summer fun and fotos

So here is the long awaited photo show of jun-august. i really dont know how so many moms have so much time to post and write online. vivi doesnt let me stop moving for very long, and wont take a nap by herself for more than 10-20 min before waking up and crying. so here goes::
josh! my youngest brother is so big!!, building ducks; seeing Amys cool chicks in seattle, one of my close friends, whom i learned so many things about parenting in a new much better way.

Jason, and Bethany...both have grown so tall since we were with them last august. i love and miss my siblings so much!

heather and jins rehearsal dinner, cara, bethany, jerry(my father) right to left
the wedding day! dressed up and meeting old friends and family....

Bethany finishing the decorations on the cake, Dr. Jen and daughter Sophia, the princess at the ball, and Jin, Heathers man

Josh before...trying so hard to not get dirty and still have fun, on the rope swing

Abigail so beautiful and friends Ray and Doretta

the lovers, and the linnenkohl family kids -we are all saying something different-

Heather and her mother in law , Jerry and Heather walking down the aisle(or sorts)

Jin waiting and the groom party, my grown (ing) up sibblings Abby and Jason

checking out all the new things at the reception dinner; potty time as we took a walk away from the drama around the wedding....

Cutting the cake together and dancing their first? im sure its not the first...

dancing afterwards, Cara and cousin Kyla, (looking so gorgeous); ralf!

mushrooms at seattle green fest; ballard locks samon

waiting for mom to pack boxes at FCC, heather and jins post wedding family dinner at canlis

beautiful jennifer...another friend i met through fremont community school who introduced me to our babies our selves, an incredible anthropological review of relationship to babies around the world, read much before i thought about having a baby myself...we dont have any pics with tara!!!; waiting for the ferry

ferry ride wind; balancing the teeter totter together at clays

hiking orcas island together

lovers!! wonderful friends i miss so much; beekeeper back in germany wo protection..lovin the bees.

dancing with papa back in germany, ralf wearing wool pants...where they belong??

opa rolfs tractor was really squeaky so before he put oil on the seat i was having some fun...annoying him and bfing-the real farmin frau

taking a walk at sunset

first foods, some egg yolk...this was 2 weeks? after we got home? but she doesnt have much interest in eating these days, i give her little tastes of chewed up something we are eating but not much. she mostly likes to hold it in her hand and squish it and throw it on the floor. the sound effect is so great!! for viv!

llamas at another community near by; taking a walk ACTION!

moving into our new apartment, so exciting!!

herb gardens in the area; so many kisses!

sitting together

wood toys made in or sanded in ralfs wood workshop, Herr D. writing a letter in old letters to the retiring wood workshop leader.

happy birthday mama! with felted wool flower from the wool work group

sitting up on her own, drumming with ralf (sort of) she likes to bite, chew, suck, lick...


touching and eating toes, sitting up she can bend over so far to chomp her feet, its incredible how flexible she is!

grabbing everything, or at least trying to touch it...on the table every meal, i am finding its better to let her play with some food, otherwise it feels so difficult for her to be interested in anything else.
just a few days ago picking black currants...viv tried eating alot of leaves and berries yipee for fall harvesting! now we want to get a solar or regular dehydrator so we dont need to rely solely on freezing stuff.

so thats that hope you enjoyed!
things are going really well for us here, new everything. the first few weeks were really difficult especially for ralf as he had alot of new things to lean, especially working with a new group of disabled people, figuring out what each needs is always ongoing, and yet he likes it, other than that he isnt working outside and we arent together nearly as much as what we want for our dream together, but for now its working.
i will finally get my german drivers license (that lasts for life) tomorrow which gives me the ability to drive and meet other parents and kids and farms in the region. i have been rather disappointed with the wwoofing farms around here as none of them want a mom with a young baby, for fear that vivi gets a disease or that i cant really work because i have to pay attention to her. but balancing that is what i thought being a parent is about??!! i find it really unfortunate that western culture isolates mothers in separate homes and away from doing activities they find joy in, aka not becoming bored themselves. i want to talk and be around other people too...while doing work that vivi can participate in, watching and learning by being. more on this if your interested can be found in the book the continuum concept, mentioned in another post i wrote a while back. more support for parents to be out there interested, and all those not parents too, PLEASE support the breastfeedn moms. heres a link i really like. i love this womans blog!!!
so i have been putting my energy into what a farm organism can look like here, especially in the place we will move into in half a year, that has a barn for animals already attached and a big garden. for my birthday i bought a book about permaculture called gaias garden and loooved it! something specifically i found so useful to understand is that the plants around you (and your house) should have more than one function, be edible, be useful to wildlife, provide nitrogen for the soil(which so many shrubs can do, some trees too) provide fiber, stakes, wood, dye ect. not JUST look pretty together. also, the fact that in nature having a grass lawn would never be normal, that a forest has layers from the ground to the high canopy, and the best thing we can do is replicate, or produce something very like it. reading it was very easy, and very informative to a different way of farming than having so much bear ground, or grass. planting things that give back to the soil and pull nutrients up rather than just taking them and using so much water to irrigate it would be so much cheaper and more efficient. i highly encourage reading this book! biodynamics can fit into permaculture and i find everything i have read so fascinating and the potential for ecological gardening is great, necessary for our culture to take up. other books include the encyclopedia of country living and back to basics. we also bought some old race animal books and home butchering in german for ralfs birthday presents. fun reading when i decide i lay down instead of moving around with sleeping vivienne. sleeping together is so easy, so beautiful and i cherish it so much to watch her sleeping, her curled up in the space between my breast and arm, me warm and calm, in love with our baby. our place of sleeping (usually a bed) is such a peaceful and welcoming space, where ever we are. vivi is making lots of funny sounds thhhhhhh and bbbbbbbb and weeeeeeee.... yesterday ralf pretended to be a puppy and went roof- vivi laughed and giggled and gurgled they did this for maybe a half an hour. she grabs and loves tweaking my nipple then smashing her face into it, drinking for a minute or two, pulling off and doing it again and again. we have endless time of enjoying the fun funn she makes, discovering small and large. i am making it a point that as we walk in the woods that she touches trees and flowers, yes sometimes they go in her mouth, and no i dont stop her. she is learning, why would i not want that. i want her to know nature like we do, to embrace and and love it too.
on elimination communication, she is holding her muscles so well...if we dont realize it the first signals she gives, she is able to hold it alittle longer, until we are able to get to the sink or the toilet or the potty. she signals so well, and so much better if she has a diaper under her, without one she still lets go a good bit, but we can see already that having time without diapers gives her so much more time to explore her own body and scoot backwards if she is on the ground.

After a month of work, we have about 2 weeks of vacation, as pretty much the entire village here is on vacation for august. tomorrow we take off for france, visiting some of ralfs friends in the black forest, visiting the Goetheanum in swiz., and traveling about an our W of Lyon to the Folks Dance Fest of Europe, which i mentioned a while back that we might go to. we are!!! i am so excited to dance for a whole week!! and learn many old types of dance kept alive by group get togethers like this! all the apples are rippening well, and my thoughts are turning towards where and what type of animals we will be buying soon, some chicks and a or a few goats, maybe a pig, maybe a cow, some geese and ducks...bees... as much as possible working with old and rare races oh boy!
got to get packing!!

firefly's and muggy days abounding...

its been more than a month. thanks for the request for an update Heath!
i really have been meaning to write, but so much has come up..i dont find the time to get started even. last things first.
we got the job! Friday and Saturday the 3/4 we moved all of our things from Rheinland-

Pfalz down to the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Rae and everyone else here is our new address:
Jessica Linnenkohl, Ralf Sandrock and Vivienne Faye
C/O: Lindenhaus
Brettachhöhe 109
74582 Gerabronn
and phone:
079529267281
ralf is working for a community for handicapped adults, in the wood workshop. we are living in an apartment in one of the houses where the handicapped people live-maybe a five minute walk to the work place. then next spring? if we decide to stay longer, we will be moving to a house about 15 min walk from the work place where we can have animals in the barn underneath the house.
i hope to take a language course-600-900 hours, find other parents with small kids, connect with other organic and biodynamic farms in the area to build relationships and maybe find part time work where vivi and i can go for a few hours and help doing fun animal related activities...with action!! we went to a milk sheep farm a few days ago and met another baby one day younger than vivi. this may be somewhere we can do some work outside the house together with animals. i found the website to WSU extension small farming and have loved seeing how much info is out there to get started. this is still by far the most incredible farm i have visited and would strive to would towards something similar in farming Beech Grove Farm.
a week ago vivi was sick for 4 days, and not such a happy camper. we spent alot of time in bed together and her cough took a while longer to leave. my thoughts are because of the traveling and not eating as healthily and everything we went through-airflights, ect. her body was pretty stressed. the first night she couldnt sleep at all unless i was holding her, so we got very little sleep that night. she had a constant fever and lots of coughing, diarrhea and plugged nose making nursing really frustrating for her because of the unique nature to breastfeeding. we are so proud of her. we are still working at listening to her elimination timing, but sickness slowed it down alot for a while. we both got pooped on at least once. oh! and she decided she wanted to start eating other things!! for the past two weeks, she has been eating an egg yolk at which ever meal she chooses- when she starts throwing herself at the food we are sitting down to eat, we boil an egg for her. its awesome to see her lunge at the tiny spoon with an open mouth and swallow! she likes to hold it too. we are open to what she wants and it seems like she is doing well on it. no negative physical reactions. see this if you are interested in how we will start feeding her.
Moving in to our own space has come with its pos and neg sides. its really nice to be in our own space but vivi is having a difficult time adjusting to it, especially to all the new places we are going. she wont sleep went she is tired because curiosity is so much more interesting and she wants to know what is going on! it makes for a very tired mama and baby team. sometimes she wont pee when i know she needs to and im not sure why, maybe because she is feeling everything is unfamiliar. then she pees all over a few min later when she decides to let go.
i am having difficulty transitioning, and especially to feeling alone with a baby all day. trying to find connections quickly...but i am finding i dont really fit in with the other anthroposophical moms it feels dogmatic. i think i would get along better with punk mamas who are more open and alternative. i went to a play group and felt really out of the group philosophy. we like to pick and choose what type of 'parenting' philosophies we want, not all or nothing. and i superly dont like that the mothers are all sitting around watching their children and doing knitting projects. maybe in the winter but now?? its so hot and they have such a big lawn space. i cant even describe the joy both of us had in seeing how fremont community school has come alive since i stopped working there, and how Tara the head teacher has brought in the importance of teaching kids young how they can help save the earth. with the chickens and composting piles, the pot belly pig and huge garden. its so awesome. and its about kids seeing actively working adults that they can help if they want, along with all the imaginative play they engage in... anyway i am hoping to connect with other families soon.
lets see working back a few more weeks, we were in seattle for two weeks, and overall had a pretty good time. it was really awesome to see my sibblings and share vivi with them. i am sad i dont get to know them and be with them more. we were glad to be able to be at heathers wedding and celebrate with her and jin. we saw alot of my friends and that was really great too. everybody we met is leading their life unique and beautiful, it was wonderful to be in the presence of so many rad people! i miss being around positive alternative young people. it makes me so grateful for the people i know back in seattle. it is such a awesome place. it was also fun starting to look at what farming could like in the pacific northwest for us were we to move back. we found more opportunities in a few hours than we found all winter here in germany. and really cool ones, mostly up north and one up on lopez island. the only reason we are here in germany longer is that we dont have money to fly back now. so we have to earn money before we can come back to the states or travel anymore anywhere.
the major bummer of our trip was the drama created by and surrounding my mom. its crazy how she has decided to push all four of her older children further and further away. we are both curious how the next three will be. ralf told me that if he had to live with this he would have run away as soon as he could, probably around 16, he wonders why i didnt... after she yelled and started controlling what ralf and i could do in her house, as her guests we decided we would no longer play along with this game she has going with everyone. it was really out of control. at one point i was told that my exposed breast was offensive and inappropriate for her young innocent children to see. no, vivi was not drinking. she was playing with my nipple. but to see the look on my 7yr old brothers face, that his oldest sister is doing something bad. i couldnt believe it. and she breastfed all of us! WTF!
let me just say that i still feel upset, becoming aware that the relationship that i thought we had come to was completely bullshit really hurts. i want a mom. really. i love talking with her. but when trust is totally shattered? when you are treated as if you are a child? living with ralfs parents has been such a different experience, and really positive to see just how fucking crazy my family is. her coming to germany and us welcoming her were thrown back in our faces the second day we were in seattle. she told me i had no right to invite my friend without her permission over to her house(the friend happened to be my sister, who at one point when we hated each other, pre puberty, taped us together for a whole day, but who i shared the same room with for 5 years!!) . then to act a few days later like nothing had happened and everything was all fine and dandy. no that type of behavior requires an apology. and not forced. but both of us experiencing that type of shit (it wasnt chocolate cake) was more of like a shock and awe bombing of what type of family mine is. the same mother that at one point was being told she wasnt respecting the leader in the house because of what she was doing, turns around and uses the same exact wording that we arent respecting her. truly unbelievable for me.
and then at a really large wedding after so much change and new people and places, i felt so much heat for not letting all of everyone in my extended family hold my baby. the faces and angry eyes, even angry comments was really too bad. but it helps me really realize who sees and accepts me where i am- an adult, a parent, an individual with my own ideas and boundaries.

similar experiences or not in the least, just talking would be real nice. and if you can skype to my land line thats even better!
no pics tonight maybe in a few days. we havent taken the time recently.
soon...

green and greener

as soon as i write a post, its turned on my head and nothing goes the way i said it does! haha. this is life!

we are hoping that we will be able to be back in seattle for Heathers wedding. really really. next week we have a job interview -a trial week- and after we hear back, if its a yes, which we feel it might be, we will buy tickets for the three of us, using the last savings we have. but only if we have the job, as we arent interested in going into debt. tentative dates are May 31-June 14th.

yipee! maybe! we want to find, if possible, a house to sit, if there are friends or friends of friends taking off for any period of that time. and maybe if there is a car we can borrow too? this is full of hopes, trying to save as much as we can in traveling...
the last few weeks are riding lightly upon my being, the safflower fields are patchwork yellow across the german landscape. they smell so good, like honey dripping from the windows of our twingo. dandelion fields popping up in many pastures begin to turn to beautiful wind seed flowers.
My uncle asked some questions about our potty experiences with Vivienne and i thought it would be good to share with all of you:
i am doing ok, i keep having breast infections, feeling really
achy and not feeling so great over all,(the 4ths last week) i think partly due to our
living situation weighing heavily on me too.
we started from the first day with watching vivienne and the signals she gave before
eliminating, and have taken it from there, pretty easy most of the
time, as long as we are paying attention!! we have two potty bowls,
one for the bed, and one for downstairs/car when we are traveling. she
grunts and farts before pooping just like any of us! usually she poops 3-4 big globs in the morning, sometimes later in the day, some days not at all, we learned that its normal for some breastfed babies to not poop at all for up to 8 days!! she is at the
place now where she can hold pee until she wakes up from a nap, if we
get her to the potty right after she wakes up. its totally wonderful,
she cries to let us know when she has to go or starts squirming rapidly, and even when i am
putting a diaper on, she knows it and will cry if she needs to pee
more before i put it on. i am finding when i start to nurse i need to
have the potty under her between my legs or i get peed on. it feels so
much better for the excrement not to be sitting on her skin!

Last week i finished the second really life changing book i have read in 3 weeks. The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff and Sugar Blues by William Dufty. also here. CC has changed the way i view parenting drastically. sure before i was sure i would be accepting of whatever my kids want to do, and not force them into a specific mold or way of having to be, raising them with Feminist principles and a love for the earth and what nature is left in it. But this goes so much further. Giving an anthropological background of how humans live together in the Amazon jungle, the way they interact with each other makes me so sad as to how we live "civilized" now...
SB gives an incredibly intense and shocking h(ER)istory of the destruction sugar has caused. a new thought as to why so many herbal wise women in europe were killed for being witches...they were really telling people to stay off this poison the government and christian church was pushing. sick. and the role its played in the usa...ha so much for free and good. anyway, i have stopped eating sugar altogether. i was eating molasses, and have given that up too. it scares me so much how much damage this refined sweet has/is doing...and how little people know about it, why they dont feel well. the one thing i dont agree with is that it says sugar and meat are corrlative, and that you need to give meat up too. which i am not so sure about yet.
anyway next week i'll let ya'll know how things are turning out!
no pics now as i dont have time...but vivienne is smiling so much!

read them, and lets talk about what was interesting!!

spring arrives

here are some of the happenings in Sandrock-Linnenkohl life:














i think rhythm meets rhyme.
wake up around 6am, drink, pee, sleep, get up and eat around 8am, make tired cry, drink, sleep in didymos while mom or dad are doing whatever until lunch time at noon. pee, coo and ah at the beautiful world around for an hour, pee a few more times, drink alot, and sleep in didymos for the afternoon, wake up around 5-6pm for dinner, wake and alert, playing with nipple or slobbering fingers, looking and listening actively, peeing more, and around 7:30pm ready for bed. up in our room doing suck one breast dry, then the other, back and forth until she wants no more, lay down, then sleep till midnight or so, pee, and drink more, sleep until 3-4am pee and drink more, the 6am pee and drink more. she is asleep now next to papa two hands forming clenched balls next to her head.
we are starting to get it. and it works so well. she crys to let us know something and other than this is so content and happy. Ralf said today she has such a sense of peace, even with all the sounds around her as she sleeps because she knows she is safe and all is good, being held by her parents all the time, and sometimes the omas (grandmas in german).we finally figured out that the reason she was crying every night around 8pm was that she was tired and ready for bed. so we moved our loose schedule up to an earlier one, where we finish eating before 7:30pm so we get to bed as she is ready for it. it works perfectly!
we are so amazed at her capacity to tell us when she needs to pee and poop. sometimes we arent aware of it and get peed on, but it really doesnt matter considering its water and has no smell. I remember when the family i worked for in seattle told me about it, that i scoffed and thought how rediculous that was-thats not possible!- but it totally is. they gave us a book about it-infant potty training-which goes through tons of testimonials and experiences from around the world, perfect for my love of other cultures and wanting to find ways that meet a deep desire i have to live more natural than normal.

shout out to Mac for asking to see pics, a good kick in pants helps remind me others actually look for this.
and Kyla for the awesome knitted hat! Vivienne doesnt like stuff over her eyes but she likes this one on!

we are still looking for work. we went to the baltic sea for at 5 weeks, which turned out rather disastrous, i got a high fever and vivienne did not feel well, mostly due to the fact i didnt feel well there and wasnt really as recovered as i thought i was. and pulling my breasts out to feed when it was windy wasnt a good idea either.
at 6 weeks my mom came for 10 days, a good chance for her to see our life here and do the oma thing. we took her to see a castle in the area, to visit the raw milk farms we go to, to climb the cathedral in Cologne, to visit ceramic workshops, which are highly valued all over the world from here, and to see other various villages where we had to do things like doctor check up for vivienne-mandated by law or else the social welfare comes to check on you and see if the baby and its location is healthy enough by the person checking's standards. we found a doctor that supports not immunizing your kids, and he seems pretty chill.

Last week we went to the last hope we had in possibly finding a job here in germany, (aside from living off the government and working a few hours a week doing whatever) in a work community about 3 hours SE of us, where Ralf would work with handicapped people making wood handcrafts part time and outside doing landscaping stuff the other time. i would be able to jump in where ever and possibly learn more about felting and weaving, sewing, bee keeing and candle making and maybe be a sheep herdess on the open pastures here. if we get the job, we wouldnt be able to live on the place until next feb,-so rent an apt. elsewhere- but all three of us had a really good feeling about the place as we visited and met people there. i love working with handicapped people, and feel so comfortable with them. it was refreshing to be met and questioned-even in german-and see so many interesting things going on. So if we get this job that would be awesome, we will have a trial work time next week i think. exciting!!
and maybe we will be going to the Pyrenees in France, where i fell in love with biodynamic farming, the french language and milking sheep by hand. it all depends on the work situation now. i also found the sight for the largest folk dance festival of sorts in europe, an older woman i met when i was traveling told me about it, and i have missed the folk dances of the us so so much, during pregnancy i wanted to dance so often, but that just doesnt exist, its not something people do, let alone think is cool. and maybe we can do this for a week or two.
a few days ago i started feeling cold all over and really sensitive to any touch anywhere, almost the same like before, so i slept most of the next day and drank lots of echinachea and feel better now, but felt loss of energy and depressed. today i didnt feel so much this way but when i felt it it hit really hard, wasnt fun at all and made such strong feelings of heh? what the hell is this?i am eating well, i have a beautiful healthy baby, i wasnt this way during pregnancy why now? i think it could also be the fact that i have no friends. not one.or really we have no friends, as all but one of his friends answer the phone when he tries to connect. they dont even call back. i feel totally alone, and without support or contact. and sure i felt for a while during the pregnancy ok it takes time but now it feels just to long. its difficult. maybe i have really been in and out of depression since i started working at the farm in PA. having mostly bad interactions with others is replaced by relatively few interactions at all. but i am still putting my pinkie in for hope and ready for change. but i am struggling. i love my man, i love my girl, i love the parents, but i want other mothers to talk and relate to too. in person.
i love that its spring. let me just say how fun it is pointing out all the DANDELIONS AND NETTLES, each and every corner. we get out and take an hour or so walk almost every afternoon and seeing buds and blooms on trees, grass, animals-i saw two foxes in the forest a few days ago, bugs and bees, its great. i love spring. and all the new smells. we walked in a botanical park in Koeln a few weeks back, smelling all the flowers and new scents. see the pollen on our noses?
i send lots of love to all and wish you well
spell checker is in german now and i cant figure out how to get it back to english. oh well...

two weeks?!!

hey everybody!

planting a walnut tree with her placenta, at her birth home, angelas home behind

bath time!

tonight marks vivienne's presence in this world, a special two weeks old.
alot has happened since the birth...
lots of feeding, my milk came in full force the tuesday night after the birth and i had breasts as hot as ovens, as heard as rocks for a few days...now they start dripping and tingle like kombucha when i so much as look at her, and every two hours or so. She has gained 300 grams(~2/3lb?) since birth.
alot of poop and pee, we have read alot about elimination communication, or infant potty training/natural infant hygiene, and have started by just not wearing diapers for most of the first weeks. this has ended up with alot of funny situations... warm peerunning down my belly, and some great projectile squirts of buttery poo everywhere. one day it just kept coming, and reminded me of when the cows were finished milking at camphill, most would release large amounts of manure spraying everywhere, almost jet like...thankfully it smells much less. but we have been able to learn some of her hey i need to go-please help communication. sure its not verbal but its just like anything else she needs. we have a purple potty which has been great during feedings and caught alot of pees upon waking the last few days. her system is starting to find a rhythm now and it seems to be getting easier the more aware and open we are to helping her.
alot of sleeping...during the day, and much more awake time during the night than has been pleasant for us both.She cuddles so well. and dreams so so much. i figure thats why i dreamt so much more during her pregnancy. the range of emotions as she sleeps is so adorable to watch. and the sounds too. much better than any tv program! so pure and full of personality.
She loves music, all types, all times of the day and dancing with dad all the time too. they are a super cute couple! the rocking chair here has also been such a relaxing place to be together, she loves movement-being in the sling and cooking, cleaning everything, as long as shes not hungry or wet.

angela has this postcard and i laugh every time i read it:

for all the english only speakers it reads:
excuse me Ms., your breast is hanging out...
oh my god! i left my baby on the bus!

postpartum depression hit hard a few days after the birth, crying about anything and everything, feeling completely not able to handle any of these changes and totally out of it. ralf has been such a help, comfort and support to me. taking care of making meals for us, doing all the laundry, getting food, changing diapers and making sure i have some space to myself each day has helped alot in the whole recovery process. i liked that angela also talked to us about the birth of myself into becoming a mother, the need for tears to cleanse the past, the present and the future space. to heal wounds of generations of birthing out of fear, the cleansing of within being so important to release during this time. the ability to embrace it here and now, and have a partner who will be with me in this space until i am ready to stop crying, to hold and love me, is such a blessing. i feel much better today, and have the last few days too, with much more strength to walk around and feel myself almost back to normal.
i have found it super frustrating that i cant get access to purchase the same organic herbs i can easily in seattle...because german law restricts and forbids it. there really isnt the same openness to herbs, so much fear around them here, so i have had difficulty obtaining things i feel comfortable using to feel better. melissa(catnip), raspberry leaf, blessed thistle, and nettle infusions have all been yummy and full of minerals, as well as kombucha.

today we took our second car ride, first in the baby seat, to get raw milk. she slept almost the whole time, except for a half awake feeding because my breasts were leaking so bad...
tschuess!

birth of Vivienne

so peaceful!

Saturday morning we got alot of snow, after almost a whole two weeks where we thought it would become spring... warm and lots of stormy winds and spiders/mosquitoes coming into the house.
Here is how the birth went:
Last friday, Martin our friend we met at camphill came over and we thought oh we have another week or so...but then that afternoon i started finding large pieces of mucus, which i thought oh maybe that is the plug. i started feeling like i should have a period with cramping in my lower abdomen that came and went the rest of the afternoon and evening. i had a really hard time sleeping and went into the sauna to feel some warmth. alot of lower back pain kept me awake, and awakening early saturday morning, with little movement helping feel better. the best thing was ralf rubbing my back.
over breakfast i continued having spirts of cramping which i started figuring out must be the so called contractions-or gifts of opening- as i wanted to relate to them. spiraling my hips and breathing through it worked the best. after bf i decided i needed to walk, so we went out and the beautiful sun greeted us, as well as little easter bell flowers, the firsts poping up, and the first cranes coming back from their winter african homes, the smell of pine whirrled through the air as i bent to pee and then hold on to ralfs waist as i spiraled every 3-5 min.
we came back to the house and things slowed down gifts coming every 10-15 min. and we tried to take a nap but i couldnt. around 4pm i decided it was bath time. i had talked alot about having a water birth and tried keeping out of the water for as long as possible...but felt this was the time to slide on in. the gifts started picking up again after an hour or so in the water and it felt so relaxing to be in there. feeling hungry ralf got avacado for me and it tasted delicious. having felt my cervix, i estimated around 3-4 cm and could start to feel a wrinkly head, ralf feeling it too before i felt another gift and moved into spirals buoyed on my belly in the water.
this first stage lasted until sometime around 7pm where i found myself suddenly wanting to push with all of my being. i found this to be so much more enjoyable than the first part, the first feeling more uncomfortable, the second feeling so powerful and strong. As i felt inside myself again, the awe of being fully dilated and bearing down -on my knees (because there wasnt enough room to squat in the tub)-feeling the head of hair and having ralf do the same before another rush made me want more space. ralf was on the outside of the bathtub, facing me inside and it felt wonderful to relax into his arms and be rubbed during rest periods. i had made two really strong infusions of raspberry leaf tea the day before and drank this cold, as well as ginger infusion with ghee to help make my birth canal as slipery as possible. then with another rush and release through pushing, the babys head came out and we could feel so much hair and a little ear. this was so incredible for both of us. shallow breaths and not pushing until i felt really ready to...the body slid out and ralf unwraped the cord from around the neck as we brought the baby up to us. we kissed and welcomed it, not really even thinking to check if it is a boy/girl. we embraced the first cry, more a hey than fear as she looked around at us with big eyes. a few minutes later ralf said, so what do you think it is? he thought a boy and i said i dont care, its here. we then brought her up and were overjoyed with the whole celebration of life in our beings, and this new wise little one in my arms. the placenta came at 8:45pm and after this i felt for any tearing, which there was none. we practiced lotus birth and did not cut the cord, but let it dry up on its own, letting it fall off when it was ready, something i found much peace with at not causing a first separation from her partner, letting things part on their own, and also much less chance of infection. she parted with her placenta on wednesday the 3rd at 1am, just over 3 days after she was born. After the placenta was birthed, we invited Angela, our midwife, to join us and check the placenta, weigh Vivienne and take her height. then we walked down to the basement where we are living and settled in for the night.

a day or so before birth

snowperson!

belly mask time! done sunday before birth