time to decompress from our playtime, and we sit on the couch and snuggle while reading a book or three.  I usually have to make multiple trips upstairs because I've forgotten something, like my water bottle for work, or clean diapers, or maybe there wasn't a change of clothes in the diaper bag.  Ethan knows we are getting ready to go and will sometimes run out of the house on his own... 

11:30 - If everything has gone pretty smoothly, we're out the door and (hopefully) getting to Grandma and Papa's right about now.  Once there, we eat lunch together. 

12:15 - On my way to work.  If it was a not-so-smooth day, I stop on my way to grab some food, since I didn't pack myself anything.

12:30 - I get to work.

4:15-ish - Shayne gets up, showers, and goes to retrieve our offspring.

5 - Shayne and Ethan run any necessary errands (library, Meijer) and either pick up food or eat leftovers at home.  If there were no errands that day, they might mow the lawn or just hang out at home and play. 

7 - Bathtime. 

7:30 - Wind-down time.  Shayne and Ethan read books or other quiet play.

8 - This is official bedtime, but there are days it doesn't happen til 8:15 or later, depending on how crazy/busy the evening was.

8:45 - I get home.  If it was a good day, Ethan's already in bed and Shayne is getting ready for work.  If not, I take over kidlet care. 

9 - Shayne is out the door, and Ethan is sleeping.  There is a pile of dishes in the sink, a full (but clean) load in the dishwasher, and a mountain of laundry that needs to be put away.  I have a snack and chill out for a few minutes.

9:30 - I feed the various animals and usually accomplish a little bit of housework before going upstairs to get ready for bed.  In my current pregnant state, I'm pretty exhausted by now and don't really do a whole lot.

11 - Lights out for me (hopefully).

It doesn't look so awful when I write it all out, but both Shayne and I are tired all the time.  Because we get so little downtime (we're either at work or watching a kidlet), when we do have some time, we don't want to spend it cleaning.  We need to rest a bit.  Or, we don't rest and get something done, but at the expense of ourselves.  I know if you asked either one of us, on any given day, what we like least about our lives right now, we'd undoubtedly say something about how worn out we are.

It's much harder than I ever anticipated.  I still love my job, but my heart and soul are at home.  And I know that with two kids, the weariness we both feel will only increase.  I don't want to live like this indefinitely.  I want to see my husband and spend time together as a family.  I want to eat breakfast and dinner together at night.  I want to be able to spend time with my kids without a time limit.  I want to have time for the things that really matter, not have to squeeze them in when it's convenient.

And so we are slowly making changes.  Thankfully we bought a house we can afford on a single income, which I am convinced is the most intelligent decision we ever made.  Our bills are low, and we are working on lowering them further.  We're in the process of ditching our landline phone and using pre-paid cellular exclusively.  Strangely enough, by moving to Straight Talk from Verizon cell service and an AT&T home phone, we'll have unlimited phone time and still save $100 per month. We already have Netflix instead of cable, and we switched internet providers to save $20/month.  I'm looking into ways to decrease our trash bill, especially as we don't produce all that much unless we're remodeling something.

In spite of our time crunch, my cooking skills are slowly expanding.  I bought a grinder and can grind my own flour.  By buying wheat instead of flour, I save $10 for every 50 lbs used.  And baking our own bread, muffins, etc. saves even more.  We've also started buying other staples in bulk, like oatmeal, beans, and rice.  And preserving local, in-season produce helps too.  The homemade applesauce I canned a few weeks ago is half the cost of even the crummiest store brand.  And in addition to saving money, I find genuine joy and satisfaction through providing food to my family.

We buy secondhand clothes, appliances, bikes, toys, and many other things.  We don't have a car payment, and we are essentially a single-vehicle family.  Our Honda CR-V is 11 years old and pushing 200K miles.  Vacations are taken close to home and don't involve expensive resorts.  I'm learning to make many personal care products, like deodorant, lotion, and herbal ointments.  Exercise involves going outside, not driving to the gym.

And because of these lifestyle changes, none of which has made us feel deprived (though we certainly have moments where we'd love to go on a Caribbean cruise or desperately want a different car), we are going to have a trial-run living on a single income.  When the new baby arrives or I leave work due to the pregnancy, I will be taking a leave-of-absence from my job.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified. While I've never felt more strongly that God was guiding me along a particular path, trusting that it will all work out is hard.  But I think that deserves its own post...

This year's homesteading plans

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that the year started about 3 months ago...  But the gardening season is just starting here, so it seems an appropriate time to talk about my goals.

First of all, our garden will be considerably smaller than the past two years.  Really small.  Baby #2 is set to make an appearance in mid-July, and I just don't want to be inundated with tomatoes while trying to adjust to having two littles.  I am still planning on making my own sauce and juice and canning fresh tomatoes, but I'd like to do it on my schedule.  So I will buy my tomatoes at the market in order to have some leeway with timing.  I'd hate to let tomatoes rot because I'm exhausted from a colicky baby or something.  I think I'm just going to grow dry beans, squash, carrots, onions, potatoes, and watermelon this year.  Everything should store well, so even if I'm a little slow to harvest, there shouldn't be any issues. 

My hens are going absolutely crazy laying eggs.  I've read in numerous places that a hen needs many hours of daylight to continue to lay, but my girls laid all through winter.  Production did slow down, but I never got less than 3 eggs per day once everyone started laying.  Now with the slightly longer days and warmer temps, I'm getting 5-6 eggs per day.  I love being able to feed them our kitchen scraps and leftovers that are going bad (though we've been really good about having less of those!).  No changes are planned for the girls, barring any catastrophes.

But we are going to get more chickens.  I have a friend with a barn and fenced horse pasture (out of use) who has offered to raise chicks with me!  We're going to get Freedom Rangers, as I have some ethical objections to the cornish cross hybrid (namely, I believe it is cruel to breed a bird to grow and gain weight so quickly that its legs and heart cannot support it.  I realize that sometimes this can be mitigated by withholding feed for some of the day, but I just don't feel it is responsible to breed a bird that is predisposed to so many health issues).  Our 25 chicks will arrive in late May or early June, and we will plan on butchering at about 12 weeks.  I would like to do the butchering ourselves, and another friend may have a chicken plucker built by then that we could borrow to speed things along.

I'm slowly but surely adding to my cooking repertoire.  Recently, I've made homemade Lara bars from dried dates, dried cherries, and walnuts (recipe).  Mine turned out a bit less sticky than they needed to be, but I about blew the motor on my mini food chopper, so I just left it instead of adding more dates and cherries.  I've also made broccoli cheddar soup (yum!) from this recipe.  I halved it and used all cheddar instead of "processed cheese".  I also added onion when I was melting my butter.  I had to cook it WAY longer than 30 minutes to make the broccoli less crunchy, but it was very good.  And...  I got brave and made my own pie crust to use for my chicken pot pie after learning that Pillsbury refrigerated crusts have awful ingredients and artificial colors.  Yuck.  I've always been scared of pie crusts, but decided to give it a go.  I found a recipe using 5 ingredients: flour, butter, salt, sugar, and water.  The first one was a dud (though edible), but version 2.0 was quite good.  I only used 2 1/4 cups of flour, so it wasn't so dry.  I'm impressed with myself.  If you decide to try your hand at crusts, I strongly suggest rolling it out onto a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper.  It makes transferring the crust to the dish so much easier and allows you to use much less flour.  I'm planning on making up a couple and freezing them so that they're on-hand in a pinch.

Foods I want to learn to make are yogurt, a good wheat sandwich bread, more soups, and homemade pasta.

But really, things here will just be business as usual this year.  As always, we're taking baby-steps to increase our self-sufficiency, eat healthier, support our local economy, and live more mindfully.  Some days I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, but every time I take my lunch to work in a mason jar, I'm reminded of how far I've come.

Thoughts on becoming a homesteader

I'm sure there are folks out there who are anxiously awaiting more bathroom pictures, but right now I'm taking a bit of a detour to talk about other areas of my life.  More pics and an update are coming, though!  I should have more to say about it by tonight.

I just had one of those moments when I looked at myself, as if from the outside, and wondered who I was and how I got to where I am.  I was in the kitchen, mixing up flour, yeast, water and salt for bread.  A big pot of vegetable beef soup was cooking on the stove.  The beef is from a cow named Dolly, I grew the onions myself, I grew and canned the tomatoes that went into the tomato juice, and most of the other ingredients are from local farmers.  My sink is full of canning jars from food we've eaten and ingredients we've used in the past 24 hours.  Next to the stove was a wooden crate of herbs and several little jars of homemade "Neosporin".  I could hear my rooster, Pretty Boy, crowing out in the backyard.  And I was thinking of the apples on the back porch that are starting to get wrinkled, wondering if I had time to make applesauce tonight.

It really struck me how far from "normal" I've strayed. 

Sometimes I look at the blogs I read and people on message boards and feel like they are "real" homesteaders and I'm just dabbling.  I don't grow even close to all of my produce, I still buy bread at the store more than I bake it, and I eat out WAY more than I should.  But taken as a whole, the way we choose to live is not even close to mainstream. 

How did I get here?  How did my rather normal and unremarkable childhood (no offense, Mom, I just mean that I wasn't brought up on a farm or by hippies!) turn into this not-at-all normal lifestyle?  I keep wondering if there was a turning point, I place where I suddenly realized that I had to have chickens in my backyard, or grow and can my own tomato sauce, or know the cow that turned into my hamburger.  But I can't find that place...  I don't know when my mentality shifted and I became aware of how unsustainable and unhealthy so many modern practices are; I don't know what made me decide to opt-out.

But here I am.  Here I am with chickens in my backyard, a cow named Dolly in my freezer, and bread rising on the counter.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The story of the twins: Part 10

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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We named her Sophia Marie.  She weighed 7 oz and was 8 inches long.  She had a heartbeat for about 4 hours after birth, and we were able to have her blessed by the hospital chaplain before she died.  We had my mom and MIL in to meet our baby girl, and both of them held her.  But I couldn't.  I looked, but I just couldn't bring myself to hold the baby my body had forced from my womb.  The hospital took photos, footprints, and made a cast of her hands.  A professional photographer also came in to take pictures.  Later that night, the funeral home came to pick her up.  We're having her and her brother cremated and plan to plant a tree in their memory.  We may or may not scatter the ashes.

The placenta was sent off to a lab to be checked for abnormalities.  Both were fused, which is what caused my body to continue contractions after Baby A  (we named him Owen Lee) was born.  Somehow my body knew that a placenta needed to come out, but didn't realize it was attached to the "live" placenta.  The "dead" placenta was also very likely the source of my infection.  Once I had miscarried Owen, loss was inevitable.

I came home from the hospital yesterday morning, after receiving more antibiotics overnight.  It's good to be home and to spend time with Ethan, but I'm just so sad.  Shayne and I had agreed after our first loss, that if we ever had another, we'd be done trying for babies.  And although I know it's way too soon to make decisions, all I want right now is a baby.  I feel cheated.  I never wanted or expected twins, and was just starting to get used to the idea.  Now I have to adjust to the idea of no babies at all.  It's so hard.

The story of the twins: Part 9

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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Worst day ever... I'm still at the hospital, so this will be quick. I started to miscarry last night and lost a lot of blood. We came to the hospital around 8 am. I had an infection as well as needing a blood transfusion and fluids.

I delivered Baby Girl several hours layer. The placentas were fused, and my body has been trying to rid itself of the "dead" portion since I had Baby Boy. It was also likely the cause of the infection.

I still feel horrible. I don't know how to deal with it, and all I can do is cry. I'm staying overnight at the hospital because of the transfusions, but will go home in the morning. I'm just heartbroken.

The story of the twins: Part 8

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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Things aren't looking good.  I started cramping and having contractions last night, and I lost maybe 3 good-sized pieces of what appeared to me to be placenta.  I also lost a lot of fluid at one point, but I wasn't able to determine really how much or what color it was, because I was sitting on the toilet at the time.  There's a really good chance that it was amniotic fluid.  I pretty much prepared for the worst and resigned myself to the fact that I was having a miscarriage.

And then it all stopped.  Again.  I wish my body would figure out what the heck it's doing and do it already.  

I called my midwife, and the ultrasound tech doesn't come in til this afternoon.  I have an appointment at 12:45 to see what's going on with my cervix, the placenta, and amniotic fluid levels.  I'm almost scared that the baby will still have a heartbeat.  I sort of just don't want to hope anymore.  My midwife wasn't terribly optimistic, but also seemed confused that everything had suddenly stopped.  I can still feel the baby high up in my uterus, laying transverse.  I thought I felt movement once, but I'm nowhere near sure.

I just don't know.

Later: The only "good" news is that the baby still has a heartbeat (154).  My membranes did rupture, likely from all the contracting to pass a large piece of placenta last night.  The baby has some fluid, but not much.  The doc says not enough for lung development, but I've read some stories about similar situations, and I still have a shred of hope.  My cervix was more open than it was before, but I'm still passing bits and pieces. It's not fully dilated or anything, so they have no idea if I'm close to a full-blown miscarriage or not.

Basically, we're still wait-and-see.  The OB is going to talk to the perinatologist to see if an infusion of fluid may do some good.  The OB was of the opinion that is of more risk than benefit right now. There is a small chance that the membranes will repair themselves and/or refill, but it's not likely.

I was so shocked that there was still a heartbeat.  If nothing else, this little baby girl is a hell of a fighter.  

Even later:  Ugh.  What a long, crappy, trying day.  I can still feel baby girl moving around, and my heart just breaks that my body isn't the safe place for her that it should be. 

My temp is up to a little over 100F, and every other time I've had a temperature spike, it's meant that I'm preparing to lose more tissue/placenta/whatever.  I'm NOT looking forward to tonight.  The cervix and uterus aren't supposed to be voluntary muscles, but I wonder if somehow I'm holding everything in during the day and it can only come out after I've gone to sleep.  I've heard of women holding off having babies during wars or for spouses to arrive, and I wonder if I'm inadvertently just prolonging things.

Part of me wants so badly to just be done.  I don't see a happy ending to this no matter what, since there will be physical effects to my baby even if she manages to make it to viability.  And then I feel her wiggle around inside me, and I know I can't possibly give up when she's fighting so hard.  What a horrible place to be.

The story of the twins: Part 7

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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The good news is that we're 8 days in, and Baby Girl is still in there.  Not-so-good news is that I was up with contractions for what seemed like half the night.  Talk about making you paranoid, especially because the baby was lower in my uterus than usual.  I can't say how many contractions or how often, because I was honestly afraid to look.  I just figured if I was going to give birth, I'd know soon enough.  I drank a big glass of water, laid on my side, and prayed that if this was it I'd get it over quickly.  And they went away.  

Looking back at Ethan's birth, I had a few times where I initially thought I was in labor.  I would have regular contractions for an hour or so, then they'd taper off and go away.  But when the real labor contractions hit, they were so much stronger than the "practice" contractions.  And now that I'm awake and rational, this seems like much the same thing, more like BH contractions than the Real Thing.

This morning, Baby Girl was back up high in my uterus and I could feel her moving around.  I'm feeling much, much better emotionally than yesterday, but I'm SO tired.  I'd kill for a decent night of sleep.   On top of all the pregnancy-related drama, we've had a plumbing back-up, flooded basement, and a $800 bill for installing a clean-out in our main drain.  We'll also have bills from 2 hospital visits, though I'm praying it'll be like when I had Ethan and between my and Shayne's insurance, we'll come out free and clear.  It's been a rough couple weeks.  I'll take my vacation now!!  

The story of the twins: Part 6

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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I took a "mental health day" from work - I just couldn't bear to go in and face anyone.  I couldn't even call in and talk to the secretary.  She's a nice woman, but asks lots of questions, and I just couldn't deal.  I know it's because she cares, she cried yesterday when I told her we had lost one of the babies, but I wasn't up for it today.  I texted a co-worker and asked him to tell her to put me down for a sick day when he went in.  He had taken a personal day, but he called in for me.  I love my guys.  I guess the secretary tried to play 20 questions with him too, but all I had told him was that I was tired and emotionally drained.  

I still dropped Ethan off at the babysitters (my best friend's parents) and spent some time talking with them.  Just normal stuff, nothing about babies or pregnancy or anything stressful.  It was nice to be able to forget about everything for 20 minutes.

I came home, ate some junk food - I am SUCH a stress-induced eater! - and chilled out reading for a while.  And then I had to use the bathroom.  While I was sitting, I just lost it.  I'm so tired of waiting for something to fall out of me every time I have to pee!  I'm tired of wearing pads.  I've been in the damned things for 3 weeks, and now I can't even wear cloth because I don't want to risk any infection.  I'm sick of every little stomach gurgle making me paranoid, of counting the days to some magical "safe" number that will never make me feel safe, and of wondering if my body will suddenly reject the baby girl I still have growing inside me.

I now totally understand why people have scheduled inductions or c-sections.  If I were 36 weeks today, I'd tell them to just cut me open and get this baby out already.  I want to see her, I want to *know* she's okay instead of just waiting and hoping for itty-bitty little flutters.  I want to hold a living baby, not a tiny, still being that fit in the palm of my hand.

I don't even have any tears left, but I can't stop crying today.  I'm not sure what I'm even crying for.  Loss of Baby Boy?  Worry for Baby Girl?  Self-pity?  Fear of the future?  I even feel sort of relieved that I'm *not* having twins, because I just was never able to wrap my head around having two babies at once.  Obviously, I'd never have wished for this to happen, but...  It's all just a big jumble.  I know it's all normal and natural, and I'm working through a lot at one time.  I know it's not all going to go away overnight.  I know that it will get a little easier.  

But today it all just really sucks.

The story of the twins: Part 5

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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Still here.  7 days down.  

I had a really rough night last night.  I lost a dried apricot-sized clot around 7 pm, and freaked out a little bit.  I spent the rest of the evening just laying down and taking it easy, trying to feel Baby Girl moving.  I started bleeding a little more, but that seems normal, since something detached and came out.  I felt a little better after nothing else happened, and even managed to get to bed early.

But I must have gotten up 4 or 5 times overnight just to check and see if I was bleeding.  I'd lay there in bed, and it would feel like my pad was sopping wet, or that blood was just running out of me...  And I'd go to the bathroom and there would be nothing.  Not that I'm complaining that it was nothing, but it sure didn't make for a restful night.  On top of it all, I had some gas from my prenatal, and every time I'd feel *something* moving around in my pelvis, I'd kind of freak out a bit until I was sure what it was.

I was going to go back to work full time starting tomorrow, but maybe I'll wait for that magic 2 week mark.  Hopefully then I'll be sleeping a little better and/or more relaxed.  I'm kind of an emotional mess today. 

Later:  I ended up passing another little clot, so I called my midwife.  She was on her days off, but still spent about a half hour on the phone talking with me.  She agrees that if I'm going to miscarry at this point, it will be a big, physically traumatic thing.  Not like I'll just sit down on the toilet and have a baby fall out with no warning.  I sort of assumed as much, but it was nice to hear it from someone else.  She encouraged me to stay positive, since my body has done everything it could so far to keep Baby Girl safe, and even though I'm bleeding more, it's pretty obviously in response to losing clots and not totally random.  

I'm still just having a rough day.  All I want to do is cry.  It's so freaking HARD to not know what's going to happen, on top of having lost one baby already.  I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of this pregnancy without having a mental breakdown. 

The story of the twins: Part 4

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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6 days!

I seriously dread every night because that's when I lost the baby and both pieces of the placenta.  Since there was no pain, I kind of freak out a bit every time I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  It's like I'm just waiting for something else to fall out, even though I know that if there were problems now, it would be a full-blown labor/miscarriage experience and have lots of signs.

I was reading a bit in the birth loss forums, and came across a good idea.  I had my mom make some phone calls, and we found a funeral home that will cremate Baby Boy for us for free.  I feel terrible about keeping him in the freezer...   But I don't want to bury him until we know what will happen with his sister.  This will be a good interim solution, and then we may choose to scatter his ashes near the place where he was born and still plant the tree in our yard as a memorial.

I wasn't feeling Baby Girl moving yesterday, so I got a little worried.  I laid on the couch and called my best friend, and she started wiggling up a storm.  I guess she likes her "aunt"!  I also felt her a bit last night.  I'm so, so grateful for every day she stays inside growing bigger and stronger.  Only 8 more days til the doc will be more optimistic, then 7 weeks to official viability.  

The story of the twins: Part 3

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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We're 5 days post-delivery of Baby A, and Baby B still seems fine.  I'm spotting less and less, and I feel better physically than I have in AGES.  I was exhausted and in pain for a long time before this happened.  But now I'm cautiously optimistic that everything will be okay. I was worried from week 7 that something was wrong with this pregnancy, and after finding that it was twins, I was worried about losing one.  I never expected to miscarry, but I was worried about vanishing twin, or having major complications from them being born too early.  I'm still worried that Baby B might not stick, but I don't feel like I'm going to lose her, you know what I mean?  I must pray at least a hundred times a day for her to stay in there and stay healthy, and I hope that God is going to bless us with a miracle baby.  

We've decided to bury Baby A in the backyard and plant a tree over him.  We are thinking a weeping cherry, since 1) they have beautiful flowers, and 2) we were up north in cherry country when I gave birth to him.  We don't plan on living here forever, but I'm okay with leaving him if we move.  My aunt thinks we should buy a cemetery plot or something... But I don't want to be buried in a cemetery, and I don't want my baby in one either.  If I could legally bury him up on a sand dune by Lake Michigan or in a cherry orchard, I'd do that.  Barring that, I believe his place is at home.  I guess I'm not that attached to the physical remains of people.  My grieving process isn't dependent on or helped by being able to "visit" them.  I would like to maybe have his footprints engraved or photo-engraved on a pendent or something.

The story of the twins: Part 2

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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Okay.  I saw both my OB and a maternal fetal medicine specialist this morning.  They just checked for a heartbeat at my OB appointment, and asked general questions about how I was doing, are we coping okay, etc.  He did find a heatbeat, though the baby was squirming so much that we couldn't get an accurate reading.

At the specialist, we had a very detailed ultrasound.  She checked the placenta, my cervix, the amniotic sac, and all major anatomy.  The placenta has blood flow to the entire organ, and my cervix appears to be closed.  They usually use a transvaginal ultrasound to check cervical stuff, but because of the risk of infection, just used the abdominal one.  Baby B is doing just fine, is still measuring about a week ahead, and shows no signs of being in any distress.   And, from what the tech saw, she is just about positive that Baby B is a little girl.  

The not-so-good news is that I could still miscarry at any time.  The specialist said that in 30 years of practice, he has seen this happen 5 times.  In one, the mother miscarried both twins 5 days apart at a little over 20 weeks.  I didn't ask what happened to the other 4.  He did say that if Baby B stays in there for 2 weeks after the birth of Baby A, he sees no reason why I couldn't and wouldn't carry til the baby is full term.  Basically, the longer the baby is in there, the less we can worry.  Right now it's just day by day.  There is still a significant risk of infection, but he doesn't want to suppress my immune system by arbitrarily ordering antibiotics.  He also said that everything looks nearly perfect physically, and that if he hadn't known I'd just miscarried a baby, there would be no indications that anything had happened.

So I guess it's about as good as it can be.  I'll take it.  Please, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  Stay in there Baby Girl!

The story of the twins: Part 1

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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I lost one of the twins two days ago...  

Shayne, Ethan, Alex (my step-daughter), and I were on vacation with my mother.  We'd rented a cottage near Lake Michigan near Northport and were just planning on sitting on the beach, eating good food, and chilling out for a few days.  I'd still been spotting and having weird pains, but I talked to the nurse practitioner at my midwife practice before I left, and she had said there's really no reason not to go; we weren't sure why I was having complications, but I'm so early that there's not much to be done anyways in the event of problems.  I figured a little R&R would be a good thing, and hopefully I'd get rested up and start to feel a little better.  I just haven't felt good since I had that flu about 2 weeks ago.

We got there, and everything was pretty much business as usual til the second day.  I had a big gush of fluid at about 6 pm.  Looking back, it was amniotic fluid, but I'd been having so much else going on "down there" that I sort of dismissed that thought.  I did mention it to Shayne, but said I wasn't positive.  But later that night I started bleeding more and had two small contractions.  I gave birth to Baby A at about 2:30 am on the 19th.  

We went to the hospital and took the baby with us.  They checked to see if they could determine gender, but he (I'm just going to call it a he) was so small that they couldn't be sure.  They took little impressions of his feet and photos for us and put it all together in a memory box.

I had an ultrasound there, and Baby B appeared to be doing fine.  There was still a heartbeat and plenty of amniotic fluid.  My cervix was also closed, which was a good thing.  I didn't appear to be in imminent danger of losing the other baby, but the doctor said that the prognosis just isn't good.  I guess when you lose one and actually give birth to it, the chances for having a successful pregnancy with the second baby go way down.  I'd heard of vanishing twin syndrome (and was oddly worried about it since finding out I was pregnant with twins), but I've not really heard of losing and birthing one but not the other.

I'm on my way home now.  We have an appointment with my midwife and ob tomorrow, then they'll decide whether or not they still want me to keep my specialist appointment that I had already scheduled.  When I spoke to the nurse practitioner on the phone, she said that she has heard of a successful, full-term pregnancy after the loss of one baby, but we just have to be very careful about infection.  I'm also worried because the hospital doc said I wasn't likely to lose the placenta until after I gave birth to the other baby (whether that be sooner or later), but I'm pretty sure I lost one piece on each of the past two nights...

I feel so strange.  I'm so sad about losing Baby A, but grateful that Baby B seems ok.  But I don't want to get my hopes up.  Even if everything still looks okay at the appointment tomorrow, I know I'll spend the rest of the pregnancy paranoid.  My weird pains are gone, and there was really no pain at all from the birthing process - not at all like my first miscarriage.  I'm still spotting, too.  It's like just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  *sigh*  I hate being pregnant...  I wish there was some way to know if my other baby will be okay.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Oh. My.

I was hoping my next post would be about how I worked through my family vs. career issues in a sane and rational manner, providing hope and insight to women everywhere.  Yeah.  Not so much.

I went for an ultrasound on Monday, after becoming extremely worried I was going to miscarry.  I had been horribly nauseous, but it suddenly vanished.  That's about what happened when I did miscarry, so I was concerned.  My midwife was very understanding, and after talking to me about it on the phone, managed to squeeze me in for an ultrasound that afternoon.

I went there prepared for the worst.  But once there, the tech immediately found a little 7-week-old nugget with a perfect heartbeat.  Everything looked great, and I was so relieved.  "Oh, but wait," the tech said, "there's another one!"

Twins.  I'm pregnant with twins.

I think I've gone through every emotion imaginable in the past 5 days.  I'm totally shocked, excited, terrified, and disappointed, all at once.  I'm so very glad that the babies appear healthy, but worried about what two babies are going to mean for my future.  I know it sounds terribly selfish, but we just weren't expecting this at all, so all my plans have suddenly flown out the window.  I'm definitely a planner, so I feel very lost now.

I don't know if I'll go back to work.  I enjoy my job, but with two newborns and a toddler to care for, I'm not even sure if it will make financial sense.  We'll easily spend one of my paychecks just on a nanny.  And a part time job would be able to make up the difference and allow me to stay home and raise my family.

So... Everything is still way, WAY up in the air.  Maybe we'll figure out where we're headed sometime soon, but I think it's going to take a while.  Like I told Shayne when we first started talking about moving, "I think we're going to live in this house a long time."

Priorities...

I've found myself very confused lately. A lot of things are happening all at once, all of them are good, and they're all things I want, but I'm still not truly sure how I feel about everything as a whole. If you've read anything I've written, you know that I put a high priority on obtaining a greater level of self-sufficiency. We were on a mission to fix up our home, put it on the market by next spring, and then either build or buy our forever home on 5+ acres of land.

One of the ideas we have toyed with was buying fairly inexpensive land, building our own home from as much salvage as possible, and then quitting work to stay at home with our kid(s). We only have one now, but we wanted one more. I am interested in homeschooling and it's important to me to "free-range" our kids. I want them to grow up playing in the woods, not playgrounds. I want livestock and to garden. I want us to eat humanely raised, home-grown food, and for my kids to participate in that. Because of the high cost of land in our area, building our own home is the only way that we could own acreage and still afford for me to quit my job.

But I like my job. I work with a great group of people, and I find a lot of fulfillment through helping people. I don't kid myself that I'm super-cop or anything, but I DO make a difference in people's lives. Recently, our department began a hiring process for K-9 handlers. Having a working dog is something I've always been interested in. I'm a dog person, and I enjoy training and working with our family dog. I also like patrol work, so having a dog to assist with drug detection and tracking is pretty much everything I ever wanted out of my career. I went through the process, did very well, and am in line to get a K-9 partner next spring (which will be the next dog our department adds). I'd have gotten one sooner, except that...

I found out I'm pregnant.

This wasn't a complete surprise. We weren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy, but we didn't expect it so quickly. But obviously I'm very excited about the new addition to our family, and I can't wait for Ethan to have a little brother or sister.

And I guess what it all boils down to is that my priorities for family and career are conflicting in a way I never imagined they would. If I get a dog, it's an 8 to 10 year commitment to the department. Obviously they can't keep me from quitting if I decide to, but I take that commitment very seriously. I'd be making a deal, and I would make good on it. I'm also in a position to realize one of my dreams. They're willing to work around my pregnancy and maternity leave, which I think is awesome. This is a chance I may never have again.

But I feel like I'm giving up my dreams for our family. Obviously we can still move to a new home with more property, and we'd be able to afford more property and/or a nicer house (or just more savings and a greater financial cushion) if I was still contributing a paycheck. But the possibility of staying home, farming, and raising children would be taken off the table. I could do some of it, some of the time. I know I could homeschool in the mornings and work in the afternoon. We could still have animals, a garden, and learn to be more self-sufficient. But we'd need to hire a nanny. Our current sitters have a home business and cannot take care of a super-busy toddler and an infant. Having a dog means I wouldn't be able to switch shifts at work. I'd be on afternoons for the foreseeable future. Eating dinner at home every night would not be a reality. Shayne and I would almost certainly stay on separate shifts in order to maximize the amount of time our kids spend with us instead of a caregiver.

I'm not sure if I'm okay with this. But I'm not sure I want to give up my career goals. Right now, it doesn't seem like there's a compromise. I was planning on working another 4 years anyways, because we are vested in the retirement program after 8 years. It seems silly to give up a pension. But before the K-9 position opened up, I had also contemplated switching to first shift so that DH and I could have more family time. Ethan would spend more time with a caregiver, but DH and I would see each other more. We could have dinner together every night.

I don't know how to figure out what is best for our family. I don't know how to figure out what is best for me! I feel like I would forever regret not realizing my career dream, but I don't want to achieve my personal goals at the expense of my family. I was raised by a single mom, and I know it doesn't damage kids to have a caregiver instead of mom or dad 24 hours per day. But I also never imagined I'd want to give up my job to stay home and raise babies. There are so many ways to look at this equation that it makes my head spin.

I don't know if I'm looking for advice, BTDT stories, or what. But if you've read this entire "book", I'd appreciate hearing from you!

Attitude problem

I know that patience is a virtue...  It's just not one of mine.

But I think I'm finally coming to grips with the idea that we're not going to be moving for another few years.  I want to.  I really, REALLY want to.  But we have a few factors in our personal and professional lives that make waiting a much wiser idea.  I've known this for a while, but I'm actually starting to believe it, if you understand the difference.

So, in order to make our time here more bearable, I've been working on my attitude.  Towards the eternally unfinished house, the neighborhood, and the neighbors.  It was either that or go crazy making myself miserable.  What started it was taking an acquaintence on a little mini-tour of my "neighborhood".  I use the term loosely, since we live in the county and we have the same number of people in a square mile as cities might have in a 3-block radius.  But showing the area to someone who had never seen it kind of let me see it the way I did when we first moved here.  And what I saw surprised me.

Although there are some hilbillies around, we really do live in a nice neighborhood.  Not subdivision nice, but rural-ish nice.  Almost all of the houses are well-cared-for, and the people are friendly.  Our house, with flowers blooming all around and a messy veggie garden (and in spite of the 80s facade), looks cute from the street.  We're surrounded by woods and hills instead of the flat cornfields that make up most of the rural areas here.  And by the roads, our house is less than 3/4 mile from the lake.

Speaking of the lake...  When we first moved out here, I wanted to get a membership to the conservation club so that I could use the beach there.  We'd also taked about getting kayaks and paddling around.  I used to walk down to the boat launch, just to look at the water.  After all, what good is living by a nice lake if you never use it?  And so, 5 years after moving in, I finally got a membership to the conservation club.  I don't plan on hanging out at their bar with the locals, but they have nice grounds and a sandy beach.  A few days ago I walked down and took Ethan for a swim in the morning before work.  We had the whole place to ourselves, and he had a blast.

Tonight Shayne and I got home at around 8 pm, and the bar was in full swing.  But in an oddly appropriate twist, they had a rockin blues band, so it was actually nice to be able to hear the show from our backyard.  I sat out for a while to listen until the bugs got too bad.

Living in the here-and-now is not my strong point.  I can't help but be thinking about what I'd like to do, planning ahead, and dreaming about the future.  But now that I've taken time to really look at what is...  It's not so bad. 

In fact, I kind of like it.

Some rambling thoughts on the loss of a friend

Two weeks or so ago, we lost an estranged friend to suicide.  We hadn't seen him in about 2 years, but Trav was the best man at our wedding and had been Shayne's friend since the early '90s.  When he and Shayne started drifting apart, I wasn't too surprised.  Trav hated cops, and while I don't think he ever actually disliked Shayne and I, our jobs definitely put a strain on the friendship.  After a while, they just stopped talking altogether.

For as long as I'd known him, Trav had never been truly happy.  He was fun to be around, he had a great sense of humor, and he could always make me laugh.  He also gave the best back massages in the entire world.  But things were never quite right (and had gotten progressively worse in the past 5 years or so), and I'd be lying if I said I was even the least bit surprised when I heard he'd killed himself.

In some ways I'm not even sad about it.  The way he chose to die needlessly involved a lot of other people, including some friends and quite a few of my co-workers, and I'm still pretty angry.  Maybe it could have gone differently, maybe not.  But I'm just incredibly pissed that he got so many people involved in his drama right at the end.

Some of me is sad for what could have been.  Trav was incredibly smart and talented; he designed and made costumes for his friends' film projects, enjoyed acting, and was a trained massage therapist.  Even though Shayne and I didn't talk to him anymore, it's different than now when we can't talk to him.

And part of me wonders how things can get to a point where he would feel that dying is preferable to living.  I know that's pretty much the classic question people ask when someone they know has killed themselves, but it really is a mystery to me.  Even on bad days, or weeks, I can look around myself and find something beautiful and worthwhile in the world (even if not in myself).  If I wasn't alive, I couldn't watch the sun rise on my way to work in the morning.  I wouldn't ever see the northern lights from a beach in northern Michigan.  I'd never again enjoy a mug of instant cappuccino while snuggled in my sleeping bag on a winter camping trip. 

It's not like my life is perfect or that things always go my way.  There have been setbacks, and surprises, and tragedies.  I've had times of uncertainty, depression, and fear.  It's just how life goes.

This song played on the radio sometime last week.  I've not heard in on the air before or since, even though it's by a popular country artist, so I an only assume that I was meant to hear it. 

Saying goodbye to a friend

On Saturday afternoon we lost a friend and coworker to a DUI crash.  Craig Toner, the Town Marshal of Roseland, was killed after being hit and then run over by a drunk driver.  I knew Craig through work; Roseland backs us up on a lot of our calls, and we help them out as well since they are a small department.   He was a good person, always willing to help out, and he will be sorely missed.  My thoughts and prayers are with Toner's family and friend, as well as our brothers and sisters in blue.

...And the Lord taketh away

I'm not one that generally shares my entire personal life over the internet, but I suppose this needs to be said, since I told the internet that we were expecting a baby...

Early yesterday morning I had a miscarriage. The embryo had never developed from the little ball of cells that is present about 2-3 weeks into pregnancy. My body didn't realize this for 6 more weeks, and I had no idea until two days ago that something might be wrong. The doctors say that in this type of situation, there was probably a chromosomal abnormality, and the pregnancy terminates itself rather than develop into an abnormal fetus. They couldn't give a reason as to why it took my body so long to figure it out.

After 2 ER visits and a minor surgery, I am physically fine. We plan on trying again once we are able, and hopefully the Lord will bless us with a healthy, perfect baby. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this difficult time.