You didn't have your baby in a Hospital?!! No Drugs???

These are the shocked responses that I get when I tell people that I had my babies in a Birthing Center... with no drugs... and Not in a Hospital. If you've heard of people having their babies at home, well a birthing center is similar. They are usually in a home like setting, in an old house, equipped with everything they would need to deliver a baby safely.

My mom had 3 of her 4 children at home, so the idea of having my babies in a birthing center was not so strange to me. It felt natural to me. When I was pregnant with my first child and I was supposed to find a Dr. or Midwife, I had never heard of Birthing Centers. I knew of people having their babies either at home or in a Hospital. A childhood friend of mine referred me to Inanna, a Birthing Center, where she had delivered her 2nd child and had nothing but good things to say about her experience, so I knew immediately that's what I wanted to do.

I was actually surprised by the number of people that use centers like this, mainly because so many people I talk to have never heard of a birthing center or would even consider this as an option. This is the reason behind me wanting to share a little bit about it and my experience. My first and second experience laboring at the birthing center were completely different, but both were amazing and memorable and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

Laboring at the birth center the first time, laboring and everything was a new experience for me. They encouraged me to walk around, to eat, to drink, to do anything that felt comfortable to me. Hospitals don't usually allow laboring woman to eat, and usually they don't allow you to walk around. In my opinion, being able to move around helps a great deal in getting you through the laboring process. My husband and I spent many hours there walking around inside the bedroom and outside on the porch, sitting down to rest in the porch swing when I felt like I needed a change. The midwife was in the other room and would come in and check on me periodically. When it got closer to time to deliver, she stayed in the room monitoring the baby's heartbeat every few min, while she still allowed me to move around. I sat in the bath for a little bit to ease some of the pain and once I was out of the bath everything had progressed. The pain had increased greatly and I was offered a mild pain medication that would not harm the baby. It was my first pregnancy, so I figured if they were offering, I should probably accept. Two hours later my baby arrived and I was able to hold her in my arms without anyone trying to take her away. No epidural to potentially harm my spinal cord, no harsh drugs to affect my baby and we we arrived home with our baby just 5hrs. after she was born!

My second experience was a little different. After going in for my regular checkup and telling my Dr. that my water was leaking, she told me to stick around because I was in labor. At this point, I was in no pain, so my husband and I went and ate supper and returned to the birthing center. I was not having contractions, so my midwife suggested that we walk at the park across the street to start contractions, and Voila! About 30 min. later I was having contractions. Not little ones, but full blown contractions. I barely had time to blink between these very painful contractions. Slowly I moved my way across to the bath because the midwife suggested that it was time since, this time, I wanted to have a water birth. I couldn't believe that it was really time to push already...I hadn't been there but a couple of hours. Even though I didn't believe it was time...it was. My baby boy arrived very quickly with NO drugs and we were home within just a few hours!

I certainly can't give too many pros and cons of a Hospital Birth as I haven't experienced one, but I do know that when you have your baby in an atmosphere like the Birthing Center, your baby is there with you the whole time. The baby is never taken out of your sight. The midwives do everything they need to do right there with you in the same room. The midwives are there from the very beginning for you and that's who will be with you when your baby arrives. You don't see a million different people come in and out to have you fill out various paper work. It is a calm atmosphere with people around you that you know and love. You and your baby are cared for by people who really do LOVE what they do.

"It is my belief that women's bodies were designed by God to give birth; Therefore, pregnancy, birth and much of women's health care can proceed with little intervention, in most cases."
Jean Sala, MSN, CNM
(A quote from my midwife)

Many woman have a hard time comprehending labor without pain medicine, and I think this is sad. Society has made woman believe that having a baby has to be treated like a medical problem, not like the beautiful experience that it is. God created a woman's body to be able to bear children and it is possible to have a baby without medical intervention. Woman are capable of so much more than they believe. I wish that every woman could experience birth in such a beautiful way.

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Beautiful Wife

I have been struggling with my 'mommy body' once again. I dealt with it once before, after I had my first child, and I am now on another emotional roller coaster dealing with it again. I have good days where I am proud of myself for bringing two beautiful babies into this world, but on my bad days.... I struggle with the new image of myself and it's incredibly hard to feel beautiful.

The other day I looked at myself, really looked...and I was so upset with what I saw in the mirror. It's not that this body I have is sooo hideous, it's just NOT the body that I used to have...the one that I loved. Why did I love the old body? For one, getting dressed didn't almost bring me to tears. Getting dressed now, requires a lot more of me ignoring the mirror. To put it simply...I don't like what I see. I want to feel beautiful again, just like any woman wants, and I want to be beautiful for my husband. Yes, for my husband. He is certainly not the sole purpose of me wanting to look and feel beautiful, but of coarse I want to look beautiful for him....he is my husband. Being a beautiful wife for him means a lot to me.

But after many tears and me snapping out of it..I've realized that this body I have is temporary. I decided to think of it like this...my body is in recovery mode from giving birth, one of the most magnificent things that any woman will ever experience. I WILL get back in shape, with a lot of effort, but it WILL happen. I have decided that God gave me this child and if he wants me to have to work really hard to re-shape my body, then that's what I will do and I am going to enjoy every minute of it! Being a beautiful wife does not just mean being beautiful on the outside....it means being a friend and companion to my husband and being pleasant to be around. My goal now is to stop focusing so much on how I look in the mirror and focus more on my attitude in general and that will help me to be a Beautiful Wife.

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How Long Does Marriage Last?

I was browsing through another mom's blog and found this story that she had re-posted as well and wanted to share it. We should never take our spouse for granted and we should always remember how important it is to nurture our relationship with our spouse.

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

With a deep sense my heart to Dew. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce.. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.

She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Dew so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Dew.

When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce.
She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.

She requested that everyday for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning.. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Dew about my wife’s divorce conditions.. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully..

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mummy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time.. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Dew about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mum out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Dew opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Dew, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead.. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Dew, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other any more. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.

Dew seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead.

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

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"Family Night"

When my husband and I first married, we had only the one child, Ariana. Even though our lives were not quite as chaotic as they can be sometimes now, we still found it hard to make sure and spend quality time with her. My husband came up with the idea of 'Family Night'. The idea was to set aside time (make time) just for her and spend time as a family. We chose one night to be that special night every week, so she knew when to expect it. On this particular night, we would cook popcorn and put in a movie (one that she picked out) to watch as a family. Sometimes if we were running short on time for any reason, we would play a card game with her...UNO or something similar. Every now and then, we would have a 'special' dessert for family night, just for something a little more fun.

When our daughter, Ava, was born we found it more and more difficult to watch a movie on family night, due to all of the screaming coming from her (she was a difficult baby). More often than not, we chose to play a card game with Ariana while juggling Ava between the both of us.

Ava is now 2 and we have since added yet another baby to our routine of 'Family Night'. Ava is now slowly becoming more and more interested in watching movies, which makes doing family night a whole lot easier to manage, especially since our newest addition is calm by nature and doesn't cause us to plan everything around him.

Making sure that we are committed to 'Family Night' is important to us. It is the one and only time, out of our busy schedules, that we dedicate solely to spending extra quality time with our kids. The only problem that I have had with this lately is that I've noticed since having our babies, family night revolves around them and what they want (mainly Ava). Ava is now picking out every movie, which is fine, Ariana had many years to herself before Ava came along and is plenty old enough to understand that Ava is the little one that gets to decide now, but I've realized that much of our time now is spent juggling the baby and catering to Ava and a lot less time is actually spent with Ariana.

Family night is supposed to be about ALL of us spending time together, and since it is really the only time we have set aside for this, I came up with a different idea. In addition to watching a movie together, I thought it would be a great idea to let the girls cook supper AND a dessert, on this night, every week. This allows us to all be in the kitchen together and gives us a chance to spend a little more one on one time with each child (mainly Ariana, as she is the oldest and doing most of the work). By doing this, I feel like 'Family Night' is again, serving it's purpose. I guess as our family grows, we will have to adjust to different ways of doing things. What worked for us when we had one child doesn't necessarily work for our larger family.

And in addition to letting the kids cook supper on those nights, I am going to create a special recipe book for each of my girls (and my son, when he's older).....I got this wonderful idea from here.









Here, the girls are cooking Mexican Cornbread and Oreo Fluff for dessert.

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