Focus on ME!

Sometime in the middle of my pregnancy, I joined a very popular online community called BabyCenter. I was instantly addicted to the amazing resources and endless support available to me 24-hours a day.

What Once Nourished Her, Will Now Nourish Me

As part of my birth journey, I decided to have Aerielle's placenta encapsulated. Encapsulation is a ritualistic process where the placenta  is blessed, cooked, dried out, crushed, and put into pill form for future consumption by me. Immediate benefits include reduced hormonal surges during the postpartum period, relief from the baby blues, and even possibly preventing postpartum depression. If I choose not to consume the entire placenta during the postpartum period, I can use the  placenta pills in the future for relief of PMS symptoms and even to help make my menopause more manageable!

1 Fast Labor + 1 Awesome Birth Center = 1 Amazing Baby

Throughout this pregnancy, as I read more and more about natural, unmedicated childbirth, I knew that I wanted to write my birth story for others to read. Two of the most influential texts I read in preparation for my first birth experience were "Spiritual Midwifery" and "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" both by Ina May Gaskin. Both works contain collections of birth stories that I found to be both inspiring and insightful. Its these stories, combined with the inspirational accounts of my mother's and sister's births and topped off with witnessing a dear friend birth her first child that gave me the strength to believe in myself and my body to perform the miracle of childbirth.

Yummy in My Tummy

Little baby Jessica after eating with a now full belly.

Getting To Know Me

As Aerielle settles into her new home, we continue to enjoy this new life god has blessed us with. As promised, here are some more pics of baby Aerielle uncensored.

Holy Crap......Really?

So I can't tell you the story now. That will be something Jessica will have to tell you later, but holly crap! I just can't believe it! She's already here and so unexpected. I can't express to you how I feel right at this moment, but it is a very good feeling.

WHAT? You're Not Going to the Hospital?

In an earlier post, I promised to tell you about our choice of an out-of-hospital birthing location. This was not a decision we came to quickly, and therefore the story outlining how we arrived at this decision is quite long. Enjoy!

We Gettin' Edumacated: Natural Childbirth at Its Finest

In line with our quest for a completely unmedicated, natural childbirth, in addition to selecting an out-of-hospital birthing location (more on that in a future post), we enrolled ourselves in classes for a brand-new method of natural childbirth called Brio Birth.  I was introduced to the idea of this new method while acting as a labor support person for some dear friends of ours. They asked me to attend classes for The Bradley Method of Husband Coached Childbirth with them.  That's where I met the most amazing woman in the field of childbirth education, Angela Taylor, of Taylor Your Birth.  Angie, as we call her, is a living, breathing encyclopedia of all things childbirth, breastfeeding, and beyond.  When it came time for us to choose our childbirth educator, there was no choice; it HAD to be Angie. 

There's a Melon in There!

Here are some pics Mommy Jessi took the other day to show me what she see's when she looks down. I love it!

We're Going to the Gun Store

The time between deciding to have the ultrasound and actually having it done was a matter of only days. I called the ultrasound school on Friday afternoon and our appointment was on Monday afternoon. Yep, just that quick! The appointment coordinator gave me instructions to drink 32oz of water 1-hour prior to the procedure. I wrote it all down without really thinking about what that would mean for my already sensitive bladder. Oopsie!

OUR Great Ultrasound Debate

As this pregnancy has progressed, I always assumed I would be getting an ultrasound to determine the gender of our unborn child. I mean, its perfectly safe, right? It must be if this procedure is performed on millions of unborn babies each year, right? A doctor wouldn't ever suggest a test that isn't safe, right? WRONG!!

Another Special Day

So, my wife (and baby...lol) was craving pasta today. Jessica is working all day today, from early morning (830a) to super late at night (11p), and didn't bring enough food to last throughout the day (tsk, tsk, tsk). Being the amazingly perceptive husband that I am, I decided to run to the store to pick up all the ingredients for our "Signature Pasta", as we call it. It's the best (culinary hint: you may get a lil' drunk off of it if you eat too much! LOL j/k).

When Hormones Attack, People Get Hurt

I have been keeping a journal for quite some time as an outlet for the intense emotions that come along with all things fertility-related. Many of you do not know that the process of becoming pregnant was very difficult for Dameone and me. We had been trying to conceive, without success, for what seemed like an eternity and this journal was the only place where I could be honest about everything I was feeling about our perceived infertility. While this journal continues to be an avenue for expressing my raw emotions, the content is quite different today than it was when I first started.

My Life and What's to Come

My life isn't a fairytale, but when I think about it, our relationship can't get any better when compared to other couples. It's damn near perfect. If you can imagine, amazing and wonderful things do happen to people who believe in the possibility. You just have to want it and make it happen. This blog is my every day love letter to my wife and to the baby growing inside her belly. Life is a wonderful thing. Enjoy every minute of it.

Goodbye Morning Sickness, Hello Second Trimester!

I am quite happy to report that I have successfully navigated some difficult terrain, also known as the "first trimester" to most pregnant women, and have found myself in the blissful oasis of the second trimester. I quite literally woke up one day (12 weeks and 1 day to be exact) and felt like a whole new woman! I was suddenly able to eat just about anything and smell just about anything without being entirely repulsed, but the thing that actually excited me the most was my ability to be productive around the house again.

Our baby's first heartbeat 12wk 1day [HD]

Here is a little video of our midwife trying to find our baby's heartbeat. You can hear it for a split second at the very beginning and then not again until about 0:58. Our midwife turns off the doppler rather quickly in an efort to limit the amount of radiation the baby is exposed to.