Weekend Wrap Up

Some have a weekly wrap up. This is just about the weekend. I am back to my old busy self which is good. I need to stay active. The girls had a big weekend and lots of fun. On Thursday, we went to Buddy Bears with our homeschool group. Miriam had a lot of fun, but Lily for some reason did not enjoy herself much. On Friday, we went to Chuck e Cheese for a birthday party. The girls love to go there and had a blast. On Saturday, we went to Culture Fest at Coolidge Park. The Chinese Association did some things on the stage and had a booth. This was great for Miriam, because we are doing China for our Around the World Day project. Surprisingly, though, the kid's favorite part was the Scottish games. Must go back to our scotch/irish ancestry on both sides! On Sunday we went to worship, looked at houses and helped a friend move. Then we met with some people from church at the park so the kids got to play more. Today, we went to storage and finished getting Miriam's winter hand me downs for Lily and also got the baby stuff. Debi came by for a prenatal visit since she was in town. Everything is still going great with the baby. Then we had our last gymnastics class for this session. Miriam's class gave out ribbons. She received 9 ribbons today. I know in the scheme of things, it really doesn't mean much, but I was so proud I teared up. She doesn't often "earn" recognition like that, especially since we homeschool. I am really so proud of both my girls. I think they are so talented, smart, and beautiful.

A loss

My husband's grandmother, Miriam Poarch Long, died Tuesday and we attended visitation last night and the funeral is today. I did not really know her because she has had Alzheimer's since I met Jeremy, but she does have a special place in our home since Miriam is named after her. When Jeremy and I started dating, he lived in her home, because she had remarried and it was empty (Jeremy's grandfather died long ago). My Miriam only met her once as a baby. At that point her Alzheimer's was so bad that she really didn't even recognize Jeremy. As I said though, I still feel a connection with her. She was constantly a part of Jeremy's childhood- he stayed with her after school and remembers her German Chocolate cake, he attended church with her and remembers getting pinched when he misbehaved (he still does not like even playful pinching). We did not see her much, Jeremy said he did not like seeing her the way she was and I can understand. I always worry about his emotions at times like this. He doesn't seem like it, but he cries rather easily. I was not worried so much about his feelings of lose over his grandmother, but that they would bring up memories of his dad also who died less than a year ago. Of course, he says he is okay!
Onto another part of this story, sometime 20ish years ago, Jeremy's dad and his 2 brother's had a falling out and would not talk to each other. Jeremy grew up not really knowing his uncles or his cousins. Of course, this situation has thrown them all back together and this week I have finally met his uncles and cousins and other family on the Poarch side. I don't know what I expected, but everyone is so nice and took up with us right away. They made a fuss over the girls and the girls took to them also. I really don't understand not wanting to be around your family for 20 years, especially when this thought is passed down to the children (Jeremy and his cousins). One aunt even expressed how excited she had been to finally get to see Jeremy again and meet us. They were taking lots of pictures last night. I know we won't see any of them much, because they live in Atlanta and Nashville, but I do hope they can be a part of our lives from now on.

Wordless Wednesday

Homebody

Lately, I've been feeling like a homebody. If you have read my previous posts, I am not normally like this, but get bored if I have nothing to go do. Now I am not wanting to take the girls to the library or to music class, but would rather stay home. It is really weird to me. I know part of this is from still being a little sick and now getting big pregnant. I also do not even want to take the girls outside to play. I just want to lay around the house. Come October thought I have a lot I need to get done so I hope that this feeling doesn't last too long. I still have to get out the girls winter clothes so I can see what they need still. I know neither one of them need much, but that way I'll know what to look for at the consignment sales. I also need to start getting ready for this baby. I still need to wash 0-3 month clothes (plus find somewhere to put them), get diapers, and finish getting my supplies for the birth. I also want to redesign my doula website. It has been messed up for a while and I'd like to fix it and add a few things. Hopefully I can get all this done.

I am posting a new belly pic. We took this at the park Sunday and I really like it. I'll post more family pics tomorrow.

Sick & Tired

So I've gotten lazier with my posts lately. I've just been posting about once a week. This week I was down with this cold. Normally colds don't affect me that bad, but this one made me just want to lay around. At the first of the week, I only went out to do things I had to do. I am feeling much better, but the congestion is still lingering. Friday, we went to our homeschool group's Not Back to School Party. We had a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed playing at the park. It is great to start doing things with everyone again. I really missed them this summer.
I am so tired of cleaning. We had someone come look at our house Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. While I'm glad they are looking, it is getting harder for me to clean like I need to. My belly was sore Friday from all I did on Thursday and Friday morning. It is amazing how much dirt can accumulate in a day. I will openly admit that I don't normally clean my house very well. I have always picked up and cleaned up messes, but did not do the deep cleaning often enough. It shocked me that it appears that as much dirt accumulated in 1 day as I usually see in my sporadic deep cleanings. I wish someone would buy my house so that I don't have to do this anymore!!!
Today we finally went and took some family pictures at the park. We have been wanting to do this since the spring. I think most of them turned out well. I'll post some soon. I need to post another belly pic too. I really like my belly this time (not that I didn't before). To me, I have a much rounder shape this time. Of course, that can change as the baby is growing greatly at this point. I am not yet at the point of "wanting" the baby out. The only times it bother me really is at night. My hips hurt when I turn from side to side. I'm really comfortable flat on my back, but that is not good for the baby. I hope to write more this week than I have been!

Last Birth

For a while anyway. My client finally had her baby Saturday. By the way, this is long. She had called several times in the days before and was having prelabor. Then on Friday night, she thought she was in labor and called me, but then before I left, called back and said she didn't need me. I did get the call to come a little after 6am Saturday. I did go a little earlier to this labor than I normally do because this was a single mom. I was her only support. I went and sat with her until the kids woke up and then got them breakfast and dressed. I was trying to handle what they needed so the mom could labor. Their great-grandmother came and got them mid-morning. I ran my client a bath and she stayed in there quite a while. She was having contractions, but what a saw was about 10 minutes apart and she was not making noise or seeming to be in too much pain. She said they were hard, but I just didn't think she was very far along. She called the Dr. and the on-call did not think she was ready to go to the hospital yet, but she really wanted to so we got ready. She said she was ready for some pain medication. It still took an hour to get everything ready and in the car. I drover her there and we got there about 2pm. When she got in and they checked her, she was 7 cm. I was shocked. Apparently she was just handling everything very well. We were both very excited and this renewed her wants of going naturally. We got checked into a room and her Dr. came and she was 8cm before too long. I'm thinking this baby will be born within 1-2 hours. Then she gets to 8.5 and stays there.
I'm going to pause here to tell you what she was like in labor. She did not want to be touched and for the most part she wanted it quiet. Also, she wanted to lay down most of the time, so my suggestions of being active were all turned down. All this was fine with me, because I am there for whatever the woman's needs are. I would forget every now and then and touch her and she would shake me off. She wanted and needed me there, but she mostly just wanted to handle the labor by herself. As a doula, the work itself was easy- I did not spend hours massaging her back or holding her up.
Back to the story, so she stays at 8.5 for several hours and the nurses and Dr. come in more often and monitor her more often, both of which starts to bother her, because she just wants to be left alone by everyone. Finally, her dilation goes back to an 8. You may think this is impossible, but I had read about this in books and now I have seen this happen twice this year. When you have people (nurse, Drs) who are coming in often to "interrupt" you and who are giving you discouraging news instead of encouraging you, this can easily happen. Finally, it is getting late 8pm and the Dr says you have to do something. She agrees to an epidural. It is in by 9pm. She cried after it was in, because she had really thought she could go natural and wanted to. I told her she had been very successful and we can't control the labor we are dealt. Within an hour she was complete, so the epi did help her. She pushed the baby out fairly quickly and he was born just after 10pm. He came out with his hand next to his head so I don't know if this helped cause the stall at 8 or not?
He came out healthy and nursed right away and well. I stayed and helped her get settled into recovery. I was with her for 3 hours after the baby was born which I normally don't do, but I didn't want to leave her alone. When her sister came back at 1am (she was there for the last hour of labor), I finally left to go home. I was with her a total of 19 hours. I think that is my longest labor yet, but I knew I signed on for that too. I'm just glad I get a break now.
On Sunday morning, I taught preschool bible class, tried to stay awake during worship, we grabbed a quick bite afterwards. I then went home and slept for a couple of hours. Did I also mention I started getting a cold on Friday? Thankfully, it didn't bother me during the labor except needing a drink when my throat was dry, but it did come in on Sunday. I slept 10 hours last night and finally feel a bit more myself today. I'm glad I attended the labor and I hope it was a positive experience for the mother, but I am so glad to not have to do one for a while. At least not for 8-9 more weeks! :)

Focus

I am ready to focus on me! I know that sound egotistical, but I don't mean it that way. For this whole pregnancy, I have been thinking of other things. Besides the daily family stuff, I'm always waiting for a client to have her baby and I've been looking for a house while worrying about ours selling. I am at that point in me pregnancy where I really want to just think about me and this baby. I want to think about my birth and how I want it to be and to begin to prepare. I want to think about the baby, come up with names, decide if I want to do cloth or disposable diapers, start washing things. I'm not really worried about getting everything done- 60 days is still plenty of time, I'm just ready to make that my focus. I feel as if this baby has been neglected. That is not the case as I try to eat right, take my vitamins, see my midwife, and am planning the best start of life possible for him/her. I just have not gotten to think as much about this one. That also helps the wait though. Time has certainly flown and before I know it, this baby will be in my arms.
On this note, I saw Debi yesterday. Everything is going great still. I always do well with pregnancy and this time is no different. The baby is great and has moved into a head down position. He wasn't last visit, so that is a relief to know. Now in my 3rd trimester, I certainly feel pregnant. I have some trouble at night, but I am still getting enough sleep so that's okay. The Braxton Hicks have started too. Just a few a day that I can feel, but again, nothing that I could complain about. I'm looking forward to this birth and have some fear too. the fear is really just for the unknown part of it all. I just hope this one is a little easier than Lily's. Although I had a long,hard birth once and can make it through another if I have to.

Our Weekend

On Saturday, we went to Touch-a-truck. This is an event where the kids get to climb in and explore all kinds of big service trucks and cars including a police car, city bus, dump truck, etc. They also gave away free food, t-shirts, and lots of other stuff. The girls had a nice time. We then went and ate and then had a lazy afternoon at home. After dinner, we all took a walk down to the park and played for about an hour. That is one thing that I will miss when we move. The girls and I walk to the Library when it is a nice day and being able to walk to a park.
On Sunday we went to worship and then ate lunch with my parents. Then we stopped by to see Jeremy's mom too. It was grandparents day and the girls had made them both cards. My parents drove by the house I was interested in and it was having an open house so they looked and later I took Jeremy to look. No one else liked it as much as I did so back to square 1. I was a little down after that. Also, my new dryer that was free dries my clothes really well, but also will choose a few to leave brown stains on. While I told Jeremy about this after the first load, he still has not looked. So now I refuse to use my dryer until he fixes this or gets me a new one. It may be a while until we have clean clothes! I am still waiting for my client to go into labor. I am ready for that to happen and for us to find a house so that I can start concentrating on me and this baby and the upcoming birth.

Movie Reviews

We've seen 2 movies lately at the $1 theater. I feel rather cheap, because I hate paying so much to go see a regular movie and did not take the girls to see any of the kid's summer movies this year. We did go to the free ones at the Rave though. So I've been watching the theater at Hamilton Place for the movies to come through.
Last week we saw Kung Fu Panda. The kids loved this movie and I really enjoyed it too. It was a really great family movie. It had a positive message and was very funny. This is one I would recommend to everyone and I plan to buy when the movie comes out on DVD.
Yesterday, I took the kids to see the new Indiana Jones. I was looking forward to seeing this since I grew up with the older movies. While the movie did have some interesting parts, to me it was just not the same. Events were sometimes too fantastical. I know that the old movies had some of this too, but the new one took it too far. I really did not like the ending either. It would have been much better if they wrote something simpler. I was also not impressed with Harrison Ford as an actor. He was just not believable as Indiana Jones anymore. It really wasn't his age, but his face just looked tired and like he wasn't enjoying his adventure. The kids ( Miriam & A.J.) enjoyed it, but Lily was too scared to look during some parts. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to waste $6 a person, but I guess $1 was okay.

Giving

Several things have happened lately that have me thinking about giving and God's providence. When I was in college, I attended a congregation that was very giving towards me. By this I mean, that individual members made sure I was taken care of and had plenty of fellowship with them. I was often asked out to eat and rarely paid for my meal. There are a few who were very capable of doing this (financially) and did so often. I always felt guilty, but I remember one man telling me that one day when I was capable I would be doing the same things. Since then, I have matured as a woman and a christian, gotten married, etc. I have always remembered this and I have always tried to be conscious of my giving. I try to give generously to the church, but also to individuals who have a need. In return, I always try to be aware of how God returns this to me by help when I need it. As II Corinthians 9:6 says, "But this [I say], He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." This applies to many things in the spiritual realm, but in the context, Paul is specifically talking about giving. Knowing this, God also does not expect us to give beyond our means and sometimes a little is considered to be a lot in His eyes (for example: the story of the widow's mite in Mark 12).
When Jeremy and I are aware of a need or have something that could help someone else, we have always tried to help fill it. This comes in many forms from money to help moving to a meal. I feel that sometimes we do not help when we should, but we do try. In return, God has many times blessed us and our brethren have come through when we have a need. I would not have made it through the death of Josiah without God to lean on as well as all the support we had from brethren in this area and beyond. More than once when a finacial need has arised, we will get some sort of refund or bonus check we were not expecting. This does not happen every time, but it has happened. We are blessed with my husband's steady job and paycheck and we live within our means so that we are not often in need. This weekend we have 2 unplanned expenses, new tires and shocks for my husbands car and my dryer burned out. Then today, my husband found a free dryer and is picking it up tomorrow. I know that God's hand was in that although in reality it is a minor thing because we could have bought one if we had to. Just yesterday we were helping a christian family unload their moving truck (giving of ourselves) and today I am getting a free dryer. I have gained a new friend also as the family has kids very close to my kid's age and me and the mom have a lot in common. While God never promises that this life will be easy (why would we hope for heaven if it was?), He certainly provides the means for us to get by here. I have NO DOUBT that when I need help, all I have to do is lean on Him and He will provide. That is so comforting!