whaddya know

i wrote this jan 2009---
"there is a woman at colin's starbucks who is somewhat...prophetic or physic or what have you. i thought she was a christian but colin says he's not sure she is. regardless she reads people in a way, can get senses about people, has words for them or whatever. she does it very sporadically, will just come out and say something. when house of heroes was adding another member she said to colin ' your band's going through some big changes huh? bringing someone else in?' then another time when hoh was writing their new album she just said 'so you guys are writing some new music? it's pretty different from your other stuff isn't it.' she says it like she already knows, very confident. it's hilarious because it's so spot-on! SOOO today she orders her drink, starts to walk away and then comes back and says to colin 'i'm sensing maybe you guys are pregnant again or thinking about getting pregnant?' and colin just laughs and says we've totally been talking about trying soon and she goes 'yah i think it will be soon. i'm seeing may or june.' OH my lord! so crazy. i remember the first time she did this to colin he flipped out in the holy crap kinda way, but he says it's not as crazy to him anymore, but he definitely think she has some sort of gift, and he doesn't feel like an evil presence or anything so that's good. it's funny because if i don't factor in income/where we are going to live- may/june would be exactly when i'd want to get pregnant again.
we will see. but the yet to exist baby number 2 is being spoken of almost daily now... so. we will see. it's been interesting having the 'i'm a young woman, i want my freedom, etc' voice slowly and steadily being drowned out by my maternal desire to have another child, to grow our family and have a sibling for saylor....."

didn't know if her 'word' would mean we would get pregnant in may or what... but here we are having a baby in may/june [due toward the end of may]. so wild. we didn't remember this until we were pregnant again.
was reading some older entries where i talked about saylor and the words he says and such.. i need to keep recording these things! i did just buy a journal to write down funny things he says. a couple things i like
he calls a
piano is pih-nano
table is tavle
granola bar is gorilla bar
magazine is maza-geen
he is CONSTANTLY ASKING QUESTIONS to where i sometimes have to ask him to stop. bless his heart he is taking in the world right now but here's an example of a car ride
'mommy?' yes 'what are you doing?' i'm driving 'why' because i'm driving 'why' because i'm driving 'why?' because buddy, i'm driving 'how are you doing today?' i'm good how are you 'good. what's... what's that cloud look like' um a carrot 'yah! is a tree made of wood?' yes 'what else is made of wood?' you tell me 'is a mailbox made of wood?' yes 'did god make wood?' yes 'did god make metal?' um...yes 'did god make houses?' well he made people and people make houses 'do houses get bigger?' no, once they are built they stay the same size..
and ON and ON and ON... and sometimes i'm loving it and diving right in and conversing but naturally after 10 hours a day every day i have my moments of responding 'mmhmm' and he goes 'what did you say?' i said yah 'no you said mmhmm' oh sorry. 'why did you say that?' um, i don't know..
aaahh poor kid won't let me off the hook! i have a memory of saying 'mommm i scraped my knee!' and she went 'that's nice honey'.. i of course got all upset, she wasn't listening, how could she say that.. and oh my goodness i understand her now... all that to say i'm so thankful for my boy i LOVE what he thinks i love how he learns and i LOVE LOVE talking to him!!
and yes he is a boy- he's loving superheroes and star wars as of late. he asked
'did god make darth vader?' and 'does chewbacca eat pizza?'

baby shower party

my friend jenny worded this so well i just wanted to repost it...

my heart is so full right now.... it has something to do, actually a lot to do, with all of the good-natured people i spent the afternoon/evening with. i went to a party and i dont know, i just took in the group and felt so in awe of the group. how kind and sweet and generous the whole lot was. men who are wise and good to their ladies, playful and attentive to children who are or aren't even their own, women who are comfortable in their own skin, vulnerable and honest in conversation, able to drape their arms around their friends and be happy for the others fortune. i know of no cattiness among my friends. we just don't roll like that. my kids went gallivanting off in the woods with adults who they don't even know, but they instinctively trust to lead them around to and from the stream or to collect firewood for the pile. it felt good knowing that everyone there was someone i trusted on such a basic level, and that my kids knew that too.... a pack of children running around of various ages, faces smudged by s'mores and ash - could there be a more lovely sight? we left the party bellies and hearts full.... dang it i love my friends folks.

it was fun.. where are the pictures? argh don't think many were taken, blast it. we received many presents as well.. what in the world? genuinely didn't expect any, but we are oh so grateful and excited and appreciative... it was a night of comfort and love and really really good food of course.
sidenote---it's been an amazing month having colin home. i never knew what i was missing, and i mean that for real. same goes for saylor... it's still weird to let him take responsibility as a parent... it's hard to explain but i'll surely try to write about it some more.
here are a couple of the homemade gifts that i'm stoked on


made by our roommate's sister... i mean... yes.


my sister made her a blanket, oh i love it! and she made two, exactly the same. great idea!


painting by our illustrator friend christen. love

and yah that's right i'm just now noticing they are all birds. which is fine by me i love birds.
we are just about ready for this little girl to flip our world... we recently have changed our minds about her name! i was always bothered that there was a 'celebrity association' and was concerned about it becoming a trendy name. it's a great name but that kept grating on me... so we started thinking again and i think... i thiiiink we have our name for real now. i think. still working on a middle name :)

birth decisions

our big easter party... i'm not too thrilled with my appearance in this picture, but i'm waddling now, i'm in that phase so there's nothing i can do. i'm not gonna look perfect. [because when i'm not pregnant i look perfect all the time, duh :)] saylor really does not like getting his picture taken and he was so overstimulated and tired from all the hub-bub that when we went to take this picture he just burst into tears... it was pretty funny actually, because it's not like him to just start sobbing. we had fun though and we've got a bunch of other things going on this month that will keep me distracted. i was quite excited to find out that i will get to have a real ultrasound when we shoot the commercial!!! so awesome. i was at a different practice with saylor and the 2nd ultrasound was at 35 weeks. at the place i am at now they do their second one at 19 weeks. and when i had it, the doctor rushed through it, didn't take time to find good pictures... i think i cried. it was pretty bad. so YAY! i'll have a pretend husband standing next to me acting excited but whatever yay!
so many decisions with childbirth! i feel very strongly on my not vaccinating or circumcising.... ok yes that took hours... months to research and decide but it seems like an easy decision now. the two things i'm diving into currently are antibiotics for myself during labor as at this point i am positive for GBS.. and the vitamin K shot. i am of course refusing eyedrops for her eyes as this is an antibiotic for STD's and the HEP B vax, which of course the midwives agree. they recommend antibiotics for GBS and the vit k shot though... and i've been spending hours reading about this... and my conclusions are...
i'm going to be retested for GBS and the prayer is that it will be negative. if so, i will share how i managed to do that!
if not, i still plan to not have the antibiotics unless my water is broken for more than 18 hours before labor, i go into preterm labor, or i develop a fever during labor. fortunately saylor's labor was short and i am praying this one is as well. my reasons for not wanting it, in a nutshell- i am allergic to penicillin anyhow so they next antibiotic they'd use would be even less effective. also for it to be effective you need at least 2 doses, every 4 hours. my labor with saylor was only 8 hours so i may very well not even have time to do it. and research shows the risk is so low of something happening, it almost equals the risk you have from taking antibiotics. besides allergic reactions, overuse of antibiotics is risky as well. i like this paragraph-

We can compare this to CDC estimates that 0.5 percent of babies born to GBS-positive mothers with no treatment will develop a GBS infection, and that 6 percent of those who develop a GBS infection will die. Six percent of 0.5 percent means that three out of every 10,000 babies born to GBS-positive mothers given no antibiotics during labor will die from GBS infection. If the mother develops anaphylaxis during labor (one in 10,000 will), and it is untreated, it is likely that the infant, too, will die. So, by CDC estimates, we save the lives of two in 10,000 babies-0.02 percent-by administering antibiotics during labor to one third of all laboring women. We should also keep in mind that this figure does not take into account the infants that will die as a result of bacteria made antibiotic-resistant by the use of antibiotics during labor-infants who would not otherwise have become ill. When you take that into account, there may not be any lives saved by using antibiotics during labor.
http://www.mothering.com/treating-group-b-strep-are-antibiotics-necessary

another link
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/33/1/2v

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2008/01/group-b-strep-information.html
and this describes what i plan to use if i am still positive- wipes to use during labor

and here is a link for vitamin k info
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/vitktop.html

of course i don't want to put my child at risk in any way- i understand these things were started in an effort to save babies. but they don't come without side effects. in the vitamin k case, i think the low risk of HDN will be immediately reduced when we take time before cutting the cord- so long as it wasn't wrapped around the neck or anything, i'd like to wait until it stops pulsing and/or i deliver the placenta. a paragraph i like-

The forces of nature are so focused on a successful birth that it just seems unlikely that all babies are deficient in vitamin K. Instead of simply accepting that nature goofed about clotting factors in newborns, I thought about all the ways that interventions at birth interfere with the normal physiological birth process regarding clotting. The most obvious intervention is premature cutting of the umbilical cord; this deprives a newborn of 25% to 40% of the physiological blood volume, and thus 25% to 40% of the physiological clotting factors that nature intended to be present in the newborn's blood. As someone who does Newborn Screening heelsticks on newborns whose umbilical cords were not cut prematurely (and some of whom did not receive supplemental vitamin K), I can tell you that they have no trouble clotting normally. This solves the problem of early-onset or classical HDN.

i think i will also take a vitamin k supplement myself in the first 10 weeks after birth, as it will then increase in my breastmilk and that of course will go to my daughter.
this has been hours of research and i encourage others to do the same, no matter what you ultimately decide! be informed