Momofsix, I have to apologize for misleading you. I have never had a homebirth. I would love to, but my hubby isn't too fond of the idea and after three cesareans, there aren't many mdiwives who will take us. I think the research is clear that homebirths can be incredibly safe in most situations. Here's a link to a great documentary called "The Business of Being Born". It gives a history of birth and a lot of great experiences and statistics that show how wonderful homebirth can be. Ricki Lake produced it.

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=45525

My birthing experiences have all been very diffferent. I'll summarize below, you can read more about them in the archives.

• #1 - I was 20 years old, single and stupid. I was induced due to high blood pressure and had the complete and typical hospital experience. I was fortunate to have a ******l birth, but I still felt empty and like something was wrong.
• #2 - I was 26 and I knew that I wanted a more natural birth. I did a lot of reading and my husband and I attended childbirth classes. My water broke at 36 weeks, plus I was GBS +. I was induced when I got to the hospital, even though I didn't want to be. The nurse informed me that it wasn't optional. I still didn't know enough to realize I could refuse. I labored for 8 hours with pitocin-contractions (which hurt worse than natural) and then had an epideral. After another 4 hours, I hadn't progressed at all. My doc called for a c-section, and I didn't know enough to say no. The c-section left me angry and bitter.
• #3 - I was 28 and determined to have a VBAC (******l birth after cesarean) in a hospital. I started seeing a certified-nurse-midwife and I learned everything I thought I would need. I even made my husband read the Bradley childbirth book. I went into labor two days before my due date. I labored at home for almost 24 hours. It was wonderful. I really have great memories of my labor up to that point. I got to the hospital at 7 cms and everything went wrong. I didn't progress, I couldn't relax, I got dehydrated, they couldn't find a vein for an iv and had to use my jugular. I ended up with another c-section after I wasn't progressing. The baby ended up being 10lbs10oz and in the anterior position (which is why I slowed down.)
• #4 - I was 28 (they are 10 1/2 months apart) and still incredibly bitter and upset over my failed vbac. I was mad at my husband, at the midwife, at the nurses...everyone. I didn't have the strength to try for another vbac, even though the research on having a ******l birth after 2 cesareans is pretty good. My blood pressure shot up in the last trimester, and I didn't want to fight, so we scheduled a c-section.

A homebirth is not in my future. Unless God intervenes in a miraculous way, I will have to have any remaining children by c-section.  I know where I failed with each birth, but I can't change any of it. I am stuck with a uterus that has been cut three times and living in a community that doesn't think highly of VBACS. But, I know the truth about birth. I know more than so many women who are being fooled by the doctors and pushed into ridiculous interventions that aren't necessary.

My favorite birth resources:

www.birthingnaturally.net - Christian natural birth site

www.plus-size-pregnancy.org - good info even for people of normal size

The Lord of Birth by Jennifer Vanderlaan

40 Weeks by Jennifer Vanderlaan

Christ Centered Childbrith by Kelly Townsend

This time four years ago I was awaiting the arrival of two things that were very dear to me - our long- prayed-for second child and our first official year of homeschooling. Our oldest son was six and we had tried for about three years to get pregnant. I went through the normal ups and downs and spiritual questioning that every woman who has faced infertility has seen. We were thrilled when the Lord opened my womb, with no help from doctors, and were counting the weeks until our second son came into the world.

As for homeschool, my husband had allowed me to 'try it out' on a temporary basis for my son's K4 and K5 years. I prayed for a year for God to work His will in my husband's heart regarding homeschooling. That year, when our son was six my husband gave his blessing that we could homeschool, and I was busy preparing the state-required paperwork.

I spent hours planning for both the baby and homeschooling. I spent the summer reading birthing books and writing lesson plans. The baby was due in September, so I hoped to get a full month of school done before he came. I worried about how I would do school and care for a baby. I agonized over curriculum and baby-scheduling and came up with a perfect plan. I had objectives for every subject, monthly evaluations, and even a homemade planbook that I had spiral-bound at Staples. I wrote down four different schedules for the baby, faithfully attended childbirth classes, and stocked up on all the sweet-smelling-Johnson&Johnson products I could buy.

Then God happened.

It was our first week of school and it had gone well so far. That Thursday we were set to work on reading, math & science.  While I was sitting in our rocking chair, reading a book to my son, I wet my pants. Or so I thought. When I stood up and more liquid gushed down my leg I realized what had happened. My water broke. A month early. I wasn't scared, but just frustrated that things weren't going according to plan, and I didn't even have a bag packed.

I had no idea what to expect, so I went to the bathroom to see if anything mysterious, like a baby, came out with the water. It hadn't. I left my soaked shorts on the bathroom floor and waddled to the phone in my underwear. My industrious six year old grabbed a towel and followed behind me as I left a trail of amniotic fluid all over our new laminate floors. I called my sister and my husband. I told one to bring me maxi pads and the other to get his butt home from work fast.

I had no idea then that the two things I had been waiting for would come in the same week. Sometimes God surprises us like that. Sometimes He just knocks us plum out with His love - like blessing us with four children in those four years (one is still cooking). 

Four years later, I am again spending the summer planning for another baby and another schoolyear to arrive almost simultaneously. Only this time I have more experience and wisdom to draw from when I'm making my plans. Here's what I've learned about babies, birth, and homeschool during these four years.

• I've learned that rocking my babies to sleep is okay.
• I've learned that hospitals are the worst places to give birth.
• I've learned that what a struggling reader needs more than an oustanding phonics program is an encouraging and relaxed mom who loves him when he succeeds and when he fails.
• I've learned that everything I thought I knew about parenting when raising one compliant child turned to dust when we added three progressively more stubborn children.
• I've learned that my husband can't read my mind when I'm in labor, and even though he  sometimes needs me to tell him what to do, he is the only person I want touching me when I'm having a baby.
• I've learned that school will get done eventually and children are always learning, even if their progress doesn't fall within the parameters set forth by public school.
• I've learned that its harder to break a 2yo from finger sucking than from paci-sucking, but it does make for a cute picture.
• I've learned that all the parenting, birthing, homeschooling experts are really just people and they don't always know everything.
• I've learned that no matter how well-laid out my plans are or how much I think I know, God's ways are better than mine. And if He brings about something in my life that doesn't go according to my plan- well, then I should shove my plans to the backburner and thank the Lord that He loves me enough to lead me on.

I'm incredibly busy right now with childrearing. I've been trying to take some time to purposely change some things in our home. Its exhausting. I'll give an account at some point, after all the dust has settled. Stay tuned for some blog posts that are bumping around in my brain.

The Conspiracy Theory Post:  a list of my favorite conspiracies

The Submission Post:  duh, its about submission...been thinking on it for awhile.

More posts on childrearing and what not to do...from experience!!!

The School Planning Freak Out Posts: a series of posts where I lay down the expectations and goals for the next year, even though there's an 87% chance that I WON'T meet them.

My husband must like morning people. Of course, I am not one of those. I require at least 20 minutes after waking to lay in bed, stretch, and 'think' about getting up. I have to mentally prepare myself to actually get out of bed. Not to mention the physical ailments of pregnancy. My back doesn't work in the morning, so without the proper stretching, I walk like a  deformed-French-bell-ringer for the first hour of my day. Forget making the bed...I don't have any strength in my hands that early.

Back to my husband. This morning he jumps out of his shower, all perky and cheery, and tells me to get out of bed so he can make it. I appreciate the thought, after all he's only trying to help me with this week's goal of waking before the kids do. However, being forcebly required to pop out of bed upon waking and participate in the ridiculous ritual of bed-making is akin to Chinese-water-torture. I don't know what's wrong with that man.

HOwever, it was nice to have a few minutes to read my devotions,  check email, and write this blog post before the hooligans wake up and attack me. Haha...now I can go on the offensive and attack the little monsters myself! Thanks, hubbby.

Here are some quotes from the book Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp. This book has been a real encouragement in my journey this week towards more Biblical parenting.

  The situation is not hopeless. You can raise children in Godly ways at the end of the 20^th century. You need not – indeed, you dare not – cave in, concluding that the task is impossible. Experience may tell you that failure is inevitable, but experience is an unsafe guide. The only safe guide is the Bible. It is the revelation of a God who has infinite knowledge and can therefore give you absolute truth…

You do not come to your child demanding, for your purposes, that he knuckle up to you and obey.  No! You come with the corrections of discipline that are the way to life (Proverbs 6:23). You engage your son on the behalf of God because God has first engaged you.

The purpose for you authority in the lives of your children is not to hold them under your power, but empower them to be self-controlled people living freely under the authority of God.

It is very easy for me to get too authoritarian with my kids, requiring that they meet my demands, rather than meeting the demands that God has set for them. Authority is good. In fact, too many little children are running around wild because their parents don't realize that they have the God-given authority to make those hooligans obey. But, when you mix a black-and-white-personality with a little authority, you often get legalism in parenting.

I praise God for showing me that I'm not here to make little roboticly-obedient kids who never disobey because they are afraid of punishment, but rather children that desire obedience and understand the rewards of obedience. You can thank my husband for that last bit...he sent to me via an encouraging email when I was frustrated with our progress earlier this week :)

This is how you get your kids to not suck on a pacifier.

I'm almost done. I have 4 meals to do. I've had fun, and I've learned a lot. Like, a 12 lb ham doesn't stretch as far as I'd like it to. :( Oh, well. I was hoping to get 8 meals out of the ham and I got 7. Four of those are smaller, so there will be no leftovers for hubby to take to lunch.

I stored all of my meals in ziplock bags. I wasn't sure how to store the casseroles. I wanted to buy those tin-foil-disposable-baking-pan thingies. But, they were too expensive. When I do this the month before the baby gets here, I will probably buy about 10 of those to make it easier for hubby. So, I ended up using bags for the casseroles too. I just layered the ingredients in, layed them flat, and froze them. They won't be pretty, but who cares. I can't be a perfectionist and actually get this done, ya know!

Here's my stocked freezer. Woohoo. You don't need a big freezer to do this. By using ziplock bags, you can easily store 20 meals or so in the freezer portion of a fridge. We had a regular fridge-top freezer at our other house and it worked fine. In my side by side fridge/freezer, I could easily store 30 meals in ziplock bags. I just wouldn't have room for too many extras. I'd still have some room, but not too much.

Momofsix asked how I did OAMC (Once A Month Cooking) with kids around. I laughed as I read the comment. I didn't really manage it that well. Honestly, its probably easier to do without the kids. But here's what I did:

Yesterday started with a trip to the store. We went to three stores, and that got crazy at the last store. Then when we got home, I put the babies to bed, the older two in front of a movie, and the boston butt into the oven to cook all day.  While the kids napped, I chopped veggies and made a plan for the afternoon.

 When it came time to cook dinner, I picked the easiest dish (red beans and sausage) and made it in triple. That wasn't too much harder than making one. When hubby got home, I asked him to take the kids outside while I processed the boston butt and waited on dinner to finish cooking. We had a late dinner and the kids were good and tired, so there was none of the usual bedtime hassles. :)

After the babies were tucked in, the older boys played Mario with dad and I browned six pounds of venison. Once it was browned, I added a cafeteria-sized can of crushed tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. While it was simmering we read a missionary story and did our devotions.

Once the big boys were in bed, I started on another five pounds of meat for chili. It didn't take long to get it together and let it simmer while hubby and I watched Office reruns on the internet. The hardest part was processing the boston butt. It took forever and my hands were cramping from holding the knife for so long.

Today, it didn't go so well. I peeled and sliced 15 lbs of potatoes, and then proceeded to overcook them. I ended up with dinner tonight and two other dishes for the freezer. I lost some due to the overcooking, so I was pretty bummed. We did a good cleaning of the kitchen this evening, and tomorrow I'll spend about 3 hours working on 6-8 meals (depending how much they stretch). I'll either do it during naps or after the kids go to bed.

There is no doubt that spaghetti, chili, and the red beans & sausage are incredibly easy and quickly come together. If you like those dishes, start there and make several. Casseroles are much harder, as I learned today.

Yesterday, I put 14 meals into the freezer. What a feeling! I finished the spaghetti sauce, red beans and sausage, BBQ pork, and chili. Today I'm working on all the white sauce recipes.

Broccoli Ham Bake: I'm using homemade stuffing mix. You can see a great video with instructions here.

Ham and Potato Casserole

Hamburger Potato Casserole: I'm using white sauce in place of the canned cream soup. The recipe is below.

Cream of Soup substitute:

·         1 tablespoon butter

·         3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

·         1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

·         1/2 cup low-fat or fat free milk

·         salt and pepper to tast

Melt butter in pan. Stir in flour until blended. Slowly add milk and broth. Stir constantly until thickened.

I'm spending the next few days cooking several meals to stock my freezer. Here's my general plan. Later, I'll try to post recipes and a more detailed plan.

• Hamburger potato casserole (2 meals)
• Ham & potato casserole (2 meals)
• Broccoli ham bake (4 meals) 
• Poppy seed chicken (4 meals)
• Chili (4 meals)
• Spaghetti sauce w/ meat (4 meals)
• Bbq pork chops (4 meals)
• Red beans & sausage (3 meals)

We celebrated my hubby's birthday last weekend. My sis and oldest son concocted a prank to play on him. It involved whipped cream and little children (oh, and one big child...my sister).

He wouldn't know what hit him (okay, he totally did...he is very hard to surprise!)

That was awesome!

What a pair. Its so funny because when these two met almost 9 years ago at my oldest son's 1st birthday party...one of them started a cake fight.  It is still not known who was the culprit! Clearly, my sister won this round.

I knew that once I wrote those posts about bringing children to church, I would experience some difficulties as a result of spiritual warfare. I was right. The very next Sunday was the one that hubby was away. I took the easy road and left my 3yo in Sunday school for the church hour. I used the excuse that I was tired. It backfired. One, I felt guily the entire service, and two...

Once I brought him back into service the following Sunday, he had an incredibly hard time. It was like he was on a sugar high and couldn't contain himself. I haven't had to deal with behavior like that from in him in church for months. I had to take him out several times for a talking-to and some discipline.

Anytime we stand up for something that we believe in, we need to expect to be attacked. Some of the time it will be by people, but many times it will be by Satan. The things that we seem to have under control will start unraveling. All it means, is that we must continue to rely on Christ at all times and for all direction. I felt directed to write those posts, so I know that the He can accomplish something good from last SUnday's complete meltdown.

This weekend I made two cakes, one for a relative's baby shower and one for my hubby's birthday. The baby shower cake turned out pretty well, except for the fact that I used very fresh fondant and it needed to have "aged" a bit. I also got to eat the cake, and was really surprised when the bottom layer was super dry. Hmm...have to work on that.

So, that was the pretty cake. Here's the UGLY one. Hubby wanted a "plain" cake, meaning he didn't want me to slave away over decorations. He knew how busy I'd been all week. He also wanted canned icing because he didn't want me to worry about making it. I balked at the icing, knowing that decorator icing is a big secret to pretty cakes. But, I totally submitted (okay, not totally, I made a few sarcastic comments) and used canned icing. It was a disaster. I rushed and procrastinated and it turned out awfully. The middle layer totally fell apart and I had to piece it back together. Plus it tasted gross. The canned icing was just yucky!

Its not the best picture, but then again...I wasn't trying to save this one for the scrapbook!

My in-laws spent last week in Hawaii, and blessed us with some groovy souvenirs from the islands. The boys have cute outfits and koa necklaces, while hubby and I are looking tropical in pretty leis.

I'm really trying to figure out this whole "daughter" thing. I mean, after four boys, I'm not sure I can switch gears. I want to raise my boys to be brave enough to lead, and I want to raise my daughter(s) to be brave enough to follow. That is a minor issue compared to the one that I am truly having trouble with. It has plagued women for centuries. I have personally struggled with this issue ever since taking my marriage vows. I'm just not sure how to instill the qualities in my daughter that would inable her to overcome this horrendous burden of womanhood.

What am I talking about? LAUNDRY!

Yes, laundry, the absolute worst part of being a woman. I'd rather have hours of hard labor and pms every day than have to wash, fold, and put away a thousand little pairs of boxer shorts. In an effort to begin training my daughter from birth about the realities of laundry, I think I'll start with subliminal messages that tell her "laundry is good", "doing laundry is fun", "laundry is your best friend."  Fortunately, I found a very easy way to do this.

Hey, if you want your boys to like sports, give them ball and bat crib bedding. If you want to daughter to be snooty and self-righteous, give her princess crib bedding. So, I figured that clothes line bedding would produce a daughter who loves to do laundry.

Now all I have to do is wait until she's old enough to take over for me.

Thanks, Mom for the chocolate syrup. The kids love it!

I'm so bored. I'm hoping my husband will call. But since he is taking his sweet time, I went searching for something to make me laugh. Here's what I've come up with...funny t-shirts! Can you imagine me wearing these in public?!

I am SO buying this shirt for my daughter. I can't wait to put it on her. Now, she just has to be born...

Tonight is night #3 with no hubby. Boohoo. I don't know how the brave ladies whose hubbies are away at war do it.

My mom sweetly informed me that ice cream sandwiches have sugar in them. I had, of course, chosen to disregard this fact and shovel several into my mouth while watching tv. Sugar, a fat girl, and pregnancy aren't a good mix...I might end up with another 10 lb 10 oz baby. Ouch!

I will stop eating ice cream sandwiches...just as soon as the last 12 are finished! I'd hate to waste perfectly good ice cream sandwiches. Yummm...

I would be an utterly pathetic single woman. While my hubby is away, I've gotten a glimpse of what my life would be like if I weren't married. I'd pretty much spend my time watching network tv on the internet and eating ice cream sandwiches. At least, that's what I've been doing tonight. I'm snuggled up with my laptop on my bed and the paper wrappings of more than one ice cream conconction on my nightstand.

That kinda single lifestyle would, undoubtedly, assure that I'd remain single. Come to think of it, I have no clue what my husband ever saw in me. :) But I sure do miss him.