Pregnancy update

So we had our interview with the new midwife.  Jeremiah and I really liked her.  We love her beliefs, and philosophy on homebirth/midwifery.  She is a direct entry midwife and has chosen to specifically not get her certification.  And we couldn't agree with her more as to her reasons.  The homebirth community at large in NC has been pushing for legalization of homebirth.  Having a homebirth itself is legal, the complications come in to who 'attends' your birth.  There is a move to pass legislation to legalize certified midwives.  That move will then lead to regulating what those certified midwives can/can not do.  And she does not want to be told who she can and can not attend for births. 

After we talked for a while about her training, and my previous pregnancies/births she did a prenatal. Jonah was VERY intrigued by everything that came our of her bag!  He stuck right there by my side to see what she was going to do next.  And wouldn't ya know something had to be different with this pregnancy!  Not that that hasn't been an issue these past few months, but seriously I was really hoping for a smooth ride from here on out.  In all of my six pregnancies I have always had high iron levels.  Always.  To the point that it amazes some of my midwives.  Yeah.......this time, not so!  It was a 'whopping' 10.8.  Nothing to be proud of to be sure.  So I need to go out and grab some prenatals, along with continuing to make our dietary changes which should contribute to helping my iron uptake.  But this could explain why I've been feeling a bit tired lately.  This past week I had assumed that it was the extra work of our new diet that was wearing me out.  Not that stirring together some flour, water and whey should wear anyone out!  I think what I really need to do is really be praying about this pregnancy.  Its not that I haven't been praying, but certainly there definitely has been a distance between God and me, and I know it's ME who is 'off' and I need to get back on track with communicating with my Lord. 

There was another funny 'off' thing about my visit.  This is really truly nothing at all, but just another thing to make this pregnancy different.  The baby's heart rate.  Granted I am going to be 18 weeks in a few days, so the baby's heart rate should still be high, and I just may not be remembering correctly back to my other pregnancies, but for some reason I was pretty sure that by this point we always had the clear distinction of high or low heart rate.  High, meaning it's a higher likely hood of a girl, low, a higher likelyhood of it being a boy.  The 140's would be boy, the 160's girl.  Yeah, this little booger was 156.  All my girls were in the 160's from the get go and stayed there, and my boys were in the 140's, although they may have been in the 150 range early on and I am just not remembering. Plus the little guy was moving all over the place and kept getting out of range of the doppler.  So maybe his heart rate would have been a lower 150 without all that movement.  Hmmmmm......time will tell I suppose :-)  I drive my husband batty by mulling over the old wives tales to try to figure out if we're having a boy or a girl :-)  That's ok, I am still convinced we are having a boy. I suppose we need to start looking at names pretty soon, which might give us more of a clue.  EXCEPT that so far, everything with this pregnancy has been totally not normal. 

When we called out that we would be listening to the baby's heart beat all the girls came running (they were in the other room). So there we were, all of us, listening in.....and then Isabella says, "Oh, poor Jed, he's crying!"  Poor guy was freaked out by the whole doppler on my tummy!  So sad.  We tried to comfort him, but he wasn't ok until she put the doppler away.  I held him and told him I was fine, that we were just checking to see how the baby was doing.....He said, "ok" and got off my lap ASAP and ran off.  I suppose we'll have to let him hold the doppler and see that it isn't anything scary. 

It was a great visit.  I am looking forward to my next visit a month from now. 

I finally had success with my grain soaking!  I made some yummy biscuits this morning and some tortillas this afternoon.  I had made up some bean dip and a salad to put inside of our tortillas.  Oh, YUM!  It really hit the spot.  This evening, for the first time ever, I made homemade pasta noodles.  It was easy and they turned out very well.  I used them in my beef stroganoff recipe.  Tomorrow I am going to try my 'luck' at making the soaked pancakes for the second time. Soaking grains is not at all hard, it just requires me to really know what we are having the following day for meals as I need to prepare the grains the night before.  A lot of the preparations are easy and quick, but they take a long time to soak or 'mature' (yogurt comes to mind).  Tomorrow I need to test my water kefir to see if it is still alive, and my kombucha.  We need to get those probiotics in us in large doses :-) 

I'm tired, and so off to bed I go.  Right now the baby is moving around like crazy!  He'a an active little guy!