Everybody says it - because it's true!

"That first year goes by so fast."

We've had such a crammed packed year with lots of changes - I can't believe it's only been a year since Rye was born.
I also can't believe she's grown and changed so much in a year.
But I'm also still trying to figure out how the first baby I birthed is now a 10 year old, the same size as me ....
Life goes by fast after you have kids!

And that is how we accidentally became bakers

Last March I briefly alluded to a project in the works but still under wraps because we weren't sure it was going to go through.
And that was just about the last in-depth blog post because we've been so insanely focused on getting this project up and running.
Now finally is 5 minutes (or more) to catch up on sharing what we've been up to.

We decided to bite the bullet and just do whatever it took to get the creamery built because we've been dragging our feet on cheese-infrastructure-building, always uncertain of what the best thing to do would be, and where the money was coming from to make possibly-not-the-best-infrastructure-choices.
So we called our local independent home center and had them deliver trusses. The plan was to create the creamery over an existing slab that was installed by a previous owner with the intent of building a garage ... which didn't happen when the previous owner died days after the slab was poured.
It already has the required drain in the floor and we "just" need to put up walls and a roof.
On a Wednesday the trusses were delivered.
Yay.
It was freezing (you may remember?) and we were excited to be able to get started ... but the cold deterred us from doing more than clearing space near the slab for the delivery of the trusses.
The next day, owners of a nearby restaurant called.
Their building had been for sale for over a year and they heard we had expressed interest back in the fall (are you following this timeline?). At that time there was another interested party and they were looking like they were going to buy the building. But that had fallen through.
Were we still interested?

This was February.
I told Ren Man I was pregnant and couldn't make the decision.
But it wouldn't hurt to go look (keep in mind, this was half way through a pregnancy and at the start of the girls we were fostering starting to transition home - not that there was a lot of emotions going on in general).
So we went to look.
And it looked better inside than out, in my opinion.
And the sellers were motivated.
And the building already had the walls and roof - we would just need to install a floor and we'd have our creamery!
And it's on a main road (unlike our farm), so we could have the farm store there.
Actually, what if we had a farm store with a viewing window to see the cheese-making?
And not just a farm store with our products - but what if we brought in as many local sustainable farm goods?
And there's high speed internet (which we can't get at home) so my dad could telecommute from there instead.
And since we have the space, maybe we should do a coffee shop too - my parents have wanted to do a coffee shop f.o.r.e.v.e.r!
And Ren Man could bake - pies, breads, cookies, pastries ... oooh! And what if we did pizza and local beer on tap too?!!?
And there's nothing in our town currently, apart from a gas station which doubles as a mini-grocery store/pizza joint.
This could be perfect!

We roped my parents in quick and they jumped right in, adding their own enthusiasm to the mix.
We told the owners - YES! - and then contacted a lawyer to get the ball rolling.
We waited months.
And months.
We felt like we couldn't go too public about our intentions because we'd heard rumors that this property had fallen through before a closing happened with other prospective buyers.
Meanwhile, we have trusses sitting in the driveway that can't be returned.
Until finally the closing happened.
We closed at the beginning of May.
We assumed we'd be open by July 15th - after all, we were expecting a baby in the next few months - the middle of July would give us plenty of time to get the building up and ready, birth a baby, and recover from birth.
I remember ripping out three horizontal barn boards that formed part of a half wall we wanted to open up. That exhausted me in my nearly-done-being-pregnant state. So I laid down on a bean bag that had been brought down to the store, specifically for this purpose.
I napped for an hour.
Less than a week later, and when Rye was two days old, I walked into the store and saw the missing barn boards and the bean bag. I laughed at how little I'd done but how big an accomplishment it felt at the time. I also had a huge feeling of dread - what had we done in taking on this project?!

After much structural work, extensive cleaning, and an impressive amount of painting (that I didn't do, because - pregnant), and debating a new business name and agonizing over a logo ...we opened with great anticipation in early September.

:: This is a very quick version of our life this summer to catch you up to speed. This was all very stressful, feeling we were maxing ourselves out and scared out of our minds in terms of not knowing when we could open or how long it would take to feel somewhat comfortable financially again. All this while I was trying desperately to be in baby lala land and Ren Man was desperately trying to get the building ready for opening and my mom (who thankfully has a very light work schedule in the summer) doing a ton of the farm work including milking and momming me, and my dad was trying to juggle the desire to help get the business open as well as his full time job.
We are doing much better now that we're open because all that work is finally being rewarded - but it was intense for several months after Rye's birth.::

And in the end it's kind of perfect. We're having so much fun. Farmhouse Pantry has been open 2 weeks. And yes. It's exhausting. But it's also so so satisfying. And it's getting easier every day.
It's like our whole adulthood we've been trying to create community. And we do. We do it really well. We bring together awesome people and tribes are born. It's a beautiful thing.
But it doesn't pay bills. And yet it's what we spend so much energy doing, unintentionally, because we find it so satisfying. We love seeing people make deep authentic connections with each other. So we foster that. It's amazing stuff.
And now we've figured out how to make it pay bills.
A store.
A cool hippy store that attracts an amazing community.

More than once we've had friends and acquaintances stop in - people we haven't seen for days or months. They would never randomly stop by our house (you usually have to be intentional about coming up to our house because it's off the beaten path). But because we're on the main road and we're "open" - people come. And obviously not just people we know. Lots and lots of really cool people we've never even met before. Our community is growing exponentially.

They come for the amazing coffee, the delicious baked goodness, the authentic farm products - and maybe just for the free wifi, because believe it or not, that's not a common offering in our area.

The creamery is coming too. It's closer to being a reality today than it was yesterday or last week or definitely last year. It's all coming together - even better and richer and fuller than we could have predicted.
Oh, and the trusses are up and the garage framed. So the would-be-creamery at the house is now actually turning into a garage ... without walls or a roof - but that will come too. In time.
That's what this whole process has taught us. It all takes longer than you think. But through that process you appreciate the result oh.so.much.more.

And there's coffee. Really really good coffee.

Pregnancy and what I don't want to forget

Not too much longer now, and unlike with Del's pregnancy, we know the plan is to not get pregnant again. (With Del, we didn't have an opinion either way about whether that would be the last pregnancy or not ... until after she was born).
I always tell photography clients who are seeking a maternity shoot that this time is so relatively short in comparison to life. It's hard to remember looking back that you actually had that baby inside of you and your belly grew to accommodate your baby. It feels long in the present, but it's just not. Pregnancy is fast.
So I'm trying even more so to live in the moment, relishing every pregnant detail.
This time I'm waddling. A first. And it started around 20 weeks gestation. I've realized this has nothing to do with how small or big I am, just how loose my pelvis is.
Everyone comments on how tiny I am. And to be fair, I have a hard time gaining weight (this is largely due to a restricted diet that comes with gestational diabetes. At least, that's my theory. I think of oreos, doritoes, tacos, pasta, etc were part of my diet, it wouldn't be so hard to gain and keep weight on.).
I want to wear a shirt that says: "I'm 8mos pregnant. Yes, really."
And even when people are saying: "you're so small!" - I feel like I look huge. I know "huge" is culturally a negative thing, but not in this case. I can't believe how much my stomach has stretched. I keep feeling amazed that my body has done this!
I can't walk as fast. And I'm often out of breath more quickly.
But I also don't realize how much I'm doing until I sit down and realize my body is tired!
It's harder to squat than last time (say for milking - although I wasn't milking last time, I was faithfully squatting to prepare for birth).
When pregnant, it seems the rest of my body gets smaller, my muscles become more defined, and my belly grows.

This baby seems to be the most active of the three pregnancies.
I try to keep this in perspective - I'm experiencing this pregnancy now, and memories fade. So maybe I'm exaggerating? But I don't think so. They say that babies form a routine in utero and take naps.
I don't think this one naps at all.
Ever.
It's constantly constantly on the move.
You can see it bump, nudge, and rub my belly as my skin moves across my uterus.
And it can be intense. This is a strong person and I'm seeing a lot of heel pushed up against me, I'm guessing.
Even intense movement, I want to remember. How amazing to think there is a person inside of me!

Braxton Hicks are real. This time. And all the books/websites say Braxton Hicks are "mildly noticeable" at worst. That's a lie. They are most definitely noticeable. And if this was a first baby, I'd have been the mom who cried labor multiple times already. The pressure from these contractions wakes me in the night. That's not "mildly noticeable". And if there isn't a bathroom nearby - watch out! The contracting uterus puts intense pressure on my bladder. When we're out and about (say, in the car), this can be awful. I take a deep breath, shocked by the sudden need to empty my bladder, while trying to relax through a Braxton Hicks.
The children find this incredibly funny ... after Ren Man told them the baby finds my bladder and squeezes it and says: "oooh, this is squishy squishy!" So now the children will randomly say to me: "squishy, squishy" in a sing-song voice. As a side note: laughing while trying not to pee is really hard.

This baby has been head down with its back to my right, and feet and hands pushing on my left side. It's not uncommon to get a jab to my bladder, or a head (I presume) rolling across my bladder. Hiccups happen occasionally - maybe once or twice a day. I remember Noah having hiccups and it was painful because it was right under my ribs.

Physically, I feel great overall. Yeah, it's harder to breathe and I'm starving one minute and two bites later feel super full ... only to be starving 20 minutes later. And the gag reflex is still intense at times.

Colostrum happens before the baby comes. I can't believe how full and ready these milk makers look and feel!

The hardest thing about this pregnancy has been diabetes. I'm so so relieved that my numbers have been fine after some weeks where they kept creeping up. I think what made a difference was increasing veggie intake significantly (a large salad a day). I'm sure experience has also helped, I know what works and what doesn't and just hammering that out has been huge. For example, conventional gestational diabetes advice includes a night-time snack - as in, right-before-bed, to decrease the risk of "dawn phenomenon" where your number spikes in the morning. I found that a night time snack doesn't help, and seems to increase my fasting number. So if I'm hungry before bed, I'll eat something small, but my number is lower if I skip the night-time snack.

Diabetes has been so stressful because it limits my diet, making food an obsession. You have to think about every.single.bite and its potential effect. For a few stressful (and tearful) weeks when those numbers kept inching up, it was very frustrating. What more could I do?! If my numbers didn't come back down, insulin talk would begin. If insulin was started, then the homebirth was off the table. And that was very discouraging.
Ren Man started doing (even more) research and found that people on low carb diets will have a sugar numbers without huge swings post-meal. What this means for fasting numbers is that they tend to be higher than the conventional norm. This doesn't mean it's HIGH though, in comparison to the conventionally recommended diabetes diet (that includes carbs).
After seeing this, suddenly my numbers weren't so scary and even started declining into that conventionally expected range (this all refers to fasting numbers as post-meal numbers were always more than okay - they need to be below 140, and were typically below 100). Which speaks highly of the effect stress can have on those numbers!

In light of gestational diabetes, the midwife asked that I see an OB she trusts for a second opinion. I was nervous. An OB!! She ended up being really authentic and as mellow an OB as can be, I'm thinking. She did say she wanted an ultrasound. My feeling is - it shouldn't just be done to be done, there should be a purpose. And the big concern with diabetes is a big baby. I'm measuring over 2 weeks small based on fundal height. But that has wiggle room for inaccuracy - as does everything. Ultrasounds are no different - I've read they can be up to two pounds off. So telling someone they are having a 10lb baby, could really be an 8lb baby ... or a TWELVE lb baby!
The ultrasound happened at 32weeks when the average baby is 3.75lbs. This baby was 3.5lbs. Well, inaccurate or not, it was nice to have an ultrasound show a smaller reading rather than a larger one.

So here are my baby predictions: I think it's a girl, lots of dark hair, hoping for blue eyes, she'll come early (I'm guessing June 13 - the day after our last wedding, or June 21 - the day after our annual solstice party) .... but this baby has been a surprise all along and if it's small then maybe this is the baby that will go past my due date?, she'll be 7.5lbs (smallest baby yet). I'm nervous about how active this baby is! We'll see how that plays out after birth :)

I'm so relieved that we're homebirthing. No matter what, there will be a baby. I know. But the thought of just birthing without having to over think anything (is this it? Or not yet?) or stay on guard to be sure silly things like wearing your own clothes or eating when you're hungry can happen.

Is there anything else I'm going to forget about pregnancy? It's hard (and I had forgotten that) and it also feels so empowering. I'm growing a person. I'm going to birth a person. Our family will grow. And my diabetes sugar numbers are awesome.

Our rules for baby-naming

With Noah, naming was easy. At 9 weeks gestation, I said: "I like the name 'Noah' if it's a boy." and Josh said: "I like the name 'Sophie' if it's a girl." And that was that. Noah if it was a boy and Sophie it was a girl and we were both happy.
But we also learned some things.
Like, the name you love when naming your firstborn is likely a name that many love. In the case of Noah, it was 6th the year he was born, and has climbed even higher since. Fortunately, for us, he was a boy because if he'd been a Sophie - well, that was number one that year. And Sophie has the added complication of having many variations (Sofie, Sophia, Sofia) so Sophie when all those versions are added together is very very popular.
For baby #2 the only rule was - not in the top 100. We were pretty set on a boy name but the girl name was a struggle. And after suggesting 50+names (literally) and having Ren Man turn down every.single.suggestion, I jumped at Madeleine, with the nickname Del, because I could live with it. At that point, if he had suggested Butt Head, I probably would have said "YES!" - just so the poor thing had a name.

For this baby, we've articulated many more rules. There has also been the list of 50 (before we hammered out the "rules"), that were turned down. But I think this is it:

1. Can't be too popular (ideally not in the top 100 names)
2. Can't start or end like someone else's name in our immediate family
      ie. the name can't start with a J, S, N, or D (M is a maybe)
          the name can't end with the sound /a/ or /el/
3. The name also can't end in a long /e/ as this can sound cutesy

I think those are all the rules.
Now hit me with your baby names! Feel free to be unique, think outside the naming box. We like familiar words/names just not ones where the chance of them having a peer with the same name is very likely.
Ideas?!?!

The 15th goal: birth a baby

I don't remember being so nervous when pregnant with Del. I knew our baby would survive and be healthy and birth would go smoothly.
This time I'm a little more hesitant. This feels like I got a nice surprise that feels too good to be true.
So what if we miscarry?
What if being 31 yrs old increases the chances for things like down syndrome ... but actually, do I care?
What if all my strong talk about homebirths and breastfeeding leads to a c-section and formula?

I try to think more positively. I've done this twice in the hospital and both experiences have been impressive natural births. Any birth is impressive. Natural births are challenging, but we've been designed to birth naturally. The hospital adds its own layer of challenges - but we chose our team carefully and we're clear with our expectations and what we were willing to compromise on.
This time, the hospital is not an option. We don't live in an area where there are options any more and I've heard that it's a challenge to birth naturally in this area.
Having said that, I'm not too worried about making it happen, if it was needed.
But among the reasons for birthing for a third time was a homebirth. And I don't want to not have that. I don't want the car ride to and from the hospital. I want our children to be present at any point before, during, or after the birth that they want to be present. I want to be able to go outside during labor. I want a gentle birth for this baby, and the most gentle experience is going to be at home (familiar sounds and smells, minimal separation from family (that car ride), etc).

The only trick is going to be keeping that gestational diabetes under control. I was getting really frustrated because fasting numbers were creeping up - even if my post-dinner number was excellent. Last night I had a handful of peanuts before bed ... back to low numbers at fasting. Phew! Hope this trick keeps working.
My other frustration about this is that I can test three different fingers in a row and get a range of 50 points. Which is the difference between diet controlling your gd, and not. So this test that this whole birth rests on seems very faulty.

The big secret

Oh, blog - you're the last to know, but you'll get the most details!
Right before Halloween I took a pregnancy test, four days late, and it was positive. Very positive. The "you're pregnant" line was much darker than the "this test is working" line.
(I looked it up, because I was panicking about twins. So here's what I learned: that line on the pregnancy test measures your HcG levels - the hormone that increases rapidly when you're pregnant. If your HcG is higher than the average, the "you're pregnant" line will pull pigment from the "this test is working" line. You can have a high HcG level and be carrying a single baby; you can also have an average HcG level and be carrying twins.)

The plan all along was to birth two babies and adopt four kids. Then we birthed two babies and thought we were pretty good at birth and maybe could do it again. Then we read more about overpopulation. I've never blogged about this before, because it feels too controversial, but we felt the ethical thing to do was to not birth again. This was hard. I wasn't as present as I would like to be for a final pregnancy. I didn't revel in the new baby enough, because I didn't expect her to be my last experience. I felt angry and frustrated when we work so hard to do so much right in the world - and having a third baby is something that also has moral implications to ponder before proceeding with a new baby.

But Ren Man didn't want to do anything permanent (a vasectomy was on the table) until I was 100%.
He was also concerned about me, because I get gestational diabetes - so being older and pregnant again wasn't a risk he wanted to take.
We used birth control, a mix of barrier and Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Some months (when I knew a baby wouldn't come right in the middle of wedding season, I was more laxed). Friends had "accidental" pregnancies and I resisted feeling bitter. And most months I was pretty sure I was pregnant. But, nope. Never. Your body thinks it's pregnant, until it's not, every.single.month.
Six years after Del was born I was feeling comfortable with Ren Man getting a vasectomy. We were very beyond the baby stage and had have a lot going on. A baby would slow things down and limit the number of children we could foster/adopt.

Ren Man scheduled his appointment with his doctor to talk about scheduling a vasectomy. He was referred to a urologist. There's one relatively local urologist, who will take our insurance. But he was full. We could contact another one an hour away and see if he would do it. But that whole busy factor kicked in and we put the whole project on the back burner.

We had our last wedding (another awesomely beautiful event - 2014 was stunning) and I was four days late - but sometimes this happens. Maybe you become more irregular as you get older? The time change had recently happened and it was so dark and cloudy. I was so tired and thinking we should get one of those sun lights.
I took the test and was surprised it was positive. But also not. Because it was inevitable - every month, right? But still unbelievable.
I kept the test hidden next to our bed. I finally took a picture on the phone, because it felt weird to be secretly stashing a stick with my pee on it.
After a few hours I showed Ren Man the picture and said we had to figure out how we felt abortions (which had recently come up in conversation because another friend had gone through the exact same thing - about 9mos before us, and they had decided against an abortion).

About five hours later, I was resigned to birthing again and maybe even a little excited.
We had talked about wanting the kids to experience birth, breastfeeding, and babywearing. Ren Man was 10 when his youngest sibling was born and I attribute a lot of his parenting skills to that experience. I'd love for our kids to have that background too.
In the next few days I started looking into homebirth options in this area (not many). I wasn't going to do another birth and not do a homebirth (again). We also talked about when we would tell people. We wanted to make it amazing because we knew this was the last baby (for real this time). We thought a Christmas gift that revealed all would be fun. We counted out the weeks and saw that it would be 13 weeks out. We wondered how big I would be and if we could keep it a secret that long.

I asked Noah what he'd think if we had another kid. His response: "I think we have enough already." And really, at five kids, that's a sensible response. But I asked: "what if it grew it my belly." His response (in a flat tone): "that would be interesting." Not exactly encouraging.

My dad was out of town one week for work and my mom is gone a million hours a day for work, so the first visit with the midwife wasn't a big deal. She came with her midwife-in-training. They got a little lost on the way here, but then realized that of course the place with geese, turkeys, ducks, etc running around would be the place where a home birth would be desired. They asked if I had any concerns, about home birth safety in particular. I said: "no, I know it's safer."

At Thanksgiving, I was tempted to just tell everyone. But we wanted wanted to wait for Christmas. So I hoped no one would notice my belly. I'd started wearing sweatshirts that made the belly less noticeable, but didn't think a sweatshirt as appropriate Thanksgiving Day wardrobe. Ren Man said I just had to keep my belly in until after the meal, then everyone would assume it was a turkey belly.

For the next midwife appointment I met the midwives at a friend's house who has a massage loft-like space in her finished attic. I just thought my dad would be too suspicious of me bringing a few women up to my bedroom. We do have random people over regularly, but no one traipses upstairs - well, not usually. I asked about twins at this appointment, but am measuring appropriately. We also talked about gestational diabetes. I get it every pregnancy because I only have 5% of my pancreas and it can only do so much. My impression is that if it isn't diet controlled this time (as it has been in the past - but harder to do with each pregnancy and as you age), then the home birth is not an option.

After much pinterest-searching (resisting pinning anything baby-related for fear of discovery), we decided to wrap a bottle for each family to open and tie a note to it that said:

"You'll need this when Mommy and Daddy are at weddings. I can't wait to meet you! See you in July.

Love,

The New Baby

p.s. Mommy and Daddy are just as surprised as you are."

I also knew that I wanted to tell the kids first - at least the older two. I knew our third kid wouldn't be able to keep this a secret and the younger two wouldn't get it. About three weeks before Christmas I was grumbling about a big sweatshirt (it was hot! But I had to wear it!) and Noah asked why. So I asked if he could keep a secret.
He threw himself into my arms, his head hitting sharply into my teeth. He didn't care. He was SO excited! He wanted to know how big the baby was and then we looked up pictures of how the baby looks right now. He wanted me to eat more so the baby would come faster. We talked about how that isn't how it works.
For the next three weeks, he encouraged me to eat avocados, was careful not to hug me too hard, and was careful not to share the secret.
On Christmas morning I gave him "Babies Don't Eat Pizza" (not that great, but gives a pretty balanced overview - not too hippy not too mainstream). He knew Del would be getting a gift that would reveal the news and he was very very excited. For her, I got the book "Hello, Baby" (great depiction of a homebirth, and an eye-opener for Del because there is an image of the baby between the mom's legs). She didn't get that this meant we were growing a baby at first. So we told her. Her response: (big eyes) "REALLY!?!?!"

And the kids were thrilled to watch the reactions of the grownups when they opened their gift. We arranged it so it would be the last gift opened for both families.
There was shock and tears and more shock and lots of questions. Everyone was impressed that we hadn't spilled sooner and lightbulbs went off like: "That's why you've been so tired!" and suddenly chores were too much for me to do by myself (in my mom's opinion).

So phew! Now the news is out. There's a baby on the way ... and that's how you get 6 kids. And I definitely still do chores (think of all that birth-training-squatting when milking a cow!)
There's been very little nausea, no puking, and tons of tiredness. It was fun to keep it a secret and interesting to feel that I needed to take responsibility of caring for my body even when it seemed like asking too much (like telling my father-in-law we needed to take a break when unloading hay early in the pregnancy because I needed to eat).
We're stressing a bit about finishing the creamery before the baby comes, which would be ideal - but we're needing about $25k to make that happen, on top of life and birth expenses.

Other than that it just feels unreal. This was such a surprise and now that the first trimester is done, it feels less real - except for the ever-growing bellu, and I've started to feel the occasional movement. So when the midwife came last time, I consented to listen to the heart beat (when I really want to avoid doppler/ultrasounds unless medically needed). I didn't expect to feel wowed. I wasn't with Noah (and didn't listen with Del). But this was so cool. It was strong and fast. There's really really a baby growing in there!