Kairu's birth story

The story starts around midnight on March 16...I woke up as usual and went to the bathroom, and went back to bed. I was having some sporadic contractions but thought maybe they were just more Braxton-Hicks. Over the next 2 hours or so, they came in 20 minutes, 10, 15, and finally started coming around 5-7 minutes apart. But they were not so strong, so I just gave my midwife and doula a heads up that things may be starting, and I tried to eat, drink, and sleep between the contractions until the sun came up. Chinami woke up and we watched Big Hero 6 together and even made a little cake from pancake mix+bananas, etc. in case she wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Kairu when he was born. The contractions tapered off slightly while we did this and I kept my midwife and doula updated, and my midwife said she would stop by after she taught her Wednesday classes close by, around noon or so. I still tried to relax, and keep drinking and eating small things here and there. I noticed when I did get up and move around, things got a little more intense and I would cramp in between contractions, but still nothing I couldn't get through with a little breathing and my hot water bottle. When Chinami was born, my water broke well before my labor actually started so we were on a time crunch and going hiking, walking, bouncing on birth balls, etc. to get the contractions going. So this time I was definitely grateful to be able to have the gradual buildup to get myself and my birth team prepared and rested as much as possible.

My midwife came and assessed that I was still in a place where it could pick up or slow down and he might not be born until after sunset, at least. So I told her to go home as we would all need our rest. My doula called a little later and the contractions were starting to get a little more intense, but I was still able to handle them although I was starting to stop and vocalize through them. Not an hour after I got off the phone they started to pick up even more, and when I couldn't speak through a long one, Yasushi called my doula back (she speaks Japanese) and asked her to come. I went back to the bed to labor, and after 30 more minutes or so, my water broke and we called the midwife. 

My doula arrived first and the midwife about 30 minutes or so later. The contractions were getting more and more intense so I labored in the shower for a little while, then back to the bed for a while. My vocalizing got longer and louder as the contractions got more intense. The midwife examined me and said I was about an 8 or so. Eventually my doula suggested I go to the toilet as I hadn't been in a while, and I had a few good contractions while there as well. 

So back to the bed, my doula made some support structures from the pillows. It was getting so intense and I was worried about being stuck in pushing mode for 5 hours again. As the contractions got more intense I found that pushing a little bit helped and I started to feel more and more pressure as Kairu came down. I got into my comfortable yet not ideal position again, on my back propped up by pillows and my doula, and started to push as I was ready. My midwife and  doula observed how my stomach was moving, and I told them I was feeling pain/pressure right in the area where my pubic bone was. I soon found out I was having the same issue I had when giving birth to Chinami. My cervix was not quite letting the baby through, and because of how I carry my babies, right out in front, my body was having a hard time getting him over the pubic bone. So this meant I had to use all my strength again, and push him and help my body get him over that bone and through the cervix. My midwife helped the cervix "pop" back, so then it was just getting him over the bone. If I could just do this, he would likely come right out. So Yasushi set up the camera, and he came in with Chinami. Chinami had been spending the whole day doing whatever she wanted, but when she came into the room she was a focused little member of my birth team, I'm so proud of her. She rubbed my tummy, told me to do my best, gave me kisses on the cheek (oxytocin boosts!) and as my doula pulled me up into the final squat on the floor Chinami watched intently as I pushed and actually screamed in pain several times as Kairu finally slipped out into Yasushi's hands. He cried a strong cry immediately after coming out and pinked up pretty fast as we waited for him to get all of his blood from the placenta. Chinami commented that Kairu came out and he is so cute, and also commented that "everything is red", nonchalantly looking at all the blood. The placenta came out in another 15--20 minutes or so, and my midwife gave a chunk to Yasushi so he could make me a smoothie. Chinami helped as well, getting towels for us, taking picture/video with my camera, and holding the ziplock bag open while my midwife got the rest of the placenta in it. We finally cut the cord, and Kairu was already nursing like a pro.  I took some Tylenol and AfterEase (an herbal tincture for the after birth pains), had some chicken soup, and iced up my tender area as Kairu and I settled into bed for some much needed rest. Eventually Chinami and Yasushi joined us, reading a story before they drifted off. 

Kairu was born at our home at 6:50 pm on March 16th. He weighed 9lbs and measured 21 inches. We are all in love with him, and I am grateful for my amazing family and birth team. 

He is now still not even 2 days old, and I am still dealing with lots of aches and pains, but recovery is going well. I can't wait to put him in my k'tan and take little walks with him and Chinami. And by the way he nurses now, I feel like the 50+lbs I put on this pregnancy won't be there for too much longer! 

Any day now!!

Any day now our family will welcome its newest member.
There have been more bumps on the road this time around, intense morning sickness and exhaustion, back pains, but generally everything has been healthy and well within the range of normal, so I can't really complain that much.
I have been enjoying these last few weeks as a "mother of 1" with my beautiful daughter Chinami and making sure she gets to enjoy fun things and make good memories. Because of the size of my belly (and subsequently the estimated size of my son) I wasn't sure if we would be able to attend the Honolulu Festival this year, especially because I also caught a bad cold the week before, but this past weekend my cold was all but gone and no signs of labor, so on Saturday we spent some time at the Convention Center watching an excerpt from a new musical, a documentary about a sushi chef, playing games, making origami, trying bon-odori, seeing cultural displays, etc, and we ate lunch at Daddy's place close by. On Sunday we went down to Waikiki as a family of three to see the grand parade and watch the fireworks.
And now I am just passing the days, waiting for the first signs of labor, feeling excited about meeting our son. And just like with Chinami, we will welcome him into a peaceful, calm environment and keep him safe.

Less than a month out....

I officially have less than a month until Kairu's due date and at a point where I am starting to think about slowing down. I work around 35 hours per week, most of them between 4-9am, one day a week I go from one job to the other which means I wake up at 3am, work from 4-8:30, ride my bicycle straight to my second job and eat something and sit down for about 10 minutes before I have to start, and I work until 5.
Riding my bicycle is getting harder due to aches and pains in my back and legs. Waking up at 3am 5 days per week is getting harder due to pregnancy insomnia. The stress and anxiety over a bunch of things, like worrying about the housework, also adds to the pain and sleeplessness.
Even at home, I am having increasing back pain and Braxton-Hicks contractions, and I make my best effort to try and keep my home clean, clearing dirty dishes, running and emptying the dishwasher, cooking various meals (with Chinami's help!) keeping the floors clean (my vacuum+steam mop really saves the day!) and doing laundry, but even that takes more and more effort recently.
My original plan was to work up until the very last day I possibly could, but I'm starting to feel that I've reached my limit. However the earlier I take leave from my main job, the earlier I would have to go back, and that would make it more difficult for Yasushi and Kairu. So ultimately I am probably going to do all that I can to work up until the last minute....while still doing everything else at home and making sure to have lots of fun with Chinami as well.
I just hope I can do it.

February again!

It's February 2016, which means......

It will be 11 years since Yasushi and I first met in person and 8 years since we got married. We have had ups and downs (especially due to our personal struggles) but have remained strong through it all, and will only grow stronger with the arrival of our son next month! 

It will be 4 years since I started "no-poo". Other than the occasional Dr. Bronner's peppermint when it's hot and humid, my hair has been washed very infrequently with baking soda and ACV...and it always looks and smells clean! I've noticed generally that using Dr. Bronner's and just keeping things clean and sanitary (showering at night especially, before getting into bed!!) has pretty much eliminated the need for those heavily scented soaps and toiletries.....I don't miss them. 

It will be 3 years since I finally had to send a cease and desist letter to my parents because they threatened the safety of my family by posting our street address on a public Twitter account. My mother in particular had repeatedly harassed and threatened me and my family by claiming to be in talks with a lawyer to sue us, writing a blog about how I am autistic (and refusing any evidence that I am not or an offer from me to get diagnosed) and sent several hostile and aggressive emails to me personally. My parents both rejected any offers from me and Yasushi to work towards a solution after my mother got some therapy and they agreed to respect our lifestyle and boundaries (i.e. not call us assholes, liars, etc.) It's unfortunate that their stubbornness has cost them a life with grandchildren, but protecting my family comes first. Of course, there are many public forums on which to contact me (like this one) that they know about, so if they ever consider acknowledging what they did and my current situation living with a C-PTSD diagnosis, and are able to respect my lifestyle and boundaries, they know what to do.

Also, it will be 1 year since my husband became head chef. His restaurant has appeared on local TV 3 times and has 4.5 stars on Yelp. He always works hard, and Chinami admires him so much. She loves going to the restaurant, and at home, whenever she takes out her Play-Doh, it's for "cooking". She also helps me with cooking a lot, like stirring things, cutting bananas, making salads, and getting ingredients from the fridge. I don't have much expertise when it comes to cooking, but I will enjoy teaching her what I know when the time is right, so she will never know what it's like to be 18 and not know how to properly cook simple dishes.

So for us, February isn't just about the Chinese New Year and Valentines, it's a month to celebrate so many milestones in our lives. And next month, we will have one more milestone...we will become a family of 4 when Kairu is born. The pregnancy has definitely been more intense this time around, and so has our lifestyle, with me working 35 hours/week, 6 days, and riding my bicycle to get to work even as my due date is a little over a month away. I have taken Chinami's cloth diapers, newborn clothes, swaddlers, and co-sleeper out and cleaned them in preparation to be used again, and I got some very thoughtful gifts for Christmas from my grandmother as well. All that's left is to go to my workplace and pick up my homebirth supplies, a baby K'Tan wrap (The wrap I used for Chinami's first few months was in disrepair and unsafe to reuse), some additional cloth diapers and supplies, and we will be ready to welcome our son earthside.

Happy New Year!!!

A new year has begun!

2015 was an amazing year, a year full of change and growth for our family, starting with Yasushi's promotion in February, to the relocation of the restaurant in August, and my second job in September. And this year, we were able to take a short trip to Japan to see friends and family for the first time in 4 years, and then we found out we would be expecting another baby. 

Financially, we had a few months where we couldn't pay off our credit card bills as fast as we would like, due to the trip to Japan, our refrigerator breaking, and our car needing new tires. However, those are some of the most expensive things that could have possibly happened, and we were also able to get another roommate after our roommates moved out, so this year I anticipate being able to have some savings and accelerate mortgage payments. 

So I guess my goals for 2016 would be: a healthy baby, a clean and organized home (there are several projects I want to get going!) and less debt!

One of the most important things though, is how far I've come in my healing and how far I will continue to go. I definitely have no regrets, I suggested several times to work together and for my mother to work on her own issues and break the cycle as I was trying to do, but in the end they refused, and I had to do what was best for myself and my family and this gets clearer as time goes on. If anyone would have regrets for their actions in their life, I imagine it would be my parents, because at this point they will never meet their grandchildren, and it's all because of the choices they made. However, my children are not suffering without them, they have loving parents and extended ohana who would never to anything to hurt or endanger them.

So a healthy and happy 2016 for all, and may this year be a year of progress for everyone!

Christmas!

*Merry Christmas! I hope everyone was able to enjoy the holidays so far!

Even though I always try to remain positive throughout the holidays, I unfortunately can't sugarcoat everything. The pregnancy hormones and everything have been a bit difficult to cope with this time around, and since I stopped taking SAM-e for my C-PTSD, my symptoms have been coming back, and now since I am officially in my third trimester, I have decided to start taking it again. Even though extensive studies have not been done on the long-term effects on babies, there have been no birth defects linked to the supplements, and it has been considered safe to take in the 3rd semester, and in my case, the benefits are definitely going to outweigh the risks.

In the few weeks leading up to Christmas, I was able to enjoy some holiday traditions with Chinami, such as watching some great local Christmas parades, sharing my favorite Christmas movies with Chinami, riding the McCully Shopping Center Christmas trolley, and finding a Santa to meet that doesn't charge $20 minimum for a picture (This year we unfortunately missed the Makiki Christmas event, but we went to Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki and took a picture with their wonderfully tropical themed Santa.) We also had some awesome new experiences such as the School of Deaf and Blind's winter fair, complete with a pile of ice cold snow in the middle of the field for everyone to play in! And on Christmas Eve, I took Chinami to the beautiful Central Union Church for their Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, where we watched a kid-centered version of the story of the birth of Jesus. Chinami often goes to church with her Aunty Lia and Uncle Papi so she was excited when I told her we were going to church, and she kind of showed me what to do. I also feel that it is important to teach Chinami about the Christian aspect of Christmas.....We also did have a makeshift menorah made with LED candles that we lit together on each night of Hanukkah, and I had a smaller green Christmas tree that we decorated with more earthy, Yule-themed ornaments.

On Christmas Day, I had to go to work but I was able to get home around 8 am, make some waffles and we had our present opening time before Yasushi had to go to work. After that, we cleaned up, tested out our presents. Chinami got a riding toy and minion toys from Daddy and an ukelele, minions toothbrush, puzzle, new shoes, Inside Out sheets, and other little practical things from Mommy...she spent most of the morning sitting on the riding toy and strumming the ukelele to an audience of little Minions. I put some lamb, beef, garlic, onion, mushrooms, seasonings, and wine in my new electric 7-in-1 pressure cooker, and plugged in my vacuum/steam mop and gave everything a good cleaning!
Then we headed out to Manoa to visit our other ohana, exchange presents, and make gingerbread houses! I always do it every  year using graham crackers, pop-tarts, and icing and marshmallow fluff, and this year we had so much Halloween candy that I saved a bunch of things like taffy, etc. that we don't eat anyway and we used it to decorate our houses! And then we went straight to Waikiki, bought some sushi and headed to the Hilton Hawaiian Village lagoon to eat our dinner by the ocean, and then enjoyed the weekly fireworks show. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and we couldn't see the beautiful full moon, but the fireworks were great!

This Christmas, I was especially pleased to be able to show my gratitude and appreciation for the loved ones in my life. I was blessed with the opportunity to work at a honey stand selling some of the most delicious honey until the beginning of this year, and a few months ago I started working at the only true gathering place for new parents interested in the best and most natural things for their babies, plus a full cafe with a range of organic teas and a menu of healthy and delicious food. So this year for Christmas, I put together various gifts of tea and honey and sent them out to my loved ones.

So now that Christmas is over, it's time to transform our tree into a New Year's decoration, and make sure our home is clean and organized for 2016. 2015 had its ups and downs, but I'm looking forward to meeting our son Kairu in 2016 and continuing to heal and grow personally.

Holiday traditions...

I can't believe it's almost December again. This year has been so full of great things, and now my favorite time of the year has come. I have always enjoyed Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but now I love these holidays because I feel like I finally have a real family and home and our own traditions.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I don't have very clear memories of Halloween as a child, my costumes were often generic store-bought, I was a devil one year, Catwoman one year, a witch, etc. Only in high school did I really start to get in touch with my creative side and pursue my own interests and hand-sew my own costumes. So now in my family, our Halloween tradition is to make our own costumes. This year, Chinami was lucky enough to have 3 costumes! She was a Minion for trick-or-treating at the shopping center, Joy from Inside Out for her preschool party, and for our family trick-or-treating, we dressed up together, me as Totoro and Chinami as Mei (and I drew a baby Totoro on my bump as well for Kairu.) We ended up spending Halloween up in Manoa with our "ohana" from the baby store, who were dressed up in homemade Alice-in-Wonderland themed costumes, which was an interesting combination!

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Chinami and I were especially blessed because not only were we able to enjoy the holiday with Yasushi as a family on his day off the day before, we were also able to join our other ohana for dinner on the actual day. Because of a combination of the emotional abuse inflicted on me as a child (and resulting low self-esteem and C-PTSD) and the fact that I have been moving across countries and oceans every few years for basically my whole life, I find that I have become untrusting and scared to really make a connection to people. In Hawaii, your friends become your ohana, your sisters, your brothers, aunties, uncles, cousins.....and I am finally becoming comfortable with letting more people into my ohana, and extremely blessed that I have found some amazing people. Chinami has also done her part to help me make these connections with her exuberant sociable personality and I am so thankful for her! Anyway, the food was amazing! I made my traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which was a turkey stuffed with lil smokies, onions, and garlic, and covered in a bacon blanket, with some brussels sprouts in the pan, mashed potatoes (that Chinami helped make!) creamed spinach Boston Market-style, wild rice and quinoa cooked with chopped onions, carrots, and celery in a turkey stock "takikomi" style, and for dessert, a two-layered kabocha and sweet potato pie. My friend/brother's Thanksgiving was similar, except he had a traditional roast turkey with crispy skin  stuffed with wild rice and whole vegetables, various side dishes and pupus including potato-carrot mash, creamed spinach, homemade cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, giblet pate on toast, and I contributed one of my pies and a plate of squash and eggplant cut into sticks, wrapped in bacon, and roasted in the oven. The kids made fun turkey headbands and we all had a blast!

Yesterday was the day after Thanksgiving, which is always the day of the holiday parade in Waikiki. Just like last year, I made a dinner from leftovers we could pack up and eat while watching the parade. Since we had a picnic lunch of turkey-bacon wraps and raw veggies in guacamole at the park, for dinner I made a tomato soup with corn, lil smokies and brussels sprouts, and a couple of creamed spinach pies and cheesy crescent rolls. We enjoyed the parade, and were able to hurry to the beach to watch the Friday fireworks as well before taking the bus home for a good night's sleep.

This Sunday, we will put up our Christmas tree. Since I don't see a point in buying a real tree that was shipped from the Mainland, usually brings invasive species with it, and dries out and dies by Christmas because of the climate here, so we have a white fiber optic Christmas tree that goes nicely in our living room. In Honolulu, there are many local Christmas parades and other fun events to enjoy up until the big day, and even though Yasushi works on Christmas, Chinami and I will still find ways to enjoy the day making candy houses and playing with whatever toys she gets.

After Christmas, it's New Year's, which will be celebrated Japanese style of course with Gagaku at the Dendocho. Hawaii is such a great place to live, not only because of the weather, but because of all the great things to do!