davejenbarnes

Has it really been that long ago?  Shouldn’t he be turning 9 or 10 by now?  I can’t believe he’s only 3!  It feels like yesterday that he was a baby.  I don’t know how all these conflicting feelings can exist at the same time, but, yeah, he’s three and sometimes it feels like he should be starting school in August and other times it feels like he should still be swaddled up at night… ah, parenthood.

We had no clue what we were getting ourselves into.  It’s been more fun than a barrel of monkeys and to prove it we’ve done and gone made two more of these little creatures called kids.

James, you’ll always be first, though.  You funny little man.  Happy THIRD birthday!

I’ve really been in disbelief that we are going to have another baby in December.  I mean, honest to goodness disbelief that our third child is already formed and growing in my belly.  It all happened so quickly.  Weren’t we just newlyweds the other day and now we have two boys and a baby on the way?  Where has the time gone?  Really.  Where?

Seeing the wiggle-worm that we have in there, and seeing that he/she is moving around like crazy even though I can’t really feel anything (apparently, when they’re facing your spine, you don’t feel much!) and watching David’s face as he stared at the computer monitor with the ultrasound display… wow, it’s amazing.  God is working a miracle right before our very eyes.  At the time that I got the positive pregnancy test (or four of them) I felt like I hadn’t even caught my breath from having Lowell (he was/is quite the high maintenance little guy).  I was mentally ill-prepared for that news.  It shattered my life into a million pieces and sent me into some very dark places of thought.  It was days away from closing on our house and my mind was not accepting of yet another pregnancy.  Things have settled down now quite a bit and I’m really beginning to get excited about this new person we will get to meet right before Christmas.

I don’t know if we will take Bradley classes with this one.  We didn’t with Lowell, but I think it would be nice because the main issue I remember having with Lowell’s labor and birth was not the pain, but the fear of the pain.  I know it hurt but I was afraid of hurting which only made it harder than it needed to have been.  I remember screaming briefly and I don’t want to scream with this one at all.  I don’t want to be afraid of anything with this one and I think the Bradley classes will give me more tools to deal with the fear than anything else I will need to deal with in the labor and birth of this precious wee one.

I may be strange, but I’m really looking forward to the birth.  I dread the sleeplessness that I know we will endure into the beginning of 2009 and I dread Lowell’s response to having to share his Mommy with two siblings (one is quite enough for him, I assure you) and I kind of dread the rest of being pregnant (the backaches, not sleeping a wink at night, the leg cramps, the round ligament pains, the having to get up umpteen times at night to visit the loo, the waddling, the itchy belly, the sore belly button, the discomfort of leaning back to relax for any amount of time, the potential to have cankles for the first time) but the birth I know I can handle.  I know that there are many magnificent rewards that come with natural childbirth (like that awesome natural high that lasted for two whole days, like feeling like dancing the jig two hours after delivering the afterbirth and actually doing it, those kinds of things).

Another quote (from page 18 of Husband Coached Childbirth: The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth by Robert A. Bradley, M.D.):

Is it really necessary for women to suffer so in labor?  Do they really have to be delivered?  Must they lose all human dignity and self-control in labor from the drunken effect of medication given in the vain attempt to make labor pain-free?  If the answer to the latter question is not perfectly clear in your mind, I beg you, ask women who have tried the medication method!  […quoting a journalist who decided to get pregnant and investigate the process of having a baby…]  “What’s it like, having a baby?  What am I to expect?”  She found there were in existance two fundamental ways: One involved medication and anesthetics to relieve pain and being passively “delivered” of her baby.  The other was the method of natural childbirth whose enthusiastic advocates […] actively gave birth to the babies without any “pain relief” medication at all.  She applied, sensibly, the old car slogan “Ask the man who owns one.”  She proceeded to carefully interview a group of mothers who had used the medicated method — “Between us girls, what was it really like to have a baby?”  The answers were horrifying: “Never again!”  “Worst pain I have ever known!”  “Most terrible experience of my life!”  She then interviewed natural-childbirth mothers, and I heartily encourage any honest skeptic to do likewise.  “It was wonderful!”  “Most beautiful experience of my life!”  […]  Many women are so angry at the overuse of medication that they choose to have a home birth next time.  Birth is hard work and sometimes painful but it can be the most rewarding experience of your life.  Every woman’s experience is different and experience is still the best teacher.

What got me about this page of the book is the message that women who have had natural births are, by far, the biggest advocates of natural childbirth, when you would think that it would be the women who have had natural births would be all the ones rushing to the hospital to get the drugs and deliver their next babies.

I’m not trying to judge anyone here.  I just want to help explain where I’m coming from when I say that I am really looking forward to the labor and birth of this next one.  I have never heard a pregnant woman tell me she’s looking forward to the birth.  It’s gonna be amazing and I can’t wait!

BABY!  A very shy baby, actually.

All parts (even some we didn’t see!) accounted for.  His or her heartbeat was 148, slower than both James and Lowell’s which was in the upper 150s.  This baby was wiggly as could be and facing my spine with his or her head down by the exit and feet up by my ribs on my left side.  I can’t really feel much up by my ribs, but I can certainly feel the down-low bumps and movements.  The ultrasound tech had a hard time getting any “good” pictures since the baby was sooooo wiggly.  My favorite picture was one of his/her lips, but that’s going in my file for the midwives.  I wonder if they would mind giving it to me at my appointment next week… hrmm…

Oh!  We’re on target with the December 6th due date.  The measurements all averaged December 8th for the due date but since that’s within 5 days of the guesstimate date we came up with, it won’t be changed.

We go in for our diagnostic ultrasound tomorrow.  I’m be back tomorrow with many pictures!

And I thought pregnancy cravings were strange.  Here are my boys dipping Zestas into chocolate pudding, per their Daddy’s suggestion.  I have three veery strange men in my life.

David has been quite the handyman these days.  This house was a foreclosure and part of that meant that it came “as is” which meant we had a kitchen missing a drawer, a section of the fence outside down, a broken trash can (one of those big special ones from the city), no garage door opener, dirty walls.  In other words, we couldn’t ask for anything to be done before we agreed to buy it or to use as bargaining in getting a good price.  But we got a good price.  Really, I think this house is worth more than even the appraisal, but I’m not going to argue with them.

I was thinking this morning that it seemed like horrible timing — finding out we’re pregnant again on April 7, closing on April 9 (and paying waaaaay too much in closing costs, don’t even ask how much it was), moving in on May 10 and all the while David having band contests and 5th grade recruiting and festivals and high school duties and an extra-long-seeming school year because of the late start last year… but now, I think it was great timing.  I get to be tired and pregnant with the move already over.  The boys get to adjust to their new surroundings with Daddy home for the summer.  We get time to put little projects up around the house.  It’s been great.

The house came with all brass light fixtures (probably the cheapest ones the builder could get) inside and out and one by one they are all going away.  I have nothing against bright yellow shining brass — in Burger King — I just don’t like it inside my house.  It doesn’t fit my style, so out it goes.  We’ll probably save up all the fixtures and freecycle them as a set for someone who, say, might be redoing a rental house or something.

That beauty is a 60″er from Lowe’s and is now cooling us off in the livingroom.   We, of course, opted for the darker side of the blades.  I love that it came with a remote control which we have mounted to the wall by our bedroom where I always thought a light switch should go.  For the ceiling fan in the boys’ room, we got the $18 special at the grocery store.  Hey!  It works, though!

In our kitchen, to use some wasted space (why there isn’t a cabinet above the fridge space beats me — the fridges that would be taller are also too wide for the alloted space… ) we went to IKEA and picked up a very basic pot rack.  David loves it.  I love it but I think he loves it more.

We’ve also added some 2″ faux wood blinds to the front room and replaced a sconce in the hallway.  These are all little things but they sure help to make this place feel more like “ours.”

In our search for a perfect boy name for baby #3 (in the event that the baby is, indeed, a boy), we came across this name in the baby name book:

For those of you who know us well, we came across this well before hulu released The Fifth Element, one of our favorite movies of all time.

James uses the phrase, “this day” instead of “today.”  He also knows what Lowe’s is and always asks us when he sees either a Lowe’s store or a Lowe’s rental truck, “Are we going to Lowe’s this day?”

Today, we went.  He was happy to ride in their blue race car carts and help us pick out a ceiling fan and hooks and lightbulbs and various other things you can get at Lowe’s.  But he’s taking a nap now, so we’re busy putting up new blinds in the front room, building that [beautiful] 60″ ceiling fan and all the other various little projects we now have the supplies to complete.  David is loving getting use out of his new drill and I’m loving making this place really ours.  Part of me is contemplating taking all of the fans and lights with us when we sell it but I know most of those are supposed to convey with the house…

I know, I know, we just bought the place.  I’m not supposed to already be thinking of when we move out.  I just can’t help but think eventually we will relocate, maybe someplace bigger, maybe to a new city, maybe not for 20 years, but someday we might and we’ve spent so much time and so much energy into replacing all the stuff.  We could very easily keep the little brass light fixtures and put them up again when we move out.  Really.  We could.  They work perfectly well.

photo by Dave, best viewed large

We’re eating dinner (like, right now) and Lowell pitched a pouting, screaming tantrum after poking his finger into the straw-hole in the lid of an empty McDonald’s cup (left over from lunch). I made the comment, out loud, that we need to pray for Lowell to find a patient wife [later in life].

James immediately folds his hands and says, “Dear Lord, Thank You for Lowell to find his patience. Amen.” It was the cutest prayer ever.