what's up weekly. (Christmas edition.)

Well, we haven't been ones for slow news weeks lately, and this week was no exception: obviously, it was CHRISTMAS!

With the exception of purchasing presents early, we don't start celebrating Christmas early.  We don't do any Christmas stuff until Thanksgiving has passed.  But once we jumped in, we were all in.  We knew the baby was coming, so we got our decorations up, the kids had countdown calendars made, we wrapped as many presents as we could early in the month, the music was going, the oils were diffusing, the tree was decorated.  We were ready.  And all the buildup was worth it!

Last Friday was Christmas Eve.  Because I was just a few days postpartum, we celebrated at home with just us.  For breakfast, we ate the cinnamon rolls and breakfast bread we had prepped earlier in the week.

This breakfast is easy to make gluten free for me - I just scramble some of the bread filling (so good!), and this year I tried putting the cinnamon roll icing on some oat pancakes (only okay!).

I made most things in disposable pans this year, so they weren't the prettiest, but they made for easy cleanup.

Then we did cheeseboard for lunch.

After dinner (simple potato soup and bread - we were kind of fooded out by that point), the kids opened their Christmas jammies and we cuddled on the couch to watch the Nativity Story together.  Afterwards, the kids had their annual Christmas Eve slumber party in the boys' room.

And then it was... CHRISTMAS MORNING!! We let the kids open their stockings around 9:00.  (We don't start the day at the break of dawn - again, restraint.  And sleep.  Two very important things to the Van Voorsts.)

Stripes on stripes on stripes on stripes.

All the Christmas elves ogling their newest colleague.

Their stockings were filled with candy, one or two dollar spot items, and one small-ish but special gift.

This girl was having a BALL opening presents.  She was an absolute delight.

After stockings, we had breakfast.  I just love how pretty Christmas breakfast always is.  I didn't bother with fancy plates this year, but it doesn't matter when the food itself is so pretty. 

Todd read them a Chesterton poem while holding a tiny baby.  Um, not going to lie, I like it.

One more, because it's my blog and I call the shots here, but also honestly, who doesn't love to see a dad holding a baby?

After breakfast, everyone opened the gifts the kids got for them.  They know each other so well - everyone was so excited to feel seen and loved by the others, and my big kids especially had kept saying before Christmas that the part they were most excited for was to see the looks on their siblings' faces when they opened their gifts.  Everyone had a grand old time.

The ones in the brown bags are their gifts to each other and us.

The tree looks buried.

This girl suffered through no nap the day before, followed by a late bedtime, and is now suffering no shenanigans.

She got a tiara.  This is how she felt about it.

This was how Juni felt about her first play necklace and bracelet.

Matching sunglasses for her and her Baby.

Her reaction to a mini baby doll.  Understated.

A Tootsie Pop.

The kids also got Todd and me gifts.  Among other things, I received hand-crocheted slippers (and Ophelia got matching ones!), pajama pants, a handsewn nursing cover, a roll of toilet paper, and some smooshed and very discounted Sour Skittles from the Amish ding and dent store.  Every last present was perfect.

After kids' gifts, the kids opened the gifts from us to them.  Other than a small gift in their stocking and their Christmas jammies, they each got two gifts - a book and a 'big' gift, something I spend a lot of time thinking about and choosing for them.  To show they're known.  They're probably not 'big' gifts by most standards, monetary or otherwise, but they're the ones I really try hard to get right for each kid.

"I got my very own Lauras?!"

My favorite Christmas present of all.

We ate a lunch/dinner combo meal in the afternoon, but only because we believe in the value of feasting.  Our flesh is weak.  We couldn't take much more food.  Oh, how we've been blessed when we can't hold all the provision we've been handed!  It was such a good day!

The rest of the week was a combination of continued Christmas celebrations, with Christmas movies and Christmas music and enjoying our gifts.

Atticus got a few modeling sets, so he's been spending the week working on those.

Also, watching Ophelia sleep.  Which she is amazing at, both during the day and at night.  She spends a long stretch during the morning wide awake and cluster-feeding, and then she goes long stretches of conking out hard.  She actually sleeps at night so far, giving me one longer stretch of sleep at the beginning (4-6 hours!) and then a shorter stretch before waking up for the day around 7:00.  She doesn't stay awake at night - once she eats, she's back out.  She has only spent one night not following this pattern.  Not trying to jinx myself by telling you all of this, but I just had to share.  We spend a lot of time gazing at her while she's asleep.

Penelope loves holding her, and it looks like Ophelia loves it too!

Okay, so she's not sleeping in this one.  I just felt like I needed proof that she is, in fact, sometimes awake.

Also, Todd is nearly done with the coffee table and it is looking SO. GOOD.  I'll show you final photos soon!

Also, the weather has been GORGEOUS here.

This isn't the stain color, it's just wet from being wiped down.  I'm so excited to show you the stain color we went with!

And last but not least, this little whirlwind turned four-and-a-half.

And that was our very full, very fantastic week!

ophelia's birth story.

So, as I had mentioned, my midwife was gone for the first ten days of December, and I was due December 19.  It was cutting it close, and I had been having a lot of prodromal labor in there while the midwife was gone - strong, consistent, but far-spaced contractions for hours through the night that would stop shortly after I got up and ate breakfast.  My water had also sprung a small leak Tuesday of that week, so I thought things might be progressing sooner than I had thought they would.  

We were praying Ophelia wouldn't come before December 10, which is when Robin was scheduled to get back.  (Just to be clear, there was a backup midwife on call - I wasn't actually without a midwife while she was gone.)  I had texted with her about the prodromal labor and leaking water, and she advised just laying low to try to keep things from picking back up - resting in the bed or on the couch.  Good gravy, there is nothing as boring as just sitting around in those last few days.  I was so uncomfortable, and tired, and grouchy, and confused, and BORED.

I was convinced she was going to be HUGE, because of how big I was.  She ended up being much smaller than I had expected.

Literally around the exact time of day Robin's plane touched down on the tenth, all false labor totally stopped.  It was crazy.  I went back to feeling good, sleeping well, being able to be on my feet and moving around.  My back didn't hurt, my attitude changed, and I was ready to just wait it out.  I couldn't believe how major the physical and mental shift was, knowing that I would have access to someone I was comfortable with attending the birth, rather than a stranger.

So we waited five more days.  On Wednesday morning the 15th, I woke up at 5:45 to a huge gush of fluid - my water had broken entirely, but contractions hadn't started yet.  I laid back down, and around 6:30, contractions started rolling in.  I got to just doze through the first couple of hours of labor before getting out of bed.  

Because of all the false starts and stops before, I was hesitant to say this was it (though more confident because of my water having fully broken).  Todd had a health screening scheduled at work for 11:00, and he asked if he should cancel it - I wasn't sure at that point, so we just decided to wait longer before making a decision.  I got up, made breakfast, and then decided I was going to keep moving around to just see what would happen.  I served breakfast (with the help of the big kids), and even set out some nativity sets around the living room.

I called Robin about 9:00, and she and her daughter got here around 10:00.  I had Atticus blow up the birth pool for me, and at 10:20 I told Todd I was pretty sure this was real labor, and progressing quickly enough that he probably wouldn't have time to pop over to his health screening, so he should cancel.  Some of my labors have been 14 or 16 hours, so there was always the chance that he could just bounce out and back and not really miss much.  But this one seemed to be progressing more quickly, which is typical for my labors where my water breaks at the beginning, rather than at the end.  Those have typically been around 8 hours.

While I waited for Robin to arrive, I had been sitting on the birth ball, and can I just say - how have I never labored with one of those before?! They made the contractions much more manageable.  I knew contractions wouldn't be pleasant, but none of them really got ahead of me.  I was able to have a conversation in between, and talk and laugh with Robin when she arrived.  I didn't feel overwhelmed.  She checked me a little after 10:00, and I was dilated to 5cm.

The vintage Christmas music was still playing, which ended up staying on the entire time and being a really strange but nice birth playlist, and I sent the kids downstairs to watch a movie.  Todd started popping popcorn for them for lunch, so the house smelled like microwave popcorn.  It was all so homey and weird in the best way.  (I remember at one point later, the big girls came up to see how labor was progressing, but they carried up their cups of popcorn, so they stood there and watched and ate popcorn like I was an Animal Planet documentary.  Homey and weird.)

Around 11:00, I figured I'd get in the water, just so I could be there before things got more intense.  It actually ended up seeming to speed things up, because once I got in the water, the contractions got stronger and closer together and didn't seem to let up.  I remember Robin telling Todd we were getting close to the end, and being surprised (and kind of skeptical) because it didn't seem like it could be happening already.  I had been at 5cm only an hour earlier!

But - when people tell you homebirth is beautiful and gentle and cozy and all those idyllic things, what they don't spend a lot of time harping on is that it is still birth.  Unmedicated birth.  Transition was where things got really hard, and the mood changed.  I had been mostly in control until then, but it got really overwhelming.  I remember snapping at Robin to stop telling me I could do it because NO I COULD NOT DO IT - AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, DON'T TOUCH ME.

The big girls had decided they wanted to be there, and I had let them stay (but told them they could leave any time if they wanted or needed to), but the very end was pretty intense - home birth is still birth, and pushing is still pushing, and even though we had told the kids what to expect, I think it was startling and difficult for them to see me in pain.  I had hoped that home birth would be a "gentle" enough experience (though, what does that really mean?) that it wouldn't end up like that, but it did.

I pushed her out in two pushes.  Her head came out with the first push, and between pushes, I remember thinking distinctly, "one more and this can be all over - if I can get her shoulders out in one more push, I will have done it."  So it was kind of a Hail Mary moment to finally gather my wits again, but I did gather them, and I got her shoulders out with the next push.

She didn't cry or move much right away, and seemed kind of purple, but Robin said she was okay and that it's not all that uncommon for babies to wait a bit before crying (and it's actually the white-tinted babies that are the biggest cause for concern, who knew?) and started rubbing her.  She did cry after a little bit, and Robin put her on my chest in the water.  

In all, from the time my water broke to the time she was born, labor lasted six and a half hours - my shortest labor yet.

The rest of the kids wanted to meet her right away, so I was still in the tub with her when they were called upstairs.  They got to see a seconds-old baby - who can say that?!  They got to see the cord and the placenta and ask questions, and they were so in love with her from the very first.  It was a really special, unique experience.

Then we sent them back downstairs to finish their movie so I could get a shower and climb into bed.  While I showered, Todd held Ophelia.  Because we were able to wait until the cord had completely emptied of blood, she was still attached to the placenta for about an hour.  So the placenta was put in a grocery sack that was slung on his arm while he held and carried her around.  That was a new parenting experience for us!  (We learned from the midwife that as much as a third of the baby's blood is still in the cord at birth - to cut it before the blood has pumped back into their body is cause for pretty major bloodloss.  She said if an adult lost a third of their blood volume in such a short period of time, they would require a transfusion.  It can be a kindness and protection to the baby and her wellbeing to just let that blood pump back into her, and let the cord go completely white and empty before cutting it.  I hadn't known that.  You learn something new every time!)

 
It was so wonderful getting to lie down in my own bed, in my own pajamas, next to my baby.  Robin cleaned up the pool and the living room, and let me rest and snuggle with Ophelia for a bit, and then she came in and weighed and checked her right on the bed.  I have to say, I loved this part of home birth.

  

Todd, cutting the cord.  Robin tied it off with some kind of soft, stretchy surgical banding rather than one of those giant, hard plastic clips the hospital uses, and it was SO much easier to care for than previous babies' cords.

The gal in the hat is my midwife's daughter, who came to help out. She is a little older than Penelope, and all the girls hit it off so well.

Um, she is clearly a Van Voorst baby, no?

And then she was just... here!  We were here!  The kids got to climb in the bed with me and meet her and hold her.  I got to eat real food afterward.  (Todd threw a frozen pot roast in the Instant Pot for dinner, so we had pot roast and mashed potatoes and carrots for dinner - it was PERFECT.)  We got to welcome our baby into our home, together.  I really liked that part of home birth as well.

So here she is - Ophelia Belle. 8 lbs, 8 oz.  21.5 inches long.  Born at home.  Perfect.