Glass half full: Add a little bokeh

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Preston and I have been toying with the idea of buying a small house and spending regular time traveling rather than in extra square footage. He has every other Friday off, giving us a great opportunity to explore.

I called him one day at work and said, "I have a great idea! Let's head out for a fun harvest getaway to celebrate the onset of autumn. We will ride a train, take a boat tour, and do all things rustic and quaint!"

So we planned a weekend trip. To the Wisconsin Dells. Water park capital of the world. We forget, obviously, that we moved away from New England.

It was only a weekend, so we would not need much stuff (read: everything our girls own). We did not have a long drive, with little to prep, so we could for sure leave on time (read: 45 minutes late). Our kids would sit peacefully in the back (read: cry the whole time) since we care for them so well (read: forget to feed them).

We pulled onto Main Street of the Dells at dinner time and our eyes grew wide. I turned to Preston and said, "The Wisconsin Dells is the age appropriate, riverfront version of Las Vegas." Trade out casinos for water parks, alcohol for mac 'n cheese, and spray tans for zinc oxide, and you've got the Dells.

As we drove past bright pink, blue, and green shops and shuffling feet dressed in Keens and Reefs, I felt a bit smug: we had booked a really nice cabin resort for two nights a little ways from downtown. 

Cabin it was. Resort it was not. 

I looked at Preston and laughed. The beginnings of this trip were quickly humbling us. I told him all we needed to do was pretend we were bloggers by profession. We'd take nice photos with plenty of bokeh and suddenly those bright shops became adorable and our lives enviable. He countered that we just needed to shift out perspective. We were high-level camping instead of low-level hoteling. Problem was, I didn't pack for camping. I packed a Nic & Zoe cardigan.

Our tasteful dinner of risotto with sweet corn and scallops came with the Wisconsin stamp: cheese on cheese. Good cheese, yes. The best cheese, in fact. But the enemy to our efforts not to look like we enjoy too much of America's Dairyland. 

I had imagined our kids tucked snugly in bed in the cabin while Preston and I enjoyed our books on the front porch, holding hands and eating chocolate. Fool me once...

Preston slept with Halle in the loft where she chatted happily for two hours, finally fell asleep, then fell off the bed. I laid below in the master bedroom on what felt like a glorified air mattress. The dog moved from the couch to the bed to the couch and whined because he couldn't climb the metal spiral stairs to the loft. The baby, bless her soul, slept through it all.

Are you wondering how long we'd been on this trip by this point? Because yeah, it felt like forever to us, too. 

In the early morning (curse the skylight--"Dad, it's morning time!") we sat on the front porch enjoying the cool air for five minutes before the glorious 90 degree autumn weather set in. Good thing our cabin did not have any air conditioning, or we might have gotten cocky.

To garnish our laughable experience to that point, Preston's Adirondack chair decided to take our high-level camping down a notch, reminding us we had moved very far from the Adirondacks.

 As Preston laid on the porch tangled up in a broken chair, both of us belly laughing at the ridiculousness of our whole situation, we looked at each other sharing the same thought: "Maybe we just buy the square footage."

And now, if you ignore everything I wrote above, "Look at this fun weekend we had!"

We brought our whole apartment except the baby seat.

Burgers with Brie, Cake Batter ice cream (size "Love It," thanks), Belgian waffle sandwiches with strawberries and Nutella and whipped cream and eggs and sausage... (Yes, I vacation for the food.  Ask not where do you want to visit, but where do you want to eat. In that vein, we moved to a pretty great location.)

We even ended up going to a water park, where Preston and I took turns playing with the girls while the other giggled and splashed down the big slides. One benefit to the Dells: this type of behavior by an adult is totally normal.

  

Halle, Preston, and Sonny Boy took a very early morning trip to the river to let the baby and me sleep. Halle, bless her heart, just can't quite figure out "sleep in."

  

 

(Halle is like, "Guys, this Duck Tour is weird." Halle, the whole weekend was weird.)

Ember Anne's Birth Story

**Since the initial publishing of this blog post, we have changed the name of our baby to Sienna. However, I'm leaving the post as written.

Many of you have expressed an interest in reading about the birth of our newest baby. It was certainly exciting and not what we expected. But, as we did expect, and just as with our first, the delivery of our second daughter was beautiful and amazing. Details below. And, as it is a birth story, be prepared to read about things like placentas.

Ember Anne Leavitt was born at home, and was delivered by a fireman. Her first name has nothing to do with this fact, but it's a fun coincidence nonetheless.

At 2:00 a.m., while laying awake in bed and feeling some contractions, I felt a familiar little pop and knew my water had broken. I woke up my husband and directed him to finish packing our hospital bags so that we could be ready to leave at a moment's notice. I called my midwife and received the instruction to head to the hospital when contractions were five minutes apart and I had to stop and breathe through them. At 3:00 a.m. I instructed Preston to call our doula (I had not intended to hire a doula, but had a feeling like there was something missing in our preparation for this baby and the answer came to me that we needed a doula) and have her come sleep on our couch so that we could have her available whenever we needed. She arrived by 3:45 a.m. Meanwhile, Preston had gone back to sleep and I was laying in bed doing my best to rest in between contractions, which had been ten minutes apart since my water had broken. This is how we passed the next few hours of the morning--Preston sleeping peacefully while I held his hand and labored next to him, breathing through contractions and meditating for the ten minutes in between, waiting for the five minute distance my midwife had told me to watch for.

The thing is, when people talk about how intense labor is, you build up an expectation. So no matter how tough my labor got, I kept thinking it had to get harder. I had intended to labor at home for the majority of my labor, spending as little time in the hospital as possible. I'd also been primed for the marathon labors that are common with "first timers," and since my first delivery was by c-section, I considered myself a first timer and had no idea what to expect of myself. I was planning on a long day ahead. For three hours I laid in bed as much as possible, standing up only when I was really desperate, breathing through my contractions and trying to relax through the intense pressure, not recognizing how far into labor I truly was.

Finally, around 5:30 a.m. the contractions became so intense that I could not hold still or stay in bed. I decided to jump in the shower for some relief and then wake up Preston for labor support afterward. I was trying to preserve his energy for him for when I thought I would need it later.

The other thing is, hot water can speed up labor. I did not know this. I got in the shower expecting some relief and instead found myself unable to go on by myself. I got out, got dressed, and woke up my husband. I told him we needed to leave for the hospital soon and that I was going downstairs to Desirae, our doula, for support. He told me to get some breakfast if I could.

Then the party started.

I went downstairs around 6:00 a.m. Desirae began timing my contractions while she got me breakfast. I could not talk through contractions very well, gritting my teeth, and had to stop often. I couldn't eat my breakfast and began to feel nauseous. Preston had still not come downstairs, and my contractions had gone from ten minutes apart to three minutes apart thanks to that shower. I was past ready to head to the hospital.

In an emergency, I'm the kind of person that gets into business mode. I survey the scene and start giving orders to get help going. At this point in my labor, I jumped into this business mode in order to get us out the door, and discovered how highly irritating it is to have a contraction interrupt my girl boss groove. We could not seem to make any progress toward the car.

Between contractions, I instructed Desirae to go upstairs and get Preston. Believe it or not, the man had fallen back asleep.

Over the next twenty minutes, beginning at about 6:10 a.m., elapsed what seemed to be to be very inefficient running around, fueled by my inability to complete an instruction without having to stop for contractions. Preston came downstairs carrying our toddler, who had woken up. He was chatting with her and being sweet, and I stopped him mid-sweetness to get back upstairs and get our stuff STAT. I gave my toddler a kiss and then got back to laboring and girl-bossing. The contractions were so powerful by this point that I was gasping during each one, Desirae rubbing my back.

Besides powerful contractions, some other things that happened during those twenty minutes:

K-"I need to call Halle's babysitter. (Heather)"
K-"Preston, we still need to switch out the car seats."
K-"Oh my gosh, are we going to make it to the hospital?"
D-"You're doing great, everything's going to be okay."
K-"Preston, hustle like you have never hustled before!!"
P-"Kels, have you seen my wallet?"
K-"You're kidding me."
K-"Hi Heather. Halle's stuff is...hold on...upstairs to the right...hold on...find the list...you'll figure it out!"
K-"Are we going to make it to the hospital?!!"
K-"Forget everything else, I'm going to the car.....NEVERMIND."
D-"Preston, call an ambulance, please."

Preston made the call to 911 at 6:35 a.m. and two policemen arrived at 6:38 a.m. Then four firemen. Then two EMTs. All with blue and red lights flashing bright in the early morning sky. Our poor 92 year old neighbor. By this point I had thrown myself on our couch (a detail Preston wants me to omit--he thinks no one will come sit with us again. Never fear, the firemen brought plastic! My rug was unscathed, too! High fives all around.) and whipped off what needed to be whipped off to have a baby. As the men ran inside I heard someone say, "She's crowning!" and a nice fireman named Matthew knelt at the edge of the couch to help me.

What followed was a scene very similar to that at the end of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, when Millie is having her baby on the Oregon frontier and all the women are running around the cabin in their heavy quilted skirts, bustling and hustling to grab towels and water, except instead of seven women in skirts we had eight men in uniforms, boots, and badges. They held water to my lips, stuffed towels on the floor and on the couch, let the dog out to go potty, helped hold my legs, and cheered me on. Desirae sat on my left and Preston on my right, holding my legs and talking me through the intensity as I relaxed into my body for about 5 minutes.

And then I decided things needed to move along faster, pushed really hard three times (and thought to myself, "Ah, the infamous ring of fire") and the baby was born.

The time declared was both 6:47 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. We were a little busy chatting about how unfair it is that you have to deliver a placenta after pushing out a kid to know which time exactly.

Our baby girl emerged strong, healthy, and substantial. She curled right into me, covered in kitchen towels, and the whole room looked at her in awe and reverence. As the eight kind men, the doula, and my sweet husband circled around our little couch in our corner of the world, we felt a tangible peace together, this group of people who participated in this miracle. A sense of rightness settled on the room.

Other notable things:

Between pushing, one of the fireman asked what we should do with the dog. I said, "Leave him, he's fine." So our little dog sat among the semi-circle of men, supervising the goings-on in his house.

When it was time for me to leave for the hospital, the courteous men assembled some shoes, pants, and underwear for me. One man held up the hot pink underwear I had been intending to wear to the hospital and said very concerned and respectfully, "Are you sure you want to ruin this?" I laughed and said, "It's not my usual stuff, I bought it specifically for labor. Thanks for asking!"

At some point during clean up, while I was still sitting on the couch, somewhat disheveled and covered in various towels, I told the room that despite appearances I'm actually a pretty fun, put-together person. I think everyone must have laughed at this, because their laughter is the only thing my toddler noticed from upstairs during the whole affair, where she had been reading books with our good friend who never made it out of the house with her.

I'm not sure how I'll feel if I run into any one of these men in public. Glad to be fully dressed, I guess.

I got a much wanted excuse to buy all new towels for the entire household.

So, come visit us, where you will enjoy fresh towels, a perfectly clean and sanitary couch and rug, and a beautiful new baby girl!