We did it!

 

May I proudly present to you Maya Lou Helene, born March 28th, at 10:12pm with 4370 Gramm and 56 cm. I hope to write up my birth story soon but for now let me tell you. We had a blast! A 2 1/2 hour home birth, no tearing and the assistant midwife who just made it in time for crowing...

She was ripe, this girl of mine and she knew exactly when that would be.

 

(both pictures taken by my sister with iphone)

 







Practicing Patience - Yarn along

I am not exactly known for my patience ususally. The more it surprises me to find myself rather calm and peaceful these last days. Due Date has passed without any exhiting news. Friends and families keep checking, but me, I just try to be still and listen to my body and my child. I feel so certain they will let me know when they are ready for this birth. I am just praying doctors and midwifes will give us the time we need and that I stay strong enough to trust my own feelings as long as possible.

A friend of mine has sent me this picture yesterday by the artist Itaiana Battoni. It was shown via the Mother Health International Faceboook page and said:

"The concept of a 'due' date is something that is very abstract in many cultures. If, like in Uganda, you count a pregnancy by the moons, you end up having a 'due month' and baby comes when she is perfectly ripe without causing mama lots of anxiety."

My children being half Ugandans I found this picture and wisdom so comforting and just the perfect thing to be given on my due date.

The days of the due month are special for sure. Even though it is my second child, each day is spent knowing it could be the last one of my life as I have known it. Something new is coming, someone else who will mix up everything. So there are special moments in every day that I live more aware and present somehow:
This morning, after I came from a doctors appointment I very spontaneously went for a (very short) walk into our nearby forest. There was still ice on the pond, the air crisp and chilly but the sky was blue and sunbeams stroke  my face. Almost invisible still, there was the first hint of green around the bushes. But the actual truth was told by all those birds: spring is just around the corner! It was one huge concert and I told my child how wonderful this earth is and that I want to show her all its beauty. What a magical half an hour time a spend there.

Last night I suddenly felt like baking. Something I had not done in quite a while. There was flour, milk and yeast in the house, so I decided on some buns. While the dough rose I thought I should make some special buns, some "due date buns" maybe. So I added some amaranth cerial to the dough with sesame and nuts, something that would keep me going the next days. In my blessing way book I found some simple symbols related to birth and shaped the buns like them. There is the Native American "Wheel of Life" (the round bun with the cross), the Maori "Koru" (the spiral) which symbolizes new beginnings and the Egyptian "Key of Life" that symbolizes birth.

I finished all the planned baby projects, knitting and sewing wise and most of the things I wanted to do around the house so I picked up some old sock project that has been sitting around for far too long. We'll see how far I get this time... 

My sister has gifted me to a skein of lovely handspun ocean colored single merino and I am still contemplating, what I should use it for. Any ideas anyone? It is very soft yarn but I am not so sure it will work for a baby project because it seems unwashable without felting to me. I am not sure.

There are many books on my night desk these days. One I have devoured (no photo) by recommendation of Lori is Spiritual Midwifery. Such a bible for birthing really. And of course I could not resist to get the 1000 Days journal by Nikki McClaire for my baby. I hope I will really manage to keep it up for her. Then there is a Doula book and one on my ever so fascinating topic of gender and a few others, I pick a page here and a passage there. Sweet days of due month...

I am joing Ginny for Yarn Along today.

{this moment} - Tasting sunshine

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

The Blessingway Quilt

I wasn't actually sure baby and me would make it to our own blessingway on Saturday but somehow we did, and she still seems to feel comfortable enough  to stick around for another few days. Which is great because it gives me time to finish the very last bits and pieces. 

Since I read about a blessingway for the first time, I think it was over at Soulemamas, I so strongly wanted to give one myself, but as it happend I was the next one to get pregnant. So I was very, very happy to find out my girlfriends liked the idea too and made me have one, just the way we felt it suited us (not too much of the esotericism please). We got most of our inspiration from this wonderful book.

Attending my own blessingway was such a treat; I am still feeling so warm and loved just thinking about it. I didn't take any pictures of it though, it just didn't feel right, so words will have to do:

We met Saturday night, me and six of my closest girlfriends. After getting comfortable with tea, music, candles and oil (Every woman had brought one of those items) my friends started by introducing themselfs with the story of how they met me. And even though most of them knew eachother before some had not heared those stories yet and it was more then sweet to revisit those moments again and value friendship in such a way. We contiuned with sharing our own story of birth, of what our mums told us about it and those of us who had given birth already shared those stories too. Of course we didn't always focus 100% on the schedule so at one point we ended up talking about cars... but it just felt good anyway.

We talked about my fears and hopes for this birth, for Aarons sister, about family and friendship matters and just felt it all grow stronger. We each wrote a short letter to the unborn baby to give to her when it is time, maybe when she will turn 18? 

To make me feel supoorted and strong during the birth I recieved a bead for a bracelet from everyone which I will wear from now on and I also gave a small bracelet to each of my girlfriends to wear until they have seen the baby for the first time (or longer of course). It is so fascinating to see how such small   things can become so full of meaning and value if you give it the right moment, love and attention.

I also got pampered with a lovely foot massage and during that treat, one of the girls read a meditativ story she had written exclusively for this night.
In the end all my friends put their hands on my belly and spoke blessings, prayers and sweet words. 

While we talked on and off I continued to sew the last stitches on my baby quilt binding (that I started last summer right after I found out I was pregnant) and what better time could there have been to finally finish it? I can't stop myself from staring at it, I am so in love with it. Of course I will always call it the Blessingway Quilt.

It is time to give birth now...

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Celebrating neighbourhood

Last Saturday we had some special guests at home, our neighbours and my favourite radio station Funkhaus Europa.  That radio station plays music from all over the world, covering global and local issues concerning migration and culture. 

It all began with me, listening to that radio station one morning last week hearing them looking for the most international house in the area. Without much thinking about it I wrote an email telling them about how we live in this rented house with six apartment with seven nations under the same roof. There is us, a Ugandan-German family, a Romanian-Iranian couple, a Turkish family, a Russian couple, some Germans about to move in and a family from Peru living on the top floor. The Funkhaus Europa Team somehow liked what I told them. Unfortunatly for them I hadn't given them my number, just an adress and they tried to contact me with all means, email, Facebook etc. But by then I had decided it all was a rather bad idea, I hadn't even talked to my neighbours about it and they would  maybe not want to give an interview anyway. Well, that reporter did not give up and showed up unannounced at my doorstep on Friday. He was very, very friendly and so happy with what he found I agreed to join in the adventure. 

Together we talked to our neighbours and invited everyone for the next morning into our apartment where the broadcasting would be happening. The turkish served us coffee as soon as they opend the door and invited us to their sons wedding the following weekend but because of that wedding they would not be able to join the show, some neighbours were not home but the Russian lady and the guy from Peru came downstairs the next day.

Shanli, the reporter to do the interviews showed up an hour before with croissants and we all sat and got to know eachother a lot better than we had before. It was so, so nice and Shanlis questions made it even more interesting. (So far we had only known eachother briefly through lending tools or an egg, saying good morning while passing by. ) Now we found out, how all of us (except me) had simular experiences coming to Germany without speaking the language, struggeling with offices and work. The guy from Peru, Edwin, and Nathan found out they both love football, chess and chinese food, a new friendship has started.

Of course Aaron enjoyed our guests as much as we did, he served "tea" and even said "Hello" when Shanli talked to him with the microphone...

They gave us a Bocce game as a present for the whole house to play together and t-shirts but most of all they made us talk to each other, feel more connected and enjoy our community. Thank you so much Funkhaus Europa! 

You can find some more pictures taken by Shanli on the Funkhaus Europa website here.

Photo taken by Shanli Anwar, Funkhaus Europa

Oh the nesting...

Around (very round ) 4 weeks to go and my hormons are doing a full time job at making me clean, sort, organise and redo the house. There is hardly any rest. The books I got from the library for those last lazy weeks are sitting unread on my desk. Instead there is more clearing, and sewing and knitting and shopping. I completely had forgotten how busy these weeks were. And so full of joy and wonder and expectations and worries, oh my...
Baby has been estimated rather large (not big) and the specialist that my OB told me to go to, to get a full check up, suggested to prepare myself for a possible c-section just in case. My plans for this birth are quite different though. I have booked a midwife and want to give birth at her house, a place she runs with a few other midwifes, very peaceful, sweet and beautiful. Now, after talking to my midwife after what the specialist said today  I feel more easy again to still follow my path for this birth. Why should I not be able to give birth to a large baby, hey?! What helps also to take my fears, is reading lots and lots of birth stories over at Birth without fear, such a wonderful, encouraging blog in times like this.
Aarons birth was nothing I have to repeat, although we managed to avoid the c-section in the end. It all started very well at home, and ended 36 hours and 6 hours of pressing later in hospital with epidural, vacuum, doctors jumping on my belly and so on. It toke me days, rather weeks to build a connection to my baby. This time I want to prepare myself differently, somehow. We'll see how that goes.

Until then let me show you what I busy myself with theses days:

We moved the changing table that was still standing in Aarons room to our bedroom. So Aarons room was painted a little and became more kids-like and less babyish. I thrifted this wooden folding table (his room is very small and he like to play football in it). The chairs I found at the street a while back.

My heart is beating with pride when I tell you Aaron has finally discovered his love for colors and painting. We truely enjoy those times together and made a few colored hearts for his baby sister and pinned them next to the changing table. Creating her a tiny little corner full of love.

The gnome I have knitted last year from hand dyed and spun wool, Aaron got a simular one in green. 

The sewing, I almost forgot to mention is happening a lot too, the cover on the changing table for example. I am using mainly fabric with african prints at the moment, it feels so much like us somehow. Those two Saroul were made yesterday, so very simple and fast and so cute and comfy. I gave them a warm inlay for that early spring baby to be nice and warm. The purple fabric is, surprise, thrifted from an old dress I bought just because of the fabric last spring. I even wrote about it here.

I guess except baby talk there will be little to be found on this blog in the next weeks, I hope you don't mind and still join me for the countdown...