Happy Hospital Birth

In the circles I was raised in, especially as I got older, home birth was a big deal. It seemed like most people I knew were having their babies at home or in a birthing center, so naturally I thought I'd follow in that trend when I had my babies. I had heard all kinds of hospital birth horror stories and all about the evils of doctors "just doing what's easiest for them" and had dreams of a water birth in a birthing center. After all, that's really the only way to have a good birthing experience, right?
Well, that's all well and good if you're in a sizable city, but in Natchez (population 20,000) there isn't a female OB, much less a birthing center with a midwife. This caused me no small amount of frustration when I first found out I was pregnant. I decided I'd drive to Brookhaven (a little over an hour away) to the only female OB around, but was still distressed about having to have my baby in a hospital at all, especially without the option of laboring in a whirlpool. After my first visit, I knew she was definitely not the doctor for me. I racked my brain all the way home... how in the world was I going to have a remotely successful birth that I wouldn't look back on with horror? I got home and made an appointment with an OB in Natchez. I had heard great things about Dr Carey as a doctor and as a person, in fact, one of Cole's best friend's credits him to his wife surviving a very difficult miscarriage. But still, it's a small town, and I knew him. In fact, my mom works for him and his wife doing housekeeping and I taught his son guitar lessons. But I went forward knowing I was making the best decision. Then Merisha and I toured the 2 hospitals. Neither of them seemed as conducive to natural birth as I had hoped, but I made my choice. I trucked along for the first few months discouraged. After my first visit, I was very glad I had chosen Dr Carey to be my doctor, but still didn't want a hospital birth at all. It was just not what I had in mind. I decided to research doing natural childbirth in hospitals. Wow. I read all kinds of helpful things like "a hospital is the most unnatural environment imaginable to labor in," "hospitals are such a cold, sterile enviornment" and "doctors only care about what is easy for them, whereas a midwife has your best interest at heart." I'm pretty sure I had never been so discouraged in all of my life. I had resigned myself to having a regular hopsital birth with all of the medications that go with it because I honestly didn't belive it was possible to give birth naturally in a hospital and it be anything less than horrid. Much less a good experience.

I hired a doula to be a labor coach and to offer support and advice (that was definitely the best little chunk of change I've spent lately!) She was really encouraging that I could have a good experience regardless of the fact that I wasn't getting my way. So I stopped pouting, stopped reading the nay-say books and stopped listening to everyone's opinions. This was the only option I had and I was going to give it a shot! Who knows, I thought, it may not be as bad as they say. And you know what I learned? "People" are wrong. My doctor did care about how I felt and wanted me to have a good birth. My nurses were supportive of me wanting to try to go natural and honored my wishes. Laboring in a bed is not the end of the world. In fact, I found it far less painful than using the birthing ball my doula brought for me to try! No one tried to force me to get an epedural to make me easier to deal with. No one gave me unnecessary checks, cuts and surgeries.
And I did it. Not only that, it was a wonderful experience. So here's a success story. If you've got a doctor you trust to do what is best, nurses who care about your wishes, and a person or two cheering you on, natural childbirth in a hospital can be great :)

Introducing...

Selina Grace Rutherford :)

Home

I have learned over the years that I adapt very quickly to my surroundings. In a hut in the jungle, house sitting in a mansion, in a cabin in Colorado, it's all the same to me. Wherever I am, I am at home. But there's something different about leaving a home you've known and knowing you'll never return. When we moved out of our little apartment last Saturday I was almost sad. The place where our life together began, where we spent our first Christmas together, where we found out we were having a baby. In just a year so many memories were made there. When we dropped the keys in the slot on the office door at 10:00 last Sunday night and drove away, I felt homesick. But it was time.
Now, I'm settling in to our new home and looking forward to the memories we will have here. Bringing Selina home with us in just a few weeks will hopefully be the first of many happy times that make a home feel like a home. I feel a great sense of accomplishment as a walk through each room and see the (almost!) finished result of all of our hard work. When I opened all of the windows this morning to let in the beautiful fall air, sat snugly on the sofa with a cup of coffee and closed my eyes, I felt almost giddy about the new beginning. Yes, this place too will be my home.

Changing of Seasons

This time last year I was in the home stretch of planning the most significant day of my life. My wedding day. As I walked along the bluff on a cool afternoon this past week I looked down to the spot some of my bridal portraits were taken. It was about this time last year, just as we were getting some cool days, that I was there looking out over the river in my wedding gown trying to imagine what it would be like to be a wife.
Seasons have changed from fall to winter to spring to summer and now coming back to fall. As the months have gone on I am amazed anew at God's faithfulness. I think back to a year ago and find it hard to remember what it was like to not be married to Cole. Now, with our first daughter due two days before our fist anniversary, I have different questions. What will it be like to be a mother? What will she look like? How will our lives change because of her? I don't worry, though. Because I know through all of the challenges and changes of my life, God has been faithful.
Sometime in the next 9 weeks, my life will change forever - again. And though I know that will bring good things and difficult things, God will be there and he will sanctify me through it.
As I write, our little baby girl squirms and moves within me and I think of something that a friend of a friend said years ago in a paper he wrote: "Remember that you are a living chalice which will one day bear souls for which Christ died to save. There is no greater calling in life than that." At the time I first read that I was about 15, but it has stuck with me. When I hear her heartbeat, feel her move, or try to imagine holding her in my arms for the first time, I know this is part of why I was created. To give her life, and prepare her to live eternally serving our God. What a privilege! What a responsibility! Ready or not, here she comes :)

Sonogram Pictures

Here are the latest baby pictures! These are really similar, but the detail on the face was better in the first, and of everything else in the second so I put them both :-)

Happy Happenings

Definitely the most noteworthy news of the year is that I'm going to have a baby! I'm due November 5, so that makes me currently about 13 weeks. The above picture was taken at 9 weeks and I have my second sonogram today, so I'll be posting pictures from that soon :-)

I have been excited from the start, but I think it's starting to sink in a little that the baby will actually be mine to keep. I've spent so much of my life taking care of other people's children and loving other people's children that I really couldn't imagine having one of my own and what that would feel like. I'm trying to imagine my life in six months when the baby comes home and it's with me all the time...no nights and weekends off as I've grown accustomed to with Sam. But more-so when I look into it's eyes and know it's a part of me. Pretty amazing stuff.

I haven't felt great during the first trimester, but no real sickness to speak of (let me again stress that I completely support the notion that Jennifer Williams should be admitted to sainthood). A lot of tiredness and a general "blah" feeling, but in all, I've been blessed in that this time around. What fun I am having plannng the nursery and picking out baby things!

Well, things to do, as always. Hopefully I'll get good pictures at my 3-D sonogram today!

And by the way, yes, I do realize I'm due 2 weeks and 1 day apart from Merisha, and no, we did not "plan" it that way :-P It's going to be fun!

Ramblings

I had a dream last night that I had a baby girl and she wasn't very cute, but I loved her anyway.
Anyway, life has been very interesting over the past few weeks. We had Sam for a week while his parents were in St Thomas, so that was fun, but pretty exhausting.
Merisha's going to have a baby! I'm going with her to her first doctor's appoitment on Wednesday, which is very exciting. I think we should be able to hear the heartbeat and maybe even see a little blob :-)
Also, Cole got a new job! This was very exciting, even though God amazingly provided for us in the 6 weeks between jobs. I find that when I think too much about my circumstances I get worried and my trust in God starts to fade. The balance between being a responsible human being and trusting God in all things is sometimes a difficult rope to walk. But there really are circumstances in life that are completely and totally out of your own control. You do what you can to be responsible and try different things, but at the end of the day, you realize you're completely helpless. I've found myself in that place over and over in my life, and it always amazes me that the faithfulness of God really is never failing. Over the past few weeks there were a few times when I focused on my circumstances a little too much and freaked out, but all in all, I tried to remind myself about all of the other times God has been faithful in my life, and about his promises. Not that I believe being a Christian automatically means an easy life - far from it. But it means you're not alone in your struggles. It means that in the times of the most difficult trials, he carries you. There is nothing more comforting to me than that.

I'm alive!

I always think that I'm going to start blogging again, but can not find the time. And sometimes when I do have time, I go to my blog, click "new post" and stare at the computer screen not knowing what to type.
My life isn't really boring, I promise, but bloggable? Probably not. Oh well!
First of all, I love being married. I really have the best husband ever. He always seems to know just the right thing to say or do to make life a little more wonderful :-) I don't feel like I've been married quite long enough for people to hear me say these things without saying "oh, just wait." I don't understand why people assume that newleyweds think that marriage will always be easy and that they should inform them otherwise.
Secondly, I love Sam. I never thought I'd be able to love a child that wasn't mine as much as I love him. I can say first hand that biblical discipline and training is doable, it works and is incredibly rewarding. Why don't more people do it? He's now 2 1/2 and loves to pretend he is hunting. He often tells me "Look, Robin, I got the big buck!" Being a nanny is definitely the best job ever :-)

I'm learning faith again, which isn't a bad thing. Sanctification is rarely fun, but I know it is worth it. I used to hope my children would have an easier life than I've had, but I don't anymore. They won't have the same circumstances that I did, but I want them to see firsthand that God is always faithful. I want them to see his grace, his justice, his love and his provision. I want them to know God.

So in all, I'm blessed. And I'm learning to see the blessings in things that don't look like such at first glance..