I recently marked an important milestone in my life. Since graduating high school, I have never spent more than four years in any one place, in any one house, in any one job. At the time I enjoyed my vagabond ways, as I was clearly searching for something and wasn’t willing to settle until I found it. It was easy to rip up the roots I had started to grow in each place, as they were young and tender, and hadn’t firmly wound their way into the earth. Yet each time I did this, I could feel the trunk of my life wobble and bend a little with the unsteadiness of the unknown.

In the waning light of dusk the other night, Andrew and I got down on our hands and knees and planted the first of hopefully many fruit trees we intend to grow on our farm. We had recently picked up two baby apple trees, each with five different varieties grafted into its tiny branches. We waited for the perfect weather: cool and damp, and added our own compost from the chick brooder around the fine roots as we placed the trees into their freshly dug homes. Andrew made sure to place the trees just-so, so that the lowest branch faced the southwest to shade the trunk on hot days. We filled the holes with damp dirt and pruned the branches close to the trunk to encourage the trees to spend all their energy developing strong roots. With our hands we built a damn around each tree, a fairy ring of sorts to allow water to pool and be directed down where it is needed most.

After each tree was done, I tenderly grasped the wispy trunk in my fist and closed my eyes. I envisioned the roots growing strong and deep, spreading wide out into the pasture. I saw a bright green canopy overhead, with shiny tempting apples waiting to be picked. And I saw my daughter, many years down the road, running under the tree in sun-dappled light, laughing with her wild hair flowing behind her.

There is no instant gratification with fruit trees; planting them means you’re in it for the long haul. Kneeling there with my knees in the dirt I bound my heart to these trees and this land. Planting these trees was a prayer for my family, and an act of love for the life that lies ahead of us. Finally, I can say that I am home.

I should be sleeping. I should be sleeping. I should be sleeping. Sleep when your baby is sleeping, they say. That sounds so lovely! I applaud the 1% of moms who are able to accomplish this. In my case, I’m staring at a giant pile of paperwork, a quickly approaching busy farm season, and a disaster of a house that doesn’t seem to want to tidy itself up. So here I sit, coffee in hand while my baby naps, trying to catch you all up on what’s new around here.

It’s been MONTHS since I last updated this blog, and there is so much news! Most of you likely have been tracking me on facebook, but for those of you who haven’t, hold on to your hats! Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s been going on around here:

We bought a farm! Yeah! I can’t believe I haven’t written about this yet. It was in the works for over a year before it happened, and I intentionally avoided writing about it so as not to either jinx it or freak out our customers with the news that we were moving. And then we sealed the deal, and moved, and everything happened so fast that I just kept forgetting to write about it!

Our new farm is amazing. We purchased 30 acres in the Orting Valley, complete with TWO houses and several barns. We have tenants! And, biggest news of all, a shower! Indoors! Right down the hall! And since I have an infant, my dreams of spending all day, every day in the shower have yet to come to fruition. Yet it is exceedingly lovely to have the option to shower at a moment’s notice; a small luxury I shall never take for granted after the last five years of living without!

One of the wonderful things about our new farm is that it’s going to be a farm forever. The previous owners, Ken and Julie, purchased the farm several years ago in conjunction with PCC Farmland Trust. Ken and Julie purchased the property, and the Farmland Trust purchased the development rights. This means the property can never be developed, and it also conveniently lowered the value of the land, which made it more attainable for us. Well, slightly more attainable. We worked very hard for a year on a government loan for beginning farmers and ranchers, and were also fortunate enough to receive a loan from Andrew’s grandparents for the remaining balance. And thankfully Ken and Julie were patient and willing to wait for us to get our ducks in a row. They had several other buyers interested, but they were adamant about finding the right match and seeing this land be put to its best use, and we are flattered and grateful that they gave us this chance.

I’m sure you can imagine that moving a farm is no easy feat. In fact, we’re still not quite done, and we’ve been in our new home since October! Now imagine that on top of all of this work, our baby girl was diagnosed with something called Sagittal Craniosynostosis. Remember when I wrote about how difficult her birth was? Well, it turns out there was a logical explanation for that. The suture on the top of her skull, which is normally open to allow for compression during birth, and then expansion as the brain grows, was prematurely fused in utero. No one really knows why this happens. It’s fairly rare, although it can happen to any variety of the sutures in the skull. Fortunately when it happens to the sagittal suture alone, it is the least challenging to fix and has the least chance of complications. However, major skull surgery was required to open her skull for proper brain growth.

On January 20, Hattie Lou went into the OR at Seattle Children’s with an oblong, narrow skull, and came out with a shiny new round one! It was a super challenging time for us, but our surgeons are top in the nation, and she has had absolutely no complications. In fact, you can barely even see her scar, and she doesn’t seem to be aware of what she went through (although who knows what babies actually know and remember?).

The most challenging thing for me at the moment in regards to motherhood is Hattie’s difficulty sleeping. She naps great for two-hour chunks throughout the day, which is crucial in allowing me to get some work done. Unfortunately she treats the nighttime just like the daytime, and is usually up every two to three hours, wanting a boob snack and comfort. I know that this too shall pass, and infanthood is so very short. I just hope this rough patch is over before the summer, when sleep is going to be essential to my survival (well, even more so than it is now).

Which brings me to what else is happening around here! We are in the midst of a fundraising campaign to purchase our own mobile processing unit (MPU) so that we can do the slaughter and processing of our birds here on the farm. Now that we moved, we need our own infrastructure to get the job done efficiently. I’ll spare you the nitty gritty, as many of you already know the details. If not, you can learn more about our plans by checking out our campaign here.

I am thrilled that we received a $20,000 grant towards this MPU purchase. I recently learned that the grant program was very competitive, so it’s rewarding to know that my hard work in writing the grant proposal paid off. Now we just have the hard work of raising, processing, and selling 2,000 broiler chickens this year! No big deal, right? Of course now that we moved an hour south, we also have to figure out how to get our chickens and other meat into our existing customers’ hands. So there is some logistical work ahead for us.

Oh! We’ve had over 25 healthy lambs born on the farm in the past month, after a rocky start where we lost two ewes and seven lambs. We’ve also got eight market hogs, two sows (and more bacon breeders on the way…stay tuned for that update!). We’re also getting a handful of cows this summer. And 100 heritage turkeys again. Oh, and probably a sheep herding border collie. You know, the usual stuff.

As if I wasn’t busy enough, I also decided to join the Board of Directors for the Orting Valley Farmers Market. I’m not planning on doing markets this year, other than the small one in our new hometown. I don’t expect to move a lot of product at this market, as we live in a rural community where many people raise their own animals, and there isn’t a lot of disposable income around. But I think it’s important to be invested in my own community, and I want Hattie to grow up in a town that has a thriving, healthy local economy and a vibrant farmers market. So on top of all that’s going on, I have been busy helping get the market set to go for the upcoming season.

As you can imagine, I’m pretty dang pooped. So if you see me walking around looking like a zombie with my baby in tow, do me a favor and DON’T ASK when the next one is coming. I will happily accept offers of coffee, babysitting, and help on the farm though! Here’s to an eventful, exciting, showerful 2018 season on our new farm!

Well this post is long overdue! Many of you follow me on facebook and instagram, so you by now have seen the news, but for the rest of you: we had a baby girl! Hattie Lou Ide was born on July 31^st, after a pretty trying ordeal. I thought I would use this space to write about my birth experience.

My original due date was July 20^th, and my mom arrived a week before that to be here for the last days of pregnancy, and to help welcome our new baby into the world. Mom was a labor and delivery nurse for many years, so I was grateful that she was able to come be with me. Although you’d think that all of that experience would have altered her travel plans a bit…my baby was definitely not ready to come out on the due date, which is really common with first babies! Poor mom had to adjust her flights, car rental, apartment rental, etc. in order to stay long enough for the main event!

We spent the last weeks of my pregnancy walking a LOT, trying to stay cool, and enjoying each other’s company. Finally on July 29^th I felt like I was having some early signs of labor. My midwife suggested castor oil to speed things along. A couple hours after taking the castor oil, my labor started in full force. And when I say full force, I mean FULL FORCE. My contractions came on at two minutes apart, and were lasting two minutes or more. The midwife told us not to come in to the birth center yet, as those types of contractions (while painful!) aren’t doing much to motivate baby. From 8pm until 1am I labored at home. Finally the contractions were timing right and we drove over to the birth center.

Forgive me for my hazy memory, but labor is so intense (as many of you have undoubtedly experienced) that a lot of the details slip through the cracks! What follows is a combination of my memories and bits and pieces I have picked up through Andrew and other observers retelling the story. I labored at the birth center from 1am until 5am, mostly in the warm tub. Finally my midwife asked me to get out so she could check my progress. I hadn’t progressed much (I think I was around 5 cm) so she decided to break my water in an attempt to get things moving. Unfortunately when she did that, a large quantity of meconium poured out. Meconium is the result of baby defecating in utero, which is generally a sign of distress. And since it is something that can get into baby’s lungs when he or she takes the first breath, moms that have meconium are automatically transferred to the hospital for extra precaution. At this point I had to say goodbye to my preferred delivery plan of the lovely water birth in the cozy birth center, and we took a little drive to the nearby hospital.

I have no memory of the drive over, but I do remember the lady at the check in counter telling me not to have my baby at her desk! At this point I didn’t have much of my sense of humor still intact, so I mostly remember being annoyed at her comment. Heads up: you do not want to annoy a woman in labor. Fortunately we were quickly put into a room and I wasted no time getting back into the warm (though considerably smaller) bathtub. At this point my contractions were so intense! All I could do was chant “ommmmmmm” along with Andrew with each contraction, which were still two minutes apart. If you’re keeping track, this means I was in full labor mode for nine hours at this point. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, and I was feeling pretty weak, not to mention exhausted!

After another five or six hours of labor like this at the hospital, my progress was checked again. I had only gained another centimeter or so of dilation, and was nowhere close to pushing. At this point I threw in the towel and opted for the epidural. I knew I couldn’t continue on with the contractions for much longer without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. When the anesthesiologist arrived and proceeded to insert a very long needle into my spine, poor Andrew turned ghost white and was forced to lie down and regain his composure. And here I thought I was the one feeling weak!

I’m not quite sure on the order of events once I received the epidural. I was in and out of sleep at this point; my body finally had a chance to recuperate. I can tell you that it is very surreal to be in the most significant pain of your life and then suddenly: nothing. My body was still going through all the intense motions of labor, just now without any sensation. At some point there became some concern about two things: the strength of my contractions, and the baby’s heart rate. I can’t know for sure if the epidural led to either of these concerns, but regardless things started changing rapidly. I was put on an IV drip of Pitocin, a hormone that increases the strength of contractions. But unfortunately after each contraction my baby’s heart rate was dropping, which is worrisome. So they sloooooowly increased the Pitocin drip over the next several hours, hoping to get my contractions strong enough to fully dilate my cervix without further stressing the baby.

At this point I had quite a troupe in my room with me. There was Andrew, my mom, Andrew’s sister Bethany, the nurse, two midwives, occasionally the charge nurse, and the OBGYN popped in from time to time. I’m sure I’m missing a few other players, but you get the idea! The OBGYN was a very nice woman named Dr. Sok, and she came in to tell me that at some point we would have to consider a C-section, but that she was willing to wait as long as possible since I was really hoping for a vaginal delivery. Finally at around midnight I was fully dilated and was told I could push! Again for those of you keeping track at home: that’s a whopping 28 hours of active labor!

Have you ever tried to push something out of our body while simultaneously being completely numb? Unless you’ve been through this exact experience I’m going to guess not. You can assume that this is a very difficult task indeed! Especially with very little sleep and no food for over 24 hours. Despite these challenges, I was told I was a strong pusher! At the peak of every contraction the midwife would tell me to push. All of the people around my bed would hold my legs up (since they were totally paralyzed), and I would bear down as hard as I could, twice for each contraction. We did this for a while before the midwife decided to “go in” and see what the progress was. Unfortunately this is where things got even worse. She could just feel the tip of baby’s head, but couldn’t tell what direction it was in, and it didn’t seem very far into my pelvis yet. After each push the baby’s heart rate was dropping, and by now the baby’s resting heart rate was actually higher than normal, so it was obvious baby was stressed. I was allowed to push for two hours like this, before we all decided that the best possible thing was to get baby out immediately to reduce further stress on us both.

I was of course disappointed, but I always knew in the back of my mind that a C-section was possible, and that it exists for a reason. This was no convenience surgery scheduled so my doctor could make a golf tournament! This was do-or-die. So I was wheeled into the operating room with Andrew at my side. My anesthesiologist was the absolute sweetest man, and he stayed by my head the whole time and gently explained what was going on. I was beyond exhausted at this point, so I was slipping in and out of sleep. What I do remember hearing is Dr. Sok exclaiming, “Wow! Your abs still look really great!” (much to my surprise), and then some mumbling as things got a bit complicated.

It turns out that our baby was stuck. Like REALLY stuck. The head was wedged into my pelvis, and while usually they try to do a gentle C-section and quietly pull baby out head first, Dr. Sok realized that wasn’t going to happen and had to yank the baby out feet first! At this point they quickly asked Andrew to identify the sex: A GIRL! Then it was obvious something was wrong, because Andrew looked very worried and they whisked our baby over to a little station where nurses surrounded her and I couldn’t see a thing. I should have been dying from fear, but I was so exhausted I just remember still slipping in and out of sleep. At some point I did ask someone to explain what they were doing. I don’t remember what they said, but later I learned that when they pulled our baby out, she was limp and barely breathing.

The Apgar score is a test that is done on babies one minute after birth and then five minutes after birth to see how well baby tolerated the process. The score range is 0-10, with 0 being stillborn and 10 being healthiest possible. Our baby’s first Apgar was a 1. This is terrifying after the fact, although at the time I don’t think they told us this. I only know that they were able to completely revive her without having to take her to the NICU. Finally they brought her over to us, and placed her on my chest for our first contact and her first attempt at nursing.

Hattie Lou Ide was born on July 31^st at 3:11 AM after a most dramatic and powerful experience. This only seems appropriate, since she was named for the two strongest women we’ve ever known: my grandmother and Andrew’s mother. Hattie is a variation of Harriet and Henrietta, as was my grandmother’s given name of Hendrina (though she went by Hindy). All of these variations mean the same thing: “ruler of the house” and that’s no joke. Andrew’s mother’s name was Nancy, but for some reason one of the nicknames her husband had for her was Lou (and sometimes Lewis), and I always thought that was cute and endearing. And so she was named for a woman who survived the holocaust and lived joyfully until the age of 92, and another woman who died too young after battling intensely painful cancer, but is remembered for her strength and a heart overflowing with love.

We don’t know much about Hattie’s personality yet, it will take some time for us to get to know her. The only thing we’re certain of is that she’s a fighter just like her Great Grandma and Mamaw before her, and for that we couldn’t be more proud.

Right after Hattie was revived and brought over after the delivery

These two are hard sleepers

Farmers Market baby!

Fashionista

Llama burrito baby