On living wholly, with no regrets

I dreamt last night that we bumped into each other somewhere and decided to grab a cup of coffee and catch up. The dream skipped a bit, as dreams do, and he was offering me a choice. A chance at something he wished we would've had. The dream became rather out-of-body then: I could see my dream self sitting there, but I was somehow separate, able to analyze the events unfolding. He took her hand and insisted he would leave it all for her this time. My dream self shook her head, swelling with pity for him as he tried to reclaim memories and make them reality. As I watched, I thought about all that would crumble if my dream self accepted the offer, all the sadness and hurt it would cause. I thought about the beautiful life I've been given and how I wouldn't go back in time to change any of it. My dream self gave his hand a squeeze as he sat there with drooping shoulders, and then the dream got foggy and began to dissipate like a mist.

I rolled over in bed and was greeted with "mama!" and a toothy grin. Ava scooted over to me and with a loud "mmmaahh!" planted one of her sloppy open mouth kisses on my cheek. I pulled her in close for a hug and a tickle and sighed with happiness. I love the family God has blessed me with. Yesterday was Mother's Day and though we certainly had our share of toddler tantrums to deal with, Ava seemed to have an extra dose of cute and kisses and hugs for mama throughout the day. And after I put her down to sleep for the night I came downstairs to find that Ben had made me chocolate chip cookies and had a plate of cookies and milk waiting for me.

As I lay in bed this morning cuddling with my girl, I had such a peace on my heart. I feel like my goal to live wholly this year has already brought fruit. I am so thankful for the man I am married to and for the ways that God has aligned us. From parenting to politics to homesteading to religion, we have grown up and learned so much together and are strong in our united beliefs.

I don't always feel Grown Up. It's such a strange elusive milestone. I felt sure years ago that when I got married I would be a Grown Up, but then I did and I was still just me. Then I felt sure that when I had my first child I would be a Grown Up, but then I did and I was still just me. But something this morning made me feel Grown Up. That knowing deep inside that I am exactly where I should be and have exactly the family I should have. That is giving me the strength to know today that I am a strong, confident woman who is exactly where God wants her to be. I am wholeheartedly living my life with no regrets.

I'm linking up with the One Word 365 community via Only a Breath this month!
I'm also linking up with Ashleigh Baker and her Simple Story link up. I love that she has started a movement back toward just telling stories on our blogs with less worry about pinnable content.

Sometimes you just need to feel epic.

I forget sometimes that what I do has significance. The daily monotony can get to me and it seems like all I do each day is change diapers, wash diapers, offer my boob to Ava every hour (high needs baby!!), and (maybe) make dinner and do the dishes. Sometimes it just seems impossible to get everything done. When I need a pick-me-up I make a cup of coffee and play this song:

This song makes me feel like I just ran a marathon, climbed a mountain, and conquered nations. I'm really not sure why or what it is about it. It just does.

I finished telling my birth story to a friend a few weeks ago and she exclaimed, "Becca! You are WOMAN." And that's how this song makes me feel. What I do is important.

I. AM. EPIC. 

I. AM. MAMA.

I. AM. WOMAN.

A new beginning and a fresh start

It seems fitting that I restart this blog with the story of Ava's birth. She is after all, most of the reason that I gave up writing here for a while. My preggo tiredness didn't leave me with much energy to care about the garden or my blog. This year though I'm hoping to be more organized and more motivated. The garden is cleaned up and our seedlings are all planted in starter trays and I am ready for a fresh start. So with no further ado, here is Ava Josephine's birth story.

My labor with Ava was long, difficult, and not quite as I had planned. It began at midnight on a Wednesday right as we were heading to bed. I never really had a slow start with contractions. They started off close together and stayed that way most of the labor. I labored with Ben's help all night, and our doula came in the morning to our house. We continued just taking them one at a time and worked through the day until about 6 pm when our doula thought that I was getting close to transition. My contractions were almost on top of each other at that point, coming every two minutes and lasting for a minute and a half each! We headed to the hospital and after we got all checked into our room a nurse checked my dilation and we discovered that I was only at 3 cm. I was disappointed, but I was determined to keep going without pain meds. Ben and our doula were so fantastic and helped me focus on working through each contraction.

A few hours later I was still only at a 4 and we got more bad news: I was positive for Group B and no one had noticed it in my records until right then. We had to quickly decide if we wanted the antibiotic IV and then it took three nurses and five different veins before they got me all hooked up to it. When they checked me just after midnight and I was still at 5 cm, I knew I needed some help. I had been at it for 24 hours so far and been awake for 42 hours, and I knew that I needed to sleep and get some energy back so that I could still push her out! They had the epidural in by 1 am and we all settled in to get some sleep.

I woke up around 4 am and a nurse checked me and found that I was at a 6. The doctor on call told us that she wanted to either break my water or start Pitocin, but I was still hoping to avoid any further interventions. We told them that we would prefer to wait a bit longer, so we were told that they would come back at 6 am to check on me and then would want to start some interventions. One of our dear friends from church was praying in the hallway for us, so I asked our doula to go get her so that we could pray for things to start moving. Ben, our doula, and our friend all gathered around to pray that God would bring our baby out in His timing, and then we settled back in to sleep, pray, and wait.

What an answer to prayer we got! No one bothered us again until 8 am and when they did finally come in to check me, I was at 9.5 cm! My OB was there since I was now laboring during business hours, and at 9:45 am she was ready to have me push. My water broke on its own during my first few pushes, and after that my body took over. Ava was turned sunny-side up, which we think is why she was taking so long, and so my OB had me try some different positions to get her to rotate. They finally worked and through back labor and feeling everything despite my epidural, Ava was born at 11:56 am on a Friday after two hours of pushing and a total of 36 hours of labor! She was 9 pounds even, and 21 inches long. She was limp when she came out and had swallowed some meconium, but after a little bit of the doctors working on her she was all cleared out and had a good loud cry going on. She has been a champion nurser from the start and such a strong girl, able to hold her head up on her own since birth.

Learning to do this whole Mom thing has been awesome, challenging, exhausting, and a huge blessing. Even though the birth didn't go how I had planned, I don't regret anything. We have our girl here now and that's all that matters.