Ahem, is anyone still there?

Soooo, this blog has been sadly neglected pretty much ever since I got pregnant with #4. I'm glad a lot of the information that people asked me about frequently is already posted. Mr. #4 really changed my life in a lot of ways. First of all, that pregnancy was the worst one I've had yet. I went into labor at 24 weeks, and spent the rest of my pregnancy injecting and pill-popping to keep him in. As a result I would like to add some posts about preterm labor and some of my techniques and solutions. Second, I studied the natural child birth thing with him and was really hoping to keep my labor drug-free. Well, my "active labor" as they call it, lasted 20 minutes start to finish, and I delivered my own baby in the front seat of my suburban as we drove to the hospital. I'm not kidding. I did it as natural as you can, and as a result of that I would like to post a little bit about natural child birth. And last, I just survived the hardest summer of my life. I have a 5 year old, 3 year old, 23 month old, and 6month old. Having all four of them home all summer was really hard. School starting has saved me. But because of this difficult summer, I have some new ideas about parenting. I'll hopefully get around to posting some of that.

Don't expect much, I still have 4 kids. But hopefully I'll post some of these things to share with all my readers.

And for anyone who has contacted my insurance agent about "maternity" insurance, things are always changing. They just lost a great policy and gained a new one. Contact him again if you are thinking about getting pregnant, and make some money off of it.

Top 7 ways to have an unnecessary C-section

Stolen from this blog

7. Go the hospital in the early phases of labor. Get there realllly early so you feel a lot pressure to perform, even though you know that labor is usually a slow process. The earlier the better so you can get tagged with ‘failure to progress’ and get started with a series of medical interventions that’ll often end in a c-section.

6. Don’t eat or drink during a long labor. Just wear yourself out completely and then complain loudly of fatigue. This will up your chances of medical personnel suggesting the solution.

5. Get an amniotomy too soon. Once they burst your bubble you’re now on the clock for a cesarean. If you manage to move along at a snail’s pace you’re sure to end up under the knife!

4. Accept pitocin to induce or stimulate contractions. Since fetal distress is associated with the drug, you’ll have to have continuous electronic fetal heart monitoring which will immobilize you. Good call! The less you move around the better - that’s sure to slow the train. Plus, the drug-induced contractions are so strong you’ll be screaming for an epidural in no time.

3. Request an epidural. Now you’re totally immobilized, yay! Labor’s progress will likely slow down even further and pushing effectively will likely be much harder since you can’t get into any vertical or squatting positions that would work in your favor.

2. Accept hospital staff’s comments on lack of progress without challenge. Once they start complaining that you’re poking along and taking up space, get discouraged and give up. Turn all decisions over to them and you’ll be wheeled away in no time.

1. Just ask! Oh yeah … these days you don’t actually need to go through the hassle of labor at all. Just call up your OB and tell him/her you’d like to schedule your baby - the whole pushing a baby out thing is so inconvenient and last millenium. Your OB will probably be relieved anyways because you’ll be one less lady who might interrupt a good night’s sleep.

*A note on this list: Clearly there are real medical emergencies that can happen, and in those cases c-sections can be true life savers. However, the sad fact is that most cesareans are not done for legitimate medical reasons and in the last decade the number of c-sections has doubled to over 30% of US births. It’s not surprising that so many doctors are in favor of elective cesareans - after all, it’s certainly more convenient and they get to charge lots more $$$. As for us moms who get to make this choice - my feeling is that many women are just not well informed about the risks … because make no mistake: a c-section is a major abdominal surgery and poses significantly more risks to both mom and baby.

And since I like to end on an upbeat note, I wanted to share the cartoon above because it accurately reflects my feelings at this stage.

It's a boy

For those who haven't heard yet, it's another boy! We are so excited to be having our FOURTH boy, and can't wait to meet him.

Gender Study

Boys Preferred Over Girls, Poll Shows

Americans Show Slight Baby Gender Preference for Boys If Limited to 1 Child

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

July 6, 2007 -- People in the U.S. show a slight baby gender preference for having a boy instead of a girl if they were only able to have one child.

That's according to a new Gallup poll on baby gender preferences.

The telephone poll, conducted in June, included about 1,000 U.S. adults. They were asked: "Suppose you could only have one child. Would you prefer that it be a boy or a girl?"

Here are the participants' baby gender preferences:

• Boy: 37%
• Girl: 28%
• Either/doesn't matter: 26%
• Not sure/no opinion: 9%

The "either/doesn't matter" choice wasn't mentioned as an option by the pollsters. But more than a quarter of the participants expressed that view anyway.

Modbe Virtual Party

So I'm not a salesperson. Really I'm not. I'm not quite as bad as my husband who seems to almost always give away things when he's trying to sell them. But I'm close. A few months back I signed on as a salesperson for Modbe Clothing. I love their clothes, and think they are very high quality, but a little bit expensive. So I signed up as a sales rep, not to sell it to people, but to hopefully get the discount for me and my sisters.

Well, Modbe Clothing currently is offering a sale that will give discounts to "party" go-ers that is better than the discount I get as a consultant. So I decided now was an excellent time to throw a party and offer that discount to anyone I know who wants to order some Modbe clothes. So I am offering a "virtual" party to anyone who reads my blog and wants to order.

Here is the deal. They have given me my own modbe website. It is https://www.modbeclothing.com/ericalow. When you type in the party code of 985, and order 3 or more items, you can get 10% off of your order. There is a 30% off coupon with the code of MSHM69DF that you can use even with only 1 item. So when they take 10% off of your already 30% off order, it equals 37% off. That is an incredible deal!

It is nice that it can all be done online now, although if you are wanting to try the clothing on, I will have all the sizes of their clothes at my house on Thursday, November 20th, and in Bountiful on Friday, November 21st. I will be closing the party on Saturday, so if you want to make an order, please try to do so before then. Orders can be anytime now until Saturday.

I am pretty excited about their fall clothes, I ordered some workout capris, the cowl neck shirt, the jeans, and the hoodie where you stick your thumbs through. They tell me that you can wear the jeans through pregnancy because they are stretchy, and I'm hoping they are right, because I am SO sick of maternity clothes.

Coloring Books, Schmoloring Books

Visit the following website and never spend $3.00 on a 20 page coloring book again. We print out pages from our movie of choice on Sunday morning and take them with us to church. I have a laser printer, so I don't pay for ink, and a ream of paper costs $3.00. So we can print out a lot of pictures, in whatever design we want. We love it, and use it all the time, so I thought I'd pass it on!

http://www.coloring-book.info/coloring/

Cool birth video

http://www.visibleproductions.com/showcase/medlegal/medlegal_3.html

This is an animated demonstration of birth, it is way cool! Don't be afraid to click on it, it's not graphic or disturbing. My first and third needed to see this video before birth, because they just didn't do it the right way. (They were posterior, and my first was delivered face up.... ouch!) Now if I can just figure out a way to get this baby to watch the video. Maybe at the end when my skin is all stretched out, he can see through my belly. I'll just smash my belly up against the computer screen. Now there's a lovely picture!