t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.

6.02.2010

Date Set

One week from tomorrow, June 10th, baby Berkeley Rose joins our family! (That is of course, "If I make it that long." I try not to snicker when they pull out the drama on me now. I smile and nod and promise to call when I start seeing stars and having pounding headaches. They should start any minute they tell me.)

Think of me being sliced open at about 7am.

The end is finally in sight.

I haven't gone "SEVERE!" (That comment is laced in sarcasm. The doctors have been panicked I will "turn severe" at any moment since 29 weeks. But I am certain they are grateful I am holding on and padding all their pocket books.)

I am actually very grateful to be delivering a full term baby. (Her due date 7-3, but she will be considered full term.)

Enough with the grumbling. Our little family is just so ready to bring this baby girl into the world. I think baby and I have spent enough time in the hospital already.

From the numerous ultra sounds I think this little baby will look most like Ellery. But once again, she will be in a class all her own, because they told me again on Friday "Wow, look at that hair!"

Here are our three little raisins just after emergence....

Baby Ellery

Baby Callista

Baby Emmett

9 comments:

Za said...

Good to read your blog again! Your baby will have the same birthday as William :P

Kevin, Christi, Wade and Max Kotter said...

Such beautiful babies! good luck! we"ll be thinking and praying for you.

Jessica said...

Wahoo!! The final countdown is on......hanging in there.....thrilled it sounds :) Received a little treasure in the mail today, thank you. Calling you tomorrow!!

Sara said...

Oh you are almost there Becca. Hang in there my friend! Love you to pieces! Can't wait to see pictures and can't for you to be relieved of all the stress on your body!

traske.melissa said...

good luck becca and hopefully all will go smoothly.

Jo Lynn said...

How exciting, you are in my prayers that nothing turns severe and all goes well with your delivery of your sweet baby girl! Love how similar your kids are, but yet unique in their features! We love you and keep us posted!!!!

Lissa said...

Beautiful babies.

Caution about mocking the doctors....I've seen quite a few births tank and it is an enormously frightening burden to be responsible for a woman and her unborn child and its safe delivery into the world. Physicians find it pretty offensive to hear that their decades of school/training, passion for their work, and moral and legal obligations are all about padding their pockets.

Rebecca said...

Well said Lissa. A lot of my frustration is speaking. I know the doctors are far more trained than I am. Sometimes I just feel like they are constrained by the system they work in (insurance and law suits) and cannot look at a case individually. From their perspective I understand their actions completely. I do appreciate you bringing up their moral obligation as well. I do feel like the doctor in the practice I have consistently seen does care about me and my baby.

I just sometimes wish they would believe me when I explain my family history,or my blood pressure readings whenever I am out of the doctors office and hospital. I've run into the same experience with my other 2 children and their health problems. I can't seem to get a doctor to believe what I tell them. I think it has just been a long pregnancy.

What I love about you lissa is you keep me humble. Of course the most important thing is a healthy baby, not my comfort or frustration. Thanks for the reality check.

Lissa said...

I know exactly what you mean about the frustration of not being believed though! We had lots of drama with having babies too (7 miscarriages) and there were times I just "knew" that something was not quite right and the on-call doctor impled that I was just being paranoid or nervous. I do very much believe that some people are highly aware of their bodies (and others are kind of clueless)

Now that I'm on the other side though I appreciate the strict practice of doing everything "by the book"; it's safer medicine for everyone and you can decrease the chance that you'll have the guilty anguish of "if only I had done xyz". The very first delivery I saw was in Africa in a bush hospital; the baby had been dead for several days when the membranes ruptured prematurely and the cord prolapsed. A sad, sad time for the family, but the lesson for me was profound and never lost. If certain measures had been followed earlier, the loss might have been prevented.

I remember taking my 12 yo daughter for a check up at the clinic where I work and the family practice resident sending me out of the room so she could ask my daughter if she was having sex :} Some on our staff were appalled, but I really appreciated that the resident wasn't making assumptions and was strictly following protocol. (my darling child, with wide eyes had questions for me in car however...."why did she ask me if I was sexually active"....because unfortunately, so many 12 year olds are!

I'm sure you know when something is not quite right with your kids...and you should always INSIST that a doctor sit up and take you seriously in those cases. Any time a parent says "she's just not herself" they earn an appointment right away. I think it's hard to have the same confidence (and of course the stakes are higher) to be sure that nothing is wrong.

I think I understand how eagerly you and all your family want this hard part to be over and for life as a family 6 to begin. And it's difficult probably for your pregnancies to have these pesky "issues" when your health is generally so good and you have taken such care to make it so. When I was languishing on bed rest month after month and sending my blood to Chicago and getting all sorts of IVs of gamma globulin I was doing much grousing that wasn't fair, no not one little bit! But seeing my lovelies at ages 20 and 23 it's easy to look back and see all of God's goodness and also to see the lessons I've learned from those times.

Can't wait for the delivery news and the pictures.

Many prayers for you to have a wonderful birthing experience (as much fun as a c-section is) and for a drama free start to life for your newest little girl.

Lissa