Another soul was baptized in Christ today. Benedict Thomas received he first Sacrament this afternoon at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Macon, Georgia. He smells heavenly! Pictures to follow, eventually.

Today I went for a walk with Benedict, just around the yard, partly to get me back in to the swing of things and to get him some Vitamin D as he is a bit yellow. This morning he had a weight check and is a bit low, but we can’t say for sure if he is on the upswing from bottoming out or if I still have supply issues, so we will begin again with the more frequent weight checks. The doctor and midwife are not too concerned at this point, as he wets plenty and poops plenty also. (No really, this kid is a pooping machine.)

When I got back from the appointment, we had a visitor, our Very Special Priest Friend! The kids about fell over themselves to tell me his was here and we had a great visit. He blessed both me and the baby as well as Joshua and also blessed the home as well as Enthroned our home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus! We had a great conversation and had a great lunch with him, a great visit over all. I love asking questions like “What do you do when the music at Mass is unbearable?” He said “Be thankful that the validity of the Mass does not depend on the music”.  Good answer, Father. I then asked is the Mass still valid if the priest uses contractions during the Eucharistic Prayer and it was confirmed, with a yes, provided he says, properly, “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood” . After this conversation, was over, Joshua commented on how he has never heard a decent Mission Priest. …. For those who don’t know, our Very Special Priest Friend is from an order that, well, preaches parish missions. 🙂

Benedict’s Baptism will be this coming weekend and we are looking forward to it! I am excited to have my sister, Mary, joining us. We will have it in Macon at a Catholic Parish there so we will spend the night on Saturday night and go to Mass on Sunday, then the Baptism.

Joshua returns to work tomorrow, boo. Okay, not really. I mean, Sam, his totally awesome boss, gave him this past week off and said to work half days for the rest of this week. Thanks, Sam! It will certainly help to get things in order here.

I think the kids have finished cleaning up toys, so we will be going for a family walk now!

Story of a Birth was my 200th post, cool.

Well, I just wanted to post, for my memory and to share with you all, that I have been up since 330 and it is now 640 (am). I think the family and I will be going to 730 Mass now, because if I attempt to sleep, I won’t wake up for the 930 or the later Mass.

Also, in case you were wondering, part of being away was because of Benedict, but partly because Caecilia woke up. I called her to come to the living room and she did, where she promptly began playing with toys she found on the floor, in the dark.

Benedict, for the record, fell asleep about 10 minutes ago. Stinker.

As with most birth stories, gory details ahead, you have been warned!

I had been joking about having the baby on Labor Day but figured that I would go late again, so was planning for another week of being pregnant. However, that was not to be! (Praise God!)

Around 430 on Tuesday morning, I woke up to Caecilia crying and a feeling of heaviness in my belly. Joshua took care of her and I laid in bed, not thinking much of the contractions I was having. Ha. I wasn’t timing them and they were not that bad, but Joshua was timing them and they were about 10 minutes apart. At one point, he said “I am calling the midwife.”  I didn’t argue. Oddly. I usually do.

The midwife’s apprentice showed up about a half hour later and started getting things set up. My midwife arrived about a half hour after that. (And what a saint she is, she had just attended a very long labor and had pretty much no sleep all weekend).

With things set and ready to go, we were expecting a baby before Noon.

….

Nope, did not happen!  I was dilated to 5 cm, so certainly in labor, but not a quick one like I had with the girls. I took a bit of nap and my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, maybe closer, some very “productive” (read: painful) and some not so bad. He finally moved down far enough for the midwife to determine that he was posterior so she had me do hands and knee exercises for a bit. Things started moving again and let me just say “OUCH!!!”

Around 345, my water broke and I was hoping beyond hope to have him within the next few minutes (as the girls were born minutes after my water breaking) but, alas, he was stubborn.   Okay, perhaps not him, but my body. I had a cervical lip, so was not totally dilated. I wanted to push, but with the lip, this was not a good idea. I held off, only with the help of my midwife, she panted with me and put up with me telling her I did not want to listen to her advice. We went through a few contractions, holding off on pushing and let me just say, I hope to never have to do that again.

The lip disappeared and Benedict was born a few moments later, with quick pushes from me. I honestly was exhausted and did not feel that I could do it, I would say that he came out on his own, really. Okay, I know I pushed, but the energy was not from me.

When we realized Benedict was crowning, Joshua called the kids in and they were able to watch him come out. I honestly do not recall much of them being there but they did a great job and were very very excited about things. They were actually great all day long, too, watching movies, coming in to check on me, eating and even sleeping! When you get a chance, ask Karol about the birth and when baby Benedict came out, he will talk your ear off about the whole thing.

Karol has already put in a request for the next baby and I am sure most mothers, freshly  postpartum agree with this reaction: “Ha ha, no”.

Benedict had a follow up exam today with the midwife and is doing well. He seems to have passed most of the meconium and is soaking quite a few diapers, a good sign that my milk is at least adequate. (Prayers please!) I started taking a supplement called G0-Lacta before he was born and today I added Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle to help boost my supply.

The midwife said he has lost some weight, about 8 percent of his birth weight, but said that she is willing to attribute that to the amount of meconium he has passed in the past 12 hours. No, really, last night, Joshua was changing his diapers and went through something like four wash clothes, as Benedict kept “producing” each time he went to clean him off. I laughed and laughed. He did that again in the middle of the night, plus when the midwife was here.

He has a touch of jaundice, as our kids have all had. She suggested we take him outside to get some sun. I honestly thought “Is she crazy? It is cold out there.”  Then I realized, oh yes, I can take him out just not mid day as it is 94 degrees out there, so the heat might be a bit overwhelming for him. So tonight, after dinner, I will take him out and let him run around with the kids. Okay, I will sit with him outside while the other kids play.

Benedict Thomas Facemyer

Born on 7 September 2010 at 443 pm

Weighing 8 lb 8 oz and measuring 21 inches

Shortly after birth, being held by Papa. What you don’t see is his Big Sister, Caecilia, pointing and saying “Baby”.

From my phone, sorry for the lack of sharpness. Sleeping after nursing, being weighed and measured along with having vitals checked.

Big Brother, Karol with Little Brother Benedict. Karol was so excited for a baby brother, he danced around the house for three hours tonight.

Me with Benedict after his second nursing. He fell asleep shortly after and has been making baby noises ever since.

All things are go! Baby Facemyer just needs to decide that it is time to come out! I met with my midwife today and two of her apprentices. I gladly let them check my belly and listen to the heartbeat, so that they can learn more about midwifery and go on to offer home births! (I know that there is much more to midwifery than checking heart rates, fundal height and baby positioning, but every little bit helps!) So the baby’s heart rate is good, growth is good, plenty of room for him/her to grow and he/she is in a great position. My heart rate, blood pressure and all other things are great.

I took Karol with me today and left the girls with the wife of Joshua’s boss. (They offered) Karol was supposed to stay behind too, but his nose running a bit and he had a cough, so I took him with me. He seems fine now, laying on the couch watching Star Trek – Deep Space Nine with Joshua. Karol was great today. First we had to meet with the doctor that my midwife works with to pick up a few items for the birth then we headed to the midwife’s office. Karol played quietly and did a great job of keeping himself occupied while the ladies and I talked.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch (at Zaxby’s, yum!) and Karol requested “baking soda” for his drink. He is so funny. Since he did a great job, I allowed him to have one.

We picked Joshua up and got the girls, then headed back home. Joshua has volunteered my services to his company to fold newsletters and put labels on them for young men who may have vocations to the Priesthood. I am a dork and love to do thinks like that anyway plus it is for a great cause. He headed back to work and I rested/folded

I headed to Target after Joshua got home from work to pick up a prescription and discovered that our local Target does not have a Pharmacy. Boo. I picked up a few things that we needed and headed home. I was done for after that. Tired. Did I mention my day started at 230 when I woke up and just could not get back to sleep? I managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep from 630 to 650 but that was it.

I sat in our room for a bit while Joshua made dinner (left overs, simple!)  and started to feel a bit better. I reemerged to help clean things up and watch a show with him and the kiddos.

I hope to have the baby soon, like very soon. 🙂 Tomorrow is my niece, Maddie’s, first birthday, it would be nice for them to share. One of my Grandma Kress’ birthdays is September 6th (I say one, because there is some question to her actual birthdate, the records were not kept very well and there were something like 14 siblings, so the county records were not accurate). Also, her and my grandfather’s  wedding anniversary was September 5th, so those two days would be nice too. Our Lady’s birthday is the 8th, so hey, what better day to share!

Joshua is now asking me if I am writing a book, so I suppose I should let him get to business that he needs to do on the laptop.

…because she shared this on her Face.book today. I like her for other reasons too but this is icing on the cake.

Have you ever heard of Pickyourown.org? I discovered it a few years ago, when looking for a recipe for from scratch pumpkin pie and have used it many times since to find apple orchards, farmers markets and Christmas Tree farms. Today, while looking for apple orchards around here, I saw this gem. It is a list of harvest dates for the state of Georgia. Ahh, of course, harvest times are way earlier here, duh, I just didn’t realize how much earlier! Pecan season is coming up this week!

This is all good information to know!

For starters, no baby yet. That is okay, tomorrow is 38 weeks, so I am not too disappointed.

I had hoped to go for a walk today, as it was cool out all day, but it started to rain and did not let up, so no walk. Instead, we pulled out some baby boy and baby girl clothes as well as folded all the clothes I started working with on Friday. It is nice to have everything folded and it its place.

I took a break to make a Tres Leche cake for tomorrow. It is a regular yellow cake soaked in a “syrup” of evaporated milk, sweeten condensed milk and half and half. After letting it soak overnight, you top it with whipped cream. I have never made it before but became obsessed with it after watching Alton Brown make it on Good Eats.

Saturday we did go to Jekyll Island. As we pulled on tot the island, it started to rain. We went to the “Turtle Hospital” first then decided that since it was only raining and not storming, we would go to the beach anyway. It was  a great time. We swam at the same beach where the movie Glory was filmed. The kids had so much fun playing in the waves and were not afraid like last time.

After leaving the beach, we did something we have never done before. We went out to eat. Well, since the kids decided they were tired and fell asleep before we found a place to eat, we decided to stop at a drive thru, something we hardly ever do. We had decided on Zaxby’s but just as we were turning around to go back, Joshua spotted Captain D’s. I had my heart set on Zaxby’s so Joshua said I could get my dinner from there. Yes! Zaxby’s has the best ice plus they have Cherry Soda. Mix that with a bit of Coke and it is great.

We stopped at Kroger in Waycross on the way home. I love Kroger, they are so much cheaper than grocery stores in this area. I stocked up on flour and sugar along with a few other items. While I was in the store, Joshua took time to organize the van so when we got home, things would be easier to unload. What a great guy.

The week ahead will see us probably preparing more for the birth of our little one, something we are all looking forward to. Pray for an early delivery and quick and soon!