Anderson, Izabella, Elliette, and I went to pick strawberries this week! They each took some to their teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. There were SO MANY huge, red strawberries!
We celebrated Mother's Day!
Nana's shirt says NANA x 11
Mammaw's says MAMMAW x10
And GiGi got one that said GIGI x5
Mammaw Ruth got to meet Elliette!
and Uncle Jeff found a new nap buddy :)
Izabella's teacher came to watch her play!
We were so excited the library opened back up for in person browsing! Anderson and Izabella made the Saline County Library's Facebook page!
I also finally started pumping this week... bittersweet feelings about this! Thankful I am able to pump, thankful for this breastpump that has lasted me through two babies and now Elliette. I bought this when I was pregnant with Anderson. It was a splurge becuase it is portable and handsfree. It has served me so well. It is also a reminder I will be going back to work soon- which is also bittersweet! I am so so thankful I am able to be off for 16 weeks with Elliette, which is a month longer than I was off with the other two. I am also ready for adult interaction, to be out and about, and I do love my job.
Most people agree that Elliette looks just like Izabella- here are their newborn pics
(Elliette on top and Izabella on bottom)
Late pic from when Pat brought us dinner and made birthday cake for Izabella's birthday!
Anderson and Izabella took swimming lessons! Elliette enjoyed the sauna like environment LOL
Keeping it real here because I want to remember everything! Adam texted me asking how my day was going, so I snapped a pic at that exact moment. I had run into the Dollar Tree to get balloons for Anderson's birthday and Elliette was VERY upset because she was VERY hungry. So I nursed her in the driver's seat before I buckled her in to go pick up the kids from school
Elliette and I had our 6 week checkup! Shea wanted a picture of us so I had the kids take some :)
Closing in on the 6 week mark and being officially discharged from my midwife's care made me think again about Elliette's birth and my experience birthing all my babies. I found this poem and I just love it. I pray that my children all remember how they were born and know that women's bodies are NOT broken, and that birth is beautiful and NOT scary. I want them to have confidence when the medical/mainstream views cause them to question. There is always an element of that for me, especially at the end of my pregnancies when I start to wonder if my body will ever go into labor.
I didn’t teach my membranes how to rupture, or my uterus how to contract, or my oxytocin how to rise...
No doctor commanded my relaxin to peak, or my cervix to dilate, or my sacral promontory to shift anterior-inferior, or my pelvis to translate laterally...
No one taught my baby how to extend her thorax when her spinal galant reflex was activated as my birth canal squeezed her right. No intellectual handed her a roadmap to guide her occiput-anterior as she crowned. She didn’t practice her cry before she breathed her first breath. She took no course on how to feed.
Yet here we are.
Our bodies did the dance.
Together.
A design so intricate
Each step a puzzle piece
The intelligence innate
not once did it cease.
Let go of the shore
Your body, it knows.
Each waves of contraction
Brings her closer to home.”
- @drhannahkorten
No doctor commanded my relaxin to peak, or my cervix to dilate, or my sacral promontory to shift anterior-inferior, or my pelvis to translate laterally...
No one taught my baby how to extend her thorax when her spinal galant reflex was activated as my birth canal squeezed her right. No intellectual handed her a roadmap to guide her occiput-anterior as she crowned. She didn’t practice her cry before she breathed her first breath. She took no course on how to feed.
Yet here we are.
Our bodies did the dance.
Together.
A design so intricate
Each step a puzzle piece
The intelligence innate
not once did it cease.
Let go of the shore
Your body, it knows.
Each waves of contraction
Brings her closer to home.”
- @drhannahkorten
