Last year at this time....

I was sitting on the couch with my midwife and my mother in law, watching Collateral Damage while we waited for my contractions to pick up. I'd had four sleepless nights of contractions 10 minutes apart, and finally called my midwife on December 28th around 6ish because my contractions actually got close to 5 minutes apart.

Of course the moment she showed up with all her gear, those darned contractions spread out again. It was pouring rain and storming pretty darned hard so we decided that she would stay the night and 'see what happens'. We put in a movie and Sue (the midwife) and my MIL watched it while I knitted and jumped off the couch every 10 minutes to squat thru contractions.....


My first birth had gone really fast, so this prolonged pre-labor was quite frustrating and foreign to me. Luckily Sue was there to make me chill out! We had popcorn and sandwiches around 10pm because I was getting hungry. By then it didn't look like I was going to have a baby any time soon, so Sue sent me off to take a bath and maybe get some sleep.

Well the bath did the trick, because that finally got my labor going really well and I started getting contractions really close together. That's when the Dearest came upstairs, took one look at my face and called Sue. She didn't even bother to check me- she immediately called for the assistant midwife and the Dearest started filling up the birthing tub.


The only time I ever really felt like I couldn't do a homebirth was while I was waiting for that damned tub to fill. LOL I was so pissed off that I was laboring on the bed! Everyone was running around, getting stuff ready but I was more focused on making it thru transition. Luckily Wendy (the apprentice midwife/doula) arrived and was able to talk me into a calmer state of mind. I swear she should make hypnosis tapes- she has such a soothing voice.

Once I was in the tub, things moved fast and Monkey Boy made his entrance into the world at 3.27am on Dec. 29th. He was born underwater in the tub and Sue never even touched him- she told me to sit back right after he came out and my hands lifted him out of the water and onto my chest. It was a awesome experience: giving birth in the water and in the familiarity of our own home. From this: (about 5 seconds old!)
To this:
(12 hours short of being 1 yr old).

At 1yr old Monkey Boy does the following:
Walks all over the place
Has eight teeth
Tries to eat everything big brother eats
Has an unhealthy fascination with water bottles (empty or full)
Says "dadada" when he sees the Dearest
Gets so excited he trips on his own feet when he hears the garage door opening (cuz he knows the Dearest is home)
Throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way
Drinks out of a straw pretty successfully
Laughs and laughs when you tickle his back
Likes to give his big brother hugs
Uses sign language for "more", "nurse", "eat", and "bathtime"
Still nurses 4-5x a day
Lights up every single one of my days with his smiles and crazy pre-speech chatter.

Happy Birthday Little One!