My Journey To Ezrah

Well, baby Ezrah arrived on Friday, December 9th. He is 7 lbs exactly. 20 inches long. Oh, and completely perfect! :)

As promised to my facebook followers, here is part one of our birth story:


At 5:30 am on Saturday, April 5, I was up early preparing for a craft show. I had started a handmade children's boutique in the fall that I mostly ran online, but craft fairs were always a huge success! I am still amazed that I took a pregnancy test that day... of all days! But I did. And it was positive! I woke up Michael to tell him the news. He said "I knew it. God told me last week!". Then he hugged me, said "its gonna be great! Don't worry." WHAT?! God told you last week? I was freaking out! Here I am, ready to send 2 kids to school in the fall, Ester is not nursing around the clock anymore, I have a business, a part-time job at church, we finally have all our bills covered... I am so close to having a life!

I then headed to my MOST un-successful craft show EVER! I sold one hairbow for $2. During the show, Elias got sick. I wasn't there with him & it broke my heart!

See, God knew I needed to trust HIM. I was trusting in a million other things like my own abilities, our jobs to provide (instead of God) & even was ignoring my instincts as a mom because I thought that is what I HAD to do. I was not happy. I just was distracting myself.

My first trimester was miserable. It was completely opposite of the other four pregnancies. With the others, I barely had a symptom! In fact, with Efton, we didn't even know I was pregnant until 16 weeks! So with this pregnancy, I was still nursing & had been running myself crazy between kid stuff and all my part-time jobs. I was worn down. God had to get my attention. That's truly why I feel this first trimester was so different. It forced me to do only what I needed to. I had to back off with all the extra things. That failed craft show really was a turning point. My kids needed me, and I wasn't making myself available. Instead, I had been running from it!

About 6 weeks later, I was 10 weeks pregnant & my exhaustion was fading. Morning sickness was a random thing rather than the "all day sickness" I had been having!

I started really thinking about our life & how having a 5th baby would change things; how it should change things. I started reading books, online articles & praying... a lot! I wanted to surround myself with the atmosphere I needed. I wanted to have as much knowledge & wisdom as possible to help me make the wisest, most informed choices for our family! The first big decisions I made? Homeschooling & eating better.

Choosing to homeschool was as much a spiritual choice as it was logistical. We knew it was the only other option for our family if we couldn't do Christian School. Taking kids to 1/2 day preschool & full day 1st grade, plus picking them up would take up an entire day if I calculated how long it takes to buckle kids in & out of the car. All I'd do all day long is buckle kids, drive, feed them, & put little ones down for naps only to wake them up to leave again! AND I would be doing this pregnant the first semester, then have a newborn the 2nd semester! It was insane when I started to really think it out. So we decided to homeschool. Which again, meant more research & more reading, but it's been so worth it!! I could go on & on, but you can read about it in my previous post entitled "Jan Fed the Hens".

Eating better was just smart. Let me just clarify, we ate healthy...ish. What needed to change was the kind of foods we were eating. It was all so processed, full of sugar & preservatives (once we started reading labels, that is). I knew better, but just wasn't making the decision! We were going to have a baby in the middle of cold & flu season. I was nourishing him with what I was eating NOW! Now was the time to start! In our process of switching to fresher, more nutrient-dense food, we started feeling better. We discovered Eli's gluten-intolerance, which is directly linked to his behavior. I was able to control my ADD through cutting out excess sugars & carbs. It's been amazing.

One thing led to another. Once we found homeschool resources, they led me to large-family resources. I was able to organize our life to be fitting of a large family, rather than a small-er size family that is squeezing a few extras in. Haha! As we found nutrition information, our eyes were opened to a whole new world of natural living, which ended up being not only better for us, but cheaper! And cheaper was definitely better since by my 20 week appointment, I had officially quit my part-time jobs. My family was now my job & I was discovering that I really liked it!

Around 14 weeks, Michael suggested that I look into having a homebirth. Ha! I told him he was crazy! Just because we are going to homeschool, and have 5 kids, does not mean I have to grow out my hair, wear long skirts & have a homebirth!!

A couple weeks later, my friend Teresa (who had a homebirth with their daughter) texted me. She had a dream about me:
"I had a dream last night that you had a homebirth and I was your doula and the midwife didn't make it in time so I delivered you!! Lol. you were a rockstar homebirther in my dream! And I used dental floss to tie off the umbilical cord and a pair of your sewing scissors to cut it!"

I laughed at the text. However, I feel like our dreams usually mean something. I began to look into it. Much to my disgust, homebirth isn't necessarily something you want to google without warning. Haha! So, I started talking about it with her & our friend Abbey at a playdate that week. We met at Starbucks one night & talked about birth for 4 hours until they kicked us out. The poor men across from us had to hear things like "placenta" & "episiotomy" while they worked. Haha!
She gave me a couple books, and I read them that week. I was convinced!! After seeing all the research & reading a bazillion homebirth stories online, I KNEW! It was exactly what I wanted for our family!

See, we had 3 wonderful hospital inductions. I never felt "robbed" of a good birth, but honestly didn't know any different! I mean, what 19 year old knows anything about birth, much less natural birth! I was terrified of it, actually. So, I listened to my doctor, who induced me the first time at 41 weeks because if I went into labor past that, he would be out of town. The second pregnancy he was supposed to be gone the week of my due date as well. So, he induced at 39 weeks because "everything looks the same as before". Looking back, I wish I would've given my body the chance to do what it was made for!
We switched doctors after that, due to insurance, but I know it was the hand of God! My new doctor was as natural & holistic as an OB can be! I wasn't there yet, but she was! Unfortunately, I was really struggling in my 3rd pregnancy. I was dealing with more ADD symptoms than ever before & was just really impatient! I hadn't learned how to rest in the Lord's timing! So, I asked to be induced at 39 weeks. The nurses said I was barely dilated, so they "couldn't" (aka, wouldn't) give me cervadyl, even though my other experiences had been so great! I was induced with pitocin. It made me sick. It caused Elias to have an irregular heartbeat during labor. His cord got wrapped around his neck during contractions, which were so hard & unnatural that I asked for an epidural, but they had to break my water first. Everything was done too soon. We were moments away from a C-section, when he finally was able to move down & labor progressed. A couple hours later, he was born. But I was emotionally not the same.
We had our 4th baby a week early as well (I didn't quite see the connection). I requested cervadyl to induce & demanded that no pitocin be used. At this point I was still believing the first doctor, who had me think my body just "doesnt do it on it's own"! We had Ester with no pain medication, no epidural & it was the single most empowering moment of my life! It truly changed me.

So, now it wasn't just about "conquering" a birth. I knew I could do it. This was about more than just me, but about our family. I didn't have a "vision" for it, but knew it felt right. But then this awesome thing happened. I saw a birth video on YouTube. The song that played in the background was called "Worth It All". The pictures of this family's birth as their children kissed their new baby were precious & they looked how I knew I wanted to feel! It was the most beautiful experience I'd ever witnessed. I bawled that night, watching it as the kids slept. I wanted that beautiful, peaceful homebirth!


For Part 2 CLICK HERE... :D