What has happened during my week off of Facebook.

A week ago I signed off from Facebook and deleted my shortcuts and bookmarks. It was kind of a mental health break for myself, I'd started to not like the person I was turning into as I peeked into other people's lives on Facebook and almost started to judge myself through the perspective of other people in other situations.

Now, a week later, I'm looking at a lot of things from a much more balanced and healthy perspective. It's been a busy week in many ways, and stressful things have happened, but without having the crutch of being able to vent about my stress on Facebook, I've been getting back in touch with some of my favorite (and healthier) ways to regain balance and peace when things get chaotic. Even just little things like a nice cup of herbal tea or reading a couple of paragraphs in a good book. Things that feel REAL, instead of that kind of creepy feeling of living vicariously through other people's experiences.

Here are some of the things that have happened in my life over the past week.

• I've read a LOT of books. Mostly to my kids, but I've been turning to my books more and more, which is nice because I've always been a bookworm and I've come to believe that I "don't have time" to read. But even just sitting down to read with my kids more often has been really nice, for all of us.
• My phone has needed to be charged every day. This is new to me! Normally I charge it every 3 or 4 days. It's getting a lot more use, since being off Facebook means a lot more texting and calling to keep in touch with people! And there are still more people I'm wanting to check in with.
• I've written. Not blog posts, in particular, but actual work. Chapters of books I started months ago that have been sitting untouched, and very early work (outlines, mostly) of articles that I plan to finish writing and actually try to sell. Like a real grown up writer. It's been over two years since I had any paid writing work, so it feels a little awkward as I ease back into it but I'll get there.
• We've done a lot with organizing the house to be baby safe, because our little Baby Bear started crawling and hasn't stopped moving since then. She took a few tentative paces forward, and then did it again, and then woke up the next morning crawling EVERYWHERE. Nothing holds this little girl back. So we've been working on setting up "baby stations" all around the house, while getting things that are unsafe up and out of her reach. The boys are so protective of her, so this is a project they've helped with very willingly.
• We've had some unexpected days off from school for Bug. It was for a scary reason (wildfires, near our part of the county but thankfully still some distance from our town) but it was still nice to have him home and have that time with him. This mama is so ready for summer break to start!!
• I've spent a lot more time being in touch with a good friend of mine here in town, an absolutely wonderful woman whom I've known since our oldest kids were in kindergarten, but who has more recently become a very dear friend of mine. Words can't even express how much she has meant to me! When I was struggling with depression on and off over the past few months, leading up to this time when I've decided to sort of hit the "reset" button and step back into my bubble, she has always been there reaching out to me and offering friendship and a helping hand and love, and that has helped so much!
• Cooking! So much cooking!! I've taken away the temptation for myself to go "grumble grumble grumble, I just made dinner last night for these people and I've cooked them meals all day and I've got to feed them again?? Hey, what's your family having for dinner? Oh that looks good. Hey, you get to eat shrimp and I've had a craving for shrimp for weeks but it hasn't gone on sale, now I'm kind of jealous that you get to eat what I want. Hey, why do YOU get to have takeout? I want to have takeout. Grumble grumble grumble." You know?? I know you feel me, we've all been there on some level. I hope. Please tell me I'm not the only one. Anyway, so much cooking! I've made a lot of yummy dinners lately and I've been proud of the way I've been stretching food, using leftovers, planning several meals at once, budget shopping and so on. Amazing what I can accomplish when I put my full energy into our meals, instead of putting half of that energy towards procrastinating and wishing I was eating other people's food!
• We've spent a LOT of time hashing out this car situation and trying to make a decision. Something needs to happen, because our old Subaru has so many things going on with it that it either needs to be retired or have an enormous amount of work put into it, and one of those things needs to happen NOW. We got an incredibly generous offer from my dad, who said that he wants to add to our car budget. He thinks that the plan that makes the most sense is to get a second vehicle, so that we can stop this terrifying juggling of one old and very tired car that is threatening to die completely, and he said that he wants to help make that happen for us. We were shocked and surprised and overjoyed, because this is something that will make a HUGE difference for our family. So we're back to shopping for a second car, with the plan that as soon as we find one, we'll start looking for another one so we can retire this poor old Subaru. It's going to be a big year for cars in our household! And I'll be honest, shopping for two new cars back to back and all of the change that is going to bring about, is kind of wreaking havoc with my anxiety. But I feel like I'm managing it much better than I have for a long time.
• Baby Bear and I went up together to tell the "Time for all ages" story during the church service this morning. It was so sweet to talk to all the kids as they gathered around us, and it really touched my heart how many people told me afterward that they love watching her and our older kids growing up in the congregation. The connections we're making at our church really make it feel like home, and from my own perspective of remembering how much my high school youth group and the rest of the congregation meant to me, and how influential some of them were in my life, it makes me feel deeply thankful to have found this kind of spiritual home for our family.

I think that's about it, as far as major events. I'm missing the friends I keep in touch with only on Facebook, so definitely planning to sign on to go through my notifications soon and see what people are up to, but I have to be careful because it still feels too easy to get back into the habit of being on there way too much. It snuck up on me, I used to be much busier outside of the house and I don't have a "smart phone" so naturally I wasn't online as much, but since we've moved farther away from town and I'm spending much more time at home than I used to, it's been too easy for me to keep going back to the screen. Just to see that picture, just to check that notification, just to see the latest things in the news feed - well, it all adds up, not only in terms of time in a day but also in terms of my personal energy. It had become an energy drain, so that I had less to give to other areas of my life.

Some time soon I'll get a better sense of balance and I'll be on there more often again. But for now I'm giving much needed attention to many other areas of my life, and I'm feeling pretty good about that choice.

Period of introspection.

For almost the past week I've been taking a break from Facebook. It's been refreshing in a surprising kind of way. Since I'm cut off from being able to distract myself by peeking in on other peoples lives via my news feed, I've had to do some very real work looking at myself and my life and my own beliefs and priorities.

Six months ago we moved to a new home, and in almost every way it was a very positive move for our family. We're now in a much safer and more family friendly neighborhood, the children are growing up surrounded by animals and gardens and nature instead of pavement and dead grass, and they can run and play and use their imaginations and roam outside and do all of the wonderful things that little boys can do, without being limited by the restrictions where we used to live. Today while talking with a friend, I suddenly realized that here we feel comfortable sleeping with the windows open after a hot day, while at our old place I couldn't sleep without checking that they were all locked. So it's been a very positive thing for our family. But we have been a one car family for the past five years, and moving farther out from town to a nice rural area meant that I lost the ability to just load up the kids into the stroller and walk down Main Street to do whatever we felt like doing.

I'm a Sagittarius. I'm a wanderer, I can't help it, it's just who I am. I get terribly restless and require changes of scenery to keep my brain and my body active. A great deal of the support system I'd built for myself, building up our new home and new life out here in California, was based on what I was able to walk to, so within a mile and a half or so from where we lived. Not only was I the fittest I've been in my adult life, with all the walking, but I had a steady stream of stuff to keep us busy. Play dates at the playground, story and craft groups and children's yoga at the library, iced coffee and conversation at my favorite coffee shop, cheap produce-of-the-day at the little corner grocery store. You get the idea, it wasn't anything super exciting or elaborate, but it was what I kept myself and the kids busy with every day.

But out here at our new place, I've been busy for the past couple of months throwing myself a giant pity party. It's very quiet and peaceful out here, and there are gorgeous walks around the neighborhood and horses and dogs to visit and lots of wildlife to see, but I've let myself get stir crazy out of regret for what I don't have anymore. I miss the things that I used to do, but it's gotten to the point where that has interfered with my ability to be peaceful and present right here and now. So a few days ago I decided that I've had enough, and I cut myself off. I posted a status saying that I was taking a break, it was nothing personal to do with anybody, just something I needed to do, and I signed off. I deleted my shortcuts and deleted it from my frequent pages list. And it's been good for me.

Over the past few days I've been realizing that I often use negative words such as "boring" or "slow" or "same old" to describe my life and the things I do, but that's not true at all. However, when I spend my free time scrolling through my Facebook feed and seeing posts about people traveling to interesting places, dining out at places that don't have a children's menu, or - to be perfectly honest - even just being able to load up in the car and go run errands without needing to wait for their significant other to get home, I can't help but start to compare what I'm doing with what they're doing. And it's not right, and not fair to myself or to my family and friends, so while I do miss seeing the updates about what my loved ones are doing, and all the beautiful photos of babies and special moments and loved ones, I realize that I truly needed this time to get myself in check.

This is MY journey, this is not anybody else's journey, and I can't compare myself to anyone else because this story is only our own. A year ago it was still a struggle to keep enough food in the house and we were still visiting the food pantry from time to time for some extra help, so to spend so much time feeling sorry for myself for not having a second car was unreasonable. We're finally in a position where, for the first time, all of The Man's income covers all of our expenses. We still have to be more tight in the grocery budget than I particularly care for, but we can feed ourselves without help. We don't have the fastest speed of internet available but we don't have to choose between paying the internet and paying the phones anymore. A couple of people I have great love and respect for have told me that I'm pushing too hard for something that's not ready to happen, and it's true. So even though on some level I truly believed that I needed to check in on Facebook every day to see all of the latest updates, I've discovered that life has gone on just fine without me knowing what's going on.

It's not permanent, but I'm not sure when I'll go back on and start reading my news feed and sharing posts again. There's not really a particular goal I'm striving for or any concrete way to measure the results of my Facebook hiatus, but I figure that as long as I'm content and able to distract myself out of the desire to sit and scroll through the latest posts, I'll just stick with it for another day. That's really where I am with it at this point, one day at a time. I'm remembering that my life isn't "boring" or "slow" or "same old" at all, and there are very important reasons why we've made the choices we've made along the way. Why we've decided that me being here with our kids right now is more important than having vacations or expensive dinners or new cars. And my wonderful husband has been here, while I've been in my funk feeling sorry for myself, pointing out that the things our kids have learned in their lives, they've learned from me. The way they are proud and confident, kind to animals and to other people, trusting, intelligent (and lots of questioning authority, does that sound like anyone you know?) And he's been reminding me that even though they haven't gotten to their playgroups or the playground for a few months now, they're still here with me and getting all of the care and love and nurturing in all of the ways that are very important to our family.

So this is me, retreating into my little bubble, focusing on my beautiful children and our home and my close circle of friends and family outside of Facebook. And our part of the state has been scorching with an intense and early start to wildfire season, so it's been tempting to go on there as an easy source for local news, but then at the same time I realize that my anxiety peaks during intense and scary situations where I keep on reading stories from other people who are freaked out. The hysteria builds easily, and just because it's over a social networking site doesn't make it any less of a crowd mentality situation. I've been getting my information about the fires directly from the Cal Fire website and sometimes going directly to the CBS website for news summaries, and keeping in touch by phone with local friends. My anxiety, after spending the past couple of months slowly building up as I spun around in frustration, is finally melting away and I'm finding my peaceful place again, so being aware of Facebook being a possible trigger for that is a huge deal for me.

This time has been helping me regain some much needed balance and grounding in my life. So while I am sending love to all of my friends and family, I'm still not quite in a place where I'm ready to get back into it, and I'm finding each day that I have plenty to do to keep myself very busy. This time has been good for me and it's been good for my kids, and at the end of the day, in my own life on my own journey, those are the things that matter the most.

Plus, I'm taking the time to work on my writing. Real writing, several different projects, and I'm feeling very fulfilled by that. And I had a great time organizing my Pinterest boards! You can't go wrong with productive writing sessions and Pinterest.

The beauty of having a couple of kids.

Seriously. No sarcasm, no complaining, no lamenting. This post is just about how incredibly beautiful it is to have more than one child and to see the loving relationship they develop. While I don't think it's fair to put children into a position of NEEDING to take care of their siblings, as I watch my three little munchkins growing up together I realize that they will take care of each other because they love to do it, and it's the most precious thing to witness.

I'm talking about when my 7 year old spontaneously asks if he can wear his baby sister in the Ergo carrier, or when she's fussy while I'm running around during their bedtime routine so he takes her from me and gets her to smile and coo.

Or when my 4 year old pauses during his day, EVERY single time he passes by her, to say hi and give her some snuggles and playtime.

It's seeing the way her eyes light up when one of her brothers comes into her sight.

Or when I check on the boys before I go to bed at night, and find them tucked in next to each other (yes, they each have their own bed, believe it or not) sometimes even holding each other in a gentle hug. My 4 year old ALWAYS has his hand on his brother while they sleep, it's the cutest thing ever. Sometimes he's sleeping in the crook of his arm, sometimes they're actually sleeping apart from each other but BooBoo's hand is stretched across and resting on Bug's shoulder or hair.

Or when I hear the older one reading a book to the younger one.

Or when he brings home a reward from school and tells BooBoo he brought it home for him.

It's seeing Baby Girl roll over for the first time while BooBoo is sitting next to her cheering her on. "Come on! You're almost there! You're doing it!!"

It's the incredible feeling that rushes over you and would knock you onto your ass if you weren't already sitting in a bed, the first time your older child (or older children, if you have more than two) meets the new baby. Just thinking about it makes me erupt in goosebumps. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl, so it was an extra big surprise for our boys the morning Baby Girl was born. Seeing their faces as they tiptoed out of their room to see me with the new baby was like seeing them on Christmas morning.

Where there used to be this enormous and sometimes overwhelming pressure on just my husband and myself to be EVERY interaction for our one young child, we've created this magical, loving little tribe of people who love to be together. Of course the kids have their fights and their "moments" and sometimes their entire days of terror, the big picture is an incredible image of fierce love that is beautiful and humbling. They are young (almost 8, 4, and 5 months) so there is still an awful lot of demanding daily care involved, of course. But being the person to witness all of them growing and learning together, loving each other more and more each day and building these relationships that will exist longer than the relationships they have with their Daddy and me, it's simply amazing. I never really considered this aspect of it when we were first deciding to take the leap and become parents, but it turns out it's one of my favorite parts of this whole mothering gig.

Five incredible functions of the placenta

Warning, placenta pictures ahead!

Placenta is a word that evokes a variety of different responses from people. Some are fascinated, some are disgusted, many are indifferent. This organ is often called “the afterbirth” and thought of as something that is to be whisked away and discarded as soon as it’s passed. Many women never get a chance to see their own, but in the growing movement to reclaim natural birth in our culture, more and more women insist on viewing, touching, or even eating their placentas. The day after our second son was born, at home, my husband posted “I almost forgot that there is a placenta in our fridge” on his Facebook status, and the variety of responses was absolutely hilarious. Beyond being something to take care of after the excitement of baby’s birth, though, the placenta has many incredibly important (and incredibly fascinating!) functions, both during pregnancy and during birth.

1) The placenta is the go-between, the gateway between the growing baby and the mother’s bloodstream. Growing alongside the baby in the mother’s womb, it is linked with the mother’s blood and then connects to the baby via the umbilical cord, which enters the baby’s body through the abdomen. This organ is like the filter through which the mother’s blood flows, sending vital nutrients, antibodies, and oxygen through the umbilical vein to the baby, and then receiving de-oxygenated blood and fetal waste through the umbilical arteries.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about the placental system is that while the blood flows constantly between mother and baby by way of the umbilical cord, being processed through the placenta, the two bloodstreams don’t actually come into direct contact with one another. There are specific blood vessels that handle maternal blood, and specific blood vessels that handle fetal blood - there is no point when the two blood supplies simply flow into one another.

(the fetal side of a placenta)

2) The placenta releases a specific balance of hormones that prevent the mother’s body from terminating the pregnancy and rejecting the fetus. In a very simplified explanation, in the very beginning of pregnancy there are two major hormones at play - human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, and progesterone. (Of course there are a variety of other hormones involved in creating and maintaining a pregnancy, but these ones are the really crucial ones in the beginning.)

Since the placenta itself needs several weeks to form, these hormones originally come from other sources. HCG is first produced from the embryo itself, signaling to the mother’s body that the egg has been fertilized and pregnancy is ready to begin. Receptors in the corpus luteum (the remaining follicle after the egg has been released) then receive this signal from the embryo, and it continues its production of a hormone called progesterone. Without the hormonal signals from the HCG, progesterone levels would become lower and lower towards the end of the monthly cycle, triggering the start of menstruation. But when the egg is fertilized and progesterone levels remain high, the uterine lining continues to develop rather than being shed during menstruation. This ensures a safe, thick lining of endometrium in the uterus, for the fertilized egg to implant and pregnancy to begin.

This delicate balance of HCG from the growing embryo and progesterone from the corpus luteum continues for about 10 weeks past ovulation, until the placenta becomes mature enough to take over. Then the placenta continues the process of producing both of these important hormones, and continues to maintain just the right levels all the way through pregnancy.

3) Another important hormone that is produced by the placenta is estrogen. The levels of this hormone are very low during the early parts of pregnancy, but rise steadily during the second and third trimesters, particularly towards the very end of pregnancy.

There are two important reasons for these increasing levels of estrogen. This hormone turns on the receptors for oxytocin, which is an important step in preparing the uterus for labor. It is the flow of oxytocin that will cause contractions during labor, but it is the estrogen produced by the placenta that prepares the uterus in advance, getting it ready to receive the signals from the oxytocin. Estrogen also helps to prepare the breast tissue for milk production. It causes the ducts and other tissues to grow and develop, in preparation for making breast milk.

4) Have you ever noticed your pelvis and hips getting wider towards the end of pregnancy, perhaps causing your hips to slip or give out once in a while? You can thank relaxin for this sometimes annoying but incredibly important part of pregnancy. Relaxin is another hormone produced by the placenta, and it does just what its name says - it causes ligaments to relax. Part of the miracle of birth is that this relatively small part of a woman’s body is designed for fully developed, sometimes fairly large babies to pass through. Relaxin is a crucial part of that, loosening up the pelvic ligaments to allow the pelvis to open wide enough for the baby to pass through. It can be irritating to deal with the discomfort of your loosening pelvis as you’re trying to move your very pregnant body around for daily activities, but the experience of having this perfectly designed little person emerge from what seems like such a small place makes the discomfort worth it.

(the maternal side of a placenta)

5) Speaking of the end of pregnancy, the placenta has an important role in triggering the start of labor. Remember the hormone called progesterone, which helps to maintain a safe environment for the fetus to grow and develop? One of the important effects of progesterone is to prevent contractions of the uterus. This is obviously a very important step in a healthy pregnancy, and is actually called “the progesterone block” by scientists. The steadily rising levels of estrogen, also released by the placenta, reach a point where they override this function, though. Once the estrogen increases to a certain high enough level, it negates the anti-contraction quality of the progesterone. This causes contractions, the beginning of labor.

The placenta is a fascinating organ, the only organ in the human body that develops for a specific, important purpose and is then expelled because it is no longer needed. Its role in a healthy pregnancy goes so far beyond simply providing nourishment for the baby. The placenta, or more specifically the hormones that are released by the placenta, serve many very important functions, from establishing the environment within the uterus during early pregnancy, to helping trigger the start of labor, and even preparing the breasts to nourish the baby after birth. Perhaps if more people were aware of the incredible ways that this organ helps to establish, maintain, and eventually end pregnancy, we would be less apt to think of it as simply “afterbirth”, a waste product meant to be gotten rid of. Without the placenta there wouldn’t be a pregnancy to speak of, so let’s give this incredible organ the credit it’s due.

What do you think of when you hear the word “placenta”? Did you get a chance to look at or touch your own placenta, or do you intend to?

image credit: moppet65535 via Flickr; moppet65535 via Flickr.

*** Note - this was originally published on a now defunct website in the "birth business." I'm the original author of the post and was proud of my work so I decided to repost it here. :)

Connecting with our kids.

After a long and harrowing week I was browsing around on Pinterest looking for inspiring blogs and fantastic quotes about parenting mindfully and peacefully. This fantastic series is one that I came across, and I will link to it here.

The series is called 10 simple ways to connect with your child. It was originally posted as a weekly series but all of the posts are up so you can see the whole set now. It still seems like it might be worth it to do the exercise one week at a time, though, to really focus on each one. Each of these concepts is so simple but makes such a big difference to kids - or, really, to anybody we know and love. <3

(From the Human Rights for Human Children Facebook page, which shares a lot of fantastic quotes and information, by the way)