the birth of baby Filomena

The baby was due on August 22. When I hit 10 days over I really couldn't believe I was still pregnant--Oscar was 10 days late, so that had been the outer reaches of my expectations. In no world did I expect to get all the way to September. But here I was, still pregnant, so pregnant that people at the grocery store started asking me if I was carrying twins.

So pregnant. Two days before she was born; since I
work from home I wanted to send some proof to
my colleagues that I was, in fact, still gestating.

The upside was that the heat wave that lasted all summer was finally on hiatus, and since I had pretty much transitioned my projects at work and stopped taking on new projects I had a lot of time for slowly walking to the coffee shop, afternoon naps, and acupuncture appointments.

After barely making it to the hospital with Oscar we had planned for a homebirth this time around; 42 weeks is the upper limit for when homebirth is still safe/legal, so the midwives scheduled me for an induction at the hospital on Friday morning at 8am. On Thursday morning I tried one round of an "herbal induction protocol" which involves swallowing yucky things at 15 minute intervals for 4 hours. No contractions resulted, and I decided not to go for round two. By Thursday evening I was frustrated but resigned; I was bummed that once again birth was not going anything like we had planned, but looking forward to laboring in a tub at the hospital and finally getting this baby born.

I had collected some inspiration throughout the pregnancy and written down parts of poems or paragraphs that I thought might help during the birth; I packed those in the hospital bag along with my robe and headphones.

I set my alarm for 6:30am on Friday and made plans for my parents to pick up the kids; at 4am I woke up with a strong contraction. I waited for about thirty minutes, timing contractions that were already only 5 minutes apart, then woke up Shaggy and called the midwives and my mom.

The midwives came and set up their things; my mom came and got the kids; I rocked on an exercise ball; I got in the shower; I got on the bed and worked on letting go.

Your child is a boat on the ocean. There are storms and rain and fog. You cannot control the course. Every time you exhale, the boat is carried safely toward the horizon, its distant harbor and home.

You are the breeze.^

-Karen Maezan Miller

 
It came time to push but nothing was happening; I was at a loss as this was the part I had been really good at before. The midwives thought maybe the baby had turned face up; we found out later that she had just decoded to come out with her elbow wrapped around her face. Coaching through several different labor positions and extreme effort followed (my biceps of all things were sore for days afterward); the midwives kept checking the baby's heartbeat and telling me it sounded great, but that just made me feel like the baby wasn't trying nearly as hard as I was.

Finally her head was out, and with the next set of pushes her shoulders followed. I could hear her crying, but we weren't quite done with each other: the midwife said I'm sorry, but you're going to have to keep pushing--she's not all the way out yet. My giant baby required three sets of final pushes to get her whole body out.

And then she was born.

How could we be replete
with the flesh of ripe tomatoes, the unique
scent of their crushed leaves. It would take many
births to be done with the thatness of that.

Oh blame life. That we just want more.

-Enough, by Ellen Bass

there will be mustaches

Saturday was the friend party, and on Sunday, Lucy's actual birthday, we repeated last year's adventure in fishing. We caught far fewer fish and it was too cold to swim, but we had a good time and we managed enough fish for a birthday-girl fish fry appetizer (the rest of us pretty much had to keep our hands off).

Back at the house Lucy wore her birthday crown and opened a pile of presents, among which there was a piggy bank with stickers for decorating it, silk flower clips for her hair that used to be my grandma's, legos, a Spanish dancer dress-up outfit and strings of beads to match, clothes, lots of art supplies, and, the hit of the afternoon, a package of stick on mustaches.

For dessert we skipped the cake and went straight to the ice cream, Lucy's favorite. My mom had a soft serve ice cream maker she'd picked up at a yard sale and Uncle Lance offered a banquet of flavors and a pile of mix-ins to choose from: chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, oreos, mint chips, strawberries, butterscotch. Lucy requested vanilla.

It was a happy birthday.

first we had a fiesta, then we took a siesta

For Lucy's third birthday, I was inspired by my favorite page in one of her favorite books, Skippyjon Jones, and her love for tacos, and we went with a Mexican theme.

I took Lu to the party store and she picked out things she thought her friends would like that I thought would fit inside a piñata.

So: pink pegasus piñata stuffed with tiny plastic animals, bubbles, tattoos, chocolate, smarties, and dum dums, tissue paper pom pom flowers, cupcakes, vanilla ice cream, lots of friends, and a wading pool. And sun! And a makeshift cake tower.

I wasn't really sure how the piñata would go, since it seemed unlikely that toddler efforts would break the thing, but they didn't seem to mind one bit. In fact, I don't think they really would have cared if it was never broken, like just the idea of hitting a hanging thing while people cheered for you was entertainment enough.  Lucy was extremely encouraging, jumping up and down on the trampoline when other people hit the piñata, yelling: "You can do it! You can do it!"

Afterwards, most of them took one piece of candy or one toy and left the rest on the ground, but Lucy methodically made a pile and then put each item into her bag to save for later. I guess that's the difference a couple months can make at this age.

Lucy was showered with art supplies and beads and a kid-sized fishing boat hand-made out of cardboard by our insanely creative neighbor, and everyone had a really good time. 

happy, sweet, silly, lovely third birthday, little girl

oscar helps me get ready for lucy's birthday party

Oscar Pom Pom from Amber Broughton on Vimeo.

Also: I recognize that at 42 seconds this video is too long, and yet, I couldn't find any seconds I was willing to cut out.

friday cute shot

happy birthday, old man!

Marrying you was a pretty smart move. Go me.

friday cute shot

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