Having a baby...

I'll be honest... the few hours of labor terrify me. I think it's the unknown that is the hardest to deal with. When labor starts, and then gets increasingly painful, you really don't know how much longer you'll have to 'do this'. Of course there is comfort in the fact that it WILL end. It never lasts forever. :)

So this will be my sixth delivery. I'll give a brief rundown of the kinds of deliveries I've had, and what I'm hoping for this time...

Drew: 16 hour labor, all natural, 2.5 hours of pushing, shot of Demerol near the end (Two days after due date)

Joe: Water broke, hospital induced labor with pitocin, stadol through IV, 16 hours (Two weeks early)

Harley: Water broke, hard contractions, quick delivery, 2.5 hours (Two weeks early)

Zach: 20 hour labor, slow start, picked up throughout the day, epidural for last two hours (On due date)

Jethro: 6 hour labor, fast and hard contractions, epidural last two hours (Two weeks overdue)

So I've had lots of different experiences. As an epidural is not an option for me for this next delivery, I am reading up on natural childbirth and how people deal, cope or even enjoy it. It seems like some women view this as a rite of passage into motherhood and feel very empowered by their experience in childbirth. I would have to say with Harley's birth, I did feel very strong and unstoppable. (Look what I just did?) So I am hoping as I practice my breathing and visualization techniques, that I will be able to stay focused, hold myself together, and even enjoy the birthing process this time. I know if you can stay relaxed, your body is more able to do what it needs to, and it is a good method to trust your body. I must not let panic creep in because that does no good for me or my baby. I really am looking forward to meeting this new child.

I recently got the book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and the DVD 'The Business of Being Born.' I would highly recommend both to any woman, but especially to those who may have another child. There are so many wonderful things our medical world can do for us as laboring women. But also so much that is unnecessary to the process of something our bodies are made to do. Even after having five children, there was much I learned from reading this book.

I have also read the book Hypnobirthing and it has some great breathing and visualization techniques in it that I am hoping to use.

He's Back

What an amazing day it was yesterday... I don't have photos of most of it... but here is the rundown...
Our power came back on after a week of being off...
Jeff came home...
We got a huge thunder and lightening storm followed by a real downpour...
Our container showed up in town just before midnight...
and then this morning Drew's chickens gave their first egg!
It's been an exciting 24 hours... Jeff is outside right now putting the kids bikes together!

Jeff coming home...

Pancake breakfast...

Our first egg...

Getting ready to open our container from France...

Putting bikes back together...

Ask and you shall receive...

In so many ways… we are blessed and overblessed… I just need to share some of them wtih you. First of all, I wrote a blog while back called Love to France… it was in the midst of frustration over not knowing how to find things we wanted. Living in a foreign country is challenging. We have been so blessed by people who have showered us with packages with all sorts of goodies. Thank you for thinking of us and for sacrificing your time and money to light up our days. I cannot tell you how excited the kids are when we get a package and we all dig in with anticipation.

Another thing we have asked for, mostly from God, is for opportunities to speak french and make some friends. This last week we were blessed. We had a birthday party for Zach on Saturday. Jeff told me on Wednesday that I should go invite 3 of our neighbors to his party. I didn't want to… it is hard to approach a strangers door and use my broken french to talk… but I did. The first door I went to, a family with one little girl Harley's age invited me in. I almost said no, I need to go invite more people, but then thought better of it. We visited for about an hour after which we promised to stop by anytime and watch each others kids. She even offered to take me shopping in her car and after I have the baby, take me to a local moms group.

On Friday our Church has a ladies bible study. I have been trying to go with my friend Hilary from our school who also attends our Church. It has been canceled numerous times and this Friday she was going to be on vacation. But she asked one of the Church ladies if they could pick me up. So Friday I went to a ladies Bible Study. I did not understand a lot, but was once again blessed by their kindness to me. And enjoyed the fellowship between believers that crosses over cultural and language barriers. One Church lady had brought me two bags of toys for our kids that her daughters had outgrown. So thoughtful. And another lady told me there was a porta crib at Church for me. She knew we were looking for an extra baby bed. God just goes before us taking care of the extra things. When we left San Jose we knew our kids wouldn't miss their toys too much they couldn't bring with them, but isn't it just like God to provide for them anyway with extra!?

That night we recieved a phone call from a man we do not know from our Church. He said he had heard that we wanted to go visit the farm of another Church man, but didn't have a ride. He would be happy to pick us up and take us. So right after Zach's party Jeff, Drew, Joe and Harley went with Charles an hours ride away to a dairy farm. After an extensive tour they were able to sample the cheese made on the farm.

All three of the families we invited came to Zach's party on Saturday. (As well as many of our good friends from Les Cedres) It was a wild good time with about 20 kids.) Jeff even had one of our neighbors read a portion from Job and explained to them all why he had chosen the name Zachariah Job for him.

On Sunday we had been invited to a families home for lunch after Church. (Our Church goes till 1:30PM so this is a late affair.) After a pre appetizer of goat cheese, dried salami, pretzel sticks and juice, we were invited to a beautiful table for an appetizer salad, then a sausage and potato main course, followed by a cheese and wine, and then a delicious chocolate cake. Wow! We were impressed. Then we visited and the wife took me up to her attick and blessed me with baby clothes she had saved that were her own childrens things. I could not believe their kindness and generosity. They gave the kids books in french and let them play endlessly with toys. And fed them another snack. When we finally checked the time we saw that it was 7:20PM… He drove us home and when we got there he gave us a special cake from the south of france.

Also this last week Jeff met a couple at the park in front of our house from Tunisia. They were super friendly. They live just around the corner from us and on our second meeting with them they gave us their phone number and said to call them when we need a ride to the hospital. Day or night, they would be happy to take us. This is a blessing because Taxi's can take a long time to come, and some will refuse to take a pregnant women. If you are in the french health care system, you can call an ambulance, but we would have to pay for that!

So as you can see… when it rains, it pours… Thank God with us for all these opportunities and pray for us to have the energy to take it all in and continue to learn all we can. God is good...

Swimmin'

Wow... it's been so long since I blogged, the page actually looks different. :) So I must write about how proud I am of my boys. They went from being totally afraid of the water at the begining of this summer to being very comfortable in it and Drew is even swimming some. They both go underwater now. Here are some photos of their big accomplishment. Growing up I was a total fish in the water and then was on the swim team in high school and then life guarded in college, so I am thrilled to have them swimming!!! Enjoy the photos... and it's good to be back! :)

Going Green

Well I have been lamenting the cost of diapers for many years. Recently in Colorado I talked to someone who was using cloth diapers. Now I used cloth diapers with Drew when we lived in Cote d'Ivoire. It was a mess and I did not like it. Well they have some pretty cool cloth diapers now and decided to give it another try. Actually it is an all or nothing deal cause these are pretty expensive. But after spending about $80 month on disposables and filling up the land fills with our diapers, I decided it was worth it. So now here is our happy little Zachariah. Still smiling with his Happy Heinys and Fuzzi Bunz.

Here we Are...

We have been in Palmer Lake Colorado for 2 weeks now. We are participating in Cultural Adaptation training. It has been really good for the whole family. We are doing our best to keep the kids on normal scheduals.




Drew and Joe have been in classes that correspond to what we are learning. From talking about things we are looking forward to when moving to Mali, and things we are not excited about. We have talked about conflict styles... I am a turtle and Jeff is a shark. (Not a surprise if you know us well.) And we have talked about the stages of transition between two cultures. From being settled in your home culture, to unsettled, to chaos, to unsettled in your new culture, to settled in your new culture. It was interesting to see where the kids saw themselves.

Joe, Drew, Hannah and their teacher, Uncle David. (David is an MK from France.)

There are many fun people here that we are getting to know. One family we knew from our appointment with WorldVenture last June. The Hermans. They have three teen agers who are great with our kids. It is amazing being around so many people who are like minded.

Katie and Harley are so stylish.

Ant, ant and more ants...

Drew got an ant farm this year from Garcias. It is a new kind in some sort of gel that the ants actually eat so you don't have to feed them. Well the ants came and he found out you could connect your ant farm to another one. So he took his target gift card from Nathan and Stacie and we hooked up another ant farm. This has been no end of entertainment from the youngest to the oldest in our household. It is amazing what you can be mesmerized by.

Safari Time

Drew turned Six on Thursday and today was his party. It was just right. We read the Beranstein Book called Too Much Birthday this week. It is the one where sister gets overwhelmed at her HUGE party and starts to cry. That happened to Drew when he turned four. And since then I have tired to give him a really fun, but small party. He LOVES to party, but he is an introvert and it really wears him out. He accidentally hurt one of his friends at the party today, getting carried away with a rope swing. And tonight when I was praying with him and tucking him in, he said, 'Mom, I have been hurting people a lot lately and I don't want to do that anymore.' He felt so bad that his friend had left his party sad, nine hours earlier. He has such a soft spirit. This was an accident, but we talked about when he gets angry and hurts people too. So we prayed that God would help him learn how to be more careful, and to know what to do when he is angry.



At the party Jeff took the kids on a Safari to look for plastic animals he had hidden. IT was really cute and fun. And I managed to make the Martha Stewart Lion cake. Joe gave the party a big compliment tonight when he said, for his party he wanted, 'the same pinata, and cake and everything just like Drew's party.' I need to do a whole blog on things Joe says. There have been some really good ones lately.