The Many Faces of James

Just some fun photos - one of the girls in my Primary class had this hat and booties made for him and gave us the bear too. I was going to give her a picture as a thank you. James was cracking me up with his funny faces.

Introducing James

First of all, a warning. I'm going to wax rhapsodic about the joys and virtues of homebirth. Women are always telling their birth stories in gory detail, but somehow, if you've had a homebirth, no one wants to hear about it. Well, tough. Don't read on. Just scroll down for the pictures of the baby if you want. But my homebirth experience was great.
Contractions started Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church, but I wasn't really paying attention. I started timing them and they were about 7 minutes apart. For me, I figured I had quite a long time - I've always taken a long time in the past. We went to church at 11, but while I was sitting in sacrament meeting I decided I'd better go home and rest in case this was the real deal. They really weren't that painful, just uncomfortable. So Aaron brought me home and I rested for about an hour. When they came home from church, I was puttering around in the kitchen, making my stew, rolling rolls, mixing up gingerbread. At 4 we went up to the park up the road. I was timing them about 4 minutes apart at that point and figured I'd call Fran, my midwife, from the park. When I spoke with her, she was surprised to hear that they were only 4 minutes apart. She said she'd be over in a while - I still thought I had lots of time and didn't want her to rush right over. Well, she didn't. Mom and Dad came over just before 6 (they were 3 minutes apart and getting more and more intense). Aaron and Dad gave me a blessing and then my parents took Laurel and William over to their house. Fran arrived just as they were leaving. She checked me out and told me that I was already at 8 cm!!! Happy day. I was so worried it would be only 3 or 4.
Okay, no gory details. But James arrived at 8:16 p.m. It was so relaxing and peaceful. Not easy, definitely not pain free, but just a perfect experience. The second he was born he was in my arms and he didn't leave them for over an hour. No eye goop, no shots, no tests. He was perfectly healthy. He weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces and measured 20.5 inches long. His eyes were wide open and he just sat looking at Aaron and I. No pictures of all of this because we weren't taking them.
So trust me. Homebirth is not medically possible for everyone. But there were no risks for me, and there were no complications that my midwife couldn't handle. She has done this before, many many times and she did a great job with us. She and her assistant were gone by 11 after feeding us and cleaning up everything, even starting the laundry. No mess. No nurses popping in to take temperatures and make me go to the bathroom and bother me all night. We all got some rest and all is well with us.

Birthday Breakfast

I think we've started a new tradition in our family. We had a birthday breakfast party for Laurel this morning. I made cinnamon rolls, smoothies and hot chocolate. We invited our neighbors from upstairs to come down in their jammies and slippers. It was lots of fun. Laurel got all dressed up, then changed outfits again later.

Laurel was very excited to have a candle with her cinnamon roll. Cake is fine, but this was special.
Laurel put these on her back and told us she was a stegasaurus. That's my girl!

Something else for my kitchen

Aaron discovered these postcards in Seattle years ago - I have multiple copies of this one. Makes me feel like I have a pretty spectacular education. I am a chemist, after all. My stuff just tastes better than what we mixed together in chemistry class at school. And it's a whole lot more fun.

Still nothing to report on baby other than he's just fine. Now I'm shooting for next Friday - it has a nice symmetry to it. Then all my children will be 2 years and 3 days apart. But we'll see. Mr. James Victor is happy where he is, and he's certainly easier to take care of at this point. I'm not worried.

No pictures from Halloween for us - Will was plenty upset at us for dressing him up like Tigger - not that he voiced an opinion at all, but still. Laurel was the bumblebee again - I have no idea what we'll do next year when that costume doesn't fit anymore! We did have fun at the trunk-or-treat at church, but it got cold. Will just walked around holding out his bucket. He knew the routine.

Now the big excitement is Laurel's Birthday Breakfast. We decided that we would make every meal on their birthday's a "special" one with candles and all. We invited our upstairs neighbors down for cinnamon rolls, smoothies and hot chocolate tomorrow morning. Just something fun that's a bit different. I will get pictures of that and post them, of course.