I did a similar post to this last year, and without going into details, we'll just say I didn't remember my goals for last year very well.
This year will be different. I won't be pregnant this year, which I am claiming as an excuse for why a lot of stuff did not happen last year. I also won't be setting a couponing goal that is so high. Really, I've realized coupons aren't always all that great. We strive to eat healthy, and most of the coupons I have found are for foods my family does not eat. A lot of the others are for name brand items that I can either get cheaper per weight at Costco, or cheaper by buying the store brand, even after factoring in coupons. Sometimes coupons are in fact awesome though, so I will still be using some.
So, here are my goals:
1. Draw closer to God. (This will forever be my first goal)
2. Plan family fun activities, and make sure they happen. Often. (Did ok on this for a while last year... again, I blame pregnancy!)
3. Do seasonal crafts with the kids monthly. (Awful lofty goal since I did this a total of... zero times last year)
4. Make all dinners eaten at home from scratch. Or at least limit junk dinners to 1-2 times a month.
5. Can more. I had lofty ideas for last year, but again, pregnancy got in the way of that.
6. Have a big garden! I'm excited for this one. :)
7. Work out regularly, and in a slow but steady, healthy manor work towards getting back to at least around my pre-Tobiah weight.
8. Earn a minimum of $50 each month to help in our debt pay off.
9. Be debt free by the end of the year. Part of this will also be sticking to our budget, so I'll include that here.
10. Cut my grocery budget by 10% by end of year.
And my ways to accomplish these goals:
1. Spend more time in the word daily. Seek God's guidance even in the little things.
2. We're on the right track, got one set of grandparents to do a science center membership, and the other (and auntie-thanks Sam) to do a zoo membership. Plus we have Kids Quest. So, put things on the calender, and seek out fun and free things to do as well. Include the kids (to the best I can) in u-picks, and also plan dates with just one at a time once a month.
3. Last weekend of the month put on the calender a craft time to decorate our board. STICK TO IT THIS TIME. ;)
4. This one won't be as hard as it sounds, one Saturday a month a will make my freezer meals. So easy! Hopefully I will be able to recruit help for this so Rich can tend to the kids.
5. Goal number 6 will help with this, but also research local u-picks more this year, and go more than once if possible. Set aside one day a month to devote to canning, even if it is canning from the freezer. Watch for good sales, research other places to get bulk fruit cheap.
6. Research this ASAP, and get started ASAP! Big one for this will be making it a priority.
7. Waiting until Nette is six weeks is step one, a family membership to the YMCA will be step two, then sticking to three days a week will be the hard part. I have big motivation though-FREE CHILDCARE! WOOHOO!
8. Constantly go through the house and find items to purge through the Swap and Shop page and Craigslist, work on building my Osborne business, finding odd jobs when possible. Also JBF sales. This is also NOT an average goal, but a minimum per month, so need to stick to that!
9. The biggest part of this will be sticking to our monthly budget. Goal number 8 will also help a bit.
10. Our budget is $500, so this will be $50. I will be working on shopping sales as much as possible, continuing to look for the cheapest places to get things, and using coupons when I can find them for items we normally buy (that I cannot get a cheaper adequate version of without a coupon).
Here is to a fun, healthy, and productive 2013!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Perfect birth
Jeanette Helen Darlene Scales
9lbs2oz, 21in
December 8th, 2012 12:51am
What a roller coaster of a week this has been! To give this story full justice, we'll start on her due date, her Daddy's 29th birthday. Sorry this is so incredibly long winded, but it is a great story that must be shared in it's entirety, because, well, I said so. ;)
Tuesday morning I was not terribly thrilled to wake up still pregnant. Our little early birth Ruth had given me such high hopes that would not happen. The worst part was that I didn't even feel like labor was close, and was starting to really question how much longer things were going to last.
I had my 40 week check with the midwife, so after throwing a roast in the crock pot for Rich and throwing together a cake (sorry dear I didn't even buy a mix you like, hope you enjoyed your confetti cake ;) ) I loaded the kids up, picked up Rich, and headed to the midwife. One of the first things I was asked after my whining about wishing I was holding a baby was if I wanted my membranes swept, and after a moment of thought I said yes. I don't believe I've ever had this done, but I figured what the heck, it can't hurt! Wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be, but man, did it leave me uncomfortable the rest of the day! I went from feeling productive and pretty good, to crampy and wanting nothing more than to lay in bed.
A couple hours later the unthinkable happened. I got woken up right after I dozed off, and started coughing. It was about 11pm and I realized I could literally feel my lungs filling with crud. I found myself suddenly thankful I wasn't in labor, whined and complained that I was going to feel miserable the next day, and eventually fell asleep.
Wednesday morning I woke up when Rich came in to kiss me goodbye, and I had a horrible headache, and my chest was killing me, and I just felt feverish and gross. I begged Rich to stay home, and he insisted he couldn't, so I reluctantly relented and cried as he left.
It was a long miserable day during which I somehow managed to give the kids their basic needs while they watched TV all day. I made everybody take a nap, and then I took one, too. Thank goodness for the alarm we put on T's door, that we are able to put N in our room for nap, that R can't get out of her crib, and that E is trustworthy, because I NEEDED that sleep. Even though I could barely sleep.
I decided that when Rich got home, we were going to leave the kids with a friend and I was going to go to urgent care to be seen. All day it felt like somebody had been stomping on my chest, so I was concerned what was going on. When he got home, we had to wait for my friend to finish up at the store, which took longer than planned. I felt better anyway (have to love Tylenol), so I decided with how late it was getting that I would just play things by ear and go the next day if I felt I needed to.
Right before bed, I went to the bathroom and realized I had started to bleed. I had been waiting and waiting for this moment, but when I saw it, I just looked at Rich and said "why now?". I have to admit there was some excitement, as this was our first sign the end was in sight, but why when I was so sick?
All night I had contractions off and on, more blood, and a higher and higher fever. At 1am it was 101.4 through the Tylenol. 5am rolled around, and I asked Rich to take me to urgent care. We decided to call the midwife just to see what she recommended, and she agreed we needed to go in. Found a sitter, and Rich started to get the kids ready. It took forever, of course, and at 6am I realized something else-I was in labor.
Of course this new complication added to the time it took, so by the time we got the kids dropped off and were headed to the hospital, it was 7am. We were saddened to make it so far and have to give up our plans of a home birth, and I was stressed about how I would handle being in labor with how extremely sick I was, but we were excited that we should be meeting our little girl soon. We also had E with us, as she was planning on helping cut the cord, and we had decided that even if we couldn't have our home birth, we did not want her to have to give that very special job up.
We got to the hospital and went to urgent care. We told them I was having trouble breathing, had a high fever, and needed to have my lungs looked at. Then I told them I thought I was in labor and they looked at me like I had six heads and asked why I wasn't at labor and delivery. They ended up taking my vitals (which were horrible, btw), putting my IV in (thank GOODNESS, an excuse to get them to leave my hand alone!), and giving me a breathing treatment before they took me to labor and delivery. E did amazing through all of this, she is such a good kid.
They decided I was not in fact in labor as I had not really progressed from when I was checked on Tuesday, and the contractions had died down a bit, so I was a little relieved about that, although confused by the intensity of the contractions. I later found out it was the breathing treatment they gave me, apparently they calm the uterus, so it had stalled labor. I did continue to have contractions off and on, and continued to have lots of blood. I got a ton of fluids as I was extremely dehydrated, another breathing treatment, and was ultimately admitted that evening. We had another labor scare, so my poor mom who had been at the hospital hanging with E most of the day ended up staying the night with the other three kids while Rich and E stayed with me. Then I received another breathing treatment, and again things stopped. Still didn't know they caused that at this point, so I was still confused and starting to get frustrated, but with how horrible I felt and how sick I was, I didn't truly care that much.
I dozed off and on all night. I sure hate being in the hospital though, you get woken up constantly, and the nurse I had over night kept leaving the stinking lights on! Turned down, granted, but still on, which made it that much harder to sleep. Then at 4am I was given the horrible news I was not allowed to have anymore Tylenol until 8am, as it would put me over the maximum dose for 24 hours. I prayed I would feel ok, as I did at that moment, until I could have more. What I didn't realize is that my fever had completely broken and I was on the mend!
I had another breathing treatment that morning, which again slowed the contractions my body was trying to have, and they finally told me that that was what was happening. I made a mental note of this and asked for another treatment right before leaving, as I was hoping to stall labor until the next day as I was coughing uncontrollably, and honestly, I was terrified of coughing like that through contractions. I got my last treatment at noon, then promptly went home. I felt a ton better, but that blasted cough was no fun. I also had not been able to have a BM in way too long, and despite three different attempts to correct this by the hospital, had had no success and was in a ton of pain from this. When we got home, I called the midwife to just talk about what was going on, and to ask about this. She gave her suggestions, and I sent Rich to the store. While he was gone, I managed to doze off, and I was so tired I just decided to stay asleep when he got home.
After snoozing for a couple hours I woke up, it was about 4pm by this point. I very quickly realized I was in labor, but the very beginning of labor, as the contractions were ten minutes apart. I had Rich call the midwife, and they said they would be there as quickly as they could driving in rush hour traffic on a Friday evening. My contractions stayed about the same until they got there, so when they arrived they set everything up, took my vitals, and we just talked for a while. My contractions spend up to about 5-7, but nothing big was happening, so they decided to go and get some dinner after about an hour. After they came back, things were still the same, then I was finally able to use the bathroom, and I felt her little head move down further, and things picked up ever so slightly. However, about an hour after that, I think around 8pm, things had slowed a tad, and we decided to have the talk about what we should do from there. I agreed to let them check me, knowing that if I hadn't made a lot of progress it would tell us very little, but if I had we'd know they shouldn't leave, since I do all my progressing at the end. I had made some improvement, but not tons. I was still at 3cm, but much more effaced, and she had moved into -1 station from -2. We all agreed at that point that it would be best for them to head home, and that I was going to do my best to rest between contractions for a while.
After they left, we realized my friend who was taking pictures for us had called a couple times, as I had called her when we first called the midwives to let her know what was going on. Rich called her and they talked about what was going on, she decided since she had some time she'd run her daughter home and put her to bed before she headed over. After that Rich and I climbed in bed and chatted between the first two contractions, but then the third came a minute after the second, and the fourth a minute after the third. I got up as quickly as I could thinking laying down had made them speed up, but they just kept coming one right after the other. Rich quickly called the midwife, who had *just* gotten back to Seattle. She quickly turned back around, and got her pretty quickly. Rich also called my friend back and let her know things had picked up, and she hurried up as well, getting her right after the midwife and followed quickly by the midwife's assistant, that was actually a new student I had not met before (the assistant that had been here really needed to go home, she had been up all night the night before and was a little under the weather), and she was a very nice lady that I enjoyed having here.
I think everybody was here no later than 10pm, perhaps a little earlier. So at that point, we all just sat in the living room, chatting between my contractions as they got closer and more intense. Around 11:30 I stopped wanting to talk, and was really needing to focus more through the contractions, but they still didn't seem that bad. I mentally count through my contractions while I breath, and I never got past 15, and only up that high once, where as in my other labors I would be counting to 20, sometimes higher while in transition. About midnight my husband started nodding off, and thinking I still had an hour or two to go (based solely on waiting for things to reach that intense point) I asked him if he wanted to go sleep a little. He protested saying he wanted to be supportive, but I told him he was being supportive-by sleeping, he'd be more able to help after the baby came, considering I was utterly exhausted from not sleeping well all week. I don't like to be touched during labor anyway, and really do best when allowed to work through things on my own without distraction, so he's always sitting in the back ground anyway. He is always amazing, ready to jump up for any little need I have, but really, I had three other people in the room, and the poor man was exhausted. So he went to bed, and I was happy to know at least he would get some rest.
Very shortly after that the midwife asked if I was sure I wanted to deliver in my room, or if I had thought about delivering in my chair in the living room. I considered it for a second, but decided because I didn't have anything to cover it with, I'd be better off in my room where there is a water proof pad. She suggested we get a pad for it "just in case", although my water always breaks at the very end, so I got up and very quickly realized I was no longer in active labor. I knew my body was transitioning to something else before that, because the contractions had slowed back to about three minutes, but I thought it was just getting ready to switch into transition. Nope, as soon as I stood up, I knew I was going to be pushing soon. I went to the bathroom since I was up anyway, and felt and I could feel my bag of waters bulging very easily. I had to fight getting giddy, since I really thought I had a long time to go, and I knew at that point it would be soon. I made the comment that I was right in my guess earlier in the night, I had predicted to Rich she'd be born around 1am. At 12:30 we went into the bedroom as I had agreed to be checked. The last contraction I had before getting in bed I started to feel the urge to push, so I asked Rich to wake E and T. The midwife checked me, and she said I was 7-8cm, but what was left was extremely soft and moved out of the way with the slightest touch. I pushed out at least two of the others this way, so I knew things were getting close. I had a couple more contractions, then began pushing. I did not push much more than five minutes, then we had a call for the kids, and I was pushing her out. This was the only time I cried out, and poor T got a little scared, and I heard somebody explain to him that it was ok, that Mommy was pushing baby out, and that it hurts, but it was ok and normal. He seemed satisfied with that, but stayed in Daddy's arms. E watched in fascination. Little Jeanette was born in her intact bag of water at 12:51am.
T got one good look at her, then went and curled up on the floor by my door, poor boy hates waking up! E had the time of her life watching everything, and ultimately cut the cord after it stopped pulsing. She had the biggest smile! Rich guessed her weight. My friend got lots of great photos. I got pooped on. It all was an amazing and happy experience. Then the best part of all, when everything was over, Rich and I climbed in bed and went to sleep snuggling our new baby. No nurses to come bug us for vitals, no uncomfortable beds, just home and able to relax. I really was the perfect birth.
9lbs2oz, 21in
December 8th, 2012 12:51am
What a roller coaster of a week this has been! To give this story full justice, we'll start on her due date, her Daddy's 29th birthday. Sorry this is so incredibly long winded, but it is a great story that must be shared in it's entirety, because, well, I said so. ;)
Tuesday morning I was not terribly thrilled to wake up still pregnant. Our little early birth Ruth had given me such high hopes that would not happen. The worst part was that I didn't even feel like labor was close, and was starting to really question how much longer things were going to last.
I had my 40 week check with the midwife, so after throwing a roast in the crock pot for Rich and throwing together a cake (sorry dear I didn't even buy a mix you like, hope you enjoyed your confetti cake ;) ) I loaded the kids up, picked up Rich, and headed to the midwife. One of the first things I was asked after my whining about wishing I was holding a baby was if I wanted my membranes swept, and after a moment of thought I said yes. I don't believe I've ever had this done, but I figured what the heck, it can't hurt! Wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be, but man, did it leave me uncomfortable the rest of the day! I went from feeling productive and pretty good, to crampy and wanting nothing more than to lay in bed.
A couple hours later the unthinkable happened. I got woken up right after I dozed off, and started coughing. It was about 11pm and I realized I could literally feel my lungs filling with crud. I found myself suddenly thankful I wasn't in labor, whined and complained that I was going to feel miserable the next day, and eventually fell asleep.
Wednesday morning I woke up when Rich came in to kiss me goodbye, and I had a horrible headache, and my chest was killing me, and I just felt feverish and gross. I begged Rich to stay home, and he insisted he couldn't, so I reluctantly relented and cried as he left.
It was a long miserable day during which I somehow managed to give the kids their basic needs while they watched TV all day. I made everybody take a nap, and then I took one, too. Thank goodness for the alarm we put on T's door, that we are able to put N in our room for nap, that R can't get out of her crib, and that E is trustworthy, because I NEEDED that sleep. Even though I could barely sleep.
I decided that when Rich got home, we were going to leave the kids with a friend and I was going to go to urgent care to be seen. All day it felt like somebody had been stomping on my chest, so I was concerned what was going on. When he got home, we had to wait for my friend to finish up at the store, which took longer than planned. I felt better anyway (have to love Tylenol), so I decided with how late it was getting that I would just play things by ear and go the next day if I felt I needed to.
Right before bed, I went to the bathroom and realized I had started to bleed. I had been waiting and waiting for this moment, but when I saw it, I just looked at Rich and said "why now?". I have to admit there was some excitement, as this was our first sign the end was in sight, but why when I was so sick?
All night I had contractions off and on, more blood, and a higher and higher fever. At 1am it was 101.4 through the Tylenol. 5am rolled around, and I asked Rich to take me to urgent care. We decided to call the midwife just to see what she recommended, and she agreed we needed to go in. Found a sitter, and Rich started to get the kids ready. It took forever, of course, and at 6am I realized something else-I was in labor.
Of course this new complication added to the time it took, so by the time we got the kids dropped off and were headed to the hospital, it was 7am. We were saddened to make it so far and have to give up our plans of a home birth, and I was stressed about how I would handle being in labor with how extremely sick I was, but we were excited that we should be meeting our little girl soon. We also had E with us, as she was planning on helping cut the cord, and we had decided that even if we couldn't have our home birth, we did not want her to have to give that very special job up.
We got to the hospital and went to urgent care. We told them I was having trouble breathing, had a high fever, and needed to have my lungs looked at. Then I told them I thought I was in labor and they looked at me like I had six heads and asked why I wasn't at labor and delivery. They ended up taking my vitals (which were horrible, btw), putting my IV in (thank GOODNESS, an excuse to get them to leave my hand alone!), and giving me a breathing treatment before they took me to labor and delivery. E did amazing through all of this, she is such a good kid.
They decided I was not in fact in labor as I had not really progressed from when I was checked on Tuesday, and the contractions had died down a bit, so I was a little relieved about that, although confused by the intensity of the contractions. I later found out it was the breathing treatment they gave me, apparently they calm the uterus, so it had stalled labor. I did continue to have contractions off and on, and continued to have lots of blood. I got a ton of fluids as I was extremely dehydrated, another breathing treatment, and was ultimately admitted that evening. We had another labor scare, so my poor mom who had been at the hospital hanging with E most of the day ended up staying the night with the other three kids while Rich and E stayed with me. Then I received another breathing treatment, and again things stopped. Still didn't know they caused that at this point, so I was still confused and starting to get frustrated, but with how horrible I felt and how sick I was, I didn't truly care that much.
I dozed off and on all night. I sure hate being in the hospital though, you get woken up constantly, and the nurse I had over night kept leaving the stinking lights on! Turned down, granted, but still on, which made it that much harder to sleep. Then at 4am I was given the horrible news I was not allowed to have anymore Tylenol until 8am, as it would put me over the maximum dose for 24 hours. I prayed I would feel ok, as I did at that moment, until I could have more. What I didn't realize is that my fever had completely broken and I was on the mend!
I had another breathing treatment that morning, which again slowed the contractions my body was trying to have, and they finally told me that that was what was happening. I made a mental note of this and asked for another treatment right before leaving, as I was hoping to stall labor until the next day as I was coughing uncontrollably, and honestly, I was terrified of coughing like that through contractions. I got my last treatment at noon, then promptly went home. I felt a ton better, but that blasted cough was no fun. I also had not been able to have a BM in way too long, and despite three different attempts to correct this by the hospital, had had no success and was in a ton of pain from this. When we got home, I called the midwife to just talk about what was going on, and to ask about this. She gave her suggestions, and I sent Rich to the store. While he was gone, I managed to doze off, and I was so tired I just decided to stay asleep when he got home.
After snoozing for a couple hours I woke up, it was about 4pm by this point. I very quickly realized I was in labor, but the very beginning of labor, as the contractions were ten minutes apart. I had Rich call the midwife, and they said they would be there as quickly as they could driving in rush hour traffic on a Friday evening. My contractions stayed about the same until they got there, so when they arrived they set everything up, took my vitals, and we just talked for a while. My contractions spend up to about 5-7, but nothing big was happening, so they decided to go and get some dinner after about an hour. After they came back, things were still the same, then I was finally able to use the bathroom, and I felt her little head move down further, and things picked up ever so slightly. However, about an hour after that, I think around 8pm, things had slowed a tad, and we decided to have the talk about what we should do from there. I agreed to let them check me, knowing that if I hadn't made a lot of progress it would tell us very little, but if I had we'd know they shouldn't leave, since I do all my progressing at the end. I had made some improvement, but not tons. I was still at 3cm, but much more effaced, and she had moved into -1 station from -2. We all agreed at that point that it would be best for them to head home, and that I was going to do my best to rest between contractions for a while.
After they left, we realized my friend who was taking pictures for us had called a couple times, as I had called her when we first called the midwives to let her know what was going on. Rich called her and they talked about what was going on, she decided since she had some time she'd run her daughter home and put her to bed before she headed over. After that Rich and I climbed in bed and chatted between the first two contractions, but then the third came a minute after the second, and the fourth a minute after the third. I got up as quickly as I could thinking laying down had made them speed up, but they just kept coming one right after the other. Rich quickly called the midwife, who had *just* gotten back to Seattle. She quickly turned back around, and got her pretty quickly. Rich also called my friend back and let her know things had picked up, and she hurried up as well, getting her right after the midwife and followed quickly by the midwife's assistant, that was actually a new student I had not met before (the assistant that had been here really needed to go home, she had been up all night the night before and was a little under the weather), and she was a very nice lady that I enjoyed having here.
I think everybody was here no later than 10pm, perhaps a little earlier. So at that point, we all just sat in the living room, chatting between my contractions as they got closer and more intense. Around 11:30 I stopped wanting to talk, and was really needing to focus more through the contractions, but they still didn't seem that bad. I mentally count through my contractions while I breath, and I never got past 15, and only up that high once, where as in my other labors I would be counting to 20, sometimes higher while in transition. About midnight my husband started nodding off, and thinking I still had an hour or two to go (based solely on waiting for things to reach that intense point) I asked him if he wanted to go sleep a little. He protested saying he wanted to be supportive, but I told him he was being supportive-by sleeping, he'd be more able to help after the baby came, considering I was utterly exhausted from not sleeping well all week. I don't like to be touched during labor anyway, and really do best when allowed to work through things on my own without distraction, so he's always sitting in the back ground anyway. He is always amazing, ready to jump up for any little need I have, but really, I had three other people in the room, and the poor man was exhausted. So he went to bed, and I was happy to know at least he would get some rest.
Very shortly after that the midwife asked if I was sure I wanted to deliver in my room, or if I had thought about delivering in my chair in the living room. I considered it for a second, but decided because I didn't have anything to cover it with, I'd be better off in my room where there is a water proof pad. She suggested we get a pad for it "just in case", although my water always breaks at the very end, so I got up and very quickly realized I was no longer in active labor. I knew my body was transitioning to something else before that, because the contractions had slowed back to about three minutes, but I thought it was just getting ready to switch into transition. Nope, as soon as I stood up, I knew I was going to be pushing soon. I went to the bathroom since I was up anyway, and felt and I could feel my bag of waters bulging very easily. I had to fight getting giddy, since I really thought I had a long time to go, and I knew at that point it would be soon. I made the comment that I was right in my guess earlier in the night, I had predicted to Rich she'd be born around 1am. At 12:30 we went into the bedroom as I had agreed to be checked. The last contraction I had before getting in bed I started to feel the urge to push, so I asked Rich to wake E and T. The midwife checked me, and she said I was 7-8cm, but what was left was extremely soft and moved out of the way with the slightest touch. I pushed out at least two of the others this way, so I knew things were getting close. I had a couple more contractions, then began pushing. I did not push much more than five minutes, then we had a call for the kids, and I was pushing her out. This was the only time I cried out, and poor T got a little scared, and I heard somebody explain to him that it was ok, that Mommy was pushing baby out, and that it hurts, but it was ok and normal. He seemed satisfied with that, but stayed in Daddy's arms. E watched in fascination. Little Jeanette was born in her intact bag of water at 12:51am.
T got one good look at her, then went and curled up on the floor by my door, poor boy hates waking up! E had the time of her life watching everything, and ultimately cut the cord after it stopped pulsing. She had the biggest smile! Rich guessed her weight. My friend got lots of great photos. I got pooped on. It all was an amazing and happy experience. Then the best part of all, when everything was over, Rich and I climbed in bed and went to sleep snuggling our new baby. No nurses to come bug us for vitals, no uncomfortable beds, just home and able to relax. I really was the perfect birth.
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