FullOfStitches.com blog.A good laugh leaves me in stitches!

Reading Brigitte Jordan’s Birth in Four Cultures is beginning to open my eyes. Yes, it’s a suggested reading book for my schooling (midwifery), yet she delves more and deeper into how natural learning occurs than many other books I’ve read. I’m in chapter seven now, where she describes the native midwife teaching her to perform prenatal massage by placing her (midwife’s) hands over hers (student) on the mother’s belly. The midwife’s knowledge is more in her physical body than in her spoken words.

The chapter also references another work: about Liberian tailors and how they apprentice. The apprentice starts off more play than work, allowed to work with the least expensive items – fetching and cleaning, learning what is in the shop, then moves up to sewing the less expensive garments (like previously cut pieces to be sewn together, and I’m guessing his button skills will be well practiced by now) well before he is ever allowed to cut fabric.

So do we when teaching our children.

They play with the bubbles as we clean the dishes. They sweep up little piles with the dustpan and brush while we’re sweeping the larger floor. They play with dough while I’m making bread. These activities teach them responsibility, importance, and hospitality.

Christ is known to talk in parables, but how did He teach His disciples to be mighty men of God? (Men who when with Him were recorded mainly as squabbling over who would be the greatest!) These men witnessed His humility – taking the time early each day to pray and align His desires with His Father’s, associating with and healing those that most of His people felt were undeserving..

How frustrating can it be to be the only (thinking/able/rational/fill-in-the-blank) person in the vicinity? Homeschooling, no, Parenting can be a huge lesson (for us!) in humility, patience. They need to play, yes, but they also need direction. If there is a child, there is learning, but what would be the cost of constant play? To move a family from poverty takes a parent willing to read to the children. To motivate a child takes interaction. To continue to live learning takes mastery of the basics and advancing challenges.

My challenge this weekend: prepare for the schoolyear. What “schedule” will we have? What materials are still in want? Prepare!

Today, as I studied the Well Woman Care module, Ben took the children for a grand adventure. I sat and read up on contraception and cancer. They drove around finding a gift and getting balloons.

With my foot injured, they’d dropped me by the coffee shop this morning, and they picked me up after getting the cake this afternoon.

Now, they’re getting the house decorated & I’m not allowed in. Shh.. I think I’m having a surprise party..

This weekend is Study Group, and I’ve got all 3 modules’ questions just about done. Still have Projects & Essay Q’s to go. I’d love to have all this written work behind me & get to births. Patience, by the Lord’s grace, it will happen in time.

I received my Digestion Module back today. Didn’t do bad. I love that Shannon jots notes to help us learn more about the subject.

I need to resend another module, the file was corrupted, but they’re getting in. Slowly, but surely.

I’ve been working away at the Study Group modules. With M & H out of state, catching babies, it’s down to just K, D & I who attend our Study Group. My children were in VBS this last week, and the nursery gals even took the Little Guy, so M, Tu, Th, F, I was able to sit in the cafe and study! (Wed, the big 2 had piano lessons)

Saturdays, Ben takes the children -to see a movie today!- and I get to study more! I’ve got 3 modules almost done in just a week!!

My computer wasn’t working the other day (I’m posting from my phone), and I’d Really like to type them up & send them in, so I’m hoping it just needed time off.. Ben said it started up fine today, but staying on once it was warmed up was the issue this week.

Learning to be a Midwife, Lesson One:

Learn to sleep at the drop of a hat, waking ready to work and get to sleep again fast, to conserve energy for when it’s needed.

The site was hacked this summer, apparently yahoo didn’t support the auto updates for WordPress. My technical support has changed the server and we should be up and running (though as slow as ever to post new content).

I’ve started apprenticing this week and will be attending births pretty soon!

I took the train. It was so pleasant. And quiet. Just Alex and I riding the train. I have fond memories of riding the Tube train in England – those rare occasions that I overcame my tendency towards being housebound. The nice thing about becoming a midwife (or any career, I suppose) is there are new things to learn. This week it was NRP with Karen Strange.

Neonatal Resuscitation (NRP: the P is for program) is pretty much CPR for newborns. There are many other factors to be considered with newborns than with adults, which is why it’s important to be taught how to resuscitate properly. Karen is the current leading authority on NRP from the Midwifery Model of Care.

..more (hopefully) later, fussing baby!

Right now, baby’s hiccuping. Thump thump through my belly against my thigh.

We had our checkup today. I think it’s the first time she’s seen the girls fight. Being one of 11, she knows it happens, but it’s still too cute at this age. “How do you keep a straight face?” Haha, practice! Everything looks good with baby. Everything looks good, baby was ‘dropped’ again, so measured more than last time, but a little less than for dates (normal in the last few weeks). This could be a tiny 7 pounder. We’re earliest 37w4d, latest 38w6d (39 weeks tomorrow), so definitely in the ‘safe’ zone for birth. She’s had a Sunday afternoon birth each weekend this month, and the next gal in line with me isn’t due till the 11th, but she’s having more regular contractions than me -which is typical, I usually have sessions of Braxton Hicks once or twice in the last month then just go into labor. With #4 was the first time that I had regular daily contractions before the birth (every morning for 2 or 3 weeks, then they let up and one day I was in labor, in the morning).

It’s always interesting to see how it turns out. Short or long, day or night. Could be this weekend, or next.. or whenever. No need to rush to meet the new little!

Gee, I hope they’re only Braxton Hicks. Thankfully, I slept really well last night, but before that I’d started in on the tightenings. Ben got home, looked at me, and asked what I was doing vertical (as in, sitting up). Yeah.. I asked him to get up with TJ this morning and get him going for his classes, so far it’s been me, but I’m not making breakfast or lunch for the kid: I seriously cannot stand for long with out pain right now. I just have to ride it out at least another week and a bit I think.. or is it two weeks? Obstetric weeks can be counted two ways: entering the 37th week means that you’re at 36 weeks, so I’m still confused whether the 20th or 27th is the earliest I can “safely” deliver. I think my midwife counts old school, but the U/S tech had that I’m 35+, so I’m aiming to stay on the down low till next weekend. Then, if baby comes, baby comes.

Right now, I’ve got to go lie down and hope that Ben gets up to feed the boy.

Monday morning, I got up, looked around and started picking up. I got the girls’ room tidy (I’ve been sleeping on MissB’s bed because she’s got a newer/nicer mattress), and started in on the hallway and family room. I made breakfast for everyone (Farmer’s Breakfast from my red&white cookbook- super yum!) and took a nap. Then I got out the vacuum and followed up on the tidied rooms. You know, typical Monday morning clean up from the weekend process.

Then I started spotting. I called the midwife and explained and lay down. I pondered and prayed and eventually set up an ultra sound (I’m all for skipping these little conveniences in pregnancy until there’s a need for them, and there was a need) -there was an opening at 4PM at LRD, hailed as the best U/S clinic in the South Bay (for good reason! He was the best that I’ve been to in my 5 pregnancies, and the pricing was the best I’ve seen). We wanted to rule out placenta previa or a potential abruption, otherwise it may have been labor.

Then I realized: I over did it this weekend. I’d gone to a class for practicing/future birth assistants and over the course was palpated by about 5 or 6 people. Since my second pregnancy (when I fell down the stairs and nearly had an early baby), my cervix has been friable. This time, there hasn’t been any problems with it and I hadn’t thought twice about it. Until now. The physical exercise (very much exercise at 8 months pregnant!) of vacuuming had been too much.

By the time we got to the clinic for the ultra sound, I’d pieced this together and just needed the reassurance. We went right in, the children sat and watched on the high TV screen with us. The tech asked if we wanted to know the gender.. I looked at Ben.. I’m good, I could wait another month, but you could just see it in his eyes.. -we couldn’t find out gender with MissA according to policy in that area of UK, MissB was big and breech at the time of her scan and hard to see, MissC only had the one scan at like 10 weeks when I was kicked in the belly on accident by a toddler.. And, he’s wanted to know at least once- ..and told the tech yes. But, will I spill the beans?

The placenta is in a great spot, on my back left side from about navel level right up into the fundus (top curve of the uterus). The baby’s organs are developed nicely and working as they should be at this stage (pee in the bladder, ‘cute’ kidneys, fluid in stomach, 4 chamber heart beating away: 143 beats per minute). And, baby was adorable, rubbing face with hands, pointing, hiccuping, and playing with the cord (which is across the chest a few times, but not wrapped behind).

This was my first 4D scan. It’s fascinating how they’ve improved to where they can take this set of 2D images and get a 3D image, add the time/movement and that’s 4D and we get to see the baby moving and get an idea of what our future little one looks like.

The children are excited that they’ve peeked in the present and met their sibling. The tech gave them each an image of baby smiling, and a candy.

And, now I get to not pick up pretty much anything or walk too far (which means I get pelvic pain in the mornings -mild PSD strikes me when I don’t move enough -lax muscles don’t hold the joint in place well). I’m so glad I’ve got some bigger little kids that can give me a hand with things like carrying laundry baskets, and emptying and loading the dishwasher. It would be tough if I had only littler ones that were completely dependent on me.

(**I’ll have to upload an image or two**)