I ate my placenta.

*This post contains graphic images that may gross some people out. So, if blood and stuff bothers you or you are eating or something...be forewarned.

     This is a post about placenta consumption. I consumed (or rather am in the process of consuming) my placenta. If you are not familiar with the placenta, I suggest you do some googling. It's pretty rad. My body made an entire organ for the purpose of nourishing Perrin in utero that is then expelled after birth. Most mammals eat the placenta after their offspring are born. It's how they "cut the cord" so to speak. For humans, we have developed lots of different ways of  dealing with the placenta after birth. Some people opt for a lotus birth where the placenta is left attached to the baby until it detaches naturally. Some people bury the placenta, either by itself or with a young tree to commemorate the beginning of a new life. Then there is always the biohazard bag and trashcan approach. But for many, many cultures consuming the placenta has been a normal part of childbirth, and there is good reason for it.
   For starters, it is chock full of vitamins and minerals (such as iron) that are super important for the mother's health postpartum. It is also full of hormones- hormones produced by the mother's body. It's basically tailor made hormone replacement therapy. These hormones have many important properties, including helping the uterus to return to it's normal size post-partum. That's why a great way to stop post-partum bleeding is to eat a piece of the placenta (unless of course, your placenta is half way stuck inside you and the cause of the bleeding...). The hormones also help with mood regulation and with milk production.
   In most of these cultures, the placenta is eaten raw or prepared as a special meal for the mother. But now there are many modern takes on placenta consumption, including placenta smoothies and placenta encapsulation. We chose to go the encapsulation route. Below is how we did it.

   First, you start with the placenta. After it was checked over by the midwives, Lia put ours in the freezer for us. I meant to get to it sooner, but ended up not being able to start the encapsulation process until day 4. Here is the placenta as Lia left it, once we thawed it out and rinsed it off. Sorry about our colander being red- I know it's not the best for contrast.

Here are the membranes, or the amniotic sac. This is what contained Perrin while he was inside.


And here is the umbilical cord. His was pretty long. 

So first we removed the membranes and the umbilical cord. I just used our kitchen shears. Then we moved to the cutting board. Here is a good pic of the maternal side. This is the part of the placenta that was attached to my uterus. This is what caused problems- a few of the nodes didn't detach properly. 

Here is the fetal side. This part was enclosed in the membranes. You can see the stump where the umbilical cord was attached. 

We basically just sliced it up into thin strips. Those strips went onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and into the oven on low heat for few hours to dehydrate. Just like making jerky...


Once it was done, we let it cool then threw it into the food processor. After processing it, I noticed it still looked a little meaty in some spots, so I threw the placenta-meal back into the oven for a little longer to make sure all the moisture was gone. I processed it again to get it as fine as possible.
Here is part of it. It made a lot more, but I didn't think to snag a picture until we were already into production.

So then it was simple. We used a encapsulation machine to fill up empty pill capsules with the powder. 


And voila! We have placenta pills! 



So there you have it. Even if you are pretty squeamish, you have to admit those are fairly benign. So yeah, not only did my body make a person, but it also made me super vitamins. It's pretty cool. Now I just pop a couple of these a few times a day.

And in case my instructions didn't make sense, here are the two blogs I consulted:


Made with Love. Anya’s toddler room.

I have been wanting to share this little part of our place since forever. This post will get a little long, let me warn you. Lots of pictures and so much I want to share about it. This room is full of love and lots of stories behind every single thing that sits here and that is my favorite part about it. That it brings happy memories, reminds us of loved ones, and is the place where our little

Breastfeeding Sucks

    Seriously. It sucks. I hate it. I would rather labor and birth the baby 3 more times than breastfeed. It's a million times harder than natural childbirth. It sucks. I haven't slept more than two hours at a time in over 2 weeks. And you know what really has me miffed? No one told me. No one told me how bad it was going to suck. Maybe everyone is just scared that the truth will put people off of breastfeeding. I have to admit, that thought did cross my mind. But I have more faith in you than that. I know that you will realize as much as it sucks, it is still completely worth it. That a little suckiness on the front end is nothing compared to the ease and convenience and enjoyment down the road. But right now, I'm still in sucky-McFuck-this-land. (*Note, if swearing offends you, don't read this post. I'm sorry, but go put your nipple up against a door jam and slam the door a couple of times and tell me you don't let a couple choice words eek out.) So here are things no one told me, but I am telling you, so that you can be prepared.

    No one told me that "nipple soreness" was code for blistered, bleeding nipples that make you want to claw your eyes out. A stubbed toe gets sore. Nursing nipples is a whole other circle of hell.
No one told me that my baby would suddenly become a black belt in judo when it was time to latch on and that it would take three people to position him just enough for me to cram my nipple into his  mouth. Or that he was given a bear trap for a jaw that clamps shut as soon as the tip of my nipple crosses his lips. Or that engorgement feels like someone filled your boobs with hot gravel. Or that someone with no teeth could somehow manage to take a chunk of skin off.
   No one told me that all newborns do is eat, which sucks because it hurts like hell, and sleep, which sucks because you spend the entire time dreading when they will wake up and want to eat again. No one told me I wouldn't even enjoy my baby at first because right now he's just a little bundle of pain and suffering. Or that walking out into traffic actually seems like a good idea at 1:30 a.m. when you have been nursing for an hour and a half straight.
  No one told me that nursing in public for the first time would result in my infant suddenly forgetting what a nipple is for and a particularly forceful letdown that culminated in my hosing Perrin in the face and soaking my shirt while some $5 haircut place lady comes over to quiz me on his birth stats. Or that I would give up on going anywhere or doing anything because it's just to much work to put on a shirt (not to mention painful).
  No one told me that even when he does finally fall asleep, you are still trapped because there is no way you are going to move him now. He might wake up ...and then eat. You can't take that chance. So you spend 22 hours of your day with a infant on you who's body temperature is somewhere between  lava and a supernova (just to guesstimate).

   Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe no one told me these things because no one else experienced them. Maybe it's just me. Perhaps you wake up in the morning after a restful night, pop a baby on your boob and suddenly woodland animals are singing at your window sill like you're some goddamn lactating Snow White. But I doubt it. You know what I think really happens? I think everyone just forgets the suckiness, because you know what people did tell me?
   They told me how amazing it was to be able to provide for their baby. To give them the absolute best. They told me all of their funny stories about nursing and their awkward moments. About how it was hard (understatement of the century) but so, so worth it. About the emotions of weaning and how much they missed that relationship. So even though it sucks right now, I know soon I won't even remember. I'll be too busy relishing in the fact that I can leave the house with just a spare diaper. Or cure any tantrum or boo boo. Or feed my baby without waking up at night (I'm really looking forward to that part). I'm thankful my body can produce what my baby needs and I don't have to pay for donor milk, and I'm in awe that my body can not only grow a person but sustain him topside. So yeah, breastfeeding sucks. For now. But I have feeling it will be worth it. Unless of course that is another big lie that everyone has told me...in which case heads will roll.

On troubled times, fear and hope.



It feels like I’m doing these posts almost every week. Just a few days ago this happened and then yesterday a tragedy of another kind back in Pakistan. Tourists were targeted and killed in an area thought to be much safer than the rest, and known to be one of the most beautiful in the country. My heart goes out to those that lost their loved ones. It is heartbreakingly sad. This attack

What we wore and some thoughts on this series.

Happy Monday morning sweet people. I’m back with another outfit post but today I also wanted to share why I even do this series here.

Even though I love clothes and dressing up, I don’t like to throw our money on it too much. Yes, I’m pretty cheap like that ;) So I am learning to look at our closets differently, I am learning to mix and match to come up with new outfits with what we already own

The Birth Story

                Wow, do I have a birth story to tell. It will be long. Some parts are a little fuzzy but I will spare no details that I can remember. Unfortunately we didn’t get many pictures or videos like we had hoped, so you’ll at least be spared any graphic images. I guess I start with the very beginning…

I Dreamed a Dream
                Monday morning we had our Bradley class review. When we left, I told Joey that I felt better and much more confident about the baby coming. That night, I went to bed and spent most of the night dreaming I was in labor. When I woke up during the night, I noticed I was cramping quite a bit. Tuesday morning was my prenatal appointment. I told Lia (our midwife) about everything and asked her to check me to see if things were actually getting started. Whatta you know, I was at 2 centimeters. She agreed this was probably prelabor and thought the baby would likely come in the next week or so. We chatted about the fact that I was installing an icemaker and had been struggling with finding a last part. She joked that once I finished I would probably go into labor. Well lo and behold we went to Ace Hardware that afternoon and got the right part installed. By 6:00 p.m. I was having minute long contractions every 5 minutes. I called Lia and gave her a heads up. She suggested we try to rest as much as possible that night and she would check in in the morning. I was able to sleep in between contractions for about 6 hours. I got up a little after 5 and took Fender on a nice morning walk. The contractions had slowed but started to pick back up throughout the day. Joey and I tried to go to the pool, but it was too busy. We made a last minute grocery run and he went to a physical therapy appointment, set up the birth pool and other supplies, then Lia came over late that afternoon. She checked me and I was at 4 centimeters. She asked if I would like to try and rest one more night or keep going. I was a little disappointed that the birth wasn’t as imminent as I thought, but thankful for a chance to get some more rest. So we agreed that we would go to bed and call her when we needed her. I sent Joey out for a bottle of wine to help me get some rest and managed to eek out a few more hours of sleep that night. The next morning I woke up with pretty steady contractions and called Lia. She came over and explained that another one of their patients was starting labor. My baby was coming a little early and the other woman’s was running late, so we kind of met in the middle apparently. Sharon, our other attending midwife, would be with the other woman and Lia would stay with us which meant she would have to call another person to assist whom we had never met. I wasn’t too worried about it though. All of the birth attendants I had met in the area were spectacular. She sent us off to get a smoothie and walk some stairs on the University Campus. While we were out, we also made a stop at the chiropractor to make sure everything was in place and good to go. Lia mentioned that I seemed to labor best on my own in our bedroom, so she offered to go over to a friend’s house nearby and let us do our thing. We labored like that for a while, then decided to go walk the aisles at Home Depot to see if we could get things moving. The contractions were still coming pretty steadily, so we grabbed some fries from In-N-Out and headed back to the house to meet back up with Lia. She gave me some herbs for energy and to help labor out and I got in the birth pool for a bit and tried some different positions. Being on my knees leaning over the side of the tub seemed to work really well. Joey got in with me for a while and helped me squat and try some other things. Soon my feet were pretty pruny and I needed a break from the water, so we started going through all of our labor positions we had learned in our Bradley classes. Lia got word that the other woman had her baby, so Sharon and her assistant would be joining us again shortly. Unfortunately by the time they got there, things had slowed back down.
Fool Me Twice…
                Lia checked me and I was at 9 cm. Generally this is transition for most people, but I was still having to be very deliberate about bringing on the contractions. It looked like we were going to close out another day sans baby. The good thing was I was getting one more chance for rest. We agreed to take this opportunity. The team offered to sleep over in case we needed them, but I seemed to do best with some privacy so they just went home and let us be. Once they left I started crying. I felt bad that this was dragging on for everyone and that I must be doing something wrong. Lia had assured me that everything was fine and my body was just giving me a slow, compassionate labor but I still felt bad that my labor wasn’t going like everyone else’s usually did. My vitals and my babies had been doing great the entire time though, and I knew there was nothing to do but keep going. I took a shower and laid down. We were only able to make it until about 4 a.m. before sleep was no longer an option. The whole team reassembled once more. Joey and I took Fender on a walk around the neighborhood and I started laboring in the pool. My contractions were more steady now and my surroundings didn’t seem to matter as much. The team went to grab breakfast for everyone. By 8 a.m., at 9 cm dilated, I was laboring in my birth pool eating a giant breakfast burrito. By noon, it was clear we still had a little while. I opted for a industrial strength enema in case some bowel blockage was slowing things up, but it didn’t seem to help much. We went back to campus for more stairs while the birth team went home to rest. Lia met us back at the house when we were finished, but the assistant had to leave for good for a pre-planned trip and our other midwife was still resting at her son’s house nearby, since this was her second delivery in two days. I was still stuck at 9 cm. We tried everything. All the positions we knew. We hung a rope out on our porch I hung onto it, I tried side lying, I got in the pool, the shower, you name it. More herbs and teas and me trying to force down some food to keep my energy up. The other midwife joined back up with us, and that’s when Lia got serious. She said we needed to get serious about getting this baby out. I didn’t understand at the time; I still felt fine and the baby and I were doing great, but I was more exhausted than I realized. Lia was worried I wouldn’t have the strength left to get the baby out. Contractions were too close together for anymore rest. I had to have this baby with whatever stores I had left.

Let’s Get Down to Business
                Lia checked me again (she said she has never done so many checks in a labor before). I was complete except for a cervical lip. She suggested moving to the bed and I could try to push the baby past it while she held it back. While she was working with the lip, my water broke. Perfect, crystal clear water! Baby was still doing just fine. We thought maybe things would pick up now. The contractions were still coming, but the lip was still in the way and baby wasn’t moving down. Lia suggested we try the McRobert’s maneuver. We put a cutting board under my low back and tail bone on the bed to give me something to push against and I laid back in a reclining squat position with my knees as far out to the sides as I could get them. Lia used her hands to hold back the lip while I pushed. This is where things start to get fuzzy. I was so tired I was falling asleep between pushes. I kept hearing people saying things like “you are so close! You are so close!” but there I was still pushing away. Joey put Fender up at some point (Lia said he was the best dog she has ever had at a labor, by the way) and I started getting loud. It wasn’t particularly painful to push…it was just so much work. Finally we were past the lip, but then baby was stuck under the pubic bone. Pushing pushing pushing. (Interesting side note here- While I was pushing, Lia discovered I still had part of my hymen! She told me she might have to snip it when the baby came past so that it wouldn’t tear into the surrounding tissue, but when the time came and she grabbed the scissors I asked her not to. There wasn’t any protest. She put the scissors down and instead massaged the area and it broke away on its own.) I was so tired, but what was there to do except get the baby out? Joey was behind me helping to support my legs. A contraction would start, I would tell Lia, she would help make space for the baby’s head under my pubic bone, and I would push until I was sure my eyeballs were going to explode. Joey said my whole body would turn bright red with every push. Finally he was under the bone!  Lia warned me that after a few more pushes, I would need to slow down so my perineum would have time to stretch. I’m so glad she told me ahead of time, because the sensation of that head stretching my body was like nothing in this world. Ring of fire indeed! My instinct was to push as hard as I could and make that sensation end, but Lia reminded me to breathe. The whole time she had been applying warm compresses and olive oil. She told me to reach down and feel the head. I didn’t think I could let go of my legs, but Lia said I needed to help apply pressure to prevent tearing. I reached down and felt a squishy head covered in hair! After a few moments she told me I could start making tiny pushes to crown the baby. This was harder than I thought. I pushed and pushed, and little by  little the head made its way out. I didn’t experience the immediate relief I had hear others describe. Lia told me to reach down and pull my baby up to me with my next push…so I reached down and pushed and pulled and…nothing happened.  I told her I couldn’t do it. Lia said, “of course you can! It’s your baby!” But I tried to explain, no, I really couldn’t! I was trying. Turns out his shoulders were stuck. Sharon came over and they managed to get the shoulders out…so I reached down, grabbed hold of my baby and…still nothing. It took all three of us pulling on him just to get his body out! I had always heard that once the head is born the rest of the baby usually just falls out! Ha, not this kid. But baby was out and Lia helped me get him up on my chest. Sharon put a blanket over him and rubbed his back while I talked to him and within a few seconds he let out squeak then started crying. Apparently Lia had announced the sex when she helped hand him up to me, but I didn’t hear her. I looked under the blanket and it was a boy! I told Joey and started getting Perrin up between my breasts so that he could breast crawl when he was ready.
                This is where things got mildly interesting. Suddenly, Lia was examining the cord (and milking it as much as possible) saying that he had gotten most of the blood and we need to cut it. Now this seemed odd since the midwives and Joey and I are big on delayed clamping. She asked Joey to cut it, but when I looked up at him, he was all glassy eyed staring between my legs and mumbling something about how he couldn’t right now.…I was still pretty out of it, so I didn’t think anything about it when Lia handed me the scissors  to cut it. Then things started happening really fast. Sharon jumped over me onto the bed and started pressing on my stomach. Lia told me to push the placenta out. I pushed and pushed but nothing happened. She kept telling me to “push!” and I was trying and didn’t understand why she seemed upset. Turns out I was hemorrhaging. The placenta not only detached early before my uterus started contracting but hadn’t detached completely. Lia apologized as she injected a shot of Pitocin in my thigh and told me to start gulping down my postpartum tea. I was trying to get the baby to latch, but he wasn’t interested, so Sharon told Joey to start sucking on my nipple to try and stimulate my uterus. Suddenly the baby was being taken off of my chest and handed to Joey and they were pulling me up onto the birth stool. Lia kept asking me to push and finally had to reach up inside me and help the placenta detach. Once it was out the bleeding slowed up considerably and they laid me back down on the bed. I remember telling them how I felt fine and wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded at all. They started checking me over for tears and to make sure the bleeding wasn’t picking back up. No tears, just two small abrasions on my labia but nothing that required stitches. Joey and the baby came back over to me for a while while the midwives cleaned up what looked like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  They brought me some cheese and crackers to eat and soon told me it was time to try and pee. I couldn’t manage it on the toilet so I asked if I could try in the shower. Lia helped me stand and wash off the blood and I managed to pee enough to ward off a catheter. We got back to bed and Lia brought me eggs and toast while I snuggled with Perrin. He latched on for a few minutes while everyone finished cleaning up. Finally Perrin, Joey and I all snuggled down in bed. Perrin latched on again and nursed for about half an hour until we all fell asleep.
                Perrin Allen Buckman was born at 11:42 p.m., Friday June 14th in his own home in his parents' bed. He weighed 9 lbs. 14 oz. and was 21.5 inches long with a 14.5 inch head! Even after 78 hours of labor, his APGAR scores were 9/10! I was 39 weeks.

Reflections

                I had mentally prepared myself for a 24 hour labor as a worst case scenario, assuming I’d be closer to the average of 12-15 hours. I had also predicted that afternoon that he would weigh 7lbs. 3 oz.  If someone had told me I would have a 78 hour labor with a 10 pound kid, I would have laughed in their face. It wasn’t the peaceful water birth I had envisioned, but it was perfect. Lia had to be much more hands on than either of us would have preferred, but that’s what it take to get a 10 pound baby out of me I guess! People have asked if I would change anything if I could do it again or if I wished I had been in a hospital or transferred. Big. Fat. No. Nothing was wrong with me or my baby, but if we had been in a hospital they would have cut me open by Wednesday morning. Big baby, small pelvis, failure to progress…you name it. They would have broken my water putting me on a stricter time table, or given me pitocin making my contractions much more painful. Instead, I was allowed to take all the time my body needed. I wasn’t in any kind of excruciating pain. The contractions were uncomfortable, but they didn’t last that long and there were breaks in between. Pushing was hard, but it didn’t hurt. Honestly, crowning was the only truly painful part of the whole experience. The rest of it wasn’t enjoyable, but I could deal. I’m so glad we made the choices that we did and were surrounded by people who trusted my body and my baby to do what they needed to do. I wouldn’t change a thing! 

Baby, I will love you for who you are.



Kelle Hampton wrote this a few days ago, ‘I've learned a lot this year about letting my kid be exactly who she is.  No more "don't be shy"s.  Just "be you."  And if shy is you, then be gloriously, wonderfully shy.  And I will love you.  Your shyness, your hesitancy, your intently focused little face.  I will love you for who you are.’ And it reminded me of my daughter. I see this in my

Anya’s room. The in-between phase.

Remember Anya’s room when it looked like this? I am embarrassed to see the date on that post because it is almost a year later and I still haven’t posted about her room! ANYWAYS. I finally took pictures and I’m happy to tell you, it will definitely be up next week. So do sure to check back if you'd like to take a look.

For today, I thought it would be fun to show you the in-between stage. Here

What I learned from my father

Happy Fathers day to you, your daddy and, if you have kids – the daddy of your beautiful babies. Very early on in our lives, our fathers become our first heroes and for us girls it is hard not to compare any man that comes into our lives to our first hero. As I watch my husband with our daughter and this beginning of a beautiful lifelong relationship inshAllah, I think of my dad a lot, and all

Love like this. Happy Fathers day.

Excerpt from a letter I wrote to Anya in June 2012. Happy Fathers day to you and yours. picture taken by my sister, Waliya when Anya was still pretty brand new. Dear Baby, Fathers Day is here and I wanted to tell you something about your father today. It is not often that you see a father love his kid the way your baba loves you. What I see in his eyes is something more. They say that it takes

Baluchistan, I feel your pain.

Deeply saddened by what happened in Baluchistan1 yesterday and my heart literally hurts. The burning down of Jinnah’s2 historic residence in Ziarat where he spent his last days, followed by the attack on a bus carrying female students killing 11 of those girls on the spot. The tragedy continued as terrorists blew up explosives at the hospital where the injured were being taken to, took hostages

Celebrating Summer.

I absolutely love Seattle summer. The sunshine and its warmth is just the right amount to hang out outdoors and I thought it was finally time to have a ladies get together in our backyard. Today I thought I’d share some pictures from this celebration we had. Here is a little glimpse into it.







The picnic table was inspired by this image found via pinterest. I used some wood planks lying in

What we wear when it is sandals weather finally.



Happy Monday morning to all of you sweet people. So I desperately need to shop for Anya as she is pretty out of clothes these days. Her shoe situation is pretty bad, let me tell you. But this little sandal purchase for her on Amazon last month, turned out to be a big success. I love the look of the traditional style Saltwater sandals that I was seeing everywhere, but they seemed a little tight

Sittin', Waitin', Wishin'

     I am now sitting pretty (and puffy) at 38 weeks! We managed to knock out my entire 'nesting' to-do list over last weekend. (Note: I'm not sure it's considered nesting if you enlist non-hormonal people to do half the work, but there was no way I was going to clean out the drain trap on the washing machine or weed eat the yard in 100+ temperatures. No way.) All of the baby stuff is put away nice and tidy. Everything is done! Now we just get to sit back and wait for Raptor to pick his/her birthday, preferably sometime within the next four weeks. I've had several people tell me they think it will be "soon", but I really don't have that same inkling myself and I would like to think I would know, right? So these last weeks are time for me to rest, kick my feet up, chillax....

    Except, not. After having a pretty much symptomless, easy-breezy 8 months of pregnancy, it's starting to get uncomfortable. Not that I'm complaining- I will definitely take a month or two of discomfort over 9 months- but it is a little ironic (don't ya think?) that all of my stress and responsibilities cleared up just in time for my body to decide, "mmmm...yeah, I'm done handling this." Now, it really isn't that bad. I'm nowhere near the "miserable" or "done" feeling that I have heard others describe. Honestly the only thing that is making this last leg seem uncomfortable is being compared to my incredibly wonderful experience thus far. However, I have been accused of making pregnancy look "easy", so lest I be held responsible for a sudden outbreak of pregnancy amongst my friends, I feel the need to be straight about the recent not easy parts. Here are some fun new developments:

- My heartburn has suddenly gotten worse. I'm really glad I avoided Tums as much as possible during the pregnancy, because now there are nights where they are seriously the ONLY thing that helps. I was a little surprised because I read in several places that heartburn gets better in the end as the baby drops and releases pressure on your diaphragm. Of course when I mentioned this to my midwife, her response was "yeah, the heartburn will get better when the baby drops...out of your vagina." Yayness!

- I'm puffy. My hands and feet have been getting puffy since it started to get warm outside and the circumference of my digits is directly related to my temperature and physical exertion. But now my face is starting to get nice and round as well. It's gone from people asking "when are you due?" to taking a step back and exclaiming "Any day now, huh?!". Yeah, any day...or four weeks from now. Thanks a lot, asshat.

- Two words- Lightning. Crotch. Actually, I think it's technically called "lightening crotch" because it is associated with the "lightening" or phase where the baby starts to drop. However, "lightning crotch" is just as accurate and slightly more fun because sometimes Joey gets it wrong and calls it Thunder Crotch. It's this awesome thing where the baby's head (because it's now jammed in your pelvis) starts grinding against all kinds of nerves in there. As a result, you're walking through Target one moment then crumpled over in a ball on the ground or rigidly standing on your tiptoes the next because it feels like someone is stabbing you in the cervix with a steak knife. Fantastic. Now, I'm slightly ticked off about this in particular because it was mentioned NO WHERE in any of the 12 books I read about pregnancy and babies.

- Insomnia. I am very tired and still waiting on that "extra energy" that everyone keeps talking about happens at the end of pregnancy. But I can't sleep. I try everything, fall asleep around 2, then I'm wide awake by 7:30. Sometimes I'm able to nap, but other times it's just as bad during the day. And I do not function well on less than 8 hours. It's not pretty. It may also be related to the fact that Raptor seems to have completely switched schedules and is now pretty much nocturnal. I lay down for the night and suddenly it's a fiesta in there.

-I pretty much had no hormonal/mood issues my first trimester. Joey was ecstatic. We both expected the typical PMS on steroids type of stuff, but it was even keel the whole way through. Apparently I was saving it all up for now. The crying, the panicky feelings, the sadness for no reason what so ever...fun times!

-This one isn't particularly new, but it has gotten worse lately- my T7 and T8 vertebrae are taking a  beating. I always here women complain of their low backs hurting. Not mine. It is square between my shoulder blades. It started bothering me around the beginning of the third trimester, but bi-monthly chiropractic appointments were keeping everything from being painful. Now I'm going to the chiro every other day (yes, literally) and my back is still in knots if I stay in any one position for too long. But I guess 30 extra pounds is a lot to ask my body to handle, so it's not really surprising.

    So there you have it- all the glamour of late pregnancy. Seriously though, it's not that bad and most of the time I'm at a reasonable level of comfort. We've been going to the pool a lot, which feels amazing, and my chiropractor is keeping everything nice and in line. I've been having a lot of Braxton-Hicks and some good practice contractions and baby is still in a good position, so once he/she decides to make a debut, it should be smooth sailing! There is a good chance the next post will be a birth story!


If you lived closer.

For our family that is close in heart, but too far away in person. Also for the many sweet friends that live too far away. If you lived closer, we would’ve called you up first thing today and convinced you to come over because the weather was too perfect to not be together. If you lived closer, you would’ve joined Anya and I for our little picnic in the backyard. We would’ve combined our