The best things in life....

....definitely don't come cheap. :-) I of course am not referring to financially here.

Baby was born at 3:42 Monday morning after a labor that was really fast but, in my estimation, a lot harder than my last one. Ben was the perfect coach again (he's great....he said early on "Just let me know what to do. And not do." And then he was just his quiet strong presence that keeps me going through this mess of life!) And my midwife was phenomenal. I just love the way that midwives do birthing of babies! She was so helpful...with both babies I've had these serious "I can't do this, you need to at least give me IV meds or I'm going to DIE, right NOW" moments. Not only did Liz (the midwife) know that I really didn't mean that, but she knew me well enough to know what to say at which points in labor to get me out of that mindset. It was great.

Baby is positively perfect and beautiful. I don't sleep much (no surprise there), but it's not because he doesn't. He sleeps great...I just have to watch him! I had forgotten how absolutely tiny and amazing little ones are.

So I've been pondering on the grace of God in three aspects of this experience. First of all, things for the semester did NOT get wrapped up. I still have one paper I need to finish, and one that's barely in embryonic state...on Saturday I had set up my plan to finish the one on Monday morning, finish the other Monday afternoon and night, edit on Tuesday and then turn them in. Well, I was off by about 2 days. And I've realized that God's in charge, and that's okay. Everything is going to work out. The second thing is that I'm amazed that babies can even make it into being....with all of the things that have to go right at just the right moments, and all the ways in which they can go wrong...it's amazing that it happens right so much of the time. The last thing is just how cool that we can do so many things that we didn't know we could. Specifically I'm thinking of my decision, about 3/4 through labor, that I just couldn't do it and had made a really bad choice to even try. And then I did it anyway. I think that being able to learn just how far beyond our limits we can go is a really great chance.

Adventures on the bus

So Bee and I got adventurous yesterday morning. Her Daddy had told her that we could go to the farmer's market today, forgetting that he would be gone with the scouts (and therefore the car would not be home). But I was feeling pretty full of energy, so we jumped on the bus and went to the farmer's market. We bought some violas because she wanted them (she picked dark blue and yellow...my kind of color scheme!) and a bouquet of lilacs because I wanted them. :-) We also bought honey sticks and starts for oregano and rosemary. Bee picked out the honey sticks, counting out six, and then gave the lady her dollar and said "thank you." It was a good moment.

When we were on the way back to the bus stop, she realized we were close to Wonderlab and asked if we could go. I told her that would be fine. So we hung out there for a little over an hour. She played in the water exhibit, which she hasn't done for ages. It was good. By the time we got home again, we were both ready for lunch and a nap. I was done in! She really likes the bus, though...I think it's something about the no seat-belt thing.

I've been thinking about lilacs ever since. They're my favorite flower, followed closely by daffodils and daisies. I think they're great...they have woody stems and arrange great, you can't make an ugly or odd-shaped bouquet of lilacs! And they come in all different shades of purple, there are white ones, and they just smell heavenly! But I think that the thing that makes them really special to me is that you can't really buy them from a florist. There's just a two week or so stretch in spring that you have to get as much of them as you can before they're gone until next year. And they remind me of filling up the house in the valley with them in the spring time, especially the times that it overlapped Hannah's birthday. I love them.

FAMILY!

Hannah was at our house ALL DAY yesterday! I felt so special that we got a whole day. :-) It was really nice to talk to her and catch up. And Bee absolutely LOVES her aunt. Especially her aunt's camera bag, which she walked around with all day and filled with an assortment of pinecones, leaves, grass, papers, and (apparently) "responsibilities." I couldn't ever figure out what she meant by that last part, but she insisted that there were some in there.

I finished up a short assignment that I had forgotten about, and one paper is a short tweak from done...now I just have to suck it up and finish the other two, which are each only about a third of the way done. (18 pages to go!)

Things have been....interesting.....in the contraction department. Basically every night I wonder if I'm going into labor...then once I drink some water and go to bed, things slow down. I think that stress is affecting me more this time than it did with Bee. I just hope that baby is none the worse for it!

And SPRING has definitely come. We've spent the days lately (instead of working on final papers that really need to get done, and soon) drawing with sidewalk chalk, blowing bubbles, and going to the park. Hooray! Now our little flowers in the backyard just need to sprout up.

A blessing that I'm really grateful for....yesterday my dryer started making a HORRIBLE burning smell. So I turned it off. Fortunately Dad was coming over to pick Hannah up. He stayed a lot longer than he had intended and got things squared away so that it would vent properly and not burn us all to cinders. I'm really glad that I have a Dad that will still take care of me, even though I'm supposed to be a grown-up. :-)

Uh-oh

My midwife's parting words from my appointment this morning were, "Well, we'll set you up for next week, if I don't see you before then!"

Yikes! 6 pages down, 39 to go.

Getting ready

I cleaned the apartment yesterday. I'm pretty sure it hasn't been this clean since it was new. Which makes me happy. And today we did the car. So now all we need is a car seat (Bee's got left in Utah with a certain sister of mine).

We also put together the bassinet, at which Bee said "That's not for babies, that's MINE!" and proceeded to throw one of the biggest fits I've ever seen from her. Pretty funny that the rivalry has already kicked in and he's not even here yet! The plan was to set it up to make sure we had all the pieces, and then collapse it back down. In light of the reaction, we decided to leave it set up so that she can get used to the idea that she can NOT sleep in it! She's had two five-minute time-outs because of it. Fun fun!

And we're wrapping up for Ben's final project and my final papers. Pretty soon we'll both be done with classes. Forever. And then we have to start paying back (at least his) student loans. We really need a job...like a real one. It is nice, though, to get to some sort of landmark in this interminable PhD process.

So when somebody makes a reference to "natural" childbirth, what do you think of? Today when I was at the haircut place getting a trim, the stylist and I were talking about babies. She said that she gained 73 pounds for her pregnancy (makes me feel not at all bad about my 36 thus far), and that her baby weighed more than nine pounds. The stylist next to us said "Did you have her natural?" And the girl doing my hair said yes. And then mentioned an epidural about two minutes later.

I think it's interesting the different ideas that people have about childbirth. My especial, pet favorite is the one where when I say that I see midwives people say "Oh, so you have your babies at home!" Ha, no. I'm WAY too much of a sissy for that. I just like midwife care. Not that I have anything to compare it to, since I've never seen a doctor....I just like the way that I know things like my midwife's own birth experience, what she thinks about the fact that Bee was born cauled (so was Christina of Sweden, if I remember right....one of those awesome queens from Valerie's class was), and that she's willing to look at my case and to adapt her "typical" instructions for how long to wait through labor before going to the hospital because my first labor was so short. I like midwives.

End of the semester

Well, I'm at it again. That point at which I start thinking "why am I doing this again?" I don't know if pregnancy has complicated it this time, or the fact that this is my last semester of classes, or a combination of the two. But I'm definitely down to having little or no motivation to do my work. Preparing to teach is definitely a struggle, although teaching itself is usually pretty okay. I've got a decent bunch of students. Writing final papers is looming over my head even worse than usual. I think because I'm trying to get them in early, just in case! Usually I have a week with no classes that I can write them in. I'm trying to get them in at the same time classes end. Which means doing all my normal work plus a whole lot of writing. (This semester's minimum page total is 47) At least I'm still enjoying my reading and going to class. Otherwise I might just quit. :-)

A good thing though....I went to my advising appointment to go over paperwork and double-check my math, and I'm officially done with course work after I do the independent readings course I've set up for summer. So, after the 30th of April, I will never have to attend another class as long as I live. Hooray! It's nice to have hit some sort of milestone, even though I feel like I still have forever to go with exams and a dissertation. Ben will be done, officially. The job search has turned up an interesting job in Richmond, IN. We'll see how that one runs!

On the agenda for this week is going to the hospital to pre-register (I highly recommend it...the alternative is filling out a bunch of forms and answering a bunch of questions while you're in labor...which I would think would be pretty stinky) and figure out which entrances to use. The tour thing isn't as big a deal to me this time...I found some pics on the hospital website, and I'm good. I also need to get Ben to put together the bassinet piece for the pack'n'play and the crib. And we need to buy a new infant seat.

We did pick out some names....we'll have to meet him to decide which one of them works best. I'm open for opinions though. We've got Adam, Spencer, David, Isaac, and James. Thomas, Alex, and Grant were briefly on the list, but got scratched for various reasons. If we name him James it would be James Royal, after great-grandfathers. Adam is also a family name on my side.

Do you ever wonder how you got to where you are in life? I've been doing that lately. I'm mostly glad for how things are...but sometimes I get just a tad bit overwhelmed with all of the things that we pile on ourselves to do.