October 5th
A Milestone Day in Our Family!
23 MONTHS
Our beloved Jacob is 23 months old today! Just one more month and our baby will be TWO! What a fast 2 years it has been! I was telling Josh today that I think, once he's 2, we talk about his age more in years and less in months. It just seems too fast! He can now count to 10, knows his colors, knows SO many animals and the sounds they make and loves dogs! He also loves cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes, and balls! He carries his blue football from his Granddaddy everywhere! He signs and talks and is such a happy, energetic little boy! Our midwife often comments on how happy he is!
He adores his Daddy and loves his Mama. He gets SO excited and just FILLED when both Mama and Daddy (and Kylee, our dog) are at home! He'll just squeal, "Daddy Mama HOME!" He loves to play outside and "run real fast!"
He doesn't like stopping for much, whether that is a diaper change or slowing down to eat. He gets frustrated when trying to do something and finds it isn't going just as he wants, but we work on saying "help please!" Josh also came up with a great plan for helping him learn patience when waiting on something - he'll have him stop and count to 10! So far, it is a genius plan that is working quite well! He gets tickled counting and it helps him wait!
Tonight, for several reasons from celebrating 23 months to keeping dinner easy for this pregnancy Mama, we had peanut butter and banana pancakes with some local raw honey. Jacob loved it!
YUM!
Jacob and I have incredible days and I love seeing how his mind thinks and how he expresses himself! I look at him and still see my baby as he all too quickly has become a boy and is barreling towards manhood. I can't wait to see him as a big brother and pray that God weaves a closeness between him and his sister.
40 WEEKS, 2 DAYS
This past Wednesday, I hit the "40 weeks" mark in this pregnancy, so today marks 40 weeks and 2 days. My morning started in a unique way that was so obviously God meeting my heart right where it's been. A dear friend of mine from graduate school contacted me a couple days ago and asked if we could Skype. It has been such a long time and we had an almost-2 hour conversation that was one of those talks where you talk about everything, connect, and feel refreshed! She talked about her desire to get up early and have time with God, in His Word, preparing for he day as Mother to her 2 little ones. We both agreed that can be so challenging (especially when, whatever time she rises, her babies sense that Mama is awake and get up too!). Well, God knows my heart has longed to sit and connect with Him as the waiting for baby Ruth has become more challenging as that random statistic of 40 weeks drew near. This morning, I woke up at 5:30am and was awake. So I had 1.5 hours of time in my living room reading, praying, journaling, and turning lingering impatience and concern over to my Heavenly Father. God's inexplicable peace just fell down upon me and God revealed several verses for me to cling to as we wait on His timing and His plan for our daughter. Then, we had our weekly midwife appointment today and it was great! My blood pressure was 100/68 and Ruth's heartbeat was 136, right where it often is. I've actually dropped 0.2 lbs since 2 weeks ago and have minimal swelling. For most the week I had none, but then, when 40 weeks hit and I was just amazed and somewhat dismayed to not yet have a baby, I ordered Chinese for dinner. I haven't had regular salt/sodium at that level in such a long time! I ate a delicious bowl of hot and sour soup (and enjoyed every bite!) and shortly thereafter the tops of my feet started to puff up a bit. With a lot of water, it is working its way out of my system, so I had minimal puffiness on just the tops of my feet today, but ankles are normal and within a day I'll be back to normal. It's fascinating to see how sensitive the body can be to what we eat. My body has shown me more while pregnant than any other time in my life that informs me more of how to care for my body even when I'm not pregnant! My baby girl is head down and still favoring the right side.
Now that we've passed 40 weeks, I'm doing some fetal movement counts during the day, but she is still moving quite a bit. Our chiropractor said she still seems a small size for our gestation, but pretty long for how short my torso is. Her brother was 21 inches, which is pretty long for this short-torso Mama. From my chiropractor appointment yesterday, Ruth is slightly posterior, but just by a bit and my doula and chiropractor have given me exercises and movements to help position her and have said that the contractions when labor start can cause her to turn the rest of the way so not to worry. I shared it with my midwife today who reminded me that our trust is in the Lord and He has the timing for Ruth's birth planned and is caring for her and me, just as God reminded me this morning. She also emphasized that my emotions, fears, joys, faith, peace, etc. do have an influence on what is happening in my womb so to rest in the Lord as we wait.
I had a rough day or two after 39 weeks and then when we hit 40 weeks where I just felt SO impatient and grappled with my expectations versus reality. OH expectations and reality! They can hit us all hard, can't they? Especially when we don't realize how deeply we hold certain expectations that, when not met, rock us intensely! God has taught me over the years to examine expectations and realize that they are mine and when reality doesn't line up I must trust Him and not hold blame or anger because of my own expectations. That can be challenging, but this time I just didn't realize how much I thought God would bring our baby before 40 weeks. I had really thought that the primary reason our Jacob was so "delayed" was a mix of me being a first time Mother (where the average is 41.5 weeks gestation) and him being malpositioned, which was missed until we were well into labor. Now, with all I've read and learned this pregnancy, I also know that the "mind body connection" is a huge part of labor and birth for a mother and her child. I love "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" that talks a lot about this connection. There was much going on at the end of our pregnancy with Jacob with us losing my amazing mother-in-law, me working full-time, us buying a house in less than 4 weeks, and grappling with some things about our prenatal care. All these things affected my mind and heart and I now KNOW had an influence on how our labor unfolded, even with Jacob being malpositioned and us having what my doula calls a "classic malpositioned labor". This is what I grappled with as I've journaled the past few days (still LOVE my "Praying Through Your Pregnancy" journal!). My expectations versus the reality God is weaving for us. Now I'm again at peace knowing He is in control. That He has woven and lead this journey and that God who begins a work will not forsake nor neglect His children (Deuteronomy 31: 6, 8). He has taken us from the uncertainty of early pregnancy when we were told we were most likely losing this precious baby, to the many health issues and risks that plagued the first half of this pregnancy, to the learning and integrating all I learned from my first pregnancy into this one, to the connection with an incredible birth team that God has created and brought together one person at a time, to now when we are past 40 weeks and learning how to wait and trust our God - He is the author of life and He knew and loved our child before she was ever sent to my womb.
For those who have asked, once/if we get to 41.5 weeks, we will have a sonogram that is called a biophysical profile (BPP) where they check things like our baby's heart rate, movement, breathing, amount of amniotic fluid, health of the placenta, etc. to ensure the womb is still a nurturing, nourishing environment and that Ruth is healthy. We will have 2 per week starting at that point until Ruth is born or they determine we need to help move the labor process along. Our prayer is that she comes before any interventions are necessary. As much as I love seeing our little one on screen, we are ready to see her and hold her in person!
34 DAYS
Yesterday, as Josh and I talked about how far along were are in this pregnancy and how we are ready to hold our child, he made a point that caused me to pause. He said that maybe, because I have such long cycles (average of 34 days - sometimes as long as 37 or 38 days), that maybe this influences how long I carry my babies! I wasn't sure if there was any evidence for this, but it encouraged my heart and I decided to hold on to that as a possibility.
Well, when we got to our midwife appointment this morning, we were talking about the past week and my health, Ruth's health, etc. We said nothing of Josh's idea about how long I carry babies and my cycles. Well, our midwife said, "I'm not surprised that you are carrying past 40 weeks and won't be surprised if you get to 41 weeks because you have such long cycles." Josh and I looked at one another, amazed! She told us that she had spoken with the head midwife at this birth center about this because she has another Mother who has just reached 42 weeks and also has longer cycles. This midwife told her that there is indeed a hormonal connection and that, when a mother has longer cycles, you can roughly add the number of days her cycles are past the "average" of 28 days to her EDD and find this is roughly how long a healthy mother who is pursuing natural birth can expect to carry her baby (though other factors, such as being a first time mother with a full-term pregnancy, emotional factors, eating and activity choices during pregnancy, mother's overall health before pregnancy, etc. can influence how long a baby is carried). I was just in awe! It's amazing to think that this information came to light only after I had passed 40 weeks. If I had known before it might have frustrated me or caused me to stress or feel impatient. However, learning of it after I was 40 weeks made it encouraging and exciting to know! God is so good in HIS timing! Now I'm so curious to pursue further research about the connection of a mother's cycle and her gestation period!
CALL THE MIDWIFE
I had not heard of this show, but it happened to come on tonight as I sit here working on this blog post and it has captivated me! I am in awe of where women's health has come and the brave mothers who weathered intense conditions to bear their children and the incredible, committed midwives who served these families in such grim conditions. I smile deeply at the mother who would not let them take her newborn from her because "she is his hospital and he is her blood". Mother have always known that the best place for a newborn babe is at her side, at her breast, connected to her just as he/she has been for many months. And I got chills at the wisdom of the midwife who supported the mother's choice to care for her premature baby using her love and instincts... the midwife said, "we must see what love can do." And the husband in this storyline is an amazing, involved father who stayed as his wife gave birth, apparently unheard of in those days - but, from it, his family thrived!
I can't help but think of the birth team God has assembled for us and be so very grateful for women who care for other women!!
~ Mama Bruffey
Wife of One, Mother of Two
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