My granddaughter (still seems weird to say that) was due on 09/15/09. If things go as we hope, Holly and I and our doula Nichole will soon trek up to the Birthways Birthing Center in Sarasota, which is only about 15 minutes up the interstate, and we'll have ourselves a baby. You can take a look at the website for the birthing center if you want, and I have a little video of the room below.
I've been so proud of Holly; she's taken good care of herself as you'll see in the videos, and she's done a bit of growing up that was probably much needed. She's done a lot of reading, and she's taken the reins on her own pregnancy. She decided that barring any true complication or emergency, she wants to have a waterbirth, without pain medications and with as little intervention as possible. I'm sure many of you wonder why anyone would want to do that without an epidural or some sort of medical relief. If so, I encourage you to
For those who don't know about birthing centers or midwives or natural childbirth or any of that, I encourage you to read up. Natural childbirth does not just mean that you get no pain meds. There are a whole slew of reasons to give it a go, and a whole lot of reasons not to do this at the hospital unless necessary.
And you can see the trailer for a video called "The Business of Being Born" (we're going to rent it, but haven't seen it yet).
First I'll give you a very short video tour of the room at the birthing center where Holly will be giving birth (hopefully!):
First I'll give you a very short video tour of the room at the birthing center where Holly will be giving birth (hopefully!):
Looks like any old bedroom mostly, but comfier than mine. The big teal tub will have a brand new, one-use-only liner in it. Right now, Holly thinks she may actually do the birth in the water. I bet she won't really have a preference at that point.
Here is THE VERY FIRST VIDEO OF EMMA (undercover, of course):
I plan on keeping that and showing it to her later, of course, so I just decided to talk to her.
Taking these videos has me thinking I always sound a little disgusted...something about the tone of my voice, especially at the ends of my sentences, makes me a little nuts.
Here is a video Holly took of Emma moving around, from her perspective:
And I took these, and caught some impressive movement.
I couldn't have planned the next one any better if I would've tried:
We also took some video of a huge bunch of ducks in the tall grass near the lake at the birthing center. This little snippet reminds me of that Whack-a-Mole game because of their heads popping up.
Onward to the remainder of the family...
Devin is really enjoying his automotive technology class (an all-afternoon class for college credit taught at Sarasota County Technological Institute-SCTI), so much so that he is talking about wanting to get a 4-yr. degree in it and become a master mechanic. He would like to eventually go to University of Northwestern Ohio (UNOH), which is supposed to be the best in the country for that. I certainly hope he can do his first 2 years here Bright Futures scholarships to help), and I wish him luck with the rest. I wish I could help him, but I figure he'll find a way.
Savanna is a level 5 gymnast now. She has practice 3 days a week from 4-7 pm. She also has a bars class the other 2 days until 5 pm. These videos were shot just a week ago. The little hop you see her do at the ends of the flips she does on the floor is intentional. They teach them that as a first step to learn how to connect one trick to the next.
Eric is still working at Crawford Communications in Atlanta. It's pretty difficult, and we hope we don't all have to be apart forever.
So that's about all that we have going on.
Congratulations again to Mandy and Jay on their wedding. I bet it was beautiful.
