The Countdown

All of them sleeping before 10pm is a rare occasion in my life.

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Elia, my oldest has always been a night owl since birth - sleeps solid straight through the night but will go all day without a nap and be navigating in the dark till midnight if you haven't worn her out. She's smart - that mind never shuts off - I mean, at 11 months old she would wait till we slept and somehow unlock our phones and download apps and games and the only way you knew she had been in there at 1 am the prior night was from her selfie record in your photo camera roll...

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Kana'i is opposite - needs routine and consistent schedules to function healthy or its tantrums and colds. He is too honest and expressive to hide his secret plots (unlike quiet sis). He was always an early bird like his Daddy, up at 5am starving for meat - one of his first words was bacon for gods sake. He needs the nap in the day and the cuddling to fall asleep (unlike sister who pushes your arm away and sleeps alone fine) and lately, since he's talking up a storm now, he holds out his hand at the end of our nightly routine of eat, bath, brushteeth and hang-out time and says, "Mom (or dad), come. Hold me. Read story. Snuggle. Nigh Nigh. Say waoove you, Kana'i." Talk about a heart melt. This boy is so sensual with hugs and gently rubbing your leg and uses "Miss you," with puppy eyes at any sign of loosing chance... 

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And here I'm about to get an entirely new personality in the mix. Another pull away from any moment of being able to pee in bliss or shower more than 3 minutes or have a phone call without screams for "MMAAAAMMMAAAA"...

Its not really the dilated at 1 cm that is the "oh ha," but the cervix lining being effaced over halfway that caught me. The cervix usually takes awhile to soften and thin down for labor to begin and that didn't happen on its own with my first - and was not this fast with my second either. But I hear the more you have, the faster they come. And it sure feels like I've had a hand sticking outta my crouch for a good couple weeks already. Lemme know if you see fingers. 

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It's been heat cramping for a day. I guess thats the closest to the pre-labor cramping that I can remember. Everyone tells it different but I really didn't feel any "cramping" like people described to me with my first. I just notice some liquids escaping a few days before I was due without any real big moment - yet walked into my over-due-date appointment and they told me I was unknowingly contracting and loosing all my water. With my second, there was some heated pressing into my hips and groin now and then for a couple days and then boom, I woke up in the morning bleeding. And so now?

Tiger Balm. Icy Hot. Its like those muscle heat creams on fire with a thick handed man is squeezing your hips and pressing their thumbs into where your leg and groin meets for a few seconds at a time.

Pepper on your Tail bone. Like a warm drip straight in-between your cheeks started loosening your hips away from your spine - that was last night for a good ten minutes. 

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This morning I had that urge to finish all the last pieces of the baby ready list - I had prepped baby powder (homemade - click here for recipie) and diaper rash ointment (homemade spray - see recipe to come) and stalked a few newborn diapers, burp cloths, swaddle blankets, mittens and socks into a basket. We set up the crib and playpen last week; I washed all the crib sheets. I bought a few breastpads (since I had a huge milk load that overflowed all day long with the first two) and made myself a recovery spray safe for those parts (see recipe to come). 

Today was the car - which I wish I could have video taped of my watermelon self having to rearrange things in slow motion and move legs around my belly constantly since I couldn't reach around this 45 pound belly nor see whats under it. And since we have a tighter garage space now, I had to drive and reverse in and out of the garage constantly in order to just get out of the car with a belly and hips (that don't hold tight at the moment) to be able to access the vacuum and outlet. Of course, Makani helped me finish once he got home but I was determined - which means it is close... that urge to HAVE to finish prepping, cleaning, buying for baby is REAL. It's a thing. And so thats what I'm doing now... up at ten pm when my body is at its max capacity with no naps on weekends when children are with me all day and having to use the bathroom every hour and then eat again while telling kids, no they can't have more snacks even though mommy can ... I am writing because I HAVE to - I HAVE to say that I finally feel like I can let go... 

Letting go. That's most of the battle right there. Letting yourself be slow, be less ambitious, be tired, be hungry, be big and balloony and be messy... Pregnancy is all of that. It's a force of nature beyond your control alone - anyone who has been pregnant knows its much more than it looks and that you are not prepared for the FEELINGS that come with it - whether during or post pardem ... Well, third time around, you know it's coming. Hence, I wasn't excited. But, slowly this baby has been accepted in my heart and mind and I have friends who have made it more exciting for me - thank you - telling me all the positive, the blessings, the comparisons that do make your mom days seem brighter. 

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Ha'ea is all I've gotten so far. I saw a mountain range with meadows and sunshine and cool air. A happy place, with views and comfortable weather and plenty of room to grow - a free place. And then Makani saw it too one day - just caught in a daydream he saw a similar vision and called me saying, "you said it and I see it too - its her..." 

Ha - means breathe or breath

Ea - Soverign or Life itself 

Before I forget these days I had to  write down that its been ... bittersweet. Like, In the few days after finally getting most unpacked in the new house (moving in your last 6 weeks pregnant is a killer), I found myself listening to Adele over and over and crying quiet tears - somehow not sad tears but like you are watching the end of a romance movie kind of tears. Between the two, Moving and Having a New Baby, I definitely said goodbye to the "old loves" and filtered out my life - of worn out handbags and heels (4 inch strappys are my weakness), old work files and financial records, of expired medicines and cosmetics (and of course, the sale of all our major furniture) ... but most interestingly, I found myself reading through old diaries and poetry i wrote throughout the years and saw how unsatisfied I was until now... how much work it took to trust in love and family and believe in myself even though I always believed in others ... I was able to throw out items that acted like emotional insurance policies - those just-in-case-things-fall-apart-sentiments ... And so even though, yes, having kids back to back indeed dooms you for the heating-fire and especially a third unplanned and with the many changes it forces on you, your homelife, your finances, your romantic relationship, your family relationships, your self-esteem, your career, your physical health, your physical looks, your emotional control, your mentality... Sometimes fire purges and refines whatever is left into gold. 

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So Ha'ea, I'm just trusting you are bringing me into the best of myself. Trusting that you will take me to that untouched mountain meadow and keep sunshine in my hardest days. That through the burning hours that you rip my hips from my back (coming anytime now), that I'll be in that better place with you - that we can indeed change, recover, grew and renew again and again... that cool air and free space will bring us all back to the true, simple beauty in having a breath of life. 

Amen

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Secret Stress of the 3rd Pregnancy

Silence. It’s been awhile, I know. 

 

6 months pregnant  

6 months pregnant  

Heat, Swelling, Blurry Vision, Headaches, Dry Throat, Hunger, Crushed Breathing, Constipation, Tears - at all things from Adele’s heart-aching lyrics to having no energy left to again wash all the pee-soaked sheets, blankets and pillows of my children’s double bed… That’s been the uphill battle until about a month ago. I finally could brush my teeth in the morning without throwing up once I hit 6 months pregnant. 

Groin pains - most women don’t talk bout it but let’s be honest, it happens in many pregnancies and it is sore. Doc says most women have more and more pains in legs, hips, back, and groin in their 2nd, 3rd, 4th pregnancy even if they had smooth sailing pregnancies previously. Your body gets worn in. Baby making is rough.  Your joints need 18months to 3 years to heal and I never had that time to recover... my veins are swollen and you can feel this pressure like they are going to burst. Advice is to rest and lay with hips up - which is impossible if you have diapered toddlers to run after. And you can’t take much for it - Tylenol can only do so much (and you can't take anything stronger as it damages the baby development). So its been Lavender. Straight lavender oil is what I started rubbing around my legs and belly and crouch because nothing else relieved that deeply-bruised feeling of that extra 22 pounds dropping into your groin all day…

22 pounds is what some women gain in the entire pregnancy but for me - at 22 pounds over my pre-pregnant weight, I was being told that the baby and placenta wasn’t quite reaching its growth mark for the 5 month “healthy fetus”…

 

In addition, I’ve been stressed about my kids teeth which, due to genetics of having deep grooves, are more prone to decay than the other kind of teeth apparently - and surprise, sugars are not the only cause of cavities but the amount of times a day food causes acids to sit in the mouth! The reality that my brushing and flossing and choice of “healthy” foods wasn’t enough to be decay free was such a huge blow to my already-depleted emotional strength. Searching for the right combination of diet became an obsession (turns out breads and pastas are a huge decay factor and calcium without enough magnesium and vitamin d combined, can make the absorption of calcium inefficient! Meats provide some of the best bone strength). Talk about going insane with research! I couldn’t sleep - I was up reading everything from scientific studies to mama blogs to ancient wives’ tales…

Recipe for "green cupcakes" without sugarcane coming soon... 

Recipe for "green cupcakes" without sugarcane coming soon... 

 

As if that’s not enough, I have been on the hunt for the right kind of preschool for my kids as this new baby will add a whole new dynamic to the part-time daycare/preschool life we have had. I had dropped down from working full time, to part time since my oldest was born, and was lucky to have minimized those hours to even less once my second was born (as I had two babies before my oldest was two year old). While part-time daycare worked fine until now - any mom who has had multiple kids knows that to have three kids under 5 years old is extremely difficult to balance without family help or a nanny and the stress of attending to so many needs of different children leave your own mom-body depleted of nutrients and rest needed to recover physically, emotionally and mentally… so, I had to make that decision of how do we do this? Full-time preschool sounded correct, yes - but then you have to think about the needs of each child and how they respond to that school and environment. Of course, my first concern is making sure they are not neglected or mishandled (especially when a child can’t fully talk yet, you are so nervous that they are being mistreated), but there are other important factors that come up as your child gets older. When a child is bored, they act up or become more dramatic in emotions, so being sure that they are stimulated enough or in the way that keeps them wanting to go the that school is important. When a child is around other kids, they pick up their talks, habits, and attitudes which can greatly jeopardize your teachings or your own parental values that you work so hard to enforce, so being in a setting that enrolls similar type of families is something that does matter. The cost of a school of course matters as well - especially if you are putting two or more children in preschool at the same time (as we are) … many people do not realize there are no public preschools - and a legal, accredited preschool costs anywhere from a few hundred a month for part-time (like 2-4 hours a few days a week) to almost a couple thousand a month for a standard 6-8 hour day five days a week. Then of course, there is the location of the school in relevance to you, your job, your commute route, or perhaps the quality of the neighborhood it is in (some schools have the problem of reckless homelessness around).

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Trying to continue with swelling pains and the exhaustion that comes with pregnancy (it increases each pregnancy doc says), the demands of the other two toddlers, the housework, all the doctor appointments (1-3 times a month for pregnancy), a change in diet, obsessive teeth brushing (like I carried around a toothbrush for every after-snack cleaning with the kids ), the school appointments, while in holiday traffic and holiday lines with kids in tow and swallowing that fact that maybe something could go wrong with this baby (that's the worst feeling - you keep wondering if you could have done something different, if it's maybe your fault), had me dreaming nightmares for a few weeks.

 

Things finally started looking up these last couple weeks. Another ultrasound confirmed that the baby’s growth increased to meet par, I doubled my weight gain in one month ( I was tripping and banging my hips on everything for 3/4 weeks of intensive growth)… I found a dentist with a more holistic approach to dentistry which is almost nonexistent in Hawaii (I found out the hard way) and was able to get confirmation on my new-found research of diet, timing, habits, and genetics effect on teeth health and save my kids teeth from undergoing more intensive procedures recommended by other dentists! whew! It’s still a process, we still have decay to fix and stop from proceeding but it is much less invasive and horrifying than it could have been … And we found a school that offers the kind of pre-k program to keep my inquisitive daughter entertained and interested and my son guided into the “big boy” independence he so proudly displays. Now, it's onto finishing up the required vaccinations for entry and potty-training of my 2 year old (which, we need to do before baby comes in 9 weeks - as experienced moms know that will be hell if we wait till after new baby comes)…

So, I can breathe again. 

For now. 

A lot of people forget the chaos of childbearing once their kids are in elementary but for those of you still in it - Our lives are intense. I have to say you are not nearly as stressed about a 3rd baby coming - mentally, because you have already had two experiences to give you a very good reality of what is coming (unlike the naive 1st time mom). You also dread the third child because you have a clear reality of how stressful it is to have a new baby. And your body is definitely taking the hit 3rd time around, unfortunately. I heard that from a few moms of 3/4 children - but you really don’t know how much so, till it happens. So hence, I’m telling it all - because I wish people were more honest about motherhood instead of letting movies and Instagram keep it secret. We moms need each other to say that it’s not perfect. It’s beautiful, yes, but its crazy and draining too. You are not alone - I also feel stuck, tired, or unattractive some days … but most importantly - You will survive because I did! You will feel amazing again one day, because I was in your shoes, and I did! Thank you to all you mom-of-3-plus-children who told me the truth and kept me going…

On the positive, I got see my baby's face recently - I haven't ever seen my growing baby so far along in a pregnancy before because, if under 35 and a normal pregnancy, insurance doesn't cover ultrasounds (as you don't need them) after the initial 4 month anatomy scan. So, seeing a face so fully formed and a body so plump (as opposed to at 4months when a fetus looks scrawny) brightened up this trimester. She's a pretty one and very active I've been told...

All I can draw of the dreams I've seen of her

All I can draw of the dreams I've seen of her

No full name yet, waiting for this one to tell me more about her as the other two did (See the other posts in this section). Now that the stressful climax is over, I feel more ready to hear her story. So far, I saw dreams of a mountain area, somewhere in colder air, and clean without urban dwellings near. I saw darker, straight hair and a more earthy girl (than the more princess type of person with wavy hair that I saw in dreams of my oldest) with a simple jeans and a t-shirt on. "Ea" I heard. Which can mean a few things along the lines of (wehewehe.org):

ea

1. n. Sovereignty, rule, independence. Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Restoration Day. Hoʻihoʻi i ke ea o Hawaiʻi, restore the sovereignty of Hawaiʻi.

2. n. Life, air, breath, respiration, vapor, gas; fumes, as of tobacco; breeze, spirit (Isa. 42.5). This ea, as well as ea 1, 3, 4, is sometimes pronounced or sung ʻea. Cf. eamāmāeaolamāmā. Kaha ea, to deprive of rights of livelihood. Wai ea, aerated waters. Hoʻopuka ea, exhaust fumes. Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono (motto of Hawaiʻi), the life of the land is preserved in righteousness. He palupalu lākou, he ea hele wale aku (Hal. 78.39), they were flesh, a wind that passes away. Kāʻili ʻia aku ke ea o ʻAberahama (Kin. 25.8), Abraham gave up the ghost; lit., the breath of life was snatched away.

3. vi. To rise, go up, raise, become erect. Cf. aeaeʻeahōʻea. Kai ea (Kep. 183), rising sea. Ua ea kona poʻo, his head was raised. Ke ea ʻana o ka ʻai, ka iʻa (Kep. 97), the obtaining of poi, fish.. ʻAʻole hoʻi au e ea maluna o koʻu wahi moe (Hal. 132.3), I will not go up into my bed. (PPN eʻa.)

 But there is so much more left to come I'm sure...

Surviving the Insanity of Infant Life

Many new moms call me to cry about the stress they feel - I get it. I have break downs too. Here is a little inside of my feelings coming right out of my son's first year...

I actually wrote this in January - It just took me forever to get this blog up with all the damn parties of my family and holidays. Get this: Kanai (my son) had his 1st Birthday party (of 225 people) November 7th, then was Thanksgiving, Christmas, my daughter (Elia) had a mermaid themed 3rd birthday party, then was New Years, and finally my hubby's 36th Birthday this past Sunday night. 

I made it back to my prebaby body which is a huge thrill (a whole 60lbs less back to size 1) but also a task to keep up with in sorting through clothes and shopping for new ones (that still allow breastfeeding, child play move-ability, and improve my “mom" confused self esteem) while dragging around two crying, fighting, laughing, wriggling out of the stroller and arms - toddlers. I also feel the post partum-hormone drops and that means some days I’m fixated on the down...

It’s such an insecure time transitioning out of being only concerned about keeping the helpless infant fed, clean, clothed, without anything to choke on, without anything to disturb it from its necessary sleep, concerned of eating the right things to supply the right breast milk while stressed of the need to be fair in emotional attention between him and my older baby, also in diapers, also needing food prepped and constant help with using household basic items, the adjustments in learning and growth – the ever constantly needing more than 2-hour-at-a-time sleep all while being consumed in the mess and demands of your diapered ones to the point of not knowing what day or time it is or when you last brushed your teeth… 

So now that Kanai can wobble-walk and doesn’t need constant carrying, and is no longer completely helpless to suffocation if a blanket accidentally covers his face, nor is as needing of full day breastfeeding, and is not needing a change in poopy diaper every hour – all of which mean I can get a whole five minuets of something done every so often (a huge win of time compared to before)… the current thoughts are constantly: what next?

I want to be around adults again, and yet I don’t want to regret missing time with my kids…I want to make money and feel some power again instead feeling at the need of my husband (who has done a wonderful job of providing in the hellish Hawaii costs of living but of course has gotten used to material provisions being his sole role enabling him to be feeling less responsible to relieve me of my 24hr child duty as seems a common trend among couple I've spoken to) and yet my absence from full time immersion of any commercial workforce since mid-first -pregnancy four years ago, means I will have to start at a lower end position without feeling secure in my abilities to meet par – basically relearning how to work as a company among adults who have no idea of how hard my past year of birth recovery, and family growth has been, nor aware of how consumed I already am still forced to maintain my full time obligation of mom to the continuous shopping of newer bigger needs of growing children, tantrum and learning pains that come with, the guilt I feel if I have no energy left from the work day to be able to laugh and play with my children for the remaining hours after traffic, preparing dinner, bathes, clean up and laundry… and the biggest one: the disconnect in my relationship with daddy due to having replaced him as priority in the last year (understandably, as all moms must) and pregnancy prior, as nature forced me to…that although there is no outward resentment from him, there are definitely signs of the gap and unfamiliarity of each other as lovers or even as friends as our identities have been lost to the love-hate role of parents. That we haven’t been to even have a basic casual conversation without being interrupted by a cry, feeding, mess to clean up immediately, or diaper change – let alone snuggle or share in foreplay…that sex has been minimal and straight to the point without any waste of precious seconds without the children needing us. And then of course there is the big noticeable debt of extra costs each added baby has brought…which is the whole reason the thoughts of working again seem to come in my mind even though I don’t feel ready for such…

Elia around 8 months

Elia around 8 months

Hence, the reason for blogging... sanity and the need to connect to other moms...of course there is the good stuff too. Next to come.