What's better on a chilly fall day then homemade chocolate chip cookies? Nothing- that's what.
For a few years I was on the hunt for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. You know the ones, flat, chewy, addictive, perfect. Nothing "cake-y", nothing crispy. Then after a good 2 years of trying endless recipes I FOUND IT. Or rather, I almost found it. It just needed to be a bit softer, have a slightly different sweetness, and have wonderful chocolate chunks instead of cheap-o chocolate chips. So I tweaked and Found perfection.
THEN.... allergies came into my life in the form of an adorable little Bravo. Who wanted chocolate chip cookies. So I tweaked again and came up with the perfect allergy cookie. It still uses wheat, but it's soy, egg, and dairy free. warning: both the normal cookies and the allergy cookies taste better when cold. I think they're the only chocolate chip cookies that aren't all that tasty when warm. But they're really only warm for like 12 seconds, so I'd rather they taste best when cold. Actually- they taste best the next day. And the allergy ones smell gross when cooking. Something about eggs makes cookies smell better. Who knew??? The allergy cookies are still really good but not quite as good as the regular ones.
So without further delay
The perfect chocolate chip (chunk) cookie
Non-allergy bits will be in parentheses.
1 1/2 cups lard or spectrum shortening or Crisco (don't use the butter flavoured one- it ruins the cookies.)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons egg replacer powder + 6 tablespoons rice milk (OR 3 eggs, beaten)
1 tablespoon vanilla or a bit more- I just dump and don't measure.
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 package of enjoy life chocolate chips or 3 cups of whatever choc chips *** for the non-allergy best ever choc chip cookies this is the most important part. Get three of the big dairy milk chocolate bars and chop up fairly finely instead of chocolate chips. Don't skimp on other bars or on plain baking chocolate. Trust me. They're so good!- YUM!****
Pre-heat oven to 350 and prepare cookie sheets (I love parchment paper- but do what you do)
Cream sugars and fat
add egg choice and vanilla and beat mixture
mix dry ingredients (but not the chocolate) and add to wet ingredients. Mix well. Add chocolate and stir. I usually end up using my hands.
Drop onto cookie sheet by teaspoon- they grow.
Bake 10-12 minutes *** this is super important. They will still look uncooked. If they look brown and like cooked cookies then when they cool they will be harder and will still taste good but like normal choc chip cookies and not the best ever ones. This is the most important part of the whole recipe- DON'T OVER BAKE****
cool on trays for a few minutes until they can be lifted by metal spatula onto wire racks. Let cool completely then store in air tight container. These stay great on the counter for a few days and freeze really well.
Makes about 3 1/2 dozen. Which in my house lasts all of 14 seconds.
Friday 30 September 2011
Thursday 29 September 2011
Thankful- for other moms who know they don't get it.
There are some moms who make me want to scream. Or run the other direction. Or throat punch them. Or seclude myself in my house and never ever leave just so I don't run into them or anyone like them ever again.
But then there are the other moms. The good other moms. Sometimes I click with them, sometimes I don't. But there are some moms who I am thankful for. With Bravo's allergies going into any public space is terrifying. And some moms make it worse.
Yesterday a mom at play group brought me to tears. Good tears. The "there is good in this world and I can't believe how kind you are" tears.
I always pack a separate snack for Bravo even though snack is provided. Yesterday the mom in charge of snack (I had only met her once before and we don't really get along) came up to me and clarified Bravos allergies and then pulled out of her pocket the label from the bread she used and she had brought a box of crackers she had seen me feed him from before just in case. She also packaged everything separately (fruit away from cheese and vegetables) and told me she used a clean knife and a sterilized cutting board for the fruit and it did not come in contact with any other product in her house.
I was floored. Her children do not have allergies, she knows no kids with severe food allergies, but she made sure Bravo was included and safe. She know she has no idea the fear of your child accidentally getting a trace of cheese on their fruit and then having a life threatening reaction. She knows she has no idea how hard and stressful it is to keep him safe. And she knows that despite all of my diligence and my preparing Bravo (don't EVER eat anything unless me or Daddy say you can) that all of the adults involved have a responsibility to keep all kids safe, even those with allergies.
And for the moms that "get it" and for the moms who have never had to live this and know they don't "get it" but do their very very best to keep my sweet baby safe I am so very thankful. It's kindness like this that makes being Allergy Mom a little bit easier. And reminds me that it's OK to leave my house and It's OK to send Bravo into the world. Even if it does contain far too much cheese for my liking.
But then there are the other moms. The good other moms. Sometimes I click with them, sometimes I don't. But there are some moms who I am thankful for. With Bravo's allergies going into any public space is terrifying. And some moms make it worse.
Yesterday a mom at play group brought me to tears. Good tears. The "there is good in this world and I can't believe how kind you are" tears.
I always pack a separate snack for Bravo even though snack is provided. Yesterday the mom in charge of snack (I had only met her once before and we don't really get along) came up to me and clarified Bravos allergies and then pulled out of her pocket the label from the bread she used and she had brought a box of crackers she had seen me feed him from before just in case. She also packaged everything separately (fruit away from cheese and vegetables) and told me she used a clean knife and a sterilized cutting board for the fruit and it did not come in contact with any other product in her house.
I was floored. Her children do not have allergies, she knows no kids with severe food allergies, but she made sure Bravo was included and safe. She know she has no idea the fear of your child accidentally getting a trace of cheese on their fruit and then having a life threatening reaction. She knows she has no idea how hard and stressful it is to keep him safe. And she knows that despite all of my diligence and my preparing Bravo (don't EVER eat anything unless me or Daddy say you can) that all of the adults involved have a responsibility to keep all kids safe, even those with allergies.
And for the moms that "get it" and for the moms who have never had to live this and know they don't "get it" but do their very very best to keep my sweet baby safe I am so very thankful. It's kindness like this that makes being Allergy Mom a little bit easier. And reminds me that it's OK to leave my house and It's OK to send Bravo into the world. Even if it does contain far too much cheese for my liking.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Wordless Wednesday- things on the interweb that crack me up
I was looking for the basic ratios to make strawberry pancakes and this is the first match in the google search. (well- the real one was- this is the youtube version)
Helpful.
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Flushed Down The Toilet
Alpha just turned 4 and is getting funnier by the second. I think this week I'll post about the random conversations I have with this kid, cause man, he cracks me right up.
A- "mom, can I tell you a joke?"
me- "Sure. I love your jokes."
A- "I flushed Bravo down the toilet!"
me- "um, why is Bravo dwn the toilet?"
A- "Because he loves it there. It smells nice to him."
Me- "don't you think he'll get lonely flushed down the toilet all by himself?"
A- "No. Because I flushed Charlie down there, too! And it's just you and me and Daddy now."
Me- "don't you think you'll get lonely and bored without your brothers?"
A-"well, you can flush me down the toilet and then Daddy can flush you down the toilet and then Daddy can guard the toilet to keep us all safe and make sure no poop lands on our heads.."
Me- "Oh."
A- "Can I have a cookie?"
A- "mom, can I tell you a joke?"
me- "Sure. I love your jokes."
A- "I flushed Bravo down the toilet!"
me- "um, why is Bravo dwn the toilet?"
A- "Because he loves it there. It smells nice to him."
Me- "don't you think he'll get lonely flushed down the toilet all by himself?"
A- "No. Because I flushed Charlie down there, too! And it's just you and me and Daddy now."
Me- "don't you think you'll get lonely and bored without your brothers?"
A-"well, you can flush me down the toilet and then Daddy can flush you down the toilet and then Daddy can guard the toilet to keep us all safe and make sure no poop lands on our heads.."
Me- "Oh."
A- "Can I have a cookie?"
Monday 26 September 2011
Alpha turns four!
I figured this would be as good of a time of any to reflect on my first sweet baby boy's birth. I'm glad that I had NO idea going in what that birth would be like. It was rough. Each birth after that got better and better, but the first one was rough. I'd do it again in a heartbeat though to have my sweet and adorable and crazy Alpha.
Matt and I got Married in mid September 2006 and were planning on TTC in January. In December we just didn't feel like using any thing to prevent a pregnancy, and PREGNANT! I absolutely know how lucky I am with that.
The pregnancy was pretty routine. by my due date (September 14th) I was not dilated, not soft, not anything. No braxton hicks, no twinges of anything birth related. Same thing 10 days later. My OB asked if I wanted to me induced and the answer was a resounding "YES!" Man, I was ready to not be pregnant. Matt and I were sitting playing scrabble with the baby swing set up beside us running with a stuffed monkey dressed in tiny sleepers in it. We were ready.
The night before my induction we were playing scrabble and I looked down at my feet and my toes were gone. I'm not talking about a little bit of swelling, it really looked like my foot had swallowed my toes. I should have gone in then, but I figured since I was going in the morning anyways that one night of swollen feet wouldn't matter. I woke up in the morning with the worst headache I think I've ever ever had. I called the hospital and she said it may be 2 or 3 that they would call, or maybe the next day if they got busy. Then she said, "ah, you know what? If you can get here in the next 15 minutes then we'll get you in. Otherwise it may be a couple of days." So off we went. We lived a 90 second drive from the hospital, so it was fine.
We get there and get into triage and they tell me that they'd give the gel then monitor me for a couple of hours then send me home and since I was showing NO signs of being ready for labour that the process may take a few days. Goody. Then I told somebody that my head really really hurt. So they checked my blood pressure and promptly told me that I was NOT going home. They gave me Tylenol for the headache which was utterly useless. And something for my blood pressure which was equally useless. Then they hooked me up to a timed blood pressure cuff. Then they moved me to a LD room to monitor me closer. Then they gave me morphine for my head because I was starting to black out from the pain. Then they started to get really jumpy about my blood pressure and hooked me up to magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures and strokes. Oh life saving drug- how miserable and terrible you made me feel. Because of that they had an arterial line in my arm to get a beat-by-beat BP reading. The alarm on the monitor kept going off and she kept raising the level of BP that would make the alarm beep. And it kept beeping. Somewhere around here is where everything gets... fuzzy. I was still having blinding headaches and now I was barfing. A Lot. So more morphine and more gravol and more of something else and something else. I was pretty loopy. Matt said my pupils were little pin dots. I was in and out of sleep but unaware if I was dreaming or awake or having real conversations or dreaming that I was having those conversations. Ryan Gosling was there (pretty sure I was hallucinating at this point). This was about 16 hours after the induction started and I was... wait for it.... 1 cm!
So off to the OR we went 20 hours after we got to the hospital for a "routine induction". I got my spinal and because of all the BP related swelling and a new-ish anesthesiologist it took 45 minutes and multiple attempts to get the needle in. That was pretty bad and not shockingly resulted in an epidural headache. Anyways. Surgery went just fine. The care I received from the OB on call and a couple of the nurses was nothing short of terrible, but after 4 years it's not the emotional heart ache that it was. I've got bigger emotional fish to fry these days, and Alpha was just fine, so it's all ugly water under a pretty bridge.
Matt got to hold Alpha right away (Alpha, by the way, was completely fine this whole time. Never a blip of concern on the tracings( and he brought him to me to show me. He was beautiful. All of this is still pretty hazy. I only remember snippets of the next 10 days.
I got into recovery and was still puking. A lot. I was in bed with 4 IVs in my arms and a million monitors and a catheter and I don't know what else and I had to barf. And I just had surgery. I started yelling "bucket, bucket, bucket" and made eye contact with somebody just outside the room. She clearly didn't know what "bucket" meant. Matt did, but he was holding Alpha and was in a sleep deprived daze. So I somehow managed to lean ever so slightly off the bed and wretched all over the floor. That continues for the next 10 days. Me hurling every 2 hours. Me hopped up on drug after drug after drug. On day 2 I asked the doctor student if there was ANYTHING that I would be on that would cause me to be ill. I told her I have a pretty sensitive system and if it COULD be a side-effect of one of the drugs, than that's what it would be. She assured me that it wasn't. I refused any of the known stomach-botherers like iron and naproxen and other pain relief drugs. Which mostly left me in more pain and throwing up with a scar. The ever so helpful OB that did my surgery pooped by (but stayed outside the room never talking to me) and told the nurse that I was only throwing up because I was stressed and tired and they should just knock me out for the night and I would be fine.
A very long story cut a little bit shorter- on day 9 I was sure it was one of the drugs but the doctors in my care didn't think so. They had NO idea what was wrong with me. Matthew was bracing himself for something pretty bad. Internal medicine (if you watch House, it was his team) showed up and said.... It's the drugs she's on. huh. They said it would be the BP drug and I should stop taking it (my BP was still scary high). My doctor didn't agree so didn't take me off the drug. I took it for one more day and noticed that exactly 1/2 hour after taking it I started to feel terrible and 2 hours after taking it I was throwing up repeatedly. On day 10 I refused to take it. The next day my BP had stabilized, I stopped throwing up, and I went home. Matthew brought me a chicken burger which was SO GOOD. It was the only thing other than 1/2 a cracker a day and tiny sips of ginger ale that I had been able to eat in close to 2 weeks.
So that's my first birth. Sometimes I'm amazed I had more children!
I can hardly believe it was four years ago. That's crazy.
Happy birthday sweet Alpha, I love you in the whole wide world.
Matt and I got Married in mid September 2006 and were planning on TTC in January. In December we just didn't feel like using any thing to prevent a pregnancy, and PREGNANT! I absolutely know how lucky I am with that.
The pregnancy was pretty routine. by my due date (September 14th) I was not dilated, not soft, not anything. No braxton hicks, no twinges of anything birth related. Same thing 10 days later. My OB asked if I wanted to me induced and the answer was a resounding "YES!" Man, I was ready to not be pregnant. Matt and I were sitting playing scrabble with the baby swing set up beside us running with a stuffed monkey dressed in tiny sleepers in it. We were ready.
The night before my induction we were playing scrabble and I looked down at my feet and my toes were gone. I'm not talking about a little bit of swelling, it really looked like my foot had swallowed my toes. I should have gone in then, but I figured since I was going in the morning anyways that one night of swollen feet wouldn't matter. I woke up in the morning with the worst headache I think I've ever ever had. I called the hospital and she said it may be 2 or 3 that they would call, or maybe the next day if they got busy. Then she said, "ah, you know what? If you can get here in the next 15 minutes then we'll get you in. Otherwise it may be a couple of days." So off we went. We lived a 90 second drive from the hospital, so it was fine.
We get there and get into triage and they tell me that they'd give the gel then monitor me for a couple of hours then send me home and since I was showing NO signs of being ready for labour that the process may take a few days. Goody. Then I told somebody that my head really really hurt. So they checked my blood pressure and promptly told me that I was NOT going home. They gave me Tylenol for the headache which was utterly useless. And something for my blood pressure which was equally useless. Then they hooked me up to a timed blood pressure cuff. Then they moved me to a LD room to monitor me closer. Then they gave me morphine for my head because I was starting to black out from the pain. Then they started to get really jumpy about my blood pressure and hooked me up to magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures and strokes. Oh life saving drug- how miserable and terrible you made me feel. Because of that they had an arterial line in my arm to get a beat-by-beat BP reading. The alarm on the monitor kept going off and she kept raising the level of BP that would make the alarm beep. And it kept beeping. Somewhere around here is where everything gets... fuzzy. I was still having blinding headaches and now I was barfing. A Lot. So more morphine and more gravol and more of something else and something else. I was pretty loopy. Matt said my pupils were little pin dots. I was in and out of sleep but unaware if I was dreaming or awake or having real conversations or dreaming that I was having those conversations. Ryan Gosling was there (pretty sure I was hallucinating at this point). This was about 16 hours after the induction started and I was... wait for it.... 1 cm!
So off to the OR we went 20 hours after we got to the hospital for a "routine induction". I got my spinal and because of all the BP related swelling and a new-ish anesthesiologist it took 45 minutes and multiple attempts to get the needle in. That was pretty bad and not shockingly resulted in an epidural headache. Anyways. Surgery went just fine. The care I received from the OB on call and a couple of the nurses was nothing short of terrible, but after 4 years it's not the emotional heart ache that it was. I've got bigger emotional fish to fry these days, and Alpha was just fine, so it's all ugly water under a pretty bridge.
Matt got to hold Alpha right away (Alpha, by the way, was completely fine this whole time. Never a blip of concern on the tracings( and he brought him to me to show me. He was beautiful. All of this is still pretty hazy. I only remember snippets of the next 10 days.
I got into recovery and was still puking. A lot. I was in bed with 4 IVs in my arms and a million monitors and a catheter and I don't know what else and I had to barf. And I just had surgery. I started yelling "bucket, bucket, bucket" and made eye contact with somebody just outside the room. She clearly didn't know what "bucket" meant. Matt did, but he was holding Alpha and was in a sleep deprived daze. So I somehow managed to lean ever so slightly off the bed and wretched all over the floor. That continues for the next 10 days. Me hurling every 2 hours. Me hopped up on drug after drug after drug. On day 2 I asked the doctor student if there was ANYTHING that I would be on that would cause me to be ill. I told her I have a pretty sensitive system and if it COULD be a side-effect of one of the drugs, than that's what it would be. She assured me that it wasn't. I refused any of the known stomach-botherers like iron and naproxen and other pain relief drugs. Which mostly left me in more pain and throwing up with a scar. The ever so helpful OB that did my surgery pooped by (but stayed outside the room never talking to me) and told the nurse that I was only throwing up because I was stressed and tired and they should just knock me out for the night and I would be fine.
A very long story cut a little bit shorter- on day 9 I was sure it was one of the drugs but the doctors in my care didn't think so. They had NO idea what was wrong with me. Matthew was bracing himself for something pretty bad. Internal medicine (if you watch House, it was his team) showed up and said.... It's the drugs she's on. huh. They said it would be the BP drug and I should stop taking it (my BP was still scary high). My doctor didn't agree so didn't take me off the drug. I took it for one more day and noticed that exactly 1/2 hour after taking it I started to feel terrible and 2 hours after taking it I was throwing up repeatedly. On day 10 I refused to take it. The next day my BP had stabilized, I stopped throwing up, and I went home. Matthew brought me a chicken burger which was SO GOOD. It was the only thing other than 1/2 a cracker a day and tiny sips of ginger ale that I had been able to eat in close to 2 weeks.
So that's my first birth. Sometimes I'm amazed I had more children!
I can hardly believe it was four years ago. That's crazy.
Happy birthday sweet Alpha, I love you in the whole wide world.
Thursday 22 September 2011
Thankful.....for penises!
OK. First let me clarify, this is not a post about MY gratitude for the male appendage. It is one about a little boys own love affair with the *best *body* part* ever*.
Charlie has recently discovered his. During naked time or bum changes his hands go there instantly. Fine when there's not poop. Yuck when there is.
Bravo Has now decided his is a toy. No, not a toy. A weapon. Yup.When he goes to the potty he often just doesn't put his pants back on so he's frequently seen running around Donald Duck-style. Yesterday he came whipping around the corner making his shooting gun fire noise and I turned around to see what the weapon of choice was today. A sandwich? A cloth? A wooden spoon? My toothbrush? Nope. He was holding his penis in his hand running around and pretend shooting at things. While in the tub Bravo tries to push it back in yelling "In, Penis! In, Penis! See you later, Penis!". We've worked a lot on "you can not play with Charlie's penis. That's only Charlie's special penis, not yours" when they're in the tub together. Also, "Mooooom! Bravo is touching me with his penis!" is screamed across the house at least once a week by Alpha.
Which brings us to Alpha.
He turns four in 2 days. And the love that boy has for his boy parts is incredible.
We've had multiple conversations of late about the wonder of penises . (why are they sometimes bigger? why does pee come out? why do we hide them in under pants? etc etc etc.)
Conversation in the tub last week.
A-"Mom, when I was in your tummy and you made me did you make all of me?"
me- "sure did."
A- "like my toes and my nose and my face?"
Me- "Yup. All of you. Your toes and nose and adorable little face and your ears and knees and...."
A- "and my penis?"
Me- "yup. That too."
A- "Thank you mommy."
Me- "for what?"
A- "For making me my own special special penis. I love it so much mommy and I'll take really good care of it. I promise."
The end.
Charlie has recently discovered his. During naked time or bum changes his hands go there instantly. Fine when there's not poop. Yuck when there is.
Bravo Has now decided his is a toy. No, not a toy. A weapon. Yup.When he goes to the potty he often just doesn't put his pants back on so he's frequently seen running around Donald Duck-style. Yesterday he came whipping around the corner making his shooting gun fire noise and I turned around to see what the weapon of choice was today. A sandwich? A cloth? A wooden spoon? My toothbrush? Nope. He was holding his penis in his hand running around and pretend shooting at things. While in the tub Bravo tries to push it back in yelling "In, Penis! In, Penis! See you later, Penis!". We've worked a lot on "you can not play with Charlie's penis. That's only Charlie's special penis, not yours" when they're in the tub together. Also, "Mooooom! Bravo is touching me with his penis!" is screamed across the house at least once a week by Alpha.
Which brings us to Alpha.
He turns four in 2 days. And the love that boy has for his boy parts is incredible.
We've had multiple conversations of late about the wonder of penises . (why are they sometimes bigger? why does pee come out? why do we hide them in under pants? etc etc etc.)
Conversation in the tub last week.
A-"Mom, when I was in your tummy and you made me did you make all of me?"
me- "sure did."
A- "like my toes and my nose and my face?"
Me- "Yup. All of you. Your toes and nose and adorable little face and your ears and knees and...."
A- "and my penis?"
Me- "yup. That too."
A- "Thank you mommy."
Me- "for what?"
A- "For making me my own special special penis. I love it so much mommy and I'll take really good care of it. I promise."
The end.
Wednesday 21 September 2011
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Thomas part 2
After that day the pregnacy became really difficult emotionally. Matthew distanced himself from the baby which was hard on me. I just tried to stay functional for the older boys. I went off work pretty early so I could focus on taking care of myself and the boys.
After several fetal assessments everything with Charile was cleared and we were told we had a healthy baby boy in there. It was really hard to accept that he was healthy when his brother was dead and we had been told that he may not make it either. The rest of the pregnancy was spent on pins and needles. The midwife and OB I was seeing were fantastic and did their best to reassure me.
For a few ultrasounds the twin was still very visible and each time Charlie could be seen nuzzling his little head into the tiny face of Thomas. We have a few pictures of this and I cherish them. They are the only photos I will ever ever have of my sweet Thomas. As the pregnancy progressed and I had regular fetal assessment, the twin becasme smaller and smaller. He was growing into the placenta. I like to believe that he helped Charile to grow and stay healthy. The last fetal assessment I had at 38 weeks the nurse could not find any evidence of the twin. I was both happy and devestated.
I think the hardest part of the pregnancy once we got the news that Charlie would be OK was knowing I had a dead baby inside of me. I had a perfect living bay as well, but I had a dead child who I would never get to hold or burp or feed or change or love or get grumpy at or see play with the older kids. That aspect really did a number on my head.
I went into labour on January 12th at 10:30 pm. After 7 hours and the most amazing positive birth experience (which I will likey write out on here soon) my beautiful Charlie was born. For the first time in three births I got to hold my baby right away. And hold him I did! For three straight hours before anybody moved him off of me to weigh or clean or anything. That was the very best 3 hours of my life. Once Charlie was born my midwife started getting a bit antsy. My placenta was NOT coming out. this was especially a concern because in Bravos birth the membranes had grown into my c/s scar and the placenta didn't release that time, either. And the membranes in Bravo's birth required a lot of intervention to get them out.
Anyway. my midwife started saying to the nurse that if the placenta didn't come out soon then we would be consulting with the OB on call. And I really didn't want that. I wanted to keep holding Charlie and not have to go to the OR like last time. All of a sudden in my head flashed something from one of Ina May Gaskin's books. She has some good things to say, but mostly I think she's crazy. They are contractions, NOT rushes. And birth hurts even if you're not afraid of it. But whatever. I rememberd a story in one of her books where the placenta wasn't coming out. The mom was a single mom and wanted to stay pregnant. She was having a difficult trasition to motherhood. And Ina May asked her if there was anything she needed to let go of, anything that would be causing her body to retain the placenta. And I realized that I was holding on emotionally to the pregnancy. Becasue as soon as I was no longer pregnant, as soon as that placenta came out, Thomas was gone forever. Right then he was still safe inside, but when he came out that was it. So in my head I said good bye. I told my sweet baby that I loved him endlessly and that he would never be forgotten and I let go. Geeze. 8 months later I'm crying as I type this. As soon as I said goodbye the placenta came out perfectly intact. I know this makes me sound crazy, but there it is.
Before the birth I had spoken with my doula and my midwife and told them I wanted the placenta to stay in the room with me and when I was ready I wanted them to show me. I think it was about 2 hours after Charlie was born Matt sat by my head and I held sweet baby Charlie in my arms and the midwife brought the placenta over.
It was mostly just grown into the membranes. There was about a 2-ish inch curved baby-ish shape in a section of the otherwise thin normal membranes. It didn't look like much, and the MW said it quite possibly would have been overlooked if we didn't know what it was. It was wierd, knowing that it was almost a person and was instead a white 2 inch blob that grew into the membranes, But that inside of it there would have been the start of brains and a heart and lungs and all other people making stuff. I am really glad I looked at it. Seeing what was left of sweet Thomas did bring a bit of peace. I think I would be regretting it had I NOT looked.
So there's Thomas's birth and death. There's more to that birth and there's still more to Thomas' story. But I really didn't count on the emotional impact of writing this out. So that's enough today.
Tomorrow will be a happier post!
After several fetal assessments everything with Charile was cleared and we were told we had a healthy baby boy in there. It was really hard to accept that he was healthy when his brother was dead and we had been told that he may not make it either. The rest of the pregnancy was spent on pins and needles. The midwife and OB I was seeing were fantastic and did their best to reassure me.
For a few ultrasounds the twin was still very visible and each time Charlie could be seen nuzzling his little head into the tiny face of Thomas. We have a few pictures of this and I cherish them. They are the only photos I will ever ever have of my sweet Thomas. As the pregnancy progressed and I had regular fetal assessment, the twin becasme smaller and smaller. He was growing into the placenta. I like to believe that he helped Charile to grow and stay healthy. The last fetal assessment I had at 38 weeks the nurse could not find any evidence of the twin. I was both happy and devestated.
I think the hardest part of the pregnancy once we got the news that Charlie would be OK was knowing I had a dead baby inside of me. I had a perfect living bay as well, but I had a dead child who I would never get to hold or burp or feed or change or love or get grumpy at or see play with the older kids. That aspect really did a number on my head.
I went into labour on January 12th at 10:30 pm. After 7 hours and the most amazing positive birth experience (which I will likey write out on here soon) my beautiful Charlie was born. For the first time in three births I got to hold my baby right away. And hold him I did! For three straight hours before anybody moved him off of me to weigh or clean or anything. That was the very best 3 hours of my life. Once Charlie was born my midwife started getting a bit antsy. My placenta was NOT coming out. this was especially a concern because in Bravos birth the membranes had grown into my c/s scar and the placenta didn't release that time, either. And the membranes in Bravo's birth required a lot of intervention to get them out.
Anyway. my midwife started saying to the nurse that if the placenta didn't come out soon then we would be consulting with the OB on call. And I really didn't want that. I wanted to keep holding Charlie and not have to go to the OR like last time. All of a sudden in my head flashed something from one of Ina May Gaskin's books. She has some good things to say, but mostly I think she's crazy. They are contractions, NOT rushes. And birth hurts even if you're not afraid of it. But whatever. I rememberd a story in one of her books where the placenta wasn't coming out. The mom was a single mom and wanted to stay pregnant. She was having a difficult trasition to motherhood. And Ina May asked her if there was anything she needed to let go of, anything that would be causing her body to retain the placenta. And I realized that I was holding on emotionally to the pregnancy. Becasue as soon as I was no longer pregnant, as soon as that placenta came out, Thomas was gone forever. Right then he was still safe inside, but when he came out that was it. So in my head I said good bye. I told my sweet baby that I loved him endlessly and that he would never be forgotten and I let go. Geeze. 8 months later I'm crying as I type this. As soon as I said goodbye the placenta came out perfectly intact. I know this makes me sound crazy, but there it is.
Before the birth I had spoken with my doula and my midwife and told them I wanted the placenta to stay in the room with me and when I was ready I wanted them to show me. I think it was about 2 hours after Charlie was born Matt sat by my head and I held sweet baby Charlie in my arms and the midwife brought the placenta over.
It was mostly just grown into the membranes. There was about a 2-ish inch curved baby-ish shape in a section of the otherwise thin normal membranes. It didn't look like much, and the MW said it quite possibly would have been overlooked if we didn't know what it was. It was wierd, knowing that it was almost a person and was instead a white 2 inch blob that grew into the membranes, But that inside of it there would have been the start of brains and a heart and lungs and all other people making stuff. I am really glad I looked at it. Seeing what was left of sweet Thomas did bring a bit of peace. I think I would be regretting it had I NOT looked.
So there's Thomas's birth and death. There's more to that birth and there's still more to Thomas' story. But I really didn't count on the emotional impact of writing this out. So that's enough today.
Tomorrow will be a happier post!
Monday 19 September 2011
Thomas. Part 1.
Thomas.
The one name that I can't make up or fake away. The one member of our family that I can't bear to call anything but Thomas. He's weighing heavily on my heart these days. And I would like to tell his story. I've never written out the whole thing or even told anybody the whole story, especially not at one time.Well, really I don't think it will all fit in one post.
So here goes. It's going to be long. But I think I need to do this.there is a lot of guilt around my sweet Thomas, and some days I think I'm silly for still being so sad about him.
This is not a very light-hearted post. So be warned.
So here's Thomas' story from the beginning.
Matt and I had been trying for our third baby for a little while. In early May 2010 I was convinced that it would not be "the month" and I was working my brain around that. Then Alpha (2.5 at the time) came up to me and lifted my shirt and kissed my belly and said "there's a baby in there, hello baby". I was pretty shocked as he had no idea we were trying and didn't know any pregnant people. 4 days later.... PREGNANT! We were elated. a few weeks after that Alpha told me it was a boy. And then he named him "Baby Charlie". Funny that the name he picked out of a long rambled list (full of some I didn't even like) was the one that was near the top. So Charlie's name kind of stuck. A week or two after that Alpha kissed my belly again and told me there were two babies in there. Oh. At this point I had been suspecting twins. I was HUGE, and more than would be expected for 8 weeks with my third child. At 13 weeks I looked as big as I had been at 5 or 6 months. I was measuring "on dates" with my midwife, but that also made me suspect something as with the previous two I ALWAYS measured 3 or 4 weeks behind. Then when Alpha told me that I was pretty sure. I joked about it with Matt a bit but kind of kept it to myself. I knew a guy at work who had twins and my plan was as soon as I got out of my 20 ultrasound to go see him and ask about twins. To ask what it was like to double your children in one pregnancy. I was sure. Matt mostly just joked around and said things like "you'll have to pick which one you want to keep!" Joking yes, but those words haunt him still. I remember thinking that I didn't really want twins. And the guilt of that eats me.
August 26th, 2010. That day is locked in my memory. I had my 20 week u/s. I wasn't nervous. I had been with Alpha and Bravo. I had been worried that something would be wrong etc etc etc. But not this time. I was calm and confident in the pregnancy. Matt was able to come because school wasn't in yet. Thankfully.
For some reason I didn't ask how many were in there. I did with the first two but not with this one. I lay on the table and I was watching the tech's face. It looked....odd. I made a comment to her and she said she was just concentrating and I should stop watching her. OK. Then she left the room and said I could get Matt. Matt came in, then the tech came in, then a doctor came in. I asked if we should be worried. She said "yes." My heart dropped. I had seen the heart beat, but what was wrong with my sweet baby? The doctor started looking around and was describing a cyst of unknown origin on the baby's kidneys. It looked like there might be more problems with them as well. She said it may mean any number of things, but it may mean nothing. I can't figure out to this day why she said the following and didn't wait until I had a fetal assessment. She said "it could be that the baby is fine. It could be something that disappears. It could be something that the baby can live with. It could mean immediate surgery upon the birth of the baby, or it could mean still birth or even neonatal death". Wow. That was a big range of "it could be"s.
Then the other shoe dropped. There were two babies in there. Charlie and his twin. But his sweet baby twin had died in early second trimester. I remember a big gush of bright pink fluid at 13w5d, but because my midwife found a heartbeat a day later I wasn't sent for an ultrasound. The air felt like it left the room. I was right. I had twins! I would get to hold two babies at once! I would have to learn how to juggle the needs of a 1.5 yr old, a 3 yr old AND two new babies. That's what I should have been planning. Instead I was kicked out of the club of "twin mommy" the very same moment I was brought into it.
We were in shock. We sat in the room and held each other and cried for a few minutes then made a sorry attempt to regain our composure and left. I think I sobbed all the way to the car. We sat in the car and cried. We drove home. I went straight into the basement so the older two boys wouldn't see me because I was a mess. My Dad was there looking after them so Matt sent him down. I got out a mumble about one of the babies might be OK and one was not. That's how I got to share the twin news. By telling my dad I had a dead baby inside of me. Dad agreed to watch the boys for the rest of the day so we could do what we need to do and not worry about Alpha and Bravo. We went and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. The girl seating us could tell we were not OK so she tucked us into the closed section of the restaurant so we could have a bit of privacy. Or to not scare the other people. Whatever. It was nice.
When we were at home earlier I had called my midwife to tell her about the ultrasound and she said she already knew and asked if I would like to come in that afternoon for an extra appointment. So after breakfast (lunch, whatever it was) Matthew drove to a fancy maternity store to buy me a new pair of jeans. Retail therapy. The lady there probably thought I was crazy as I kept bursting into tears. Or maybe she was used to hormonal women and didn't think too much of it. After that we went to the appointment and cried some more. We listened to the baby again for quite awhile and were told we would get an appointment with a OB/GYN and one with fetal assessment and we'd go from there.
That night after the boys were in bed we cried some more. Then we happened to glance out the window and saw a couple standing on our lawn beside the big "SOLD" sign. We had closed on our house 3 days earlier and this was the couple that bought it. So we went outside and offered to take their picture together instead of one at a time. Then we sat and chatted with them for quite a while. It was a nice distraction and thankfully it was dark out so they couldn't see my red swollen face.
This is a day that is etched in my memory. The day my baby died. The day I learned that my other baby might not make it. I wanted to take comfort in the fact that one baby was still living, but I had been told that could be taken away from me in a heartbeat as well. There was very little that day to find comfort in.
The rest of this story is also long and the birth had a lot to do with Thomas as well, and then there's the story of his name. But that's enough for now.
The one name that I can't make up or fake away. The one member of our family that I can't bear to call anything but Thomas. He's weighing heavily on my heart these days. And I would like to tell his story. I've never written out the whole thing or even told anybody the whole story, especially not at one time.Well, really I don't think it will all fit in one post.
So here goes. It's going to be long. But I think I need to do this.there is a lot of guilt around my sweet Thomas, and some days I think I'm silly for still being so sad about him.
This is not a very light-hearted post. So be warned.
So here's Thomas' story from the beginning.
Matt and I had been trying for our third baby for a little while. In early May 2010 I was convinced that it would not be "the month" and I was working my brain around that. Then Alpha (2.5 at the time) came up to me and lifted my shirt and kissed my belly and said "there's a baby in there, hello baby". I was pretty shocked as he had no idea we were trying and didn't know any pregnant people. 4 days later.... PREGNANT! We were elated. a few weeks after that Alpha told me it was a boy. And then he named him "Baby Charlie". Funny that the name he picked out of a long rambled list (full of some I didn't even like) was the one that was near the top. So Charlie's name kind of stuck. A week or two after that Alpha kissed my belly again and told me there were two babies in there. Oh. At this point I had been suspecting twins. I was HUGE, and more than would be expected for 8 weeks with my third child. At 13 weeks I looked as big as I had been at 5 or 6 months. I was measuring "on dates" with my midwife, but that also made me suspect something as with the previous two I ALWAYS measured 3 or 4 weeks behind. Then when Alpha told me that I was pretty sure. I joked about it with Matt a bit but kind of kept it to myself. I knew a guy at work who had twins and my plan was as soon as I got out of my 20 ultrasound to go see him and ask about twins. To ask what it was like to double your children in one pregnancy. I was sure. Matt mostly just joked around and said things like "you'll have to pick which one you want to keep!" Joking yes, but those words haunt him still. I remember thinking that I didn't really want twins. And the guilt of that eats me.
August 26th, 2010. That day is locked in my memory. I had my 20 week u/s. I wasn't nervous. I had been with Alpha and Bravo. I had been worried that something would be wrong etc etc etc. But not this time. I was calm and confident in the pregnancy. Matt was able to come because school wasn't in yet. Thankfully.
For some reason I didn't ask how many were in there. I did with the first two but not with this one. I lay on the table and I was watching the tech's face. It looked....odd. I made a comment to her and she said she was just concentrating and I should stop watching her. OK. Then she left the room and said I could get Matt. Matt came in, then the tech came in, then a doctor came in. I asked if we should be worried. She said "yes." My heart dropped. I had seen the heart beat, but what was wrong with my sweet baby? The doctor started looking around and was describing a cyst of unknown origin on the baby's kidneys. It looked like there might be more problems with them as well. She said it may mean any number of things, but it may mean nothing. I can't figure out to this day why she said the following and didn't wait until I had a fetal assessment. She said "it could be that the baby is fine. It could be something that disappears. It could be something that the baby can live with. It could mean immediate surgery upon the birth of the baby, or it could mean still birth or even neonatal death". Wow. That was a big range of "it could be"s.
Then the other shoe dropped. There were two babies in there. Charlie and his twin. But his sweet baby twin had died in early second trimester. I remember a big gush of bright pink fluid at 13w5d, but because my midwife found a heartbeat a day later I wasn't sent for an ultrasound. The air felt like it left the room. I was right. I had twins! I would get to hold two babies at once! I would have to learn how to juggle the needs of a 1.5 yr old, a 3 yr old AND two new babies. That's what I should have been planning. Instead I was kicked out of the club of "twin mommy" the very same moment I was brought into it.
We were in shock. We sat in the room and held each other and cried for a few minutes then made a sorry attempt to regain our composure and left. I think I sobbed all the way to the car. We sat in the car and cried. We drove home. I went straight into the basement so the older two boys wouldn't see me because I was a mess. My Dad was there looking after them so Matt sent him down. I got out a mumble about one of the babies might be OK and one was not. That's how I got to share the twin news. By telling my dad I had a dead baby inside of me. Dad agreed to watch the boys for the rest of the day so we could do what we need to do and not worry about Alpha and Bravo. We went and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. The girl seating us could tell we were not OK so she tucked us into the closed section of the restaurant so we could have a bit of privacy. Or to not scare the other people. Whatever. It was nice.
When we were at home earlier I had called my midwife to tell her about the ultrasound and she said she already knew and asked if I would like to come in that afternoon for an extra appointment. So after breakfast (lunch, whatever it was) Matthew drove to a fancy maternity store to buy me a new pair of jeans. Retail therapy. The lady there probably thought I was crazy as I kept bursting into tears. Or maybe she was used to hormonal women and didn't think too much of it. After that we went to the appointment and cried some more. We listened to the baby again for quite awhile and were told we would get an appointment with a OB/GYN and one with fetal assessment and we'd go from there.
That night after the boys were in bed we cried some more. Then we happened to glance out the window and saw a couple standing on our lawn beside the big "SOLD" sign. We had closed on our house 3 days earlier and this was the couple that bought it. So we went outside and offered to take their picture together instead of one at a time. Then we sat and chatted with them for quite a while. It was a nice distraction and thankfully it was dark out so they couldn't see my red swollen face.
This is a day that is etched in my memory. The day my baby died. The day I learned that my other baby might not make it. I wanted to take comfort in the fact that one baby was still living, but I had been told that could be taken away from me in a heartbeat as well. There was very little that day to find comfort in.
The rest of this story is also long and the birth had a lot to do with Thomas as well, and then there's the story of his name. But that's enough for now.
Friday 16 September 2011
Food Friday- pumpkin cookies
There's a lot I could post about food. Many many creations I've cooked up to meet our family's many many food needs. Nutrition, appealing to a slightly picky Matt, a differently picky me, a baby, a not so picky Alpha, and a highly allergic and also picky Bravo.
I'll get into the details of our specific allergies later, but currently Bravo is allergic to milk (NOT lactose but milk protein found in so many many many things), eggs, soy, peanuts, nuts, alfalfa, and clover (so glad that short and sandal season is ending!)
So for today is my current favourite recipe.
Allergy Friendly Pumpkin Crack Cookies
(egg free, soy free, dairy free, nut free, absolutely amazing and addictive pumpkin cookies)
(can also be vegan soy free pumpkin cookies)
I'll add in parentheses what the easier to use non-allergy friendly ingredient is for those who don't need to avoid them.
These are amazing cakey-type cookies with pretty icing on the top. Fine without the icing, but amazing with it.
Cookie Ingredients:
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup spectrum shortening for soy free vegan. (use lard, normal shortening, butter or your fat of choice)
2 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 can (the size of a tomato or mushroom soup can, not the big one) canned pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tsp of egg replacer powder and 3 Tablespoons of rice milk or water (or 2 small eggs)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350.
Make like normal cookie. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl with a fork. Mix wet ingredients and sugar in a different bowl with a spoon or a mixer or whatever. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until blended.
Spoon by large-ish teaspoon or small-ish tablespoon onto cookie sheets (I always line mine with parchment paper for ease of baking and cleaning). This makes between 4-5 dozen, depending on the size of cookies. Get a spoon and cup of cold water and smooth the tops of the cookies out with the back of the spoon, dipping in the water between each cookie for super-smoothing non-sticky power.
These don't spread too terribly much, so they can be kind of close together. Bake for 15 minutes.
Cool for about 5 minutes on sheets then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
Icing:
This is open to whatever you want to do. I put cinnamon in the icing, but you don't have to. I've made it with maple syrup before, and that's really good. You just want a thick-ish glaze, so add what you want to make it the right runny-ness. It should drizzle off of a spoon, but not run off completely.
2 cups icing sugar
1 tablespoon melted shortening or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons of rice milk or whatever milk you use (you made need more to get the right consistency)
mix the icing up, drizzle over the completely cooled cookies. Let set, and Voila!
Thursday 15 September 2011
Meet the Jennings
OK. It is my first job to tell you that my name is not actually Chrissy Jennings. It's the fake name I made up for myself a while back and use for things like reservations or putting a dress on hold or telling some random person my name or signing in for an open house or something like that. I used to be Ella Green (good name) BUT then I decided that nobody in my generation is named Ella, so I changed to something more time stamped to the late 70s. And my husbands name is NOT Matt. But same thing. He has a different fake name he made for himself, but Chrissy decided her husbands name was Matt. And then I googled Chrissy Jennings and Chrissy & Matt Jennings and these are what I got. I'm probably somewhere between the first two pictures. And I WISH that I looked like the third Chrissy. She's hot! BUT.... my husband is hotter than hers. Ha! Anyways.From here on in I shall be Chrissy and Husband shall be called Matt. Matthew. Matt and I got married 5 years ago today. Yay!! We're not doing much for our anniversary. On Saturday we're going out to our tried and true dinner place and today nothing other than trying out some new underpants I bought. When we got married we had grand plans of staying at the same fancy nice hotel we did on our wedding night and getting massages and other wonderful things.
BUT... we didn't so much realize then that we would have 3 kids. Alpha is 4 in 10 days. He was due the day before our first anniversary but came 11 days late. Bravo is close to 2.5, and new little Charlie is not so new anymore and was 8 months old 2 days ago. But as Charile hates sleeping getting away for a 3 hours is going to be challenging anough, let alone an entire night.So... Happy anniversary Matt. I lvoe you. Even if I'm crazy and stole somebody else's pictures. Which, by the way, is EXACTLY why I don't put pictures of my family on blogs or face book or the like. Cause creepy people like me will steal them and make up a fake persona. Mostly I think it's funny that a quick search for Matt and Chrissy Jennings found me "our" picture.
I love you in the whole wide world
I've been thinking of doing this for a while now. Not for anybody else, just for me. For my brain. A way to get out things I tell no one. And since I'm not putting real names in here then I can say anything and nobody will know.
I thought about a bunch of different names, but none really fit. This thing will likely be all over the place. Sometimes about allergies, sometimes about food (like the wonderful pumpkin cookies I made that I'm pretty sure I put crack in because they were really addictive) sometimes about my awesome family, sometimes about the strange house we bought and the things we're doing to fix it, sometimes about how I'm done done done, sometimes about random dates, sometimes about nothing, sometimes about grief and loss, sometimes about everything.
The name came from my almost 4 year old. He, as most 4 year olds do, gets some of his sayings adorably wrong. And tonight he looked at me and said "Mommy, I love you in the whole wide world". And he also likes race cars in the whole wide world, and cookies in the whole wide world, and his brothers and Daddy in the whole wide world.
And it stuck. Because hearing your sweet little boy tell you right before you leave his room at night that he loves you in the whole wide world is amazing. Because it's a big world out there, and for this one little fellow to love me in the whole wide world melts my heart and turns me to much.
So this blog is for everything in The Whole Wide World. All the bits I wish I didn't know, and all the bits I wouldn't trade for anything.
I thought about a bunch of different names, but none really fit. This thing will likely be all over the place. Sometimes about allergies, sometimes about food (like the wonderful pumpkin cookies I made that I'm pretty sure I put crack in because they were really addictive) sometimes about my awesome family, sometimes about the strange house we bought and the things we're doing to fix it, sometimes about how I'm done done done, sometimes about random dates, sometimes about nothing, sometimes about grief and loss, sometimes about everything.
The name came from my almost 4 year old. He, as most 4 year olds do, gets some of his sayings adorably wrong. And tonight he looked at me and said "Mommy, I love you in the whole wide world". And he also likes race cars in the whole wide world, and cookies in the whole wide world, and his brothers and Daddy in the whole wide world.
And it stuck. Because hearing your sweet little boy tell you right before you leave his room at night that he loves you in the whole wide world is amazing. Because it's a big world out there, and for this one little fellow to love me in the whole wide world melts my heart and turns me to much.
So this blog is for everything in The Whole Wide World. All the bits I wish I didn't know, and all the bits I wouldn't trade for anything.
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