I was ready....

I've been feeling off for the last few days
My feelings surrounding Briana's death have been confusing.
I lost my confidence, my calmm.
I told baby to stay in there until I feel ready again.

A mixture of anger and sadness, along with the feeling that I did not even know her - who am I to be feeling so this way? What about her close friends and family? But what about me? The Birth of my child? the unfairness, that she will not be there. Then, I feel selfish for thinking of myself. I shouldn't feel bad about that.

We would have known her-she would have been a part of our family, as she was with all of the other families who's babies she caught. We could have been close. We are not mourning the loss of a close close friend who we have known for ages, but we are mourning the loss of the opportunity of knowing her. Mourning the loss of experiencing her tenderness, knowledge, peace, and nurturing.

That is okay, for us to be sad and angry.We were looking forward to those plans. Today I feel good. The sun is out. I know everything will be okay, and I am beginning to feel confident and prepared again.

She came to our house just on Thursday, and palpated my belly, and laughed as the baby kicked and punched. "Mike, come feel this", she said, and showed him her feet, here, her back, here, and her head, down here. In position, ready to be born. She listened to the heartbeat. She sat in the rocking chair in the baby corner and smiled as she rocked in it. She looked at my little baby clothes and told me how excited she was, and how ready we are, and how great of parents we will be. She asked me if I was doing okay, and if anything was bothering me. She told me to eat a dozen eggs a week, and drink plenty of water. She told me how beautiful our home is, and how great Mike is for taking such good care of me. She gave me a big hug, and walked out into the snow in her red rainboots.Then she texted me to reassure me that I was doing great, and to just call her if I needed ANYTHING.

I feel good about Cathy, and I trust that this is how it is meant to be.

Also, I am getting sick of eggs :)

On the bright side

we sold the subaru
which is lovely for our bank account

Here one day, gone the next

Mike and I arrived home from a lovely Easter celebration at Dodee's. We came up form the warm valley, and some sunlight to a gloomy rainy cloudy snowy canyon that is our home. I was grumpy about the rain, so decided to take a bath to relax. It didn't work, I was stressed out. I got out and went to the computer. I didn't think it would cheer me up or anything, it rarely does. I was right it didn't, but what I found did humble me. Upon logging in to my Blogger account, and scanning through the blogs I follow I noticed that the midwife, Cathy,who is to assist my midwife Briana at our homebirth had posted an entry on her blog. I began reading it, and I had to re-read a few sentences before I understood. Our midwife, Briana, had Died in a rollover just yesterday. Go here to read the post: Breath Peace
or here to read the news story

We spent about an hour or so in shock and confusion, wondering what to do next before Cathy gave us a call. She is amazing. In a time that must be very difficult for her, she called us to assure us that everything would be fine and she would be there for us when the time came to have our baby. This woman had an enormous impact on so many people's lives, and we had chosen her very carefully to help us with the birth of our baby. We will certainly be missing her physical presence at that birth, but I think she will be there in spirit. We are so lucky to have had her as a caregiver for a short time, She was so excited to meet our baby, and was so good at what she did.

Good reads

I used to be a huge reader, ever since I was a kid, but somewhere in high school I kind of lost interest. I had trouble finding books that caught my attention. Every once in a while I will stumble across a book that I find intriguing, and usually I finish it the same day I pick it up, leaving me again with nothing to read for months.

Suddenly though, I found myself pregnant, and someone lent me a book:

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth

and after reading that book, and with the encouragement of my OBGYN, Mike and I decided to take a Hypnobirthing class where we used this book:

Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method

My attention was caught. I suddenly had to know everything about natural childbirth, and according to everyone else Ina May Gaskin is the expert, so I quickly found and read two of her books.  Both of these books really changed the way I feel about my body and it's innate abilities. They are full of birth stories, encouragement and advice. I decided while reading these books, that we would be staying home to have our baby, and so the search for a midwife began.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and Spiritual Midwifery

After all of that reading in such a short period of time, I remembered why I love reading so much, and why it used to be an important part of my life. I hurried to Summit County Library to get a Library card.

But now that I know everything there is to know about childbirth, Where to go next?

Parenting books of course! I gotta know what to do once that thing comes out.

I have read a few of the parenting books that one of the ladies I nanny for had in her bookshelf. just for fun really, while the boy was napping. The Happiest baby/toddler on the Block, and The No-Cry Sleep Solution are the ones I remember reading. They were okay.

The books I have already been reading about childbirth really encourage a style of parenting called attachment parenting, so when I saw this book I thought I might as well find out what that's all about:

The Attachment Parenting Book: A commonsense guide to understanding and nurturing your baby

 

And when I saw the title of this book, I couldn't not check it out. My number one goal as a parent is to raise compassionate, empathetic children. Children who are unselfish, and have a love for everyone and everything around them. I'm pretty surprised at how little emphasis this concept gets in our school systems today, and in society in general. I feel like so many kids today are unaware of the people around them. They are so immersed with themselves. It's one thing when it's a small child , but when a 10 or 12 year old boy buzzes past you in a doorway, and you can tell that it never even occurred to him for a split second to hold the door open, doesn't it just appaul you? This is not how I was raised, to blatantly ignore other people's presence.

This book is more geared towards teachers, but I think it is a book that any parent, grandparent, teacher, and anyone else who is involved in the lives of any young child could definitely benefit from reading. It is probably my favorite of all of the books I have read this year.

Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades

and here is a link to the Foreword, if you would like a preview:

http://www.tolerance.org/activity/foreword-starting-small

 My Midwife has a wonderful library of books, and she sent me home with this book. Unlike most breastfeeding books, along with being informative it is also very entertaining. It tackles a few points that other breastfeeding books don't, and branches out on a few related subjects. It made me feel a lot more confident about breastfeeding, and parenting in general. Some of the other books just talk about everything that can go wrong, and it just makes you worry. This book is like the friend that helps you realize shit happens, and you deal with it, and you move on, and usually forget about it.

 The Food Of Love



She also lent me this book, which is another super encouraging guide to prepare you for the emotional and physical process of childbirth. It uses a lot of imagery and art.

Birthing From Within

good bye car

We're biting the bullet. We're selling our car. We've decided we can totally be a one-car (and one-scooter) family.

It's a 2005 Subaru Outback, if you know anyone that wants it. It's in great condition, comes with an almost new set of snow tires as well as the summer ones, and has been super well taken care of.

$9,400

our little strawberry!

It's probably just me, but is this not the cutest tiny swimsuit ever?

maybe you have to see it in person.

My dad and I went baby shopping yesterday. We went to Osh Kosh. I remember that was my Dad's favorite store to shop at for Megan and I. Along with a few other things, I decided we needed a swimsuit for baby, and I just couldn't resist this little thing. It is so tiny, and she is going to be so tiny in it. I am so excited to take her swimming!

I'm not the most patient person. Up until now I felt that there was a lot to do to get ready for Baby's arrival. Now I feel like everything is done, we are ready and we are just waiting. I'm bad at waiting.

I need a distraction.

Tummy Timeline; Warning: I'm showing some skin in these photos.

For some reason, my face looks a little ridiculous in many of these pictures. Somehow, without trying, we managed to take at least one picture a month of my growing tummy. I suppose this will be good for posterity.

The day my pants stopped fitting. yes, they are being held together with a hair tie:

November

December

 January

February

 

March

April- I exploded!

More of Our Home

Someone thought it was crazy that I was climbing up and down a ladder to get to my bedroom while pregnant. They suggested I post a picture:

Here are some more photos of our room, mostly finished now. This should give you a better idea of the layout.

I was standing at the bottom of the ladder when I took this photo.

The sign above our bed is from our wedding party. It sat around in the shed for a while, and one day I thought It might look good in the house somewhere, so I pulled it out and nailed it up.

We built the crib as a co-sleeper. It has 3 sides, and the 4th matches right up to our bed.

we did this for a few reasons. One, the crib we had been given was a normal sized crib, but took up a lot of space, which we don't have, so we decided something built in would be more efficient for our small space. Another reason is that I didn't feel good about baby being so far away, alone in a crib. If I was a baby, I would be scared to wake up and find myself all alone, and of course I would cry. I felt that way before I even read about Co-sleeping, which you can read about Here, Or here.

The photo doesn't show it very well, but the mattresses fit together really very tightly with no gaps, so it is very safe. Also, Mike sanded and rounded all of the edges of everything, so there's nothing sharp or rough here, and I will rethink the decor above the crib as she gets bigger and starts reaching for things. Also, I do not plan on leaving my child in her "crib" when I am not in the room, so the railing is not to contain her, rather for safety. I don't need to hear about how easily a child could get out of this crib, because that is actually kind of the point.

I am still making the curtain that will go here, so that we can use the space below for storage.

 

 I just framed 2 small cut outs from larger photos that I printed off of the computer, as well as the Heart, which is a card from Rifle Paper Co which I gave to mike for V-day. Then I put some of the extra fabric from the crib sheets that my mom and I made into embroidery hoops.

I made the Mobile out of a embroidery hoop, hemp rope, and paper flowers.

This area is still unfinished, but I'm posting photos regardless.

Our bedroom was kind of set up so that it could have been like a basement apartment, so there is a little sink and counter in it.  Perfect for a baby changing and bathing area right?
And this Ikea Trofast storage combo fit perfectly into this funny space.



Our little winter outings

I spent a day with mike at Park City Powder Cats a few weeks ago. He drives snowcats for them usually with passengers, but on this particular day he was grooming, in case they didn't get any snow for the next little while, they would have something fun for the guests to ski on. This is literally right up the road from our house, maybe 10 miles.

It is amazing up there. At the top you can see everything. Wyoming on one side, the ski resorts on the other, Mt. Baldy, Timp. Everything.

And this weekend we had a day off together (this never happens) and somehow he convinced me to go snowshoeing. I swear it was like a 2 mile hike, but he says it wasn't even close.

We got up to the lake behind our house, and mike booted it up this huge hill in no time while I waited at the lake. If you look really hard you can see him:

And here he is skiing down:

 Yes, I laid down in the snow to wait for him

We really do live in such an awesome place!

updated list of baby stuff we want/need

We don't have any bottles yet, but want the Medela ones that go with our (cringe) breast pump. Two words I have been seriously avoiding saying, but there it is.

We don't have any Pacifiers either. We could use some more swaddling blankets, like the ones by Aiden & Anais, which conveniently they just started selling at Target!

We would definitely love any of these cute little summery outfits that have been popping up in stores, such as dresses and rompers. We are over our heads in onesies, but mostly hand me downs from boys, so we don't have super girly ones. I have also seen some adorable summery leggings and tiny pants and shorts that i love. Here are some cute things:

we plan on doing a lot of swimming so swimsuits in any size would be great. I think baby cardigans are the cutest thing in the world. I spotted some Tiny jelly sandals @ old navy, and I think those are also the cutest thing in the world, although I understand that a baby who cannot walk wearing sandals is kind of silly.

We have a few toys here and there, but not really any tiny baby toys like teethers or rattles.

We don't have any baby body products, but are kind of picky-Burt's bees Baby, California Baby, and Aveeno baby products would all work.

we don't have a little baby first aid/hygiene kit.

we could use more:
Burp cloths
pre-fold cloth diapers
disney movies
baby washcloths

And if you think of anything you think I might need, or you couldn't have lived without, or just see something that you can't resist buying for me-than that would be a great gift as well :)

Registry info: http://www.giggle.com/eng/registry/41944
Registrant(s): Kaelee Everett & Michael Everett

Registry #41944: Welcoming baby Hazel

update

Mike is so excited to be a dad. Here he is, trying out one of the baby slings:

Baby's corner:

That hand print is from when I was 5!

And a bib of mine too, I can't beleive my mom kept it for all these years.

Baby's crib is over next to our bed, mike built it as a co-sleeper, so one side matches right up to our bed, and it doesn's have a railing on that side. I am still working on that area, so pictures will come later.