Music

When Ian and I started dating I was introduced to gospel music. At first I thought it was really cheesy and kinda made fun of him for it. Not something I'm proud of but it's true. But now I love it! We even downloaded kids gospel music for Mary. It's just very authentic. If you really say how you feel and lay yourself out in the open, it can sound a little cheesy, but at least it's real! Anyway, today I was listening to a little Kirk Franklin and it's really uplifting. I generally listen to this song when I run (or walk for the past 9 months anyway):

And I've been listening to it this morning. Ian's been gone so it's just me and the kids for a couple hours. It's easy to feel alone, but I know I'm not! That song is a great reminder!

Bike Ride

Our friends Cari and Abigail came over for a visit today and Ian was really excited to try having two kids in the bike trailer. It was kinda funny how giddy he was:) At first he strapped Abigail in and took her for a ride down the street so that she could get accustomed to the trailer.

I promise Abs was happy in that photo she just looks upset:) Then we strapped Mary in too and the girls did really well.



The sun is really bright in that picture. That's why they look so frowny. Then Abs tried to steal Mary's ball. Abs really likes to pass things back and forth so I'm assuming she just wanted to play that game for a bit.


Cari and I went inside and had some mommy time for a few minutes while the girls took a ride. Ian will do anything to get kids to like him so he's already suggested that he take the girls for a ride up to the ice cream shop.
In other news: Mary really likes the baby swing. It says it goes up to 25 pounds so I'm trusting that! She likes to put her feet up and push herself on the bars above her head. It's really funny, but something she probably wont appreciate me posting in the future:

And here is a picture of Noah looking like a chubby old man. I think he is really adorable, but I know I always think newborns look like grumpy old men, so I'm realistic in thinking that other people probably see him that way:

Week 1

Just wanted to post a little update on our kids. So far, Noah has been such a textbook baby. By that I mean he sleeps when he should, eats when he should, and stays awake after each feeding during the day. It's like a miracle. Mary likes to call him "baby". We try to get her to say Noah, but it's just baby for now. Sometimes she will take my hand and say baby over and over until we go see him. It's really cute. We haven't done much in the past week so here are some pictures of us at home:

Noah is here!

Well Friday evening was an interesting one. I started having contractions around 3:30 in the afternoon but they weren't very convincing. So I went out to dinner with a group of my girl friends. I'm so glad I did because it kept my mind off of what was really going on...
Amber and I drove back to my house right after dinner and we watched an episode of friends while Amber timed contractions for me. It was fun to be able to hang out with her while Ian put Mary to bed and took care of things around the house. I could tell contractions were getting stronger and longer, but I still wasn't convinced I was in labor! I'd had contractions for a few days before Friday and they just stopped. Well anyway, Ian made the executive decision to go to the hospital around 11:30 when contractions were about 5 minutes apart.
When we got there I was 6-7 cm and I couldn't believe it! The contractions didn't feel that bad. But I maintain that having cervical checks is the worst part of labor. We got to our room and I hopped in the shower. The water in the hospital is really hot which felt so good. And it stayed hot for a long time! I was in the shower for most of the rest of the time we were there. Around 2:15 the nurse came in and said they needed to do some more monitoring. At the time I was thinking 'stupid hospital policies! I can feel the baby moving and it's fine!' But it was a good thing I did because our Doula suggested I sit on the birth ball while I had to get monitored. That got things moving along! She said that it would open up my pelvis to get the baby moving and it sure did just that. Contractions peaked then and it got to the 'i can't do this' point. Which I knew was good because they say you get there right before pushing. I really only had 4-5 transition contractions, which are the most intense. And during the last one I started to push. My water broke then and after 2-3 more contractions with pushing Noah came sailing out!
That was probably more information than people are looking for, but I'd like to remember it:) Here are some pictures. First time daddy held Noah:

This is me about 5 min after birth. I was SO HAPPY to be done if you can't tell:

Noah being weighed and measured:


All four of us:

Mary doesn't really think too much about her brother yet. She will look at him and say "baby!" and walk away. Here I am changing Noah's first poopy diaper. I forgot how gross those first few are:


Noah Henry Lubbers, 8 pounds 5 ounces, 20.5 inches:

Thankfulness

So yesterday I was in a bad mood and telling Ian I just wanted the baby to be out. To which he lovingly replied, "Maybe you should stop focusing so much on yourself." To which I replied, "I'm going to go call Amber, she'll be nicer." And we laughed. Although I didn't embrace his words immediately, he's right. When I find myself digging deeper into a pit of despair, frustration, anger, etc. it's often because I'm focused on myself. So I prayed through my prayer list for other people and read a little bit. That was good. I also listened to a sermon in which the preacher reminded me that being prideful and turning ourselves into idols (i.e. focusing too much on ourselves and prioritizing our needs over God) leads us to become ungrateful and those things feed off of each other. So I decided to make a list of 10 reasons I'm thankful to still be pregnant:
1. I have an excuse for MOST things I do or say. ("I'm pregnant" "It's just the hormones" etc.)
2. Life is really slow and uncomplicated.
3. I don't have a newborn attached to me 90% of the day.
4. I'm getting lots of sleep.
5. I get to feel the baby moving around inside me. Although you grow sort of immune to the kicking and punching, I remember after I had Mary missing that feeling.
6. I can get out of the house most anytime I want.
7. I only have to be concerned with one child (unless you count Ian).
8. I don't need 5 showers a day, nor do I need to change clothes every couple hours. When you have a newborn...you ALWAYS feel dirty and gross.
9. The look on people's faces is really funny when they ask when I'm due and I say Saturday.
10. Ian really likes the way I look pregnant. I mean he likes the way I look always, but he told me yesterday that I should just always be pregnant...WHAT? I'm glad God gave Ian eyes to see me the way He sees me.
11. Just thought of another one! People are always offering to do things for me. Some pregnant women get offended by this, but not me. I take all the help I can get!

Chipotle

No baby yet! I wanted to document how much Mary eats. When we go to chipotle she generally splits half of my burrito or bowl with me...and she eats it all. Yesterday we went to chippy for lunch and she ate half my bowl, then asked for more. So I gave her some chips and guac.
Here she is pounding her food like always. In the second picture she is cleaning out the pouch on her bib so she doesn't miss even one morsel of food. And the last picture made us laugh out loud at the restaurant. She was in a total food coma.

Birth resources

I've been wanting to see The Business of Being Born for some time now and I finally went and got it from Blockbuster the other day. It was a great documentary! It was mostly basic things that I already knew, but I think that's only because I've read like 5 books on birth. If you are looking for some very interesting information on birth in America I would suggest this movie! It has been concerning to people for a long time that America has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates among the developed world and I think this movie does a good job of pointing out some possible reasons for that and calling on women to make a change.
The one thing I didn't like about it was that they blamed Obstetricians and hospitals for all the problems. I don't really think this is fair at all. I think a lot of women WANT to schedule their births, don't mind c-sections or pitocin, and desperately want pain relief. By the way, I'm not judging that in ANY way, nor do I think it's wrong or anything. But with those things you have to take the bad with the good. The bad part is that we are seeing drugs that have never been tested on infants (cytotec, pitocin, etc.) cause huge problems. And I don't think we can blame that all on Doctors. It just bugs me when people try to put all the blame in one area. Although I do understand that doctors are looked at as experts and most people blindly trust them. The blindly trusting them is the part that doesn't work out too well. So if a doctor says it's safe then most women will trust that. I get that. It's a position of authority. However, a believe a doctors job is to inform based on their expertise, and it is our job to make the decisions for ourselves.
Done with my rant! I recommend this movie to anyone who has given birth or ever intends to:) I also recommend Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. It's all you need as far as information goes. I've been reading through it a lot since I've only got about a week left until baby arrives!