Thoughts on babies, home birth and sick kids *WARNING* Very LONG post

When I was a young child I use to think to myself that I wanted to grow up and have five children. My logic in having five children was simple, if I had five kids and was married then five + two would equal seven and seven is the perfect number.

Then I grew up, got married and became pregnant. It quickly became quite clear to me that pregnancy was not something I wished to repeat five times (unless, of course, the Lord decides otherwise). My thinking of having five babies quickly went down to one by about month, 8 of pregnancy. After I had my lovely girl...and she began sleeping through the night...my number of children went back up. I decided three was defiantly do-able and what I wanted. Then one very sad day in mid-January something happened that I never thought would happen in my young, healthy, happy, life of 25 years. I had a miscarriage.

While I have been very grateful, and so happy, and ridiculously blessed by my two year old daughter, I don't think I fully understood the goodness of God and the grace given to me through my child until I had to go through knowing a pregnancy of mine had ended so quickly and so easily. Suddenly life, childbirth, expectations and "planning" all changed.

Over the past three months I've put a lot of time, thought, and prayer into children/babies. We would like to have more children, and hopefully...even soon...we'll get to have another child. But there is a huge part of me that is terrified of becoming pregnant again, terrified that all those high hopes will abruptly end. Terrified of losing faith, trust and peace in the Lord. Terrified of something going wrong or maybe worse...everything going perfectly right and realizing all my fears and dis-trust were in vain and seeing what a control-freak seeking mortal I really am.

One amazing thing that came from my miscarriage was the comfort, wisdom and stories that were shared with me by other mothers who have lost babies. In comparison my experience doesn't come close to most all of these stories. Yet still, it was my loss, my pain, and for me something really hard that I am still going through. I am so blessed by the women who have reached out to me through this. If there can be good that comes from something so sad I can only hope that I could one day be used to touch another woman's heart when she shares in the same loss, or at least have a better understanding of what she is going through.

This post isn't meant to sound like a pity party, I'm not looking for more sympathy or encouragment. I'm just sharing. *smile*

So, all these thoughts aside I have been looking towards the future and wondering what I'd like to do when I am pregnant again. That brings me to home births. When we were pregnant the second time we had decided we wanted to do a home birth. There were many reasons for this choice but a big aspect of it was cost. Home births are ridiculously cost effective and the care is wonderful, personal and...natural. With Jade I had high hopes for having an all "natural" birth in the hospital, but after 24 hours of labor in a hospital, with having been on pitocin for a very long while (I HATE pitocin), and tons of tempting, wonderful options available, I ended up opted for an epidural (which I in no way regret).

At any rate, this past week my friend, who knew I was thinking of home birth, let me borrow a video she had gotten from the library. It's called "The business of being born" click on this link and you can see a preview of the movie on the website.

Growing up in a family of a eleven children where six of the births were done at home, you would think I'd understand fully why my mother chose to have home births. Some how (and mom I hope I'm not offending you) I thought it was just a hatered she had of doctors and various things they put her through for the first 4-5 births she had in the hosptial...but I guess I didn't understand that frustration (maybe it wasn't really hatred, lol) that my mother had. I didn't really understand why the interventions and "helps" given to a women who is having a hosptial birth (not all, but most/many) were unnecessiary. Why not opt for a little help if you can? Why not ease the pain or move things along faster? What can it really hurt?

This movie put a lot things into perspective and I realized I really DO want to have a home birth and not just because it would be cheaper then a hospital birth. I don't need the help and intervention that the hosiptial so willingly provides. I'm not a he-woman and I'm not really all that femanist or "I am women hear me roar" kind of personality. But I do want to have a baby the way I'm made to have a baby. Because, from all the research I've done and am currently doing. It's EASIER that way! It's healthier that way and not just for babykins for ME! In a world that is so focused on SELF why aren't more women looking into this option for themselves?

I think I was afraid that if I started having home births, on top of deciding to home school, on top of being a conservative and a christain (gasp) that I would just be looked at as a freak, or weird, or "Granola". But I'm not. I'm cool *hee, hee* and *light bulb* I don't care if others do see me as odd.

If you watch the film you will get to see a whole bunch of home births, complete with some very "granola" midwives. However, you'll also see a birth that started at home but had to be transfered to the hospital due to multiple complications. Everything ended up okay and mother and baby are fine, but it was good for me to see that, "Yes", there is a very good reason, purpose and need for Obgyn's and there are plenty of high risk pregnancies that should and need to take place in a hospital, ceasceran sections have saved a lot of babies and mothers so the technology is good. But, having a baby in a hospital...for me...is no longer an option I wish to use. And I'm really excited about coming to this realization.

I can't explain it all, but if you are even thinking about maybe having a home birth, but you aren't really sure why...watch this film and see what you think afterwards.

I think I always knew I'd grow up and be just like my Mom. Though there have been times that I swore that would never happen. I remember telling my health food eating, home school teaching, politically conservative thinking, hallalujah praising the Lord loving, extremly short standing...Mother that as soon as I could I'd go live on my own and buy cheese you could unwrap individually from a wrapper and I thought...I'm gonna be TOTALLY different. HAHA.

Of course I am different from my mother and there are plenty of things and will be plenty of things I'll do completely different. But it's kind of cool to see how I slowly am following in her footsteps. I don't buy pre-wrapped, processed cheese, I do plan, and am already, home schooling my child, I am a proud conservative who loves the Lord with all her heart, soul and mind, who happens to be very short (Praise the Lord for high heels!) and now wants to have home births. Ironic, no?

So back to babies, my baby is sick. She has a fever. As horrible as this may sound, I have to admit out of all the sicknesses my baby can have, I love fevers best. Why? Because when my baby has a fever all she wants to do is cuddle. She is warm, and cuddly and calm, and just lays on me and sleeps and lays on me and sleeps. It makes me feel like such a MOM. Of course, I hate seeing my baby sick and I want her well as soon as possible, but I love that God gives me these moments with my child where I can just love on my baby and hold my baby and just love on her.

Have I mentioned that I love being a mother? And I think being a SAHM is fantastic, fun, diverse, interesting and exhausting? I also love to cook, color, sing, play music, dance, zumba, run, workout, type, EMAIL, blog, shop, dress cute, curl hair, wash my face, wear perfume, be the center of attention, play games, host parties, go for bike rides, eat FOOD, get snail mail, drink coffee, go on dates, make out (and love, hee, hee) with my man, read my bible, teach sunday school, go to MOPS, go to church, sleep in, sleep long, take naps, sun tan, paint my toe nails, weed my garden and love on my daughter?

Is this a long enough post? Watch, I'll probably delete it in a hour when I realize I've gotten WAY to personal on my blog and now all my friends who read this are gonna talk behind my back about what a FREAK I really am. AH! Hmm...maybe I won't delete this.