Homebody

Well, I'm not really a homebody. I think I'm gone more than I'm here, for the most part. But we haven't left the house a whole lot in a few days. Why would we? In between "do nothing" days (which honestly are anything but), we had friends over on Sunday.

Today, Boyness and I spent several hours harvesting the wild overgrowth around us. A portion of the returns (about 1/4 of what we packed up today), in our uber-high-tech drying bags and ready for placement:



As we started to get ready to go inside, we had some visitors:





They're so nice, it almost makes you forget that they're the buggers that eat everything in your garden.

Almost.

Boyness found the one and only strawberry to escape the deer, so of course he got to eat it. He said it was good.

We followed the deer down the driveway, trying to be quiet on bare feet, but the little one was pretty unsettled by us, so once they'd gone around the bend we let them be.

Monday is Fun-Day

Or something like that. Our schedule now works out where Fran and I are both off work (though I'm not off call) on Mondays, so it is our "do something" day.

Yesterday, we packed the back of the van with bikes and headed off to Point Defiance, a spot that has a lot more going for it than biking (which we didn't really get pictures of).

First the rose gardens. All of the kids love the rose gardens. Even Boyness, who despite the numerous scowls in the pictures, sighed and said "I love this place" just before we left.





We met friends at a playground, and then broke up into groups. I took the girls on a longer bike ride, pulling BittyPrincess behind me. The rest of the group stayed behind and got their bike on near the picnic tables:



And then went into the Fort Nisqually Living History Museum. Boyness proved his usefulness by grinding some coffee beans:



And I hear that they all got off (more than a little) on the trading post stuff:



It was a gorgeous day yesterday.

Hehe

More pictures coming...finally...

Fourth Festivities

Spent the fourth this year with a gaggle of friends, watching fireworks from the beach:





We followed it up by camping in their backyard. And then getting called away in the middle of the night. "Your job SUCKS," says ~L~, as she grabs hold of BittyPrincess. "Only the hours," I say, "only the hours." Which of course is what she meant, but we were too blurry to interact properly at the moment. She went to sleep and I went to a lengthy labor. I'm becoming convinced that if you're 8 or more years since your last baby, you might as well be having your first.

Assorted Picture Fun

In the summer, we play hard. We have several inertia-less months to make up for, after all. Those winter standby activities - blogging, online discussion boards, sitting on our asses, actually getting a chance to watch the movies we rent from Blockbuster before our week is up - ah, they are gone. So in the interest of not overexplaining what amounts to lots of activity, here's a bit of a picture dump:

Friends, Fun

Marie and her crew came over today. I ditched them for a couple hours to go to a home visit, and then M and her hubby ditched me for a few hours while they went to spend some time eating and shopping sans children.

The six kids that were here today flowed in and out of the house, doing assorted kid things, and having a wonderful time.

Boyness was exposed to dairy yesterday, in one of those freaky "aw crap, oops" kinda things. Marie has recently figured out that her kids can have casein but not whey, and she grabbed a product she knows is safe for them (which has always in the past meant it would be ok for Boyness) and he got some swallowed before we got to it. So Boyness had a series of grouchy and slightly out of control episodes.

Despite that, it was a fun day. It feels good to have friends over for once.

The kids ignore the fact that we've got a lot of stuff to explore out there until friends come over, so it is really nice they've been re-inspired that way.

I am officially out of brainpower, and this post shall remain disjointed. I am off to get the kids abed at a slightly more reasonable hour tonight, with high hopes for a good sleep for myself.

Senior, BAYBAY

Provided, of course, that I actually pass the rather grueling test I just took. Haven't failed one yet, so the chances are good...still, this is a rough exam and the pass/fail mark is 80%.

There are some major things that need doing before graduation, but I am assured that I am DONE writing learning objectives.

Spent the night before last in a bitty apartment that was very cute and warm and artistic and welcoming. It is so interesting when you get to the home of someone you've seen in clinic and suddenly see a whole new "them." Her home was lovely. We draped ourselves on various surfaces and slept in turns and between contractions as she labored through the night.

Did my first newborn exam yesterday afternoon. It was one of those schizophrenic different-preceptor issues, where my previous preceptor always gave me "mom duty" and the current ones tend to give you "baby duty" first, so my experience-lag was irritatingly large there (I have a level of competence with the mom stuff that would tend to make these particular preceptors think I should know what I'm doing with the baby stuff, when I don't).

I am tired. I look at my schedule and I don't see where I'm going to catch a decent night of sleep in the next three days. I've reintroduced caffeine into my life, just by needing an extra nudge into awareness too many times in the last couple weeks, and I'm pretty sure my dependence is ramped up to the withdrawal-headache level again.

So Close...

I'm so close to the end of quarter I can smell it. One more assignment. One more test. And then I'm done with Junior year.

I still have 2/3 of my practicum requirements ahead of me. Ouch.

Interviewing next week to do some labor assisting (read - extra) work with a midwife that is technically in Lewis County. Contemplating (like calling rental agencies) a move to Gig Harbor. And yes, both my current (in Seattle) and probable future preceptors (Olympia) are ok with that. I'm not sure what the future holds in terms of moving to my next really full-time placement (Olympia), since I've all but set a date for starting but I'm still uneasy about fitting well with the practice. All of this takes mental energy that I don't have right now.

Since this time last week, I discovered that it was indeed possible to put 1000 miles on a car in a week without going on a road trip. I saw someone with her arm in a uterus up past her elbow...we called 911, but by the time the medics arrived the placenta had finally delivered, we'd cleaned up, and the baby was nursing. I saw two amazing women give birth to big hunks of babies in their homes and lay down in their own beds to hurse, happy happy happy.

I am somewhat eager to see a third, for whom I've developed a strange liking almost despite myself. It is odd how you feel more attached to some women than others. And I know that it is true in reverse; there are a few women who have specifically asked for me in labor, and others that couldn't care less whether I was there.

Somewhere in this full time unpaid midwifery student work out of home madness, I need to finish the quarter in the next few days. It will be nice to put away the binders for a few weeks. Almost forever. This was the last quarter of the rather intense Midwifery Care courses, and next year I'll see a far lighter didactic load. So close.

Non-Apocalyptic Day at Clinic

And yes, there was a question about the apocalyptic-or-not nature of my day. I took the kids with me to (a half day of) clinic, you see. They did completely fine. No barging in at inopportune moments (or any moments). No fires. No damaged property. We even got some time in the sun when I took them across the street to the park during a break.

Girliness has been acting downright hormonal today. "Mama," she asked me, "do you ever feel all irritated and frustrated for no reason?" "Yes, hon, sometimes I do. Lots of people do." "Well what do you do about it?" We discussed the merits of long showers, walks, talking to friends on the phone, and books in bed. I think she feels slightly less like snapping her brother's head off at the moment, but damn. She was, quite frankly, a bitch to her brother today whenever he came anywhere near her, although he avoided her nicely for the most part. Clear some space around the crazy 8yo girl, eh? I thought I had some time before this...

On Friends, Friendship, and the Internet

Oh, the random musings. I listened to great music while I folded laundry. If my thoughts were fish, they didn't so much scatter as lay lazily beneath the surface; like those mall-walkway koi that just kind of SIT there, all ornamental like, they moved sluggishly and without purpose. I attempted to reign them in and failed, so there will be no coherent post. What follows is the random post-feeding-frenzy koi-like movement of my thoughts.

I have a new friend. It is a curious thing, making a friend in a time when I am so needy. But I suppose we have that in common, this new friend and I, since she has moved - newly single - across the country with her two children and is feeling adrift and rootless. I'm adrift in my own, less tangible way. Gestating my own midwife-self. I've become quite insane of late, not quite grounded to my sense of self in the same way I see so many pregnant women teetering between two selves. All that garble aside, I have this new friend and I've taken her into my inner circle with a rapidity that I found astounding. She's the first of my close friends (the other two being Marie and ~L~) that I've met online. Which is not to say that we had an online-relationship-catalyzed blind date, but that realization struck me the other day as I drove home from her house. The reality is, of course, much more complex than that. I don't exactly troll the internet looking for friends, and neither does she, so a certain kismet (albeit a strange electronic and entirely verbal one) drew us through several groups and into a newer, tighter arrangement that happens to include all of my real-live-in-the-flesh friends.

I repaid her for a grueling day of babysitting - and bonus homecooked dinner - by obliterating her wooden gatepost with the back of my van (also somewhat obliterated). Shit.

I'm feeling like I'm asking a lot of my friends lately, without being able to return much except my thoughts and affection. They are wonderful, wonderful people.

Interesting?

It's been a while. Perhaps my longest blog break since I started this crazy thing, although I am not sure about that and am not about to dig back and figure it out.

It isn't like I've got anything particularly interesting to say. I've been busy. I'm adjusting to the slower pace of clinic days and the less intense personalities in the new placement. Some of the things that sounded really daunting are turning out not to be, and vice versa. The sheer time-volume demand is draining.

The kids stayed the night last night with my mother-in-law. All three of them. BittyPrincess did fine, I'm told, and is up for a semi-planned ("we'll see how the first night goes") second night tonight. Fran and I had an in-house date night last night, and a very late morning this morning.

I couldn't think of anything that I *really* wanted to do without my kids, except fill a gap in my wardrobe (having put a hole in yet another pair of pants, need to stop doing that...I'm almost as bad as the kids with the knees, I swear). Clothing shopping with kids bites large.

I kept my promise not to even look at anything for anyone but myself.

In a melancholy mood on the drive home in the drizzle (where the fuck is summer?), I stopped at the falls. In an odd moment of impulse/whimsy/whatever, I hiked down to the base of the falls, clogs and inappropriate clothing and all.

I arrived in one piece at the bottom of the falls, and stood for quite some time at the lookout (you cannot approach the falls closely this time of year). I was, apparently, the only being fool enough to come down on a day like this.

The waterfall was violent today. I watched the water hasten over the ledge, hitting the pool with vigor and sending blossoming plume-ghosts far into the air, exploding into the mist and roiling into the greater river. Violent, angry, beautiful. The roar of the water and the verbal clatter of my internal monologue rushed in my ears. It was probably the longest chunk of time I've spent unguiltily just-for-me in a year or more.

I passed several small groupings of people on my way back up. I am not sure why the universe thought I deserved that time alone, but obviously it did.

My friends deserve a post of their own, and I'll write it my head while I fold laundry and come back with it later.

Free Obama Stickers

If you are so inclined:

https://pol.moveon.org/obamastickers/?id=12807-9190652-6pNio6&t=6

He's not perfect (and I don't agree with everything at moveon.org), but the idea of a McCain presidency scares me.

Sold Anyone Lately?

As an interesting side note, when I signed the birth center's statement that says (among many other things) that I have never sold a child, I simply had to laugh. Damn good thing they weren't asking me to swear that I'd never been *tempted* to sell a child.

Time Flies When You're Not On Call

I had my first day at a new clinic yesterday. No, I'm not on call yet, but that will soon follow.

This would be so much easier if I was filthy stinkin rich. Or had family nearby. Or both.

I Hate It

When my house gets so messy that I look around and don't know where to start, and do some stupid unnecessary thing instead. Like today I got rid of an old couch and prepped the garden beds, but didn't put away all the crap crowding out the couch, which really, should have been the priority.

Ugh.

Picture Time!

To Marie's on Tuesday for a little vegging:
(not sure why this won't rotate, it is horizontal before I upload it!)


And a little playing:



BittyPrincess rockin' her new trike:



Fran was off yesterday, so after a leisurely breakfast (completed at noon...VERY leisurely), we packed up the kids and the bikes and headed off to Lake Sammamish State Park. The whole crew:



The big two and I took our bikes and some snacks and headed off on the trails. Mud, water, sand; it was fun. It would have been cool to get pictures of that, but it was also a very messy ride and I'm not sure I would have thought to take photos anyway. We were TIRED by the time we loaded back up at 7:30pm. It was good fun and we'll be doing it again.

Test Those Homeschoolers!

In the state of Washington, there is a requirement that all school aged children (meaning grade 3 and above, the way the law is written) undergo some sort of evaluation. The law, as far as it goes, is pretty easy to comply with. This year, we chose to take the test that our virtual academy "sold" us. My children took the same tests that ~L~ talks about here: http://mama-hobbit.blogspot.com/.

I sent a somewhat angry letter to the virtual academy. My children were not as distressed as hers were over the test, and for them it was just an oddity. But it was a really shitty test, honestly.

That said, their results came in today and both of the children are in the 99th percentile for their grades on both segments of their exams. What that MEANS I don't know. Here's what I sent to the academy:

I am writing to express my dissapointment re: the MAP test. My daughter's reading/language test never once tested her reading abilities, instead focussing on syllables; this is a testing focus which I find bizarre and unlikely to yield accurate results concerning my daughter's actual english/language arts comprehension or capabilities. Both of my children encountered a question regarding school vacations, which is something entirely foreign to them and an unfair question, particularly considering that it was one of only a couple of its type. My son's mathematics test, supposedly at kindergarden level, skipped quickly from "click three elephants" to a division problem without manipulatives or illustrations.

This test at first struck me as simply bizarre. The more I think about it, however, the more unhappy I am with it. There is little positive to be said for this test and how it played out for my children. It seemed to have little to do with what they know or what they are capable of, and "adaptive" it is most certainly not. I cannot see how this test would in any way tell us anything concrete about my children and their academic progress, having covered extensively such oddities as "which has three syllables" but never testing any reading ability whatsoever.

We are through this hurdle and then some, but I'm pissed that this test was sold to us as being a decent option. It isn't. It took my son just over 30 minutes to complete, and my daughter just over an hour. Convenient, yes. Easy to take, not so much. A valid measure of my childrens' progress? Even if I take off my "tests are almost universally flawed because they test only a few of the many dimensions of learning" hat, I can't see how this would be a valid measure of my childrens' progress. A valid comparison with other children, perhaps. But it doesn't tell me anything useful; I still don't know what my kids' strengths and weaknesses are, or where they have gaps in their learning/understanding. I just know they spanked other kids their age on the same question set. But...so? What do I do with that knowledge?

My kids, for what it's worth, were underwhelmed by their 99th percentile scores and the "super job!" post-it note attached to their score sheets.

This is entirely cool

http://stemcells.alphamedpress.org/cgi/content/abstract/2007-0826v1

In this study, volunteers collected their own menstrual blood, which was then put in culture with rat heart cells, and spontaneously began to beat and form heart tissue sheets. While only 20% of the collected cells successfully made this conversion, this is 10-20 times the success rate seen with human embryonic stem cells.

Why do I think this is cool? Because someday, your menstrual blood may be "recycled" into new heart tissue that is entirely your own genetically. Such a tidy (genetically, medically, immunologically, ethically) solution!

(My apologies if this has been all over the news the last week...I don't do TV anymore...)

Spring, Spring, SPRING!!!

I think spring is finally actually here. There are baby birds in the bluebird nest, the tomato plants may just be safe to put outside now, and I can leave a window open without freezing to death. We haven't turned the heater on in a week! YAY spring!

Yesterday I took the two big kids out biking and we had a BLAST. And, um, today we bought padded bike shorts. Ouch.

It is also obvious now that Boyness needs a new bike as well *sigh* because he just can't keep up with those little tires, and really he had about outgrown the bike anyway. I feel like we're bleeding money over this venture.

In other news, neither of the kids has brought up the whole sex talk thing again, and neither of them is showing any evidence any stress-out or of it being anything other than just some strange new information. Phew.

Bikes Accomplished!

I did finally manage to pick up our new bikes (mine and Becca's). "Fully assembled," they said. I kind of expected that this would mean they'd check the brakes, at least. I guess not. And my bike has some strange allen key thing that I don't have a tool for. So this is not quite over yet. I was able to get Becca's brakes reassembled and properly adjusted, and she is thrilled.

Drink your Coffee - A Scattered Post

"Mama," says BittyPrincess as we are driving, "you need to drink some coffee. So you can stop talking."

Discount Tire, or the one in Bellevue anyway, has my enthusiastic endorsement. The first time we bought tires there I wasn't sure we'd gotten the best deal in the world (I was sure it wasn't BAD...), but it turned out that the real savings comes when you trade in your old tires for new. And today, when I brought in the van for a slow leak in one tire, they found the leak and repaired the tire, rebalanced, all that fun stuff, for the awesome price of FREE. Exactly as advertised, no strings attached, no sales pushed, nothing. And they didn't even act like they were totally put out or anything.

The other day I TRIED to buy Girliness a new bike. It was a lovely bike. 18 speed, hand brakes, 24 inch wheels, a big grown-up sorta bike. We got it unassembled because I couldn't wait around at the time, and then when I got around to putting it together, there were damaged parts. FUCK. Took it back to the store and, oh, well darn, they're out of stock now. Well, that one backfired. At least I have a few extra days to hunt down a bike rack for the van, since this bike is NOT going to fit in the trunk.

The Folly of Placing Pain Meds and Rubs Up High

Becomes painfully obvious once your knee is injured and you require a two-step stool to get at the aforementioned pain meds and topical creams.

New Frontier

Almost entitled this one "learning adventures in the Kama Sutra," but decided the better of it.

Earlier this week, while at ~L~s house, her 3yo found the highly-buried-in-an-off-limits-location Kama Sutra book, and proceeded to giggle his little self silly and show it to the other kids. He didn't know what on earth he was seeing, really, but the bigger ones had a much better clue. Girliness quickly absconded the book into the smaller bedroom, which was further out of view of the clueless parents. She legitimately wasn't trying to hide anything and TOLD us she was reading a book when we asked what she was doing; we'd also seen the initial book transfer without knowing WHICH book it was. She and the other three older children were discovered on a routine child check about 3 minutes later, huddled around this strange new book. Of course I removed the offending object, but the damage had been done. "Did you SEE that?" complete with anatomically appropriate descriptions. Oh, holy hell. Fuck, fuck, fuck (no pun intended).

I really don't know exactly what ~L~ told her children. But my Girliness, at eight years old and approaching the very beginnings of puberty, was going to require a more comprehensive sex talk soon anyway, and Boyness (I figured) had seen the same things and was using the same descriptors, so he listened in too. The kids have known for a long time about how babies are made, but they were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle - HOW it was that sperm and egg came to meet, together, in a woman's uterus (necessary oversimplification in my opinion).

Girliness had questions. She had many, many questions. Everything from "why would people need a book?" to "what do people do to not get pregnant when they don't want a baby?" to "if the penis needs to be hard, and the vagina needs to be ready, how do the penis and the vagina know to get ready to have sex?"

Don't worry folks, I injected a hearty helping of "but you're not ready for that yet," in pretty much as many ways as I could think of to say it; from the very sensible "your vagina is not a grown woman's vagina, and can't do that yet" to the much less concrete "with the right person" stuff. And I think that because her puberty hormones haven't kicked in yet, it was a great academic discussion that she'll have in her background knowledge, rather than something I am foisting on her in the wash of new hormones and curiosities (the more I think about it, the stupider that timing - during puberty - seems).

Boyness had no questions, but he listened to the whole exchange attentively.

I've identified myself, and myself alone, as their go-to person for sex questions, a move that I hope will prevent them from going off and sharing their newfound knowledge and million questions with everyone else on the planet. I can just imagine my mother-in-law's mortification at having any one of Girliness' questions directed at her (although "why can't I ask Nana? She must have sex too and she would know" did come up). Oh, that lovely homeschooler curiousity. It is part of the homeschooler mentality that you find someone that would know about what you're interested in, corner that person (nicely) and ask away. Want to know how to grow flowers in our living room, well, that is why Molbaks has a wandering help staff. Want to know about sex? Well wow, look at all these people we know that have done that and would know about it! And they probably all have different things to tell us, too!

ACK!

I think the identifying myself as the go-to person seems to be working so far. And since the kids are NOT awash in pubescent hormones yet, they aren't obsessed or anything (although Girliness did have some follow-up questions after our initial talk, which I am very happy she brought to ME).

I was not intially happy about the finding of the Kama Sutra. In fact, I was initially quite upset. But the more I think about it the better I think this is going to wind up being. Disaster averted, for now.

Snowmen and Flower Shops

Another BittyPrincess quote: "Mama, boys can not make snowmen by themselves. But girls can do it."

So, a little more than a week ago Girliness decided that she wants to open up a flower shop. Oh, but it wasn't a passing fancy; or at least, not a quickly passing one. She's trying to figure out her business plan and everything. Today she wants me to take her to Molbaks so she can purchase some seeds. Last week she wanted to recruit Boyness (and his $14) as her business partner, but he's not so interested. She said she could still pay him to do some of the work. She is still not sure about the physical location of her flower shop, but she knows that she will charge $1.10 for a flower and more than that for an arrangement or for a live plant.

This should be interesting. Probably not profitable, but interesting.

Spring? Who said it was spring?

Still on the ground today. Hello, nature, it's Niki, can you please cut it out with this cold-and-dreary shit? It's been spring for a month, get with the program.

Recent Craziness

From the BittyPrincess:
"I'm ICE GIRL" (assumes crazy wide-legged pose with arms at the ready)
"And I can make ice like this - SWWWWWWWSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" (much gesturing followed by throwing motions)
"And I can get out of my pants real fast like THIS!" (ACK!!!)

Ah, three.

The other two are driving me nuts in entirely different ways. Most notably, they've contracted some strange illness that makes it impossible for them to speak to one another. Seriously. They just can't. They have to yell and snip. I can't WAIT for them to get over this one.

We survived the husband-less week pretty well. Bedtime crept later and later until I thought I was going to go nuts, mainly because I'm not used to orchestrating that whole deal by myself.

I'm NOT behind in midwifery care, which is good. I AM behind in Professional Issues, which sucks. I'm considering logging how much time I'm spending reading. I am not a slow reader by any means, and this is taking me far more time than I think I should spend on it, particularly considering the redundancy of some of our readings. While it is great to know when studies are in agreement, perhaps just TELLING us that 'this study is representative' rather than having us read half of fucking creation would be a better idea?

YAY for WARMER WEATHER

And yes, I mean it so much it is in all-caps!!

Oh, how we needed to see the sun again. And the warm. Oh what a great weekend we had.

"Now wait," you say, "I read Mama Hobbit's blog post," you say, "that can't have been great. Six kids. Never spent a night without their parents before. You're fucking nuts."

OK, so I'm halfway fucking nuts. We've known this family for over three years, the entirety of both of our middle-childrens' conscious existence and almost the actual entirety of our youngests' lives. We're no strangers, for sure. And yet, I get that special you're-not-my-mama-so-I'm-not-sure-I-can-piss-you-off-without-you-blowing-me-off treatment. Plus somewhere along the line, ~L~s three year old decided that I was the bestest most funnest person ever (where that came from I STILL don't know).

Anyway, it all went off without a hitch. We had a decently smooth evening and did homemade angelfood cake with strawberries and homemade whipped cream for dessert, before an also-smooth bedtime. We woke up and ate breakfast and packed up obscene volumes of food, blankets, and first aid supplies for the beach, realized we were missing sunscreen on the first really sunny day our pasty-white selves would be spending on the beach, and decided to head off to Target. This might have been the only stressful thing about the whole weekend, taking 6 kids into Target (two of them CRYING, WTF 3yos).

But then we spent 8 hours at the beach. 8 glorious, uninterrupted, child-fight-less, fun in the sun HOURS.

So, without further ado, PICTURE TIME:

Initial explorations:



Oooh, BIG driftwood! Here it's a rocket:



I think it's a pirate ship here:



They're nuts, they really are. And they really wanted me to come in too. "It isn't so cold anymore! It got warm!!" Right, kids. Riiiiight. Even the three year olds aren't THAT stupid.



They've never NOT known each other:



Girliness spent a lengthy chunk of time (over two hours, maybe over three) making an aquarium with little habitats for various creatures she'd found:



N got in on the fun about halfway through:



ACK, I can't believe they picked some of this stuff up!



When it was time to leave, they carefully placed their critters back where they found them, without complaining. YAY kids!

And this is what I did the whole time:






So we left the beach when it was getting dark, had a whirlwind of bathing and haircutting and dinner preparing and movie-watching and complete zonkness-ing, and day 2 was successfully over.

We woke to not-so-nice weather on Sunday. The kids were stoked to go to the beach anyway, but this was vetoed. Bribes (peeps) were offered to any children willing to play outside, and before we knew it, ~L~ and her DH were back.

It all went so smoothly that I told ~L~ that if she could GUARANTEE me another day that nice, I'd do it again.

I am so, so happy that the cold and wet are over. I don't care if it comes and goes for a while. I'll be out in the sun the second it shows up again.

Last Birth for Now

The birth I went to this morning was probably the last birth I'm going to with my preceptor (still on call tomorrow, but we've cleared off over half of the April due dates already). This was a gorgeous home birth, contractions never closer than about 5 minutes (they were 10 minutes apart at the very end!), and this primip had a second stage barely over an hour without pushing AT ALL.

During her labor, I'd repeatedly reassured her that she was doing well, doing beautifully, handling it well, and she'd expressed some doubt, but I'd chalked that all up to normal labor talk. When I said my farewells as I was getting ready to leave, I repeated "you did so wonderfully" and she looked me straight in the eye and asked earnestly "really, did I REALLY do well? Do you mean that?" Yes, I said, emphatically. I don't know if she really heard me, she didn't appear all that reassured. I don't know what got under her skin and made her think that somehow she was deficient, and it didn't hit me at first, but the more I think about it the more pissed off I am. This was a woman that CONQUERED birth. It was one of those setups that is supposed to be empowering. Instead I get "do you mean that?" Ugh, what went wrong?

I've enjoyed my time with this preceptor, and I do think that it has been a really great experience. I am not-quite-torn between being sad about this setup being over and being happy about the BREAK I'm getting between placements. Fran goes out of town in a few days, for almost two weeks. That will be interesting. The new quarter starts in two days, featuring the biggest baddest course of them all...Complications. I simultaneously look forward to it and dread it.

We're househunting again. Condo-hunting, more like it, in our price range. Feeling really defeated about it, and not terribly hopeful, but we've set a well-recommended realtor who is familiar with our income bracket on the task, and we'll see what happens. I'm getting slightly despirate to get out of this place, and I'd be happy to do it before my next placement begins in June.

BittyPrincess Strangeness

On second thought, the behavior about which I am blogging is about as normal as it gets. So BittyPrincess Normalness may be more fitting. I still think the whole phenomenon is strange...

We got BittyPrincess a new carseat the other day - a Nautilus - to remedy the fact that she is rapidly outgrowing her current seat's height limit and I don't yet trust her in a booster. She loved it, of course. Claimed it. Wanted to sit in the car HOURS before we were going anywhere. Sure thing, little weirdness.

She also, of course, LOVED LOVED LOVED the box. So much, in fact, that after hours upon hours (seriously, she played in that thing all fucking day, you just can't BUY that kind of entertainment), we got this:



Yup, she fell asleep for the night in her box. This is the first time she has EVER just gone ahead and put herself to bed. She even stayed there for a few hours before she stirred and I got too antsy and brought her to bed.

The next day, there was that box again! And we had MORE boxes! Oh, the FUN!! Kids are so strange.

Strange Dreams Last Night

My dreams last night had nothing to do with birth. They were about surveillance, being watched, being controlled. Very unpleasant and unrestful, which was not good. I was looking forward to a good solid rest.

This is spring break for me! I finished all my school work and all my finals last week - the bulk of it while MIL watched the kids on Thursday - and now I have a whole week to let go of feeling like I'm constantly scrambling to figure out what is due when and how behind I am. I think this quarter went by pretty well, after all, despite all of my confusion and the fact that I really relied on my classmates to panic about assignments due and cue me in that there were, in fact, assignments due. I learned that the online calendar does not work well for me, at least as far as organizing my school work goes. The wall calendar is a much better option, and I'll be returning to that next quarter.

Anxious for my grades. Mad at the school again, for something that is still panning out...

Yesterday, I took off with Girliness for some girly shopping eating and hair-cutting time. That was nice.

"Snowed In"

This is more a timekeeping/remembering post for me, since I'm not going to share the whole story here. Got snowed in at a long, slowly-progressing birth that culminated in thick mec, decels, very quick pushing stage, nucal cord/somersault delivery, a bad tear, and a happy healthy mom and baby. The snow and our distance from a hospital with an OB unit definitely affected the decision making processes. Scariest moment - "OK, Niki will manage the birth, listen to her, I'll be waiting with the bulb right next to her..." Best moment - lusty wonderful clear cries promptly after getting untangled. Decided to stay the "night" rather than brave the roads. Crashed promptly, it was bright and melting out when I woke up, the drive home was decent, I'm tired.

A Little Quality Time With the Steam Cleaner

And aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh do I ever feel better about the state of my "living room."

Her royal BittyPrincessness may not be getting gum again until she can prove her ability to place it appropriately in the trash instead of in the carpet. NASTY.

One area down, two to go ("office" and bedroom). I hate this job but damn do I ever feel good when it's done.

Infectious

Ah, how unfortunate to have something neat to share and not have the mental energy to word-paint.

Called to a birth this morning at 2:45. Hauled my (apparently expanding a bit) rear end out of bed and into Seattle, the usual routine. Laboring woman with a lot of vocal energy and negative thought patterning going on. Her mom (who was herself a mother to 12 - I think that's what they said - children) sleeping on a recliner in the corner. Her little sister arrived a while later, and that is who this post is more about. This young woman was amazing. It was her first exposure to labor and birth, and she'd had no special preparation for it really. It took her a bit to get a feel for how things were going (her sister, the laboring mom, kept her in line - she was the best kind of bossy laboring woman), but before long she was rolling along with it nicely and guiding her sister through the most wonderful guided imagery exercises. This was verbal coaching better than I had ever seen before. Just after the birth, I looked up and saw this *light* in her eyes, this realization that looked very much like "this is where it IS."

I wonder if I saw the conception of a new midwife. It was incredible to see someone light up like that. A little catching even; this sense that yes, this was extraordinary, this everyday birth we just attended. They all are.

I'm not sure if I'll ever know whether she'll take this spark and do something with it. I don't know her well enough to say anything more about it, really, than that I saw something special in her. If nothing else, it re-infected me today, tired and to-do-listed out. If nothing else, birth touched her and she touched me.

Affirmed? Tired...incoherent...

I am so tired this evening.

But today in clinic, amidst the sad and the happy and the uneventful and the, oh, you know, pregnant women, my preceptor wrote and shared with me her evaluations for the end of my placement. And it was lovely. I was never quite sure with her, what she thought. She quizzes me CONSTANTLY and sometimes it seems like I don't know the answers more often than I do. To hear her say that she thought I was very smart and was picking things up quickly and well and advancing nicely...that she wasn't exactly looking forward to switching to a new set of students when she didn't know if they'd fit as well as we did...it was worth an awful lot of tired. Oh, there were not so glowing things in there (mainly - speak up more quickly, you know the answer! be the first to the buzzer!), but nothing hideous. I felt 1) relief and 2) affirmed that I might just be headed towards some sort of decent ability to do this job at some point.

Easter was nice. The easter bunny wanted to go on strike, but somehow (what with all the counting-down and looking-forward the kids were doing) that just didn't seem right, so the easter bunny set her alarm for really fucking early and got up to stuff eggs and hide them. We brought angel food and strawberries to MIL's house and had a happy evening playing with the kids. Until just before we left, when Fran totally screwed his back. Not quite sure what happened, one moment he's wrestling with children and the next he's stuck on the floor (he did make it to his feet 5 minutes later). He tried to go to work today (silly) and called me mid-day with a somewhat "mommy can I come home" tone (um....youdecidebigboyokbye).

I'm so tired I'm not even coherent, so we'll see if this needs editting when I read it tomorrow. So much for doing an exam tonight. I am not even sure I could tell you what I need to get dressed, much less what I need for a successful malpractice suit.

Still Swimming

Just keep swimming...

Onsite last week. Basic Clinical Assessment. I know that I did very well on two of the three stations, I'll hear back about the third in the typical not-timely SMS manner. Projects due...completed at the last possible moment, as usual. Little sleep. Lots of time in hard plastic chairs. Good/bad. Stress/comraderie.

Final exams this coming week. A few assignments and other loose ends to tie up.

Two more weeks with my current preceptor, and then a break.

Just keep swimming...

In Which BittyPrincess Must Part With the Nummies

Well, well, well. In December we hit 3 years still going strong with the breastfeeding.

The "nummies," as all three of my children call them (thanks, mom - no seriously, it's a good stand-in, way better than "boobie" or whateverelse), have been in constant action since Girliness was born, 8 years and almost-two months ago. I figure that they're approaching retirement age.

So I told BittyPrincess that they are all tired out, that they've been working every single day since she was born, and they were all done now. She's big, her siblings went through this too, blah blah blah blah. She's not quite buying it. Refusing to accept it, in fact. "They NOT tired!! They NOT done!!! They MY NUMMIES!!!"

So she squishes her face into my chest, and we count.

The first few nights we lay down in bed when she'd just gotten home, sleepy from her car ride, and we counted to 20 and let sleep take us over.

On Wednesday night, we had no such luck. We counted to 3,547.

Yesterday we took a nap together. "Count to ten, mama," she said, climbing into bed with me. I did, and we fell asleep. Last night we got to three hundred something.

I don't like this counting thing all that terribly much. But if I can count to twenty and she'll drift into her own little world and eventually to sleep, I can live with that. I'm not even sure where this counting thing came from. It is working now, and she is demanding it.

Not really feeling bad about weaning BittyPrincess. I just wish I could skip this messy in-between step and jump right on over to the "alrighty, head to bed kids!" step that Girliness and Boyness are in. I have to admit that nursing this long, for this particular child, has been less about it being what I want and more about it being what is convenient. It was easier to keep nursing than it was to wean. But I've been done for a long time, hanging in there because she wasn't. Chapter close. Breastfeeding done. I'm ready to move on, and I think that at some level so is she. The irritation of keeping up the nursing has overcome the irritation of stopping it. I still get to cuddle my sweet girlie to sleep, and in some ways it is sweeter and more fulfilling when she isn't coming to me just because I'm the person with the breasts attached to my body.

Missed a Birth

My first missed birth. And whaddayaknow, it had nothing whatsoever to do with how far away I live from my preceptor.

This birth ate 12 hours of my life, not including a leave-and-return episode to a house nearly two hours from mine. Hospital transfer for failure to progress and mom's desire for pain medication - she was 4cm. And mom got out at the hospital and pushed that baby out 10 minutes later, while I was parking my car in the not-as-convenient parking garage and making my way up to the L&D floor, just in time to hear a very final-sounding roar and a cry as I bustled up the hall.

Fuck.

First time I've seen retained placental fragments and membrane (and scraping of the uterus), so the hospital was probably a good place to be.

12 hours further behind on my already-behind school work.

Fuck.

In other news, Girliness and Boyness are absolutely absorbed in "Engineering an Empire" from the History Channel (we rented the whole lengthy series). I'm negotiating with BittyPrincess in an attempt to get her to hug the nummies instead of nursing. And my decaffienation project is moving along nicely. You know that pre-cofffee brain haze feeling? I don't get it anymore! That is AWESOME.

Adventures in Bacteria and Yeast

So this whole bacteria/yeast thing is going pretty darned well. I have a little too much of all of my cultures at this point and am not quite sure what I should do. I'm making kefir and water kefir too fast for the family to consume, but it seems somewhat sacriligious to just toss the cultures. I'll be handing some out for sure.

The Kombucha is perhaps the exception to this rule, as the girlies seem to like to drink it and it has a long brewing time, which keeps the volume from getting out of hand. Still, I was able to separate three distinct layers when I set up a new batch today, which meant I've now got two gallons brewing and another starter set aside to give away.

It is all taking my mind only a little off the stress I'm feeling about getting the kids safely watched and getting to births in some sort of reasonable time frame. I'm teetering on edge here in a big way and it needs to resolve, and the feelers I've put out have met with only moderate success.

Ready for a Break

Long birth yesterday, culminating in a csection after 7 hours of pushing that went exactly nowhere. Babe was 11lbs 12oz, and sealed the deal by presenting acynclitic and deflexed.

Anyway.

My biggest hugest issue is child care. My friends are wonderful but far-flung. My neighbor/aunt has placed herself off the roster for anything but a few hours here and there in between other arrangements. She has 5 kids of her own and her reasoning - that it was insane in her house with 8 kids for a whole day at a time - is not in the least faulty, however inconvenient it may be.

I wish, yet again, for family. MIL is wonderful when she is available, willing to move mountains for the kids. But she is one person and she's got a difficult schedule herself. Fran isn't shirking, but he's got to work to keep this whole crazy enterprise afloat. I've survived for four years out here 2000 miles from my family, and I still miss their presence often.

I cannot afford to hire someone to watch the kids, I just can't. And my help is stretched so, so thin and sometimes nonexistant. I had to scramble hard to keep the kids watched yesterday, and it is fortunate it worked out, but it almost didn't.

I have nothing to offer people in exchange for watching my kids.

Figuring this out could make or break my education. This whole school thing just isn't going to happen if I can't get it set up.

I find myself scrambling to get covered for the last few weeks of this placement, and looking very much forward to the time Fran is spending away in HI, when I've placed myself entirely off of the clinical schedules and call and backup lists. At least I won't have to stress out, hour by hour, about what I would do if I were called *now.*

Tagged by ~L~

I think this is hillarious. Not what I would have thought at all.

You Are Cayenne Pepper

You are very over the top and a bit overwhelming. You have a fiery personality, and you can give anyone a good jolt. You can easily take things up a couple notches, no matter what crowd you're running with.

What Spice Are You?

I'm not going to tag anyone, but go ahead and click into the quiz if you're so inclined. It is only 5 questions (less than a minute) long and is at least mildly amusing ;).

Daylight Savings SUCKS

A LOT.

When I signed up for a CPR renewal/refresher/whatever for 8:30am on a Sunday, I didn't really think there was any significance to the date. But if there is anything worse than waking up at 6:30am to get to an ungodly-early rendition of something ungodly-boring, it is losing an hour of sleep in the process.

Spring forward, my ass.

Ugh. I'm fucking worthless today.

Math-a-thon Climax, Mixed Blessings

It has been an interesting few days. Today, Friday, is the official conclusion of the math-a-thon. My kids have faithfully mathed themselves through 60 pages of math work of various difficulty. On Wednesday they both realized they were short their goals, and they put on a last-ditch burst of speed that was really quite impressive. Boyness learned all about greater than/less than/equal signs, Girliness learned how to add and subtract fractions that already shared common denominators. I am very proud of them for not just running around writing down simple problems to get their page count up.

On Thurs I went to clinic, and Marie (itandme) watched the kids. Her kids, like mine, were math-a-thoning their way to our Friday movie.

As I conducted prenatal appointments and my preceptor buzzed in and out to check on me and do various things herself, a semi-drama unfolded outside my purview. I'll not unpack it so much, since the internets aren't exactly private (and it seems like a violation of her privacy to share almost any details at all) but one of our clients needed to be induced. Neither of the hospitals my preceptor works with would take her. When my preceptor called to communicate this, the client and her family were standing around their house, bags packed, entirely ready to go. They had even tucked their daughter in to bed, telling her they would see her tomorrow with a baby. And then, in so many words, "oh, no, sorry..." The plan was to call around in the morning and see where she could go.

On the way home from clinic I called all my math-a-thon participant families and made contingency plans. I hedged my bets, telling my children that there would probably be a baby the next day and that if I was at a birth, we would surely still go to a movie, just maybe not right on time. The kids were upset about this possibility, understandably. They'd worked hard for this, and it wasn't just the MOVIE, it was the whole THING that was important.

So, the mixed blessings:

Our client went into labor late Thursday night. So they got screwed around, but she got into labor naturally. Yay!

I got an hour of sleep before I got called to that labor/birth. She had her baby in time for me to get home as Fran was getting ready to leave for work, with half an hour to turn around and leave to get to our math-a-movie done on time. So I only got an hour of sleep last night, but I got to take the kids to their math-a-thon movie, which (relatively speaking) went really well. Yay!

I'm feeling tired, but really, I don't think there was any better way this could have played out. I really thought this would be the first big let-down for my kids.

Outdoors Today

It was a glorious day today.

So glorious that, well, to hell with it...forget those damn assignments. We loaded up the bikes and headed off to Lake Sammamish State Park. Boyness very recently learned how to ride his bike sans training wheels, and the two big kids donned helmets and went zooming off into the semi-distance. BittyPrincess and I camped out on the playground, and I spent time sitting on a blanket and reading a book (yes, for school!) or pushing BittyPrincess on a tire swing. Or "yelling" at BittyPrincess to keep her tricycle close enough that I could get to her somewhat quickly. It was a glorious 5 hours of sun and I finished an entire book - and a lovely sandwich and a soda - in that time.

We came home sunned and dusty, have showered, and the kids are applying themselves to their math work while dinner cooks and I settle down to start the assignments I should have spent all day working on. Somehow, I'm not sorry that I didn't.

Building Pressure

It has been over a week since the last birth I went to. As women get more overdue, and more women move into the window, I can't help but feel like there is a big bad busy week in my future.

In the meantime, I've more than a handful of school work to do (none of it actually OVERdue for once, thankfully).

And I'm checking my phone like a goddamned maniac every 10 minutes or after any time I leave the house to switch laundry/get something from the car/yell at a child out the door. I started leaving my phone under my pillow when I first went on call, which works for me, but now I've been checking the silly thing any time I get up to pee or am disturbed from sleep, which amounts to 3-4 times a night.

My head HURTS for lack of caffeine.

I have yet to be to a birth that was all that long. My preceptor calls this good luck. I think that the universe balances these things out and I'm waiting for that hammer to fall, too.

Presentations, senior paper introductions, everyday assignments, books and articles to read. Clinic. Births building up. Goddamned headache from hell. The perfect storm may just be gathering for me, here.

But hey, at least I successfully made Kefir! ~L~, by the next batch I will definitely have enough to share some crystals (or whatever you call them) with you! It turns out they really like the spot behind the couch, and the balmy 75 degrees (!) that my heater accidentally got the house to while we were out today. Humangous heating bill, here we come! Why can't that heater just behave predictably?!

It's All Her (Nutrition Instructor) Fault

As if I wasn't weird enough...

My nutrition instructor, who has a certain infectious but nonannoying enthusiasm about her, managed (in about 5 minutes of class time) to get me hooked on the idea of making my own kombucha and kefir.

The idea, damnit, has grown rather than fading after onsite (so many ideas just kind of fizzle out after onsite...).

So I went to that great internet emporium of all things...um, of all things. Ebay. And bought BACTERIA and YEAST. Yum! The little critters arrived today. Kombucha, Milk Kefir, and Water Kefir, wrapped neatly in double ziploc bags, padded in brown paper, and shipped for half what I paid for shipping.

Not content with simply staring at my brand new symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast, I set about sterilizing appropriately sized jars and lids (yes, they are bacteria and yeast, but you can't just add random stuff to the mix and expect not to get sick) and collecting ingredients. The milk and water kefir are happily resting in their required media, hopefully thriving and getting more, um, bacteria-and-yeast-y by the moment. The gallon of tea I brewed for the kombucha starter is sitting neatly upon my counter, cooling to room temperature veeeeerrrrrrryyyy sloooowwwwwwlllllyyyyyy. Which works, because the cloth I'll be covering it with only just now made it into the dryer.

I still can't quite beleive that by Tuesday, we'll be willingly injesting bacteria and yeast.

If we get sick and die, it is so my nutrition instructor's fault.

Coffee, a Semi-Fond Farewell

I really should stop using coffee the way I do. I've not had this problem before, but lately it has been giving me jitters even when I consume only one cup in the morning. I have to give up morning coffee. How strange would that be? A classmate of mine had a really great suggestion for how to do it, too, and minimize that horrific headache...don't drink the coffee until you feel the headache coming on, and it will happen later and later each day until your body gets used to not having that scheduled dose.

What would I do with my coffee stockpile (about a three weeks supply with daily use), though? I suppose I'd go through it eventually, just using it for special occassions. I've had good luck using a french press when I get called at a jittery middle-of-the-night time for a birth. And sometimes a coffee in the afternoon (for a while this was also on the schedule for me, but I've eliminated that already) is just NICE. I think what I really want is for coffee to be NICE again, and not something I HAVE to do in order to function.

The final straw has been this week. I go to sleep with BittyPrincess (who is FINALLY sleeping a sane number of hours, if not what would be expected at her age - approximately 9) and the bigger two (who sleep slightly less) stay up with Fran to watch a show/movie. I wake up just before BittyPrincess, go brew coffee, and usually manage to sit down long enough to take a couple of sips before she wakes up. Depending on some unknown but highly detested variable, she wakes up with anything from "the world is sunshine rainbow pony happiness!" to "FUCK THIS WORLD AND ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT" going on. Regardless, the older two swiftly follow her into consciousness (or near-consciousness, whatever). They all wallow around in semi-awake states as I finish my coffee and they start eating and moving. Generally, before my brain starts really processing, they start arguing and fighting. Then the coffee hits and I get jittery, and they argue and fight, and the world is UNPLEASANT. And I can't think to go online and do any work, but I can't think to go out and do something with them, so we free-wheel and lose at least an hour every morning figuring ourselves out.

I don't HAVE an hour (and more) every morning to be miserable and disorganized. And the coffee, which used to help, is now hurting.

So, I say my reluctant goodbye to my morning coffee. The thought almost makes me cry. I'm so attached to it. AH, morning coffee, you've been good to me, all these years. I've been with you almost as long as I've been with my husband. But our relationship has become dysfunctional. I need a separation. We can still see each other occassionally...I just need some space. *Cry* I'm sorry, brain, that I need to upset your balance like this. But it just isn't working anymore. *Sob* goodbye, morning coffee. I will miss you.

Cool Breastfeeding Posters

Go here to see more! They are available for order, too :)

BittyPrincess

I know you missed me while I was in clinic all day. But really, I could live without you plastering yourself violently to my neck all evening. Really. I could.

15-year-old me

Morag tagged me...

So here goes.

15 year old me,

Please just clean your damn room. That shit is disgusting. It's not really that hard. Seriously, you're embarrassing me already.

Your parents are trying really really hard right now and working their asses off. Yes, you're missing a lot. There has to be a better way to communicate that than screaming "I hate babysitting!" at your mom. I don't think she really understands you when you do that.

That boy...you know the one...just talk to him. At your graduation he'll hug you and thank you for talking to him when he needed help, and you'll feel like an ass for missing out on a friend just because you felt awkward.

Just invite computer-room-guy to work out with you. It's what he's hinting at, really. He's just scared to look pathetic. You know it would be good to have a workout buddy. Your friends are being silly not wanting to bother working out.

Don't be an insecure ass when you get to the dorms. They like you. Don't make other people do all the work all the time; you'll live without the constant validation of having someone ASK you to come/go/do/be, and you'll have more fun that way, too.

Those good study skills you have now? Write a book or something, seriously. You make it look effortless.

Don't feel bad about not joining the student organizations and study groups and all that stuff you figured was for losers. It was. You made the right choice.

Ditch the asshole church and don't look back when they start playing games with you. Their happiness is not your responsibility, and they won't give a shit once you leave, anyway. It feels like they matter so much to you right now, and you're still having fun even though it's getting weird. But their support is conditional, and you don't need that shit. If you wait until you are 20 you will bring half the congregation with you...but they'll leave in their own time if you leave as soon as it starts getting bad. You'll all go your separate ways, any way you slice it.

From here until 19 is the best you'll ever look...use your powers for good. And no, distracting the computer nerds while you program twice as fast as them is not "good."

Alright, if you must...at least gather yourself some self-esteem while you're at it. You rock. Even in the eyes of other people. You just don't know it yet because everybody is scared to tell you; that they'll let you know later, when it doesn't matter anymore.

Talk to your grandma. She wants you to call, and to visit. Once you move to WI, she'll want to see/talk to you more. Take her up on it. She's not going to be that witty forever, and in another decade, she won't even know who you are. Right now, she's got a lot she can tell you, and you might miss it if you brush her off.

What you are good at now and what you are good at/passionate about later are going to be different things, and you'll feel lost for a while. It will be OK. You'll find your ground again.

I tag Lory, Marie, and Danelle. I think technically it is "what message would you give 15 year old you" and I went a little overboard. My message would be more like "chin up, girl, you rock."

Calling All Math-A-Thon Participants...

Yay!! Math!! (insert a few grumbly phrases from the corners of parents' mouths here)

Niki's Probably-Only-Once-Ever Math-a-thon will run thusly:

From Friday February 22 through Thursday March 6, participants will complete sixty (60) pages of math work. Parents may choose the difficulty level and the number of problems per sheet. Parents may also take the liberty of counting math exercises done off-paper towards their childrens' totals. On March 7th, we will assemble our massive piles of paper and massive minivans full of not-so-massive children for a MOVIE at the theater.

Happy math...ing... kids!!!

Laurie Berkner

Yes, an obession. BittyPrincess spent an hour singing "Moon Moon Moon" over and over again as we rolled through Target today. When we got home, I downloaded the whole "Victor Vito" CD through Amazon (yes, yes, I paid for mp3s on the internet...spare me, I know I didn't used to be like that). The big kids are playing outside (it's pretty today!) but BittyPrincess is sitting in front of the speakers with the ukulele picking out "Moon moon moon" - and believe it or not, she's actually figuring out the melody. I think if I could put "Moon Moon Moon" and "Boots" on a loop she'd be happy for the rest of the day.

I turned in my Professional Issues assignment on time this week. Strange new world.

Washington Residents, DO THIS NOW

ACTION: Please contact the members and the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee by no later than Friday, February 15 and ask them to include budget proviso language in the Senate budget to lower the midwifery licensing fee to $100 and provide sufficient funding to operate the midwifery program at the Department of Health. Contact members and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee by no later than Friday, February 22 and ask them to include budget proviso language in the House budget to lower the midwifery licensing fee to $100 and provide sufficient funding to operate the midwifery program at the Department of Health.

This is VERY important. And you can do it in five minutes or less.

Go HERE for more information. Now. PLEASE.

Here is what I included in my emails:

SUBJECT: Lower Midwifery Licensing Fees for Better, More Affordable Health Care for Pregnant Women in Washington

MESSAGE: Given the priority that the Governor and the legislature are placing on healthcare cost containment and improved health outcomes for the citizens of Washington State, they should help to ensure the long-term viability of licensed midwifery. A cost/benefit study recently released by the DOH found that the services provided by licensed midwives result in proven cost offsets to the healthcare system—nearly half a million dollars biennially to Medicaid alone and more than $2.7 million if private insurance is included in the analysis. These cost offsets result from lower Medicaid reimbursement claims when women give birth in non-hospital settings such as free-standing birth centers and at home. The study also found, but did not quantify, other benefits such as lower c-section rates, a lower incidence of low birth weight babies due to intensive prenatal care, and higher breastfeeding rates, all of which contribute to long-term health of mothers and babies.

A smart way to do business, therefore, is to ensure that more women have the option of choosing to give birth at home or in free-standing birth centers. With the annual licensing fee at $450 and the possibility of an increase to over $3000, we are losing licensed midwives rather than gaining in numbers (over 25% have been lost in the last few years). By lowering the annual midwifery licensing fee to $100, the legislature would be removing a significant barrier to practice, allowing more midwives to enter and remain in their chosen profession. This would lead to even more significant cost offsets to the State in the future.

As a midwifery student, I have a substantial reason to be very interested in making sure midwifery remains viable in this state. It would be unfortunate if I had to leave to practice elsewhere, after having spent a lot of money to get a good education in this state. This is the fate of approximately three-quarters of the graduates of our program at Seattle Midwifery School. By graduation, students are under the burden of student loans and must still face business start-up costs and insurance costs; this is a business in which a new practitioner can expect not to make $20,000 until her third year in practice, and the licensing fee is tipping the balance for many new graduates. Midwifery saves this state money, and the graduates that go elsewhere because they cannot afford to practice here could be saving this state even more money. It would simply be the smart move to facilitate their remaining here.

Thank you for your time,

[Niki], Student Midwife

Back Pain Sucks

Yeah. That. It sucks a lot.

It is really irritating when I'm sitting trying to type at the computer. Something about holding my arms out in front of me, even when I'm resting them on the keyboard. Nothing I do with the placement of my feet/legs makes things really comfortable. I tried not taking anything for it today and that was a mistake.

Alright, whining over, continue with your regularly scheduled programming. Off to try - probably in vain - to concentrate on my school work. I don't really recognize how distracting this is until I try to form complete thoughts/sentences and FAIL.

Six, Now

Six births since Monday
*yawn*

But I still exist. Hi everyone.

We're going for seven in a week I think...there are two likely candidates today...I've got a couple assignments, but my mom is in town, so sorry....they'll be late.

I've decided that I do really poorly on three hours of sleep - worse than 2 or 4. I thought I was going to throw up, driving out to this birth. But I got there and did just fine. My poor mom, she was sleeping in the living room and I was banging around all through there...she eventually got up and asked if she could help. Ah well, she's done her share of doula work, she understands.

Babe this morning came "sunny side up," which was really interesting.

Thursday Evening

And I've now been to five births since Monday.

Wow.

My back is OK - still sore but I can move almost like normal - and I'm feeling surprisingly alright, only a little tired. OK, pretty tired. But not entirely falling over, especially considering the hour. My mom is flying in this evening and my house is absolutely destroyed, I'm not sure it has ever been this messy.

Did I mention that right after I wrote that previous post, BittyPrincess smashed into my coffee, spilling it all over my computer? Yeah, my better computer is out of commission now. I'm hoping once it dries all the way it will start working again - it will start but the keyboard doesn't work. Cross your fingers for me. That computer was expensive. It was also in parts all over the living room when I got called to birth number 4.

Birth number 4 was awesome, just in case anyone was wondering. Totally hands off, that baby basically crawled/pushed out to the hips and then dad picked her up. It was absolutely awesome. I think I like that better than I like catching.

Baby number 5 came with mom on hands and knees, and was the first time I've seen a birth without any tears or skids at all. It was also the first time I've felt a nuchal cord, AND it feels to me like my first catch, even though it isn't, probably because I wasn't constantly looking to my preceptor for feedback this time. The funny thing is that she moaned and complained more than the moms with tears. Which kind of brings to mind this thought that the perineum numbs when it tears...but I don't know. N of one and all that.

So I'm off to push toys around with a vaccuum cleaner and hope it doesn't look too horrific in here when my mom shows up in half an hour.

UGH. Nevermind. It appears the vaccuum broke. Ugh.

In Which Niki Throws Out Her Back, And Has a Long Night

Out shopping with the kids yesterday, I got a phone call "[person] is in labor and moving along quick, you should come in now." Predictably, while I am talking on the phone, BittyPrincess removes her boots and socks and starts splashing around in the water fountain. I pick her up and bend over to place her back in her boots, and POP, a truly horrifying sensation in my back. As I lean on the water fountain and blow and swoon, BittyPrincess begins whining full volume about wanting more water. I actually wind up having to drag her out of the store. And force her into her carseat, because "NO!" is her new favorite...not just word, but THING. I made a semi-frantic phone call to ~L~ to ask what I should do, and then remember that I have naproxen sodium in my bag, and take something just short of the lethal dose.

By the time I got home, the pain was manageable, and so were the kids. I'd managed to sweat up a storm, so I needed to shower and change, and I finally left the house an hour after that original call.

"You got here quick!" my preceptor said, as usual, despite the rush-hour ride into town (surprisingly short at 45 minutes). I did not miss that birth, which featured a lot of scary heart tones, rushed pushing, and a fourth degree tear. I didn't miss the impromptu prenatal we did down the hall an hour later, or the induction for high BP we started (not aggressive, some cervidil and a good night sleep, we hope). I didn't get home until 11.

Crash out, until 2, when someone unexpected came in. I got there in record time but still was only there long enough for some perineal support and a really fast delivery, followed by some interesting bleeding and a really interesting placenta.

Home at 6am...I got three hours of sleep in and am waiting for the mama we started an induction on to go into labor.

Altogether, not horrible, actually. The back thing, that sucks. The overnight thing wasn't so bad, I tally 6 hours sleep in there. Back is tight and sore, but not PAINful.

First Cesarean Section

So today I saw my first cesarean section. Mom was a primip with a breech babe that didn't particularly want to turn and too little amniotic fluid to get very aggressive with a version.

It was pretty incredible. My preceptor was assisting, and the doctor was very friendly to my being there. Once the baby was out and mom and dad were thoroughly distracted, he started describing what he was doing and what I was seeing. That was really cool. Of all the strange things to be impressed by, I noticed how easy it was to tell tissue layers apart, and with how smooth and neat the exterior of the uterus looks. This doctor did not (as I've heard many do) take anything OUT to sew it up.

Mom and baby did awesome. Any time anyone left the baby's feet free, up they'd go, right back into the position he'd spent the last month-plus in (frank breech).

There was no separation, really, but it bothered me how long baby spent in the warmer after the "peek a boo" parent show. And it bothered me that the warmer was probably about 10 degrees out of mom's sight beyond her drape...couldn't it be a foot more to the side so she could see? I can see the point of not having it visible in some cases, but when they're just making sure baby gets all the amniotic fluid clear and he's basically just alternatively yelling, startling, and looking around...why?

By the time we left, mom was happy and baby was happy, breastfeeding nicely back up in L&D. The crowd of family members that had come with them (I think there were 6 of them) was just thinking about coming in. At least we know she will have a ton of people around to wait on her while she recovers.

Another thing...I am not really understanding why mom and dad had to be separated as mom was being prepped for the surgery. If I got to be there, why couldn't he be there? Why couldn't he see the spinal being placed? What is the hospital afraid of? Worse, what does he think must be going on? Particularly with this family, where the dad had expressed a fear of being separated from his wife and baby (being led to a variety of hillarious-in-retrospect wrong places instead of to his wife and baby), it seemed unnecessarily cruel. I will ask my preceptor about this for sure, but I have a feeling the answer will be less than satisfying. At least the parents were never separated from each other or from their baby once the surgery began.

Girliness is EIGHT

I can't believe she's eight. Time flies, eh? It really doesn't feel like it has been that long since I first became a parent. Eight years. Wow.

My daughter is awesome.

She chose to have a party at Odyssey, a play-zone place the kids all really like. So that's what we did.

The kids all had fun. But they were running around like nuts and I didn't get any good pictures, except for the bit of time BittyPrincess spent enjoying an air jet:



We "kidnapped" a few neighbor kids and brought a vanload down to the party. Everyone had fun, it was great...and I had a flat tire on the way home, on a highway that was under construction (read: oh crap, what shoulder?). It turns out there probably wasn't any better place for a flat that day. We found a nice widened place to stop where we weren't threatened by passing cars, we had a man stop to help, and it turned out that the worst part of the whole ordeal was the chill of the wind. I'd even grabbed food for all the kids on the way home, so they sat in the van and munched and joked, and didn't really have a problem with it.

We had a repeat performance of Girliness' birthday later in the evening when Fran got home. And then again yesterday when we found a present I'd bought for her and misplaced.

She is proudly telling everyone she is EIGHT. This isn't a birthday that holds any real significance for me psychologically, but I think it is extra-important to her for some reason. Enjoy your year, Girliness. Don't rush into preteen too fast.