Decisions, decisions...

So, the decision has been made...
When Brandon and I decided we should have another child, I knew I would have to stop working during the latter part of pregnancy. I enjoyed not working much more than I thought I would. Up until one year ago, I considered myself a stay-at-home mom. I figured I was just one who was lucky enough to have a skill that allowed me to work part-time out of my home. About a year ago I finally came to terms with the fact that being a stay-at-home mom and being a work-from-home mom were two dramatically different things. The time that I had at home was spent on the computer: editing photos, designing books, marketing, etc. The time I wasn't working, I felt divided. Especially since we relied on my income, and how much I worked had a lot to do with how comfortable we were, and how quickly we could get out of debt, since my income was variable. Everytime I had a friend blog about making cute crafts with their child, or even taking a fun excursion, I thought they were crazy. Really how do moms have the energy, physical or emotional, to do these things with their kids? Then I found out...I quit working.
I had been thinking seriously of hanging up my camera for 6 years until Sariah starts school. Then I read an article in the Ensign magazine (for those of you who aren't LDS, that's a church magazine). It was the experience of a mom who had to start working to save a family business. The most profound thing in the article was that when she finally was able to go back to being 'just a mom', she had to relearn how to appreciate her role as a mother. She found herself finding excuses to not go home, she wasn't as patient with her children, etc. The article touched me. I truly believe that the most important job in the world is that of Mother, yet I do the same thing. I proudly state that I am a photographer, where I used to proudly state that I was a Mother. I find reasons to 'escape' my children, and find myself complaining about the mundane jobs that are a part of running a household and being a Mom, instead of embracing them and trying to improve on them. If I put as much energy into being a Mom and Homemaker as being a photographer, I'd have the most immaculate house, always have the best meals, and have an indestructable bond with each of my kids.
Since I started pondering these things I have seen an alarming number of women start their own businesses (mostly in photograpy, lol), heck, I just taught a Relief Society Meeting on the topic. Yet, we hear constantly from our church leaders that we need to be home with our children. Why are we ignoring this advice? I admire my dear friends who have stuck it out, and defend the importance of stay-at-home motherhood. I love especially reading Jamie Melin's blog, and can't say that it didn't have an effect on helping make this decision.
I am officially hanging up my camera. Yeah, I'll probably do the occasional family portrait or wedding for a friend. And, yeah, financially it's going to suck. But, I am confident that the rewards will outweigh the amount of pbj dinners we will have to consume, and I am confident that The Lord will provide. I will miss shooting weddings, and hope my skills won't completely rust out in the next 6 years. I will have to get used to saying "A Mom!" proudly when asked what I do. It will still take me a while to start doing crafts with the kids, and get to a point where my house is immaculate..but I have time to learn. My kids will only be kids for a short time, and I am not wasting those years on lightroom and photoshop.

Here are a few quotes from church leaders for thought, and please note that "out of the home" is really the same as "in the home" when it comes to working, it still divides your attention, consumes your energy and manipulates your priorities.

“Fathers and mothers, before you decide you need a second income and that mother must go to work out of the home, may I plead with you: first go to the Lord in prayer and receive his divine approbation. Be sure he says yes. Mothers with children and teenagers at home, before you go out of your homes to work, please count the cost as carefully as you count the profit. Earning a few dollars more for luxuries cloaked in the masquerade of necessity—or a so-called opportunity for self-development of talents in the business world, a chance to get away from the mundane responsibilities of the home—these are all satanic substitutes for clear thinking. They are counterfeit thoughts that subvert the responsibilities of motherhood.” Bishop H. Burke Peterson

“The husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment. Her place is in the home, to build the home into a heaven of delight. Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment. Two incomes raise the standard of living beyond its norm. Two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life, break into the family prayers, create an independence which is not cooperative, causes distortion, limits the family, and frustrates the children already born” President Spencer W. Kimball

“In a home where there is an able-bodied husband, he is expected to be the breadwinner. Sometimes we hear of husbands who, because of economic conditions, have lost their jobs and expect the wives to go out of the home and work, even though the husband is still capable of providing for his family. In these cases, we urge the husband to do all in his power to allow his wife to remain in the home caring for the children while he continues to provide for his family the best he can, even though the job he is able to secure may not be ideal and family budgeting may have to be tighter.” President Ezra Taft Benson

A miracle occurs

A new baby is always a miracle. This one was especially so.For those of you who do not know, not only do we have 3 sons (who we love, i love boys!), but Brandon's parents have 11 grandsons.. and now..finally..1 granddaughter. We didn't think it was possible for a Dorathy boy to make girls, but, miracles do happen.

Around midnight on Sept 10, 2009, I started dreaming I was having contractions. I finally woke myself up and realized, that, indeed, I was. Hmm, should I get out of bed and track them? Sure, why not. So, I counted contractions for 2 hours, 5 minutes apart, steady. Then I threw up, weird..never done that in labor before, but it pretty much clinched it that I was in labor. So...back to bed I go.

A little history in case you blocked me from your facebook feed because you were sick of all my complaining. I consider myself a "birth center mom". The birth center is here in tucson, run by midwives, on the campus of a hospital (TMC). I have birthed all of my kiddos different ways Ben was the medicalized hospital birth (epidural and pitocin), Isaac was natural in the hospital, and Jonathan was a waterbirth at the birth center. After experiencing Jonathan's birth, we swore we would never birth in a hospital again.

When I became pregnant this time, everything was different. From being horribly sick, to not finding out the gender, to having every test come back positive, even syphillis (don't worry the 2nd test was negative). I "risked out" when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and told I would have to deliver at the hospital. I was greatful that not only could I still use the midwives, but one of the midwives who I go to church with set it up so that she would deliver regardless who was on call.

Last week, I tested positive for Group B Strep. Which means (when birthing at a hospital), that the previous plan of laboring at home as much as possible was out...they want you to have 2 rounds of antibiotics before delivery, hopefully you arriving at least 4 hours before the baby arrives. Well, who knows when that will be! after having regular 3-5 min contractions that were getting srtonger all day, and brandon excusng himself from all the meetings he had that day, we called the midwife,and headed to the hospital. That was 1 p.m.-ish. After checking in and being strapped to a monitor (so sad I wasn;t at the birth center!), my contractions stopped. This has happened everytime and was the reason for the pitocin with Ben. I always thought that my labor "stalled". I now understand that for some people, especially who opt for natural birth, the body slows down labor before transition (the really strong, crazy contractions that dialate you from 8-10 and prepare you for pushing) to help your body get a rest before the really tough part. (I guess here I should say, that I don't consider my labor to be painful until transition. My contractions up til that point are uncomfortable but tolerable..no one ever believes I'm in labor). So, Brandon and I settle in, chatting with the midwife and laughing, enjoying our time. I whoop him in Phase 10. It's the most relaxed I've been in labor. I'm checked, dialated to 8 and 75% effaced, and it's now 6 p.m. I start to get annoyed, why is this taking so dang long? In the middle of our second game of Phase 10, I start to get SUPER strong contractions. Brandon says to the midwife, "oh look, she's making a face, this must be a strong one". Yep, it's transition time. I manage to finish off the game (I won, of course..) stopping for contractions. Just in time, because the contractions are really painful now and coming fast. I get thru these contractions by breathing and counting slowly backwards from 10. Miraculously, each one ends after getting to zero. I lean on Brandon during the contractions, because somehow I know I can't sit. Then it hits me..time to push. I know my legs are too weak to push standing up at this point, so I get on the bed on my hands and knees. Here's the part where I will spare you the details, but, MAN, I wish I was in the birthcenter in a tub, pushing was not this hard with Jonathan! After about 15-20 min of pushing, there it was...handed to me..move the umbilical cord...yep..a girl. Amazing. Brandon cuts the cord, they have to work on her a bit to get her breathing, but she pinks up, and she's beautiful! Sariah Elizabeth Dorathy, and get this..she's 7 lbs, 10 oz. WHAT? Ben was our smallest at 8 lbs, 10 oz. A whole pound smaller. (Isaac was biggest at 9 lbs 11 oz). She was born at 10:01 p.m.
And, she was born on the day we wanted.
pictures to come soon...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

So, I have GREAT intentions, the majority of the time. It's the action part I still need work on. This last spring we ventured on a wonderful family vacation. We drove to Tennessee via Dallas, TX so that Brandon could go on the bi-yearly brother-in-law trek. This year it was in the smoky nountains. My sister, Sara, and her family live in Clarksville, TN. My sister, Becky, and her family live in Flower Mound, TX (Dallas suburb). So we drove to Becky's the first day, spent the night, got up early to drive to Sara's, then the kids and I got to play with Sara, Rachel (another sister) and all the cousins while the men + Seth and Emma went off to the hike from hell for 4 days. After our relaxing and wonderful stay in TN, we drove back to TX to spend a while hangin' with Becky and her kids (David, her husband, was out of town for work..we missed you, David!). All in all, it was a wonderful vacation! We returned home feeling refreshed and wishing we could turn around and go back!
So- my intentions were to have this blog up within a few weeks of the trip. However, in keeping with my personality...it is now 3 months later and I'm finally getting around to it. I guess at least I'm getting it up before this baby comes.

The drive was great! Yeah, it's a lot of driving, but the kids were awesome and we took a lot of stops to break it up. Here's our first stop, somewhere in west Texas. The boys were happy to get out of the car, look at the love being expressed! maybe we should take family trips more often!

As we got on the road, it was time to rock out to some Metallica..that's Jon on guitar, Ben on drums and Isaac with rockin' vocals!

To be continued...

I'm lazy..I admit it

so, I'm a horrible blogger. kinda weird, cuz i thought i'd be into it. i love to write (although, you'll notice i hate using the caps key) and we have plenty of funny stuff occuring in our house on a daily, if not minute-ly basis. if i could just get my facebook status to post on my blog, we'd be in business. it's not that i don't care, or don't want to let everyone know all the fun stuff going on in our lives, it's just that..well, i'm lazy. there ya go..i admit it. for years i liked saying i was a procrastinator, and i'm a self-proclaimed horrible housekeeper, i've blamed it on my social axiety, my depression (which really, both can be valid reasons), and most of the time i like to say it's because i'm busy. and i really am! no, really! but here i am with a week gone by where i only edited a handful of shots from the 2 weddings awaiting editing, and i can't really use that excuse anymore. somehow i find time to play 3 games of scrabble on facebook, but don't even put away my groceries. no really! i put away the cold stuff, and all the shelf stuff stays in grocery bags on the floor in our dining area. i'd like to think it's because of lack of shelf space (our pantry is our bedroom closet at the moment), but really..i could find room. typically i get home from shopping at lunch time and am so starving i make myself food while i put away the cold stuff, then after lunch when i should be putting it away, i try to indulge in a nap..or a facebook scrabble game, and it just doesn't get done. so there it is..i'm lazy and i admit it. i just have other stuff i'd rather do. so, this is a weakness of mine, i've now owned it, acknowledged that i have a problem, but i'm not ready to work on it. i'm too tired and busy to try to improve myself right now, i'll do it some other time.

stuff..

okay, can you tell i'm busy? i can't believed i haven't blogged since september. I guess if you read my last post, you'll know why. Plus, facebook has taken over my life. So, between my facebook addiction, being a mom, wife and homemaker, plus wedding season, venturing out into baby and play-session family photography (check out my photography blog), plus marketing and promoting and keeping up with anxiously-engaged.com, sheesh! i'm one busy momma! And, about to be busier, since we just found out we're pregnant with number 4. I added the widget to this blog, but i have to say, it's a little bit creepy in this stage. we plan to torture all of our family and not find out the gender until delivery.