Organizing, Shopping, Crafting Oh My!

For those that don't know, I LOVE projects! Any kind of project is enough to get me going in the morning, and keep me moving well past hunger and exhaustion! I love organizing projects, cleaning things out projects, scrapbooking projects, sewing projects, decorating projects, crafty projects, and shopping projects (when I only have a set amount to spend and a list of things to get and trying to find the best way to get the most for the $).

So, here I am a few days after Christmas and I have lots of projects! The first one I tackled was getting my house back to normal after Christmas. Taking down decorations and cleaning and repacking and putting stuff back up which usually looks a bit different cause I got some new items. Then, the shopping project. I got some $ as a gift and also had to take something back and there were some crafty things on my list. So I spent a couple of days (not the whole day) trying to find the best prices and somethimes going to some stores several times! Ok, so I don't care for that part but I like the challenge of trying to find a particular item.

For Christmas the thing I wanted most was a new sewing machine. And thankfully my mom bestowed this much wanted gift on me! I have grand plans of sewing some pillows/covers and then whatever strikes my fancy! I know, really ambitious. I bought some fabric and I have the pillow form and just need to sit down and play with my new machine. I also really want to learn to knit so I have my stuff ready and waiting for me to learn. I also got for Christmas the new Project Life kit and I'm waiting on it to come in so I can get started on that as well. AND, I have a little craft project for Trey's room that I'll share later.

It's a long list of new fun creative projects and I can't wait to get at them. You'll be hearing more about this for a while as this what's going on in my life right now.
Wish me luck!

Knitting, a new project

So, Sunday afternoon we're just hanging out at home not doing much when I start to feel yuck. My head had the pressure and a runny/stuffy nose and the glands on my neck start swelling and hurting. Yep, I had a cold. On Monday, we had plans with our besties to celebrate Christmas together (like we do every year) and I did ok considering. Yesterday I was useless. Thankfully David is home on vacation so he was able to take care of me and Trey. He had a great time playing mom, he even did the laundry! But by last night I was determined to be better today. I can only lay around one day then I need to get up and do something! So this morning even though I wasn't 100% I felt good enough to get out of the house and go to Hobby Lobby.

I'm going to learn how to knit. I got a book that shows you how and has lots of cute patterns. I got some needles and accessories from my bf on Monday. So today I went in search of some yarn. I'd never looked at yarn before, I mean other than glancing at it and going on my way. I wasn't that excited about HL's selection but I think for right now in learning I got some I'm happy with. I'm excited to start this new creative outlet. I don't know where it'll take me but I'm very excited about it. So, I'm going to spend the rest of the day/evening trying to learn how to make washcloths and hopefully start feeling better!

Christmas Traditions

I'm a guest poster on I Believe in Christmas, and I wrote about Christmas traditions and I would love it if you'd head over there and check it out!
Can you believe that Christmas is only 8 days away! We start our Christmas celebrations tonight with some out of town family. It will be so fun with Trey this year, he understands what presents are this year.
Merry Christmas!

More on Christmas Decorating

It seems this year some of my Christmas decor is an ever changing thing. So, I'm going to share some more pics of some of my decorations. Please excuse some of the blurry pics, I was in a hurry to take them and didn't want to get out the tripod.

This is the left side of our piano. The "joy" canvas is one I painted myself with the only nativity scene I left out this year.



Here's a view of the whole piano area. I put fake greenery from Hobby Lobby over the pics on the wall. The glass hurricane holds some green balls with some pine cones from my inlaws yard and my red candle holders.



Our tree. David and Trey decorated it by themselves this year and they did a great job. My tree skirt is just some red fabric with a snowflake sheer fabric. The sheer is just laid on top of the red and just tucked around the tree. I didn't sew this at all. And I love the way it looks!

It's hard to see in the pic but the candle is on a beautiful red plate I found at Ross for about $3, love it! Just some pine cones from the yard and an extra ornament.

This is one of the shelves on our bookcases. I love this look, it's got a clean but rustic feel. I don't have a clue where we got the sign, but the glass hurricane is from Ross for about $6 and more pine cones from the yard. The green snowflakes were from Target for $1 and our Yankee Candle.

Another pic of the mantle. The glass candle holders are from Hobby Lobby $5 for the pair (on sale). The big one was a HL buy from years ago. The red garland in it was from Target for about $3. The silver vase was from Ross a few bucks, all the greenery is from HL on sale, as well as the green balls. The apothicary jars are also from Ross, about $10 ea and I LOVE them!

Ok, so that's about it in my living room. I've really started to realized that I like a more natural look for Christmas decorating, ie the pine cones and greenery. Not as much of the usual Christmas decorations. I like the rustic with the pretty.

I would love to hear what style you prefer in your decorating, please share!

I'm writing this post as part of the Christmas 2010 Tour of Homes put on by the Nester.



New kind of Scrapbooking

Most of my albums, wow I have a lot!

I've been a scrapbooker for almost 12years. I had a friend that sold Creative Memories back then and I fell in love! I was recently married and had wedding pics I wanted to do something with. I'd always loved creating with my hands and my mom instilled in me the importance of keeping family memories/records. So I quickly jumped right in. After a couple of years I was getting bored with the selection of products that CM offered and found some SB stores and fell in love all over again! So many new things to play with! So I started changing the way I was SBing. I loved the hobby and I loved knowing I was giving my family a physical record of our life.

Trey's baby book

Fast forward to a few months ago. I had some pages waiting to get started and I had no motivation to get them done. Not always a surprise with me, I sometimes go in spurts with my creativity. I get very motivated and do a ton then go a couple of months before I'm ready to go again. But this time I just haven't felt like it. I think I've finally realized that maybe I need to change the way I SB.

I found that Becky Higgins (the SB queen) had created some kits that help you SB but not the traditional whole page kind of way. It's called Project Life and encourages you to record your everyday life not just the big events. This appealed to me cause I had no problem with the big events but struggled with the everyday stuff. It was also super simple and so it didn't take up a lot of time. So, I'm really hoping I can snag myself one of these kits soon (they aren't out yet but should be soon).

In November I found this app for my iPhone that's called Project 365 (I think it was free or really cheap). It reminds me daily to take a pic and then in the app it shows me my pics in a monthly view and also has a spot to write what was going on if you want. I've loved this! I really like looking back over the last month and seeing what we've done and all the cute things I've managed to photograph Trey doing!

This is a pic of what my November looked like.

So, I think I'm definitely changing the way I'm going to be SBing in the future. I might still do the occasional whole page but I think for most stuff I'll try to do a much quicker version.

I'd love to hear about how you record your family's memories or if you do!

Christmas Decorating

This year I changed the way I decorated for Christmas. In past years I’ve tried to fill every area of at least my living room with Christmas décor, and most of the time hitting the dinning room and kitchen as well. The tree would be loaded with ornaments and we were running out of room on it. Then last year we had a beautifully curious 18mo old. I had to seriously reconsider what was put out and on the tree. Our tree looked pitiful last year as only the top half had ornaments.



I’d grown tired of too much décor and the feeling of the room closing in. I also noticed that over the years we’d collected quite a range of different Christmas items. We had nutcrackers, snowmen, snowflake stuff, Santa stuff, nativity sets (several), plus tons of random items. In years past I’d have areas where all the nativity sets would go, all the nutcrackers and so on. But over the last 2 years some of my furniture has changed and it meant less surface area for stuff.


So this year I started to reevaluate what I wanted the house to look like and feel like. As I started unpacking Christmas decorations I quickly realized that most of it went right back in the box. I found myself only wanting to put up greenery, candles, and ornaments/beads/bells/pinecones in glass bowls, vases and apothecary jars. David and Trey decorated the tree and they only put up the favorite ornaments, leaving a lot in the box.

My mantle.
Please excuse the blurry pic, my living room is very low light, I have the hardest time taking good pics in there. And please don't look at the ugly rock that is my fireplace surround. But the actual mantle I'm pleased with.

I love it! It feels like the season of Christmas without the overpowering items all vying for my attention. I wanted our home to feel warm and festive and as usual comfortable and a place that David wants to come home to. I think that when I pack everything up again, I’ll reconsider keeping some of the things I didn’t put up. I don’t like storing things that I’m not using or going to use.

Are you being intentional about the way you decorate for Christmas or is it the same old same old?

Increasing Fertility

Because we’ve been trying to get prego for some time we’ve started considering that other things may be hindering us. So lately we’ve been on a journey to figure out what that could be. First up, I went to the doctor and he had all my hormones checked. The results came back all normal. I had been feeling for a while that something in my system was off. I thought it was my hormones but that’s not it. So it got me thinking that maybe it’s that I’m deficient in some vitamins or minerals. After reading a blog post on healthy eating during pregnancy, I started doing more research on what vitamins and minerals I need to make sure I’m getting what would greatly help/increase fertility.
I’ve been feeling more and more the last several months that we need to start eating better. Now, we don’t eat very badly to begin with. My wonderful hubby, David, loves to cook and so we have a lot of made from scratch meals. We never do boxed or frozen (store bought) meals. But, even though we do have good meals, we don’t have enough veggies with them, or all the vitamins and minerals we need. And I have a serious addiction to chocolate/baked goods….

So through my research so far, I’ve learned that magnesium and calcium are super important to keep in balance with each other. As too much calcium can cause depression and infertility. So more magnesium (pumpkin seeds, spinach, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds) will help with that. That acidifying foods can hinder fertility as well. Those foods are pork, beef, coffee, refined sugars and carbs and chocolate to name a few. Where lemons, watermelon, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, almonds are all alkalinizing foods (as well as many others).

These are just a few things I’ve found, but we are definitely going to be working on getting these areas in better shape. But I did think that some of this info was very interesting and I wanted to share.

I’d love to hear of any other natural ways to increase fertility, or other vitamins/minerals that will help.

Next Batch (Laundry Soap)

Well, I finally needed to make another batch of laundry soap. I checked my posts to see when I made it. It's been 4 months! I have loved knowing exactly what's in my laundry soap and knowing that there aren't any fragrances in it to irritate our sensitive skin. I also love that my initial outlay of money to get supplies were less than what I usually spend on laundry soap in the store and I was able to make the next batch using what I had bought last time. So, I have saved a lot of money these past 4 months! In case you don't know, we are a family of 3 and we use cloth diapers which I wash every other day. It took me less than 30 minutes to make and it was as easy as chopping and boiling, super easy!

Infertility

I’ve been out for a while. I’ve purposefully taken a hiatus. I’ve temporarily stopped reading my birth blogs and for the most part, have even stayed away from Facebook.


You are probably curious why I’ve decided to do these things. Let me start at the beginning. David and I have been trying to get prego for a little over a year now. We had problems conceiving with Trey (you can read about that here) and while I didn’t expect it’d be easy this time I was hoping it wouldn’t take as long this time around. I had stopped taking birth control right before Trey’s 1st b-day hoping it wouldn’t take too long to get out of my system. For a while I was ok each month when I knew I wasn’t prego. But Trey was still under 2 so I told myself it was better. Then he turned 2 and I knew the birth control still wasn’t completely out of my system (we will NEVER be taking that stuff again). I was gradually getting more and more upset/down with each passing month. The next months I started feeling like the birth control was either out or almost out of my system.

I was having a hard time within my social circle. It seemed like a bunch of women within it were getting prego all of a sudden. Some, like ones who weren’t married and very young and had “accidently” gotten prego were really hard to take. I’d been praying for a while, and even my MIL had said that God told her we’d be prego “soon”. By the way I hate that word “soon”. I’d heard that word from God before getting prego with Trey and at that time “soon” ended up meaning a year.

At church, recently, the subject has been “I Believe in you” and has covered believing in your children, others and such. But the last lesson, it seemed like God was telling me to believe in Him. I needed to believe that He would give me what He said He would give. But of course I don’t know when and patience was never a virtue I was good at.

So after this last time of another negative prego test, I hit the lowest I’ve been since before conceiving with Trey. I didn’t want to read anything about birth, or pregnancy and I withdrew from some social activities. I don’t want to think about starting the whole cycle over again, it’s just too much right now.

So, this is a hard lesson for me (as most lessons are hard to learn), I have to learn to believe what God is telling me, I have to learn patience and that God’s timing isn’t my timing (Trey’s timing was perfect). So for awhile I will be focusing on non birth/prego subjects to read and immerse myself in and maybe write on.

Quote

‎"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." - Winston Churchill

My OB Experience

Early in my pregnancy with Trey I had been seeing an OB. I had been looking for a new one before finding out I was prego. I had decided to have a consult with a friend’s OB which happened to be after I was expecting my period. I went to the consult and the OB was nice enough and I had told her we were trying to get prego and that my period was late. She asked if I wanted to take a test and I said no. In the back of my mind I think I already knew I was prego, and I didn’t want to call David and tell him over the phone. So 2 days later I took a test and it was positive. So I called the OB’s office and got started on my doctor visits.

This was during the fall and so flu season was kicking in. I think I might have had the flu once in my life and it was as a child and as I recall not that bad (for being sick that is). I’ve never gotten a flu shot, since I don’t get sick that often and I don’t get the flu and I don’t like shots I’ve never seen the need. I especially don’t see the need for a shot when I could still get it. So when the OB mentioned at my second appointment that I should get a flu shot I was nervous. I wanted to think about it and did the whole next month. I wasn’t comfortable with it; I didn’t like the idea of my baby getting the vaccine either. But I was torn, because the OB had played the “if your baby gets sick….” card.

So we went to the next appointment still undecided about the shot, when I told the nurse I wasn’t sure she told the OB and the OB came in and started “selling” the shot to me. I was so torn, I wanted what was best for my baby, but wasn’t sure this shot was necessary. She made me feel like I wasn’t being a good mama by refusing the shot. So, I got it.

Afterwards I wasn’t convinced I’d done the right thing. I think it was at that point I started looking for other birthing options. I thought that if the OB was going to badger me into a flu shot now, what would she do when it was time to birth? I was already having anxiety about being in the hospital. I hate hospitals, that’s where my loved ones got to die or have something terrible fixed. I hated the way they smelled and didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a bed with things hooked to me.

So, I figured I needed to look at a birthing center. I started doing my research and didn’t find any in my area, so then I thought “well, what about home birth?” You see my mom had had one of my sisters at home (the baby), and my other 2 sisters in a birthing center and had tried to have me at one too (I was the first and her labor stalled so she went to the hospital). So home birth wasn’t foreign to me. The more I thought about that option the more I loved it. I liked the idea that no one was going to tell me what to do or how to do it, that I was going to birth the way God designed it. It was at that point that I knew I was trading pain meds for a better environment, and the more I thought about it the more I was comfortable with it.

So after showing David my research on the safety of home birth and how the experience would be much more pleasant and that he could even catch the baby if he wanted (he did want to) we made an appointment to visit with the midwives. I was convinced immediately. They had already heard stories from other clients about my OB, and they weren’t good. I liked their laid back attitude about birth. Birth was a normal thing to them and they treated it as such. They were going to let me do what my body wanted me to do and offer suggestions along the way.

David and I talked afterward and decided to switch over to the midwives. He wasn’t very pleased with the OB. He watched as she bullied me into the flu shot and didn’t like her attitude about it. She was night and day from the midwives. The OB had the attitude that she knew everything and that I need to just sit back and let her make the decisions. I was an ignorant first time mom who didn’t know what it was really like. She would give me the illusion of making the decision but in the end it would be hers.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed with the OB? I have no doubt I still would have had a c-section. You see my friend who recommended her had already had 2 c-sections with her. I would have been induced and this would have caused a cascade of interventions, the pitocin would have made the epidural necessary and that would have put me stuck in a bed. All things I didn’t want. But with all those medications going through Trey what kind of long term damage would have been done to him? I know that the outcome would have been the same but the journey to get there would have been much more traumatic.

Several months after Trey was born we had a family friend (she’s a nurse) basically tell us that we should have been in the hospital. She wasn’t saying it outright but was telling us that we made the wrong decisions. I have no doubt in my mind that we made the right decision to use the midwives and attempt birthing at home. I’ve done lots of research since and constantly comb over the details of Trey’s birth and I don’t regret our decisions. None of them. We did what was best for us in every situation. While it definitely wasn’t what we had planned on, or hoped for, we have peace about his birth. For some reason his birth was supposed to be this way. Maybe to make my next birth experiences better, maybe to help other women trust their instincts and to help educate them. I hope that my story makes someone else’s story better.

Why I blog

I’m sure that there are tons of different reasons why people start blogs and continue to blog. I have a couple reasons myself. First, I was very hesitant to start a blog. When David first mentioned it to me I think I said something like “what would I write about?”. It took a long time before I started warming up to the idea of “going public”. But after doing lots of research on birth, and all things related I started feeling like I finally had something to say. I wanted a place to be able to put some of that info so I could reference it again when I wanted it. But that wasn’t my main reason. I wanted to be able to put info out there where others could get to it, but also a place I could challenge people’s thinking.


I’m starting to realize more and more that the majority of people make decisions based off of what those around them have either already done or what their community says they should do. The minority of people think twice about what others tell them and research for themselves. I think that we should all strive to challenge our own beliefs on everything and see if that’s how we really feel or if it’s just what everyone else is doing.

That’s what I want this blog to be about. I want to challenge your thinking on subjects. I want you to think about your view or opinion on a subject and make sure you have thoroughly thought it through. Changing your mind is not my goal. It’s showing you a different perspective or new info so you can be sure of your stance on the subject.

I love to read other’s blogs and be challenged in my thinking. I want someone to challenge it, because it forces me to look at why I think the way I think or believe the way I believe. Sometimes I change my mind sometimes I don’t. We need to constantly be growing and learning in life. At least that’s one of my goals. You become stagnant in life when you stop learning, and I definitely want to have a life fully alive.

Has there been anything recently that has challenged your thinking on a subject? What was it? Please share!

Our Story of Co-Sleeping

Before getting pregnant I had definite opinions about babies sleeping in our bed, I was against it. I couldn’t imagine letting our children come between David and I. We had been married for 9 years before getting prego, so it’d just been the 2 of us for a long time. We had no idea what it was like to have a child of our own, so we thought they would need their own space and not in our intimate space. After finally getting prego we talked about where the baby would sleep for the first couple of months. You see David had a sister who died of SIDS, so this left a fear in him. He didn’t like the idea of the baby being so far away in its own room and bed. So we agreed to a bassinette at the end of our bed and for about 3 months, then to his own bed after that.


So then I’m in labor expecting to have a home birth and after 2 ½ days of labor we transfer to the hospital for an emergency c-section. When I was finally awake again (I was under a general) and in my room after a very long labor, I was finally holding my long awaited baby boy Trey. That night when I was ready to go to sleep I knew I wasn’t going to put him in that plastic box to sleep. He was going to sleep in my arms, I wasn’t about to let him be away from me.

When we got home I didn’t like the idea of him sleeping by himself where I couldn’t touch him. So we put him in bed with us and we liked it. It gave us peace of mind to have him near. I also realized that having him in bed with us made it easier to breastfeed. And because I didn’t have to get out of bed to nurse, I could go back to sleep really easily.

We told our pediatrician we were co-sleeping, while she didn’t say anything against it she did tell us that we should aim to have him in his own bed by 6months because after that it would be harder to get him to sleep in his own bed. So from about 3-6 months I stressed about the day we’d have to put him in his own bed. I was doing what felt right and comfortable and was working for our family but this expert was saying to move him out by 6mo. So around 5mo we tried to put him in his own bed. He fell asleep in my arms and then I put him down. He slept for a few hours till he woke up wanting to eat but he didn’t want to go to sleep in his bed. So I put him back in our bed because we both needed to go to sleep.

I talked to David about it and he said that if this worked for us and we all loved it then it was ok for him to sleep with us past 6 mos. It made me feel better because he was saying exactly how I felt. (I’ve since learned to listen to my intuition more.) So, here we are at over 2 years old and still co-sleeping and we absolutely love it! It’s one of our favorite things to do as a family. It’s great on days we don’t feel like we’ve seen Trey enough, or on those days when I want to cuddle him more. We don’t have any plans on moving him out; I think we’ve just figured that when he’s ready to have a bed of his own we’ll move him out. We are working on baby #2 and we plan to not only co-sleep with the baby but keep sleeping with Trey as well. Our time with our children, while they are little, goes by so fast and this is just one way we fully enjoy them.

Skin to Skin saves lives

This is an awesome story how a mom brought her baby back from death because of skin to skin contact after birth. It's just amazing!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1306283/Miracle-premature-baby-declared-dead-doctors-revived-mothers-touch.html

Helping Others

This is a beautiful story of how tragedy can be used for good. I think it's easy to get wrapped up in our own problems and tough times and not see that someone else is going through the same thing. We can help each other through these times and gain strength and hope. I hope to use my experiences to help others as well.
Please read this amazing story.

http://www.drmomma.org/2010/08/mother-who-lost-her-baby-donates.html

Hospitals out for the money

I just finished reading the book Birth the surprising history of how we are born by Tina Cassidy. There is an excerpt I want to share on pg 224.


“Postnatal hospital stays are decreasing in length not only because insurance companies have begun to assess why childbirth is so expensive, but also because of a movement of women across the country who don’t want childbirth treated as an illness and have welcomed the opportunity to leave the hospital as soon as possible. Yet hospitals have for decades encouraged women to stay,” wrote Alexandra Lally Peters, a former president of the Maternity Center Association, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times in 1994. “Because these women, who aren’t really sick and who require minimal care, are paying plenty for their extra care, are paying plenty for their extra days. The maternity wing, as any hospital administrator will tell you, generally floats a hospital. The almighty dollar is speaking here.” (emphasis added)

This really struck me. I know money drives hospitals and Dr.’s to do a lot of unnecessary interventions, but I had no idea that the maternity ward carries the hospital. So, no wonder they don’t practice evidence based care, they know there is evidence against these interventions but they don’t care. The interventions make money. This is sickening and wrong. I know a hospital is a business but since when did doing business mean you harm your customers all for money. I thought business was supposed to be a win-win situation not a win-lose situation. And by the way your doctor and hospital and nurses were hired by you, so if you don’t like something they do or the way they do stuff FIRE THEM! As a child may say “they aren’t the boss of you”.

What I don’t get is that if insurance companies are so concerned with the money going out for maternity care why aren’t they asking more questions on why certain procedures are being done? Why does it seem like every women that goes to the hospital automatically gets Pitocin, whether needed or not? Why are most Certified Professional Midwives not covered by insurance companies? It’s considerably cheaper to cover them and the care they offer (and better outcomes) then for doctors.

One thing I did get from the book, one person can make a difference. There have been many people that have changed the way birth was treated for good and bad over time. I want to help women become informed about birth as I know many others who do. Hopefully change is on the horizon.

Obsessed with Vaginal Births

I was thinking in the shower this morning about birth, which is pretty normal these days. I was thinking about how I’m obsessed about the subject lately. I’m reading the book Birth by Tina Cassidy and I’m reading tons of blogs and Facebook pages all about birth and childrearing. Anyway, I’m especially obsessed with vaginal births. So I was thinking about this and wondering why I’m so obsessed with it all and one reason came to mind. I’m obsessed because as a women/mother I feel incomplete in this area. I went through labor but I didn’t go through the birth (read our birth story) and this makes me feel incomplete as a woman/mother. Sometimes I look at Trey and wonder how he got here and if he’s really ours. Sometimes I feel like we adopted him because I labored, went to sleep and when I woke up there was a baby. I feel very disconnected from the whole birth part. I know that his birth was supposed to be the way it was but it still leaves me feeling like I’m missing a part of who I am. I didn’t see or feel him leave my body; I didn’t even see him for about an hour after he was born. I didn’t “give birth”. I don’t feel complete in this area of my life.


The more I read the more I’m convinced that birth isn’t as simple as we tend to make it. God designed birth to be this wonderful dance between a mother and baby that affects us as women more than we give it credit. Having a vaginal birth is critical for us as women. It affects so many things, recovery time, bonding with baby, breastfeeding, emotional well being, future pregnancies/children, trust in themselves and others.

I’m not saying that women that can’t or don’t have babies are not complete. I’m saying that I’m not complete because of the way Trey was born. And it makes me wonder how many other women out there are feeling the same way.

All I know for sure is that I want desperately to birth my next babies vaginally. I want to feel and know that the baby came from me and to “be there” when they are born. I want to go through this rite of passage. I NEED to go through this rite of passage. Maybe I’ll finally feel more complete as a mother, we’ll see.

Fearful Decisions

When it comes time to make a decision I’m pretty thought through. I’d say about 95% of what I do and the way I do it and my values and beliefs is very thought through. I usually think about the simplest way to do something or what works best for me and my family. When I wanted to home birth, I had been researching it and hospital births, midwives and such. I told David what I wanted to do and why. While some people probably thought that I didn’t give it much thought, I had given it a lot of thought and we decided it was what was best for us (we still believe that).


When I read birth stories or blog posts or just hear conversations in passing I hear that a lot of people have made decisions based on fear. Let me give an example; in the medical community VBAC’s (vaginal birth after cesarean) are considered dangerous. If a woman goes to her doctor, more often than not they will hear that if they attempt a VBAC they could rupture their uterus and lose the baby and that it’s just too risky. Now let’s briefly talk stats, the risk of a uterine rupture for a low transverse scar (horizontal bikini cut) is less than 1%. Now let’s talk rupture, a rupture can be anything from a small tear (window) to a complete blow out. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t consider a less than 1% chance of something happening as “risky” or “dangerous”. (I’ll go into more detail on VBAC’s in another post). Unfortunately many women don’t hear the stats from their doctor; they only get the danger card, so they agree to a repeat c-section. They just made a decision out of fear. They didn’t do the research themselves to make sure what they heard was completely true. And instead of finding out that VBAC’s are a safe option for most women and that the risk is very small, they allow a repeat cs which is a LOT more risky. Ok, enough birth examples.

Why do we make decisions based in fear? We don’t make a good quality decision, one we can feel good about later on. We end up second guessing ourselves because we let fear rule our lives. If we made all our decisions based in fear, we’d never leave the house. And no one ever said that life was without risks. I’m not saying that we need to take needless risks, and of course everyone needs to do what’s best for themselves and their family. But decisions based in fear only breeds more fear.

I for one do my best to not make decisions out of fear. I research, I talk it through with David or friends/peers, and I pray. Then I make the best decision I can and go with my instinct. Don't let what you want to do be influenced by what you're scared to do.

A quote from the movie Kung Fu Panda from the old turtle master: “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”. Don’t make a decision based in fear because you will often end up with exactly what you set out to avoid.

Skin

Since I was about 12 years old my face has broke out. In my teens we all assumed it was just hormones and genetics. My mom took me to a dermatologist but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I learned to wash my face and moisturize and to take care of it as much as I could. In my twenties it still broke out. I kept waiting for that age when my face would realize I was an adult and quit breaking out. It didn’t matter what I did, wash my face religiously every morn and night, tried not to touch it (oils on fingers), got facials, or used masks. Then I got pregnant and my face cleared up. For the first time in my adult life my face was clear. But it was short lived. Then we come to Trey. At a couple months old he was getting baby acne but not just on his face, but his arms and legs. The pediatrician told me it was common and just to scrub the spots to help it go away. So I did and it didn’t. I chalked it up to genetics. Then one day reading I came across a blog post that talked about baby care products and the chemicals in them. They referenced a website (here) that would rate body products for adults and children. It puts the product on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being safest 10 most dangerous. So I checked out Trey’s soap and lotion. The soap was a 3 but the lotion was a 7. No wonder his skin was breaking out. So I changed his lotion and the breakouts have dwindled. Unfortunately he’s not totally clear but I’m working on that. So, this got me thinking, if there’s stuff in children’s body care products to make them break out why wouldn’t there be stuff in adult products to make me break out? I’m a bit slow in realizing this but I guess Trey and I have sensitive skin that just doesn’t handle most products well. So I’m on a mission to check and change the products I use to help my skin react positively. And I need to get my hormones in balance to help it too.

12 years and counting

12 years ago.

12 years ago (and 2 days, I'm a bit behind) David and I started seeing each other every day. We'd been dating for a couple of months but he'd been out of town most of the time. But on Aug 1st we were able to start seeing each other every day. We have seen each other every day for the past 12 years, we've never spent more than 24 hours apart. It hasn't always been easy to do but we make it a priority in our marriage. We love that this is part of our story. I love you David!

Our Birth Story (Trey) from David's perspective

Their first meeting.

It was the 4th of July, fireworks were nice. We headed back home ready to get into bed. Marixa never really did. Her labor started at midnight. We called the midwives in and for the next two and a half days Trey did not want to come. Early Monday morning Ann, midwife extraordinaire, asked me to pray for Marixa’s labor to pick up and become consistent. The very next contraction after the prayer started her on her way. God answered the prayer. We called Marixa’s mom Bunny and asked her to come over early Monday morning. She sat with Marixa and helped her work through her labor. My Mom & Dad and our friends came over around six that morning. Around 7 we prayed for Marixa’s water to break. Within just a few minutes it had broken. God answered another prayer. Labor continued as they tried to get Trey into position for delivery. His head would come down far enough that they could feel it, but it was determined that every time Marixa would push, Trey's heart rate would drop. Around 11 we prayed again. God had answered two of my prayers almost instantly before. It was my hope that He would answer our prayer for Trey to come here at home. Within 15 minutes I realized that not receiving an answer was the answer. Trey's heart rate was not stable and it was time to go to the hospital. Marixa, midwife Margarett, and I loaded into Bunny's Explorer and we rushed to OU Medical Center. Bunny drove fast, but remained much calmer that I was. We got there quickly ad had to get out of the car a few hundred feet from the door. So, I did what any husband would do, I picked up my pregnant wife and carried her to the door. A very kind man say us coming and brought us a wheelchair. We rushed to admitting. It took some stress away when we got to the hospital because they were able to hook Marixa and Trey up to monitors. However, the stress quickly returned when we figured out that an emergency C section would have to be the delivery method. I was supposed to go back and be with Marixa when she went in for delivery. They had to prep her and I was to be called back 15-20 minutes later. 50 minutes later a nurse with little tact came to inform me that Trey had been born and Marixa was in recovery. She "apologized" for not coming sooner to tell me. I was supposed to have helped delivery my son at home, and not I had missed the whole thing. Emotions swept over me and I lost it. My dad came into our room and had to calm me down. The rage I felt, along with the hurt, pierced me to my core. Where was my wife? Was she ok? Where was my son? Was he all right? What had happened? After I calmed down I made my way to the nurses’ station to find out what was going on. She told me that I would be called back shortly for the delivery of my son. I told her that would be hard since I had been informed it had already happened. She promised me that she would find out what was going on. I appreciated the concern in her eyes as she went to do what she had said. I went back to the room to wait. Within five minutes the door to the room opened. All of the stress that I had felt for three days melted away. The most perfect little creature I had ever seen was handed to me wrapped in a blanket. I had been introduced to my boy. I told him hello and who I was and that I loved him very much. He looked up at me, straight into my eyes and said, " Uh, whah." I can only assume that meant, "Hi dad." He didn't cry. He just stayed there with me. I took my shirt off and cuddled him skin to skin and waited, surrounded by family, for his mother to get there. The wheeled Marixa in within the hour. She had been through 65 hours of hell. God had given us a piece of heaven in return. It wasn't until later we were told the rest of the story. Trey had meconium in his amniotic fluid. He had it in his lungs. When they delivered him they had to revive him. We could have lost him. God had answered my prayers and the prayers of many others. Through it all He had kept His hand on them. They were safe. God watched over us and showed us his love in so many ways. We could visibly see his hand protecting us that weekend. It was awesome. It was humbling. I am forever grateful.

Our Birth Story (Trey)

This is a long story but it’s necessary to fully understand the decisions that were made.

In labor

Our birth story doesn’t begin with the positive pregnancy test. It begins years before. David and I got married in Jan ’99. Like most young couples we wanted to wait a few years before having children. So after about 4 years we got off birth control and didn’t really “try” but we didn’t prevent it. We thought if it happens great, if not it’ll be ok too. But after a year of this we really started wanting to get prego. So we started “trying”. Late 2004 David found a knot in one of his testicles that was very sore. So he went to a general Dr. and was told it was probably an infection but he’d refer him to a specialist if he wanted. One visit with the urologist and David called me to say the Dr. thought it was cancer and 2 days later he was to be in surgery. The Dr. wanted to see if it was cancer and if it was remove the whole testicle. It 3 weeks till Christmas, we were selling our house and David had cancer. The next month David went in for his monthly CT scans to make sure it hadn’t moved up his limp nodes in his stomach. Jan was clear, but Feb showed cancer. We had a decision, another surgery to remove the limp nodes, or chemo. Now most people know that chemo can sterilize a person and that definitely was on our minds. We didn’t feel comfortable with the surgery option so after banking some sperm, David started chemo treatments in March. I won’t go into all that here but it was a rough 3 months. The end of May gave us good news, no more cancer. For the next year we healed and half heartedly “tried” again. But we didn’t feel very hopeful. Then one day we talked to a chemo nurse and she said that none of her patients were sterilized permanently, and she said give it about 2 years. So we just kept trying and praying. 2007 came and we were serious about it again. We tried hard to do everything right to get prego. In Sept I went looking for a new OB/GYN and had a consultation with one. I told her I was late and we were trying. She wanted to know if I wanted to be tested but I declined. I’d been taking tests for months and of course they all said negative, so I didn’t really expect a positive and in the back of my mind I thought if there was a chance it was positive I didn’t want to tell David over the phone. So I waited another 2 days. I woke up Thursday morning dreading taking the test, but I did it. When I went to look at it I went into shock, there were a lot of lines! So I ran to the trash can to get the instructions and double check myself. David had woke up and saw me running around and asked what it said. I was barely able to croak out “I’m pregnant”. He jumped out of bed and I had him double check it. We were both in shock, we’d waited for a long time to get this baby! For the next couple of months we did the usual OB appointments and I started doing research on everything labor, birth, baby related. This was fall/winter time and everyone was getting flu shots. I never get one, I don’t get sick very easily and I don’t remember really getting the flu. I also wasn’t very comfortable with getting one while being prego. So we went to our next appointment and they wanted to give me my flu shot. I told them I wasn’t sure I wanted to do get it. My OB comes in and says that I should get it because I wouldn’t want my baby to get it and die. Yep, she played the dead baby card. Now I certainly didn’t want that but I didn’t feel comfortable with it either. So, I agreed to it, which I ended up regretting. This visit was a changing point for me; I no longer felt I could go to a hospital to have my baby. I knew women had been birthing forever and it was a natural thing and I didn’t feel like going to a hospital where they would insist on regulating everything. I also have never liked hospitals, that’s where you go for surgeries or to die. So I researched birth centers and midwives. When I couldn’t find a birth center close to home, I started considering home birth. A bit of background here: I’m the oldest of 4 girls, my mom had wanted to have me at a birth center but her labor stalled after a couple days so ended up at the hospital, the next 2 sisters were at a birth center and the last one was at home. So home birth wasn’t foreign to me. The more and more I researched the more and more I got excited about it and knew it was right for us. I had to convince David but after showing him lots of info he really liked the idea too. We found Heaven Sent Birth (HSB) midwives who do home births and after meeting with them, hired them. I loved going to visit with them for each appointment. It was so laid back, they were fun to talk to, we could just chat about whatever was going on or questions I had. I also knew exactly who would be at my birth, as it was just the two of them Margarett and Anne. It was fun, not routine. I was a client, a friend not a patient. Anyway, I had a great pregnancy no complications other than extreme back pain from my office job. Thankfully, my position was being eliminated by the end of June, and in May it was almost nonexistent so I asked to be able to go home. I’d been having Braxton Hicks starting in May and was hopeful that it wouldn’t be much long (due date June 14th). Well my due date came and went, then my birthday (20th), then July started, then it was the 4th. We did our usual holiday activities and I had been having contractions all day; but since I’d been contracting for over months I didn’t really take them seriously. When we went to bed about midnight they had picked up. By 3:30am I couldn’t sleep and woke David up. We timed them and when they were about 3-5 minutes apart we called Anne and Margarett, and then everyone else (our parents and our best friends). I was checked and told we still had a ways to go. So I labored well into Saturday. By late Saturday I hadn’t progressed very far so they sent everyone home and tried to get the contractions to slow down so I could get some sleep. I slept fitfully that night and I think we ended up calling them back by Sunday morning, as things had picked up again. I was checked again and still not as far along as I should be, so I went for walks and paced the house between contractions. Sunday night was the same as Saturday night and Monday morning came and at about 7am while being checked, my water finally broke, but it had meconium in it (sludgy meconium). Anne and Margarett were concerned but since I had started feeling the need to push we just went with that for a while. I pushed for a few hours but wasn’t getting anywhere. They said I was only dilated to about 8cm and it seemed like his head was getting stuck because of it. By early afternoon I was exhausted, having not eaten anything since Friday dinner because I’d throw up at every contraction and I wasn’t getting any sleep. My contractions were slowing down and my labor was coming to a halt, and by then every time I pushed his heart rate would drop. So Margarett finally said that she thought it was time for me to go to the hospital. I didn’t like that idea at all, but David and I talked about it and then asked my mom what she thought (she’d been helping me since Sunday) and everyone agreed that I needed to go to the hospital. So they rushed me out of the house, with a lot of help getting into to car. Mom drove with David in front and Margarett with me in the back checking Trey’s heart rate and calling the hospital, while I sat sidewase holding onto the seats for support. We rushed to OU Health Center and Mom dropped us off at the door and David carried me in till someone was kind enough to find me a wheelchair. We finally got into a room and they started monitoring me. They put a monitor on Trey’s head and a catheter in me (yuck). They watched me for a couple hours hoping that his heart rate would pick back up to the point where they could give me some pitocin and I could deliver him vaginally. But it wasn’t going up and I had gotten to the point where I was so exhausted that I couldn’t have pushed him out. They said that I should consider (I like that they asked me) doing a c-section. After talking to David, Mom and Margaret I agreed to the one thing I never wanted from my birth experience. They were considering this an emergency c-section since his heart rate was low and not picking up. After everyone came in to say hi before I left, they wheeled me out and David was going to follow as soon as they got me ready. They put a spinal in and then they asked if I could feel certain things at my waist and every time they asked me, I could still feel it. So they said they would have to “sleep” me and that meant that David couldn’t come in with me. I don’t remember much after that, except that they had put the curtain up between my head and belly and they stretched my arms out beside me (I felt extremely vulnerable). Then I was out and I knew there was lots of movement and noise and colors, then the colors changed and they pushed on my stomach and I almost came off the bed, I could feel it but not quite. Then I heard David talking to me and I asked him if we had a baby. He said yes and put Trey in my arms.

Margarett worked at getting Trey to start breastfeeding since I wasn’t totally awake yet. I couldn’t really see for a few hours, or at least my eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. After a couple of hours they moved me to my room and I was starting to feel normal again and was able to get a good look at my baby. My beautiful baby boy. Trey. We found out later that Trey had an apgar score of 1 at birth and 8 a few minutes later (0 is dead, 10 is perfect). We almost lost him but we didn’t, he didn’t even have to go to the NICU!

I know that some people would say that it was because I was at home that all of this happened and that it was dangerous of me to try to birth at home. But as I look back on my decisions, I don’t regret any of them. They were exactly what were needed at the time. I am actually very glad I was at home even though I had to go to the hospital. If I’d been at the hospital the same things would have happened there too, but I would have ended up with lots of interventions and ended up with a cs sooner. And then I would have looked back and thought that I didn’t do something right and that’s why he had to be born that way. Instead I know that no outside force or interference caused his birth to be the way it was. I know that I was a true emergency cs, and looking back I know I made the right decision to not get pitocin. If I had been in my normal mind I would have said give me pitocin, but my labor mind knew better. If I’d chosen pitocin I really think we would have lost him, it would have been too much for his little body to handle.

Having Trey was hard on all of us, David and I both missed the birth of our son but I think it was best that way. It would have been terrible to watch helplessly as they tried to resuscitate him. I was the last one to see my son, all family and friends got to see him first. Thankfully David was very careful in not letting anyone hold him until after I did. I had told David while prego that I wanted skin to skin, and since that wasn’t possible for me, as soon as he got Trey he striped his shirt off and put him skin to skin because he knew it was important to me. I definitely didn’t get the birth that I wanted but it turned out to be what was needed for Trey. I don’t know why God wanted Trey to be born the way he was; maybe I needed to see both sides of birth, maybe I need to be an advocate for natural births, home births, &/or VBACs. It’s definitely leading me on a journey.

Quote

"Find your passion, whatever it may be, and you will find great things happen for you, to you, & because of you." T.Alan Armstrong

Green Birth

We all know what “being green” is. But have you thought about it in regards to birth? Chances are most haven’t. But we should.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m starting to regard myself more and more as “green” although I don’t care for the term. I prefer saying I’m being responsible with my environment, my home, and our bodies. I’m starting to be more conscience about not only what we eat, but about what goes on our bodies too.

Now, what does this have to do with birth? I’ll get to it.

When we’re pregnant (when I say “we” I mean as a society), we do all kinds of things to give our babies the best start we can. For instance, we may cut caffeine out of our diets, we eat more fruits and veggies, we don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol and refrain from taking most medications. Why? We don’t want to harm our babies, or hinder their growth or cause birth defects. And many studies have shown links between those substances, or foods that either help or hurt the baby.

I’ve heard many women say they are very careful about what medications they give their children, even what vaccines they do or don’t give them.

How many women go into a hospital to give birth and get pitocin and pain medications? Now how many women know the risks/benefits of these drugs? How many have thought twice about the fact that these things are drugs? How many assume that since Dr’s endorse them they are ok or that since “every body” uses them during labor/delivery that they are perfectly safe? I think many women blindly assume that since they are commonly used (to the degree many Dr’s/nurses don’t know what an unmedicated birth looks like) that there are no risks at all. I could go into a lot more detail but we’ll save that for another post.

So why do we just sign up for these drugs without a second thought about the effect they have on our babies. If we don’t even take an Advil while we’re prego then why would we give our baby a narcotic while it’s trying to be born? It’s not healthy for the baby. Why do we work so hard to have only good things go into our bodies while prego, but throw that out the window when in labor? I’ve heard of women asking their Dr’s/nurses the risks of pitocin and pain meds while in labor only to hear that there are none. This is a lie. If it’s not good for me to take an over the counter drug like Advil while prego, then why would it be ok to take a narcotic that is only administered by needle in the hospital, while prego? (By the way, I’m referring to non-emergency situations).

Being green is about taking responsibility with your actions, and I’m big on that. We need to be more responsible with regard to our births, realizing that some things do carry risks. We need to be educated, so we know what we are agreeing to when giving birth. Don’t ever let someone make decisions for you regarding your birth.

Quote

“Be not a slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”


~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pregnant in America

I met with my VBAC support group last night and we watched Pregnant in America. This was the 2nd time I’ve seen this movie but I’d forgotten how good it was. It’s the journey of a couple expecting their first child. They travel around the country and world researching birth and interviewing childbirth experts. It covers a wide range of topics including: home birth, hospital birth, doctors, midwives, doulas, pitocin, epidural, cytotec and natural birth. It’s a very well put together movie with very important information. Anyone expecting a baby should watch this movie and watch it with their partner. You can pick it up at the library or Amazon. Here’s the link to their website.


The movie is pro home birth (which I like) and does have a lot of info regarding it. I am very pleased with this fact because I am a home birth fan. I believe for me and that in most cases home birth is the safest option for birthing. I believe very much that women’s bodies know how to give birth even if our brains don’t. I believe that a laboring woman shouldn’t have to fight with her care givers during labor to get what she wants or doesn’t want (& that seems to be the case in hospitals). I believe that a laboring woman should be left alone unless there are medical reasons to interfere. We need to be supported in birth not rescued from birth. I know that not all women can or should home birth, but this group of women is the minority not the majority. The medical community sees birth as a medical event, where women need to be “saved” from birth. I don’t see it that way. I see the moment of my child’s birth as a wonderful, beautiful event and I don’t need to be saved, I need support and then to be left alone to let my body do what it needs to bring my child into this world.

Jamie's birth video

I wanted to share a wonderful birth video.

My friend Jamie had her 2nd baby at home in her tub with the same great midwives that I used, Margarett and Anne from Heaven Sent Birth. She had an amazing natural, peaceful birth in the comfort of her home. Yes obviously it was painful for her but you wouldn't know it by talking to her. She loved giving birth to her babies and loved that it was natural.
You can watch it here.

Thanks Jamie for sharing!

Homemade Laundry Soap UPDATE

About 2 weeks ago I posted that I had made a batch of homemade laundry soap. At the time I hadn't tried it out yet. But I've used it the last 2weeks and it works very well! With the recipe I have there is not a fragrance to it so the clothes only come out smelling like fabric softner (store bought) or with our cloth diapers (can't use fabric softner) they just smell nice and clean. On my batch of soap it didn't have the consistancy that the recipe said but it seems to still be working just fine. So far I'm really loving that I made our own laundry soap and that it works! So I would reccommend that you try it.

Now, I'm off to try my hand at some homemade household cleaners as well!

Pitocin NOT Approved by the FDA for Elective (non medical) Induction

This is a must read for anyone considering being induced. Unfortunately we trust our care givers completely and think that they would never do anything that would harm us, when this isn't always the case. Please read about the dangers of elective pitocin use.

New ACOG Less Restrictive Guidlines on VBAC

This is great news for the birthing community! The ACOG has finally recognized that women need more options and that VBACing can be a safe option for most women. Hopefully we'll start seeing this support in our hospitals and care providers. And I pray we start seeing a significant decrease in c-sections.
Here's the ACOG release.

Birth posts

I'm going to start posting a lot of links, articles, and blogs on birth and all it's related info. This is a passion of mine and since this is my blog I want to have a place to keep it all together for my future reference as well as to share with others. I hope that you read this info and think about it and use it to make purposeful decisions.

HBAC blog

I absolutely love this article/blog about HBAC (home birth after cesarean)! She give great stats about the risks of home vs. hospital and VBAC vs. repeat c-section. And I love the picture of the apple, it completely describes a c-section. Check it out here.

What Triggers Spontaneous Labor

This is a great article I found on a blog I love to follow. It goes to show you that the baby knows when it's ready to be born. We shouldn't be trying to force labor to start before the baby is ready. Check out the article here.

Green Christianity

I’ve been really interested lately in being more responsible in my environment. I’ve been reading many blogs and Facebook pages about ways others are being responsible.


I’m a Christian and like so many others we have a knee jerk reaction (unfortunatly) to what “environmentalist” and “tree huggers” have to say. But a couple of years ago I heard a pastor talk about Christians needing to be more responsible with the world God gave us. Well that touched a nerve in me; I was doing a little bit but I wasn’t doing enough. I was looking at the people, saying to recycle and such, like they were crazies. I was discrediting them because I didn’t like their politics/ethics/religion without ever listening to their message. I’ve since changed the way I look at this.

Now I recycle what I can, have a small garden with plans to expand, I use cloth diapers and even made my own laundry soap. But when I tell others what I do (Christians) I get excuses why they can’t do the same, looks that say “I’m crazy” or people saying I’m turning into a liberal tree hugger. I just laughed it off at first but then I started thinking that I was just being responsible with what God gave me. If God created this world and all that’s in it then I as his child should be taking good care of it. I should take more time and effort to recycle, not waste food and water and not use so many poisons (cleaners, pesticides, etc). I should honor what He’s given me and my family. It disappoints me that so many Christians (not all) turn away from doing these things because people we don’t agree with on other issues endorse it. We should be more concerned with being good stewards with our environment, just like He called us to be with our money and children. As Christians we should be the ones leading the masses to take better care of our environment and all that it entails.

Quote

The path to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear.

Homemade Laundry Soap

Ok, so I just finished making my first batch of homemade laundry soap. I'd heard about it first on 19 Kids and Counting, and thought it was a cool idea. Then a friend on Facebook posted that his wife made her own laundry soap and they were kind enough to post their recipe and instructions. So, I thought why not give it a try? Since we do cloth diapers, we obviously do a bit more laundry than other 3people families and from the cost savings I heard about I knew I had to try it. So this morning I did it and I have to say it wasn't very hard. It took maybe about 30min to make. So, now I have to wait 24hours to set up then I can use it. When I do, I'll be sure to post how I liked it and such.
I don't remember exactly how much everything cost to get but here's a general breakdown:
I usually buy All laundry soap and my last bottle was 115.5fl oz at around $9 @ Target
I picked up the Borax @ Target for I think $3
I picked up the Washing Soda @ Homeland for around $2
I already had a bar of Ivory soap, but if I had to buy it I think I could have bought a 6pk for around $2
Already the price is cheaper, plus the batch I made should last around 6mo (not sure yet but we'll see), and I still have plenty of ingredients to make several more batches. So I'll be saving a ton!

Here's the recipe:
Liquid Laundry Soap:

1 Bar Fels-Naptha soap or Ivory (Homeland on the laundry soap aisle - by the Spray N Wash)
1 ½ cups borax (Target or Homeland)
1 ½ cups washing soda (Homeland on the laundry soap aisle)
5 gallon bucket
Water
Large pot

Grate or cut Soap into small pieces, add to large pot, add 12 cups of water, boil until dissolved.
Add Borax & washing soda, stir until dissolved
Add 8 cups of hot water into 5 gallon bucket
Add soap mixture Stir
Add 2 gallons and 12 cups water to mixture
Let sit 24 hours, stir well and divide into containers.

Note: The consistency will be like jelly or pudding when it sets up.
Note 2: I use the same amount per load as store bought detergent."

2nd Birthday

Today is my son's 2nd birthday and like most parents on their child's birthday I'm remembering his birth. Unfortunately in my case I can only remember my labor and then about an hour after he was born. I had to have an emergency c-section and had to be knocked out during my surgery/his birth. (I'll go into more detail some other time) This makes me very sad that I wasn't "there" when he came into the world but he thankfully turned out healthy and perfect. Even though his birth was a rough start for all of us, I was so content when I finally was holding him and nursing him. I was finally who I was meant to be, a mother. Trey has brought so much joy, healing and fun into our lives, more than we ever would have expected! He is a bright, happy, loving child and so I say happy birthday to him and happy becoming parents day to David and I.

First Post

I'm slow to jump on the social networking bandwagon, but my husband David is all over it! He finally talked me into a FB account about a year ago and I've slowly gotten into it. Over the year I've been able to start following some groups/organizations or just other women who think like I do. I've been able to learn a lot from them and it encourages me to do my own research in those areas. This blog is like the next step for me as a place I can start collecting some valuable information for me and others who are interested, as well as a place I can share who I am. I want LIFE ON PURPOSE to be a place that I can encourage others to think about the decisions they've made or rather not made. Unfortunately in our culture we are big on doing what everyone else does because we don't want to stick out or have people make fun of us, and I get that. But a lot of times we just go along with the crowd on what they do and then when things go wrong we wonder what happened. I want to encourage you to think and to chose. I also just want to share fun stuff as well.