Month Seven: First Christmas!!

Month 7 Updates:

• I'm really missing those nice breast milk poops. Food poops are SOOO GROSS! Plus he had his first solid poop early this month which aren't nearly as bad as the transition ones!
• Click here to see Jaxen's FIRST sled ride!
•  He found out about his tongue and likes to stick it out a lot, do raspberries while eating (spraying food everywhere,) and roll it over inside his mouth.
• Getting pretty brave at bath time, trying to stick his face in. We'll work on that more in the hot tub this coming month.
• Click here for photos from this month + xmas photos!
• Car ride video here. 
• Opening presents video here! 
• Happy eating video here!
• Riding a moose video here.
•  Had his first cold at the beginning of the month. Thanks for sharing cousin Georgia!
  
  
  

MT XMAS:
Made the long haul to MT for Xmas with baby in tow. I decided 8 hours was tooooooo much so we broke it up and stayed in a hotel 1/2 way. That worked wonderfully. We had a great first Christmas and made out like a bandit! I don't even know where I'm going to put all this stuff! Good thing Ben is working on finishing the basement.

17lbs & 28.5" tall!

Baby Signs Recap:
 Make sure you're learning these:

• all done
• eat
• more

...is what we're focusing on now! He's really watching these so I know he'll start doing them as soon as the motor skills allow.

Month SIX with new TRIX

Looking forward to our first Thanksgiving in Canon City! Can't believe it's been a full year since I announced Jaxen's arrival!

15.8lbs            27" tall!!!!

6 Month Updates:

• Moved bedtime to 630pm. Still sleeping in his own bed (it's been a full month now!) I only gave in thrice and let him co-sleep but more because of my own exhaustion than his. 
• Back to lap naps.
• **PR** 2 nights in a row, 9 consecutive hours of sleep! It's a real shame I can't figure out how to make that happen EVERY night. Since those two magical nights we've entered into the 5th leap which means SLEEP REGRESSION.
  
• Check out this roll over video!
• Ditched the Occupational Therapist.
• J is now back crawling allllll over the place.

Introducing Solids:
Due to the fact that he has been dive bombing my plate lately, we started solids a touch early.

    We are following the Baby-led Weaning method which believes that children should feed themselves for optimal motor development, jaw & muscular development (also helps speech develop later), for learning appropriate appetite cues and reduced risk of choking. We offer him 3 or 4 different "finger foods" each meal and allow him to explore and handle them on his own. So far we've tried & liked:

• avocado
• banana
• apple
• chicken
• egg yolk
• asparagus
• carrot
• sweet potato
• eggplant pizza crust
• coconut oil
• peanut butter
• wheat thin cracker

Learn more about Baby-led weaning by clicking here.

6 Month Check-up w/ Dr. Berger:  
Clean bill of health! Still watching the "eye wander" though. I personally don't see it but Dr. B didn't seem to be overly concerned about it so I guess we just wait and see. Other than that Dr. B just wants us to concentrate on getting fat and protein into him!

Click here for new photos!

This is my Crib Sleep Pie Chart to remind myself that he actually is doing pretty well with it even though it doesn't feel like it.

It's month FIVE and we're still ALIVE!

I CAN'T HAVE A SICK BABY!  

Or a sick myself for that matter.

PLEASE ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE HANDLING JAXEN! (ALSO REFRAIN FROM SEEING US IF YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF SNEEZEY-DRIPPY NOSE-COUGHING ANYTHING.)

<3 THANKS.

What you can do is double (triple even) YOUR vitamin D intake so that YOU won't get sick! Wouldn't that be nice?! DO IT! It also helps to maintain a low inflammatory diet.

14.8lbs      25" tall! 

Updates:

• First roll over after bath time at the beginning of the month from back to front.
• Now we're talking up a storm! 
• Back to swaddling for naps. (Limit 2.5 hours total/day) Will nap in his swing but still not in the pack n play bassinet.
• RECORD NIGHT SLEEP! 8 HOURS CONSECUTIVELY!!  Only after napping for a total of 1.5 hours that day and being a total crab. 
• First night in his own bed 10/24/13! Went pretty well...woke up at 1240a & 340a to eat then we snuggled/ate in my bed at 630a and he slept another 30min there after that. The second night he slept 8 hours again!!! Now, if only I could sleep. I miss my snuggle buddy :(
• Moving bedtime to 7:15-ish
• Houston, we have a thumb sucker.

O.T:

Dr. Berger recommended we see an Occupational Therapist for our napping issues. While I feel like a lot of children have issues with naptime, after explaining what we go through pretty much every day, the doctor literally said, "It shouldn't be THAT hard." Our first visit on the 10th landed us with a new soothing technique to use after each diaper change. I don't feel that it made much difference. Our second appointment was mostly talking and she worked on his neck a again and is having me take notes on his napping habits. This third visit she made all these suggestions that he needs to be on a schedule. This is what I think of that idea:

                  With that exact face too.

But seriously, I tried and it made him mad, fussy AND inconsolable.  Which is intolerable now that I'm trying to transition him to sleeping in his own bed at night. This = less sleep for me and I just can't deal with ANYTHING on less sleep.

Pumpkin Patch Photos:

I finally found a photographer to take some pictures of J for free! I dressed J up in his Halloween costume and we went to the pumpkin patch to shoot. Hopefully we got some good shots. She is a newbie, building her portfolio so we'll see...

First Overnight

We drove down to visit Gma Sylvia and Gpa Paul for the weekend. It was our first time sleeping away from home. Gma watched J while Ben and I got to go climbing at a new sweet spot by their house! Aside from a bit of intermittent crying on the car ride (towards the end) he did great. He even slept an hour and a half in his pillow on his bassinet for Gma! 

Baby Sign Language

In an effort to prevent much frustration and temper tantrums, we're going to start signing at 6 months. This should give you enough time to study them so you can sign with J too. Click on each word to see a video of how to do it. It's pretty easy. Here is what we're teaching first (I think). Click on the word to see a video demonstration!

1. Eat
2. More
3. Diaper
4. Play
5. Outside
6. Book 

START STUDYING ALL YOU GMAs & GPAs!!!!!

Items I Can't Live Without:

1. SWING (this is the only place he will nap right now)
2. SwaddleMe

He's turning into a REAL BOY! YAY!!!!! THIS IS THE PART I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

 
New photos added! Click here! (If you want to print any of these don't copy them from facebook as the quality is downgraded when I upload them. Email me and I'll send you the high quality file so you get a nice print.)

yup.

Month 4 - And Away We GROW!

Late week 13 Jaxen started sleeping 4-6 hours consecutively at night!  This seems to coincide with the fact that he refuses to nap longer than 30 min every time I put him in his bassinet up in our room which I started around then too. The bad news is this past week (late 16) we were back to getting up every 2 hours. Hopefully this is a growth spurt or teething or SOMETHING. Giving him a bottle in addition to nursing before bed seemed to help get him back on track though.

14lbs 6oz -- 24 1/4" tall

You know from last post that I started a napping plan based on the "No Cry Sleep Solution" sleeping method. So far, it hasn't really taken. (My gut feeling is that this is an all or nothing situation.) I do it in 10 day increments all the meanwhile taking notes, a day or two break then modifying the plan and running it again. Although his nap time increased to 30-50min after the first round, the second and third rounds have been back to 5-30min. Taking into account the fact that he is probably 2-4 weeks behind other babies his age, I'm trying my best to work with the fact that he may not be as ready as I am for changes. Dr. Berger has recommended us to an occupational therapist to work on soothing. I will be making that appointment in the next few days.

    We had a great visit from Grandpa Buggy (ha ha) this past month!!

We dragged him up a mountain in Golden for a family photo and we can't wait to see him again. While Gpa was here he took his first 2 hour nap in his swing! Fingers crossed for a Christmas visit! 
     Grandma J came back to visit too and we had a successful outing while she babysat. The next day, we went to the Zoo! It was a good trip, Jax did well but seemed more interested in the zooMANITY milling around than the animals. Thanks for driving aaaaallllllllll the way down here to babysit Gma!

Updates:

• Moved bed time to 8pm -- routine has stayed the same.
• The name of the game is now grab-and-put-in-mouth and he has been sucking on his hands a lot more.
• We've had a few side rolls but no roll overs yet and his neck control is lasting longer and longer in tummy time.
• He also bites on my finger now instead of sucking which perhaps means he's teething? He does this with a bottle too and thinks he's been super cute and hilarious.
• 4 month check up with Dr. Berger went well. He noticed a slight eye wander in one eye and a little droop as well. I see nothing but we'll go to an optometrist at 6mo if necessary.
• Of course we don't crawl yet but we try. Click here if you haven't seen the inch worm video yet!
• For more pictures, click here! 

Month 3 - 4th Trimester Complete!

FINALLY!

The fourth trimester is the theory that because human babies have to be born at around 40 weeks (as opposed to a full year like other mammals), they are not fully developed to withstand the stresses outside the womb. Making this time as womb like as possible for them is the best way to prevent "colic" and is the most peaceful way to raise an infant. Now that we've had our smooth, uneventful transition it's time to try some new things!

Perhaps the greatest thing about now (started around 10 weeks) is that Jaxen is actually interacting with me! He smiles at me all the time so I feel loved and important now instead of feeling like a giant udder. He listens and looks at story books! He loves to play on the play mat! I really don't love babies so these first few months have been a pretty big struggle for me to get through but no matter what the next set of challenges are, it's only UP from here as far as I'm concerned.  

Side note: Anyone have any children's books they want to send us?

We started this sleep routine 7/26/13:

1. 9pm: diaper & pJs in low lit room with soft music in background
2. swaddled & in the side car  
3. story time
4. nurse
5. sleep (10-ish)

My goal is to get him sleeping in his pack n' play in his own room by age 1. At 6 months (maximum) I would have him out of my bed and in the pack n' play in our room. Since he hit the 12 week mark, we've begun what-could-be the painstakingly slow transition toward independent sleeping. "The No Cry Sleep Solution" book has been invaluable in creating this process.

22 1/2" tall, 11.5 lbs

UPDATES:

• BREAKTHROUGH @ 9 wks! Sleeping in the pack n' play all by himself! In fact, when Maggie was here we got 45min one time. Bring that lady:) back!!!!!! Now that I've moved the pnp to our room we got our first hour nap in it yesterday evening.
• THE THRUSH IS GONE! However, now I have to throw away all the milk I froze before he stopped the medication so he doesn't get reinfected :(
• Had our first hike ever 8/11 to Diamond Lake in Nederland. Put a few pictures up in the album. He did well but slept the whole time then hardly slept that night.
• SUCCESS with Gma Sylvia and Gpa Paul babysitting so we could go out for Ben's bday! Thanks again for watching him!
• Graduated to two baths a week. (He really loves 'em!)
• Working on tummy time!

Month 2 - J Meets World

I keep thinking things will get a little easier and he'll get a little more self sufficient each week but nope. Third month's a charm?

Late week 6 we finally we got out of the house on our own. Our first outing was to Starbucks to meet my other Mom friends which went surprisingly well except for the wailing there and back because of our intense hatred of the car seat. Once there, he did great and he finally got to meet his buddies, Jude (6mo) and Emilio (3mo) whose Moms, Melissa & Erika, I've been getting together with since before J was born. The following friday, Erika had us all over to her apartment where they have a super nice pool we'll be getting in soon.

In addition to that...this month we had tons of visitors and J got to meet his great grandparents, grandpa Steve, Ashley, showed his eyeballs to Kelsey (finally!) and next week OUR AUNTIE MAGGIE IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Our month 2 check up with Dr. Berger was on Monday and we weighed in at 9lbs 1oz! All of his other measurements appear to be right on track too. Got another prescription for Nystatin because our thrush came back the day after we ran out of the first bottle. This time I'm using it more aggressively and also on myself. I'M SO SICK OF DEALING WITH THIS! He also twisted my arm about some vaccinations (dTaP & MMR) but I wanted to read in my vaccine safety manual about them first so we declined them for now. Since I'm a stay at home mom, (we'll be on a hefty vitamin/amino acid/probiotic regimen) and we're not planning on traveling at all until February (he'll be almost 9 months then -- BTW Pertussis is no longer deadly after 6mo of age), I don't really see disease being a huge issue for us.

UPDATES!

• SMILES! By the end of week 6 we started getting them. Big, gummy, gleeful smiles. My favorite! I'll try to get a picture of one soon. J also spends a lot more time awake and alert now; way more fun for me although I'm never quite sure what to do with him at this time aside from the regular singing/dancing/conversating.
• REACH & GRAB! When we have play time on our play mat, J now reaches for things and makes a good attempt to grab them. Sometimes he gets them, sometimes not which frustrates him but I try to let him sort it out before assisting him even if he's crying about it.
• Aaaaand lastly....we still hate the car seat even though we've been trying to get out at least twice a week in it. Makes me afraid to try the stroller but we'll test that theory next week, when I'd like to get back to our regular dog walk which may be too long for my back to be able to wear J.

Helpful Reading:

• "No Cry Sleep Solution" - Elizabeth Pantley
• "Attachment Parenting" - Dr. Sears
• "The Vaccine Safety Manuel" - Niel Z. Miller
• "Your Self Confident Baby" - Magda Gerber  

I've started a new page on this website called Baby Notes where I've taken notes from a book or two I've read because at this point I'm so tired every single day that I can't retain anything I read. 

 CLICK HERE FOR BABY PICTURES!
  
"The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it's too hard."
~ John Lennon 

And OMG is this hard...

Month 1 - Trials and Tribulations

IMPORTANT!

7lbs 1oz today!!!

This first month has been a little overwhelming. It's just been one thing after another. My poor baby.

• The O2 tank - apparently hospitals do what's called a "carseat challenge" for preemies which consists of making your child sit in his car set in a room for a whole hour while his O2 saturation is monitored. Poor Jaxen failed round one because he dipped below the magic number 88 a couple times. We weren't worried because he always recovered fast and strong. Because he failed it meant we had to stay at the hospital longer and the had to hook him back up to monitors for another 12 hours like they did when he first came out. Needless to say I was in tears because I knew he was ok and I just wanted to GO HOME. He passed the second round but they kept on O2 for it. On to the "open air challenge" or sitting in a room for 40 min while monitored. Pass. They ended up sending us home with enough O2 to last for months. We ended up taking it off him about 12 hours after we got home because it was royal pain in the ass and it seemed to make him sleepy and docile so much so that he wouldn't feed properly. WE NEEDED HIM TO GAIN WEIGHT! He was dropping to under 5lbs!

• Thrush - We brought him to Dr. Berger, for his first check up and he was diagnosed with thursh (a yeast infection of the mouth.) This happened because the stupid hospital had me on anti-biotics every 4 hours for three days straight and it wiped out both our good gut flora. The worst part is they gave it to me FOR NO GOOD REASON only that because I hadn't had a GBS test yet (that's at 37 weeks) which I was going to decline anyways because I knew it would come back negative. It was frustrating to have to come home with YET another thing to give him but the medication (in combination with pro-biotic drops) did its job and we are both well and breast feeding exclusively although it's not entirely gone yet.

• Excruciatingly Sore Nipples - this was in part due to the thrush but let me tell you there is nothing easy or natural about learning to breast feed. It has been a long difficult road for us but we will stick with it because it is absolutely THE BEST nutritional option. It was so bad I was in tears a few times and I even developed a bit of mastitus but that resolved within 24 hours when Melissa told me to get Jaxen off the bottle completely and to nurse through it. Finally, it is starting to subside.

• Bad Placenta News - sadly, he was born early because I had a slow placental abruption. Since I have had none of the typical risk factors for this we don't really know why it happened. Melissa guesses that maybe between work, workouts and outdoor activities that it was too much although in my defense, any time I felt like an activity was too much for me I did cut it out. The pathologist also found some sort of infection but because I had no symptoms of infection at any time, they think I just got it at the hospital since I was in labor for so long and so many different people were checking my dilation. Next time around (if...) I'll probably have to have some more ultrasounds done and perhaps a few other tests as well.

We are slowly getting used to things but every time we think we know what's going on he surprises us with something new! The past two weeks I've had him outside walking the dog with me which he seems to enjoy and is one of the things that really calms him down quickly if he gets upset. So far we've only had one real bad night where he was frenetically nursing/screaming his brains out for hours. The only good thing about that was that after we worked the issue out he slept for 4 hours straight! He's been a little fussy since then so we picked up a baby swing and watched a great video that helped us out a lot!

Click here for a video of our first bath. 

Life-saving Baby Devices:

1. Side snap shirts
2. Moby wrap

I wish someone would invent a comfortable way to breast feed. It KILLS my back and my posture is getting terrible especially because I can't quite workout yet to balance things out.There is absolutely no comfortable position for me without compromising the latch :( All tips/tricks welcome.

"Set aside predictable, regular times to give full attention without being distracted by other concerns while also creating a safe, familiar place for baby to spend time playing alone."  

~ Magda Gerber

5/26 - My Early Bird

Welcome

Looks like we finished up those room decorations just in time!

Hand painted by yours truly.

It all started Wednesday night but I had no idea what was coming or even that it was starting at that point. Sierra was following me around like a mother hen and I started to feel what I thought were just Braxton Hick's contractions after I got off of work for the night. But I slept well (fabulously so). Thursday morning I had a few hours of work and by the time I finished the contractions were stronger but I was still not alarmed. It was that evening that I became alarmed and I texted Melissa. She recommended I do the following:

• stay off my feet except to go to the bathroom
• 1-2 servings of liquid Cal/Mag (500/1000)
• glass of red wine
• bath (= hot tub!)
• drink more water
• talk to Jaxen    

I did all of these things but still ended up calling her again at 3:45am with contractions 2 min apart so we packed up some things and went to Good Samaritan Hospital expecting an ultra sound and a bed rest conversation and then to be sent home. I was insanely upset about having to go to the hospital! Instead, they found me 90% effaced, 1 cm dilated, and +1 station so they hooked me up to all sorts of uncomfortable machines and made me lie in a TERRIBLE bed for hours and hours. Later that afternoon, nothing changed and so we went home. After resting at home for a few hours things were picking up so we drove to the Foothills Community Hospital in Boulder on a lead that I would be happier and more comfortable there. 

That was the toasted toads truth.

I barely recall entering the hospital in boulder (or any of this for that matter.) only that the car ride there hurt pretty badly. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid by having a home birth. By the time we got there I had been having strong contractions every 2 min for about 24hrs. I was already exhausted especially because the other hospital only allowed me juice and ice chips to eat. Ridiculous! I'm about to output the same energy expenditure as a 50 mile hike and all I get to fuel up is juice and ice chips?!?!? Archaic. Anyway, since I was still at 1cm they gave me a shot of morphine so I could rest. It was supposed to last all night. I got maybe 3-4 hours of full comfort out of it. When they check me a few hours later it had relaxed me enough so I was at 3cm. At 4 cm, they realized I was so exhausted I might need an epidural so I got one and luckily it bought me more rest and slightly more dilation. But not enough. In came a tiny amount of pitocin and an hour or two later I was pushing out a baby! That was difficult, more so than I thought but I buckled down and got it done in about 45min. No tearing or cutting necessary and really the next day I felt only slightly worse than after a workout muscle-wise. A slow Placental abruption is what they think caused early labor but we havent gotten the results back from pathology yet. Next stop, the NICU.

The NICU suite was just like a hotel room so we never had to be more than 10 steps away from Jaxen. They delivered me 3 meals a day with a small kitchen in the hall that provided snacks and drinks. Since Jaxen came out so strong and full of vigor, he was taken off the machines after only 8 hours of monitoring! The rest of our stay was very uneventful until we tried to leave. They had to do all these tests on him to make sure he was taking in enough o2 and long story short they ended up sending us home for 3 small tanks and one large one which we proceeded to take him off after 24 hours. It was making him docile and lifeless and impacting feeding too much. Minutes after we took him off we saw the life come back into him!

In summation, that was the longest and most fearful 3 days of my life. The exact opposite of the full term hypnobabies home birth I had planned. At the same time I feel good about it because I know I had no other choice and it brought me the most beautiful baby in the world.
 

Never got to take a week 35 photo :(

FOR BABY PHOTOS CLICK HERE

"'Predictable' means that, from the very beginning of his life, you tell your baby ahead of time when a change will happen -- even a tiny change, such as 'I will turn the light on,' or 'I will pick you up,' or 'I'll go to the bathroom now.' Although his immediate reaction may be to ignore or protest the change, soon he will become confident in the face of changes."
~ Magda Gerber  

An Apple A Day...

Let me just tell you that I eat more than one apple a day.

Searching for a Pediatrician
   The basic qualifications are that they did the standard med school thing first then went on to complete extra schooling in holistic medicine. Melissa recommended Boulder Holistic Medical Center to us so I went and met with Dr. Berger last Thursday. I wasn't too happy about driving all the way down there only to get 5 minutes of his time so I decided to just email some questions to Mindful Pediatrics and Holistic Pediatric Consulting instead. It turns out neither of them accept insurance, period. Seems like a great way to keep your patient load down. Don't get me wrong. My acupuncturist doesn't accept insurance either but they also charge on a sliding scale according to your income. This is fair. In this case I feel as though they are cutting out the middle man to save me money too. I am ALL about cutting out the middle man but these pediatricians want $220 for a half hour appointment! Then we are left with the extreme hassle of trying to submit our bills to the insurance who in all likelihood will cover little to none of them. There's just nothing in this for me.

   Dr. Berger

• Approves delayed vaccination schedule - pro
• Administers only 1/3rd the current vaccination schedule - pro
• Will try vitamin, nutrient, homeopathic remedies before pharmaceuticals of any kind - pro
• On board with leaving male children intact - pro  
• Follows standard pediatric visit procedure (birth, 2, 4, 6 etc) - pro  
• Seemed super busy...didn't offer up very much of his own info - con 
• There was a paleo diet book in the waiting room!!!!! - pro
• Family practice so Ben and I could go there for primary care too - pro 

31 weeks

 

The V-Word

33 weeks - Durian Fruit?

    When I was born in 1983, I 
received 10 vaccinations. Fair enough but it still crosses my mind that my lifetime of vaccinations may be the cause of the horrendous allergies I suffer from today. Today, the average infant receives 36-38. Despicable. (As usual, most of Europe knows this, just check out their vaccination schedules.) A strong underlying belief in this country when it comes to anything from food to exercise to medicine seems to be that more is better. I strongly disagree. (Even with exercise. There's no reason on Earth that anyone anywhere should spend more than 45 min a day at the gym. I like to keep it to 20-30min max). If we all just used our critical thinking skills when it came to making health care choices we'd actually  have a chance of moving up the health list of affluent nations on which we appear dead last. EMBARRASSING! 

   Medicine has it's place but we aught to be looking to nutrition to solve problems first. I've read countless documents about the detriments of a vitamin deficient diet and how diseases can pretty much always be traced back to lack in one or another. Most Moms really drop the ball here, eating and drinking garbage themselves or not breast feeding at all. (P.S. - even infant formula has GMOs in it these days!) Not me.
   I have given some thought to a delayed vaccination schedule as I do think vaccinations have been helpful preventative aid in the past. We will NEVER, EVER, EVER do all 38 of them though especially as they are filled with some pretty toxic "preservatives". Because of this there is a transparency bill being pushed for right now which will require the ingredient list to be available to parents prior to having their children (or themselves) vaccinated. If this gets passed, you'll see...you will see. However I've found a pre-vaccination vitamin regimen in this article that's pretty interesting (8th paragraph down). I asked Dr. Berger about this and he had no comment on it but sometimes when you've trained and worked inside the box for many, many years it's difficult to see outside of it.
    Hippocrates had it 100% correct when he said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." Of course these days its increasingly harder to find food that will improve your health rather than hinder it. But GMOs, pesticides and soil deficiencies are a topic for another day. The bottom line is that it IS possible and it IS worth it. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the human body is not that it can allow obese people to live as long as they do in that state but that it has the ability to recover from poor health choices at any time so it really isn't ever too late. But it will cost you time, something most people aren't willing to commit when wanting to change their bodies. When you sleep well, exercise every day and you eat the highest quality, lowest inflammation foods you can get your face on, you are making your body into a heavily armed fortress than can withstand A LOT. 

Just when I thought I couldn't get any bigger...

   In other news, our check up today went well and these 7 (more like 6 since tomorrow is day 1 of week 34.) remaining weeks just can't pass fast enough!!!!! Melissa told me that I should enjoy my uterine babysitter while it lasts and get out and do some things before Jaxen arrives. I'm not sure what this means because right now I physically CAN'T go out and do the things I love anymore. I stopped rock climbing at about 29 or 30 weeks because it became more effort, strain and recovery time than it was worth. (Today was my last jump rope too.) But maybe she was referring to going out to dinner and movies, the stuff I don't really like to do that much anyways. What I would like to do is get a float in before Jaxen arrives but I think I'm out of luck on that too as in June the Colorado River is still pretty high, fast and cold. *SIGH*

OMG. We still don't have a middle name...

ONLY TWO MORE WEEKS OF WORK!!! 
So ready to be done.
Although I don't know what I'm going to do with myself at that point...  

"A child who has always been allowed to move freely develops not only an agile body but also good judgment about what he can and cannot do. Developing goof body image, spatial relations, and a sense of balance helps the child learn not only how to move but also how to fall and how to recover. Children raised this way hardly ever have any serious accidents." 

~ Magda Gerber 

Get Your Free Online Baby Calendar at BabyZone.com
Pregnancy Due Date Countdown at GlitterBell.com

A 50 Mile Hike?

29 weeks

Naaaaaaaah, I didn't do one. But I do know of some ladies who participated in marathons and triathlons while pregnant. Instead, I'll stick to Crossfitting for 20 minutes (just lost my full back squat @ 30 weeks) most days in my basement and eating right which has been a bit of a challenge to get back to after being left with so many desserts and non-paleo snacks post baby shower. Not that I've been anything close to 100% (more like 75%) this pregnancy but my poor poor knees can't take very much more weight, particularly when hiking down hill.

31 weeks

Somewhere along the way I read that giving birth is like hiking 50 miles energy expenditure-wise. AMAZING! This puts it in terms I can really wrap my brain around. I did an 11 mile hike on the Kalalau up and down the ridges of the Napali Coast with 25lbs on my back in a single day. Other than that I don't have much to compare it to, I haven't even done a 14er in a couple years! I can’t imagine doing 50. And to think, they hardly let you eat or drink anything if you're in the hospital...juuuust in case you have to have a c-section because the drugs they gave you to speed up the process totally messed up the natural cascade of hormones that make birth a completely safe and effective method of increasing the population 90% of the time.  When I think of doing a 50 mile hike with all its accompanying painfulness, I sure wouldn't be all drugged up for it. It would ruin the pace, drastically decrease the safety of the activity and it would ruin basking in the full and pure glory of reaching the summit on my our own. That's my birth plan in a nutshell.

Melissa came for another home visit and she is pleased with Jaxen's orientation (not to say he still can't move around before the very end) but he was (R)OA, occiput anterior which is the easiest, fastest, least painful position for birthing. (Lately he's always kicking away at my placenta and stuffing that big ol' bum of his up into my rib cage...ow.) If you, for example, have an occiput posterior baby you get a lot of back labor and it is usually prolonged and difficult. Since he still may move around between now and birthday, I'll be starting OFP exercises and postures around mid-May to make sure he stays OA for birth.

This is great! I feel like I'm learning so much by using a mid-wife where as a doctor would never give you information like this. I belong to a first time Moms Facebook group (over 100 women all due in June) and there is a HUGE chasm of knowledge between the few of us who are using a midwife vs. those who are seeing an OBGYN. In fact, the major perk of waiting until 30 to have a baby is all the time I've had to accumulate all this great information. With information so readily available these days, I can't imagine why anyone would NOT want to stuff their brain until it is explosively full of every type of baby related knowledge that's out there!

<---- Speaking of good information...9 weeks to go! Have you read Magda yet? This is what we're doing. Time to get on board.
  
 

ALSO...Can't wait to put this DVD into use (warning: may be difficult if you don't have a good ear for sound.       ----->

Now that we have most of the necessary baby items, it's time to turn attention to Jaxen's room. So far it's been painted and all the closet organizer features implemented as well as a dresser installed. The scrabble art I made is even now up on the wall! This weekend's project is to get those dinosaurs painted! When that's finished, I'll blog about it with some photos.

See you in two weeks!

And now, my our moment of Zen:

My favorite place on Earth.

  “…If you give a young child a peaceful beginning, the child develops a natural rhythm and then later he can grow more easily into adult life. You have to respect and trust a healthy, normal baby’s inborn capacities, his natural desire to learn. You do not have to do more. What infants need is the opportunity and time to take in and figure out the world around them.”   

~ Magda Gerber