The Big New Years date

okay, so I left off saying I'd post about our new years date...

As you can imagine with six kids getting a night out with my husband is a rarity. Compounded by the fact that we have no family in the area and I couldn't possibly impose 6 kids on friends who only have 3. So we have not been out on a date for 2 years! yes that's right folks two whole years. So, we thought we'd take advantage of the fact that my in-laws were coming to town and we had to be in Dallas the following day to pick up my oldest from the airport.

What a fabulous night!! We stayed at the Raddison DFW South the room was huge, with a seating area and king size bed. Clean and quite and well we'll just leav it at that ;)
Dinner was at the the Palomino and I have to say I've never had such a perfect restaurant outing. The service was friendly and personal. The food was outstanding! Nathan had a sirloin that was topped with this fantastic herb butter, it was delicious. I had a fillet mignon on a Gorgonzola cheese bed, even cooked to a medium well it just melted in your mouth, beautifully seasoned, juicy and cooked to perfection. Dessert was the kicker, we ordered a lave cake, it was so much more than the lava cakes I've had elsewhere. This was truly fudgy in the middle, not just filled with a sauce and it came with a plate of sides, vanilla bean ice cream, strawberries, and espresso sauce, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. It was by far the best dinner I've ever had and I would strongly recommend this place!!
After dinner we walked around the downtown area, tried on cowboy hats, bought salt water taffy and enjoyed the people watching. Then we headed over to the Comedy Sportz club. This place is very similar in style to "Who's Line is it Anyway" but much cleaner. It was really funny and we had a fabulous time. It certainly is family friendly as they bill it to be. It was so nice to get away and not have to worry about the kids or pregnant mamas. We're looking at when we could possibly plan the next get away! Anyone wanna babysit?

The holidaze

Whew! Glad that's over!
December is usually pretty busy for me, I tend to make it that way, but adding in the apprenticeship and busy soon escalates to crazy.

I decided I wanted the bathroom re-tiled before my in-laws came for Christmas on the 2nd, and of course putting in new tile means new paint! Our bathroom before was wallpapered in a stripe with navy, forest green, cranberry and white. It looked nicer than it sounds, the counter is cranberry and the tile is gray marble. The tile was never sealed and I wasn't aware that was necessary so after 4yrs with 4 boys using it daily you can imagine what it looked like, much less the lingering odor that never seemed to wash away.

I found a warm clay colored tile with hints of burnt sienna and pumpkin in it. I went with a pumpkin color for the walls and it looks totally different, very warm. But painting with 6 kids in the house is near impossible much less trying to do tile so the tile isn't finished. In fact the toilet was re-installed a mere 15 min before my husbands parents and sister arrived! Talk about pressure!

Heaven sent had 3 ladies due in December, one went early in late November and one went Christmas eve and one Christmas Day! Margarett, bless her heart, didn't call me for the Christmas birth as I would have just pulled in my drive when she got called and it was 3.5 hrs from me so I probably wouldn't have made it anyway and I would have been dog tired when I got there. I also had one doula client who was planning a hospital birth in Lawton.

Our Christmas eve baby went well.... S was planning a center birth, so when she called thinking this was the real deal Margarett called me right away, around noon. Margarett was trying to help Anne clean and move so she was already tired and I hope, glad she had an apprentice to labor sit. I got there just before S, when she got in she was a 3 maybe a 4. Not terribly encouraging to a mama who was ready to be done four weeks ago, but she was sure this was it and she wanted to stay. I stayed with her while Margarett went back to try to get Anne's house livable in time for Christmas. S had her sister and a good friend with her. She was in good spirits for most of the labor, laughing and telling jokes between contractions. They watched movies and talked and I got a ton of cleaning done. S spent some time on the birth ball and then the tub. She asked me to check her and I thought she was a 5 but still pretty high, I don't think Margarett or Anne was very happy with me doing that, but she just seemed to really need assurance that she was indeed getting somewhere.
She walked around, rocked on the ball some more and then threw up, that's when things changed. She got a little more serious and started to concentrate more on the contractions. And she found her rhythm and ritual. With each contraction she would lean on the ball, put her head down and sway her hips. She was quiet during the contractions though she complained between them. It was a little like Jekyll and Hyde. During her contractions she seemed so peaceful and serene, as if she was enjoying them. Between contractions she complained about how uncomfortable she was and how long this was taking. I think she just wanted to be done and holding her baby. Well it wasn't much longer and she was. She got back in the tub for awhile and when Margarett got there she got out and got on the bed within an hour her 10lb baby boy was born. I stayed at the center until they left, and cleaned up the laundry and trash and headed home.

Dec 22nd my doula client tried a natural induction, she chose to take some herbs and homepathic and I applied some acupressure... nothing happened. I went home and checked on her periodically over the next couple of days. So on her due date, because no one ever goes on their due date, the husband and I decided to take the kids to the Omniplex and the OKC Downtown festivities. We took two vehicles just in case, and it's a good thing we did. Towards the end of the evening, right after we got hot cocoa to warm us up before going home, A called, B's husband, to let me know they had gone to the hospital to get checked and she was about a 4 but they seemed to have forgotten about them. B was really struggling with the contractions so A got a speed class in Doula 101. He did great!! He helped her to relax and let go and by the time I got there (2hours after their call) she was doing really well, a little too well some might say. When I got to the floor and asked for her the nurse seemed confused, apparently they really had forgot about her, even though at last check she was 5cm they never admitted her, so she was in their "receiving" room, a large room with three beds separated by curtains and one bathroom. I got in the room and B was laying in bed, fairly well relaxed for a first time mom giving birth in a hospital. She would chant "open, open" during contractions, earlier on the phone, she was saying "ow ow ow" with each one I suggested A start saying open and suggest her to do it as well as it's a much more positive thought than ow. She would curl her toes and squeeze the sheet but otherwise was doing okay, I tried to help her relax through two contractions and then she needed to use the bathroom. Once there she had a ton of bloody show and lost a large amount of mucous, I thought "great, this show is really on the road!" We worked through about 5 contractions coming about 4mins apart and lasting just under a minute when she started to grunt. I thought it was way to early to start grunting, I mean she's a first time mom and has been laboring actively for only about 2 hours. She said it was burning and I kept watching her vagina, looking to see the swelling that usually accompanies the burning, there was none but she kept grunting. We talked about pushing against an incomplete cervix and I had her pant with her head back to try to keep from pushing, when I seen her belly bear down even though her chin was up I asked if she wanted me to check her. Sure enough there was a head, less than an inch inside the vagina. I sent her husband to the nurses station to tell them we needed a real room now. -I struggled for just a moment with whether or not I should have her moved and alert the staff. I knew that 10 more minutes of sitting on the pot and she'd have a baby in her arms, no risk of epsiotomy, no policies to argue, just a healthy baby and mama. The reasonable, responsible person won out.- The nurses dashed in as A had told them she was crowning. The first nurse in couldn't check her on the toilet and wanted her to lay down on a sheet on the floor! I convinced her that she could check her standing up and she agreed, we needed to move her now! They put her in a wheel chair and we raced down the hall to a room. The nurse said she had an anterior lip, I don't think that's possible with how far down the canal the head was, but who am I to argue. We panted through about 4 more contractions and then she was given the go ahead to push. I think it was about 4 good pushes later and we had a 6.14lb baby girl.
There was an argument over an IV (yes less than 10min till baby and they wanted to start a bag of water), the doctor cut the cord and suctioned before giving the baby to mom then proceeded to pull the placenta out and do a bi-manual exam. I think she'll consider a homebirth for the next one.

Wow this got really long so I'll tell you about the long awaited new year's date in another post.