- We have officially backed out of the house-purchasing ordeal. It looks as though we may be losing $650: $350 for inspection (yeah, I thought it was only $250) and $300 for loan application fees.
- We’re going to look at some rental houses tomorrow that just got put on Craigslist tonight. They are in really nice areas and cheaper than our house payments would have been.
- Did I mention we got a second car? Due to some turns of events and some circumstances, my mom had an extra car to spare and she passed on to us! Just this morning, Josh and I were able to go TWO DIFFERENT PLACES at the SAME TIME. And neither place was on the bus route! Astounding.
- Remember the high chair fire? A local friend read that post and came up to me at MOPS declaring, “Hey, I HAVE AN EXTRA HIGH CHAIR. Would you like it?!” It’s awesome. Way better than the one I set on fire. God cares that my baby has a high chair. Amazing.
- Olivia earned her first potty prize in over a month yesterday. Watercolors. We are so proud!
- AND she can sing the alphabet song from A to Z. Some of the letters may be unrecognizable, but they’re there!
- I met with a midwife today. I really liked her. She doesn’t do hospital births though. She says she won’t hesitate to take me to a hospital if needed, but due to malpractice insurance issues, she can’t begin a birth in a hospital. So now I have to decide if I want a home birth. And I really think I do. But I’m afraid family will be shocked and much afraid. I’ve been bringing up the issue and quoting statistics to Josh for weeks now, and he’s just now able to really talk about the possibility.
- I did find out the Josh’s insurance cannot use the pre-existing condition clause with pregnancy. You guys were right. 🙂 What would I do without you? So I get an insured pregnancy, which is good, because the midwife doesn’t take Medicaid. But I’ll have to wait until August to get insured, unless I want to pay a lot of back-pay. You can only get on school insurance three times a year. Unless you happen to be a “partner” of the insured and you two recently got together (no marriage required!). The school supports pre-marital and homosexual “partners” who need insurance, but not pregnant wives. Go figure.I suppose Josh and I could separate and then shack back up together. But we’ll probably end up waiting til August to get insurance. We’re too lazy to divorce.
- I just may have recently perfected the pizza crust. It involves a bread machine, NO pre-baking, butter, and sometimes a good sprinkling of coarse sugar. I’ll have to share that with you sometime.
- I can make WordPress put spaces between my bulleted points if I go back and enter-enter-backspace between them all.
Welp, if you got through that monstrosity of a non-creative, bulleted list of boring updates, you must REALLY be avoiding some serious housework.
Go on, shoo. Fold some laundry or something.
I think you are doing the right thing by backing out on the house. When the time is right then a house will be there for you to buy.
I am too chicken to try a home birth after having a child with a heart defect that was missed by ultrasounds. Good luck wiht making your decision.
To lazy to divorce – well shame on you;)
Sounds like a good call about the house – too many tricky questions were coming up. It wasn’t meant to be.
Well done with that spacing thing. I”ll have to find out how to do that on Blogger now.
Do the homebirth. It is an experience like no other! You will never regret it. I had both of my children at home. It is empowering, it is amazing, and you will recover so much faster. If you have the option to have a water birth go for it! My first was a dry birth and my second was water. It was great!! Don’t worry about what other people think, except your husband. They will deal with it. Another thing you can do is have your mom or whoever come to an appointment with you and meet your midwife, then she can ask questions and better understand homebirthing. Just don’t let them sway you. You can do it! As you can see, homebirth is really important to me. Feel free to email me. I love to talk about it!
Drat. You caught me — I really DO need to go fold / stuff diapers. 🙂
Just wanted to chime-in on the homebirth idea. Our first was born in a free-standing birth center, and our newest was born at home (in March!). It was a bit of a stretch for my husband at first, too, but he came around and is now a big advocate for home birth!! We had a great set of circumstances, and I will confess that there are a few things that would make me shy away from a homebirth (like livivg waaaay out in the boonies or not having a good back-up hospital with an OB team and NICU just in case something happened). BUT we loved our home birth experience – and I would definitely do it again (in fact, if I’d known how wonderful it was, I would have done it the first time around 🙂 ). Feel free to email me if you have any questions — or if Josh has any questions for my husband! 🙂
Yeah for good things happening (car, high chair, potty prizes)! I am really glad you backed out of the house deal. That is something you do NOT want to be dealing with while pregnant!
Go for the midwife!! I didn’t have a homebirth, but I did do a freestanding birthcenter birth this last time. Fifth child and first time with a midwife. We loved it! Best care I’ve ever recieved. The majority of midwives are very cautious and WILL transport you if they feel the need. My family about had a cow, but you know what? They got over it. I’m expecting again and this time it’s not even been brought up!:)
I’m all for the mid-wife thing with a few questions….can’t help it. It’s the OB nurse in me. Is the mid-wife a certified nurse midwife? What did her training involve? What would the plan be if there were to be a problem? The ideal situation would be the mid-wife at a hospital. Don’t know if that’s available in your area, it’s not in our rural setting. But I know Memphis (the closet major city) has a seperate setting for those who choose the mid-wife option in most of the hospitals. Just something to think about.
Too lazy or too cheap to divorce? Divorces are expensive. I think that just shows what a sick society we live in, that unmarried sexual partners can have benefits that a happily married family cannot!
Oh, and I am glad you backed out of the house too. With soon to be three young kids, the last thing I’d imagine you want to worry about is termites and appliances that might be older than you are…
Go with the home birth and the midwife. Given my experience, it’s good to check and see what her procedure is for transferring care if need be, and if your midwife can stay with you if you need to go to a hospital during labour and delivery.
I’m saying all of this assuming that midwives are legal where you are, and it’s the same standard of prenatal care. (not so much the ultrasounds, but the BP checks and the urine checks- which are, obviously a big deal to me)
i had both my babies at home and loved it 🙂 if you have any questions i’m here also
Shoot, you caught me slacking, I do have a basket of laundry waiting to be folded while my kidlet is sleeping…
As far as home births…good for you! Not for me, I like the drugs, it’s true. To bad none of them actually worked for the birth of my son! Oh the pain of 45 hours of labour and a baby who would not drop, not fun. But here’s hoping to be pregnant soon…again 😉
If I ever get brave enough to try an all-natural birth, I would love to do a water birth at home. 🙂
I’m sorry about the house not working out. 🙁 That’s so terribly disappointing. I hope you find something even better soon.
Um Yeah, I’ve been avoiding the laundry. I still have at least 40 days to wash baby clothes…
Bulleted entries are my best friend. I can get everything down that is floating in my head!
Sorry about the house, but good to hear about the potty and the high chair!
I am also considering a home birth and need to convince my husband. I did the OB/hospital birth the first time but it went really well so I’m switching to a midwife this time around. My plan is to have a midwife that works out of the hospital, but plan for and have a homebirth midwife.
Here’s to a nice, safe and healthy pregnancy for both of us!
I would love to have a home birth… but not here… and I’d really like to have another one here. That’s the dilemma. Can I have another baby here without a c-section and, if not, is it worth it to have one any way (I certainly don’t want to fly back to the States to have the baby!)? If you do go with the home birth, I will have tons of questions to ask you!!! 😀
I’d be so excited to hear if you plan a home birth. I birthed at a birth center, but I think a home birth would be amazing, too. 🙂
I mentioned midwife and home birth to Tig last night. He said “what’s the difference?” about midwife, and gave me a STRANGE look about homebirth. LOL.
So, if you have one, I’ll be sure to be asking questions 🙂 and I just might switch to a Midwife at our doctor’s office. I have 3 to pick from. I figure since Tig doesn’t know the difference between a dr and a midwife, he wont care. 🙂
by the way, I told him the difference was that Midwives care about you and how you want to have your baby, and are more personal where as a doctor doesn’t care and just wants to do things the “normal” way.
ok, so i know i’m probably going to be ripped for saying some of this, but some of these comments just annoy me. first off, for everyone who is giving you the advice to just “forget about what others think”, i think that is terrible advice. your family cares about you, so if they have concerns i don’t think the answer is to just “forget about what they think.” maybe some better advice would be to figure out why they have so many concerns. also, i’m a little tired of the dr. bashing that sometimes goes on here. i happen to know a dr. who does care about his patients and to say they don’t really annoys me. will a dr. give you as much attention as a midwife…probably not. that isn’t their job. they have a team of nurses, who have just about as much training and knowledge as a midwife, to do that stuff. but will a midwife have the knowledge and expertise to save you and your baby’s life if problems do arise…probably not. there is a reason dr.’s go to school for a about a billion years and work long nasty hours over weekends and even holidays…and it’s because they care about you and your baby.
i apologize if i’m being a little harsh, but these are just my thoughts, so take it for what its worth.
Noah, I couldn’t just let this statement slide:
“but will a midwife have the knowledge and expertise to save you and your baby’s life if problems do arise…probably not”
Certified Nurse Midwives *are* experts, who have gone to school for many years & attended hundreds of births. They DO have the training and equipment to stabilize mother and or baby if needed in case of emergency, and they *know* how to spot an emergency and how to handle it. The main difference is that they don’t have the training in surgery that an obstetrician has.
Many people have the idea that a midwife is just some random person who likes attending births. Not true at all.
Countries with the lowest infant mortality, i.e. Western Europe, allow & encourage midwife-attended home births. Our USA culture that we need a doctor for EVERYTHING, even NORMAL things, is probably why that’s not the case here.
As with all people, some Dr.’s are good and some, not so much. I was personally lucky enough to have an amazing Dr. with my second son. She was as close to a midwife as you could want with the added benifit of a surgical degree. She encouraged doing things as naturally as possible, listened to me and respected what I wanted.
I think we each have to do what is right for own individual situations. If your family has concerns with your decision, assure them the best you can that this is the right choice for you. Every choice we make is a risk, life itself is risk. I do not think that a Dr’s degree will guarantee that you won’t have problems.
Good luck with whatever you choose.
Noah, you are misinformed about midwives. 🙂 There are many different types of midwives, but whether they are lay midwives or CNM’s, they have all undergone training and are well-versed in caring for emergency situations. Some have a paper to back up their practice and some don’t, but whether through internship, school, or both, they are competent and knowledgeable practitioners of birth. In fact, you could even call them specialists…all they deal in is birth and pregnancy (even OB’s can’t make that claim).
Anyways, Beth, I had a midwife with my second and loved it. And I did not have a complication-free birth, and it turned out to be a good thing I had a midwife instead of a hospital, as I would have ended up in unnecessary surgery for liability’s sake. 🙂 I had a homebirth btw.
haha! Too funny- I’ll get to the laundry!
Beth, I have a question unrelated to this post. Can you point me in the right direction for info on nutrition for nursing toddlers? I’ve read everything on kellymom.com.
My reason for asking: my little just turned 1, and I hope to do child led weaning at some point. However, my DD is off the growth charts both height and weight, and I am concered that our pediatrician will not be supportive of extended breastfeeding. I don’t know this for sure – we have our 12 month check up on Thursday.
Just looking for more info if you can help. Thanks!