6 hours ago
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Easter 07 - lots of pics!
We're having a lovely Easter weekend! 
Dan's mom came down to visit and brought her nice new sewing machine. We made Roman shades for the baby's room, which turned out great considering neither of us are experts at sewing! Here are the nursery pics so far:
Rodney's mom, Bev, also sent down a beautiful crocheted baptism outfit she made for Gregory - its so special to have something like that handmade for him! Grandma Bonnie added a onesie and blanket to complete the outfit:
We picked up the mattress and glider from Nebraska Furniture Mart too, but the mattress is airing out in the garage for a few weeks, and the glider is for our bedroom, so Dan can rock the baby in the middle of the night! Dan is just so thrilled to have a glider in the house again since he broke his a couple of years ago! You can see the stress just flowing out of him when he starts rocking...hopefully it works to calm Gregory just as well!!
So things are going great - we're getting little things done here and there, and the baby is busy growing and getting ready to come out and meet us! See my 30 wk belly pics by clicking on the thumbnail at right if you want!
Dan's mom came down to visit and brought her nice new sewing machine. We made Roman shades for the baby's room, which turned out great considering neither of us are experts at sewing! Here are the nursery pics so far:
Rodney's mom, Bev, also sent down a beautiful crocheted baptism outfit she made for Gregory - its so special to have something like that handmade for him! Grandma Bonnie added a onesie and blanket to complete the outfit:
We picked up the mattress and glider from Nebraska Furniture Mart too, but the mattress is airing out in the garage for a few weeks, and the glider is for our bedroom, so Dan can rock the baby in the middle of the night! Dan is just so thrilled to have a glider in the house again since he broke his a couple of years ago! You can see the stress just flowing out of him when he starts rocking...hopefully it works to calm Gregory just as well!!
So things are going great - we're getting little things done here and there, and the baby is busy growing and getting ready to come out and meet us! See my 30 wk belly pics by clicking on the thumbnail at right if you want!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Starting toward the home stretch
Well here we are at 29 1/2 weeks. 11 weeks from now seems so very soon, yet so very far away! I'll update you on some of the latest developments.
At 26 wks I reported I was having some gallbladder pain. Eating smaller meals helped a little, but I mentioned the problem to my chiropractor. The best I can describe is that she did some "voodoo" on me and cured me! Actually she used a normal chiropractic technique involving identifying problematic pressure points and releasing them. It was incredibly quick, effective, and noninvasive. I simply cannot understand why conventional doctors do not use these kinds of techniques, except to speculate that it doesn't make much money for anyone - no pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, hospitals or surgeons benefit when people are easily helped without medications or intervention. Yuck! Thank goodness for chiropractors!!
I got the nursery painted the way I want, so we started moving furniture in. The walls were already blue, but it was a bit too bright, so I softened the effect by sponging on a slightly lighter shade - its pretty subtle but gives some depth. So now we have the dresser and rug installed and will be adding a mattress soon. I am making some roman shades in a great striped fabric. A shelf, some mirrors and artwork and a little rocking chair should top it off. Its pretty fun to see the room being transformed from the dog room to a place for a new member of the family. Lucy likes to lay on the new rug - I guess its comfy, but she better not get too comfy there!
We are getting to the point where we have prenatal checkups every 2 weeks now, but there has a been a change in that department. Up to now we have been seen at the midwife clinic at the local hospital. They have given us excellent care, but the idea of delivering in the hospital just never settled with me so we have decided to go ahead and arrange a home birth. So we have found a wonderful person to attend us at home and she now comes over to our house for prenatals - its pretty cool! She and her assistant were here last Thursday. The baby's growth measured exactly on track and everything else was great too. We talked for a long time and its really just so different from the hospital midwives, as great as they were - much more personal. I can't express how relieved I am at the prospect of getting to stay home! Dan is a little less sure but he is getting used to the idea and is going to be a great labor coach using all the skills we're learning in Bradley class.
I've been stepping up my reading a little bit lately, and am currently in the middle of a fabulous book: Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin, one of the foremost American midwives. It is an absolutely magical book full of nearly-lost women's wisdom and "secrets." I highly recommend it to anyone having a baby or thinking about it in the future. I can see that this book could change people's lives! For me, it is validation of what I was taught about birth by my own mother (and father!), ideas that are counter-cultural and which have been met with criticism and skepticism by almost everyone I've ever discussed it with. Yet not only does this perspective make sense to me from my experiences growing up, it is also incredibly consistent with my education as a biologist. I have always been baffled by the "unscientific-ness" of many of the common beliefs and practices surrounding medicalized childbirth in our culture. Anyway, this book is incredible and I have to say, I am brought to tears on almost every page - mostly with anticipation for this beautiful and amazing adventure we're heading towards. I am gaining confidence that we will be able to welcome Gregory into an environment that has continuity in its atmosphere of love, peacefulness, and respect for him as a person.
At 26 wks I reported I was having some gallbladder pain. Eating smaller meals helped a little, but I mentioned the problem to my chiropractor. The best I can describe is that she did some "voodoo" on me and cured me! Actually she used a normal chiropractic technique involving identifying problematic pressure points and releasing them. It was incredibly quick, effective, and noninvasive. I simply cannot understand why conventional doctors do not use these kinds of techniques, except to speculate that it doesn't make much money for anyone - no pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, hospitals or surgeons benefit when people are easily helped without medications or intervention. Yuck! Thank goodness for chiropractors!!
I got the nursery painted the way I want, so we started moving furniture in. The walls were already blue, but it was a bit too bright, so I softened the effect by sponging on a slightly lighter shade - its pretty subtle but gives some depth. So now we have the dresser and rug installed and will be adding a mattress soon. I am making some roman shades in a great striped fabric. A shelf, some mirrors and artwork and a little rocking chair should top it off. Its pretty fun to see the room being transformed from the dog room to a place for a new member of the family. Lucy likes to lay on the new rug - I guess its comfy, but she better not get too comfy there!
We are getting to the point where we have prenatal checkups every 2 weeks now, but there has a been a change in that department. Up to now we have been seen at the midwife clinic at the local hospital. They have given us excellent care, but the idea of delivering in the hospital just never settled with me so we have decided to go ahead and arrange a home birth. So we have found a wonderful person to attend us at home and she now comes over to our house for prenatals - its pretty cool! She and her assistant were here last Thursday. The baby's growth measured exactly on track and everything else was great too. We talked for a long time and its really just so different from the hospital midwives, as great as they were - much more personal. I can't express how relieved I am at the prospect of getting to stay home! Dan is a little less sure but he is getting used to the idea and is going to be a great labor coach using all the skills we're learning in Bradley class.
I've been stepping up my reading a little bit lately, and am currently in the middle of a fabulous book: Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin, one of the foremost American midwives. It is an absolutely magical book full of nearly-lost women's wisdom and "secrets." I highly recommend it to anyone having a baby or thinking about it in the future. I can see that this book could change people's lives! For me, it is validation of what I was taught about birth by my own mother (and father!), ideas that are counter-cultural and which have been met with criticism and skepticism by almost everyone I've ever discussed it with. Yet not only does this perspective make sense to me from my experiences growing up, it is also incredibly consistent with my education as a biologist. I have always been baffled by the "unscientific-ness" of many of the common beliefs and practices surrounding medicalized childbirth in our culture. Anyway, this book is incredible and I have to say, I am brought to tears on almost every page - mostly with anticipation for this beautiful and amazing adventure we're heading towards. I am gaining confidence that we will be able to welcome Gregory into an environment that has continuity in its atmosphere of love, peacefulness, and respect for him as a person.
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