Today I reflect on my chicken raising experience.  Chickens and their pecking order make for quite an event!

On June 20, 2016, much to my overwhelming excitement, I got to meet and bring home the rest of my egg laying ladies.  My two at home were about to gain four more sisters.  The long awaited day of being united with the rest of my flock finally arrived after a packed weekend in Minnesota of wedding photography and Maisy birthday festivities with my family.

These four ladies were part of my dad’s science class at the end of the year.  His goal was to give the kids something fun to do to keep their minds off of being in class when the summer breeze started trickling in through the windows.  Their task, to train them to go through mazes.  Sounds like fun to me! Anyways, because these ladies were a part of his curriculum I had to wait to bring them home until school was out.

After a long day of driving home I hurriedly unpacked the car so as to spend time with my new chicks outside for as long as I could before it was time to put Maisy to bed.  I started the introduction in safe quarters.  I left my existing two girls in the lower part of the coop and dumped the other girls just outside it.  They sized each other up in close proximity while also having a safe barrier to keep anyone from getting vicious.

Hens survive in the wild by keeping strictly to a pecking order.  Any time another chicken is to enter the flock the whole hierarchy is overturned as everyone has to vie for their spot in line again as the newbie finds it’s place.  The pecking order is so important to survival because, in the wild, it’s how chickens stay hidden from predators:  if everyone knows their place in line they don’t draw attention to themselves by fighting over who gets the first pick in food.

My ladies were going to have to go through this season of establishing hierarchy and though I anticipated it I was struck by how immediately motherly I felt towards my new girls as my existing girls clearly, immediately, decided they were going to be at the head of the flock even if it meant they had to take it by force.  Interesting dynamic:  on the one hand, the four new girls outnumbered mine 4 to 2 and were a week and a half older; on the other hand, the two originals were in their territory.  Apparently territory trumps all.

For the rest of the evening I kept my eye on all the girls and did a number of things to reintroduce them to each other.  I sat outside with all six wandering about.  Happy and Boo kept to themselves munching away at anything and everything with the other four hung out pretty close to me, making friends with me.

Then it came time for nightfall.  I went out to check on the chicks and found Luna (the only newbie to come with a name) cheeping frantically all by herself in the chicken run.  Apparently she found herself at the bottom of the totem pole and was entirely too freaked out to be in the dark outside but was also too nervous about being surrounded by the other chicks. I, in turn, found myself in a kind of panic.  I felt a pangs of compassion for that sweet, little chickie girl and spent the next hour scouring the internet for something to ease her in better. The verdict, I had done everything not only right, but super right and had to let nature take it’s course from there.  I checked on the coop one more time and discovered that Luna finally made it up into the coop and found a safe spot to sleep.  With that I finally headed up to bed and fell asleep praying for peaceful sleep and safety for all of my chickens.

In the morning I woke to find everyone alive and unharmed and I was overjoyed!  Moral of the story, I am fiercely protective of those in my care, whether chicken or child.  I think that’s pretty cool.

Penny was a mere 6 days old when I experienced my first outing with both girls.  Our mission: church. Josh packs a screaming Maisy into one car after patient attempts to get her to peaceably climb in of her own accord.  My postpartum self follow several minutes later with our newborn.

Upon arriving at church I slipped into the service entirely noticed because you might as well have a spotlight on you when you’re holding a newborn.  Just after worship Josh slinked off to change Penny’s diaper and didn’t come back for what seemed like forever.  When he did he had a Maisy in make shift clothes tagging along behind him.  She peed in Kidzworks.  Fortunately for us we chose to sit in the front and Maisy was hell bent on dancing in the aisles in nothing but the oversized t-shirt and pull up Kidzworks rustled up for her to wear, – showing the church world we’re new to and somehow supposed to be pastoral examples too that obviously we are a mess.

By the time I got home with both kids, as Josh had to stay behind to work, I was in tears – the potty accident as her 7th within 24 hours with my “baby blues” postpartum emotions and my first trip out of the house with both kids and I was beyond spent.

I knew that Maisy would have a rough time transitioning after the baby was born, but I underestimated her completely.  I certainly did not expect that the hardest part of welcoming our new baby into our lives would be dealing with the tornado that became of her big sister.  I daily was left teary because I hurt for my toddler and was being hurt by her while my newborn won the award for easiest baby on the planet.

When Penny came Maisy abundantly lavished her love and enthusiasm on her baby sister but entirely disrupted every other corner of her world.  She largely spent her days saying no to everything we asked her to do from going potty to eating to saying sorry, throwing tantrums when we made her do it anyway, hitting, saying “stop talking,” peeing more in her pants than on the potty, and stubbornly waking for the day at 4 or 4:30am.

I mean, I get it.  Not only did she have a sister disrupting her world, but her best friend, Mom, wasn’t taking care of her like usual and was resting and out of reach a lot, her daily crew of day care buddies hadn’t been here in over a week, and she was getting all these instructions about how to act with her sister on a consistent basis.

I did everything I could think of to help her cope.  I arranged play dates every day from now until the time I received day care kids after a couple weeks of maternity leave, I included her with the baby and extra special activities just with me like taking a bath or coloring or painting her toe nails, I did every nap time or bed time for her like usual despite my recovering body’s protests, and I loved the crap out of her.  After stacking up all of this intentionality on a daily basis we turned a corner and started to find our sweet little girl again.

Now, three months later, even just 3 weeks after Penny arrived, Maisy is back to her normal sweet self and then some. She’s a new and improved Maisy!

Now for a quick list of ideas to help your older sibling welcome a new baby with as little bumps as possible – because I’m a list kind of girl myself!

Things to help your older sibling cope with a new baby:

1. Arrange play dates.  My daughter, Maisy, is ridiculously socially oriented.  Her life is friends.  During the week our house is swarming with little females so I knew she would need regular play dates in my weeks off hosting day care in order to survive the transition into big sisterhood.
2. Give gifts and treats.  A baby gets a lot of presents and attention.  Your older sibling will be feeling forgotten and left out.  Maisy got some special gifts from her Mimi like a baby wearing buckle carrier like Mommy’s that she can use with her dolls, a big sister doll, and a big sister book.
3. Spend quality time.  The day we had at amazing Maisy I took just her into the bath with me in the morning (water is her favorite) and spent some time grooming her by doing her nails and hair.  Josh also took her on a daddy-daughter date to the park and played on the slides and swings.  That’s a lot of quality time in one day… what can I say, our girl has a big quality time love tank to fill!
4. Be encouraging.  Try to point out EVERY TIME your older sibling is doing something awesome.  They are likely getting an overload of negative feedback in regards to their ill behavior and the learning curve in handling their baby sibling.

That’s what I have to offer. If you have any more helpful advice and tips, comment below!

Side note fun fact:  these few paragraphs I wrote just after the incident described below in the Starbucks drive through, yes the line was that long.

Got to the gym today for the first time in months. I left the baby with daddy, sleeping with a full belly. I loaded Maisy into the car with my yoga mat and water bottle. All seemed in check despite this nagging feeling I was forgetting something. I chalked it up to first time jitters and pulled out of the driveway.

Upon arriving at the Janesville Athletic Club I had me and Maisy checked in with 15 minutes to spare. I set up my yoga mat and stretched while I waited for class to start. Another moment later I got up to introduce myself to the instructor. We shook hands and I proceeded to ask her how to modify my routine due to my sciatica injury.

Moments later we were engaged in our first position for class. As I focused on my breathing my mind wandered as usual and it wandered to my daughter who, to my surprise, happily wandered into the child care area, ready to play. With a jolt I realized I forgot to put her on the potty before we left the house. I got up and out as nonchalantly as I could and headed for the kid zone. One of the workers met me half way explaining she was just coming to get me because Maisy started wetting herself and was crying about it. My heart sunk but thought for sure she’d only peed a little and that I was still in time to salvage the situation. Instead, I found her soaked and in a puddle of her own pee in the kid bathroom.

No one wants to be that mom. I was so thoroughly bummed. On the one hand I felt bad for my hysterical and mortified toddler. On the other I felt bummed and frustrated with myself that my hour of kid free time to focus on repairing my falling apart body was interrupted because of my own forgetfulness.

A few weeks back The Honest Company gave me the idea to write my breastfeeding testimony.  I thought that sounded like great writing fodder for sure! And now the day has finally arrived that I’ve been given the gift of quiet, alone time since I’ve somehow managed to get all the kids sleeping at the same time.

I can’t say I was excited about breastfeeding before babies came my way but I can say I was committed to making it my reality for any children of mine until at least age two.  Why age two?  Well, currently it is the recommended minimum for meeting your babies core nutrition and immunity needs.

Before Maisy was born the only breastfeeding book I needed to read was The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.  I know that because when Maisy was born my “I just labored for three days” brain had one instinct and one instinct only, to lay my naked baby vertically on my bare chest at breast level and let her hunt for the milk.  My baby and getting her to breastmilk was my one and only thought.  The tornado of busy nurses, doctors, and others that attended to my needs existed entirely outside the bubble of complete calm that enveloped me and my baby.  I had thoughts for nothing else.  I was amazed as I watched her wiggle her way over to sustenance and helped her along as she did so.  That was it, she latched on and got to work.

My let down was and is forceful and my supply overflowing so my main problems were helping my baby keep up with the flow, solve her problem of regular projectile vomiting, and avoiding blebs and engorgement.  My flow was so strong that my breasts stung every time I had a let down and that sting was followed by a coughing baby. After weeks of trying to get my flow to regulate by only nursing one side each session I gave into the pain and began a months long routine of pumping my breasts into comfortable slackness every morning and evening… resulting in 10+ ounces of milk each time.

There are several things about being a mama to my baby number two, my pretty Penny, that not only leave me feeling like I actually know what I’m doing but that also leave me loving this babyhood stage of life we are in.  I can now say I love babies.

With my baby Maisy I could tell you I loved my daughter, but not that I loved babies.  I certainly did live in the moment and enjoyed my squishy, smiley baby but I also couldn’t help but look forward to life with more sleep, less nursing, and the ability to do more than care for the sleep, eat, and poop needs of an infant.  Little did I know that life with a baby could allow such things too!  Penny is my dream baby: she sleeps nearly all night (even as a newborn), she nurses even better than Maisy (which I didn’t think was possible), and, instead of crying all day long, she uses her vocal chords for the sweetest baby chatter you ever did hear.

Before Penny was born I turned my brain off to learning anything breastfeeding.  Why would I when the first time around came so naturally?  I simply repeated what I did with Maisy.  I delivered Penny into my own hands at my own house, sat back and watched my birth team get the cord untangled from around her neck, and held her face down as she fought for breath.  Through all that emotional and physical chaos I would periodically offer the breast to Penny but each time it became obvious her breathing wasn’t ready to help her achieve success despite her loud longing to suckle.  After what felt like an eternity later I offered my breast yet again but this time she could breath and suck at the same time.  She had a perfect latch.  In that moment I was pleased to experience, for the first time, what moms feels when they say they “love breastfeeding.”  Maisy had a great latch, but from day one it tickled.  That makes for an oddly sexually stimulating, and therefore awkward breastfeeding experience.  Penny’s latch does not tickle, it does not hurt, it is wonderful.

Today I breastfeed my almost 2.5 year old and my 2 month old.  Sometimes we even tandem nurse.  Maisy’s latch still tickles awkwardly, Penny’s still feels awesome.  This time around it is a nearly perfect experience.  Whenever I’m feeling engorged I summon my toddler to empty me out until I am at least comfortable.  Penny doesn’t struggle to keep up with the flow because I am not so perpetually overflowing with milk due to my toddler helping with the upkeep throughout the day.  We have struggled with a few moments of projectile vomit but finally puzzled it out to two causes:  too much foremilk and too much milk in general.  Problem is now being avoided by nursing strictly on one breast through the duration of each wakeful period and by cutting her off when she starts to get uncomfortable and squirmy (her signs that she’s overfilling herself).  So far I’ve been lucky to avoid common ailments like blebs, cracked and/or bleeding nipples, and mastitis all of which I can thank my better regulated supply and great latch.

The key to successful and painless breast feeding lies in three factors: wide mouth latch, tongue mobility, and milk flow.  Problems may still arise but by consulting your local La Leche League you can trouble shoot everything from mastitis, to blebs, to bloody nipples without having to give up breastfeeding.  Every breast can do it, it’s just a matter of working with what you’ve been given.

For Penny’s birth I envisioned a beautiful home birth during which  we would labor largely outside and I would ultimately deliver in a pool set up in a tent outside with lights strung about, Maisy and Josh right there beside me.  The only reality that came true out of that vision was the home birth part; none of the rest of it panned out.  And that’s ok.

My labor started hard at 9 pm on my birthday, September 18.  With 1:15 minute contractions about seven minutes apart. They burned like fire through my butt and down both thighs.   I hoped I could get them to stop or at least sleep through them for a while, especially since I had a bit of a cold bug, but after only a couple of hours I was at 1-2 minutes long and 3-5 minutes apart and with “bloody show.” I promptly called my midwife and doula then woke Josh because it was go time whether I liked it or not!

Josh’s primary task was to get the pool set up.  Unfortunately, the tent we’d rented to enclose the pool outside was still in the travel bag and now we’d run out of time.  Plan B was to set the pool up in the living room, but then realized we didn’t have a way to blow it up other than lung power. A quick call to my doula promised we would have one upon her arrival so in the mean time we drew a bath.  Before I could slip away into the comfort of warm water and candlelight, however, I threw up the contents of my stomach into a bowl Josh produced just in time, right as my midwife walked in the door.  Then I got in the bath and tried to relax for a bit.  

By the time I got out my mother-in-law was tucked away in the guest bedroom to be ready to take Maisy as needed, my whole birth team was present, and my living room had been turned into home birth central, complete with plastic draped over various surfaces and the pool set up and filling slowly.

In the dark hours of the night the atmosphere in my house was lovely, alight with candles and entirely quiet and peaceful.  However I didn’t see the space very often because this part of my labor progressed largely behind closed eyes – I was so sleepy I couldn’t manage to keep my eyes open.  Even when Maisy came down the stairs at 5am I couldn’t manage to summon the energy for a hello that remotely resembled the mom she was so used to.  I just remember reclining in the pool like a dead whale wishing on a star that I would miraculously feel alive and awake, not like sleeping and shaking and puking. Each contraction I would close my eyes (if they weren’t already closed) and moan through the contraction. I thought I sounded like a sick cow. Then, after only a handful of hours, I experienced pushing urges.  And then they stopped.

In the lighter hours of the early morning I still rarely opened my eyes but what I saw was medical stuff everywhere.  My house didn’t look like my house anymore with the light of day revealing my couch draped in plastic and bed pads, a bright blue kiddie pool with sea characters brightly smiling at me, and clipboards and other supplies strewn across my dining room table and on any surface of my living room.  During these hours of labor I now was also chronically freezing and still unable to keep food in my belly.  

In the full light of the day I kept the blinds shut and stayed inside.  That’s entirely unlike me but my laboring self was afraid of onlooking neighbors and did not want anything messed with – I think I was afraid any change would make things worse even though it very well could have made things better. I still battled to keep my eyes open and cease shivering but my eyes did finally start to stay open in-between contractions and near the end of the day my shivers turned to sweating as the heat of the 82 degree September day took the interior of the house up to 76 degrees.  

During this time I started asking about going to the hospital for pitocin and an epidural.  I was ashamed to ask, I didn’t want to disappoint my all natural birth team, especially my doula, but also desperate.  I was miserable from the unrelenting burning contractions in my butt and down my thighs and exhausted from no sleep and no food.  I would labor for a while, then bring up the hospital again, labor for a while, then bring up the hospital again.  The most heartbreaking moments in this time, however, were the glimpses I caught of Maisy.  I could see in her eyes the distress that I felt in my body and I couldn’t be there for her – my ever interrupting contractions took all of my attention in order to cope.  Instead, she tried to be there for me; she would come up and give me a hug from behind, stroke my hair, or give me a kiss.  Then it became too much for her all of a sudden.  After so much time seeing me in distress and not being allowed to be with me like usual, Maisy broke down and cried for me.  Despite the team’s best efforts to continue to keep her distracted and occupied it became obvious she couldn’t handle it anymore.  My midwife suggested she head home with Grandma and I reluctantly agreed.  I so very much wanted Maisy to be present for the birth of the baby but for her sake and the sake of me being able to focus 100% on my labor I said goodbye to her.  

After some hopeless sobbing shortly thereafter, I said I was done and we talked strategy to get me to the hospital.  My “nonemergency transfer birth plan” stated that we would drive to St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison.  My “I’m in labor and don’t want to be in the car for 45 minutes laboring brain” stated that we would drive to the St. Mary’s Hospital just 3 minutes away. My midwife’s face sunk and she ever so sweetly informed me that the St. Mary’s in town has a very high c-section rate and they don’t receive home births well.  My heart sunk but simultaneously got the resolve I needed to get my baby out in my house like I planned. Somehow I deduced that it sounded much better to buckle down and do anything and everything my midwife and doula asked me to do to get my baby out at home than to make the agonizing 45 minute drive to Madison and chance being too far dilated to even receive an epidural.

By this point I knew my contractions weren’t going to do the job for me; no, I faced the reality that the only way I was going to get this baby out was to intentionally push my contractions to their maximum, to make them hurt worse.  I spent the last couple hours of labor exhausting my already exhausted body by going up and down the stairs, lunging, doing squats, and pacing the house as my doula and midwife egged my labor on by massaging my pressure points with Clary Sage essential oil and asking me to drink some labor concoction.  With a lot of intentionality I finally found some slight pushing urges in my system and jumped on them with a vengeance.  The going was impossibly slow even still.  Finally I focused entirely on pushing in a squatting position at the edge of my dining room table while pacing the dining room in-between contractions.  The contractions stayed pretty wimpy (not on the painful scale mind you but in productiveness) but I was determined.  After pushing as hard as I could through several of the pushing contractions I felt Penny’s head pop through some interior vaginal layer and my body took off with a vengeance causing me to push straight through with all my might for what had to have been 5 minutes straight.  I couldn’t take the intensity any longer so I took a deep breath to stop that round of contractions.  It worked and I got a breather for a few seconds before my body was racked by the next wave of contractions.  My midwife told me I could move to my hands and knees if I wanted.  I did, still clutching the leg of my dining room table for dear life.  My midwife told me to feel for the head.  I did and felt something squishy.  It was my bag of waters.  Another push and it popped. My midwife told me to feel for the head again.  I did and this time I could.  My midwife told me to hold the upper part of my vagina to help prevent tearing.  I did.  My midwife told me I could use my other hand to try and guide the baby’s head out.  I did.  I felt a burning in my netherparts and pushed strategically to stretch things out before giving the big push that I new would bring my baby’s head the rest of the way through.  This part was frustrating because her head kept slipping back in if I relaxed too much, so enough times of that and I was done waiting, done stretching things out, and I gave it one more big push and she came. Eleven minutes after that initial strong wave of pushing and Penny was out.

As I pulled her body up from under me I noticed the cord around her neck.  My midwife couldn’t see yet due to my position so I stated simply, “the cord is around her neck.”  Her hands went for it and slipped.  My hands went in then backed off seeing more hands on the cord.  I figured this was not a case when “the more the merrier” applied so I simply watched.  Life freeze framed in that moment when I saw the back of my daughter’s head and the chord around her neck.  I literally do not have a visual memory of how that moment got to the moment with me on the floor on my back in my doula’s arms holding Penny in my arms, untangled and fighting valiantly to clear her lungs and get a good cry in.  It felt like she cried forever, the poor girl frustrated by lack of good air and breast to suckle – air had to come before breast Penny.  Sorry love.

In the next moments, one midwife looked me over reporting next to no bleeding and no tearing while the other puffed oxygen into Penny’s lungs.  As my midwives shimmied some bed pads under me for cleanliness and padding they asked what the sex of our baby was.  This time I hadn’t forgotten to look but simply didn’t have access to taking a peek until some of the chaos abated.  That moment proved to be the first chance though so I unceremoniously lifted a leg, saw the girl parts, and said, “it’s a girl.” Though I was convinced we were having a boy all through the pregnancy I was not at all surprised that our baby was a girl.  The moment she came out, the moment I saw the back of her beautiful little head, I knew she was a girl.  “What’s her name?” said our midwife.  I looked into Josh’s proud and scared eyes, “she looks like a Penny.”  “Penny Elaine,” he agreed.  In that moment I was somehow passed from my doula’s lap to Josh’s.  I felt and saw him tearing up for the joy of having another daughter and for fear of the moment that just passed.  We watched with pride as Penny fought so hard to get good air, and we knew the worst was over and rejoiced that our secret wish for a girl, a sister for Maisy, was now a healthy and whole reality in our arms.  After a few moments of just staring at Penny I felt some contractions again, pushed my placenta out, Josh cut the cord, and I promptly got up to get more comfortable in a bed where we just snuggled and got right back to staring at the beauty of our brand new baby daughter.

Ultimately, the birth was not what I’d dreamed and planned.  I was disheartened by my body’s inability to perform on it’s own.  It is my understanding that most women ride their contractions and simply cope.  Turns out my body is only willing to get a baby out if I very intentionally push my contractions to work harder – to hurt worse.  I wish I could say I was happy with my labor, but I wasn’t.  I did not feel empowered and strong.  I felt frustrated and sleepy and bummed.  However, I am so happy to have done it at home and completely natural.  The contractions were ridiculously painful and wearisome and the pushing hurt like hell but man, the moment I saw the back of my daughters head all that work went up in smoke.  Not forgotten, but entirely trivial compared to the wonder of the product of all that hard work that I held in my arms.  I would do it all again to have my Penny and I would do it again at home.