Birthing From Within

"Mothers know something other people don't but sometimes they don't know it."

In the book I am reading, "Birthing From Within" by Pam England and Rob Horowitz-it suggests we listen to other birth stories which can help us learn, encourage us and empower us.

What are your birth stories?

• What helped you most when you gave birth?
• If you could do it over again what would you do the same? 
• Is there anything you would do differently? 
• What do you wish you had known beforehand? 

Send your birth stories to silkscarvesbyeli@gmail.com (if you don't want to write them  here)

Thanks!

Too many ambitions?

Today I was chatting with my Mom on Skype as we do most afternoons. I like to talk to her while I am making supper. We have a Skype phone and I can visit while I work. This is always the best time for us to chat.

Anyhow- I was telling her all the things I am doing now and the things I am hoping to get done before our baby is born in April.

I then realized that these are the things I have resolved to do as much as possible this year. The rest of the year after the baby comes in completely left blank in my mind because I know it will take several months to readjust to life.

Here are the things I hope to do by April and the things I am working on now:

• Eat healthier 
• Exercise a bit daily 
• Continue to paint silk though not as intensely because I have other things to get caught up on. I am now working on two ties and one scarf and have my new Valentine's Cards and earrings available. 
• Catch up on the kids scrapbooks and begin a family scrapbook. 
• Make a quilt for this baby and for A- she never did get one. It could be her gift for her 2nd birthday. ( I have the blocks cut out for the background)
• Plan lessons or rather crafts for the kids on a weekly basis. More to come on this topic in a later post :) 

My Mom said I am too ambitious. After the baby comes I hope to adjust to life with 3 kids and do a bit of gardening. Then in the Fall it would be nice to back into painting again. But we shall see :)

Worries about Pregnancy, Birth, Motherhood.

I am working through a book for preparation for birth. True this is not my first birth- but I want something different. I want to work through the pain and try to understand if I can birth without it as others do.

The book challenged me to write for 15 minutues about what I fear. Here are a few of those things:

1. Not knowing where I will have my baby ( With the first two I knew where I wanted to- this time I am unsure)
2. Not knowing which midwife to give birth with. (The one I had the first two with or the one I am seeing now?)
3. Tearing 
4. Being out of control during labor. 
5. Pain during the pushing stage that makes me feel I'm going to die. 
6. Health problems after birth. 
7. My kids (where will they be? How will they handle the new baby?)
8. My baby being too big (The midwife says he will be at least as big as the last. She was almost 10 lbs! )
9. Money (I want to be able to afford the kind of birth I desire). The most expensive senerio is still cheap when compared to other countries.  But not cheap for us. ($1200 max.)
10. Child Support (It looks we may not have the government support this time around since I had to leave my job)

What are your worries in regards to birth? What were they then? Did your worries come to pass? 

Bran Muffins

For a delicious bran muffin recipe head over to my cooking blog :)

http://cookinginlatvia.blogspot.com/

Valentine's Quotes

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.  ~Attributed to Claudia Ghandi


Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!  ~Thomas Hood


When love is not madness, it is not love.  ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca


Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.  ~Albert Einstein

 For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
~Rosemonde Gerard


Love is a symbol of eternity.  It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.  ~Author Unknown


Trip over love, you can get up.  Fall in love and you fall forever.  ~Author Unknown


Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart.  ~Author Unknown


A hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you.
~Author Unknown


We're all a little weird.  And life is a little weird.  And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love.  ~Robert Fulghum, True Love

 Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.  ~William Shakespeare


kisses are a better fate
than wisdom.
~e.e. cummings
 
Who, being loved, is poor?  ~Oscar Wilde


In melody divine,
My heart it beats to rapturous love,
I long to call you mine.
~Author Unknown


Grow old with me!  The best is yet to be.  ~Robert Browning

The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it.  You and you alone make me feel that I am alive.  Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.  ~George Moore


We loved with a love that was more than love.  ~Edgar Allan Poe

  Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.  ~Henry Van Dyke


Are we not like two volumes of one book?  ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.  ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning


I love thee - I love thee,
'Tis all that I can say
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day.
~Thomas Hood


The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.  ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670


At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.  ~Plato


True love stories never have endings.  ~Richard Bach


Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.  ~Zelda Fitzgerald


http://www.quotegarden.com/valentine.html

Ideal Mom

Sometimes I get to thinking I am no the Mom I would like to be. There are so many ways I could improve and yet I am doing my best to be the best Mom I can be. When I imagine the ideal Mom these are some thoughts that come to my mind: (Not in any particular order)

• Patient always.
• Sings lullabies and songs with children. 
• Reads books and spends time teaching children. 
• Has time to home school and do all the other things needed to make a household function. 
• Cares for oneself and looks lovely. 
• Has a good relationship with husband- makes time for date nights. 
• Has a growing relationship with God.
• A mother in prayer for the salvation and spiritual growth of her children. 
• Knows how to creatively discipline and meet each child's individual needs. 
• Cooks well balanced meals that everyone eats. 
• Sews, knits and makes all kinds of handmade goodies and gifts. 
  

My list could go on and on. There are so many little quirks to these that I am not doing, and so many that I am working on.


I am continually desiring to be a better Mom. Yet so often I am tired, worn out and stressed. Being 25 weeks pregnant my back often hurts and I feel so tired I just want to lay down. Sometimes I do just that- then my kids play next to me and we are all happy.


In my quest to become a better Mom, God is continually speaking to my heart. Lately I have been meditating on these verses:


Romans 5: 3-5 (New Living Translation)

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our our confident  hope of salvation. And hope does not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. 

How encouraging to know that God is using ever trial I face as a Mom to make me the person He desires. And what a blessing to know  that the Holy Spirit dwelling in me is proof of God's love for and in me.

Blog Feature

Hey look at this : http://suzyssitcom.com/

My blog is on there today. How fun!