Mega Update

I know, I know, it's been a month since I last blogged. So here is what has happened in our lives over the last month:

Trent - has become so very fast at crawling, pulls up to stand on EVERYTHING, asks "what's that?"and "who's that?" all day long, says "wuv", "mama", "dada", "yes", and mimics a whole lot more.

Kade - turned 3!! My sweet babe has turned into quite the monster, but so goes with the territory of a having a three year old. The day before his actual birthday we took him to the dinosaur museum with our family and my younger sister's family and they got to make some awesome fossil moldings. The 3 year olds made raptor claws and the 5 year old made a T-Rex tooth. The rest of the night and all the next day Kade refused to part with his "Happy Burtday Rapper Claw". On his birthday he was ever so satisfied when he opened an overwhelming amount of train gifts (thanks, family!!) and has been in love ever since.

Braxton - had his first piano performance and did fantastic! Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star never sounded more beautiful. We are taking break from taekwondo for a little while and really focusing on the music. He is just thriving and really enjoys it.

Paul - turned 27!! Yep, his birthday is the day after Kade's. We had a very romantic date and enjoyed getting fancied up for our dinner reservations at The Roof (courtesy of my most recent client, thank you!!). The food was excellent, the music wonderful, and I can't tell you how nice it was to spend a few hours just enjoying one another's company. Paul had also been busy making a toy room downstairs! We are leaving the walls unfinished for now so that the kids can express their artistic urges freely and the floor made up of the mats one would find in a karate studio. It's awesome having a living room again!

Myself -exactly one month ago I attended a client for the first time in a year. My goodness, it was a beautiful birth. And my amazing friend, Megan, watched my boys for me overnight. I'm so thankful to have Megan as such a close friend. She is the best! And since then I have been putting together birthday plans and playing host as we get through all the birthday-ness. And woohoo for mail packages containing uteruses, pelvises, placentas, and more! Oh..and I have read The Best Birth (DON'T READ!), The Blue Cotton Gown (READ!), A Pea In A Pod (READ!), Homebirth in the Hospital (READ!), and Real Birth (READ!) along with the first two books in The Hunger Games. And if you haven't read those, stop whatever it is you are doing right this moment and read them!!

Together we have planted our starts and as of this evening we have about 45 yellow tomatos sproutlings. The boys love to go down and look every morning and night for new sprouts. We are still patiently waiting for our chickens to provide us with a bounty of eggs but have faith it'll happen soon. Lastly, we are learning Italian as a family. The boys are such sponges and are soaking it all up!

Ciao!

Supermodels + waterbiths + New Your Times + study of drinking and eating during labor = GREATNESS!!

Gisele Bundchen (supermodel!) knows the joy of childbirth! http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20340966,00.html

And finally!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/health/26child.html

Ohio Shame

I lived in Stark County in Ohio for about 6 months in 2008. During that time I paired up with another doula, in hopes of re-starting my doula business in Ohio. This other doula had at least of decade of expereince working in Ohio and one of the first things she pointed out was how slow it was and how many cesereans she had attended. When I got my first phone call from a potential client for an interview I immediately began calling the local hospitals to ask for statistics and was horrified at what I was finding out...one hospital reported that nearly 50% of their patients had cesereans (they claimed it was because of how many high risk patients they had)!! HOLY CRAP!! So when I became pregnant with my third son, Trent, I was able to convince Paul that a homebirth would be so much safer. Though with the legislation as it was then, it was pretty risky to have a midwife too..it would all have to be "underground". So with the plan of possibly having an unattended pregnancy and birth, we set out to hire our midwife. Thank goodness we ended up coming back to Utah when I was only 3 months pregnant. I did have my homebirth, but rather than having to hide it I have been able to announce it to the world and share my fabulous midwife's name, Raeann, with everyone and recommend her to all. With all this in mind, I made a very disturbing discovery today...Ohio's 2008 ceserean rate for FIRST TIME, LOW RISK MOTHERS is 27.1%!! 1 in 3 perfectly healthy pregnant women are subjected to all the risks of having an ceserean for no good reason. No wonder America's maternal and fetal mortality rate is so awful.

http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2010/1/5/ohio-releases-hospitals-2008-c-section-rates-for-low-risk-fi.html

Science & Sensibility » Her Survival Was a “Christmas Miracle,” but the Disaster Was Man-Made

Science & Sensibility » Her Survival Was a “Christmas Miracle,” but the Disaster Was Man-Made