The Day Annie was born

 

The Birth of Anna Shepherd "Annie" McNeese

I tried for weeks to clean the laundry, the house, buy the groceries, declutter despite our kitchen in chaos and all to no avail. We kept dirtying our clothing--we experienced a winter storm that left us without the capability to do laundry or clean much and the mud was building up in the house. We kept eating our food and it was tricky to get more without the Clicklist and with low availability. The kids were feeling the upset and Will was in a conference in our bedroom all day so we tried to be quiet-er. 

And then the sun came out, the water increased, the food trucks made it through, Clicklist was up and running again, Ms. Cynthia made it back to Jackson and was available to help clean, Friday Program opened again, and I had a chiropractor appointment! Hallelujah!

At 11:30 on Frida I returned home from my chiro appointment. I had told Dr. Molly that I hoped I wouldn't need to come again because the baby would have arrived. But, man, she sure did help a lot. I went in waddling and full of self pity and walked out telling Will that I was up for being pregnant for another week if I needed to be. Earlier that morning, we had taken the boys to school and Juni and I went on a 2 mile walk--the first in a long time because of the winter storm.

Mrs. Cynthia was just finishing up our house when I walked in feeling awesome. I snuggled Juni and fell asleep as she watched the episode about Daniel Tiger bringing home his little sister, Margaret. 

Around 12:30 Will and I started making plans to go get paint at Lowes, then pick up the boys together. I went to the bathroom and had bloody show. I knew that was a sign of the end of pregnancy, but it could still be a week or two. I had already been losing my mucous plug and having tons of braxton hix contractions. However, a few minutes later, I felt a contraction--and it was crampy and kind of painful. I called across the house to Will, "babe, a few minutes ago I had bloody show and now I just had a real contraction!" "Whoa! What should we do?" he called back. I decided we should just keep going with our plans and I'd let him know if it happened again.

10 minutes later, it did. "Should we call my mom?" he asked. "Let's just wait a bit more...but maybe we should pack up our toothbrushes and be ready." Soon after that I told him we needed to put our stuff in the van before we picked up the boys from school.

On the way to get the boys we kept track of contractions and called Will's mom. It became clear that this was labor and we needed to get the kids to her soon so we could know the kids were taken care of and could concentrate and feel at peace. 

We waited in the pick-up line for 20 minutes. We told Juni that we were pretty sure that our baby was coming soon. The boys climbed into the car and quickly asked," Why are we going this way? This isn't the way home." When we told them they started screaming with excitement. Ezra asked, "Is your belly squeezing right now? Does it hurt?"

We dropped them all off giving each enough kisses to last two nights.

"Where do you want to go now?" Will asked me. We had never been in labor during the day. Our other three started coming in the middle of the night so we had labored at home, until I decided I didn't want to have to travel with feeling much more pain. But, this was the daytime. We were close to the hospital and my contractions were still 10 minutes apart. The last thing I wanted was to go to the hospital. It seemed cold and harsh, unsupportive, dark and unwelcoming. 

"Let's go to the park and walk around and watch the kids," I said at first then a few minutes later decided I'd rather go to the nature path near the path. I was feeling more private.     

Touch::

Thank you, Kate for the Five Minute Friday prompt, Touch::

He washed my hair massaging my scalp then arranged a black cape around my shoulders and lead my back to his chair where I sat in front of a mirror and he brushed my hair--a rare beauty treatment--my first professional haircut in years. and I breathed and relaxed while my husband watched our two little boys.
And we talked about touch. About how some of his customers come in just for someone to touch them in a caring way. About our need at every age and season of life to be physically touched by another human.
My life is filled--overfilled even--with touch. I'm sustinance for my littlest, and base in tag, and my kisses heal their frequent accidents, and each needs a morning snuggle, before and after nap snuggles, before bedtime snuggles, and hurt feelings snuggles. As much as I love it, I get totally touched out.
But someone's grandma is walking around her house seeing her neighbors and the mailman and the cashier and craving the kindness given by the hairdresser, a stranger.

 Today, we are in a winter storm. Snow and icy roads and the water plant can't keep up with the freeze so we're making due with a little stream coming from the faucets and boiling or Berkey-ing.

I'm 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant with our 4th little one, Anna Shepherd. But, I've been pregnant since March of last year and am due March of this year. We lost one in April and officially in May and got pregnant with Annie in June so I will have been pregnant for a year.

And do I ever feel it. I've never felt this much of an urge to have a baby--my body screams that I should have had her in December as I sit full of child in mid February.

Will has an online conference all this week so he's using our bedroom from 7:30-6 every day. Tomorrow is his last.

We're living in separate worlds where I'm caring for kids, homeschooling, snow-wondering, baby-wondering, everything shut down and canceled. 

If Annie comes today, we'd have to find care for our kids in this icy situation when it's quite difficult to drive. Tina won't be able to come--or my parents. We'd probably have to bring her home to this as well and who knows if we'd have water...and yet I still want her to come, I'm still worn out waiting and wondering.

We're waiting on a baby

 We're waiting on a baby. I'm 38 w 1 d pregnant with Anna Shepherd McNeese. Our kitchen is quite unfinished. We've been "camping" kitchen since before Christmas. We hired a bum contractor and finally fired him a few weeks ago. Since then, Will has made good progress, but then had a week of being gone from 7:30-6. And we had a huge winter storm. We didn't know if we'd keep power and water. We kept power and our water got down to a trickle, but it seems to be slowly coming back, but it's still dirty and takes about an hour to fill the tub. We can't do laundry. We make a lot of laundry. Grocery pick-up was out and may still be out because of long lines and the last time I went, there wasn't bread, milk, or eggs and slim pickin's on the produce. But we have had enough/found enough/the slim pickins' worked for us. So I' grateful for that. We thought the baby was coming one night. I have had really poor the sleep the past few nights, Friday Program was cancelled, no dishwasher, no washing machine, dirty water/no showers, Ms. Cynthia couldn't come clean, our cat keeps getting out and in fights and has bad wounds on his back, camping kitchen got more "campy", Will's schedule became very full with the conference and every other moment with working on the kitchen, there's so much crap in the wrong place because of the kitchen, the kids have been exploding their bedrooms and emotional about cleaning back up, 

Next:: Five Minute Friday on Monday

Next:: Kate Montaung's Five Minute Friday

Next.

Two ideas come to mind: My eldest who always wants to know what's next. I feel powerless when he asks me because I don't know. and I feel like a failure because I think I "should" know.

And the other is the phrase used in recovery, "Do the next right thing" which is a phrase that brings me comfort when I want to escape into a book or (used to be) social media or I when I get overwhelmed by the thought of a whole day, week, month, year mothering and home making and wife-ing...

I can do the next right thing. I can say a prayer for kindness and for the Lord to see me and intercede when I want to yell, "I don't know! You figure it out!" at my eldest. I can wipe the counter, sweep the crumbs, start a pot of tea, sit on the front porch with s little someone in my lap, even take a deep breath.

I may not know next,  next right thing, but I can do the one I'm given, breathe a prayer with my good Father, and then do the next.

Lack

Lack:: Kate Motaung's five minute Friday writing prompt on Tuesday

What do you lack, I ask them as they head out the door. Jackets, boots..."I need gloves." We poke around the winter apparel basket for matching black gloves then I hold each out as he wiggles little fingers into particular spots, gives an apple cheeked grin, then states firmly, "okay. I'm wedy."
I crack open the door--a three-year-old sized exit then close it quickly behind him and watch as he hops himself off of the porch and runs to find his big brother.

What do I lack? Dramatically I answer myself, "If only it were a pair of black gloves in a basket."
I feel my lack keenly these days**

Courage, sleep, a plan for dinner, time alone, wisdom, compassion.

This brings me to what I don't lack:

Hope, ability to delight in small things, Legos, dear friends, giggles, children, a husband, money,
and right in this moment, gratefulness.

Offer

Offer:: Kate Motaung's 5 minute Friday writing prompt on Wednesday.

Offer. As a mom of 3 littles, I feel empty, like the dregs are perpetually drained, like I have nothing to offer.
But, I do have myself, my story, my honest presence.
Which is more than I've had to offer my whole life.
Just because I feel empty doesn't mean I have nothing.
And if we sit side by side each with nothing but honest presence, we will leave filled by that connection.