Oregon’s Natural Foods Connection

Welcome Cyprus Que Anderson

It is hard to find a place to start a birth story. Since I have not written a lot about the pregnancy, I post the full story here.

The Pregnancy

My pregnancy with Cyprus was actually rougher than with Daphne. I was positive that the hyperemisis that I had with Daphne was a fluke and that I would be better prepared to handle anything sickness again. It turned out that was I wrong. As soon as I was 6 weeks pregnant, I was back into the routine of severe nausea and vomiting. I got to the point that I was vomiting 40 times per day. I tried all the same remedies that had failed with Daphne. I even tried some new ones. I was able to manage it for a while with a B-6 injection every day, but it eventually got so out of control that I ended up taking Unisom again. I took Unisom with Daphne, but only until around 20 weeks. With her, I was even able to taper off to taking 25mg every other day rather than every day, and after 20 weeks, I was able to stop. With this pregnancy, 25mg per day was not even making a dent in holding me together, so I ended up upping the amount to 50mg per day. This went on well into the pregnancy. It wasn’t until 33 weeks that I was able to taper down to 25mg per day and I was still taking 25mg every 2-3 days until the last week of the pregnancy. I was frustrated and discouraged.

Gestational Diabetes

When I was 32 weeks pregnant, I started to feel dizzy often. I went to see the midwife, and she suggested I check my blood sugar. After testing, it looked like I was dealing with a case of gestational diabetes. It was quite devastating to hear. Not only was I having a hard time with food in general, gestational diabetes puts additional severe limitations on what foods I could eat. I spent a lot of time working hard breaking my sugar addiction and revamping my diet to include many more complex carbohydrates. After doing all of that work, we discovered that I did not in fact have gestational diabetes. My glucose meter was not accurately reading the blood sugar levels, and I was actually well within normal range. I was excited to have the food restrictions lifted, but disappointed about the stress of having to revamp my diet.

Due Dates

Another pregnancy obstacle was the fact that my due date was inexactly known. There are several different ways to measure due dates. According to LMP, I was due on June 30^th, according to conception date, I was due on July 12^th and according to ultrasound, I was due on June 20^th. Considering that the due date is really the middle of a range of 3 or so weeks that a baby can be born on, I was looking at a considerable birth window that extended from the first week in June to the first week in August as a possible birthday for the baby. I spent a lot of time at the end of the pregnancy trying to “assess” what week I was in and when I would have the baby. Not really knowing where I was at was incredibly stressful to me, and it made it hard to enjoy the last trimester. Ironically, he was born ON the original June 30^th due date (only 5% of babies are born on their due dates). The midwife and I both agree, that he looks like a 40 –week term baby, not early and not late, which makes him a very punctual little man.

I had 2 midwifes, an apprentice midwife and a doula assigned to the birth of my baby. I could not have assembled a better birth team. The hitch was that the 2^nd midwife and the apprentice midwife were both taking the month of June off and would not be back on call until July 1.

Feeling Anxious/Prodromal Labor

As I was getting into the 38^th week of being pregnant, I started to feel anxious and ready to be done. I felt like the baby was ready to come out, and I was starting to have some early signs of labor. On June 23, I was having some contractions and bloody show. I was quite sure that it was all going to develop into labor, but every single night for the rest of the week I was stuck walking around the house with painless Braxton Hicks contractions that I was discouraged would never amount to anything. I was having other small signs that labor was imminent, so it made me anxious when I woke up to another day with no real signs of labor.

Water Broke

On Saturday the 27^th, I spent most of the night thinking about how it was not a big deal that I didn’t have a baby. I decided that I was going to enjoy my time with Daphne and start some other fun projects that I had put off working on. I got up on Sunday the 28^th and went outside to do some manual labor I had been working to avoid. I pulled up some bolting parsley to dry and moved some rabbit cages that were in desperate need of cleaning. As I was getting ready to do some other gardening work, I felt a large gush of water stream down my leg. I looked up to Jared and told him that I had either just peed my pants or my water had broken. I went inside to investigate and change clothes.

After a shower and a clothing change, the water was still gushing, so I was certain that my water had broken. I was worried that it was in fact a small “leak” but the fact that I was soaking an entire infant prefold every hour was an indication that it was an actual rupture. When I went back outside to see Jared, he was all but ready to head to the birth center to have the baby. I told him that I wasn’t having any contractions and that it would be a while before the baby was born. I called my midwife, and she told me that in 80% of women labor spontaneously starts within 24-48 hours of a membrane rupture. In the medical model, once the water has broken, you are put on a time clock that requires that you must deliver within 24 hours of a membrane rupture because of a belief of a risk of infection, so it is considered a failure if labor does not progress immediately. The truth is that if sterile technique is practiced after a membrane rupture, and the mother and baby are both monitored for infection, no risk is posed by waiting as long as it takes for labor to start. I do know of one woman who went for 9 days before her baby was born.

I spent the rest of the day shopping and getting things done around the house so that when we had a baby everything would be fine. I was surprised to go to bed and wake up to discover that not only was water still leaking out of me with impressive quantity, that I was having no other labor signs. I was feeling frustrated and stressed, so I spent the day hanging out with Daphne waiting for labor to begin. As I was again getting ready to go to bed, I decided that I would be able to go as long as I needed to for labor to start and that I was going to stop stressing about it.

As I crawled into bed, Jennifer (my primary midwife) called me and told me that she had just heard from Jesica (my secondary midwife) that she had decided to go back on call one day early and that if I went into labor that night that Jesica would be able to attend the birth. As soon as I hung up the phone, I experienced some mild contractions but decided to not read anything into them and went to sleep. I was occasionally woken up with a contraction here or there, but they had little intensity and not much power. I finally got up at 1 am and decided to try to time them and pay attention to the intensity in case they would develop anything. I went out to the computer and put on a TV show to watch. I spent 40 minutes watching TV only to discover that the contractions were very mild and were only 6-7 minutes apart, nothing to write home about, so I went back to bed.

True Labor

At 3:30, I woke up and decided to start timing the contractions to see how far apart they were. The intensity was increasing rapidly, and I lay in bed watching TV timing them out at 5 minutes or so, but not feeling intense. At 5 am I decided I would get up and take a shower and make breakfast because I was incredibly hungry. As soon as I was vertical and in the shower, the contractions became really intense. I found that it was necessary to vocalize through them. I had 5 contractions in the shower, and got out only to realize that I had only been in there for 15 minutes. I got out of the shower and was being hit so hard that I had to stay on my hands and knees to make it through. The contractions were right on top of one another and I was unsure I would be able to call the midwife. In the middle of contractions I ran in and told Jared to wake up and come help me. He called Jennifer and I was able to get out that the contractions were every 2-3 minutes apart and intense. She asked if I wanted to go to the birth center, and I said it sounded like a good idea if it looked like I was in labor.

We were in the car very quickly, and the contractions spaced out a bit. I hear that this is very common. Getting in a car can interrupt the labor routine a little. I was actually really glad to have the break. It is an hour drive to the birth center and we were possibly going to run into some rush hour traffic. We had left the house at 5:40.

The closer we got the more I urged Jared that we needed to be there. As we got to be about 15 minutes away, it was becoming clear to me that we needed to get out of the car and to the birth center. The contractions were close and intense, and I was actually worried that there was a possibility that the baby was going to be born in the car.

We got to the birth center to find that only the doula had arrived. Luckily, she is also a midwife, so she was at the birth center getting things ready for me. The tub was not full of water, but I was just happy that I could be somewhere that I could get back on my hands and knees. I spent a half hour leaning on the birth ball vocalizing through contractions as the tub filled and Jared and Daphne got situated.

The more intense things got, the more I wanted in the tub. It takes a while to fill up the birth tubs, and I decided to hop in and try to labor while it filled up. I really was looking for relief. Though the water wasn’t a total cure to the intensity, I felt like things were more manageable than they had been on dry land.

I was feeling a little worried that things were feeling intense but that it was possible that I wasn’t progressing. I wasn’t feeling like I was going to make it through the labor if I was only in the beginning stages, so as soon as Jennifer came through the door I asked if she would check my progress. My birth plan actually states that I didn’t want any exams during the birth because I didn’t want to focus on numbers and time, but an indication that I was far along would have been enough to keep me going. She checked and confirmed that I was 8 centimeters dilated. I was in transition and well on my way to having the baby. Things were incredibly intense, but the confirmation that I had come so far was enough to keep me going. I spent another 45 minutes laboring down before I knew that it was time to push.

Pushing

I was so relieved after one contraction when I reached in and was able to feel the head of the baby. I knew that I was making progress, and I was able to feel for myself with every contraction how far the baby was moving down. My body was working without help from me to push the baby out. I felt at total effect of everything, and the only way I could feel better was to add any extra force I could to the pushing. I could feel the baby trying to make his way through my pelvis, and it felt like my pelvis was separating. The more effort I added to the pushing, the better I felt. After pushing for about 30 minutes, I was starting to feel that things were not moving along, and I started to wonder if this was going to end up in a c-section with Daphne. I started to live in her birth a little bit because I had pushed for 4 hours with her with no effect. The only consolation I had was the fact that I could feel the baby moving through my body. With each push, I could feel as he moved past the cervix and into the pelvis. As soon as he got to the pelvis, I could feel pressure on the perineum. As the contraction ended, I could feel him move back up (babies move down and up to stretch out the mom to make a gentler exit).

It does totally feel like the baby is going to come out your bum, so I spent every contraction putting pressure against my perineum to relieve the pain and pressure. At least I felt like I was doing something about the pain.

The midwives assured me that everything was textbook perfect but I was SURE it was going too slowly and that like with Daphne, pushing would be futile. I spent a long time feeling at effect as though things would not go my way. At that point a tip from a friend popped into my head. She had told me that it would not happen unless I made it happen. I focused on pushing with intention to birth the baby, and that is when I started to feel that progress was being made. I could feel him moving down with each push, and eventually the head was not going back in after a contraction.

Jared had been playing with Daphne helping me through contractions here and there. At this point, he grabbed a mirror and held it so that I could see the head coming out. It was nice to see the progress being made. Within a few pushes, I felt incredible burning, and the head finally slid out. I knew that with the next push that the whole body would come out, and I was anxious to hold him. I waited what seemed like forever for the next contraction. I wanted to catch the baby, so as it was starting, I reached down with Jared and Jennifer’s help and pulled him out and up. He was wet and slimy and covered in vernix, but it was awesome to be holding my own baby. He did not cry at all, but he started breathing immediately, and he turned pink right away. It was so lovely to sit in the tub and hold the baby I had worked so hard to birth. Daphne was out of the room when he was born, but she came back in moments later, and she was so excited. She jumped in the tub with me and helped me hold and adore him.

After sitting in the tub for 15 minutes with him, we decided to cut the cord so that Jared could hold him and so that I could birth the placenta.

It was so lovely to be able to get cleaned up and head to bed to snuggle with the baby.

Afterthoughts

The labor was 6 hours from start to finish, and was incredibly intense. I am so excited to have had a VBAC. In fact, I have a renewed upset for the c-section I had with Daphne because I realize how close I was to having her.

I found the advice from my friend I mentioned to be incredibly helpful. I have no idea where the birth would have gone if I had not remembered what she had said.

I think that the birth went so quickly and so smoothly because of some advice from a book. Ina May recommends that when birthing that you keep the vocalizations very low, almost like mooing. I made sure to do that with the contractions and to give in to what was going on. I think that helped things go along very quickly because I was not feeling tense in my bottom.

The truth is that I get misty eyed when I think of the accomplishment of having a VBAC. If I had been seeing a doctor, I would never have even gotten the chance to “attempt” the VBAC. Even if I had been given the chance, the “risk” of having my water broken for so long before the start of labor would have gotten me to the OR with great haste.

My midwives were fantastic and never listened to me complain that I couldn’t do it or that I just needed to have a c-section. I’m sure I could have complained a lot less in labor, and it would have been more pleasant for them, but the truth is that they were just the support that I needed.

Having Daphne there was actually lovely, and there were some sweet moments when she put on some gloves and came over to help me through the birth. She was even happy to jump in the gross bloody water with me to help me admire the baby.

I love my husband and thank him for being the support I needed. He was at the right place at the right time, and offered the perfect amount of support. He really is the star of the birth because he was able to step back and let things happen.

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I know that I have been lagging a little bit on posting.  It is not because I have no content.  Trust me, we have been very busy around here.  It seems that I only have so much energy in the day during my third trimester, and no matter how I might try, I am always running on empty.

Daphne goes to bed at 7, and at that point, I usually run outside and do any other animal activities that didn’t get done for the day.  I make sure everyone has food and water and fix anything that needs to be fixed.  By the time I get back inside from that, I am very tired, and all I can think about is checking my email and going to bed.  I’ve even set up a laptop in the bedroom so that I can combine the two activities.

So, though I’ve been taking photos and gathering content for the blog, the thought of sitting down and doing any mental work is enough to get me to sleep.

I am usually the kind of person that has to be busy doing something all the time, and I feel like if I didn’t do a lot during a day that it was a total waste of a day.  Lately, however, I have been running so low on energy that I have been taking naps during the day while Daphne naps.

I CHERISH the time that I get to spend alone getting one thing or another done while Daphne sleeps.  It’s not that I don’t love to have her help me, it is more the fact that it is impossible to put her toys away while she is playing with them or to mop the floor while she is standing on it.  Some household chores are simply not meant to be done with the help of a 2 year old.

So, the fact that I have been willing to give up that time seems to be a miracle in itself.  It sure does feel nice to put her down for a nap and then fall into my own bed for an hour or two of genuine rest.  I have been enjoying the rest.

So, don’t feel too bad that I have been neglecting blogging lately.  I am very sorry.  I simply am too tired to do everything that I want to do in a day, and my blogging time is currently competeting with my sleeping time.

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When I was in Greece, I used to harvest wild Oregano from the hillsides to bring back to cook dinner with.  At one point, I harvest a lot of it that I then dried and put into a bottle to bring home with me (I know, I know, not totally legal).

I ran out last year, and I decided to plant some Greek Oregano in the garden so that at least I could enjoy the lovely taste I discoverd in that magical land.

The plant was small last year, and I didn’t get much from it, but it survived the winter beautifully, and I realized the other day that if I did not do anything about it it was going to go to seed early.  I quickly took my scissors out and cut down the plant to harvest for the kitchen.

I got a LOT of Oregano from the harvest.  It filled up my entire food dehydtrator.

When the plants had fully dried out, I pulled all the leaves off and put them in a bag.

Daphne’s job was to squish the bag up so that the leaves broke down into smaller chunks that could be used in the kitchen.  She was really fond of the job.  She liked to call it “squish, squish, squish.”

I now have a full pint of freshly dried and harvested Oregano from my garden that I can use to my culinary heart’s content.  I am excited to see future yields from the plant!

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Wool is an amazing and fantastic fabric to use as a diaper cover for a baby.  I have found it to be bullet-proof, meaning that it doesn’t leak, even during the wettest of nights.  Wool is able to absorb 30% of its weight in water before it even begins to feel wet.  There are many, many other fantastic properties, but I’ll go into that in another post.

One thing about wool covers is that they do require some care.  They don’t have to be washed with each use, which is a nice feature.  The trade off for that is the fact that they take some attention about once a month.  How do you know when it is time to care for the diaper?  It will either start to take on a bit of a urine smell or it will begin to leak.

This process is called lanolizing a diaper.  Lanolin is the waxy/oily substance that sheep produce from their skin.  If you have ever felt a raw fleecce off a sheep, you know that it has a greasy feel to it.  That grease is lanolin.  The beautiful thing is that lanolin does the same thing for sheep that we want it to do for our babies.  The lanolin prevents the wet from seeping into the wool so that the sheep can stay nice and dry.  In our case, the lanolin keeps the wet from soaking out of the diaper.

You can get lanolin from a pharmacy or a health food store.  You can use either solid or liquid, it doesn’t matter which.

Fill up a sink with enough warm (not super hot) water to cover your diaper cover.  It is possible to do mulitple diaper covers or longies in a batch, but I wouldn’t consider doing more than 4 at a time.  You want to make sure that the lanolin can get into the fibers of the garmet.

Put your diaper into the water and let it soak for about 15 minutes.  This lets the water get into the individual fibers so that when you introduce the lanolin it will be able to reach through the entire fabric.

Add a tablespoon (two if you are doing 4 covers) of wool wash to your sink of water and work it into the cover.  You want to get any urine or dirt out of the cover that is in there.  However, remember that felting takes place with heat, soap and agitation.  A gentle working in of the soap will clean the cover and do no damage, just make sure that the water is warm and not hot.

Drain the sink and then squeeze any excess water out of the cover.

Fill the sink back up (just enough to cover the diapers) with warm water and place the covers back into the sink.

Fill up a cup with water and microwave the water until it is boiling (if you want to avoid the microwave, you can just boil water and put it into a cup.

Add a teaspoon of wool wash to the water and mix it in.

Measure out a teaspoon of lanolin PER DIAPER COVER and add it to the mixture.

Mix in the lanolin.  This should form an emulsion, and the mixture should start to turn white.

Continue mixing until all lanolin has been added and the entire mixture is white.  Any lanolin that has not been emulsified into the mixture will not incorporate into the fibers of the cover.

Pour this mixture into your sink of water and covers.  Work the lanolin mixture into the diaper covers using your hands.  If there is more than one cover, make sure to work the lanolin into each of them and rearrange the order of the covers as you go.  You will feel the grease working into the fibers of the fabric.

Allow the covers to sit in the lanolin for at least 15 minutes.  I let mine sit overnight to ensure that they soak up as much lanolin as possible.

Wring any excess water out of the covers and then hang them out on a line to dry.  If it is winter, you can roll the covers up in dry towels to dry.  It should take about a day or two to get them all the way dry.

Repeat this process when your covers start to leak or take up smell.

It really is a very simple process that will keep the wool in your life happy.

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I am going to start working on a diapering series on the blog to help educate people on diapering.  I have spent the last 2 years working intensively doing research and learning the ins and outs of many different methods of diapering.  I find that this is important information to share with other people, and I have made it a personal mission in life.

One of the major problems with diapering is that there is not a lot of information available online, especially when asking a search engine to tell you about cloth diapers.  Many companies have worked very hard with their money to get into the top spots in the serach engines.  So, rather than be able to educate yourself about the different types and styles of diapers, you are looking at products.

Many of the “secrets” of the cloth diapering world can only be reserached when you are already in the know.  For example, it is impossible to learn about using wool for diaper covers unless you know that wool can be used as a diaper cover.  It is ironic that you have to already be educated about many things in the cloth diapering world before you can do reserach and become educated.

I remember sitting down at my computer after deciding that I wanted to try cloth diapers.  I spent several hours at the computer trying to understand this new world in front of me.  I didn’t get very far, and I ended up making a decision about diapers that wasn’t the smartest.  I really had no other clue.  I spent a few hundred dollars on diapers that I didn’t know how to use or know that I was going to like.  Luckily, they held their resale value, and I was able to get use out of them and sell them for almost what I had paid for them.  In truth, they were total garbage.

So, as I go through this adventure of cloth diapering another baby, I am going to share my knowledge, skills and mistakes with you.  I made my entire stash of diapers after careful examination and research.  As I go through the series, I will post tutorials on how to make diapers for anyone that might find that useful.  Hopefully, we can all become more educated about the subject.  After all, cloth diapers are adorable, they help protect the environment, and they are simply the best solution for your baby’s health and future happiness.

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When we go to story time at the library, the very last part of the story time is spent blowing bubbles.  When it is bubble time, the leader turns on a song called I Think You’re Wonderful while blowing the bubbles.

Whenever I start to sing this song to Daphne, she stops me and says, “Mommy, you’re wonderful!”  It really is the easiest way to put a smile on my face.

You’ll understand when you read the lyrics:

I think you’re wonderful, When somebody says that to me

I feel wonderful, as wonderful can be

It makes me want to say the same thing to somebody new

And by the way, I’ve been meaning to say, I think you’re wonderful ,too.

When we practice this phrase, In the most honest way

Find something special, In someone each day

Lift up the world, One heart at a time

It all starts by saying this one simple line

I think you’re wonderful, When somebody says that to me

I feel wonderful, as wonderful can be

It makes me want to say the same thing to somebody new

And by the way, I’ve been meaning to say, I think you’re wonderful ,too.

Each one of us feels important inside,

Loving and giving and glad we’re alive,

Oh what a difference we’re making each day

All because someone decided to say;

I think you’re wonderful, When somebody says that to me

I feel wonderful, as wonderful can be

It makes me want to say the same thing to somebody new

And by the way, I’ve been meaning to say, I think you’re wonderful ,too.

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A few of my friends and I get together every other Thursday to knit and chat about life.  I’ve been making diaper covers and other things so much lately that I decided to try something a little bit different.  I decided to make my first hat!  I made a nice stripped hat for Daphne.  It goes really well with a specific outfit that I like to put her in often, and it just looks so darn cute.  Unfortunately, I can’t seem to capture photos of it on her, but here are some static photos just so you can see the creation!  Hats are lovely, and I definitely think that I will be doing more of them in the near future–in fact, I am in the middle of one for the baby right now that matches this one.  The only difference is that the hat I am making now is made out of yarn that I spun from my very own rabbit hair!

Bless Daphne, when I ask her where her hat came from she says, “You made it mommy!”

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Of course on my baby sewing kick I managed to get a few pouch slings sewn for fun.  As I said before, I greatly lacked variety in slings with Daphne.  Though a mama doesn’t need every kind of sling known to man, it is nice to have a vareity to try and to string about all the places you go so that you are never left without.

I have never tried using a pouch sling before, so I am excited to see how it goes.  My friend Rebecca has a really lovely one that her 8 week old baby is very happy to sleep in.  I am hoping that this baby will like the slings I made.  It turns out that it is incredibly simple to make a pouch sling, so if you are in need or know someone who is in need, feel free to give it a try.

I made a brown sling and a khaki sling.  Didn’t I mention that I’ve been feeling the brown color lately.  Daphne was happy to model for me.

And of course she loves being in the sling with daddy.

This is the beige sling.  Of course, it got drooled on shortly before the photo was taken!

Of course once I had made a sling for myself, Daphne needed one to carry her baby around in.  I was able to use some scrap fabric to whip one up for her easily.

There are some excellent resources to make the slings.  I would post a tutorial, but the truth is that I did not do anything original, so I will just direct you to what I did do.

The woman who runs this site has spent a lot of time writing up information to help mamas make slings for their babies.  The information on how to make a pouch sling is particularly helpful.

However, the best thing you can do is watch the following video.  It really helped me a lot to get the sling put together simply without any confusion.  I thank the woman who made it deeply.  Go for it.  Make some for yourself or someone you know.

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I’ve been into doing extra preparation for emergency situations lately.  I’m not worried about anything happening, it must just be a part of nesting or crazy cleaning or something.

I picked up a flier recently that was interesting to me that I thought I might pass along.

You can help emergency responders a lot by adding a contact to your phone called ICE.  It stands for In Case of Emergency.  You create a new contact with ICE as the name and then list the number of who would need to be contacted in an emergency.  If there were to be a car accident or a fire or something, the emergency responders can grab the phone and call that person to contact them and let them know what happened.  I think it is brilliant.  I put several ICE contacts in my phone labelled ICE 1, ICE2, ICE3 so that there are several options in case the first person couldn’t be contacted.

I also did this for Jared’s phone as well.  Just another simple thing that can greatly help if it ever needs to be used.  Consider doing it today for your family.

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I did a photo shoot recently of a beautiful local family.  I set the images aside for a while before I edited them, and I must say that when I sat down to edit a few of them, I was giddy with excitement.  Quite a few of them came out looking really well.

I consider that I am on maternity leave right now for most photo projects, but I still love shooting, and I must say that even though I am VERY pregnant, I’ve still got it.

There is nothing like the love of a sister right?

Every family needs a ballerina.

What I wouldn’t give to be 7 again.

I love this relaxed portrait of a daddy with his girls.

And this is what daddies are for right?

Yeah, I was totally in wedding photographer mode!

Kissing the new baby. Yummy light!

I’m showing you the more artistic and less documentary photos.  There were other good shots at this location, but I think this photo tells so much about this family.

There were so many good shots from this family shoot.  I thought the ones here were the most original and creative of the bunch.  I am loving the yummy black and white processing I’ve been doing lately, so that is why you get the pleasure of feasting your eyes on so many of them now.  This is such a special family to me, and I am so glad that they opened their lives to me to let document their lives.

I am opening up my schedule to shoot more maternity, family, infant and children sessions over the next couple of months.  Contact me if you want to book a session.  We always have a lot of fun and bring out a lot of personality.

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