Julia's Birth Story 11/14/19

2 days ago we became a family of 7 when Julia Helen made a very quick entrance in the small hours of the morning. While she's asleep on my chest with Christmas music playing in the background and we wait on our pizza delivery (because we are living our absolute best postpartum life right now), here's the story of her birthday!

My 11/8 due date came and went with no baby, despite feeling really sure the entire week leading up to my due date that something was going to happen at any moment. Go back and read my other birth stories though, I think I say that in every single one. The end of pregnancy reminds me of distance running. There is definitely a lot of physical endurance necessary to get through, but it's also so much a mind game! I didn't feel too discouraged about going past my due date though because that day I woke up feeling awful with a pretty bad cold. I was absolutely miserable the whole weekend. I don't remember the last time I was quite that sick! I was struggling to breathe just while sleeping, the thought of trying to labor while feeling that way made me panic. So I just concentrated on resting and recovering.

By Monday I felt slightly more human and then by Tuesday I felt more like my self (albeit very, very pregnant at the end of what had been a particularly exhausting pregnancy). I had an ultrasound appointment with a midwife follow up scheduled for Friday, when I'd be 41 weeks, but I was hoping not to have to go. At that point I was feeling sporadic contractions, but nothing worth timing. I was also feeling a lot of pressure. It was that feeling of pressure when I woke up on Wednesday, 40 weeks 5 days and the most pregnant I'd ever been, that prompted me to call the on call midwife and ask if I could please just come in for a check. I needed to know if what I was feeling was doing anything. I was feeling incredibly anxious because my last labor, with Anna, had progressed so strangely. Bev, one of my favorite midwives at Birth Care, was on call and told me to come in and she would see what was going on. I called my mom and she came over so she could sit in the car with the kids while I ran in for a check. 

At the birth center Bev and I talked about my labor with Anna and what I had been feeling the past few days. Then she checked me and said I was 4cm and about 80-90% effaced. I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. Something was going on. I asked her if she could do a sweep and she did. Before I left she gave me a long, tight hug and told me, "Soon. You're almost there." which obviously made me cry. I went back out to the car and my mom and I took the kids to Target and out to lunch. While walking around I was feeling a lot of pressure and every now and then a little contraction. Mostly I just felt tired. At home that afternoon I just laid down while the kids watched a movie and then I heated up soup my mom had dropped off earlier that week for dinner. At dinner and bedtime I felt like I was going to wake up disappointed and pregnant the next morning. I looked at James and said, "I. Just. Want. To. Have. A. Baby." Then while I was nursing Anna and putting her to bed I felt a couple stronger contractions that gave me pause and I started to hope a little bit. I rushed myself off to bed once the kids were all in bed because I was so exhausted and wanted to sleep some first if I was going to go into labor. I fell asleep some time between 9 and 9:30.

Around 11 I had a contraction strong enough to wake me up. It was the first contraction I'd had that required a little breathing so I assumed things were getting going. I tried to go back to sleep though since nothing consistent was happening. Between 11 and 12 I dozed off and on and had maybe 2 or 3 more contractions that required my attention. Right around midnight I had a contraction that I didn't want to lay down through, so I got up to breathe through it and opened up my contraction timer app. I woke James up to tell him labor was starting, and told him to go back to sleep, I'd wake him when they were closer. I went down and put on an episode of Downton Abbey and sat on the couch to time my contractions. They were about 10-12 minutes apart and I was very grateful to see that they were holding their pattern instead of being all over the place like they had been when I was in labor with Anna. By the time the episode was over I wasn't able to sit through the contractions anymore and I was swaying in front of the tv. At that point I figured we'd probably need to head to the birth center before the kids woke up. The game plan for that was for my dad to stay at the house with them while my mom went to the birth center with me and James. Then my dad would bring the kids in the van once they woke up. Not able to focus on a show like Downton anymore, I put on The Office as background noise and started moving around the house. I put away some clean dishes and tidied up the kitchen, laid out clothes for all of the kids, packed bags with toys for Anna and Henry, got out the snack basket I had put together a few days prior, just sort of generally did busy work and chores while my contractions started to space more like 6-7 minutes apart. 

Around 2am my contractions were more like 5 minutes apart so I woke James up and called my parents to come over. I called the birth center and spoke with the on call midwife, Myra, who told me she and another midwife were already there and to come whenever I was ready. James and I gathered our things and got dressed and my contractions were coming more like every 4 minutes and getting significantly stronger. I started to feel like things were moving pretty fast and felt a sense of urgency, but still thought my dad would certainly be bringing the kids over once they woke up around 7, so I wrote him a quick note about shoes and jackets and things like that while we waited. Once my parents walked in the door my sense of urgency was even more heightened and I could tell my mom and James were feeling it too. We quickly said goodbye to my dad and got into 2 cars. I went with my mom and James brought his truck. My parents would need 2 cars to get the kids back home after my dad brought them in the van later, so James and I could bring the baby home in the van. The logistics of getting everybody safely to and from the birth center in the correct car seats had been plaguing me for weeks to be honest! 

Pause for a contraction on the way out to the car.

On the way to the birth center, about halfway there (it takes between 15 and 20 minutes to get there) I had a long, strong contraction that left me sweaty and anxious. I had one moment of panic right then. I've given birth enough times to know what it feels like when transition comes and know my body enough to know when it's getting ready to push a baby out soon. My mom later told me that she had a moment of panic at the same time because she's watched me give birth enough times to know how my breathing changes when we're getting to the end. And James later said he had that same exact moment of panic following behind my mom's car when she noticeably sped up. 

We arrived at the birth center right around 3am. I jumped out of the car as fast as I could when we got there as I was feeling another contraction and contracting sitting in the car is my least favorite thing ever. I breathed through that contraction while James rushed over from his truck to rub my back and my mom got my bags. I made it the 10 steps to the front door before having to stop for another contraction. Myra had seen us pull in and had come outside to stand with me for that one. When it passed she told me to go into the little bedroom they call "triage" and she'd do a quick check. I had 2 contractions, very strong, before she could do that. Baby's heartbeat sounded great on the doppler and Myra said I was 9cm. She went to make sure a birthing room was ready and told me she'd be right back. I got up from the bed when she left and another super strong contraction came, but with this one I felt my body start to push. As soon as the contraction faded I told my mom and James that my body was pushing and right after that Myra came in, but I was contracting again. She could tell from how I looked and sounded what was going on and told me we could totally stay right there in that room or we could try to go back to a birthing room. The little room was plenty comfortable with a regular bed and everything, but it was pretty tiny and I wanted to try to get to the other room. I made my way as quickly as I could around the corner and down the hall, contractions just piling on top of each other at this point. I had to stop right outside the room and really felt my body pushing and had to vocalize through the contraction for the first time. Myra was standing next to me, quietly telling me I could keep going or stay. She has the most calming voice and I was so grateful for it! I made it the last couple steps into the bedroom and immediately grabbed the edge of the bed. With that contraction I felt very distinctly the baby move way down and some burning. When that contraction passed I said, "Uhhhh, the baby is coming. Right now." and then my water broke. 

Myra, still in her wonderfully calm and quiet voice, told me I could stay standing right where I was, or she would help me up onto the bed if I would be more comfortable. I told her I wanted to be on all 4s on the bed. I knew getting on all 4s would relieve some of the pressure I was feeling in my lower back, and it would be easier to get comfy once the baby was out. I needed a lot of help to get up on the bed and I was struggling mentally at this point. I think I said something along the lines of, "This is the part I don't like." (meaning that panicky, transition, "I just can't do this" part). I was also so very, very tired. Once I was up on the bed everybody helped pile a bunch of pillows under my head and I started pushing and breathing down into contractions and sort of falling asleep on the pillows in between. I could definitely feel the baby coming down, but my energy was so zapped. I didn't say anything, but Myra could tell I was exhausted, so she suggested I lay down on my side to be in a more restful position. I said I wanted that very much, but needed a lot of help. Myra, James, and the nurse were able to get me onto my side and James helped me hold one leg up. As soon as I laid down I felt the baby right there and with the next contraction I felt familiar crowning feelings without consciously pushing. At that moment I felt so. freaking. strong. all of a sudden and I pushed right into that crowning feeling until I knew the baby's head was out. Once baby's head was out I felt the most immense relief, both physically and mentally, but still had to dig really deep to get baby's shoulders and chest out. That's never been an easy part for me or my babies, and this time was no different, but out they came and I reached down and pulled my baby up to snuggle into my chest at last! It was 3:33, only a half an hour after we walked in the doors of the birth center, and only 3 and half hours after I got out of bed! 

You can see the contraction in this picture

He just continuously tells me, "You're doing it. You're doing so good." right in my ear and it's exactly what I need to hear.

Baby!

For the first time ever, I remembered to ask if we had a boy or a girl. I've always had to be reminded to check in the past! James looked and announced to the room that we had a baby girl and I said, "It's Julia! Hi Julia! Hi baby girl!" I so love that moment of greeting our new baby by their name for the first time!

Eventually the placenta was delivered and the cord cut, Myra said I didn't need any stitches (a first for me!) and everybody helped me get from laying onto my side to sitting propped up with pillows and Julia latched on. The nurse who had been there the whole time finally had a chance to say hello and introduce herself at that point! She took quick vitals from us and she and Myra left us alone to repeatedly exclaim to one another, "I can't believe how fast that went!" and to discuss that moment when all 3 of us had thought I was about to deliver a baby on the side of the road in front of an Amish farm. That would have been quite a birth story!

Noting the time, we knew I'd be discharged and we'd be heading home around 7:30, so there was no point in my dad even bringing the kids. My mom warmed up some food she had brought for us and then went back to our house to bring back the van with Julia's car seat. James and I just ate and talked and gazed at our beautiful baby girl. The nurse came back in to weigh and measure Julia. She was 8lbs 3oz and 20.5oz, making her our 2nd smallest baby. My mom got to hold her for a little bit while I showered and got dressed and we all hung out for another hour or so before getting Julia dressed and heading home! I immediately put my new Christmas cd into the van's cd player since I had been holding myself back from listening to Christmas music only until the baby came.

Beautiful mural in our birthing room. Beautiful tub too, but there definitely wasn't time for the tub!

Ready to go home!

At home Kate came running up to me first, looking so sweet in her messy braid and nightgown. I went over to the couch and everybody else came running too. They had all flip flopped between thinking we were having a boy or a girl, but most recently they had all firmly agreed that they were getting a brother. Luckily nobody was upset to be wrong and they were very excited to have another sister. Everybody petted her and examined her, my mom and dad headed home, I ate some more, and then Julia and I went upstairs to nurse and sleep while James and the big kids watched Moana. And that pretty much sums up the past couple days! Napping and nursing and movies (thanks Disney+ for your timely release!)

I still can't quite wrap my head around how fast everything went, but I am so grateful that it did. I truly did not have the mental or physical energy in me for anything longer! My recovery has been very smooth and easy so far and Julia is nursing and sleeping great. We had our home visit today and she is actually already an ounce over her birth weight!

We're now looking forward to more quiet, slow days soaking up this tiny new member of our family and are so excited to be celebrating this holiday season as a family of 7!

A Want/Need/Wear/Read Christmas

I love Christmas. All of it. I love cheesy Christmas movies and I love nativity scenes. I love cookies and I love Advent wreaths. I love that God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and O Holy Night can coexist with All I Want For Christmas Is You and the Chipmunk’s Christmas Don’t Be Late. I’ve been unapologetically listening to Christmas music here and there for a couple weeks now, though we won’t decorate until after Thanksgiving. I have loved the whole Christmas season my whole life, and once I had kids my love for Christmas just exploded and I swear it grows a little more every year. The excitement and anticipation of Christmas through the eyes of kids is nothing short of magical.

Something else I love about Christmas is the gifts. Giving them and receiving them. I know that’s not really the right thing to say, but hear me out! I love thinking about things to give people. I love watching them open a gift (or just imagining them opening a card we sent!) and seeing joy on their face. I love receiving gifts. When I say I love receiving gifts, don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean that love being given big, expensive things. Or piles of stuff. I love the gift of being seen. I love knowing our name is on somebody’s Christmas card list. I love opening a gift one of my kids’ made for me (“I used pink paper to make that necklace because I know that’s one of your favorite colors!”) Heck, I love being tagged in a meme on Facebook because it reminded somebody of me. I think being seen is a gift that most people would love to receive. “I picked this out for you because I know you’ll love it.”, “I got this for you because I know you need it for work/your new hobby”, “I made these cookies for my family this week and remembered they’re your favorite so I brought you some!”, “Just wanted to say hi and I think you’re a great mom.”, “Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful family!” Gifts. Amazing gifts.

We want our kids to have this same view of gifts. We want them to know that the gifts of time or a kind word are just as (more even) important as the gift of a new toy. We also want them to play and explore and grow and learn and have toys that they love without feeling like we are drowning in a sea of toys. This can be such a hard balance to strike at any point in time, but especially at Christmas.

A few years ago, when Sam was 3 and Kate was 1, and we were talking about feeling ready to add a 3rd little one to our family soon, I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by toys and Christmas was fast approaching. Browsing Pinterest one day, I stumbled across this Christmas list template for 4 gifts. 1 thing I want, 1 thing I need, 1 thing to wear, 1 thing to read. To me this was brilliant. Not only would it help us avoid the present overwhelm on Christmas morning, but I could see how it would greatly simplify Christmas shopping for me, having clear cut categories like this. So we tried it out, and haven’t looked back ever since. It seems to have gained some popularity in the past couple years and I am hearing about more and more families doing it. James and I even do it for our own gift exchanging now. I’ve seen some other incarnations of the template I found that include things like “1 thing to do share”, or “1 place to go.” I love those! We haven’t added those because I usually use some grandparent Christmas money for joint and/or experience gifts.

Since our first year of want/need/wear/read, our Christmas gift plan has changed a little bit, but the past 2 years have been the same and I think we’ve found our “sweet spot”. The want/need/wear/gifts come from us and the kids write to Santa asking for one special toy. Santa will also bring a new game or puzzle and something handmade, either by us or by somebody on Etsy. This works so well for us. Christmas morning is peaceful and fun, and clean up later in the day is very quick and easy. 

Gifts quickly and easily corralled post present opening.

The “want” and “read” gifts always seem to be the easiest for me and for others that I know who use these same categories. Kids are usually pretty open about things that they want and books (for me anyway!) are always so easy and fun to pick out for anybody! Sometimes “need” and “wear” can be a little trickier.

Oftentimes nobody really needs new clothes. Sometimes get them something really special (like a tutu dress for Kate or graphic t-shirts for the boys with trains or construction vehicles on them). Or we’ll go with new shoes, sunglasses, a jacket, or even something for dress up play.

In the past I’ve come up with “need” gifts that were the same for everybody across the board. Water bottles one year, umbrellas another, rain boots still another. This year is the first year that I’ve had different “need” ideas for everybody. But some “need” ideas I always have on my radar, besides those I just shared: something for a sport or activity they’re involved in (a ballet bag, a soccer ball, a piano songbook), a jewelry box, a bank or a wallet, a backpack, lunch box, crayons, a drawing pad, slippers, a blanket or quilt for their bed, hiking boots, a sleeping bag, binoculars, a compass, bike helmet. Sometimes I’m afraid the “need” gift will come across as boring, but so far it hasn’t! I think it’s important (and hard) to remember that kids are usually actually pretty easy to please. It’s easy to get the thought into our minds that they need something flashy and fancy to hold their attention, but let me tell you about the squeals of excitement we heard last year when everybody got a new pair of slippers! Slippers that they still get excited about to this day! So, if you want to try this, embrace the simple “need” gifts. Most likely they’ll be incredibly well received!

Like I said earlier, James and I do want/need/wear/read gifts for each other as well (Santa fills our stockings, but doesn’t leave gifts for us under the tree). Same as with the kids, the categories make planning and shopping so much easier, but even more than the kids, there’s something so special about both giving and receiving a “need” gift. Because with adults who are capable of meeting their own needs, you have to think “outside the box” a little bit and get them something they might not know they need. Last year James got me the gift of time to myself for my “need” gift. Bath products and coupons for things like trips out of the house by myself (to run errands or to just grab a cup of coffee). Things that yes I do need, but things that I’m not good at just doing for myself or asking for. My “need” gift from James always makes me feel so seen and so cared for.

I know that Christmas can be so overwhelming for a lot of different reasons, but a gift giving template like this one can do a lot towards simplifying not only Christmas morning, but also the aftermath! I am so thankful that I found this idea several years ago. And I am so excited that Christmas time has rolled around again! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play a Pentatonix Christmas album. Again. 

Camping With Little Kids

We just got back from an amazing weekend spent camping and hiking at a state park close to our house. As I was posting all of our pictures, I started getting lots of messages asking questions about taking little kids camping so I figured I'd take all of the little tips I can think of and put them all in a blog post! I'll sharing pictures if I have them and linking to products as I come to them. I hope this can be helpful and encouraging to families who have been wanting to try taking their little ones camping! Parts of it can be hard, but staying home with little ones is hard too! Why not take the show on the road and into the woods, right? It's a whole heck of a lot easier to clean up snack spills in the woods and noisy playing doesn't actually seem so noisy after all when you take the walls away! So, go for it!

My first tip is to keep it simple. Resist the urge to Pinterest camp with all sorts of planned arts and crafts, fancy meals, and activities. I'll admit, some of the camping crafts and whatnot I've seen on Pinterest look so cute and fun! But if I pin them, it's so I can come back to them when I'm camping without sippy cups or diapers! For now, we keep it extremely simple with very low expectations! Even without very little kids though, you don't need all sorts of gadgets and extra just.... stuff to go camping. Just what is necessary to meet everybody's basic needs. A place to sleep, clothes to wear, food to eat. Good to go!

One big struggle with camping can be keeping everything you need for meals organized. I'm lucky to have been raised by a very organized mother who took us camping every summer, so packing intentionally and functionally for a camping trip feels like second nature to me! We pack one big rubbermaid tub with non perishable food, and another with kitchen supplies. In the food bin, we try to put loose things in jars and containers whenever we can because they're less likely to get stale. If I am going to be making something like pancakes while we're there, I mix the dry ingredients in a gallon bag and write instructions on the outside for adding the wet ingredients. For recipes that call for milk, I pre measure it out and pack it in jars. That eliminates the need for fitting a whole gallon of milk in our cooler. I pack the jars for recipes, and then just a half gallon for the kids to drink and James to put in his coffee.

We pack very little of our home kitchen supplies because we have some camping specific things, so packing the supply box is a breeze since it is mostly always packed. A set of pots and pans that nest inside each other saves space. We have this set and really like it! The camping box is a good place to send old, non breakable plates and utensils that you don't really use anymore. We prefer not to use disposable dishes and cutlery while camping, so we have a mishmash of camping specific plates we bought at an outdoors store and old utensils we stopped using when we got a new set as a wedding gift. We have a set of cups, but everybody mostly drinks out of water bottles, and then a set of mugs is a necessity! Besides all of that, your needs will vary depending on what you plan on cooking and eating, but we always have a roll of foil, some baggies, a cutting board and knife, and propane for our camp stove (can't go wrong with this one!) Also very helpful for the eating part of camping is an extra table. Campsites usually have a picnic table (bring a plastic tablecloth!), but a small folding table is so nice to have for food prep and dishwashing!

For meals we try to strike a balance between really easy and really yummy! We could just eat cereal and sandwiches all weekend (nothing wrong with that!), but we like to get at least a little fancier! Things that can be cooked over the campfire are really fun and we try to include the kids in the prep work as much as possible. The bigger kids anyway! Prepping meals while camping with babies brings me to another really big tip, babywearing. Bring at least one carrier. Even if your baby or toddler loves playing on the ground, you're going to want a safe place for them when the fire or stove is going and your full attention can't be on them. We have a high chair that folds pretty flat which makes it easy to bring with us (this one), a folding booster seat or chair that hooks to a tabletop would work too. If you don't have any of those things, an umbrella stroller could work for feeding a baby too. A big drink cooler with a dispenser, filled with water and ice, saves cooler space and makes it easy for even little ones to get their own drinks! The kids like to help make a big batch of trail mix (pretzels, different kinds of goldfish, bunny grahams, raisins, m&ms, we do something different every time!) before we leave and that serves as a great snack for everybody throughout the day. I usually also bake one or two treats and of course there are marshmallows and s'mores after dinner!

This is a really easy and really yummy campfire mac-n-cheese recipe that I found on Pinterest and modified a bit.

1lb cooked elbow noodles (I cook them before leaving home and pack them in a gallon bag)

1 jar alfredo sauce

2ish cups of shredded cheese (I use mostly cheddar, but a little parmesan too!)

Mix everything in foil pans, cover with foil, and set on a grate over the fire. Depending on how good your fire is going, they might just need a few minutes! They're done when the cheese is getting nice and stringy! We like to have this with sandwich melts (turkey or cheese sandwiches on hoagie rolls, wrapped in foil, and sat on the grate as well until the cheese is melty) and veggies with dip.

For mealtime clean up, we have baby wipes and paper towels. We have these amazing silicone bibs that are so easy to clean and have a nice deep pocket so they keep the baby pretty clean to begin with. We use them every single day at home and they're also amazing for camping! We have these, but there are a lot of different brands on Amazon. Baggies and/or the jars or containers I used for pre-prepped food that are now empty work for any leftovers.

Another concern when camping with kids is keeping them occupied. Depending on where you're camping, you might have a lot of activities available outside your campsite. We used to camp at a KOA campground growing up and loved using their pool and playground! Where we've been camping with our kids there is a playground and also miles and miles of hiking trails! For keeping occupied at the actual campsite, like I said before, I don't pre-plan any big things (as tempting as it is sometimes!) We pack two small plastic bins. One has a board game, a couple card games, drawing pads, and a pencil case full of crayons and pens. The other bin the kids pack themselves with toys that can get dirty and can get wet. I usually ask them to pack from 3 categories; animals, trucks, and people. They just need to be toys that I can throw in the sink when we get home before they go back into the playroom. These trucks are our absolute favorite for camping (they also work well as cake decorations BTW 😉 ) because they're so fun to play with in the dirt and they wash up super easily. With less kids, it might work for each one to pack their own individual backpack, but in our family it works best to just pack one bin of toys. Less fighting and we don't end up with way too many things to keep track of!

These are 3 of our favorite games right now and they're camping friendly! Uno, Spot It (there are lots of different versions, but we have the original), and Let's Feed the Very Hungry Caterpillar (toddler friendly with some help!)

One thing you can absolutely never have too many of when camping with kids is glow sticks. Buy all the glow sticks. The dollar store has fun bracelets and necklaces. We put the little connectors on for the bigger kids to actually use them as intended, but leave the connectors off for little ones who like to put everything in their mouths, they're plenty happy with just the straight stick! If you're really lucky, your daddy might have an entire ammo can full of military grade 'chem lights' leftover from his Marine Corps days 😉 None of our kids are huge fans of the dark (I'm not either!), but glow sticks are a super fun way for everybody to feel more comfortable! They're also very helpful for keeping track of anybody who might wander off. Give them each a different color to make it even easier!

In the tent we have a few different bed situations. Sam and Kate (7 and 5) each have a sleeping bag, pillow, and extra fleece blanket. Henry (3) has what we call a 'nest' which is just a couple thicker blankets folded up to lay on top of and two blankets to cover him. Anna (1) has a pack-n-play, but prefers to share my sleeping bag. James and I both have sleeping bags and he has an inflatable sleeping pad under his. For ease of packing and keeping organized, I pack one "night night" bag with everybody's special blankies, stuffed animals (they may choose 2 to bring, otherwise the tent would be overrun!), pacifiers, and a battery powered white noise machine (we use white noise at home so this is a comfort measure, but even if we didn't I would consider it for camping, especially if its a busier campground and your kids have early-ish bedtimes, it can get noisy at campgrounds in the evenings!) If you happen to go camping in the absolute pouring rain, and you get some puddles and/or little rivers in your tent, your pack-n-play will be a great place to throw things that absolutely need to stay dry like books and your white noise machine (ask me how I know this 🙁) We bring a broom for the inside of the tent and a doormat for the outside of the tent to minimize dirt on pillows and blankets. Shoes stay on the mat outside when anybody goes into the tent during the day, but we bring them in overnight so they don't get damp or become a home to any little creatures. 

We haven't ever worried about trying for a nap in the tent since Sam was a baby. When we went camping then and didn't have any other kids, we put him down for a nap in the tent at the normal time and just did our own thing out by the fire while he slept. With lots of kids to worry about now, we just hope for carrier naps on a hike or cat naps on somebody's lap during a quiet moment. 

For clothing, diapers, and toiletries, utilize your car as sort of a "staging area" of sorts. We just got a new tent from James' parents, an early Christmas present, that has an attached screen room where I was able to set up all of our clothes and things, but without that, I use the trunk of the van. Added bonus of the trunk is that the door will shelter you from the rain (again, ask me how I know...) I prefer to pack just one bag of clothes for us (James packs his own bag because his clothes take up a lot more space!) When we go on other trips, like to the beach, everybody gets their own duffel bag of clothes because I unpack when we get there, but when we're dressing straight out of our bags, I pack just one. I roll everybody's clothes to save space. Pants, shirt, socks, and underwear in each roll. I do one outfit per day, 1 extra outfit, and then 1 outfit opposite whatever season we're camping in (so shorts and short sleeves when we camp in the fall) just in case. We normally wear pjs for 2 nights before getting new ones when we're at home, but if your kids like to keep their pjs on until after breakfast like mine, their pjs will get dirty so one pair per night is a good idea! I also pack 1 pair of either warmer or cooler pjs, just in case. 

I keep all of our diaper-related things together. In 1 diaper box I pack diapers (we don't use cloth when camping), wipes (bring extra!), plastic grocery bags, a cloth wet bag, and extra undies and pants for a new potty trainer. Keeping it in one box makes it easy to transport from tent to car, depending on where you end up needing to change diapers.

For toiletries, something small with handles is best in my opinion, since you'll be walking at least a little (but it could be quite a ways!) to and from the bathroom while also herding all of your kids (again, babywearing is your friend!!) We keep it really simple with toiletries. Unless it's pouring rain and everybody needs to be both warmed up and rinsed of allllllll of the mud before going into the tent for the night, we just clean everybody up with a washcloth at the sink and skip a full shower until we get home. I bring one bottle of body wash. Not really the time for a huge assortment of products. Toothbrushes and toothpaste of course and I never travel with kids without a thermometer and Motrin because you just never know! I do bring a hairbrush, but tightly braid Kate's hair before we leave the house. Unless it gets snagged on the tent's zippers (often does) her braids will last from Friday until Sunday.

We generally take many, many, many walks to and from the bathroom throughout the day, but do also bring a small travel potty for emergencies. We haven't had to use it yet, but I'm afraid to be caught without it if somebody wakes up desperate at 2 in the morning! Glow sticks come in handy again for those nighttime treks to the bathroom. I lead the way with an actual flashlight (and a baby on my back!) and have the kids line up behind me, youngest to oldest, so the oldest is bringing up the rear. I get really anxious hiking back to the bathroom (the campground we go to has trails through the woods to a bathroom in the center of the site loop) in the dark, but lining them up like this gives me peace of mind!

Obviously keep an eye on the weather beforehand so you can plan accordingly, but take this very important advice and pack a bunch of extra tarps, string, and stakes, plus some umbrellas anyway. You can survive a sopping wet camping trip and still want to go again if you have some tarps and umbrellas. Just keep reminding yourself that you're making memories and a really hot shower is waiting for you at home!

Above all else, just relax and have fun. Your kids are going to get spectacularly dirty. Somebody (everybody) will eat some dirt, on purpose or accidentally. You honestly might not get a whole lot of sleep (or maybe you will! be optimistic!), you probably won't be eating the healthiest meals you've ever had, there's going to be a lot of bugs, and it'll take a fair amount of work to organize, pack, and set everything up. But it is so worth it. So worth it! If you used to love camping before having kids, or maybe you've never camped before but it's something you and/or your kids have been interested in lately, I hope this post encourages you to give it a try!  I am of course happy to answer any other questions, so please feel free to send them my way! I may not have the answers, but I can at least tell you what has worked for us. Happy Camping!

The 4th Time

4 times now I've ridden home from a hospital or birth center in the backseat of our car, not taking my eyes off of a tiny, squished faced little baby. 4 times now I've spent at least a few days keeping track of diaper output and how many times we nursed. 4 times now I've set alarms overnight to make sure my baby ate enough to get back up and over their birth weight. 4 times now I've folded diapers down so as not to irritate an umbilical cord stump. 4 times now I've changed tiny, peed on nightgowns in the middle of the night. 4 times now I've watched my body sort of... deflate (for lack of a better term). 4 times now I've snacked and sucked down entire bottles of water at 4 am because at that moment my hunger and thirst from nursing overcame even my deep need to sleep for at least an hour. 4 times now I've cried because a newborn sleeper was suddenly too tight and then fell into a fit of laughter at just how far a baby can shoot poop when they're without a diaper.

4 newborns. 4 trips through the maze that is postpartum. The past few weeks I've been reflecting on how different this particular time is from all of my others, especially the first time. When we first brought Sam home (and stood in the middle of the apartment looking around for several minutes, having no clue what to do next) there was a lot of fear. A lot of fear and so much anxiety. Was he sleeping enough? Sleeping too much? Nursing okay? Was this noise normal? Was that face normal? Was that poop a weird color? A weird consistency? Is he pooping to much? He hasn't pooped in a few hours, what's wrong? Will we ever sleep again? Will he ever sleep anywhere but on top of me? Do they make bigger swings because he's going to sleep in this thing until high school. How about swaddles? How big do those get? He'll never sleep without one. We enjoyed him. We enjoyed him and soaked him in. We really did! But the enjoying and the soaking wasn't without plenty of worry, plenty of questioning.

4 babies later, there's still some questioning. I think everybody with a newborn questions and second guesses themselves every now and then. But the enjoying and the soaking in is so much easier. If Anna suddenly wants to nurse every hour, instead of panicking that I'm not making enough milk, or that this is going to go on forever and I'll never sleep or have my body to myself, I refill my water bottle, grab a handful of pretzels, and feel grateful for an excuse to park it on the couch and turn on the tv.

Obviously, first time mom Sarah knew, realistically, that newborn Sam wouldn't be so tiny forever. She knew that newborn Sam wouldn't go off to college still needing to sleep on her chest. But first time mom Sarah's body wasn't yet used to functioning on so little sleep. First time mom Sarah didn't always think realistically. First time mom Sarah didn't know what to expect in the future, with an older baby, which made it hard to see farther than the next couple days. And the next couple days looked like a lot of center of her chest naps, cluster feeding, and many, many diapers. 

But now. Now Anna falls asleep on my chest and in my mind's eye she's 2 and we're moving her out of her crib into a 'big girl bed'.  I change her diaper for the 15th time that day, but I know that tomorrow (basically) I'll be folding her underwear and making sure she takes a potty break before we leave the house. She cluster feeds through the evening and I can hear her asking for a snack 50 times while I'm making dinner. 

Things that used to make me anxious are now my favorite parts of having a newborn. All the things that I used to worry I'd never be able to 'fix', I now wish would last just a little longer. I look forward to watching Anna hit all of the fun milestones that come in the first year. I can't wait to see her smile, hear her laugh, watch her learn to crawl, help her learn to walk... but I'm already feeling nostalgic about the huge chunks of the day I've been spending with her curled up, seemingly just as she was in my belly, sleeping on my chest. I can feel them already slipping by so quickly. I was just holding Henry this way. And now I'm watching him run back and forth in the playroom, kicking a soccer ball and yelling, "Look at me kicking mama! Look at me!" He still falls asleep on my lap, but he's spilling out of it now, long legs dangling over the side of the chair. 

Newborns are hard. They're really really hard. Having a newborn is exhausting, draining (in every sense of the word), and, at times, frustrating. That doesn't change, no matter how many times you do it. But what does change, or, at least what has changed for me, is the way I feel. There's such a great sense of calm and peacefulness that wasn't there when we brought home our first squished up little person, or even our second. Somehow, in the course of bringing home 4 very different babies, the hard, exhausting, draining, frustrating newborn phase has become one of my most favorite phases. Spit up stained nursing tanks, meals eaten one handed, fussy, gassy babies and all.