(continued from last post)

I had contractions every ten minutes on the way home from the hospital, but the ride was quick and pleasant. And I was so happy to see my kids when I got back!  I was really, really exhausted mentally and physically from my hospital experience, so I went to sleep soon after getting home. I had some contractions when I was sleeping, but I hazily thought to myself it was lots easier to deal with without the monitor on me.  Then suddenly I had a huge amount of pressure and woke up enough to call my husband, who rushed in and immediately called the midwife and told her to come.  I wasn’t quite awake yet and was wondering why he felt so urgent about it, and was having an unwilling sense of deja vu from my past birth.  This all felt very familiar but the likelihood seemed to be very small of a repeat since that was such an unusual scenario that would have been very, very difficult to replicate even if we tried, and I wasn’t really wrapping my mind around the current scenario.

I asked dh to get some things ready for the birth, while still in bed with my eyes closed and wondering if things were really moving as fast as it seemed. Within a short time – I didn’t have a watch or clock to look at, but less than fifteen minutes from when I first called my husband– our baby was born with dh once again being the baby catcher!  It was just an hour after we had gotten home from the hospital.

However, what followed was very different from our last birth, which was a relaxed and beautiful experience for us all.  This time, dh told me it was a boy, and then a minute or two later in a worried voice told me something was wrong, that the baby wasn’t breathing.  I told him to pass him to me while dh called the midwife to ask her what to do; the baby was floppy and hardly made a sound, just a little gurgle.  (Dh later told me he had unwrapped the cord from around his neck right after he was born.)  I was suctioning his nose and mouth when she said to put him on his stomach at a 60 degree angle facing down, to massage his back and then to breathe into his mouth.  I had such a sense of being disconnected from reality while this was happening, like I was watching myself from ouside of my body doing all of this.  While we were doing this, I told dh to call the ambulance.  The midwife arrived a few minutes later, bursting into the room and quickly grabbing the baby to get him breathing. This was an intense few minutes but thankfully he pinked up and started breathing on his own.

A couple of minutes after this, the ambulance crew arrived and all four of them started trooping into my bedroom.  This was a bit much for the small space we had, since there were already three of us there, and it was also mentally a bit too much for me, since I had just given birth less than ten minutes before and wasn’t exactly interested in visitors!  So I asked the two young female volunteers to stay outside.

The baby was already breathing normally before they arrived, but we couldn’t cancel the call once it was made, and they refused to accept that we didn’t need their help.   The male ambulance volunteers assumed a very commanding attitude which didn’t exactly enhance the atmosphere for me – when they were about to cut the cord, I asked the one doing it if he could do it over a chux pad so blood wouldn’t get all over, and he told me, “Geveret (Mrs), I’m in charge here.”  So he cut it and blood got on my clothes and on the sheets.  It was distressing to me how very hectic and disorganized the physical and emotional environment was and there was nothing I could even say, without being told, “You just had a baby, we’ll take care of it (our way).”

They insisted on taking us to the hospital right away which wasn’t a bad thing since I was going to have to go to the hospital to register the baby anyway, but I would have chosen to go a little later and have time with my family before rushing out to have some emotional closure and time to process the birth.  I told them I needed to change into fresh clothing and sent dh to the living room with the baby so that the kids could see him before we left.  Usually everyone comes into my room and I speak to each of them and let them hold the baby, but it was really different for them this time with the ambulance volunteers telling my kids to be careful, me not anywhere in sight, and the littles didn’t have a framework to process what was happening.  Ds3 looked at the baby and said, “I want the baby to go back”.  I think the littles were expecting an older baby that crawls around and were kind of put off by the newborn size!

The volunteers were getting antsy about how long it was taking even though I really wasn’t taking long at all, but I managed to get a picture of everyone before we left, including the volunteers.  Ds13 carried the baby to the ambulance and all of the kids followed and watched them load me onto a stretcher and lift me into the ambulance, and as they closed the ambulance door I saw the first of my neighbors walk over to find out what was happening.  Dh was trying to get some things together for me to take to the hospital because without thinking he had unpacked the bag that I had packed for the hospital when we got home, and ran out when the ambulance started leaving without him!

I couldn’t hold the baby since I had an iv in one arm in a location that made it impossible to bend that arm, and then a blood pressure cuff on the other arm, so all I could do was to hold both arms straight in front of me.  Since I couldn’t hold the baby, one of the young female volunteers did instead, and I asked her if dh could hold the baby and sit in the back of the ambulance with me.  But she said there was no room so he stayed up in the front and we couldn’t talk to each other at all.  But he was able to pass the arnica back to me and I took several doses of that every fifteen minutes to help with shock/trauma/bleeding until what was left in the container was finished.

We decided to go to a different hospital than where we were at earlier, because I wasn’t interested in dealing with the staff at the first place and felt it would be easier in the second hospital, which also is closer to our home.  So off we went, and when we got there they took me (again, on the stretcher) to the labor and delivery ward while I instructed dh to stick to the baby like glue and not let them do anything to him that we didn’t want done.

When they finished processing me, I was taken to the maternity ward but there still no sight of dh and the baby.  The person who transported me insisted that I needed help in moving to the bed from the bed they ‘drove’ me there in, as well as with more personal needs, and when I told her that I was thought I could manage on my own and that I’d let her know if I needed help, she was a tad indignant.  But I felt entitled to at least a tiny bit of dignity, even if I had to be in the hospital, don’t you think?  I assured her that I’d knock on the bathroom door and let her know if I needed help.

I waited and waited for dh, and when he finally came, it was without the baby.  He told me they were bringing the baby right after him.  But they weren’t.  After waiting a while, I sent dh back to the nursery to get him.  After a while, he came back saying that they needed to warm him up and we could have him afterward.  Some more time went by, and I asked dh to go get him again.  This time he was gone even longer and when he got back told me that the baby’s heartrate was fluctuating so they said I couldn’t hold him yet.   A few hours after the birth, and I still couldn’t hold my baby…I was feeling so sad then, when a little later dh came in and told me that the staff told him I should come to the nursery to nurse the baby.

It was a long walk to the nursery but they said he couldn’t be brought to me, and when I got to him, he was already five hours old and I had missed the initial alert stage of a newborn.  He was sleeping deeply and I could hardly get him to even partially open his eyes.  But I was really glad to be able to see him and hold him against me….

Avivah

On Sunday, we had the first day of Machane Mommy (Camp Mommy), and our ending activity of the day was a local carnival, to which I took ds6, ds4, and ds3. They had a great time, and so did I, though I began having a lot of contractions during the three hours we were out. After I got home, these continued but I was unsure about if I wanted to go to the hospital yet.  It was still two weeks until my due date, and the hospital is an expensive taxi ride away.  My preference is to get to the hospital as late in labor is possible so there’s less time for them to do things that are unnecessary, but I didn’t want to go through the registration and check in process while in advanced labor, or have the concern about giving birth in the taxi on the way!

After resting and listening to some meditations for an hour or so, I had a feeling of clarity that I should go to the hospital at that point, about 1 am. We called a taxi and I have to say that having intense contractions while the driver makes sudden jerky stops isn’t the most comfortable thing! We got there and registered, and dh said my contractions were about every three minutes. Perfect.  We went upstairs to labor and delivery, but it was quite a wait until a staff member noticed we were there.  Dh was shocked – he asked, what would happen if someone got there ready to deliver?  I told him, now he understands my concern about when to get there!

My hope in going to this hospital was to use their natural birthing suite, in which I was told that women are given a lot of privacy and much more flexibility than in the regular birthing rooms.  I was told by a doula who goes to frequent births at this hospital that I’d have to qualify for the room (I was told this by the staff as well), and that I’d be best off to make it as easy as possible for them to qualify me by letting them run their standard protocol on me.  So that’s what I did.

First was the mandatory 30 minutes of monitoring, which turned into an hour. Every time I asked about having it taken off, I was told “A couple more minutes”.  Then I had to have an ultrasound to determine the size of the baby (over a certain size wouldn’t be allowed), then an internal exam – and when it was determined I was healthy, the baby wasn’t too big, I was in active labor – the doctor on shift refused to let me use the natural birthing suite because I had so many children already that I was too high risk. (When I asked what was so dangerous about using that room, they said because it had a regular bed instead of a hospital birthing bed and it would be less convenient for them if something went wrong.)

At this point I told my husband I wasn’t interested in staying around at this hospital and I wanted to go home.  Not because of the room itself, but because being in the regular room meant being treated in a very different way than what I felt able to accept.  I was supposed to have a visit with my private midwife four hours later (I had decided to continue having private prenatal care with her even though I couldn’t afford a home birth) so I called her to ask her opinion – I wanted to ask her if she’d consider lowering her price in order for me to have a homebirth with her when she showed up for the prenatal visit! But there was no answer at either of her numbers, and not knowing what choice I had when it looked like I’d give birth in three or four hours, I very reluctantly stayed at the hospital.

They put me in the nicest regular suite as a compromise to not letting me use the room I wanted, but to me it didn’t matter much.  They said they’d need to monitor me for about thirty minutes out of every hour, and when I asked about the cordless version, told me it was only available in the natural birthing suite. This made contractions much more difficult, but what was really hardest for me is that I was unable to feel safe in the environment I found myself in.  When the midwife was trying to tell me how it would be the same birth regardless of what room I was in, I explained to here that if I didn’t emotionally feel comfortable, I was concerned that my labor wasn’t going to progress. She was very nice – everyone was, really – but they all said the same thing: we respect what you’re saying and it’s your baby but it’s our responsibility to be sure your baby is safe.

Dh brought a relaxation cd with music in the background, since it’s the only suitable music I had for the birth, and it was great. When I was admitted the actual labor room, I also drank the strong red raspberry infusion we prepared before leaving.  But I was having a very hard time picturing the end of the birth, something that’s never been an issue. It was like there was a big concrete wall in my mind between labor and the final result. After a few hours of contractions, the doctors came around for my visit and asked if I noticed that my contractions were getting further apart and less effective. Yes, I noticed that.

Then the head doctor told me he wants to send me for an ultrasound at their clinic since things slowed down.  What?  I told him I already had an ultrasound when I came in. He said that it showed my baby was four kilos; I told him that the technician told me 3.800 and that she couldn’t measure accurately because the head was so low.

He said that since I hadn’t done the gestational diabetes tests earlier in pregnancy as well as some other tests, that I didn’t have the necessary profile to show that the baby wouldn’t be too big to be birthed naturally. I told him that our children had ranged in size up to 4.5 kilo that I didn’t have a single sign of gestational diabetes. We finally agreed that I needed to be released from the labor and delivery ward and transferred to the maternity ward since labor had slowed down so much by then. I told him I was exhausted – I hadn’t slept or eaten for hours, and there’s no way that labor was going to start again until I did.

I finally was transferred to the maternity ward, which was good since I had a quiet place to be, had lunch, and didn’t have as many people questioning me repeatedly about the same questions.  At this point I told dh again that I couldn’t stay in this hospital; emotionally I didn’t feel safe at all and didn’t think my labor was going to restart again for days if they kept me there. We finally reached our private midwife – she had been away overseas and gotten back twelve hours later than she expected; when we called she had just walked in the door from her trip. She wasn’t in a frame of mind to advise me, and I put down the phone feeling more alone than ever. I just didn’t know what to do.  I felt like I was beyond my ability to think positively or let go or whatever else – I felt so trapped in the hospital.

Soon after this dh called her, and told me we’d work out the money for the homebirth (this was my main concern), that I shouldn’t have to stay in the hospital when clearly it was the wrong thing for me, and that we were leaving the hospital. I felt a bit apprehensive about this because the decision to go to the hospital wasn’t made out of thin air. It took them a few hours to prepare the necessary paperwork, and I had to sign an against medical advice form. When I did that, the doctor told me I needed to have an ultrasound before I left, and when I asked why, he told me that my baby was so big that he was likely to have shoulder dystocia on the way out. (Somehow the size of our baby went from an estimated 3.800 – which I thought was an overestimate and highly unlikely considering his gestational age – to 4 kilos to 4.5 kilos.) I told him that our biggest baby had been 4.5 kilos and didn’t anticipate a problem birthing a baby that size, but that in any case I could do another ultrasound when I came back to the hospital to give birth.

He agreed, then told me I needed to do a glucose screening. I asked why, and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to have a natural birth when I came back nless I did and the ultrasound showed the size of the baby was under 4.5 kilo. If I didn’t agree to this, they would only allow a trial of labor if the ultrasound showed the baby to be under 4 kilos. In case you don’t understand the veiled language, it means that I would have to have a ceasarian. I was really puzzled about this since there was no sign of me having a big baby but I said I’d take care of it when I checked back in, signed the paperwork, and after a couple more hours of waiting, were on our way home! I was so relieved just at the thought of leaving, and not surprisingly, about a half hour before we left, I started having contractions again…..

Avivah

This past week I made up a big batch of red raspberry leaf tea as a preparation for my ninth month. Red raspberry leaf tea is a uterine toner that is helpful to take the entire pregnancy, but every time I thought of it, it wasn’t a convenient time to actually prepare it and I ended up not getting around to it until now.  (I did take other supplements, which took up the mental space I had allotted for being proactive about pregnancy related choices! :))

I brought the bulk herbs I’d bought in the past with me to Israel, so I had red raspberry on hand, though not all the herbs I’ve used in the past for this blend.  (You can buy pregancy tea that comes in tea bags, but buying the loose herbs is much, much less expensive.)  Honestly, I don’t think it matters that much – the other herbs I used had different purposes but the main one for helping the uterus work efficiently is red raspberry.  What I used this time was red raspberry (8 parts), alfalfa (3 parts), spearmint (3 parts), and stevia leaf (for sweetener – can’t remember how much I added).  This is a nice tasting blend and I made up a nice amount that should be enough to get me through until after birth, though it depends when I give birth!  But I still have enough herbs left to prepare another batch if I run out.

The general guidelines I’ve seen for taking red raspberry leaf tea are like this:

First trimester – start with a half cup of tea daily, working up to one cup (tea – not an infusion, which is much more concentrated).  Some people prefer to start taking this after sixteen weeks as there is concern that drinking it at this point can lead to a miscarriage.  Based on the reading I’ve done, I’m not convinced this is true, if taken in this amount.  It’s actually an ingredient in miscarriage prevention herbal mixes.  But better safe than sorry if there’s any concern or past miscarriage history would be the way I would go.

Second trimester – two cups of tea daily.

Third trimester – three cups of tea daily.  When entering the ninth month, you can have four cups a day, and start drinking an infusion rather than the tea (proportions for each are below).  For the ninth month, I use 1 oz. of leaves (about one packed cup) with at least 5 cups of boiling water, letting it steep overnight.  I bottle it when it cools off and keep it in the fridge – it makes a nice refreshing summer drink

At the beginning of labor – 1 oz tea mixture and 2 cups of boiling water, letting it steep for at least 30 minutes.  Drink hot.  I never have remembered to do this but maybe this time I will.  I made a note of it in my planner so we’ll see.  🙂

After birth – to promote contracting of uterus, expulsion of placenta – drink a cup or two of tea right after birth.

The difference between tea and infusion is how long you let it steep and the ratio of herbs to water  An infusion is much stronger.  For tea, you can use 1 t. herbs to one cup of water.  For an infusion, the proportions are 1/4 c. and 1 c. of water.

My understanding is that the infusion is only used in the ninth month, but I’m still making my infusion on the weak side because I’m not rushing to go into labor.  For right before birth, you definitely want to use the supercharged infusion above.  But that’s a very potent  drink and you shouldn’t use it until you get to the hospital since it can make labor much shorter and it’s not fun to have a baby in transit. 🙂

Did you drink red raspberry leaf tea during your pregnancy and/or labor?  If so, in what quantities?  Did you notice a difference in labor length or quality?

Avivah

A few readers have emailed me privately and asked about how things are going pregnancy-wise.  Thank G-d, I’ve started my ninth month and am overall feeling good.  Yesterday my sister, who was due ten days after me, had her baby (mazel tov, Tovah!), which very much made me aware that time is passing quickly!  And if I hadn’t officially adjusted my dates to be sure that I don’t run into any issues in case I go three weeks overdue again (though I think the likelihood of that is very low), my official due date would be three weeks from now rather than four.

I’ve had so many things that I’m trying to get taken care of before I give birth, and my birth plan has fallen behind all of those things.  As of now it looks like I’m going to be shifting my plans for a homebirth to a hospital birth, but this hasn’t yet been decided on.  After five homebirths and very strong positive feelings about the benefits, a hospital birth has been a very hard thing for me to be willing to even consider.  Though on Sunday I went to see the hospital I would go to, I’m still not able to say that I’ll definitely go there.  It’s just too big a difference in terms of what I’m used to and what the hospital practices are for me to mentally let go of my picture of what birth is supposed to be like, and so when my kids and husband ask what I’ll be doing, I say ‘I haven’t yet decided but probably the hospital’.

What’s shifted my thinking away from homebirth at this point?  It’s not because I believe the hospital is the best or safest place, that’s for sure!  It’s purely a logistical decision.  For the last five months, I’ve had an ongoing low grade level of stress thinking about how to legally document the baby’s birth but what finally tipped the scales away from homebirth is the cost.

Recent circumstances of having a child hospitalized for two weeks and other children who I want to provide with care from alternative health practitioners has meant lots of extra expenses, none of which currently fit into our regular budget.  A homebirth with the midwife I’d like to use will be approximately 5000 shekels plus another 1000 to have a doctor sign the paperwork since the midwife isn’t licensed in Israel.  (None of the licensed midwives I called were willing or able to attend my birth; if one of them would have come there would have still been a cost issue but not a documentation issue.)

Though I’d budgeted for the birth, I have choices I need to make about if that’s the best way to spend that money now that other factors have come into play.  6000 shekels ($1500) can go a long way towards extra expenses for our children right now.  For example, one child had weekly reflexology sessions recommended- at about another 500 shekels monthly, I could afford a lot of sessions!  I’ve had to increase our food budget in the last month or two by 50% (an additional 1000 shekels) to accommodate the nutritional suggestions of the naturopath, and I’m not sure that increase will be sufficient, so that’s another area that I have to expand on what we’d been spending until now.  I’ve also had extra costs regarding purchasing supplements as well as travel expenses.

Everyone has their own idea of what’s most critical to them, and providing our children with what I feel is necessary care regarding their health is a pretty important value for me.  Even more than a homebirth.  To a degree I’m giving up something important to me, but more than giving up, I feel like I’m giving towards what is most important – taking the best care I can of the children we already have.

Right now my efforts with regard to their health are mostly proactive; I believe there are aliyah related stresses that are just starting to physically manifest themselves healthwise, and that they’ll get worse if I ignore them.  And there’s no way that the traditional doctors at the health clinic will be able to deal with them at the root level, which is where true healing occurs.  (I took one child who was showing symptoms that I was alarmed by – I’m not easily alarmed – and the doctor basically brushed them off.)

I’ve had a very strong feeling all through this pregnancy that this is going to be a really good birth, and I have to keep focusing on that even though what I’d been planning until now looks so different.  I’m focusing on keeping my thoughts in a positive place on this, to trust that all will work out well and the birth will be a good experience all around!

Avivah

I’m now almost at 30 weeks of pregnancy, and I’m feeling good overall.  The main physical pregnancy related symptom that I’m not especially enjoying is some sciatic pain.  I’m really, really glad this isn’t as intense as it’s been in the past, but it’s still not fun.

I did a little bit of research to see what is helpful for this, and thought I’d share some of the suggestions I learned about with you.  Some of them I currently do, some of them I’ve done in the past, but they all can be useful.

– Chiropractor – I went to a chiropractor weekly with my sixth pregnancy, and after an appointment I had a lot of relief.  However, it didn’t last long; the chiropractor told me it was because the heightened amount of relaxin a pregnant woman has in her system makes it harder for the body to ‘hold’ the adjustment in place.  Currently, my health insurance doesn’t cover a chiropractor (not that I know of, anyway), and it hasn’t been something that’s been problematic enough to pay out of pocket for a visit.

– Stretching – the sciatic nerve comes through your gluteus  muscles, so stretching them and your hamstrings can help.  Even a short stretch can be helpful, but it’s even better if you can hold the stretch for a minute or two.  I do this whenever I get sciatic twinges and have found it very helpful.

– Posture – make sure your pelvis is tucked in when you stand.  The sciatic nerve runs through a really small area. When your belly gets bigger, it can cause the lower back to arch excessively (lordosis), and this can put pressure on the sciatic nerve by tilting the pelvis a certain way. Try to remember to keep your lower back somewhat flat by drawing the sacrum down. Keeping the abs engaged is also helpful.

My fifteen minute morning workout (T-Tapp) has a focus on proper body mechanics and this has been helpful for me keeping my posture decent even though my workouts have been very sporadic.  I do wonder if I did this regularly if I’d have any sciatic pain, but this has remained an academic questions since I haven’t made daily workouts a priority use of my time and energy.  I do the basic back stretch at least once a day, though.

– Icing – start with icing (15 mins on, 15 mins off) for the first couple of days to get any swelling down. Afterwards, you can use heat (hot baths or heating pad), either by sitting on a heating pad or taking crazy hot baths.

– Homeopathy – I’ve never tried this but read that the the homeopathic remedy Hypericum Perforatum works very well.

– Nutrition – I do believe that many physical symptoms have their root at the level of a nutritional deficiency, so when I read the following, I found it plausible: the leg you’re having pain in determines what the deficiency is. The right leg indicates a potassium defiency, the left leg indicates a sodium defiency. To increase your potassium, you can supplement with black strap molassas. For sodium you can use alfalfa concentrate caps (not tablets) or liquid chlorophyll; I’ve also read that spirulina works really well in treating sciatica.

Here’s a site with more information about what sciatica is technically, as well as more tips for how to minimize sciatic pain.

If you’ve experienced sciatica and have tips of your own to share, please do so in the comments section below!

Avivah

It’s hard to believe that time is going so quickly, but I’m now officially in the beginning of my third trimester!

Today I had my first prenatal visit with the nurses who oversee that aspect of care here.  I wasn’t looking forward to this visit much – especially not after being chastised by the secretary on the phone when making the appointment for delaying my visit until this point.  I was feeling so tired of being chided by seemingly everyone I’ve interacted with in the health care system (only three or four people, but still!) for not doing something that they think I should do, when they think it should be done.  Especially since I’m doing all these things I don’t usually do!

But it went really well.  The nurse was unexpectedly warm and friendly, and told me three separate times during my appointment how impressed she was that I was having my tenth.  (She said she stopped at two because she had a boy and girl and it seemed that’s what everyone in her circles did.  And then when she was almost forty, she really wanted to have more children but it was too late.)

I’ve done all the blood tests and everything has come back fine.  She did say my iron was a drop on the low side, so I’ll have to eat some more iron rich foods.  For those who have asked, in general I feel great.  I’m really, really grateful that I’ve only had slight twinges of sciatic pain so far, and that usually has been when I’m in one position too long.  I don’t take that for granted since I’ve had pregnancies in which sciatica was a major pain factor for months.

I think part of avoiding this is listening to your body – last Friday I did a lot of Shabbos preparations that dd17 usually takes care of because she was in the hospital (she got home for Shabbos, happily!), and by late Friday afternoon, I could hardly move without significant soreness.  That’s what happens when you ignore your body’s signals!

The main thing that’s concerning me right now is technical – mainly, my birth plans.  I have a really good feeling about the birth but I’m getting a bit anxious about the midwife being so far away.  She told me she’d need five hours notice to get here, which initially I said wasn’t a problem. But it’s niggling at me so much that I’m realizing I better pay attention to my intuition.   As I’ve said before, there are always yellow flags before red flags, but the problem is we usually ignore our mental warnings and intellectually convince ourselves how there’s no reason to pay attention that them!

I don’t think it’s because of what happened at the last birth that I’m feeling so apprehensive; my births aren’t usually especially long but they aren’t especially short, either.  Well, most of them were less than five hours long from the time active labor began, but there were three exceptions to that, which is 33%, right?  🙂  In any case, I’m going to have to think about alternatives, which may be as simple as paying for a taxi so that she can be here in two hours from the time I call.  I found out there are two hospital midwives who live in my community, and I’m considering asking them as a backup plan if they would come over if needed.

Overall, I feel great.  Every day I think about how fortunate I am to be expecting; there’s something truly magical about a baby growing inside you.  When the nurse asked me if I was feeling movements, I told her yes, and then added, “That’s the nicest thing about pregnancy!”  With my earlier pregnancies I thought it was nice, but now I have a much more intense feeling of appreciation and enjoyment.  When I was a younger mother, I was very caught up in all that I needed to do every day and didn’t take time to savor the moments the way that I do now.  It’s not that life is less busy now than it was then – not at all!  But there’s been a shift from focusing on all that needs to be done to focusing more on enjoying the moment – some people are naturally like this, but I had to consciously work to develop it.

My kids are all looking forward to the new baby, but at the same time there are so many other things happening in the next few months that it’s not as if it’s the exclusive focus of any of us.  Our children were all born in different months, with the winter months being the quiet months.  So birthday season has started for us, and from the beginning of April and on, someone has a birthday to celebrate every few weeks until the end of November.  That’s not to mention Lag b’Omer, my mom moving here, the haircut of my soon to be three year old, Shavuos…lots of nice things to be busy with!

Avivah