And another thing!

I know that the title makes this post sound like a rant already, but it's not. I just now remembered and got time to write about something related to the previous post.

Another reason why I enjoy having three kids is that I'm finally able to just enjoy having a baby. Any other moms know what I mean? With my first, I was consumed by having a baby: by her constant neediness and the reality that I was the only person who could meet her needs. I was always worrying and comparing her developmental milestones to those of other babies her age. ("Why isn't her head control as good as the baby who's two weeks younger than her?? She goes ballistic during tummy time- should I bring that up to the pediatrician? I can't believe she's still not walking!") With my second, I compared his development to my first. He crawled earlier but talked later. His feet were rounded so it took him longer to get the hang of walking. I worried that he didn't communicate verbally as much as his sister had, but once I taught him some hand signs, he picked up on those very quickly. 

Now I have a little kid and a toddler to look at, and I can barely remember what they were like as babies. They seem so different now. And, as every mother knows, there is something very special about that baby time. They're warm and soft and completely absorbed by you. (And that new baby smell- mmmm!) You get to watch them learning everything for the first time: how to move their face, their limbs, how to be patient, how to engage people- learning how to learn, for goodness' sake! They need no one more than their mommy and they're happiest when they're with her. A baby will just lie in your arms or with their head resting on your shoulder and look at the world until they fall asleep. There's perhaps nothing so perfect and endearing in the world than when you're nursing your baby and they catch your eye and then stop eating to give you the biggest full-bodied wiggly smile. I have bigger kids now, and I know how quickly this turns into wanting to run around the house, eat a sandwich at the table and get down, arguing, jumping up and down on mommy instead of snuggling with her, etc. I know my baby will grow up in time- it will seem too fast when it's gone. So I'm released from worrying about when to introduce solids or how his neck muscles are developing or if he's verbalizing enough for his age. It will come, but for now he's my baby and I've finally learned enough to enjoy every warm, cooing, snuggly moment- dirty diapers and spit up and all. And that's a tremendous relief. 

At the same time, I've learned to appreciate my older kids more. They moved on from the baby stage so quickly, I know the toddler and preschool stages won't last long either. They demand SO MUCH from me, but I'm sure that one day I'll miss being needed for everything from mediating arguments to food to hugs. They still want to be with me most, and they light up when I give them hugs and kisses "just because." I don't rush reading time and I take a little more time to just listen to their rambling stories. (For some reason it's terribly important that I listen to the story of how the dog barked at nothing, but I don't mind it anymore.) 

I don't know if three was a magical number of children for me or if I'm just older and wiser or a more experienced mom. It's probably a combination of all of that. But I find myself enjoying all of our kids where they're at. The first month was crazy (it always is), but three kids hasn't been the end of the world. It's been the fulfillment of a promise- motherhood as it finally should be. I'm at peace and enjoying life...

...on five broken hours of sleep. And now I have to go because my baby just filled up his diaper, my three year old is screaming for something I already gave her, and I have to start dinner. All in a day's work! And it's still enjoyable, in a crazy way. 

Three kids: the end of the world?

Mothers know: as soon as you're pregnant, people like to give you advice and tell you their horror stories. It goes something like this:

When you're expecting your first child: "Good luck! Get some sleep now while you still can!" (<The favorite piece of advice from every human being you'll meet, whether they've had kids or not.)

When you're expecting your second child: "Watch out, now you'll really have your hands full!"

When you're expecting your third child: "Everyone says that three is the hardest number. After all, now you guys are outnumbered!"

People are full of encouraging gems like that when you're pregnant. No wonder so many pregnant women are grumpy.

Some of it is well-meant, of course. But there's not a lot of positivity surrounding pregnancy and motherhood. (Pregnant ladies, how often do you hear something like, "Congratulations! What a miracle. You'll so enjoy having [x number of] kids!")

Now that we've started mingling with people in the wide world again, mothers of one and two kids ask me with some awe and trepidation, "So how is it having three?"

It's really not bad. It's not even as bad as I thought, and it's certainly not as bad as people have been telling me.

In fact, having three kids has, so far, been (knock on wood)...

...easy.

(I've been a mom long enough to know that now that I've said that, one kid is going to have attitude problems, another is going to start teething, and the baby is going to go through a growth spurt.)

First, it might help to define what "easy" means when you have three kids. I'm not saying there aren't times when I close myself in the laundry room just so I can cough without someone(s) asking me a thousand questions. I fight multiple battles every day about eating food. Good, healthy food that I lovingly prepared to nourish their growing minds and bodies. There are mornings when I deal with the poop of three small people all in rapid succession, and not always where it's supposed to be. Often at least one person is crying, though more often it's two and sometimes it's a trio of voices raised in delightful harmony.

No, it's easy because I've been doing this for three years and now I'm used to all of that. A little bit of chaos is normal, and it's interspersed with a lot of fun and endearing times. I don't usually get a shower or change out of my PJs before 11 AM, but I do get to see my baby give smiles so big he has to put his whole face and body into expressing the happiness inside him. We can't get out the door on time, but I get to witness my older kids playing cheerfully together at games that they made up.

Truthfully, it was a lot more difficult transitioning to having one child, or even from having one child to two. In the first case, you're caught unprepared (at least we were) by the reality of around-the-clock neediness and your own susceptibility to hormones and uncertainty about how to care for your baby. In the second case, you have a better idea of how to care for an infant, but at that point you have a toddler or preschooler who is used to being the center of attention. Suddenly they need to entertain themselves and they don't always adjust to that easily. They can't understand why mom is suddenly obsessed with a small, uninteresting blob of a person that they can't even touch. To compound things, my toddler still needed help getting into and out of her high chair, having meals made, having her diapers changed, etc.

SO MUCH is different by the time you have three kids! Diana is three now, and at this point she and Liam have been playing together for a long time. I was exhausted in late pregnancy, so they had to learn to run around and entertain themselves. I still need to sit down and feed the baby frequently, so they just dive into their toy box (literally) and make a mess and play doctor. She "reads" him books. They watch TV. (Yep, my ultra-strict attitude about the electronic babysitter changed too after three years.) If they're hungry, I tell her she can get grapes out of the fridge. If the baby throws up the contents of his stomach all over me, I can ask Diana or Liam to get towels or burp rags. They're old enough to play by themselves in the back yard and then let themselves in and take their shoes off when they're done. I can throw their lunches onto the table, sit down and feed the baby, and have them climb up into their chairs and feed themselves. Also, touching on the idea of being outnumbered: is there any family in which there are two caregivers at home all day long? My husband works- I was outnumbered as soon as we had two! And now when we go on family outings, one person grabs the older two and the other grabs the baby. It's not so complicated.

I don't want to ignore my older kids, but it's nice to see their relationship with each other develop and deepen. They're more self-sufficient. I'd like to think they have a greater appreciation for what it takes to be a mom because they see everything I do to take care of Matthew, but I know that's not true. They won't fully appreciate everything their parents did for them until they're pacing the floor for the fifth time one late night, covered in four different bodily fluids. Still, I know this has been good for all of us. The nature of dealing with small children means that an easy period can become very difficult in a matter of months or minutes, but so far, this has been a lot easier than I expected- maybe because so many people (so MANY people) gave me dire warnings about having three kids. I fully allow that it might be different when Matthew is crawling around and needs more than just feeding, changing, and sleep, but until then, this has been a pretty easy transition.

So if you too are thinking of stepping off the edge of the world and having more than two children, take heart! It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's a miracle. You'll love it (especially after that first month). Especially if you can make your peace with not sleeping and dealing with lots of diapers. I jest. But only a little.

(P.S. I know that last paragraph is irrelevant as there are only two people who read this blog, and at least one of them already has more children than I do. Seriously, I don't even think my mom reads this. I hope instead she's busy catching up on the sleep that she lost for years caring for me and my three siblings. I can appreciate that now.)

What we watch

I don't usually enjoy watching a lot of TV, but in the early days of having a baby when I'm breastfeeding around the clock, and especially when it's unbearably painful and I need something to distract me (mental anesthetic, I call it, and books don't quite cut it), I watch the TV (or more accurately, the computer) all the time. With Diana, I watched four seasons of 30 Rock, plus Zulu, Funny Girl, and Hello, Dolly! plus a few documentaries. With Liam it was The West Wing (four seasons!) and Ken Burns' Civil War and Baseball documentaries. (Here's a tip: for pleasant dreams and restful sleep, don't watch a 9 hour documentary about the Civil War unless you enjoy falling asleep to the sound of maimed and dying men and horses.) I tend to watch a lot of documentaries. A LOT. Most of my sentences start with "I saw this documentary about..." My thinking is that if I'm going to waste time watching something, I might as well be learning. Here's what I've been watching since having Matthew:

Mitt
A Netflix original about, obviously, Mitt Romney. (How many other people do you know with the name 'Mitt'?) I really wish this had been finished and released before the 2012 election. One of my more trivial qualms about Mitt Romney was that he seemed dry, wooden, and completely without personality. I wish documentaries like this could be released about candidates in every election. I really enjoy getting to know the people I'm voting for. (Or not.) Joseph put it pretty well: while it didn't reveal Mitt Romney to be a stunning intellectual infinitely more worthy of running the country than President Obama, he did seem genuinely smart, with a good business sense, and a friendly personality kind of like a dad from church. I think this could have helped him in the election. It also made me realize how grueling it is to run a political campaign. There is no way I'd want to invite that kind of stress and scrutiny into my life. Suddenly I feel a little bit sorry for politicians.

More Than Honey
A beautiful documentary that compares local, small-scale apiaries to large-scale operations and looks at the decline of bee populations worldwide and the implications for agriculture. Suddenly bees seem delicate and precious, and large-scale cross-country bee pollinating operations look horrifying. Tell me you can't sympathize with the old Swiss bee-keeper and his lovingly cared-for native bees over the giant truckload of bees that become collateral damage in the industrial honey operation! It made me want to plant bee-attracting plants all over my yard and it made Joseph want to start bee-keeping. We will be buying local honey from now on!

Wild China
The BBC has a talent for beautiful cinematography. This five (I think?) part series is gorgeous and a treat to watch. I even learned some new things about China, which I appreciated. TV documentaries usually just cover the same information over and over again. I'd even have let the kids watch this.

It's a Girl
Here's something to know about me: I like learning about other cultures, and I don't know whether it's just the nature of cultural documentaries or the nature of the subject matter, but I end up watching the absolute saddest films. This was the first in a series of eye-opening, terribly depressing documentaries I watched. I was crying within the first 60 seconds. I first learned of female gendercide after having Diana. It was shocking to be holding my precious baby girl, warm and safe with people who loved her, while other baby girls around the world were being killed or thrown away. This documentary is about the danger of being born a girl in parts of the world with strong cultural male preferences, especially India and China. Baby girls are aborted (sometimes, even more sickeningly, against the mother's wishes as in China), killed shortly after birth, abandoned, or enslaved. There are literally millions of missing baby girls in these countries, causing the gender ratio between men and women to become dangerously and unnaturally skewed. The title reflects the fact that three of the most dangerous words that can be used in relation to a baby in these places are: "it's a girl." And it shouldn't be so. It SHOULD NOT be so. Cultural differences be damned, a human being is not less deserving of life because it's a female. This is an issue that has become near to my heart as a woman, as a mother, and having a little girl. Watch this documentary and then, if you have the stomach, watch Half the Sky. More importantly, if these documentaries inspire you, do something!

The World Before Her
This was an interesting documentary partly because it was something I wouldn't normally have picked and knew little about. It contrasts the worlds of Western-style "Miss America" type beauty pageants, which are increasingly popular in India, with conservative fundamentalist Hinduism. I don't know a lot about Hinduism, I suppose, and certainly not ultra-conservative Hinduism. The irony is that women and girls at fundamentalist Hindu camps talk about how the Miss India contestants are enslaved to perverted Western ideas of beauty and worth while following a very conservative vein of their religion that basically restricts their value to marriage and child-bearing. I thought this was a well constructed documentary that wasn't afraid to ask hard questions.

First Circle
This documentary took a look at the foster care cycle in Eastern Oregon and Idaho. It wasn't super well-funded, or else the filmmaker wasn't extremely experienced, but the subject matter was interesting to me. I would almost be interested in fostering kids, and I know others who would, but for the illogical and confusing foster care system. A child's best place is with their own family- and it's heartbreaking that you can see that these kids want to be with their parents, even when they're making some pretty big mistakes- but if that's not the safest place for them, they should be able to be taken in by a stable family, if only temporarily. Unfortunately, the convoluted world of foster care means that qualified families are sometimes driven away or turned down.

Dirty Wars
The creepiest stuff you don't want to think about. This one was about the growing and increasingly unfocused war on terror. I thought this 2014 Oscar nominee was very well constructed. It plays out like a mystery-drama. Like the Bourne Identity without the action. Joseph didn't like that it presented events in a very conspiratorial way, as if mysterious forces were trying to conceal facts at every turn. But the part we both agreed was the most interesting is that it included information that we had never heard before and that is genuinely disturbing. Regardless of how you justify things in the beginning of the documentary, toward the end you get this uncomfortable feeling that our country may be meddling in some deep, murky slightly evil factions around the world. This is a good conversation-starter. I suggest watching it with someone for that reason.

The Square
Another Netflix original and 2014 Academy Award nominee about the protests in Egypt during the Arab Spring. It follows a group of protesters present at the original uprising in Tahrir Square. After their initial success in ousting Hosni Mubarak, you get to watch the difficulties that follow in setting up free elections and the discontent and outrage over the abuses of power by the subsequently elected president, Mohamed Morsi. I think it's always interesting to get a more in-depth view of events that appear in the news, especially when you can watch interviews with people who are participating on the streets. And it's inspiring to watch the passion these people have for justice and for their country.

Tell Me and I Will Forget
Do you like blood, gore, and senseless violence? Do you enjoy the depressed and overwhelmed feeling that comes from being confronted by giant, seemingly unsolvable problems? Then this may be the documentary for you! The title comes from a quote with origins that are hard to track down. It goes, approximately, "Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand." What I understood from the documentary is that Johannesburg is one of the worst cities on earth and I would never ever want to visit it ever. Ever. How can so many people be so terrible to other people? Years after the end of apartheid, desperate circumstances have led to a huge increase in terrible violent crime in Pretoria and Johannesburg. This documentary follows paramedics in the area as they struggle to help the sick and injured despite overwhelming demand for their services and incredible lack of supplies and resources. These people and their passion for helping others seem to be the only bright spots in a place that is characterized in all other ways only by crime and violence. The film also examines the differences in the country's dual luxurious private and underfunded public medical systems. On the one hand, I'm glad to have learned about some of the challenges faced by other people in the world- and it was particularly interesting to Joseph having spent 10 years as an EMT. On the other hand, you get to see that the world is a terrible place with terrible things happening in it. Very interesting and very depressing.

Somm
Mostly thanks to Joseph's influence, we finally watched a documentary that wasn't sad, depressing, or horrifying! What a welcome change that was! Somm is about candidates training for the Master Sommelier exams. I was surprised to find out that there was such a thing as a sommelier, which is basically someone who has been professionally trained to know literally everything about wine. It far surpasses wine nerd and delves into a level of knowledge and scrutiny I can't imagine anyone would ever need to know about wine. But this documentary follows at least four sommeliers in the world who are studying for the Master Sommelier exame, which has one of the lowest pass rates in the world. A sometimes funny, interesting look at people who have devoted their lives to a single subject.

One month: We made it!

Matthew and his one month accomplishments!

With each baby I remember my mother-in-law's advice to circle the date on the calendar a month after the baby is born. That way in the dark times during the first month when nothing is right, you can look at the calendar and know that at that point, almost all the problems you're facing will be resolved. It has been great advice.

February 2014 will be known in our memories as the month we all made it through (barely). 

Matthew was born an incredibly healthy baby, praise God! He also naturally put himself on a schedule of being asleep for about four hours and awake for an hour or two. We can work with that kind of schedule. I had to get stitches, which I wasn't happy about, but which I was also pretty much expecting. Our difficulties the first couple of weeks mostly involved my recovery. (Spoiler: getting stitches down there is not fun at all and kind of affects everything you want to do, including sitting up, moving around, and walking.) I seemed to be getting better, and then something happened at about two weeks and suddenly my stitches started pulling and stinging. It was so discouraging, since stitches are easily my least favorite part of recovery. I talked with my midwife about it and she said that because of the way she'd had to tie the stitches, they might not have dissolved and may need to be removed. That elicited one of my two breakdowns during our first month. I just broke down and cried at the thought of anyone having to mess with my stitches at all. It probably had nothing at all to do with post-pregnancy hormones. ;) Thankfully, a friend read that I was having problems and stopped by with a bag to help me feel better. It had cold packs, homeopathic arnica montana tablets, a donut pillow, and an herbal sitz bath mix. I could have cried. It was so amazing! I used those for a couple weeks straight and miraculously one day the pain and stitches disappeared. It was such a blessing! That was something I really really wanted to heal up on its own. I'm so glad no one had to look at it or mess with it. 

Breastfeeding was also, pretty much as I expected, excruciatingly painful. I'd describe it as being stabbed repeatedly in one place over and over again. In addition, I managed to develop cracked nipples on both sides, which just made it, if possible, even more painful. I only screamed once. I only broke down sobbing once because I wanted to feed a crying baby but just couldn't face the pain. Mostly I just bit down on a rag and tried to bear it. When I developed cracks, I decided to give myself a break for about ten hours, so I just pumped and fed Matthew from a bottle during that time. After that, things got better very quickly. By about two weeks, breastfeeding was definitely bearable, and mostly painless.

Then The Cold hit.

Not the weather- no, that comes later. Liam was the first to come down with it: a productive cough even

Sick and tired Liam.

though he didn't seem to have a runny nose, and what he indicated was a headache. He was whiny and clingy and generally miserable. A couple days later, the runny nose appeared along with a high fever of 103. The fever (between 101 and 103 degrees), runny nose, and stomach upset continued for FIVE DAYS. Poor little guy just sat miserably on the couch not moving and barely keeping his eyes open the whole time. He tested negative for influenza, so as far as we could tell, he just got the worst cold ever. Three or four days after Liam got sick, Diana and I came down with the cold. Thankfully for adults it just seemed to involve a sore throat, headache, runny nose and cough. I was happy to get sick because I hoped as an EBF (Exclusively BreastFed) baby, Matthew would avoid it entirely that way. Unfortunately, it was so contagious that at the tender age of two weeks old, Matthew ended up catching it too. He didn't get the fever (thank goodness!), but he did get a runny nose and most unfortunately, a cough. It was so sad to watch a little newborn having painful coughing fits. It caused him to spit up more often than he usually did. Thankfully, he still kept gaining weight. But they definitely seemed to bother him. He snuffled and coughed and choked during the night so much that we got another humidifier for our room and put him to sleep in his swing for a couple of weeks until the drainage was mostly gone.

At the same time, there was an unusually heavy snowstorm and we ended up with over a foot of snow at our house and no way to really get out. Imagine, if you will, two sick, sleep-deprived parents, one still healing from having a baby and struggling with painful breastfeeding, the other beginning to feel the effects of cabin fever; two children with coughs and runny noses alternating being listless and being whiny because they're sick and confined to the house; and an infant with his first icky cold. There were some nice moments of family bonding, but there were also some rough times indeed.

So here we are, all healthy again, all healed again. Matthew is growing like crazy (11 lbs 11 oz at his six week appointment!), really tuning into people, and starting to give out more and more smiles. We're getting into a rhythm of being a family of five. I still take sleep where I can get it and only manage to get one thing from my long to-do list accomplished each day, but we're working on adjusting to this new normal. I've been so blessed to have the most amazing help from Joseph, our families, and our friends. They brought food, gave us space when we needed it, watched kids when we needed, and were around to just talk and help around the house. Joseph and I always talk about how we're open to moving because we love travel and new experiences, but I am incredibly grateful that we've been able to spend our family-growing years with such a wonderful community of people. I think it's that and a lot of praying that got us through the first month. I'm excited to see how life changes and keeps getting better in the months to come!

Matthew giving out baby smiles!

Matthew Timothy Sullivan

Early in the morning on Wednesday, January 22nd, we welcomed our sweet new baby boy to the world. He was born at 12:38 AM. He weighed 8 lbs, 10 oz and was 21 inches long.

Though many people thought we were secretly holding out about knowing the gender of our baby, we honestly didn't have a clue. It was about 5 minutes before we even checked. That's how concerned we were about it. ;) We were surprised and delighted to find we had a new baby boy. I think I mentioned before that I thought Liam would enjoy having a little brother to roughhouse with more than Diana would enjoy having a little sister to boss around play with.

His Name

We had a short list of boys names and girls names picked out for our mystery baby. Joseph has known his best friend Matt for over 20 years and wanted to do something to honor that, which is why we went with Matthew. Timothy was a pretty easy middle name choice too. I know a lot of good Timothys: it's my dad's first name, Joseph's dad's middle name, and also the name of my unofficial dad in Virginia. It seemed like a good solid name for a boy. 

Kids' Reactions

Diana holding Matthew for the first time!

Labor with Matthew began to pick up around the kids' bedtime, so we just put them to sleep at home. It wasn't my plan to have them around for the birth since I am LOUD and I worried they would be concerned for me, but labor progressed so quickly that we just let them be. Despite the fact that I was louder than I've ever been, the kids slept through everything. (Also, I am forever grateful to our next-door neighbors for not reporting us to the police through three disturbing-sounding home births.) Liam was the first up the next morning and he blinked thoughtfully, pointed and said "Baby" several times, then made a peace offering of a toy car to the baby. Since the baby didn't seem interested, Liam just went on with his day. Diana was absolutely *IN LOVE* with Matthew. She was excited and immediately wanted to hold him. She looked him over and talked about all the things she would teach him and even hummed him some songs. She loves this baby and will be a wonderful big sister to him. I suspect Liam will be more interested when the baby is more interactive. 

Labor and Delivery

(If you are not interested in all the details, run away NOW.)

I'd had false labor on the Friday before Matthew was born, so I was slightly bitter and determined to ignore any more contractions until the last possible moment. On Tuesday, the day I actually went into labor, I went to the gym, picked up some things at the grocery store, and even went to my scheduled appointment with my midwife. By 2-3 PM, I was having contractions that were decidedly different than Braxton-Hicks. They were deep-inside crampy contractions. But since they weren't particularly strong and were 8-15 minutes apart, depending on whether I was lying down or walking around, I decided to ignore them. I mentioned them to Lisa at our appointment and she told me she bet I would be having my baby that night. I tried not to get my hopes up and went home, where they still weren't very strong or close together, but definitely weren't going away. 

By the time the kids went to bed, contractions were 7-9 minutes apart. After a few hours, they hadn't gotten any closer together and I began to despair that I'd really have a baby. I went to take a shower and the contractions jumped to 2.5 minutes apart. Since I was still not really "feeling" them, I was a little doubtful, but we called Lisa anyway. That was at 11:30 PM. By the time she got to the house, I was on all fours on the floor having to make sounds to get through each contraction. The contractions were deep and involved a lot of back ache, so I moved on to the bed and squeezed Joseph's hands through each one while Lisa rubbed my back. It felt so good. It was late and I was feeling tired, so I was basically quiet and relaxed between contractions. When they came, they were very deep and hard to take. I started yelling through them. The urge to push came not long after they got very strong. After only a few pushes, my water broke and also all hell broke loose. With the last two kids, my water broke only in heavy labor, but with this labor, it basically exploded. (Ew.) I was afraid it had gotten the opposite wall. The midwives said it soaked the bed. At that point, I had no sense of time, but it felt like there were two HUGE pushes and then Matthew's head was out. Huge, frightening pushes. Aside from being pushed way past the point of pain I thought I could take, I was actually a bit terrified. I probably looked like a terrified wild animal. I am surprised I didn't scare the living daylights out of Joseph. I was pulling myself up with his hands, bellowing and screaming to God to please give me my baby, arching my back, and letting my breathing get way out of control. I remember Lisa calling to me to breathe more slowly and not arch my back. It was so scary and intense for me. But it was very quick and his head was out. Another push and his body came out too. One of my favorite miraculous parts of natural childbirth is how once the baby is out, nothing else matters. I went from being terrified and way beyond my pain level to pushing myself up, looking at the baby, rubbing him, and telling him how much I loved him. The labor pain was instantly gone. Of course that was at 12:38, less than an hour after Lisa had arrived.

Matthew cried not long after coming out. He has a healthy set of lungs. His little head was very round and his face wasn't squished, maybe because he spent so little time being pushed out. For my entire pregnancy, I'd been worried that since I had two healthy births, this was the one where something terrible would happen to me or the baby. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. God was with us and taking care of us. I tore again, but I'd kind of expected I would, so the stitches weren't a surprise. Matthew was born with a tongue-tie, so Lisa clipped it before he even tried nursing the first time. I was surprised at how un-phased he was by the very quick process. He cried more at being unwrapped from his warm blankets. 

And that's how our new baby boy came into the world! His eating and waking schedule is currently pretty mixed up, so Joseph and I are getting most of our sleep in the early/late morning. Thankfully, we have lots of help from wonderful family members with our other kids, which is such a blessing. I love my kids and want to be with them, but it really is nice not to have to worry about them, and for Joseph to be able to get some sleep since he's taking care of the kids and house and work these days. I know from experience that these sleepless days that are so frustrating for me because my body is healing and I can't do everything I want to do will pass soon. Soon breastfeeding won't be excruciating, soon we'll be able to massage Matthew's schedule to fit our own, soon I'll be able to help out more around the house and spend time with my big kids. Everything keeps getting better, and we're so happy to have a new baby and for everyone to be healthy. 

Christmas Card 2013

Merry Christmas! And welcome to our Christmas newsletter!

Last year there was *ahem* some disagreement about what kind of Christmas cards we should send out and what pictures we should use. (Cute Christmas cards? Do you include a picture with them? How about a newsletter? Can you just put pictures in that? What about an all-inclusive photo card...?) That culminated in not sending out any cards, so if you didn't get a card from us, it's not because we didn't think of you.

This year, though, is different! Hopefully you've gotten one of our Christmas cards. And to save the trouble (and also paper!) of writing and printing off dozens of newsletters that people may or may not care about, I just included a link to our blog where I'd post a newsletter for people who care.

And I see that *you* are one of the caring few! Aww... A special gift for you at the end of this post. If I could figure out how to make chocolate peppermint cookies appear out of your screen, I would.

So here's what we've been up to this year!

Family Adventures

One of the most exciting developments this year was when we found out we were expecting a new baby Sullivan! Baby is due January 24, 2014. We've been very happy with our choices to have home birth with a midwife for our other kids, so we're planning to do that again for this baby. Since our insurance doesn't cover this route, and since ultrasounds are crazy expensive when they're not covered by insurance, we're going to leave the gender of this baby a surprise. We're already prepared with baby girl and baby boy necessities anyway! You can check back on the main blog page to find out baby's name and gender when we do! (For the record, we were both certain this baby was a boy early on, but now we're both leaning toward girl, so anything could happen.)

Joseph in the new car in Lynchburg, VA.

With a third baby on the way and only a small, faithful sedan to our name, we knew we'd have to upgrade to a larger vehicle. Our main requirement was that the car we found would not be even a little bit like a minivan. After a lot of research, we settled on a 2012 Mazda CX-9, a sporty seven-passenger vehicle with a pretty good fuel economy.  After even more research, we found that the particular car we wanted basically didn't exist on the West Coast. The same model and year could be found in larger quantities for $5,000-$10,000 less in places like Texas, Florida, and Virginia. It made the most economic sense to buy a car from one of those places and then drive it home ourselves. Because we have good friends in Virginia, we bought our car in the Washington, D.C. area. With our two adventurous kids, we traveled from Virginia straight through the middle of the country to West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and finally back to Oregon. The entire trip took about two and a half weeks. Along the way we visited friends, stopped in at some fire departments that used Active911 (more on that in the "Joseph" section), took a tour of the nation's playgrounds for leg-stretching and kids' sanity breaks, saw Monticello, visited adorable little towns and local farmer's markets, and learned to be road trip experts. There were lots of charming and picturesque places along the way, but we didn't see anything that compared to our home in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. 

The view from our future driveway.

In fact, we love living in Philomath so much that this year we bought a new piece of property in the same town, only about a mile and a half east of where we live now (in the Neaback Hill area, for those who know Philomath). It's about half an acre in a nicer part of Philomath and on a hillside, so it should have an incredible view of the town, the countryside, and the coast range with Mary's Peak (when it's not covered by clouds) when we finally build a new house. We hope that will be within the next year or two. 

In the meantime, we've still been fixing up our current house. Since buying it in 2010, we (mostly Joseph and his family) have: rewired the house, re-plumbed the entire house out to the water line at the street, removed an old porch and sidewalk, designed and planted a new front yard, poured new front and back patios, insulated and put up new sheet rock in the two bedrooms and hallway, completely torn out and remodeled the bathroom and kitchen, and installed a laundry room and a laundry sink in the garage. Our house is SO much nicer to live in now than it was even when we first bought it! This year, we: installed a new fence, designed and planted a new back yard, put carpet in the bedrooms and hallway, and had someone come to put on a new front porch (that Joseph designed and built) and redo our roof, install new skylights and doors, and replace our icky aluminum siding. The house looks great with the face lift!

Before (top) and After (bottom). Still needs a few cosmetic touches like new paint, but it's already so much better than it was!

Joseph

Joseph during a rare and relaxing weekend at the coast.

Joseph is constantly busy, which is secretly pretty much the way he likes it. There have been some particularly stressful times, but mostly he comes home every day telling us that he is the happiest man he knows and he loves his life. I'd say the year is pretty successful by those standards! 

He is still running two growing businesses. Alyrica Networks is a local wireless internet provider that he helped start about 11 years ago. They've been hiring new employees and have just reached 1,000 customers! However, he stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Alyrica about a year ago to focus on growing his newest company, Active911. Joseph created Active911 when he was part of the Philomath Fire Department and realized it would be much more useful to get information about emergency calls sent to his smart phone rather than listening to a clunky old pager all the time. He designed a messaging system that sent out much more information about each emergency to smart phones and tablets registered to a fire or police department. Emergency responders (firefighters, EMTs, police officers, etc.) using Active911 will get a text alert sent to their phone. Instead of having to hunt through giant map books in their responding vehicles to find the correct address, they also get a digital map in the same text alert that has the emergency location pinpointed, shows information about nearby fire hydrants, etc., and also shows the location and statuses of other emergency responders in the same department so they can see if there are other people on the way. It has been very useful for hundreds of fire and police departments around the country, and has saved some of them thousands of dollars. Instead of complicated and clunky computer systems for their stations and vehicles, they just need some smart phones or tablets and to pay a small fee for the Active911 service each year. Active911 is even used internationally! It's rewarding to Joseph and all his employees to know that they're building a business that is helping people and saving lives.

When he wasn't busy with work, Joseph and his coworkers and some family members joined a local city slow-pitch softball league. Even though he's athletic, Joseph has never played organized sorts before and really enjoyed the experience! He's also gotten pretty good at lap swimming while working out. To relax (as much as someone who loves working can relax), he visited New York City and San Jose del Cabo, Mexico with friends this year.

Nichole

Me and eight months of New Baby

This year I've been keeping busy being the pregnant mom of two very active little ones. It turns out you don't need much more than that to take up all your time. However, I've also been part of an International Moms Group that meets near the Oregon State University campus every week. Most of the international moms are here because their husbands are studying for advanced degrees at OSU and they are new to the country or at least Oregon. Every week we hang out and hear a speaker talk about a child health-related topic while the kids play. Occasionally we have events like cooking demonstrations and holiday parties that are lots of fun. Diana and Liam have been enjoying playing with the other kids (usually between 1.5-2 years old). I also got to take a solo trip this year back to see my friend in the D.C. area and her brand new baby!! It was so much fun seeing them (and holding a warm, snuggly baby!), but a very strange experience to be away from Joseph and the kids for four days.

Diana

Our Diana Bean turned three years old this year! She is a smart girl who loves learning, talking, reading, singing, and alternately spending quiet time by herself and spending quality time with people. We have our struggles- in particular, her eczema, which we are still trying to cope with after seeing multiple doctors- but in general, she is a happy and healthy three-year-old. She knows her alphabet well and can identify all the letters in a word and even sound out small, simple words like "dad," "cat," "mom," etc. I think she will be excited to start reading. She has already memorized most of the stories in her books anyway. She likes the library, playing at parks, and roughhousing or going on walks and stargazing

Diana the flower girl

with her dad. She is beginning to be interested in Disney Princesses (Yessss! Soon I'll be able to justify a trip to Disneyland!), but still loves trucks, trains, and robots. Some of her favorite books right now are, Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site and Steam Train, Dream Train. This year, Diana got to be the flower girl in a friend's wedding, and what an adorable flower girl she was! She loved her "princess dress," and still talks about weddings. According to Diana, a wedding is when you get married, but most importantly, there is a party with cake and FIRE! (Her fire obsession may lead to a career in the fire department like her daddy.) 

Liam

There never was a louder, goofier, happier, more energetic or people-loving boy than Liam. He is incredibly good-natured. He's a year and a half old now, and running and roaring around everywhere, creating happy chaos. He doesn't speak in sentences, but he knows a lot of words and communicates well by using the words he knows and his incredibly expressive face. Mostly he loves to laugh and be with people. Currently he has a small obsession with Elmo and Cookie Monster. He also likes for people to read books to him, but mostly if there are lots of sound effects and hand gestures to accompany the story. He loves his sister, and he loves babies. I hope this will still be the case when the new baby comes along. Right now he has three baby cousins under six months old, and two of them live nearby. He loves those babies. I think he'll make a good big brother.

Our 2013 was full of growing families, growing businesses, travel, home improvements, and happy, busy times with friends and family. I don't think you can ask for much more than that. We have been incredibly blessed. We look forward to 2014, especially meeting the newest member of our family.

And now, for you caring few, a selection of hilarious pictures that we didn't include in the Christmas cards because there was always someone or other who didn't look quite right. Enjoy, Merry Christmas, and have a happy New Year!

This picture would be adorable... if Liam didn't look like he didn't trust the photographer...

Great picture of mom and dad. Diana looks very relaxed and Liam again looks like he is suspicious of everyone.

And, for what it's worth, a picture showing that Liam was actually happy during the photo shoot.

Home Birth FAQ

Mothers love to share birth experiences with each other. Actually, everyone loves to share birth experiences with mothers. I've heard birth stories from husbands and parents and siblings of mothers. As soon as I share that I've had two natural home births, people usually have one of two reactions: the minority are genuinely curious about how I liked it and how it worked. Sometimes they've even been looking into home birth themselves. The majority, though, look at me with horror, like I'm some kind of negligent hippie freak, and after a few condescending questions try to nervously redirect the conversation. Here are some of my most frequently asked questions about home birth:

Q: Home birth? Ugh, I could never do that. I wanted pain meds.
A: If you wanted them, then I'm glad you had them! I wish every woman's birth experience would go the way she wanted, if it was safe for the baby.

Q: Wow. I couldn't have done that. I wanted the option of professional medical care right away if my baby or I needed it. 
A: So did I. That's why I chose a midwife to attend my births who is a Licensed Direct-Entry Midwife (LDM) and a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) who has attended over 1000 births and has only excellent recommendations from other mothers in the area. Oregon LDMs are trained in and authorized to use oxygen, IV therapy, anti-hemorrhagic medications, local anesthetics for suturing and vitamin K and ophthalmic antibiotics for newborns. Oregon LDMs can order lab work, obstetric ultrasound and newborn metabolic screening. And she has the experience to know when it's time to take a woman and her baby to the hospital, where she is a wonderful patient advocate for both mom and baby. If I hadn't wanted experienced professional medical care, I would have just had my babies at home with my husband. (That actually never would have worked. He was an EMT and had possibly a negative amount of interest in delivering babies himself.) Or I would have built a mud birthing hut in our back yard. (And, realistically, everything still would have been fine, though a lot less comfortable.)

Q: Home birth wasn't an option for me. I had medical problems/ My baby had medical problems/ I have a family history... it's a good thing I was in the hospital.
A: Then I am glad you were in the hospital too. I have known people with "family histories" who had successful home births, and I've known women who were otherwise healthy and wanted a home birth and ended up needing to go to the hospital. If you wanted or needed to be in a hospital, I'm glad you and your baby were there.

Q: ...It's a good thing we were in the hospital: the cord was wrapped around my baby's neck!
A: I know, right? Mine too. What with not having any room and moving all those little limbs out of a relatively tiny space, umbilical cords get tangled all up in babies' business all the time. Diana was born with the cord around her neck- Lisa just unwound it. She's seen babies born with the cord wrapped multiple times around necks, shoulders, etc. It just has to be untangled. It's usually not as big a deal as the movies would have you think it is.

Q: So what about all the required tests/examinations/vaccinations you/your baby gets at the hospital? Does your midwife perform those? 
A: Yes, she performs the newborn screening "heel prick test" that is required in Oregon to check newborns for a host of potentially worrisome conditions. She can do vitamin K injections and newborn eye drops. I think you have to take your baby to a pediatrician to do most of the other vaccinations a hospital would perform right after birth. She tells you about what vaccinations and procedures newborns would normally have performed on them in hospitals, and you can opt out of some of them, I just can't remember what they are right now.

As you can see, most of the questions I get aren't questions at all. In fact, mostly people get very defensive when they hear I've had home births. Look, babies are born every day naturally, by C-section, by VBAC, in hospitals, in taxis on the way to the hospital, breech, with epidurals, in a yurt, etc. I'm not trying to convert people to a home birth mentality. Sometimes when I'm in groups of other mothers, if someone shows an interest in home birth, the other mothers will actually rally to try to dissuade them from it, saying they can have natural-birth options in a hospital or birth center setting. Of course that's completely true, but honestly it feels like I am spreading a dangerous idea that other women need to be protected from. Seriously. The prevailing unspoken response I get from most people is that I am a selfish idiot having children via witch doctor in a mud hut. Are they worried I am trying to trump their birth experiences by saying I've gone all-natural and not even in a hospital?

Personally, I think we're completely indoctrinated throughout our lives with the idea that women and babies need professional medical intervention during pregnancy and the birth process. There is an overall feeling of fear about the whole thing. (Not that it's completely unwarranted- the United States does, after all, even with it's advanced medical system, account for more than half of all first-day deaths of newborns in the industrialized world. That's about 11,300 babies. In addition, American mothers have the same maternal death rate as mothers in Iran, according to the most recent State of the World's Mothers Report.) New moms and dads are consumed with worry about birth, as if babies and women's bodies weren't made for it. When we interviewed the midwife who has delivered two of my babies, many of my nieces and nephews, and even some Joseph's siblings, she described herself as a lifeguard, which is exactly what she acted like during my births and was exactly what we wanted. I liked that every step of the way during pregnancy and labor, she only ever made me feel confident that if I kept myself healthy physically and mentally, I would have no problem having a baby.

Here are some questions nobody ever asks me:

Q: Why did you choose home birth?
A: I chose home birth because I believe women's bodies were designed to handle childbirth. I am a private person and I hate doctors, examinations, and hospitals, but of course none of that would have mattered if I had thought that a hospital birth would be best for my babies. I don't like the idea so prevalent in the American medical system that everything is a dire problem coupled with my experience that doctors never have a solution or really any idea what the problem is exactly. If I didn't have to be a part of that system, I wanted to try a peaceful experience with a few people I trusted because I feel that childbirth is an intensely personal event that I want to own, instead of being in the passenger's seat directed by doctors who are probably more comfortable with medical intervention.

Q: Did you enjoy the experience? Would you do it again?
A: I enjoyed it so much I did it twice and hope to do it a third! I don't have a hospital birth experience to compare it to, but I can say that it worked for me and it was exactly what I hoped for. Someone put on peaceful music, I never felt rushed, I received a few words of encouragement and some helpful suggestions, and I was left to do my own work. My EMT husband was impressed by my midwives' knowledge and medical expertise and my mother (who was amazingly skeptical of home birth during my first birth) was impressed by how beautiful and peaceful the whole process was. (She even told me she wondered why she hadn't done that with her kids!) And can I say again how much I loved my midwives? Lisa was amazingly supportive and knowledgeable. She checked my babies' heart rate throughout labor to make sure they were doing well. I never worried about my kids with her around. Her assistant, Rachel, (who is now a licensed midwife herself) was also sweet and supportive. I had various complications with healing and nursing in the early weeks of having newborns, and I called Lisa day and night to ask her questions or just talk.

Q: How did you evaluate the pros and cons? Weren't you concerned for your baby in case of an emergency?
A: Especially during my first pregnancy, we worried (like most new parents) that there would be some medical emergency and we would lose precious minutes needing to transport to a hospital to get more care than the midwives' could offer. However, when we evaluated the likelihood of a medical emergency, it seemed like we were taking a comparatively small risk having our baby at home. Once we saw how "normal" my births were, we became more confident that we had made the right decision. And in the intervening years we've had the opportunity to hear from friends and family members how Lisa reacted in the event of medical emergencies during birth and I'm pretty certain that we'd be in good hands.

Anyone have any questions? Did you get the birth experience you wanted? If you had a home birth, have you had the same experiences with other people and mothers? Am I really just a selfish hippie freak who consorts with witch doctors and preaches heretical ideas about birth at the risk of my children's health? Comment below!