This Whole Labor Thing

......yep, you'd pretty much think you have this down by the time you get around to #8. But, apparently I am the exception to that rule on most occasions. Let's see here.........with the last 2 babies alone I have now been so far off that it's laughable. 2 babies ago I was so totally assured that it was labor that I went in to the birthing home to have a baby and then proceeded to have to actually get labor started..........as long as we were there............since I was 3 days late and no where near labor....as in that whole labor I was so convinced I was in...wasn't anywhere close. So, after that whole thing and absolutely dreading and really down right refusing to mess with labor in any way at all I camped out here at home with my last one. And I was so convinced that nothing was labor that even 5 days overdue and my water breaking I was quite assured that it wasn't my water at all. In fact, since it had never in my life happened before and never broken beforehand that there was no way in the world it could even be remotely related to it. I mean, afterall this is baby #7 and if I ever had a tendency for my water to break it surely would've happened with some of the others. So, I go back to bed and upon waking come to the realization that it might actually have been. And by the time contractions get going I promptly deliver a baby on the bathroom floor 4 hrs later. So, apparently my maternal laboring instincts aren't serving me too well in this whole delivering babies thing. Especially considering in the gestational materanl instincts thing that I didn't even know I was pregnant with baby #7 until I was 4 months along.


So, here we are. As of 2 nights ago my back began to hurt tremendously and impeded all efforts of sleeping at all. I just figured it was due to having overdone it that day. But upon getting up and moving around yesterday I was in total pain and contractions were almost unbearable due to the back "labor". By last night I wanted to cry. To have gone from being rather pain free and only suffering minor discomforts to this was a new and shocking thing....an unexpected one that seemed to have come out of nowhere. I started putting it altogether and I realized she has dropped and probably hit a nerve or something to trigger all of the back pain. According to the books and well meaning, other-mothers-of-large-quantities-of-children-opinion-givers once you've had a ton of kids babies don't drop until once you're actually in labor....but then, what do books and other moms really know?????? Contractions stayed fairly regular all day yesterday and by last night I just wanted sleep....peaceful, pain free sleep. And I did up until around 4am. I awoke to the same thing today as contractions seemed to ebb and tide, though they never differed in intensity or got anywhere closer together. Though if I get up they do pick up in speed and strength. But laying down always spreads them out enough to know this is going absolutely nowhere. I even began to wonder if I might could possibly be farther ahead than I think by about 2 wks. It would make sense and go with all of my dates. Maybe even just 7-10 days more ahead since she always measured exactly a week ahead on both sonos. And if you track down my dates it's possible...though not likely. But, if I were really 2 wks farther along than I think I am then I would actually be 39 wks instead of 37 tomorrow. Not that that's ever made any difference seeing as how I have never in my life had a baby early....except for 2 induced labors which were very forced, long and hard and in which one didn't even take the 1st time around. Ugh. It's amazing what ignorance will allow you to do.


But, maybe this is the beginning of the end of this pregnancy. I could continue to contract for days, and even weeks, on end or this could be warming up for the real thing. Who knows. I do know that trying to stay lighthearted, energetic and in a loving mood for the children is quite the challenge at this point since the back pain and contractions make me a little more than irritable. The days are absolutely beautiful though and so they have spent the majority of the last 2 days jumping joyously in the fall air, digging up all kinds of unearthed treasures, and pampering our newest mammal addition to the family...that would be the 1/2 dead cat that they begged to bring home and nurse back to health. I can't ever tell them to turn their back on anything in need whtehr it be animal or human.......and I think animals are sometimes the forerunners in life to helping see people in need...whether it be physically or spiritually. In all of that they have also managed to make forts and lookouts and created rocket ships in the living room, lining up all of the dining chairs in pairs as they take off. It's amazing how incensed older ones get as younger ones fail to stay seated for lift off....and sometimes dare even topple out of the chair altogether during the process. I just figured it'd make it a little more realistic but according to them they were supposed to have been "seat belted" in.


Amazingly, it's almost easier to get their school stuff done in the midst of feeling like this since I have been sitting and not trying to run a house and cook while they work. Today I did manage to make more bread before just sitting and helping them fold some clothes. But since I was in there with them while I cooked it still seemed to fly by. I think the weather beckoning them outside also aided their hurry up and get done efforts.


And I have found the way to make bread!!!!!!!! They turned out to be the most perfect loaves yet....thanks to the Good Eats guy on www.foodnetwork.com. This is by far the best way to get the highest rise and tastiest loaf. Reading through the directions it sounded complicated but after the fact I was entirely impressed with the ease of it and how great they turned out. I modified it for freshly milled flour and just went by the measurements for the Basic Whole Wheat Bread Recipe so that it would make our standard 4 loaves. And when doing it we used bottled mineral water instead of our sodium softened and filtered water from our faucet since it has been softened with sodium...which I recently found out has an adverse effect on bread and the rise. I just put 1/2 of the flour in (5 cups) and then 1/2 of the yeast (1 T.) and all of the honey. I skipped the whole let refrigerate overnight thing........who in the world has time to do that??? It'd turn bread making into a 2 day process. Ummmm.........no. I was trying to simplify this whole procedure and still get better bread in the end. So, instead of the whole slumber party in the frig thing I just let it sponge (bread talk for letting water, flour, yeast combo along with the honey sit there covered for 15-20 minutes) and then went on with the directions. But when adding the remaining flour and yeast along with the salt I also added in the dough enhancer the basic bread recipe calls for. I mixed that up until it was good and mixed and then let it rest again, covered, for another 20 minutes like the foodnetwork thing says to. All the while I was sticking in wash, teaching math and spelling lessons and changing sheets on beds so this all went by really fast. I just kept setting the timer to remind me.......otherwise it'd definitely be forgotten. I then went on to knead it for about 10 minutes. It was already looking better than any of my other bread making dough. I put the dough into 2 massive glass bowls and marked it's starting point with a dry erase marker so that I could definitely tell when it'd doubled in size....not that you really need to have a visual! It's pretty obvious. Rubber band also works great for this though if you do find yourself wanting a visual. I did the warm humidity rise in the oven by pouring boiling water into a glass 13x9 inch dish. In only 1 hr the dough was reaching amazing heights. After that hour I got it back out and punched it all back down and followed the foodnetwork stuff. Since he only made one, round delicatessen loaf I had to change it up and once I punched it back down from the 1st rise and balled up perfect little loaves in the bread pans the 2nd rise began as they sat covered on the cabinet. They got so big they lifted the towels up! After that rise was complete I baked them at 350 for 30 minutes with the hot water dish still in place to provide the needed cooking humidity. And the result was amazing! Of course, as usual one entire loaf was eaten right after it emerged from the oven but of the other 3, 2 went into freezer storage to keep us stocked up and one went into the frig for toast and sandwich use tomorrow. Not bad! I have to say I thoroughly impressed myself with that one. And the ease with which the bread was made was shocking. I can't stand all of the little pauses that go into bread making. It makes me crazy to think about 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, an hour to rise, having to mess with it again and then another hour to rise and THEN having to bake. Ugh! Just make it and get it done. But this actually was pretty painless and I found it easy to go back and forth between just messing with it and doing everything else. It definitely beat the frustration that comes with little tiny crapped out loaves that don't rise much higher than the edge of the pan. I was so excited! It pays to educate yourself about bread while attempting your bread making endeavors. Though it seems entirely finicky there is actually a ton of practical scientific chemistry that goes into the process. Once understood you have the ability to make some great stuff.

Along those lines we have successfully used up all of the grain stock we had going. So, next time in we are picking up not only hard white but soft white for the muffins, pancakes and "tea time", pretty breads but also corn to mill our own cornmeal and beans to make our own bean paste, or rather"refried" beans for burritos and Mexican pizzas. I love this stuff! And I also found this out the other day too.......but did you know that not only is homemade bread superior nutritionally due to not ingesting all of the additives store bought breads have in them to make shelf life infinitely longer but that a loaf of store bought, whole wheat bread right now is right at 3.50+ and to make a loaf at home only cashes in right around 1.00-1.25???!!!!!! I was amazed. I figured it was cheaper but never took time to figure out the savings. And by the time you factor in not buying any premade pancake, muffin or biscuit mixes the savings triples. We do go through a ton of grain though. But for the 35.00 cost of a bucket of grain you can only buy about 9 loaves of bread, whereas one bucket for us will make bread for all of us for 2 months....and we go through about 5 loaves a week......along with pancakes, pizza dough at least twice a week and tons of other various flour needs. Pretty impressive that not only are we saving substantially but that we are eating far superior foods............even if they are only 4 inches high sometimes.


And I have begun the journey into making our own homemade "Nutrigrain bars". We mastered the granola, both hard cereal and soft bars but it was too hard for Gavin to eat. All of the children around here have been hooked on Nutrigrain bars for a long while and they were easy for Gavin to eat....and he loved them. I hated the additives and stuff I knew were being dumped into all of the children as they ate their weight in those things so I began searching the world over for a similar homemade recipe that I could alter with our milled oats and coconut oil and lacking all of the unpronounceable stuff the Nutrigrain bar boxes have on them in their ingredients list. I found a recipe but am still improving since our's are being made with real fruit. So far, I have found the only real way to make it work is to use Simply Fruit preserves or something similar until I can make my own jelly and preserves type of fillings. And this savings totaled up to 60.00 a month since we bought the Wal Mart brand of the Nutrigrain bars and each box is 2.00. We would buy 15 boxes per shopping trip, which occurs twice a month. I about choked...or according to Garrison and Grant....chuked.......when I added it up. I always preferred the bars over candy and empty filler foods knowing they were somewhat of a better choice than others. We always kept these bars, apples, grapes and bananas on hand for snacks and they all made great on-the-road food. But to see that we were spending THAT much on something that wasn't even great for them was an attention getter. So....on a money saving nutritional note we are making our own Nutrigrain bars that are far better taste-wise and health-wise than anything prepackaged in a box. That was surprisingly one of the few boxed things we still bought. It's amazing what you pay for stuff when you start figuring it up though!!!!


So, back to the baby note. As of now, I highly doubt this will go anywhere at all and that I still have a good 4 weeks left, as planned. But all of this does seem to speak that the pregnancy will soon be over and we will be holding a sweet new little girl in our arms in only a matter of a few weeks. How I got on the bread making/grocery note I don't even remember. But in light of that I will post in a separate entry some of our newest recipe favorites that the children and Brad are all loving.