Because Two Fell In Love

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Juliette Meets Ma and Pa

The downside to our home birth was that we don't live near any family and one of my favorite things about our hospital births (really the only thing, because since having Juliette at home, I realize just how much hospitals suck!) is all of the family coming to visit and getting to meet the newest addition.

Our first five kids were all born in Arkansas, which is where all of our immediate family lives. No matter where we were living, it always worked out for us to go home to have our babies in the hospital--the same hospital where I was born too!

When we found out Juliette would be joining our little crew, I knew without a doubt I had to have a home birth this time--she could be my last one, after all. (But probably not). Sadly, I knew that meant most, if not all of our family, wouldn't get to meet her until our Christmas visit. (And while it still makes me sad, I am very happy I had her at home. It was an amazing experience!).

I was so thrilled when I found out my parents were planning a visit to come meet her. They came when she was just 16 days old, and stayed with us a week. We all had a wonderful time, despite a stupid tummy bug that struck 2 days into the visit. Gabriella woke up puking, and two seconds later Addie was awake and bolting for the bathroom too. Day 3 was spent resting at home with fingers crossed that nobody else would get it. I loaded everybody up on my homemade elderberry gummies--almost force feeding them to Ma and Pa, as they are an acquired taste for some. Thankfully and miraculously, the bug died before it reached anyone else. (Although Addie was sure she was still not well, coincidentally any time I told her to clean up, or finish her dinner, or when it was bedtime.)

The week went far too quickly, but we filled it with as many memories and newborn cuddles as we could. And for the record, I don't make guests do chores, but these ones enjoy spoiling us. :)

Can you tell who usually has to wash the dishes? 😁

Thursday, October 3, 2019

September Kid Quotes

Pennie came in for at least her 3rd drink of water after I'd tucked her in. I told her no more. Her reply while walking back to her room: "I'm the thirstiest little thing I ever knew."

After Juliette was born, we thought a late night Starbucks run would be fun. We loaded up in the car with six kids for the first time. That was an ordeal. We have an 8 seater SUV, and five kids in some sort of car seat. (Two highback boosters, two forward facing, and now the infant seat). I agonized for weeks over the best car seat arrangement. I even dreamed about it when I slept. (So stupid). The main issue was having space for so many car seats--even with a large SUV, it's still a tight squeeze. I tried talking Justin into a 12 passenger, but he wouldn't budge. (No car payment IS nice.) Anyway, after 20 minutes to load everybody up, we were on our way to Starbucks. Justin pulled into the drive-thru and began placing our order. "I'll take two Mocha Cookie Crumples. I'm sorry, I mean CRUMBLE." Barista: "Okay sir, anything else?"Justin: "Yes, a Vanilla Frappacino and two Caramel Ribbon Crunches. So two Mochas, one vanilla, and two 'carmens'. I mean caramel!" Apparently child birth left Justin a bit tired and confused. The kids and I cracked up. Once we got to the window, the poor barista was still confused and needed to verify our order. I told Justin it's obvious we aren't big coffee people and don't order it often. (And why is he so tired? I was the one who gave birth two days before.) The caramel ribbon crunch--delicious, by the way.

The next night we were still laughing about crumples and carmens before we prayed for our dinner. Gabriella led that night and her prayer was quite like Justin's order. "Dear God, Thank you for this day. Please bless our hands to our bodies. I mean! Our FOOD to our bodies!" We all exploded with laughter again.

A few days later, we went on an iced tea run to HTEAO at happy hour. After twenty minutes, we got everybody buckled in. It was stressful. People were grumpy. There was teenage attitude, toddler attitude, grown up attitude--okay, it's safe to say attitude from every age group. After we got our tea, re-buckled, and went on our way back home, Justin said, "I just don't think we can go anywhere together anymore. We're gonna have to go in shifts. This is too much." Me: "That's ridiculous. I told you it was gonna be tight! You should've gotten me a 12 passenger!" I have since rearranged car seats two more times, and I am happy to say it does not take 20 minutes to buckle anymore. We have even left the house as a family since this outing. 😁

Pennie: "Mama, I can't 'beweive' you gave 'birf' to Juliette."

One night, Justin, Nathaniel and I were reminiscing about our life in Denver and the amazing Chinese food we ate there. We were talking about a specific restaurant, and Nathaniel was trying to remember it. (He was young). He exclaimed, "Oh wait! Did they have chopsticks?" He was totally serious.

Pennie: "It'd be cute if we had a baby whale."
Me: "what would we do with a baby whale?"
Pennie: "Put it in water. Cause whales do like to swim. And dolphins."

Pennie: "Juliette is crying cause she needs you,right? She needs her mom. Not her dad. Well, she needs two parents, right? Her mom and dad."

More Pennie ramblings--it really went like this, with no input from me. And LOTS of faces.
"Lillie never helps me put on my panties. She only puts on hers. And I'm just little. And Juliette is little. And daddy is my dad, and he's your honey. And you have a baby. And I'm a kid, and you have other kids. And Bubba is a teenager. Bye, Mama!"

Addie to Lillie while playing in her room: "Are we allowed to say 'satisfied'?"

Addie: "I thought newborns didn't have tongues?"

Pennie: "She cute. She's a 'dorable' baby. All babies are cute."

Addie: "I love hotels and ma's house. And I love home but I love you guys more than hotels."

One morning, Justin was up early for work...about 5:30 or 6. Gabriella also woke up.
"Daddy, I did a no sleep challenge last night! I haven't slept all night!" She then used the bathroom and went right back to sleep.

We let the kids watch movies in bed sometimes and this particular night, Lillie asked Justin to pick the movie for them. "Because parents pick the best movies." They went through netflix, searching for one the girls hadn't seen before. Justin finally chose a little kitty movie. After watching some of it, Lillie told him, "No offense Daddy, but Mama picks better movies."

Watching Flip or Flop together one night--
Nathaniel: "76 days?! It's taken them over four months to work on that house?"
Justin: "76 days is four months? Really?"
Nathaniel: "Oh. Never mind."

Me: "We have a big, fun surprise for you guys tomorrow!
Addie: "Panera Bread?!"

(It wasn't. We took them to the Legoland Discovery Center in Dallas. Next time I'm gonna plan smaller.)

Justin: "You know Midland has gotten to you when you can say you really enjoyed walking around a garden." (We visited the Fort Worth Botanic Garden too.)

Addie: "A ranchy life is the best life."

The girls like to say insulting things to Alexa when she doesn't have an answer for one of their goofy questions like "How much days is two googles?"
Lillie, very seriously said, "It seems like the old Alexa cared more about what we said to her." The first Alexa we owned (which broke from being dropped by those same girls) used to reply with something like "That's not very nice" when they called her dumb. The new Alexa (that nobody is allowed to touch) only tells them to check out the Amazon app and leave feedback there.

Addie: "Bubba, which one is the 'S'?"
Nathaniel: "Why?"
Addie: "Cause I need to spell Friv.com"

Justin: "Pennie says I have to go to bed now. It's time to snuggle."
Pennie: "Yeah! Get your baby out of Daddy's hands!"
(She LOVES Juliette and hasn't shown one bit of jealousy, but it was time to snuggle!)

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Juliette's Birth

August 22nd--Contractions! This is it. Juliette is coming. I went to bed that night with labor pains. Restless and aching, I got up to take a hot bath. It went on for about an hour that night. And then they stopped. Then around 4 am on the 23rd, they started back up again. Justin left to take care of a few things at work, and then by 7:00 my contractions quit again. Juliette has a sense of humor. Or God does.

Due Date
August 29th came and went, with no hint of Baby Juliette making her grand entrance. I was so sure she would come early, or at the very least on her due date. I'd said it for nearly 9 months, "There's no way this baby is waiting for her due date." I was counting on her to behave as her five siblings had-- Nathaniel, Gabriella, and Lillianna all came the day before their due date. Adaleine was four days early and Penelope was ten days early. My assumption made sense! Birth, however, is like the oil field. Unpredictable. It runs on its own schedule and with little consideration for anyone else. (But so amazingly beautiful!)

The 30th--not one contraction.

August 31st, we went about like normal. I thought, "surely today will be the day." And then we heard about the Odessa shooting and the day was no longer normal. We ordered pizza and enjoyed each others company over a movie. And then, right before bed, I could tell my water was leaking and began having contractions here and there. We prepared the bed for birth and told the kids their baby sister would be here in the morning. Justin and I decided on Faith for her middle name before we told each other good night.

We all slept in the next morning, till about 9:00. Still no Juliette. I expected a middle of the night call to the midwife and the kids waking up to a baby sister to hold. I did call her at 4 AM to say my water had broke but the contractions were very inconsistent. Anyway, we were all disappointed that she wasn't here yet. In fact, Nathaniel's first words to me that morning were, "I thought you said we'd have a baby this morning?!" All morning long, my contractions were sporadic and totally not conducive to giving birth. At 11:45, my midwife, Shanna, came to listen to Juliette's heart rate and to see if I was dilated. She confirmed that my water was indeed leaking, but I was only dilated to a 3. Still a long way to go, especially with the lack of contractions I was having. Shanna mixed up a little drink to hopefully get things going so I wouldn't have another uneventful day, followed by a restless night. A little castor oil, lemon verbena oil, peanut butter and orange juice. It sounds worse than it tasted.

I gulped it down with instructions to take another dose in four hours if my contractions didn't start becoming regular.

Well, they didn't. From that point on, I kept having the same 21 second, 14 second, 47 second, 10 second contractions, some being as much as 30 minutes apart. Finally, I decided I'm going to go take a shower, fix my hair and look halfway decent when Shanna came back to deliver Juliette. I told Justin, who was preparing the birthing pool, my plans. It was 2:00 at that point. As soon as I got in, a really long, intense contraction hit me, followed by two or three more. I washed my hair and got out to sit down. Three more contractions hit me and then Justin came to tell me he set the pool up in our room and as soon as I was ready to check it out, to let him know if I liked it and if I didn't he could change it. I told him, "I'm sure it's fine. I think you need to call Shanna. I had some contractions about a minute long and probably less than five minutes apart. I feel like I need to push but I know it's not time yet." He repeated my message word for word to Shanna and she immediately left her house to come to ours. It's 2:24.

Justin left the bathroom to finish setting up, and I stood to try to get some clothes on. That plan I had about looking halfway decent-- it didn't happen. Another contraction hit me. I laid a towel on the floor and got down on my hands and knees to work through the pain. The exact details get a little fuzzy at this point, but I know Justin came back to connect the hose for the pool, I told him I didn't think there was time, and I felt like pushing. Neither of us ever thought what happened next would be happening!

At 2:29, he called Shanna back. "She says she needs to push." Shanna replied, "Ok, I'm right around the corner." Meanwhile, I'm still on the bathroom floor, yelling to him, "Justin! Get behind me. You have to catch her!" Justin maneuvered his way around me, the bathtub, and bathroom door, somehow without falling on top of me. "I see a head." he said to Shanna, who is now on speaker. She talked him through the next steps...

2:32 PM -- After two or three big pushes, our Juliette Faith was born. Peaceful and quiet, she slowly peered at us, and let out the sweetest little whimper. Shanna told Justin to lay her on my chest, make sure the front door was unlocked so she could come right in, and to wrap Juliette up in a towel. Eyes wide with shock, I held my baby girl for the first time right there on our newly tiled bathroom floor. No photographer capturing the precious images I'd envisioned for nine months. No soothing, warm water birth, surrounded by my girls who were so excited to watch their sister be born. Just an instinctual position, with my husband there to support me and catch our baby, and most definitely God.

It's funny, early on in my pregnancy, I talked to Shanna about how crazy it would be to have to deliver alone without a doctor or midwife to help. (I had recently seen a video online of a woman giving birth in the car while her husband drove her to the hospital.) She told me "you know, when things go like that and it's that fast and perfect, you know everything is okay. It's just perfect." And that's exactly what it was. Perfect. Totally unbelievable in the moment, but so incredible and empowering. It wasn't how I planned, but we wouldn't change a thing.

A couple funny things:
1. The birth pool--
I bought it from a local woman who had given birth last December. She'd planned a water birth, but due to precipitous labor, never got to use it. Birth pool-2. Water birth-0. I'm reselling it now with the warning: "you probably won't get to use it".

2. The midwife's concoction--
She says it works but she has NEVER seen it work THAT fast.
All of my babies have been fast, but I think Juliette's birth was a record. We definitely never imagined Justin would have to deliver her. I guess she figured since she was "late", she needed to hurry.

3. Hand pumping a birth pool that would never be filled with water-- poor Justin...he and Lillie worked hard airing up that pool. And then he rearranged our whole room to make it fit by the bed. He'd planned a play list with my favorite music and was going to light some candles to make my water birth as calm and relaxing as possible. It was pretty humorous to lay in bed for the afterbirth by a blown up, empty pool.

4. Wanting to look decent for giving birth--
I got in the shower thinking I had time to wash my hair, fix it, and put a little make up on so that when Juliette was born, I wouldn't feel too gross for a few pictures. When Shanna walked in to help me down the hallway and to the bed, I was stark naked with damp, messy hair, no makeup, and meconium on my leg. (But I was holding a beautiful, healthy baby and had some pictures taken anyway).

5. Doctor Justin, aka Doctor Daddy--
No explanation necessary. He's taken his legendary role in Juliette's birth very seriously...correcting the kids when they leave off the "doctor" title and even referring to himself as a fellow doctor to the pediatrician. You handled the situation perfectly, Honey. Thank you. 💜