Crepe Myrtles

I have been looking at this tree across the street from me for the past two days. It is absolutely amazing, and the picture does not do it credit. It has to be the biggest crepe myrtle in the county! And I've never seen the blooms on it any prettier than they are now. Here it is.

By the way, it's in front of a house, and you really can't see the house for the huge shrub!

But it doesn't smell as pretty as the white crepe myrtles beside my house. I've lived here for 12 years now, and I've never noticed the smell of the crepe myrtles before. They smell like a very faint honeysuckle. It's lovely. I wish I could introduce the smell factor into the blog, but here's a picture of them.

When you walk beside them, the blooms fall down like snow. And there's a constant buzzing in them right now. Bees are everywhere! My shrubs are doing their job for the honey production. If you look real close, you can see a bee in the following picture. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a bee? You just have to point in the general direction and shoot because they don't stay still. I had never tried this before, and wasn't aware of how "busy as a bee" is until today!

The bee is the blur next to the leaves. Uh huh. Right. And you can nearly see the other bee in the picture below, close to the bottom right.

Anyway, even though it's hot out today, there are harbingers of the autumn to come. The light is changing. It's not a summer light anymore. I know, my husband thinks I'm crazy when I say that. Also, the days are getting shorter. It's nearly dark by 8 pm now. And the last sign of autumn are the oxblood lilies coming up. They usually wait until September.

Here's one that's growing in the yard between us and the Mahan's yard next door.

So yay for the flowers, and yay for the fall.

I can't wait until my four o'clock starts flowering, and I have a bunch of little baby limes on my Mexican thornless lime tree...

Good but Hard Good-bye

I want to change gears for this post. I want to become a mother.

This past weekend we took our son Timothy to Le Tourneau University. We got to Longview on Thursday afternoon. His girlfriend Angela also caravanned with us.

As soon as we got there, the two young people checked in, and we parents were channeled in another direction. They received their check-in packets, with registration times for the next day, and a LeTourneau t-shirt. Each student got a shirt as they checked in. The shirts were in many different colors, and each had a number on the back. Timothy's was royal blue and had a 7 on it. Angela's was maroon and had a 4. They were instructed to wear the shirts at a meeting in the chapel later that evening.

We then helped each of them move into their dorms.

When they got to the chapel, they were separated into groups by shirt. Each group has 10-16 members. Each group has a faculty mentor and an upperclassman mentor. These groups will meet twice a week (they will earn 1 credit hour for this) all semester. The class is called "Cornerstones." They will cover very important things such as time management! (This is a really smart university. Who knew that you needed to tell students how to manage their time???)

After the meeting, in which we sang several hymns together, prayed together, and committed ourselves to each other (faculty, students, parents), we went outside. Outside, one member of each group planted an ivy slip, representing their class. When they graduate, they will have an ivy cutting ceremony. Below is a picture of Timothy and Angela in front of the ivy plants representing their class.

The next morning we went to register the two. We had no communication with Timothy because the SIM card on his cell phone was not working, so we just went where he was supposed to be. He wasn't. This isn't the first time we haven't been able to find our son, nor are we the first parents to lose a child, so we kept our calm. We eventually found him an hour and a half later where he was supposed to be. By that time, he and advisor Dr. Juan Castro (Finance teacher from Honduras) had nearly finished a schedule of 17 hours for him. 17 hours!! I tried not to show my surprise, but I don't think I managed it. That's a lot of hours for a freshman to take, but...ok. Angela later registered for 16 hours. They will both be working hard.

We finished registering (with a break for lunch) at about 4 pm. Angela was so relieved and happy to be done with it that she did a little twirl/dance in the hall when she was finally done. I have to admit that she did so at my instigation. Then we got to stand in the very humid heat while Jackie tried to work out with T-Mobile some sort of plan for getting Timothy a new SIM card. It's ridiculous how long those things take.

After that we went to the bookstore, where Angela bought books and Timothy browsed. Hmmm, not going to get any books, son? He explained that he would get books, after he had had his first classes and had figured out which ones he needed books for, and which ones he didn't. That made some sort of sense to me, but I'm in Angela's court. I always wanted to be prepared before class. Somehow we have a son that is not like us; Jackie agrees with me in this case. But I can see his point of view, too, so I allow him the freedom to do as he sees best.

Saturday morning the Cornerstones groups go to do community service projects from 8 to noon. Timothy's group paints a daycare, while Angela's group does landscaping for someone or other. I can't remember now who. Every group is doing something different for the community. Isn't that cool? The parents, meanwhile, are listening to a panel of four professors and two students talk about the LeTourneau experience.

I am so impressed with the faculty and staff at LeTourneau. Each of the ones that I interface with in some way are Christians. I mean really Christians. They let Jesus be a part of their everyday lives. They treasure each of the students and consider them sacred. They begin their talks with us with a devotional on a little-known passage of Scripture; some of them leave me crying, and I'm deeply spiritually touched. This is a really good place for my son. I feel it to be true in my spirit. Each of the teachers that speak leave me knowing that they will push for excellence from each of the students, but help them in every way possible. Could there be any better place for Timothy? I really thank God that He has led us here. He has been so faithful to direct us in directing our children.

Angela had been praying that they would find a house church to attend. At the church fair on Saturday afternoon, they may have found one. There is a small messianic congregation meeting in a house about two blocks from the campus. There are no coincidences, we have decided once again.

We had a few words of wisdom for him in the lobby of his dorm. And then we prayed for him and Angela. We will continue to pray.

Below is a picture of Timothy by a statue of Jesus washing Peter's feet. It is located just outside the main chapel on campus. I think it speaks for itself. Timothy said, "I'm going to like this place." We agree with you, son.

And we miss you.

I'm in Love

Well, from the conversation with Lynet, I know she's in real early labor, and I know that she may quit in the daytime. Oftentimes, the uterus relaxes during the day, and then kicks in again when the sun goes down.

I have a theory about that. I have been taught that two hormones basically have opposing effects on the body. These two are oxytocin and catecholamines, of which adrenaline is one. First of all, oxytocin is not pitocin. Pitocin is a man-made chemical, and the contractions that Pitocin raises are horrible in intensity and length. Oxytocin is actually the hormone that comes around when you're in love. It's a lovely hormone; everything is relaxed and loved. But it gets overridden with adrenaline, which comes with any anxiety or worry, any stress of the day. So in the daytime, there are all kinds of stressors that happen, and oxytocin can't do the job of causing contractions because adrenaline takes over. At night, when everybody is sleeping, the oxytocin can work unimpeded.

Anyway, I get to Lynet's house. I check her on August 6, 2008 at 10:15 a.m. She's one cm. I kind of figured that one. She's only having contractions every 10 minutes or so. I don't consider that labor, but she does. I stay for awhile, seeing if anything will intensify. I take a little nap in Dawna's bed. It's amazing that I can take a nap, because Gary's dad Jimmy is there installing a door into Lynet and Gary's bedroom doorway. It will help with privacy. They're temporarily living with Lynet's mom, my sister Martha. All their belongings are in this one huge room, but there's no door in the doorway. Lynet's in early labor, and Jimmy is installing a door. The noise and activity are probably having a bearing on the labor. Anyway, for a couple of hours, Jimmy has to go get some supplies or something, and there's no noise, so I take a nap. I'm so glad. I wake up around 2 pm when the hammering begins again. Lynet's not doing anything, so I go home.

She calls me a little after midnight to tell me that her labor contractions really got going at about 8 pm, and they're coming every 5 minutes. Would I come check her? I haven't slept yet. Of course I'm awake. I kind of think that this check is premature mainly because it was Lynet who called, not Gary. I know it's time to go to a birth if the lady can't talk anymore.

Anyway, I get there at about 1 am. August 7, 2008. This is going to be Andrew's birthday, but I don't know yet how long a day it will be. I'm still tired from Birch's birth, and here it is an hour past midnight. Lynet's a whopping 2 cm after 15 hours. Oh, boy. This will be long.

Somehow, we make it to daylight. Martha and Billy get up early to milk the cows, so by 5 am or so there's movement in the other end of the house. I check Lynet again at 5:41. 3 cm. She works with her labor, changing positions, walking, resting, drinking. She does very well. I'm not doing as well as she is. I can't believe how s-l-o-w it's going. This is my first time to midwife for a family member. I don't know if that makes me tired, or if it's the hard birth I just came off of. But I feel that this birth is just going to be slow. I hope that pushing goes faster.

At this time her contractions are coming every 3 minutes, lasting 90 seconds. That's hard. Usually moms don't have this type of contractions for very long, but everything about this birth seems to be happening the hard way.

At 10 am we get Lynet to go outside and walk around some. She's now 5 cm. Usually that's more than halfway, because the last 5 cm usually go faster. It won't take much to go faster than the first 5 cm, since they took 24 hours!

Lynet eats lightly throughout the day: toast and jelly, pudding, granola bars. At 1 pm, we notice white floating "things" in the bath water. Hmmm, vernix? Perhaps her water broke without anyone noticing?? Vernix is the white waxy substance that coats the baby's body while in utero, to protect it from the slightly alkaline amniotic fluid. At 1:50 I check her again, and I feel a bulgy bag of waters, so I conclude that only the outer bag is broken. Not everyone knows that there are actually two bags! The outer one is the chorion, and the inner one is the amnion. She's now 6 cm.

She begins to sway and squat during contractions, after Martha encourages her to do so. I agree, saying that it will help her baby come on down. Martha's a go-getter. She's ready to get the show on the road. Lynet complies. She's ready for this to be over, too.

Around 2:30 she cries out, "The contractions never quit!" Honestly.

I call Ashlea to come. She gets there at 3:45. She becomes my caretaker. She can tell I'm exhausted. And she takes over listening to baby heart tones. She tells me to lie down and rest. And she encourages me. This is a new role for Ashlea. She's usually pretty matter-of-fact. Today she must know I need more. And she gives it. Thank you, thank you.

I massage some Evening Primrose Oil on the cervix and try stretching it some. It gives a little bit. Lynet is patient while I'm doing this. She's lunging with one foot on the bed, then the other, at my suggestion. Sometimes this opens up the pelvis, and helps if the baby has his head cocked a little crookedly.

At 4:30 she's 8 cm. Wow. I apply more Evening Primrose Oil. Lynet keeps standing, walking between contractions. She's crying. Everything is so intense.

At 6:14 I rupture the bag of waters. I hope this will make the final dilation go a little faster. At 6:26 she says loudly, "I'm pushing!" So I let her push a little bit. That sometimes helps open up the cervix all the way, and it certainly feels better than just letting the contractions peak while you try to relax.

But when I check her again at 6:38 and 7:55, she still has a "lip" of cervix. Grrr. I hate to do it, but I ask her if I can help her get to complete by pushing the cervix out of the way during a contraction while she's pushing. She agrees to it. She becomes my heroine when I push on the lip and she doesn't scream or kill me. Believe me, the procedure is excruciating. But we get her to complete. I sometimes think we would still be in labor if we hadn't done this. But of course we wouldn't be. It would just have taken longer. If that can be possible.

Anyway, at this point, Andrew's little heart which has held steady all this time, begins to dip somewhat. Not dangerously. But still. So I put the oxygen on Lynet, and it brings up his heart rate. We try pushing McRoberts (see last post) for 15 minutes. Then we try left side-lying for 15 minutes. Again we're trying to find a good position so that Lynet can make good progress. At 9 pm we move her to the birth stool. Then 15 minutes later back to left side-lying. Back to McRoberts 45 minutes later. She's making progress, but everything about this birth is slow. She only does McRoberts for 11 minutes before she tries squatting facing the bed. Oh yes, baby! This is your position, girl!!!!

We start seeing a good wedge of head. It only takes 33 minutes from the beginning of the squat until baby Andrew is born at 10:44!!! I think we all get a prize for this one. Do they give a prize for childbirth? Oh, yes. They do. As I look into Andrew's eyes, I catch my breath. This baby is beautiful. It's probably because he's kin to me. (Groan.) His eyes are just so contemplative, and his mouth is beautifully full and rosy.

He begins to breathe immediately. His cord is so short that Lynet cannot hold him. I place him on the bed in front of her, and she just looks at him. Time just stands still.

As soon as we cut his cord seven minutes later, he's passed around. Daddy Gary gets him first, then he's passed around to Moome (Martha), Elita (Nana), Jimmy (Papa). Somebody calls Wita (great-grandmother) since she's already gone to bed, and she gets in on the love. Grandpops (Billy) also gets in on it, and Dawna. James has already gone to bed, but he's been excited all day, and since he's only 6 years old, he gets to sleep. And Gary makes Aunt Caren hold the baby, too, although it sure makes her nervous. Oh, the love.

And I'm so relieved. My great-nephew has been born. My hands touched him first. Lynet didn't tear, and she didn't bleed. It's all done. And it has only begun. The love.

I leave after 1 am. Caren makes me promise to text her when I get safely home. Boy am I glad my house is only 15 minutes away, but, Oh no! I have to get gas before I go anywhere. I sigh and just go get gas. Then I go home. Caren texts me, worried. I tell her when I get home. Then my beautiful husband turns the light on for me as I come into the house. He gets up and envelops me in a hug. He's never done this before. I usually take a shower after a birth. I don't after this one. I fall into bed. I take off my glasses anywhere, and spend many minutes looking for them when I wake up because I can't remember where I laid them.

When I wake up in the morning, I fall out of bed onto my knees and thank the Almighty that I'm still alive. And that there are three new babies and three new mammas and daddies. I am deeply grateful. He is my strength, my light, and my salvation. And He continues to guide me every step of the way.

The Second Hard Birth

Ok, ok, I've had at least one request that I get on with the job of blogging, so I'm hauling my lazy self out of browsing other people's blogs, and getting on with the job at hand.



The last blog told about the first of three first time moms giving birth in one week. I will now continue the mini-saga.



I had gotten over birth number one. I want that to be a fact. I had rested from birth number one. It usually takes me two nights to recover from a birth. Usually. Sometimes I recover sooner, sometimes later. And since I've been taking Melaleuca brand vitamins, I recover quicker. That's a good thing.



Anyway, #1 had been born at 4:57 a.m. on July 31. Sam* called me at 7 a.m. on August 5. See, I had plenty of time to rest! Daisy* had started having bloody show and seeing her mucus plug the day before. So Sam called the next morning to tell me how she was handling her contractions. It sounded to me like she was doing fine for a first-time mom. Of course, she was fit as a fiddle. She loves to climb mountains (not here in central Texas, of course!), and ride her bicycle, etc. So she was doing well. I called back at 8, and Sam then told me that her water had broken at 2:45 a.m! What! You're supposed to call me immediately when that happens! So I hurry my rear end over to their house, and sure enough, things are very calm. Baby Birch is doing fine, and so is Daisy.



I take vitals on everyone and then settle in. Her contractions are coming regularly. At 1o:30 a.m, she hits a pause on the recliner and gets in a mini-nap. Yay! Even 20 minutes are very welcome, and then her contractions start back in at every 3 to 5 minutes. She's drinking and moving, and generally staying very relaxed with the contractions. She's rented my birth pool, and it's filled and ready to go. So she gets in around noon and relaxes in the warm water. She stays in the water about 2 and 1/2 hours, and gets out around 3 p.m.



I'm observing her, and when she gets out of the tub, her contractions are every 3-4 minutes. When she gets out, they begin to space apart. That can be a sign of complete dilation. So I ask to check her. She's complete. Dilated to a 10. So I watch for signs of an urge to push. I watch and I wait. Hmmm. No urge to push. I'm a pretty patient midwife, but after an hour and a half of watching and waiting, I realize that we need to do something. I check her again to make sure that the baby's position is good, and that she really is complete. Baby is perfect and she really is complete.



So I give her instructions on how to push. Still no urge to push. She begins pushing at a little before 5 p.m. We use different positions to see if one is a better position for making faster progress, and we settle on the McRoberts position -- flat on the back with two people on either side pulling up the legs to get the bottom off the bed. It sounds terrible, but it really works! After an hour of pushing, we start to see Birch's dark, abundant long hair. Her head starts to show between pushing, not just during the big pushing, and that is always so encouraging to me. Birch is big. And she's the first baby that Daisy has ever pushed out. She works so hard with every push. And when I'm seeing a good-sized wedge of head, she declares, "Oh, there's an urge to push!" That's the only urge to push that she ever has during the birth. Anyway, at this point, I ask, "Are you feeling a burn?" When the perineum is being stretched like that, it burns. Kind of like taking your index fingers and putting them in the corners of your mouth and pulling. So when she feels the burn, I ask her to slow down on the pushing. It helps the tissues to s-t-r-e-t-c-h instead of tearing. And she does admirably. Slowly, slowly, Birch is being born.



I ask Ashlea, my assistant, to trade places with Sam so that he can help catch Birch. So Ashlea takes over lifting Daisy's left leg during pushing. And Sam gets himself ready for his baby girl. Oh, what a moment! I call out "full crown!" when the biggest part of the head is out. This is the forehead right before the eyebrows. The head is then born seconds later. I ask Daisy to pause while I check for cord. None. And Sam gets ready to grasp the shoulders as they emerge. Oh. Wait. Birch has a hand up. Hang onto the baby, Sam, while I ease her hand out. Ok, catch the baby! Oh, look at her! And put her onto Daisy's waiting belly. She starts breathing even before she's born. She starts looking around even before she's fully born. And Daisy starts to bleed.



Oh boy. Bleeding is my least favorite complication to handle. I quickly order Ashlea to give her Angelica tincture that will bring the placenta. The bleeding slows. We deliver the placenta as soon as it detaches, and then more bleeding. So we give her two droppersful of Shepherd's Purse and sweep out the blood and any clots that may be filling up the uterus. Thankfully, she stops bleeding after the Shepherd's Purse.



But she's tired and the bleeding really drains her. About 45 minutes after Birch is born and Daisy is nursing her, Daisy faints. We quickly get her lying down and she comes to in probably 5 seconds. Then we give her oxygen until my big tank is empty, and start giving her straight chlorophyll out of the bottle. (It usually tastes terrible, but she's so needy of it that it tastes good to her and she drains 8 oz. readily.) So she doesn't get an herb bath. I don't want her up at all, much less in a warm tub. The herbs are all ready, so we instruct family on how to make up the bath for the next day, when Daisy will feel better.



Birch is born at 6:54 p.m. When I check for tears, I find one. I haven't had to stitch a client in so long that Ashlea doesn't remember where I keep the suturing materials. I have to smile at that. I love what I do, and I'm glad that I can do a good job at keeping women intact. In this case, I blame the little baby's hand. Or something like that. So since Daisy has to lie flat, I go ahead and suture her. She's nearly sleeping while I work. She's so tired.



I leave at about 11 p.m. It's been a long birth. The pushing without an urge is nearly a first for me. I have only had one other birth in which that happened, and it turned out the baby was in a bad position, and we had to go to the hospital to finish the birth. I am very grateful that this one did not turn out that way. I go home, very satisfied with the birth and the beautiful little baby girl that has just made her arrival. Oh, she's not so little; she weighs 9 pounds, 2 ounces!



One thing that happened at this birth is so funny! The UPS man brought a package during the labor, and Sam must have told him that Daisy was having the baby. Sometime in the middle of pushing, the doorbell rang. Sam's mom went to the door. When she came back, she said it was the UPS man wanting to know if the baby had been born! I guess he's into all kinds of deliveries! I've never had that happen before. We laughed a lot.



One more thing. The next morning, as I'm heading to Lynet's temporary home, I get a call. It's raining cats and dogs, and my cell reception is sketchy at best. It's Sam, and I wonder what's going on. He says they're having to evacuate. The rain from Hurricane Edouard has just circled and circled their house, almost stationary. It's not letting up, and they have water in the house. So Sam gathers up all his girls and takes them to his mom's house, which is about an hour's drive away. Talk about a rough postpartum!



Daisy actually gets her herb bath at her mother-in-law's house! They actually remember to take the herbs with them as they're evacuating!



I get a little sleep that night. Emily comes in from Colorado that night at 3:30 a.m., and it wakes me up. I have only gotten two hours' sleep by that point. And then I can't go back to sleep until around 5 a.m. Then Lynet calls me at 8 a.m. telling me that she thinks she's in labor. There's no way that I'm rested. It's about this time that I begin to be grateful that Sam and Daisy didn't call me when her water broke...(to be continued)

*Names have been changed, of course.

The First of Three

Friday morning, August 8, 2008, I fell out of bed and went to my knees to thank God. I was alive. I know that sounds dramatic, but I had just completed one of the hardest weeks of my life, and I was deeply grateful to the Almighty.

I did three births that week. Now that may not sound like much to an OB/GYN, or to a nurse who works in labor and delivery. Or even to another midwife. But the facts are that these three births were all to first-time moms, and they were all hard. And they were all successful home births. Needless to say, the parents and the grandparents and other family who were present were all ecstatic. And we were all also tired. I spoke with one of the grandmothers (my sister) last night about the whole event that she witnessed, and she said she still thinks with fear and trembling about how long and hard her daughter labored. That was the last of the three births. Let me go back to the first...

Oh, and, by the way, I will change the names of the people in the first two births. The last birth happened to my niece, and I have permission to use their real names.

On July 30, I called Babette to reschedule our appointment, as I had a nasty head cold, and I didn't want to give it to her. She told me then that she had had bloody show and mucus plug and some contractions. Well, she wasn't due until August 29, so I told her I would check on her as soon as possible, and to please try and rest and not go to work. I was hoping, as happens often, that her baby had just moved down into the pelvis, causing contractions, and soon they would quit.

The next day I went to her home to check on her. She had had contractions 10 minutes apart all day with an achy back. Uh oh. That sounded like early labor. I went ahead and did a vaginal check...Oh, my goodness. She was 5 cm dilated, completely effaced, and the baby was +2 station (translated that means really low). I gave her some herbs which eased the contractions down considerably, and left her with instructions to take them every 30 minutes until bedtime.

Her husband, Earl, called me at 10 pm to tell me that her water had broken. Well, pooey. No going back. I had estimated the baby's weight at 6 Lbs. 5 Oz. that evening, so I believed that we were okay with going ahead with the home birth, even at 36 weeks. (In Texas, midwives can legally attend births from 36 weeks of gestation forward.)

I arrived at their house a little after midnight on July 31. Since her water was ruptured, I did no vaginal exam. I try to do as few of those as possible under those circumstances, because of the possibility of introducing bacteria into the baby's world. Babette labored well, and soon was completely dilated and ready to push.

Pushing, however, took just as long as dilating -- nearly. We pushed in one position, then shifted to another, then another, then another. She was making progress, slowly, so we kept on going. My assistant asked me later if I had ever given up hope during this stage of this labor. I looked at her blankly, because that thought had never really crossed my mind. Obviously it had hers. But Babette kept going, and we finally began to see more and more head visible.

We did a sort of no-no at this birth. I have a birth stool that I use often to help with pushing, but I seldom use it for the actual birth of the baby because it's harder to keep the mom's tissues from tearing in this position. However, Babette gave birth on the birth stool. She just made wonderful progress there, and really didn't want to move at the end. I don't blame her. Baby Abigail's head came forth. I asked Babette to pause while I checked for cord around the neck. No cord. Okay, Earl, get ready to help me catch your baby! Her shoulders start to come forth with the next push. Oh, hold it, Babette, the baby has a hand up! Hang onto the baby Earl, as I e-a-s-e the baby's hand out while protecting Babette's tissues! Okay, we've got it, here comes the baby! Whew! Over three hours of pushing! Man! All postpartum "stuff" is okay. Oh, and by the way, it's a girl. We didn't know beforehand. I love the surprises...

Abigail is 7 Lbs., 1 Oz. And Babette is intact. Even with birthing on the stool. As evidence of how hard she pushed she's still having some tailbone pain. I suggested that she go see her chiropractor. Her tailbone may be bruised, or fractured. She confessed that she had had a hairline fracture in her tailbone when she was younger. So she might have re-injured it in the process of pushing out Abigail. Did I say she pushed hard?

Babette sure dilates quickly for a first-time mom! And with her next baby, I foretell that pushing won't be quite as hard as it was this time...