So, I'm a little late in posting a blog, but today is the first chance I have had to get to it. As many of you know already, Emmaline Grace Charlotta Farina was born Wednesday, November 7, 2007, around 9:43, give or take a minute. She weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. Labor lasted 42 hours, and by the end I was absolutely exhausted. David had been fighting off a gum infection around one of his wisdom teeth the weekend before. Unfortunately, he was not very good about trying not to wake me when he got up at night. Therefore, neither one of us got much sleep all weekend long.

Monday afternoon, right when the closing of our house was scheduled, I went into labor. However, I didn't realize it. I just thought I was having really bad gas pains. When I noticed that there was a pattern to when the pain came and went, it occurred to me that I might possibly be in labor. After the closing was done, around 5 o'clock, we drove to the house intending to clean it some. I never got to cleaning, though, since I was feelig a bit miserable and tired; David never got to cleaning, either, as he had struck up a conversation with one of our new neighbors.

I called Erin since my contractions were pretty regular and told her what was going on. She decided to go ahead and come over, not wanting to risk missing my delivery. It was really encouraging and reassuring to have her there. As much as I needed the strength and presence of David, it was just as important to have another woman with me, especially one who is my sister and has already gone through this. Anyhow, my contractions became stronger and closer together, and they kept me up all night. I spoke with my midwife and she encouraged me to get some sleep. Since my contractions were only in the lower part of my uterus, she wanted me to wait and see if this was truly the real thing. After going for a long walk around 3 o'clock in the morning, I was able to go to sleep; I didn't have anymore contractions after that.

I got up Tuesday morning and took a shower. After that my contractions came very randomly, so I just ignored them. Erin helped us move some things over to the house, we treated her to luch, then Erin headed home. Around 10:30 that night, I woke up having strong contractions. They started off about half an hour apart, but by 3 o'clock the following morning they were a minute or less apart and very painful. Amy my midwife told me to go ahead and come into the birthing center. I called Erin and told her what was going on, and she headed out the door for the second day in a row. David and I arrived at the birthing center around 4 o'clock that morning, and Erin made it there by 5:30 or 6.

Erin helped me walk around and deal with the contractions while David got some rest. Then David joined the party again in time for Emmaline to break my water around 8:45 or 9. After some really hard pushing, Emmaline joined the party around 9:43. Yay! It's over!

I gave birth to Emmaline in a birthing center called Blessed Births. It was a wonderful experience, and I could not have done it without the help of Amy. She was such an encouragement and help to me, especially in the hardest moments of my labor. David and I greatly enjoyed the atmosphere of the birthing center, as it was very calm, peaceful, and felt just like we were in our own home. We and our wonderful new daughter were left to rest and relax and just enjoy some time as a new family. We loved it, and I cannot imagine giving birth anywhere else now.

I will be 39 weeks pregnant this coming Sunday!! I weigh 144.5 pounds and my waist measures 40 inches around. How encouraging to think I started at 110 pounds with a 26 inch waist. The glories of pregnancy!!

I went for a follow up appointment this past Wednesday to get the results of the lab work they did at my last appointment. I have tested positive for Beta Strep, also known as Group B Strep (GBS). The doctor at my birthing center gave me some of the statistics regarding this bacteria, which made it seem to me that it really wasn't a huge deal. However, I have spent some time this morning looking up some information about the bacteria, and I have to admit that I am frightened by the things I have found. The doctor just kind of breezed over the consequences of a baby getting this bacteria; all she said was pretty much, "Well, the baby could get sick and may need hospitalization." That's it! She also said there is no threat to me as a carrier.

On the websites I have read Group B Strep can cause serious infection in those who carry the bacteria, who are also said to be "colonized", although this happens rarely. If a baby gets Group B Strep disease, it can cause meningitis, sepsis, and pneumonia, and, if the baby survives, he may have permanent mental and/or physical damage caused by the just listed problems. Slightly scary!!! Although the chances of Emmaline getting a GBS infection during delivery are small, the consequences can be HUGE! The CDC recommends but then doesn't recommend using antibiotics during labor. The thing is that so many bacteria are becoming antibiotic-resistant, and introducing antibiotics to a baby so early can create problems down the road. However, giving a laboring woman antibiotics can prevent most infections of babies, but not all. Also, the chances of the baby dying from an infection are not lessened by having been given antibiotics.

My midwife has me working on something right now that will hopefully eradicate the bacteria. I have managed to find online some suggestions for herbal remgimines that can be followed up until labor, and they supposedly also help get rid of the bacteria. The good thing about the herbal regimines, though, is that they prevent the bacteria from coming back until after the baby is born since you stay on them all the way up to going into labor. I plan on asking my midwife about those. The tricky thing about GBS is that it comes and goes. Some women can test positive for it and a day later, without having done anything to get rid of it, have a negative test result. That's why some women test negative for GBS. They still have it, they just don't know it.

David and I will be praying, and we ask anybody reading this to say a prayer for our little Emmaline; that God would protect her from this infection.

Doom and trouble are looming on the horizon!! Another "Johnson" girl is being born into this world!! Everyone don't panic, just find a place to hide for the next twenty years. Hopefully by then she'll have become a rational, independent person and we won't have to worry about her anymore! YEAH RIGHT!!!

I know technically my little daughter is a "Farina", but since the Johnson blood and traits, as we all know, are more dominant, she is going to be a "Johnson" girl at heart. And that means nothing but trouble! Poor David won't know what hit him.

The ultrasound experience was amazing. It was so neat to see my little baby moving around inside my womb, and for once in my life I could actually tell what exactly I was looking at. I have seen so many ultrasound printouts of my nieces and nephew, and of other babies, and all I have ever seen are black and white blobs. Even looking now at some of my ultrasound printouts, I have no clue what part of the baby is being viewed. Thank goodness for the 3-D printouts!!

David and I still haven't been able to decide on a name. I am still stuck on Addelaide, or as Erin suggested, Addeline, though I haven't been able to come up with a middle name to go along. (Any suggestions are welcome!) David likes Abigail (which I think is a very cute name, but I just don't get that "That's it!!" feeling, plus Amber, Ava, and Andrew already have a cousin named Abigail) plus he likes all those boring names that every other kid in America has. I just can't bring myself to do it. Growing up, I loved the fact that my name was pretty uncommon. Although it did annoy me that people could never pronounce my name correctly, I never wished my parents had given me a different name. Maybe my child will feel differently, but when she is eighteen she can change her name to whatever she wants!! For now, I would rather have a good reason for picking a not-so-often-heard-of name over just picking a plain Jane name because my child will be picked on, or no one will be able to pronounce it. I say, if people couldn't get Eva right, and that really is quite a simple name, even if it is unique, then anything slightly different is going to be hard, so I may as well go all the way!!

On another note, I was very excited on Monday that I got to see my brand new nephew Andrew. I was disappointed that I wasn't there for the birth, but I was still elated that I got to see him and Erin a couple of hours after the delivery. It was so neat to hold Andrew, who is incredibly tiny considering the amount of room he was taking up in Erin's womb. Thank goodness he came early! Andrew inaugurated me as his Auntie by peeing on me within five minutes of picking him up; he also had his first poop while I was holding him. Ahhhh...the things I get to look forward to!! Anyhow, welcome to the world little Andrew!!!

Our midwife Karin Kearns came this past Saturday. We got to fill out mundane paperwork, then she drew my blood, did a urine test checking for protein or some other such nonsense, and most importantly we got to listen to the baby's heartbeat!!! Both David and I were amazed that a small handheld device can pick up a tiny little heartbeat that belongs to a tiny little child whom is only a couple of inches long! I am still amazed when I think about it. It was exhilerating to hear the little beano's frenzied heartbeat as it was the first official confirmation of my pregnancy and because it is a sign of life, a sign of something that is much more grand than I!

On another note, I woke up this morning at 7 o'clock and went out onto our back sunroom to do my devotions when I was greeted with the smell of a fire. The smell wasn't very strong, so I just figured it was someone down the street burning something. At 8:30 I left the house to run some errands and noticed that the air was still tinged with smoke; it looked like a light fog but smelled like smoke. As the morning went on the smoke got worse to the point that at midmorning it seemed like we had a really persistant thick fog. I thought for sure something local had happened, but heard on the radio that the smoke was actually coming from wildfires in Georgia and the panhandle of Florida. Later on there were also reports that the smoke didn't come from those wildfires at all, but from something that had happened in Orlando. Either way, I was blown away by how something that had happened at least 100 miles away could so heavily affect us. I have been sick all day with sinus problems as a result of the smoke. Can you imagine that? Something that was sparked that far from where I live made me sick... It just goes to show that one person can do one thing, and that one thing and one person can affect hundreds, thousands of people! Now, if it just were a positive thing...

Today was supposed to have been my first visit with the midwife I had selected. I am somewhere around twelve weeks pregnant, and still haven't even had a confirmation of my pregnancy (other than the home-pregnancy test I took). I am pretty sure I am pregnant and would be pretty darn depressed to find out that I am not, as my waistline is growing beyond control and my chest has miraculously grown a cup size or two! I had been looking forward to hearing the baby's heartbeat and doing all the stuff that pregnant women do when being visited by or visiting their doctor. However, today I was really disappointed when my midwife never showed for our appointment.

My experience so far during this pregnancy with any medical practitioner has not been a good one. I left three or four messages at the office of an OB/GYN that I had seen before and really liked; never heard back. Then my sister Erin who is also pregnant suggested I look into midwives, which was a wonderful suggestion; the type of care midwives have to offer seems to fit pretty well with my no fuss, au naturale attitude. Plus I was really interested in a more homey atmosphere with the options of a home birth or water birth. So I set about looking for midwives in my area. There were four in the phone book. Can you believe that?!!! Four!!! In all of Tampa there are only four midwives!! I thought for sure there would be more. One of the midwives turned out to be a nurse midwife, which means she won't deliver anywhere else but in a hospital. One turned out not to be a midwife at all but a douhla. One number was no longer in service and the other was a birthing center about 45 minutes from me. It seemed my options were pretty limited.

In talking to the douhla, though, she knew of two other midwives that were not listed at all. I contacted one and set an appointment based on the fact that the midwife offered a birthing center. I thought at the time that I would rather go there than have the baby at home. After going to my fiasco of an appointment, which lasted three hours and all they did was take an hour to fill out paperwork for me when I could have done it in fifteen minutes, take two hours to take my blood pressure, make sure my reflexes were ok, and then they basically sent me on my merry little way, I decided I would go to option B. Option B was today's appointment.

Now I am on Options B and C. I called the birthing center in Dunedin (the one that is 45 minutes away) to see when I could schedule an appointment. The next available day for an orientation, which they require you to go through before you can see a midwife, was May the 24th. Then, if I qualified for their services, I would have to set another appointment to see the midwife. The girl I spoke with made it sound like that would be even later than the beginning of June. After that phone call the midwife I was supposed to see today called back and apologized profusely for her absent-mindedness. Thankfully I had had time to cool off from my irritation and disappointment, plus I was really ready to just get this stuff started, so I rescheduled for tomorrow.

Let's cross our fingers and hope everything goes well!