Oh what is that you say? I can't control everything? My bad!

Today I stumbled upon a blog post that gave insight into midwifery, homebirths, and the choices behind them.  I fell in love with it.  Not because it was a story of a beautiful home birth filled with birthing tubs and aromatherapy, but because it was about the times that the homebirth you may have planned did not quite work out the organic way one may have hoped.  I planned to have both my babies at home.  Growing up, I spent a lot of time in hospitals.  My mother had 13 surgeries by the time I was 12 years old.  A hospital to me was somewhere sick people went.  Sometimes to get better, many times not.   When the time came to make decisions concerning the births of my babies, having them at a hospital just did not seem to fit.  It was not a medical procedure to me.  It was not a place I envisioned beauty, and empowerment, comfort, and relaxation.  So twice, I decided to have my babies at home, and twice I ended up having them in the hospital.  I was blessed enough to labor at home, especially with my baby girl; I arrived at the hospital about an hour and a half before she arrived.  Although I did not plan on ending up in a hospital, due to unplanned circumstances that is where I ended up.  I have to admit at first I felt a little defeated.  Like I failed at something so important to me.  Like perhaps if I would have just tried a little harder, a little longer, I could have had the birth I envisioned. 

The truth is however, although my births did not go as planned, they went the way they were supposed to.   The goal was ultimately met.  I have been blessed with two, healthy, thriving, amazing little beings that have turned my world upside down in the best of ways.  Whether born at home or in a hospital bed, they are here, the way they should be.  And I am their mama, the way I should be.  My births did not go as planned, but really, I would not have changed a thing.  I had a birth team I trusted.  They assisted me in making the right decisions at the right time; choices that lead to healthy happy children.  A healthy happy me.   

I am sure a good writer does not need to state the obvious.  However, since I am not that good of a writer I will state it for you; we (and when I say we I most definitely, and foremost mean me), continuously try to control everything in our lives.  And when life strays from those controlled, carefully thought out plans, we feel like failures.  However, rarely does our loss of control alter circumstances so significantly that the goodness that comes out of these situations disappear.  The truth is, my plans fail.  A lot.  So, how grateful am I that MY plans have nothing to do with what is supposed to happen anyways?!?! 

I encourage you to read the blog I mentioned found here:  When Midwifery Works 

Coffee Bigger Than My Head...And I Like It.

I am tired.  Of course I am.  I have a 5 moth old, a 2 year old, a husband in graduate school and I am tired.  It is not a complaint; it is just my new way of being.  The other day I mentioned how unbelievably tired I was, and yet so happy.  My husband asked how the two could co-exist.  Honestly, I do not know.  It just does.  One minute I am realizing I have drank more coffee than water that day, and I still cannot seem to keep my eyes open, and the next I am dancing my heart out with my two year old rock star to the Glee soundtrack.  Feeling so much love, so much blessing, I can hardly contain it.  I guess this is the way my family is with each other.  One minute Franklin says “You are mean.  I don’t like you” and twenty minutes later he is cupping my face in his tiny hands saying “You are my bestest friend in the whole world.”  The later surely cancels out the first.  It has to.  And doesn’t life, even outside of our relationships with our offspring, work like this?  Doesn’t it have to in order to carry on? This does not mean the harsh realities do not hurt us, affect us, stick with us, because they do, they must.  But, the good stuff; the stuff that makes us laugh out loud, cry of happiness, and give selflessly, matters more.  It has to.  It should.