Awesome birth...

Here are a few pictures from an awesome birth that I was able to attend yesterday. All of the births I attend are awesome but this one was extra special because of the circumstances surrounding it. A couple of years ago I was M’s doula for her first baby and sadly that labor ended in a Cesarean because they claimed that M’s pelvis was too small for her baby’s head. Imagine her frustration when her baby ended up only weighing 7 lbs. 8 oz.

This time around M was determined to have a VBAC (Since this is a family blog I’ll just say that means, V. Birth after Cesarean. Use your imagination.) so she hired a Nurse-Midwife and set about planning for it. Yesterday at 12:06 p.m. after two long days of laboring, she delivered a healthy baby boy who was 8 lbs. 3 oz! (11 oz. bigger than the baby that she was told she was too small to deliver last time.)

If you want to know this awesome birth story in it’s entirety read it on my Doula blog here.

It was a very sweet experience to be involved in and I am grateful to J and M for letting me bear witness to their miracle.


Yeah, I realize I look like crap in these pictures but hey, this is me after pulling an all nighter. However, in the last picture if you look close you will be able to make out the glow of euphoric bliss surrounding me. I could live off of this high for at least a week. "Hi, my name is Tracie. I'm a birth junkie."

Rantings…

I was sitting in church last week and I confess my mind was wandering a bit as I looked around the room and found myself wondering how many people there are silently struggling financially as we are. I thought about it and it occurred to me that if someone said, “By show of hands, who here is either in foreclosure or really close to it?”, that probably more than ½ the room would raise their hand.

Then today at church I was talking to two other ladies about each of our situations one of them said, “I wish we all just had a stamp on our forehead so everybody knew we were all in the same place.” I loved that thought. Now of course I could keep my mouth shut about our situation and no one would be the wiser. It's not like I actually DO have a stamp on my forehead that would indicate that we are in trouble financially but feel like all this secrecy has made people feel isolated and embarrassed about things over which we have no control. So let me be the first to put a stamp on my forehead in hopes that it will help someone else know that they are not alone in this. Here’s the sitch:

A couple of years ago we were living the American dream. Rob had the best job he’s ever had working for Sallie Mae Home Loans. When they told him what his salary was going to be we thought we’d won the lottery. Then in Aug. of last year, when Sallie Mae merged with Quicken Loans they decided to lay off everyone in Rob’s division. With the housing market decline, jobs in the mortgage industry became scarce quickly so after a couple of months of looking for work Rob found a job in the insurance industry. He took about a $30,000.00 pay cut. OUCH! Not that we can complain because at least we HAVE a job.

So with that history in mind here we are today and there is good news and bad news. Bad news first; after many months of battling to keep our home we have finally realized it isn’t going to happen and it is currently up for short sale.

However, there is good news too and this is it: A house is just a thing. It is not a person or an event or an eternal principle. It’s just a place of protection from the elements…a roof over your head. There are other roofs out there and we will not be homeless.

As for credit---it’s not even a “thing”. I mean by definition it is a noun but it is immaterial. It only matters if you think it does and we don’t. There are far worse “things” that one can be diagnosed with than bad credit. Some people have to live with “things” like Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, or addictions, or loneliness, or lack of spiritual direction.

And so, the good news is this: We have a daddy who has labored tirelessly over the past year to save “the thing” and who continues to labor tirelessly. He leads our family and he serves God and others.

We have a mommy who loves our daddy and our little ones with a passion that can’t be rivaled and who is a mama bear in her defense of them against worldly influence.

We have four AMAZING spirits who have graced our home and who every single day fill us with such overwhelming gratitude and joy that it can’t be put into words.

We have a Savior, Jesus Christ who came to Earth to die for us and was then resurrected and He lives now and the reason that there is only one set of footprints in the sand at this time is because he’s been carrying us this last year when we thought we were too weak to continue on.

We have a sure knowledge of our Savior’s love for us and for His atonement and through that knowledge we are more able to see “the thing” as just that and to keep an eternal perspective that this too shall pass.

So with all of this good news it’s kind of hard to worry too much about the bad news. Not to say it’s been a breeze because there are up days and down days. Certainly it is stressful at times making decisions and wondering what the future holds in store, but those things are made easier knowing how much we are blessed. With Thanksgiving approaching just next week, it is with joy and peace that we are able to count our many blessings and say that all is well.

So that is the stamp on my forehead.

Proposition 102 Victory!

Well it’s over and we won! After months of hard work by the Coalition and even as we worked up until the bitter end on Election Day we were able to say all the work was worthwhile as Arizona passed Proposition 102 to amend the Arizona Constitution to state that marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman thereby protecting traditional marriage and families.

Tuesday I spent most of the day at our polling place promoting the cause and pretty much chatting it up with friends and neighbors who stopped by to vote. I was joined by my good friends Alecia Bingham and Misty Polanco (in the picture with me on the right holding her gorgeous baby Benji) who sat in on some long shifts to get the information out to people who were still confused by wording or undecided on the issue. I am happy to say we helped several people make up their mind and vote accordingly.

Election evening we were able to attend a Coalition Celebration Party for all volunteers who worked so hard work on the proposition. Midway through the evening we watched the sad announcement that Barack Obama had been elected president but within about five minutes they were able to call the results of the proposition and announced that we’d won which lightened the mood substantially. However, at the end of the evening as we sang, “God Bless America”, I couldn’t help but become emotional at the significance of the line, “Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above”.


Rob and I with friends and fellow Coalition Committe members Brooke and Chad Cirks, Alecia and Seth Bingham

Caleb and Nate came with us to the Coalition party and are pictured here with their buddies Pierce and Magnum Cirks

Election Time

Tomorrow is the election, and as we gathered the kids together for Family Home Evening we had a reminder of what it is all really about. I was scurrying around getting things together to take the kids to grandma’s house for a sleepover so that I could leave at 5:30a.m. to be at the polling places as a Coalition representative. Since I’d been so tied up with all of that all day I confess I hadn’t given a thought as to what lesson we would have for FHE. Rob could see I was frazzled so he grabbed our handy little book “52 Weeks of Family Night” which has 5 minute lessons in it that you can do with little to no preparation. (BTW…highly recommend that book!)

As we settled the kids down Rob said, “Caleb, pick a number” Caleb picked Lesson #16 randomly and Rob began to read,

“When Captain Moroni, the leader of the Nephite armies, heard of Amalickiah’s plan to be king, he became angry. He knew that if Amalickiah became king, he would try to destroy the church of God and take away the people’s liberty.

Moroni tore his coat to make a flag. On it he wrote a message to remind people to defend their religion, their freedom and their peace. Moroni put the flag on a pole and called it the title of liberty. He told his people to think of their freedom and to think of their families. Then, dressed in his armor, he knelt to pray. He asked God to protect those who believed in Jesus Christ and prayed for freedom in the land, calling it a land of liberty.

Moroni went among the people. Waving the title of liberty, he called them to come and help protect their freedom. People came from all over the land. They promised to obey God’s commandments and to fight for freedom.”

Rob was a teary mess and barely able to finish with the lump in his throat. As he and I looked at each other with tears streaming down our faces, the kids wanted to know what on earth we were crying about. We explained the significance of what we’d just read and how it relates to us today. It was a good reminder to slow down and remember what it is that we are working toward.

Overheard:

Caleb who had obviously been watching too much Fox News: “Well, if Barack Obama becomes president then other countries will see us as weak and then we’re gonna get bombed!”

Nate, “Mom, is it true that the arachnids are gonna bomb us again? (Iraqnids?)

Trick or Treat

Well another Halloween has come and gone so naturally the kids are already discussing what they are going to be NEXT year! OY! This year was a lot of fun. The Monday before Halloween Nate came in and said, “Mom, Caleb says that we aren’t going to get to dress up this year because you haven’t gotten us costumes.” I told Nate to tell Caleb that for the past 8 years I’ve managed to pull off dressing him up even without his “help” and I’ll do it this year too. Caleb clearly can not understand that I work best under pressure which is just a nicer way of saying that I put everything off until the last minute. So, there I was making costumes on Thurs. afternoon but I did in fact manage to get it done.

In fact, as I was sewing I ran onto a bag of white terry cloth that I bought years ago for heaven knows what project I never completed but it worked out nicely as “fake fur” for my costume. It had occurred to me when I ran onto a caveman costume that I already had for Rob from a few years ago that maybe we could go as Fred and Wilma Flintstone. I have been saying for years that Rob has Fred Flintstone feet so this was a great opportunity to make the best of that. Heh Heh!
The boys went as Alvin and the Chipmunks which was completely typecasting only in our house Dave yells, “NAAATER!”, instead of Alvin. Of course Simon and Theodore were type cast as well, Caleb always being the “voice of reason” and Max being the chubby little brother who only gets in trouble because he is too little to know better.
Hayden who was undecided until a few days before Halloween ran onto Nate’s old skunk costume and surprised us all wanting to be that instead of some kind of frou frou princess as we would have expected. Those darn stinky boys are starting to rub off on her. Ah well, she was so adorable as a skunk it didn’t matter.
We all had a great time trick or treating and then having some friends over for chili and cornbread afterward. Hard to believe that we are into November now!

"Meet me at the fair"

The Arizona State Fair started in early Oct. and on opening day admission was just $1, so being the cheap skates that we are we decided to take the kids. Let me tell you, there are some real winners at the fair on cheap day. (Like there are such a high quality people there on the other days!) But in spite of the riff raff we had a pretty good time. We met our good friends the Olsens there and enjoyed their company and a few free rides compliments of the Children’s reading program. It sure isn’t the State Fair that I grew up on in rural Oregon but in any case we had a good time.

Too Too busy!

This month has dragged me along with Election stuff and misc other things so following this post you will see all of the stuff I got ready to post but didn't actually in Oct. So although it says posted in Nov. it's mostly Oct. stuff.