We decided it was time, time to throw caution to the wind and have a child. The first month of my charting fertility differently we found ourselves just staring at that positive pregnancy test... like WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
That afternoon we called a family dinner together. Josh prayed over dinner and slipped in " and Father we thank you for the life our baby Vaughan!" Whoot, we were having a baby. The days and 42weeks that followed were so fun. Excitement filled our home and all we could do was breathe and think baby.
We interviewed one midwife and fell in love and found out at the end of our hour long chats that she went to our little church.
From conception Lakoda was off the charts in growth. I knew the exact day that I had conceived him but each month, he was around 3 wks ahead of the "average" child in utero! We knew he was gonna be a big little dude but had no idea!
We made all the preparations needed for our home birth and grew crazy excited in anticipation of calling him ours. Back when Josh and I were dating we watched a documentary about a man living in the wild raising wolves. One of the wolves was named Lakoda and Josh happily proclaimed that that would be an awesome name if we had a kid. Well, that name stuck. We tried out a million others, wrote ideas down while at work and shared them over our dinners, laughed out loud at some of them and all got scratched off the list. His name had already been chosen.
His name means Compassionate friend , Loyal companion, unified and feels affection. Somewhere we also discovered that his name means Forest Dweller. One day sweet child we will go with you into the forests!
I adore that He is walking out the meaning of his name.We kept his name a secret til his birth day,well almost a secret, I accidentally forwarded my mom an email that I had sent to our midwife that included his name. Oopsie!
In November we took a massive road trip to the Northeast for a wedding. Our pup Asha joined us and she too enjoyed all of our camping in the Smokies.She also tagged along with me to the bathroom a thousand times a night. I gave up my 17yrs of being a vegetarian on that trip. I could no longer resist the call of blood in meat. My first taste of it was at this wedding, Filet Mignon.Seriously, I had never tasted something more amazing! To die for! And after all those yrs without meat I expected it to make me so very ill but my hormones made it work out perfectly!
Labor started and stopped , started and stopped in those last like 6wks of preggo land.
But on Friday night the 21st of March at 6:45pm, I knew this was different. The contractions came slamming in every 8min or so then came in at 6min apart within a few hrs. Things got a little intense and our midwives arrived at 3am'ish. I labored and labored, slept, I rocked and moaned. We all had good laughs in between my contractions. The biggest laugh came on Sat night as Josh sat on the edge of our bed holding me as I was on the birthing ball. My water broke on his feet! As it happened I began to laugh so hard with the midwives and he said " now that's a first bay! YOU just pee'd on my feet!" I assured him it was not pee!
Look at this belly that I grew so gracefully! Only 13lbs in pregnancy and it was all dude!
This picture was taken on Sunday morning March 23rd. Labor had started to mellow a bit so our midwives gave me some homeopathics to kick start everything. After a few hrs I was ready to do it. So we started the long PUSH! I mean, pushing in every position possible but the birth ball was my fav. After 3hrs no progress was made as Lakoda had not dropped into position behind my pelvic bone. My cervix had actually started to swell with my pushing and I went from a full on 10cm to a 7. not cool.
Note: the entire weekend, parties had been thrown on our back porch where pizza and fun were enjoyed by all. Meals and snacks had been made in the kitchen, lots of meals as it was now SUNDAY morning! Family came and left all the while thinking certainly the time would be soon.
So around 4pm on Sunday afternoon our midwife Donna came in, sat on my birthing ball and lowered the news that we were going to have to go to the hospital for a c- section. What? This was not at all apart of the plan. We all cried, me, I cried the hardest but ok'd the preparation to go. We didn't even have the car seat in the car yet because we had not planned on being out and about with him for awhile!
I was so sad by this lowered boom but by this point I was just ready for it to be over after 44hrs of labor at home.
There is not a whole lot of fun to say about the rest of the story until Lakoda was pulled from my body at Sunday evening at 6:55pm on March 23rd.
Enter the dude: 11 pounds 4oz and 23inches long. The reason he would not fall behind my pelvic bone was because his head was 15in.around! Hello, have you seen my body? I was made for childbirth, or so I thought! Little man just wanted to remind me that I am not in control of my life and that we have to roll with whatever happens, even if I did think I had the hips for a large child!
It was BLISS to see him and then hold and smell him when he finally arrived in our room 6hrs later. The Dr's wanted to run a battery of tests due to my not being in their care for my pregnancy. They told us the worst case scenarios which none came out as they had planned It was absolutely amazing see Josh hold him so carefully and to hear him say "I love you son" and then proclaim with tears "I've never said those words to anyone before!"
We were able to leave the hospital on Wed afternoon 25th. We had barely survived a few hrs of sleep since waking up on the Friday morning before labor began. Once home we figured out what to do with a baby in our house, slowly but surely we did it. He slept in our bed for a few wees then in his swing until he was he outgrew it at 8wks as he had maxed out the weight limit and honestly was spilling out of it already. Our days have been full of life giving ways ever since. When Lakoda cried or laughed at this age he sounded like a billy goat so without awareness that we were even doing it we started calling him Brother Billy! At 2 months old, he weighed 27lbs
At 5months he had caught on to signing for basic needs and his favorite was the sign more and milk!
At 8 months Lakoda's 1st words were SO COOL, a few wks later he said MAMA followed shorty thereafter by DAH-EE which he adored saying! Lakoda continued to call his daddy, Dah-ee for the following year and a half even though by 18 months he was talking in almost complete sentences, total adult speak. At this point his nickname was Guppy. He showed no interest in solid food until he was around 9 and a half months old.
Lakoda can be on, really on, engaged, so very gentle and tender and he can be off the hook full of energy. The kind of energy that millions would buy if one could just figure a way to bottle it!
Lakoda, now called Bubby, showed interest in potty training at 2 yrs so we ran with it. At the time we were cooped up in the house for 113 days of a battle with whooping cough, so I figured why not ! by August he was totally potty trained and he did his morning business outside every single morning, all summer long. Once winter hit he came inside and we traded the Bjorn potty in for the real deal! So awesome!
My baby boy is now a week away from turning 3! He is filled with such goodness. he points out things that we as adults forget to notice sometimes, like how the sun needs to be sung a goodnight song as it lowers behind the trees each night. How the butterflies dance and swirl and how the trees are all sad when all of their friends get cut down on the property next door. His imagination is huge.When he screams at the grocery store from the TOP of his lungs that "dinosaurs are chasing us...RUN SO FAST MAMA!" I can not help myself but to run behind him! I love living life with our boy, now called Bub, he is loved and adored and brings joy!
