Mac enters the world via her Bad Ass Momma on May 10, 2013

This is the birth story of my beautiful 2 week 3 day old daughter.

I sat on the yoga ball as we watched,”Baby Mama,” and slowly, rhythmically continued my bouncing. A light hearted comedy that we knew would make me laugh seemed like a good idea since I had been slightly anxious to say the least over the last few days. Mackenzie Grace was now officially 5 days late and I was beyond ready for her to be in my arms instead of my exploding belly. Earlier that day I had met with Dr. Martinez in KC and scheduled an induction for the following Thursday. Definitely not my ideal situation, but everyone knew that it was necessary.  I had been having contractions for two weeks or more at this point, so the cramping that I was feeling during dinner didn’t make me think for more than a brief moment that I might be in actual labor. Somewhere around 10pm I started to question the cramping, it seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable. Still nothing more than a cramp, but not a fun cramp. I told Russ that I thought I might be in labor and that we should start timing them, I had an app on my phone and he started to record whenever I reported the waves. At 11pm they had been coming regularly every 3 minutes for an hour. I called my mom to come and stay with Gabe so that Russ and I could take a walk. When she got here we headed out. We only made it around the block once. I had to stop and hang on him at every contraction. I was ready to be back home. When we got home, mom left to get some rest and I got into the bath. I called Emily right before I got into the tub to let her know what was going on. I tried to call Stefanie and got her voicemail, but didn’t leave a message. After relaxing in the tub for about an hour I decided to try and go lie in bed and get some rest. That sucked. The pain was getting intense and the warm water took the edge off. I quickly got back into the tub and asked Russ to call Emily and Stefanie. Emily got to the house sometime between 1 and 2 and sat in the bathroom with me while I labored. It was uncomfortable and I had to breathe and focus during each contraction, but looking back, those were the easy ones. When Stefanie got to the house sometime after 2, she and Russ set up the birthing tub. I went from the bathtub to the birthtub. I was still in good spirits and laughing and talking between contractions. Around 3:30 or 4, shit got real. It was so intense. I writhed in the tub, flipped from front to back to my side. My body seemed to know exactly what position would help me through each contraction. My lungs expelled the air and sounds in a way that helped move me through the intense waves of pressure and pain that were pulsing through me. Emily and Stefanie helped guide me through the hours. Russ fed me coconut water, juice ice cubes, water, and cranberry juice. Emily fed me spoonfulls of honey to help regulate my blood sugar. At one point Russ made me a smoothie, with chicken stock, an ice cube mix up, but quickly brought me one made with juice only. As Stefanie moved me from the toilet to the tub I caught a glimpse of the clock. 6:15.  I was in hard labor, I was making noises like a bear during each contraction and was scared about Gabe waking up. I asked more than once about the plan for Gabe, so my team figured one out. My mom came over around 7 with Ashley to take Gabe out of the house so that I could labor without being afraid of scaring him. I was in the bathroom and Emily stood in the doorway as they ushered Gabe out of the house. Once he was gone we got down to business. I stood over the arm of the couch and worked with Stefanie to move Mackenzie down. Each contraction felt like bone shattering pressure. It kind of felt like my insides were violently dry heaving. My mantra became, “come on Mackenzie, we can do this.” I repeated it over and over. For some reason it made me feel so much better, and like I actually knew what was going on. I didn’t, but somehow my body did, it was really incredible.  I pushed harder and harder to move her down as I growled as loud as I could. I got back into the tub. Between contractions I fell into an almost trance like state of sleep. Russ said he watched as I would flip from growling on hands and knees to twitching unconsciously as I floated weightlessly on my back. I was feeling more and more like I was ready to push. Emily checked me and let me know that I had a cervical lip. Basically a small piece of cervix was stuck in between her head and her exit, not a great thing to hear when your body starts pushing involuntarily to move your baby into the world. The pushing was coming on more and more intensely and Emily and Stefanie wanted me to get out of the tub and into an “extreme side lying” position to help the lip to move. Basically that means that she wanted me to lay on my side and stretch my bottom leg out and pull my top knee all the way up to my chin. This is horribly uncomfortable position when you are having the bone shattering contractions that come with transition. I was still pushing with each contraction. It was not something that I could help, it was like my vagina was trying to throw up a baby, not pleasant. This was the one and only time that I felt panicked. I knew my baby was trying to get out, there was nothing I could do to slow her down. After all, this girl had always been on her own timeline.  After what felt like a terribly long time, but was really only a few minutes, the lip had moved and Emily told me I could get back into the tub. I refused, and quickly flipped onto my back. Stefanie sat on the couch behind me, as I leaned back and with one or two intense seconds, I pushed Mackenzie into the world. Emily told me to reach down and touch her head, I watched Russ’s face as I pushed and reached down to touch my daughter. It was so surreal, I tried to pull her head, not a good idea according to Emily! Following her expert advice I waited for the next contraction and pushed Mackenzie’s slimy body out of me. I pulled her slippery blue body onto me. She was perfect. I held her as they rubbed her little chubby body and gave her a few breaths of oxygen to help her to pink up.  She latched right on, a little piglet from her first moments.  She is here, and perfect and wonderful, and beautiful! And now… I am not pregnant and I did it, all natural, in my living room! Fuck yeah!

I hope I never forget that amazing feeling of holding my daughter and the gratitude I felt toward the people who believed in me to make it happen. Emily and Stefanie were amazing and Russ was the perfect partner. Thank you God for this amazing blessing.

Still a mess

At the beginning of the year I was bound and determined to get all of my closets cleaned out and my house organized. I did it, and..... my house is still a mess. I thought that it would suddenly be easy to put things back where I got them and to keep everything nice and tidy. Apparently I am the problem. Lump my husband and a 16 month old into that equation and you still have one big happy mess. The problem is my mess makes me feel very unhappy. It isn't the dishes in the sink or one or two things out of place that makes me crazy, but once the mess starts to pile I feel overwhelmed and want to climb in my bed and hide. Since the first of the year I have been making so many things myself, ie, deodorant, toothpaste, dishsoap, laundry detergent, yogurt, butter, the list goes on and on. This only contributes further to the mess. Not only do I have dirty dishes, now I have a cooler full of jars of yogurt, and ball jars full of different fermenting experiments all over my counters. I am now aware that if I want to maintain the type of home that I read about in the blogs of the amazing homemakers out there, I am going to have to clean up after myself, all the time, everytime. The truth is, I would rather have my happy mess, it is a lovely happy mess. 

Writing

Have you ever noticed that typing doesn't have the same cathartic effect that actually putting a pen to paper does. I was cleaning out my closets ( I will blog all about that soon!) and I found my journal from when I was in high school. Is high school two words??? My computer just auto corrected it, so don't judge me if it's not ;). Anyway, without even reading the words on the page I could tell how I had been feeling at each entry just by the way that my handwriting looked. I don't want to brag, well maybe a little, but I have amazing penmanship. It comes from writing massive amounts of letters and essays, but that is a very long story. I could feel the pressure that I had used with my pen by touching the pages. I also found a journal that my dad had kept. It was just a small journal all about hunting, mostly a log of what he had conquered! It was strangely nostalgic however to know that he had used his massive hands to form each letter and write each word. He did not have excellent penmanship, or grammar for that matter, but it was so endearing because of it's authenticity. I don't think that you can get that from a typed paragraph. I think that I am going to try keeping a journal again. Maybe someday Gabe can look back at the days my life and feel connected to me in a way that nothing else will give him. I hope so.

I wanna win!!!

Green mountain herbs, the company that I bought all the supplies for my homemade Christmas gifts from, is having an awesome giveaway. I am trying to win!!! I still have to get into Russy's twitter account to tweet about it, but don't tell him! Anyway, check it out, but don't enter because they are mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://mountainroseblog.com/recipes-2011-giveaway-3/

Homemade Holidays

So this past year has been a quick spiral into the world of hippiedom. I am actually truly enjoying the idea of being less reliant on the commercialized things of the world. However, I am NOT giving up my microwave! My good friends Caryl and Sus do not have microwaves!!! They are true hippies. Sus has our chicken flock in her backyard and always smells like tea tree oil, and Caryl has a garden that could feed both of our families. They are both awesome women who I respect more than words could ever say. However I am not quite ready to "go there" yet. I am however making all of my own bath products now. Well not shampoo I tried the no poo thing, and it worked really well, however, it didn't make my hair any better than my shampoo. I use sulfate and paraban-free shampoo anyway and I really like the way it makes my hair smell (it's Moroccan oil). Anyway I made bath bombs, moisturizer, chapstick, sugar scrub, and lotion bars for my friends and family for christmas this year and I love them all!!!! They are so easy and cheap, and I use them all over Gabe and I know exactly what is in them. Check out crunchybetty.com to get all the info on making your own stuff, she has an amazing site. Merry Christmas everyone.
http://www.crunchybetty.com/the-whole-crunch

Healthier Lifestyle

I was just looking online and reading about living a healthy lifestyle. I love the idea of being healthy. I love the idea of working out and eating right. I do not love actually doing it. I am actually a fairly lazy person, I always have been. I have never had the internal motivation to "be the best I can be." I am fairly satisfied with being a slightly above average version of myself. The problem is, I am very curious about how great I could actually be. I just don't want to do the work. In the article I was reading it said that a healthy lifestyle was determined by 4 factors. Not smoking, Exercise, Weight management, and Diet. I am actually only just now completing one of these items by quitting smoking. I quit smoking on October 13. So far so good, I have had the occasional puff or two since then, but not everyday, or even every week and haven't bought any since that day. So now that I have one down, I guess I should move on to another. Hmmmmm, I think I will try to focus on exercise. I really think that I would be happier if I moved my ass a little more. Gabe is going to be running more and more and keeping up with him is going to be a necessity. Alright cyberspace, I am going to move my ass at least 20 min 3X a week. Considering no one reads this blog that I know of, I am not to concerned about this commitment, however I promise to keep my little piece of the internet updated. Wish me motivation!!!

Cyclical Thinking

Last night I had a glass of wine with my wonderful sister. She is currently the only member of this blog, however I am going to assume that millions of other people are reading this because my amazing writing shines through the endless sea of others out there in the blogospere. Even if she is the only one in the world that reads this, that is good enough. I am her biggest fan. I want to be more like her. If I can accomplish being someone she and my child both admire then I have lived my dream. Sometimes it is so hard not to get stuck in the never ending wheel of cyclical thinking. I get in these ruts where everything in the world just seems like the leftovers in the fridge that just might make you cry if you actually have to eat them for one more day. Like the turkey that is still there three days after Thanksgiving. Sometimes I just look at my life and want to kick and scream, I want a Fucking CHEESEBURGER, get this GD turkey the hell out of my face! It really isn't the turkey that I don't want. It is the cheeseburger that I do want, I actually love turkey. My point is that I can take a step back and see that the turkey is actually really great, and that it is up to me to keep my life exciting. I think the key to that is to stop the cycle. The cycle becomes like the hum of tires on the road, it's mesmerizing, it lulls me into a state of expectation and ingratitude. When I stop and notice the smell of winter creeping into the fall, and the small seedlings bursting through the ground in the colored pots in my window, my eyes are open. I see the things that make today different from yesterday. These things are not insignificant. They are the cheeseburger. I just have to look from them. I am reading a book that focuses on gratitude. I am trying to do better. I just want the people I love to know I am grateful for every moment in this life I get to spend with them. I am grateful for you Ash. <3