That was the most difficult

experience and probably the second most rewarding experience (first being when I have a successful home birth)

I just got home and I am exhausted.

Long story short, mama had two prior c/s with both kiddos @ 9.5lbs and then we pushed out a 10lb 14oz baby! It was spectacular.

It was really scary though cause the MW's had me help out with taking notes for them. And baby had some scary decels but overall FHT's were great except in the one position.

I wanted to run home and never look back. I couldn't handle it. I stayed, I supported and I was pushed HARD emotionally with this birth. But it was fantastic! I am so glad I stayed and let me tell you. I am SO ready to be pregnant and to be in labor. I can do it. I will do it. I will be hard but OMG it was great.

So I am starting Project 365

I started a photoblog for those who are interested. I am looking forward to improving my skills so I can take some photos of June!


www.photoblog.com/brandyroth

Do you need a Doula?

Well come on down to my new website!

www.junebugdoula.com


ENJOY!

So a Much Needed Update

Well where we are in life. As a family unit, we are still attempting to adopt through the state. We need to get the yard complete and rearrange the rooms slightly then we we will be calling E. again here soon.

On that same note, Jon and I are trying to get pregnant again. It has not been happening so this afternoon I have an appointment with Dr. Beller, an OB that specializes in fertility treatments, I am excited to start the testing.

Where does that leave us for adoption though? Well since you asked, our plan is to get our home study completed. Then just hold off applying for children till after we have the new baby.

Now as for the individual updates;

Jon: His job is going well and he is now supporting a whole new program. He has one more class to finish then it is just make up classes from when Casey passed to finish his degree!

Me: I am back in school through Birth Arts International. I am currently enrolled in their Labor/Birth Doula program. I am loving it and have clients already set up.

Juniper: She is doing fantastic, we are completely potty trained now. We are doing a dance class through Spark Plug Dance and it is fantastic and will probably continue to do so for the fall.

Jim, Jon's step dad built June and us a gorgeous bunk bed w/ a trundle. That is currently in June's room. But we are going to take it apart and put a twin bed in the play room and make it an extra bedroom.

So that is what has been going on.

Till next time!

My Individual Session Today...

I have my two hour meeting with E. today. Yay! I am so excited and flipping nervous! It is just because she is making sure I am adopting for the right reasons. I am. I am adopting because I hate being pregnant and I want more children. I don't want babies because well I like older kids they do more stuff. I can communicate and listen to them. I can home school them and teach them how to be amazing adults and love the world. Encourage their likes and show them new stuff. Go camping, hiking, teaching dog agility. Everything. I want to give them everything and June too. I want to give them my entire heart and understand it may take some time for them to give it to me but that is fine. It will happen and I already have the love for them even if I don't know it.

I am ready for some more kids, or even another kid which ever fits our more but honestly. I don't care if they fit, we are an evolving family and handle it.

Gonna go start my stew now........

Karma and God Are On My Side

You know I have always been more than willing to help people out, let people with less groceries go in front of me in line, let people into traffic etc... Well today it paid off, but a back story is needed to let you all understand....

Saturday Jon and I decided to buy a lawn mower even though we really shouldn't but it was decided it was a mother's day gift. Well we got it home and decided to try it out, well it was broken. We call Walmart and they said we could come in and just switch it for a working model. We decided we'd just do it on Mother's day.

Sunday morning we go out and it is stolen. I was so sad and pissed. I mean come one we have been through so much crap! So we called and made a report to the county sheriff's office and that is we could do.

Monday called our insurance company and it wasn't enough to meet our deductible. So I post an ad on craigslist to ask if anyone had any information regarding my poor broken lawn mower.

Tuesday nothing....

Wednesday I get an e-mail and it is from the Owner of Action Mowers on Main St. in Springfield Oregon. Turns out the guys who stole it brought it to her and she had them take it back to walmart for one that works. So Walmart exchanges for the next model up because they are out of the original lawn mower takes the guys ID and and bring it back to Action Mowers. She gets the new better lawn mower from them then sees my ad on CL.

So now I know who at least one of the guys are and damn straight I am pressing charges and testifying against them......

So I get a brand new better mower and I get to serve justice to the jerks who did it!

So if you need a new Lawn Mower support an honest small business here is Springfield!

Home Sudy Visit #2 on Thursday!

I have my one on one two hour meeting with the adoption worker on Thursday @ 2pm. To talk more intensely about Jon and I and our intentions/motivations about adopting kiddos. I am super excited. Our adoption worker is e-mailing us a safety guide so we can go through and and "adoption/foster" proof the house. I know we need another smoke detector because we need one in every room where a child sleeps. We will see what else we need to do as well. Hopefully I can do most if not all of it before Thursday.

So Our First Home Study Visit is over.

It wasn't that bad I was so worried and all. Our worker is really nice and all but thinks we are nuts for wanting 3 kids older than June. But was pleased to hear that we had completed all but 2 or 3 of the classes before we were even pregnant with Casey in fact most of them I was pregnant with Juniper.

So I meet with her individually next Thursday then Jon meets with her individually on the 19th.

It is exciting to start!

So Our Home Study Adventure

Starts on Thursday @ 4pm! Our adoption worker will from here on out be referred to simply as E. and from the sound of her voice and attitude E. seems like a fantastic worker to work with. Very punctual and with it. I am so excited to start this journey. To describe the feeling going on in my soul and body is that we just found out we are expecting. Though we don't know the sex, age or anything else yet of our soon to be children. There is an extreme amount of joy, anticipation, nervousness and just gleefulness.

So there is a great update for you all.

We are all potty trained now!

(Accidentally) I have been asking June every once in awhile to see if she needed to pee in the potty then yesterday realized it had been two days with out an accident. thumb up So we went to the store and bought big girl underwear ( she choose Dora ones) This also meant me had to buy new pants, lol. So she went from a size 3T to 18/24mth, Of course thankfully we can wear shorts right now cause pants would be extreme high waters as it is she is wearing daisy dukes! laugh

Just thought I would share!

So Our Adoption Worker Called

And we are going to be starting our home study next week! I am overly excited about this process to be almost over. As soon as our home study is completed we can start putting in for children and getting bulletins! I am so excited! I can't wait to start.

We Finally Got Assigned An Adoption Worker!

I am so excited about it! That means we are about to start our home study. I am so glad we seem to be moving forward with this adoption process! I am super excited! I can't wait till we get to bring our other kids home who ever they are!

What a Success Today Was!

Today was the March of Dimes and it was great, all 6.2 miles of it! Our team Casey Hope got chosen as a family team ambassador and it was so nice of them! I felt so honored! What a difference Casey has made with her three days of life! What a great experience!

Thanks for everyone that donated and/or walked because of you the day was amazing.

So I have just discovered that I can update you all from my phone! Woot for more posts!

Vaccines? Good article to make you consider what you are doing to kids.

I am in no way saying people who vaccinate your children or bad. I just think you should be educated about what you are doing and once you are if that is what you want, awesome, I give you the educated parent award. Which no mater what you choose is the most important thing to be; educated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-carrey/the-judgment-on-vaccines_b_189777.html

The above link is an article by actor Jim Carey and his opinion on what has taken place in the recent ruling of 3 autism cases in vaccine court.

As some of you may know we have not vaccinated Juniper at all and don't plan to. It started out as Jon's gastroenterologist suggested very blatantly that we research and hold off vaccinating until June was at least two years old so her intestines would have a chance to fully developed. Well with Junes milk protein allergy and her reaction to it; stomach upset and really bad green and mucus diarrhea. So I feel her intestines aren't quite up to par.

I guess this post is mainly just to have you think about what you are doing and be okay about it!

Casey's Birth Story

My contractions finally started being productive and sticking close together around 4am Nov. 19th. they were around 10 minutes apart but this time it was different. They were consistent and stayed the same regardless of what position I was in and/or increased in pain. Around 10am I decided to make chili in the crock pot to have for the labor. I finally called Colleen, my Midwife, around 10:30 and she said to call her if they got around 3-4 minutes apart or else she would see me around 5 pm.

So we went through our day and Novena, Jon's mom, got June around 3pm. We walked over to the mall and we were ready and saying we were ready to have you come when you are.

So around 5pm Colleen came over my contractions were about 5 minutes apart at this point and I could talk in between contractions but had to actually focus during the contractions.

Colleen hung around and set some stuff up and around 7 my body decided to kick into gear and I could hardly talk to anyone in between contractions and I don't even recall people talking during my contractions. I just remember moaning and focusing on my own voice.

Around this time Colleen called Bonnie her birthing assistant to come over. It was around 9ish. Bonnie got there quite quickly though my concept of time were in like minute spurts of real world talking of which I could not participate in as I was focusing on deep breathing between contractions. It was about 10:15-10:30pm and Colleen wanted to check me to see how I was progressing. I was in a lot of pain but I had I been 5 or more I would have stayed home. I was 4cm. I wanted relief, it had been over 18 hours my body was tired.

Colleen stated that if we went to the hospital they would push a cesearen section and drugs to which I bellowed back, "MY BODY MY CHOICE!" We then went to the hospital after calling the on call OB.

For most of my intense laboring time I had been on my hands and knees moaning. Starting with the car ride to the hospital I was sitting straight up. When we got on the hospital table that is where I stayed. I thrived on anyone who was willing to put pressure on my lower back during a contractions. There were a lot curse words thrown out by me to make people give me pressure.

The delivery RN gave me an IV and I immediately asked for drugs but she said she wasn't the OB, so I then started to ask for the OB who said I had to the anesthesiologist. So apparently it is a lot harder to get an epi or any kind of drugs then you think. Cause I was begging and cussing and wanted anything they would hand out. Which turns out is just saline.

Finally after about two hours of being there I felt slightly pushy and got checked and was 10cm 100effaced according to the RN and 9cm and 90% effaced according to the OB. about 5 minutes of them arguing (could be shorter could have been longer) Her rate dropped down to 50 and then only came up to 60. I was finally given drugs though just to make me not nauseous from the cesarean they were about to preform.

This was a true emergency surgery, my catheter was inserted as we were going down the hallway to the OR.

I was taken out of the birthing room @ 1:15am and Casey was born @ 1:24am November 20. She was 22 inches long, 9lbs 11oz and all girl. She was precious.

Thank you all for being patient with me in writing this. It actually makes me feel better a bit by sharing the birth part of the story instead of the after part. Because even though it ended tragically, I would do everything same again. In about five or so years when we begin actively TTC after we adopt I will attempt to have a home birth again and will gladly go to 43 weeks in a heart beat and honestly I would go to 44 if allowed.

Sorry I have been a bum lately.....

Apparently my little informative blog gets 3000 hits a month!? So I am sorry I am not updating regularly very much anymore. I will try to be better at updating and posting pictures.

So yes I will write a big fat update here shortly.

Thanks and hello!

Update On Us

So Colleen and I were talking and mutually agree that the intense pain I was feeling were actually contractions pushing out the sac and such. Cause after it passed I felt better and I feel tons better today! Last night Jon and I had a 4 hour time frame with no phones, no Juniper and no distractions. We played Lego Indiana Jones and ate a giant sandwich from Safeway! It was so nice not to worry about anything for 4 hours. I didn't realize how much we were stressing about life in general. Our counselor made us sign a contract stating we will spend a 4 hour chunk of time together.

My chickens are doing fabulously, day 5 and none are dead!

My friend Katrina had her baby on Monday her name is Olivia, Jon and I brought her dinner yesterday afternoon. She is probably one of the sweetest friends I know. I called to let her know we were almost there and she put sleeping O in her room so we could in and say hi. I had to see her and it was actually a lot easier than I thought. I couldn't bring my self to touch her, but was a cute bundle of 7lbs. 4oz! She reminded Jon and I a lot Casey because she had cute eyes and was sleeping. But it was actually a really good visit. I didn't think I would be there for more than a second giving her food but we ended up staying for about 30 minutes!

So in conclusion, life sucks but hey not too bad.

Baby Bantam Chicks Day 1

We got four day old bantam chicks today from Coastal Farms. I am excited to do this with Juniper and my daycare kids. I am going to take pictures everyday for like 2 or 3 weeks then maybe 2-3 time a week after that till they are around 12 weeks then they will be outside! So here is a picture!

I had an Ultrsound this afternoon...

There was a fair amount of fluid in my uterus so the OB and Colleen both said the IUD removal probably disrupted the pregnancy and it hasn't expelled itself yet.

I hate life.
I hate life for giving me these circumstances.
I wish someone could just make it better.
I don't think that life will ever be better.
I hate it.