Welcome Caleb!: My Son's Birth Story

Life with two children has been quite the transition. Well, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if I had no expectations to get anything done during the day, or if I didn't find arriving on time somewhere to be of any importance. Between all 8 of Caleb's outfit changes because of something wet spewing out of either end, and Naomi's need to be 'just like mommy' with her purse filled with all the important accessories, making it out the door is quite the accomplishment on the list, just ahead of cleaning my bathroom!

Caleb is now 7 weeks old, and just when I thought I couldn't fall more in love, the little man learned how to smile. Eyes locked, big grin, cooing sound, and I am a gonner. Naomi thinks he is "just sooooo cute!" and I couldn't agree more.

He is also quite the considerate child. Although he was 6 days over due, when he decided it was time, he didn't dilly-dally! From the moment my water broke on the floor of my living room, to the time he was wrapped in a purple blanket (sorry kid!) in my arms, only an hour and 43 minutes had passed. Just topping Naomi's birth by 15 minutes. What can I say? We don't mess around :)

But seriously. I am so grateful for the experience and with every birth story I hear that involves hours of painful labor, contractions on top of each other, pushy nurses, long needles and numbing drugs, I recognize that my experience is not typical. To be fair, if most women choose to give birth at a hospital from a place of fear, I choose a home birth for the exact same reason; The smell, the germs, the busyness, the rules and regulations, just a few reasons why hospitals freak me out. After Naomi's two hour labor, I recognized that she was not too far off from being delivered in the back of our new jeep in the center median on the GW Parkway, cutting out the commute was definitely part of our baby#2 strategy.

So here we are, it is the evening of the 23rd of December. The entire Elliot family was staying over at our house for our Christmas celebration. The last few bites of lasagna had been scrapped from the pan and we were in the middle of discussing what the nights entertainment should be. Half of the room voted for Scattagories, the other half a movie, and with one little pop and a gush of water I got to override both options and we all headed upstairs to have a baby!

My family was a great help. They all scurried around making sure things were in order. The midwife was called, the sheets were on the bed, Stephens camera was set, the baby's outfit was tucked into the heating pad and plugged into the wall...The energy in the room was light and fun (and at that point, contractions were not too terrible), and everyone was placing bets on what time the baby would be born.As this was my second time in labor, it allowed me to put fear completely aside and just be present in what was happening to my body. Not in a weird zen-hypnotic sort of way, rather it was like I could experience every moment with more clarity and awareness than I remember with my first. I recall Joey asking me (because the entire family had front row seats on the couch in our bedroom) what a contraction felt like. Before answering him, I allowed one to grip a hold of me so I could give a good answer. While breathing like a powerlifter, relaxing my forehead, uncontrollably digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands, I quieted myself to really feel what my body was doing. My answer was not all that extraordinary but that a contraction felt just the way one would expect! That in every 30 second climb up the mountain of pain and back down, my body was opening up just a little more, allowing something that weighed about 9 pounds to bear down into the newly created space. I just stood there, legs wide, by the side of the bed, gripping onto Christian during the most painful moments, and laughing and talking with my family during the calm. My body was in complete rhythm, and as the song played, the beat got a little faster and the base a little louder.
The midwife arrived after an hour and 20 minutes. I remember hearing her sauntering up the staircase, casually commenting about how many stairs we had, greeting the family and contemplating the best place to put her things when suddenly her tone changed as she realized how close she was to missing this birth altogether! (later she told us that in the 1500 births she has assisted, mine was one of the fastest).

I was dilated to an 8 already, my contractions were hard and very close together. About 10 minutes passed and we were to the point when it was time to push. She had me lie back on my side, a position that I later learned was intended to slow the birth down. This is when I started to realize how quickly it all was happening. After my first or second hard push I freaked out, suddenly feeling a wave of fear and self-consciousness grip hold of me, I demanded everyone to leave the room immediately. A dejected group of people rushed into the hallway. My birth assistant apparently knew exactly what I was going through. She quietly calmed me down, praised how I was doing, gave me some breathing techniques, then said in the tone of voice of a mother asking her toddler to hold her hand while crossing the street,
"the head is here, I know how important it was for you that your family see this, would you like to invite them back in?"
Oh yes, that is right! This is it! I am giving birth!
"this is the cool part!"
I remember exclaiming,
"guys, come on in!"
One by one, all 7 of them filed back into the room, and in one hard push I felt instant relief as the contractions halted and a perfect and slimy baby was placed on my chest. I remember Heidi being the first to notice "You have a boy!" The look on my husbands face was utter joy.
The next several minutes were spent getting situated. The midwife pulling my top down so the boy could have 'skin to skin' time, my husband kindly trying to protect my modesty with the family in view, the baby's imbelical chord getting snipped by dad, pillows propped up, blankets re-arranged, baby getting jostled so it could give out a good cry...and at last, I could relax, take a deep breath and meet my new baby boy.

I would say that the benefit of having a home birth really proved itself from here out. We were home, in the comfort of our own bed, surrounded by family, never separated from our baby and given time to truly savor what had just happened. My birth assistant (who finally arrived 10 minutes after he was born) went into my own kitchen to prepare me a platter of organic fruit, herbed turky, olives and raw cheese (good luck finding food that good in a hospital!) The lights in our room were dim as my husband and I snuggled with our newest little Elliot and prayed Gods abundance over our first son. There were no interruptions, no monitors, no twin sized bed, no 'strangers' popping in to check charts, no tubes in my arms or people behind a curtain, no explaining to 5 different people why were opting out of the antibiotic eye cream, and the synthetic vitamin K shot.
Overall, the entire experience was fantastic. At about 2am the house quieted down and we all drifted off to sleep, our new baby snuggled between us in our bed. The next day was Christmas eve and the start of our very special Christmas celebration when a Son was born, when a child was given.

baby is almost here!

...not that any one is out there, but I needed to do this, log onto this poor abandoned blog and just write SOMETHING!
To get myself in the groove, ready for a new year, a new baby and a a fantastic new blog coming your way: committed to bringing friends and family up to date with all the happenings at the Elliot house hold, as well as all the new wonderful things I am learning on my "holistic family living" journey.

SO much has been happening since I dropped my blog ball.
I will do my best to fill in the gaps in the months ahead.

For now, I mean, for this week, I plan on delivering baby number two in the comfort of my own bedroom, with my entire family (yes, we have a couch in our room for optimal sideline viewing) present. Pregnancy has gone incredibly well and I have nothing to complain about, other than I am ready to kiss this little baby on the cheeks rather than feel its heel in my ribcage :)

So, stay tuned. I've got a new computer, a renewed excitement to blog and a little more determination to stay with it :)

Much love,

Nina

Super Suds!

I am committed to using non-toxic products. Every once and a while I miss the gagging smell of pure bleach. After learning all about what is in most commercial products, coupled by the fact that I have an adventurous 2 year old always craving a good dive into unexplored territory, I will have to replace a good bleach whiff, for a good vinigar whiff...and both sort of clear you up!

I sort of gave up after making my own crazy soap concoctions with no real success. Under the guidance of some "green home" book I got on line, I was pouring 1/2 cup of straight borax and washing soda into my wash cycle. All my clothes faded and balled up like crazy, and I decided that the $13.99 spent on a gallon of 7th generation was a better deal than having to replace Nike pants every other load.
Defeat.
After seeing this recipe on a blog last week, I realized how concentrated this stuff is (for example, that same 1/2 cup of borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda makes 2 GALLONS of detergent) I now understand my error. Just because it is "all natural" doesn't mean its wimpy!
So, round two and I think have a winner! Grab your pencil, you are going to want to write this recipe down:

1 bar Fels Naptha soap
6 cups water
Grate the Fels Naptha laundry soap into a large pot of water, on medium heat until soap is dissolved
1/2 C washing soda
1 /2 C Borax
Add the washing soda and borax into the pot of soapy water and mix
Add 20 drops of your favorite essential oil (I used lavender and lemon)
Grab two one-gallon containers (I'm reusing old laundry soap containers) and fill them half way with warm water.
Add half the mixture to each gallon container, then shake.
Fill the containers all the way with water, shake again, and let sit over night to gel.
If it gels too much, just add more water.

Use 1/4-1/3 cup of liquid detergent per load. (roughly .3Cents per load)

4 Fels Naptha bars, a box of borax and a box of washing soda is about $14 on line . I went to www.soapsgoneby.com to order the products. They have more recipes on this website as well!
Happy soap making! And holey moley, happy savings!

Putting the name to the face...or the face to your food!

The Omnivores Dilemma
""...nobody was insisting I personally slaughter a chicken, but I was curious to learn how it was done and to see if I could bring myself to do it. The more I'd learned about the food chain, the more obligated I felt to take a good hard look at all of its parts. It seemed to me not to much to ask for a meat eater, which I was then and still am, that at least once in his life he take some direct responsibility for the killing on which his meat-eating depends". (p.231)

I didn't kill anything...directly. But when indicated in my last order to Green Hills Farm to "throw in something that would make my chicken stock gel the way yours does" what I took home in a plastic bag made me gag in my throat. Two bald chicken heads, with eyes half shut, tangled in a little baggie with 4 scaly yellow feet. This was the first hard look I have had in a while of the true ingredients in my food. I was proud of myself in some ways, for playing a part in not allowing such a valuable body part, if you consider a head to be important, to go to waste. The chicken was destined to end up in my freezer anyway, right?

The stock turned out fantastic, a rich golden color, semi solid in the glass jar in the fridge.
Still, I must admit, when I went to the pot to skim off the scum that had formed on the top, and I saw my little chicken friend bobbing around, I tried to push him down under a huge onion. Something about his little swollen face made me uneasy. But apparently he liked the fresh air because his little beak popped right up. Thanks little chicken head.

Super Tonics, super indeed!

"accuse not nature: she hath done her part:do thou but thine."
Milton

Digestive juices in the gut, Intestinal flora, and every cell in your body craves this stuff: it is the stuff every science lab is trying to conjure up into pill form and sell it to you with a pretty label. They would hate for you to know that for the price of a few Ball jars from the hardware store, a tub of yogurt and a few vegetables from your organic market, you could have, growing on your kitchen counter an amazing concoction of vitamins and enzymes far more available for your bodies absorption than anything some warehouse in New Jersey could ship to you. Beet Kvass:

1 half gallon ball jar: $1.98

1/4 Cup Whey (which can be "dripped" from a tub of plain yogurt $3.49...use the remaining yogurt as a cultured cream for a delicious butternut squash soup!)

3 medium beets $1.99

1Tbs Sea salt

Mix all ingredients in the jar, secure lid, and leave in a room temperature place with no direct sunlight and no electrical outlets near by (we wouldn't want genetically mutated mr. bacteria guys) for 3-15days...depending on how much of a kick you are going for!

-loaded with nutrients

-cleanses the blood

-promotes regularity

-aids digestion

-alkalizes the blood

-cleanses the liver

-treats kidney stones (better than mountain dew)

-enzymatic rich, insuring quality assimilation by the body

WOW! all for the low price of $7.49 (with a jar that can be re-used time after time), that is 128 one ounce servings, which is 5cents an ounce!...and it really doesn't taste that bad!

If anything, it can be added to home made dressings. Throw in a clove of garlic, some cilantro, you will never taste it:)

Ginger Ale

Where did we get this idea that when we are sick, saltines and corn syrup (labeled as ginger ale) would do anything to bring us refreshment from our icky state of being? Well, because it does! Ginger ale, the real deal, recipe as follows:

3/4 C ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 C fresh lime juice
1/2 C rapadura (unprocessed cane sugar)

2 tea sea salt

1/4 C whey (drippings from yogurt strained through a cheese cloth)

2 quarts filtered water, Three days sitting in the counter until the lid of the jar is nice and tight, indicating that the little bacteria guys have been busy, bustling away created lacto-fermented, refreshing "original soda".

And, as an added bonus, ginger is helpful as an anti-inflammatory, reliever of migraines, treatment for dizziness, fever, high cholesterol, indigestion, low libido in women, motion sickness and morning sickness, sciatica, sore throat, tendinitis, toothache, ulcers, viral infections worms, chronic fatigue, even body odor! (Green Pharmacy, by J. A. Duke, PHD)

Kombucha

-the mother of all weird organisms, the living creature of sci-fi, no one knows how to classify this "symbiotic colony of yeast and bacteria". Monica said it is a hold-over from another time...erie music plays.

This mushroom like culture, feasts on black tea and white sugar, floating around in its room temperature glass container. (I know you are dying to see a picture...I haven't made one yet, but I will post it when I do)

Kombucha is the only thing besides the human liver that makes glucuronic acid, a powerful detoxifyer in the body. After it is done feasting and excreting, it makes a baby kombucha mushroom attached to its underside.

So next time your neighbor asks for a cup of sugar, throw in a baby "bouch" as well! I am sure they will thank you! (or puke in their mouth, depending on how you present it :0)

Recipe: boil 3 quarts of water, add 1 cup white sugar and steep 4 bags of organic black tea. Let the mixture cool in a bowl. Once the liquid is room temperature, remove the tea bags and add your baby kombucha culture. It wants to swim around in that beautiful mixture feasting, excreting and growing an off spring covered in a dark place for 7 to 10 days. The result is a delightful fizzy drink, that tastes nothing like sugar and tea, but more like yeast/cider and deliciousness! This spongy kombucha "pancake" can be stored in a glass container in the refrigerator until ready to be used again.

There you have it folks. Some refreshing super tonics. A strong competitor for what ever is in the medicine cabinet, the Gatorade bottle, and the soda can.

Bottoms up!

Nutrient dense stock

Once again, I found myself embarrassed having no idea where stock came from...is it just the drippings from meat after it has been cooked? This yellowish tinted water I buy in 1quart boxes from the grocery store was (and still is actually) surrounded in mystery, as the ingredients don't disclose much: "organic chicken flavor, Natural chicken flavor, onion powder, turmeric and organic flavor". No wonder I am confused!

Saturday mornings Nourishing Traditional foods class was going to be all about stock. I was stoked about stock!

Starting off class, Monica announced that it was best to show us the end product first, and talk through the preparations of this basic foundation of soups and stews since the beginning of time. She pulled the boiling stainless steel pot off the stove, poured it over a stock strainer and into a glass bowl. The brown mucky liquid instantly started separating, and I could see the sediments at the bottom, separate from the fat layer on the top.

Here is natures most abundant source of minerals in their most easily absorbent form as a "true electrolyte solution". None of the minerals work independently in and of themselves, and rely tremendously on one another to do their jobs well: as follows

calcium-this guy gets a lot of press for playing a vital role for strong bones and teeth. It is also needed for the heart and nervous system and for muscle growth. But did you know that you need vitamin D (fat soluble) in order to even absorb calcium? Throw out that skim milk people, and don't scrape that good fat layer off the top of the broth just yet.
sodium: essential to life! Needed to regulate water balance, fluid distribution on either side of the cell walls, supports the functions of the adrenal glands as well as maintains the acid-alkaline balance of the body.
chloride: This guy, in conjunction with sodium and potassium keeps acid-alkaline balance in the blood as well as the passage of fluids across cell membranes. Proper protein and carbohydrate digestion depend on this mineral.
Magnesium is needed for enzyme activity, calcium and potassium uptake, nerve transmission, bone formation and metabolism of carbohydrates and protein!
sulphur:keeps infections away, blocks harmful effects of radiation and pollution and slows down aging! These guys are the building blocks of cell membranes and supher is a major component of the gel-like connective tissue in cartilage and skin.

A good broth should turn into gel as an indicator that it came from a healthy animal. One that ate its natural diet, exercised with its animal friends, and enjoyed lazy days in the beautiful sunshine. A good broth should be the staple of every bowl of hearty soup served on the American table.
A good broth is a lot easier to make, and a lot less mysterious than I imagined, available to you in a few easy steps, which I will gladly pass along!

Beef Broth:
1. 7 pounds of bones "Meaty bones", which add flavor and color, roasted in the oven before adding to pot, and "boney bones" such as marrow and knuckle bones, these yield much gelatin, a very important ingredient in a well made stock.(this is a picture of the bones after they have been cooking for 75 hours)
2. 4 quarts of water (filtered of course)
3. the Trinity of all great soups=diced carrots, onion and celery
4. vinegar, just 1/2 cup will do. Let the vinegar sit in the liquid for an hour, as the acid is needed to pull the minerals from the bones.Now is the time to not cook, but "roll" the stock, uncovered on that stove for 24-72 hours baby! Oh yea.

Strain out all the pulverized chunks, pour into a bowl, and allow to cool.

This delicious mixture goes in the freezer and gets pulled out when you are in a bind and need to make a fast dinner. Throw in some veggies, garlic and there you have it, the real McCoy, the stuff nourishing soup is made of. Time to kick that can to the curb!
No "organic", "Natural" or "other flavors" here folks...just maybe a higher gas bill:)