36-week ultrasound and some baby prep

Last week, I had another ultrasound. At my 20-week anatomy scan, the baby was in such a position that the tech could not get all the heart images they were supposed to get. That, combined with the fact that this baby's heartbeat has been more challenging than average to track on Doppler, made my midwife recommend I go in for another ultrasound just to make sure all is well. 

All did turn out to be perfectly well, praise the Lord, and of course we had the added joy of watching this little one 'live on screen'. The 3-D ultrasounds are incredibly detailed now. Baby opened and closed his/her eyes, sucked on his/her hand, and looked just like our other babies.

We again chose not to find out the gender, so I have no exciting announcements in that regard. Baby was measured at approximately 7 lbs 1 oz, which made me think they must be way off on the growth predictions, but the tech said they are usually within one ounce, give or take. I don't know if she's wrong or if this baby is indeed large for dates. The last two of our three babies were 6 lbs and change at birth, whereas this one might still gain as much as a half lb per week for the next four weeks!

I was especially surprised by this estimate since I myself have only gained 15 lbs thus far with this pregnancy, having stayed on Weight Watchers the full nine months (in maintenance mode) to keep from gaining unnecessary pounds. Looks like I might be shedding most of that overnight when the baby is born! I will blog another time in more detail about WW and following the program while pregnant or breastfeeding.

36 weeks pregnant

Speaking of food, I am almost completely done stocking the freezers for after the baby's birth. Between making room for the precooked breakfasts and dinners, and organizing a group beef buy from a local ranch, I went through all four of my freezers over the weekend, tossing odds and ends and taking inventory of everything, as well arranging it all for maximum efficiency. I do this every six months when I do a group beef buy, but this was the first time I actually made detailed inventory lists for each freezer, which I mounted in the kitchen so I can update them anytime we take out or add anything to any of the freezers.

Our basic setup is that we have two fridge/freezer combos in the kitchen (called kitchen fridge and office fridge), as well as two deep freezers in the school room (called chest freezer and stand-up freezer).

Here is the list of foods I have made for this time around. You can click on the images to see them in larger.

 

The meals in red still need to be made and frozen, hopefully this week. I did manage to bake and freeze two gallon bags full of lactation cookies today, so that was an accomplishment and a load off my mind. I greatly depend on those in the early weeks to bring in my milk.

This list is kept in Google Drive, that way I can update it anytime, anywhere, from my phone. It might seem my logistics and inventory sheets are a little overboard, but with a family my size, I need to outsource as much of my mental energy as I can. Very rarely do 10 seconds go by on any given day between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. when someone (or multiple someones) do not come to me with various needs. It's like having 9 phone lines (10 if you count my husband, 11 with the new baby) that all ring, all day long, often at the same time, while I am the only one in the call center answering calls while also doing the day-to-day tasks that go into feeding, clothing, educating, and keeping alive and healthy all these people. If I can write it down and not have to remember off the top of my head, sign me up!

My mother-in-law will once again fly out as soon as I go into labor to help watch the kids during the birth, and in the days after. My biggest dread is a) going through labor again (it does NOT get easier the more babies I have had!), and b) giving birth in the winter. It's cold even in the daytime, but at night when I usually seem to be going into labor it's even colder, not to mention I labor in a birth pool and getting in and out will be misery in the cold. "Cold," of course, is a relative term. It's Arizona after all. Outside temps are between 50-75 in the daytime, and about 35-60 at night. In the house, we keep it an even 72 degrees. Still, that's cold for us, plus the days are shorter so it seems cold and dreary.

Please pray for a safe, easy delivery during a temporary heat wave! Preferably on this tax year - ha! :)

Radical Unschooling

I have blogged about both unschooling and positive-only parenting before. 

Radical unschooling is the unholy union of these two concepts. If you thought both ideas by themselves were dangerous and foolish, the fallout of parenting failure when they are combined is exponential.

In a nutshell, "radical unschooling" means that parents do not enforce any rules for their kids, in ANY area of life, ever. You read that right. Kids do whatever they want, whenever they want. They have no set bed times, eat what they want when they want, are never forced or even coerced to obey their parents, have full 'body autonomy' including deciding if they want to shave their head at age 3 or if and when to take medicine, are not expected to do any school work, and are basically NEVER made to do anything they don't want to do. The parents' job is to cater to the child's every whim and thus enable them to turn into the wonderful humans they were destined to be. Except they don't. They grow into the wicked, entitled, lazy, spoiled young adults we see everywhere these days.

The 'philosophy' behind this (un?)parenting is that children are born innately wise, intuitive, pure, and sinless, and that if given the freedom to make their own choices not influenced by corrupted adults who are already messed up from 'authoritarian parenting,' they will naturally choose what is best and wisest for them.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)

The moms who fall for this nonsense then post on social media, wondering why their feral kids act like animals. They ask such deep questions as how to get their kids to stop playing video games and go to bed before the wee hours of the morning ("Don't worry, that's normal!"), how to stop their kids from eating only junk food ("Don't worry, that's normal!), how to stop their kids from assaulting others ("Don't worry, that's normal!"), how to stop a tantrum ("Don't worry, it's normal!) - you name it, it's all normal, and something kids will grow out of over time. Until then, hugs, good vibes, and lots of good luck to you!

"How would you all handle a 2 1/2 year old having a melt down in the middle of the night because you say no more breastfeeding so you can get some sleep? My toddler is getting worse with punching me very hard and spitting in my face. I try to push him away on the bed and he comes back fighting. I try to hold him and comfort him but he comes back fighting. He ends up crying to sleep. Am I just supposed to lay there and be punched/spit on? He doesn't listen to any words or reason. His raging wakes everyone since we all share a bed. I don't know what else to do."

What else to do? What has she done??? Comfort him in response to being assaulted? One person recommended "keeping a hand towel nearby for the spitting." Another wondered why the mom would wean the child at such a young age - mom should just take a nap in the afternoon to make up for lost night sleep.

If that same little tyrant were 160 lbs and 16-years old, he would kill his mother in a fit of rage. The only thing that is preventing him from doing so now is because he is lacking the physical strength, not the fact that he doesn't despise her THAT MUCH. 

My three (turning four in March) year old has started to self harm to express anger, in the form of biting or scratching herself. She uses this almost as a threat i.e. "I'm mad. I'm going to bite myself!"

This style of parenting is nothing short of child abuse. Children without boundaries and consequences are the most miserable creatures. They grow up to loathe others and themselves, are loathed by others, and daydream about suicide.

My 9 year old wants her nose pierced and I told her not until she's 13 or 14.. Is that a reasonable RU response?  

The overwhelming majority of responses were along the lines of "let her, and explore why you are so conflicted about her choice."

On the subject of natural consequences, how to handle stealing. My 11 yo took $10 of mine, lied until I stared her down long enough that she reached into her pocket & gave it back. [...] She does these "types" of things often.

General responses were: give her more allowance, figure out what she needs the money for, ask why she 'had' to steal it, and show her disappointment as the most effective punishment.

I could go on with horror stories from these insane parents. When dealing with the unsaved, nothing should surprise us. They are spiritually blind. They are foolish, yes. They raise monsters we all have to live with, yes. But even so, I pity them. They will never know the joy that children that are raised in the ways of the Lord can bring. All their labor is in vain.

The thing I find truly disturbing is when Christians fall for this nonsense. I am not just talking about "Christian Radical Unschooling," which yes, is a thing. I'm talking about mainstream, evangelical Christians who consider themselves 'conservatives' making the same kind of excuses about their little brats, which in due time turn out to be derelict young people and eventually worthless adults indistinguishable from their worldly peers. 

I am in another online group of Christian moms of large families that homeschool. Sounds pretty conservative, no? Sometimes, when I see the questions posted there and the responses, I have to double-check which group I'm in - the radical unschoolers or the Christian homeschool moms. 

This I have no pity for. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Christian parents turning out one bad child after another with a similar 'success rate' as the world is a terrible testimony. It's just as bad a testimony as the fact that divorce rates among professing Christians are the same as that of unbelievers. It is an assault on the validity of Bible principles.

Not like Germany is the bedrock of strict parenting these days or even was in my days, but being from East Germany and having had 'old-school' grandparents, I was raised in times and circumstances that were decades 'behind the times'. When we were newlyweds and young parents, I was often dumbfounded by permissive American parenting, where it is a virtue among many to let kids walk rough-shod over their parents and suffer it patiently.

These same parents would never put up with that kind of treatment from their spouses. Toddler screams at you? Normal. Husband screams at you? Emotional abuse - call the cops. Imagine if he hit his wife and spat on her like these kids are allowed to do!! Who in their right mind would say, "This too shall pass, keep a towel nearby for the spitting and try to separate yourself to another room." It's madness and folly!

I used to be told, "Just wait until you have a toddler!" When the first few of our kids made it past being toddlers with our sanity intact and our parenting still on track, it was, "Wait until you have a daughter!" So we had three in a row, all of which are sweet and kind and growing into godly young ladies. Then we heard, "Just wait until you have a teen!" Well, we have three now. They do suffer from some inevitable teen brain atrophy, but they are still godly, respectful kids who know their place in this family and are not malicious, just overgrown and sometimes clumsy pups on the cusp of productive adulthood. My kids are not perfect, but they are good kids who love the Lord and will grow up to walk in His ways. And as long as we parents have any say in the matter (which we do), they will reach adulthood without first bringing shame on themselves and us through being wicked in their young adult years.

And yet, bad parents never want to take responsibility for their offspring turning out a failure, one after the other. They might blame the other parent, they might come up with some bogus condition their child suffers from like ODD (oppositional defiance disorder), Asperger (or what used to be known as lacking social graces), their preacher being too nice/mean, the Bible being too strict, modern society corrupting everyone, or any number of excuses. To them, raising children is like rolling the dice. Some keep getting lucky, and they keep drawing the short end of the stick - but the fault is most certainly not with them, oh no! You just wait! It reminds me of divorced people who think there are only two kinds of marriages: those that have already failed, and those that are on the way to failure. Until you die having never divorced, your marriage is in question in their mind, even two, three, four, five decades later.

Misery truly loves company. Misery also hates those who succeed where they have failed. 

I'm here to tell you, this defeated, can't do attitude is not true. Let me be clear: my kids turning out right will have nothing, ZERO, to do with me being better than anyone else. It will be 100% by the grace of God, and applying HIS principles to child raising. If I can raise good kids, in spite of myself and my shortcomings, ANYONE can. Any idiot can follow Bible teaching, and have an end product that is far greater than the sum of its parts. To God be all the credit. All we have to do as parents is guide our kids in the fear and knowledge of the Lord. It's that simple. And: IT WORKS.

Simple does not mean easy, though. It might not be easy if we love ourselves more than our child, and care more about staying in good graces with them today rather than having them thank us later. The Bible says there are two critical ingredients to raising kids: the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Or in more simple terms: love them, and don't let them walk all over you. Parents who raise derelicts love themselves, and are too lazy to put an end to bad behavior, thus going against both of these points.

Kids do not turn out right overnight, and they are not lost overnight. They continue for many years on the path of right, lit by God's word, or they continue down the way of transgressors, unchecked for many years. There are a thousand parenting decisions made over the course of many years that keep kids on one path, or the other.

When the 18-month old first throws herself on the floor in an angry response to being told "no", one quick swat is likely to end that behavior (and other ones like it) from ever manifesting again. Choose to distract and coddle the child instead, and soon you will have a screaming 3-year old on your hands that has made a horrible habit of pitching fits to get what they want. Breaking that bad habit is a lot harder at that point, so the parent is even less likely to do it than they were two years earlier. Continue to give in to the whining and tantrums, and you will soon have an entitled monster on your hands. The problem escalates more and more. By the time kids are in their teen years, the tracks are almost irreversibly set. The train is in motion and at full speed. The train wreck is inevitable. When it happens, the parents will sit back and claim it's not their fault, but either they are lying, or the Bible is not true.

Ungodly children are the result of lazy, selfish parenting gone wrong from the start, and never corrected. If it were a roll of the dice, "having faithful children" would not be a prerequisite for the pastor.

Here's a great sermon that ties in with this post:

What (not) to say at Costco

While my oldest three were at work today, I took the six younger kids (Miriam and down) to Costco. Trips to Costco are always fun!

Before I get into that, I need to back up to this morning. Boaz was playing in the front yard, when one of his sisters accidentally slammed his elbow into the concrete planter. It cut his skin, and bruised his elbow. I applied arnica and gave him an ice pack, and he soon forgot all about it. 

But back to Costco. As we were making our way around, we kept running into the same people, because everyone walks around the store in a similar order and speed. There was an older gentleman in the store whose right arm had been amputated at the shoulder. His shirt sleeve was hanging down empty. 

We had passed him several times and I was wondering if the little kids would comment on it, but was thankful that they didn't. Until they did. To be more specific, we had just rounded the corner from where the man was at when Stephen, loudly and in his squeaky voice, blurted out: "Mom, that man's arm broke off!" It was embarrassing, but funny - like he was some sort of Lego minifigure that had lost an arm. Thankfully we were probably out of earshot.

I leaned down to Stephen and quietly explained to him: "His arm did not break off. That's called an amputation. Sometimes, if you get hurt really bad, the doctors have to cut off one of your limbs to save your life. But it's not polite to stare, point, or loudly talk about it."

Boaz had overheard this. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then, with a worried look, declared: "Mom, my arm is feeling MUCH BETTER now!"

The girls and I all broke out laughing. I was crying laughing. I had forgotten all about his hurt elbow from earlier, but he must have gotten worried that it was hurt badly enough to possibly require amputation!!!

Sigh... kids! We were still laughing when the man rounded the corner again. I hope he didn't think we were laughing about him.

We were ourselves on the receiving end of stupid comments, too. 

Do you want to know what the #1 most irritating thing is that strangers in public say to me? I mean, I'm used to comments about my family size. It's understandable that my little troupe moving through a store solicits comments. I don't mind them. Usually they make me smile - except this one:

"You sure have your hands full!" Ugh - it's rude and lame!

But - it can be topped! Yes! Are you ready?

"You sure have your hands full today!"

Newsflash: either these are my kids, in which case they are my kids every day and I always 'have my hands full'. Or, I stopped by rent-a-kid on the way to Costco because it's so much fun bringing a half dozen kids that are not mine to Costco on a Saturday that also happens to be Veteran's Day. Fat chance, right? 

No, actually, my hands were NOT fuller than anyone else's. The two youngest were sitting up in the cart nicely and silently, the next two were holding on to the sides of the cart and walking along peacefully, and the two oldest girls were walking close by. The kids are not always angelic at the store, but they always are when people make this stupid comment. Because making snide remarks as a mom dealing with a toddler on meltdown is not ok by anyone's standards. 

Every single other person in Costco was also using both their hands to push the ginormous carts. Except for the gentleman with the amputated arm, but his hand was just as full as everyone's two hands. So by any standard, my hands were no fuller than anyone else's. It's an insult to the kids - like they are nuisance by default, even when they are silently trudging through the store.

My most polite response to this incredibly dull, redundant, and insulting comment is to look the person in the eye with a straight face, glare at them for a second, and walk by without otherwise responding. If they say it with any amount of snark in their voice, I smile really big and sweetly retort, "Oh, I have never heard that before!" 

Today called for the latter. The woman who said it was working at a vendor display for an indoor sky diving place. As part of that, she was wearing a ridiculously unflattering full-body suit. She looked at me with pity, when she looked much more pitiful. So yes, she got the the smiling "Oh you are so clever!" response. 

Imagine if I started confronting people in public about the lack of children with them. "Your hands sure are empty today!"

Ah, fun times! We ended on a high note when the cashier commented on how well behaved the kids were being. She asked me how many I had. I patted my belly and said, "This is number 10." "Ten babies! Holy cow! You have a ways to go, my grandma had 17." I told her I didn't know if I had it in me to have that many. 

Then she said the nicest thing to say to a mom of many, in case you are taking notes by now: "You look great!" Which is worlds nicer than the much more common, "You look great for having nine kids!"  That caveat sounds a bit too much like: You look like a hot mess, but all things considered, I guess you look ok." I know that's not what people mean (or at least I hope so), but the compliment without the caveat is definitely a lot nicer. 

So to recap what we learned at Costco today: If you see a busy mom at the store, don't add insult to injury by making her feel like a hot mess. And don't break down laughing near the disabled. 

Homeschooling 101 seminar

As I had mentioned in my last post, I had the opportunity to speak to the ladies at the Foundations Conference on the topic of "Homeschooling 101."

Unfortunately, there were some technical failures with the recording of that seminar, so I am not able to share the video as originally intended.

However, in preparation of the conference, I offered the same seminar at our church as a 'trial run', which was recorded. It speaks a little more specifically the laws in Arizona, but otherwise contains the same information. 

You can watch in on YouTube:

To view a copy of the handout that summarizes the content of the seminar, please click here.

I refer to my previous seminar on teaching kids to read, which you can watch here:

Whole grains, folic acid, MTHFR, and morning sickness

I had promised in my previous post about whole grains that I would share about one other, huge improvement I had noticed since cutting whole grains out of my diet. That last post dealt with dental decay caused by demineralization, in turn caused by whole grains.

Today's post will focus on morning sickness and hyperemesis, and how whole grains play a part in that, as well as the role of folic acid and MTHFR gene mutation. I believe these to be the final pieces in the puzzle of solving the morning sickness mystery for me.

21 weeks pregnant

Hyperemesis is a topic I am sadly all too familiar with, having been pregnant more than a dozen times and suffering miserably through the majority of those pregnancies. You can read a detailed account of my hyperemesis history here, but I'll give a brief recap:

I have suffered varying degrees of severe morning sickness (NVP) to hyperemesis (HG) with all of my first seven full-term pregnancies. 

By the time I became pregnant with what is now my 8th child in 2013, I had made a major breakthrough in finding a connection between gut health (more specifically H.pylori colonization) and NVP/HG. By aggressively going after the H. pylori and consuming foods that build gut health, I went from throwing up 20-30 times per day with my first seven pregnancies, to only throwing up a handful of times per pregnancy with #8 and #9. In addition to the handful of times I threw up, I did also have all-day nausea, but it was manageable and I was able to keep up with my daily responsibilities as a mother of a large family (cooking, shopping, homeschooling), which in the past had been near impossible to accomplish during the first three months. Going from hyperemesis to 'only' all-day manageable nausea with minimal throwing up was a HUGE improvement!

During my pregnancy with baby #9 in 2015/16, I stopped using all wheat, even though I had only used non-GMO, organic varieties for years by that point. When I say 'wheat', I mean the grain wheat, as opposed to rye, barley, oats, etc. In the US, whole wheat is often confusingly referred to as just 'wheat' as in: would you like wheat or white, when in fact both are made from wheat (one from all-purpose white flour, one from whole grain flour). I had noticed that during pregnancy, eating wheat became an asthma trigger for me, when I had never before suffered from asthma. I also would get an angry rash on my forearms anytime I ate wheat. Since I then noticed that wheat was also an asthma trigger during allergy season for two of our kids with seasonal allergies, I stopped using it for our entire family. All modern wheat, over time, will cause damage to the gut due to the compromised gluten found in it. So even the kids who were not yet showing symptoms, would still compromise their health over time. All wheat grown after the middle of the 19th century is heavily hybridized and genetically compromised as a result. More on that in another post. 

Not willing to give up our 'daily bread,' and knowing that bread in and of itself is a good food the Bible speaks highly of, I instead switched to using only einkorn for our family, mostly in the form of sourdough. Einkorn is an ancient form of wheat that has not been cross-bred, and only has 14 chromosomes instead of 42 like modern varieties (which are accompanied by a far greater and more harmful array of those pesky glutens).

While I used both whole grain einkorn as well as all-purpose (white) einkorn flour for the first year, I stopped using the whole grain in 2016 after making the connection to tooth decay resulting from the phytic acid in whole grains. I had at this point already been using mostly sourdough, but the souring was clearly not doing the trick in breaking down the phytic acid. Supposedly, soaking grains, sprouting them, and/or making them into sourdough greatly reduces those harmful anti-nutrients like phytic acid. Not only was this 3-step process too much bother for me since I get the nutrients found in whole grains from plenty of other sources in my diet, but I also did not want to take a chance and ingest any phytic acid if I could help it. Even as a whole grain, einkorn is naturally lower in phytic acid than modern wheat, but I wasn't taking any chances. I knew our teeth were a reflection of our bone health, and seeing how much cutting out whole grains had completely improved our teeth, I was ready to kiss them goodbye for good, sourdough or not. 

The only major differences between my current pregnancy (#10) and the two previous 'good' ones (#8 and #9) was that 1) I switched to einkorn, and that 2) I cut out any and all whole grains (even brown rice, whole oats such as rolled or steel-cut, etc. I do still use some quick oats because they are precooked and dried to make them 'quick cooking,' which greatly reduces their phytic acid content) and 3) I had stopped taking prenatal vitamins about 6 months before becoming pregnant.

The result? This is huge! This has bee my best pregnancy yet, by far! I only felt nauseated for a total of approx. 2 hours per 24h period from weeks 8-12, typically only if I waited too long between meals or got too tired. I only threw up 2 or 3 times this entire pregnancy, and I think it was always after getting too hungry, and then eating too much, too fast. I felt so good, I didn't even know or suspect I was pregnant until I was almost 8 weeks pregnant - in the past, being miserably sick had been one of my first signs of pregnancy. 

Between the three points above, point 1) switching to einkorn is just an amplifying factor to point 2) cutting out whole grains as well as point 3) because the einkorn flour I use has not been 'fortified' with synthetic B vitamins.


On cutting out whole grains:

Don't despair if you are not ready to switch to einkorn (it's expensive and a huge pain to learn to bake with), just cutting out whole grains will most likely do the trick for you and greatly reduce HG/NVP. If you do want to give it a try, Jovial Foods has a 20% off sale on their flour (and all other products) right now through Sept. 8th with coupon code BACKTOSCHOOL. I have never seen them offer a discount like that before, so don't miss it! I like to buy 2 or more of the 10 lb bags of all-purpose flour, which brings down the price. With the 20% off, it is only $24 per bag (or $2.40/lb, about $1/lb cheaper than at the store).

Why would whole grains have anything to do with morning sickness? Again, I blame phytic acid. It is an antinutrient that must bind to minerals it leeches from bones and teeth in order for the body to be able to rid itself of it. Minerals like calcium and magnesium, which go 'hand in hand'. While calcium deficiency leads to to tooth decay and loss of bone density, being deficient in magnesium is a major aggravating factor for morning sickness. Mommypotamus has blogged on this connection. 

I knew from past experience that in addition to the gut-healing measures I was taking, using topical magnesium spray and taking Epsom salt baths would bring a measure of relief for my morning sickness. But just the spray and baths alone were a drop of water on a hot stone for me. Eliminating the root cause of being magnesium deficient (whole grains) brought a whole new level of relief and normalcy to my pregnancy.

By the time I found out I was pregnant, I had been following Weight Watchers and tracking all my food daily for 9 months. Part of the program includes eating lots of fresh produce, lean proteins, and healthy fats. I knew I was getting the best possible nutrition for myself and baby from that in spite of not eating whole grains. The main benefit of whole grains is fiber and vitamins, all of which I was getting plenty of in the form of fresh, abundant produce.


I have learned that anytime the USDA or FDA widely promotes and touts health advice (such as fake fats, fake sugars, low salt, fluoridated water, vaccines, and yes, whole grains) we should take a second look and investigate if their advice is really intended to promote public health. 



On not taking folic acid in the form of prenatal vitamins:

By the time I found out I was pregnant, I had for months NOT been taking my usual whole-foods-based, raw, natural prenatal vitamin because it made me nauseated. I felt confident I was getting everything I needed from my diet of abundant, fresh produce, grass-fed meats and dairy, healthy fats, etc. 

As a result, this has been my first pregnancy in which I have not taken any multivitamin supplements for months before becoming pregnant. Ironically, I have never felt better with any pregnancy, and I have not had the severe charlie-horse muscle cramps I would get during previous pregnancies if I forgot to take my daily calcium-magnesium supplement. Clearly, I am no longer deficient in these minerals (thanks to no whole grains), and actually feel nauseated if I try to supplement with more.

Why could prenatal vitamins contribute to morning sickness? I am not certain on this, but have been reading a lot in recent years about the MTHFR gene mutation. It is suspected that 1 in 3 people have this mutation. Those who are affected by it are unable to absorb folic acid and convert it into folate, which is what food naturally contains and what our bodies need. This is a great introductory article on the topic of folic acid and MTHFR. You can search google for a ton more info.

Unfortunately, most vitamins contain folic acid, not folate. Grains, cereals, and flours that are 'enriched' are full of synthetic folic acid. Not only does this not do any good to those with the gene mutation that prevents them from converting this into folate, it actually does them harm as the folic acid blocks their folate receptors, making it impossible to absorb even the folate they are naturally getting in their diet.

I have not been tested for the MTHFR gene mutation, but suspect I might have it. By removing all sources of folic acid from my diet (in the from of vitamins, fortified grains, cereal, 'enriched' flour, ready bread products etc.), and instead consuming lots of fresh foods that are natural sources of folate and only eating breads made from non-fortified einkorn flour, I am no longer deficient in this vital nutrient. It has long been known that being deficient in B vitamins (including folate) is a major contributing factor in morning sickness.

Interestingly, I have been craving the following folate-rich foods with this pregnancy: arugula, asparagus, Brussel sprouts, avocados, tangerines, beets, peppers, beans (soaked), lemon water, and the like.

Side note: the prenatal vitamin I was taking is labeled as containing 'folate' (not folic acid), but I don't know that I believe that. It made me feel sick just as folic acid does, so maybe their labeling is somehow deceptive.* Or maybe only folate from fresh food sources can be absorbed by people like me. In any case, I'm done taking it. 

Edited to add: One of my readers on Facebook commented that while Garden of life prenatal vitamins start out with folate, the way it is processed converts the finished product to folic acid. That would explain why they did not agree with me, in spite of being labeled as containing 'folate'.  

Another side note: As far as gut health during this pregnancy, I found no improvement from taking cocolaurin. During weeks 9-12, when I was nauseated for about 2 hours each day, I added sauerkraut or kombucha to most meals, and took capsules of baking soda (about 1/2 tsp, 3-4 times per day) to combat h. pylori. A couple of times, I followed the baking soda with some colloidal silver. This was enough to keep the h. pylori and nausea well under control, so that I did not need to supplement with any other gut-fortifying or cleansing supplements.

So there you have it - the end of my journey from hyperemesis, to nausea, to near-normal, all through adjusting my diet. It has only taken me 16 years and 15 pregnancies to figure this out and share my anecdotal experience with you. Please remember, I am not a medical professional, only a clueless stay-at-home wifey and mother who has gone from feeling like I was dying to enjoying even the first trimester of pregnancy.


In a nutshell, my advice for those suffering from hyperemesis or morning sickness is to:

1. address gut health (specifically h. pylori)
2. remove antinutrients like folic acid that leech the body of vital minerals
3. consume plenty of B vitamins, especially folate, in the form of fresh food.

I will do a follow-up post soon that puts all the puzzle pieces in one spot, summing up all my HG and NVP resources in one post, with links to all previous posts, for easy reference.

19 weeks pregnant

I am 19 weeks pregnant - almost halfway! I can feel the baby move all the time now - how exciting is that!

Pardon the selfies - my kids only know how to take unflattering pictures of me

At my prenatal appointment yesterday, it took several minutes to find the baby's heart beat. After last month's scare, that would have been nerve-wrecking, but thankfully I had just felt the baby moving right as we started. My midwife was finally able to track the baby's heartbeat down. It got a lot louder and easier to hear if I pushed by bellybutton up, suggesting that for the first time ever, my placenta is attached at the front of my uterus, rather than facing the spine. This is not a risk factor, just different. It explains how the baby's heart beat can be difficult to find if (s)he is hiding behind the placenta.

It might explain the spotting last month, since my rambunctious little boys have accidentally plopped onto my pregnant belly when I am on the sofa. With the placenta right there, it could be more susceptible to blood vessels breaking, so I will be extremely careful not to let that happen again. I also explained it to the boys, and got a very gentle belly rub from Stephen instead. The placenta being in the front might also explain why with this pregnancy, I immediately did not feel comfortable lying on my stomach to sleep, even long before my belly popped out. 

I am feeling and doing great. My biggest gripe the last couple of weeks has been living like an Amish person: lots of kids with limited modern conveniences. I'm exaggerating, of course.

- The internet at my house has been dial-up speed to non-existent. After two extensive service calls, that has finally been fixed.

- My van has been in the shop for over two weeks, except when I took it out to take it on the Pastor's Wives Retreat. First, the front a/c had died completely after the a/c blower motor burned out. When it did, it burned a bunch of stuff around it, all of which needed to be repaired. When I finally went to pick it up a week later, only one day before the retreat, I noticed the back a/c was not working normal now. I told them I would have to bring it back after the trip to get that figured out. Turns out, the a/c unit in the back was having issues with cooling and airflow. The shop got the broken parts removed, but Nissan is hopelessly backordered on one particular part. As in, they are waiting for it to come off the assembly line and ship, once they get all the other (older) orders caught up!! I kept being promised Monday, then Tuesday, then tomorrow, all while I had no van for the third week. Yesterday I finally told them to button the van back up as is, with now zero a/c in the back, and to call me when the part finally does come in to finish the repair. At least I have a set of (hot) wheels now, even though I won't be able to take the kids to anywhere but church in it (it's less than a half mile). All the repairs are covered by Geico's extended mechanical breakdown insurance. When we bought our van new a few years ago, it only came with warranty for the first 35k miles (Nissan now offers 100k miles on it). Geico suggested we add the mechanical breakdown add-on, and boy, am I glad I did! It only adds a couple of bucks each month, and has saved us thousands of dollars in repairs. So huge shout-out to Geico! Every claim we have had with them has been easy and straightforward, with zero hassles. We are customers for life!

- My washer has been making funny sounds for the last couple of weeks. Being a busy mom, I had not taken the time to call in the warranty since it was still working. Then one night, the dishwasher died with an explosion that blew the breaker, followed by horrible electrical burn stench. Pleasant - not! I'm glad my husband and I were still up so he could unplug it, make sure there was no internal fire, and reset the breaker. Both appliances were purchased from the same place, so I called in both warranties at the same time. A tech came out yesterday, confirming the dishwasher is toast and the washer needs major repairs. He could not give me an estimate of when the replacement/repairs would happen. So for the time being, I am doing dishes by hand, though relying heavily on paper plates and cups to at least cut down on the volume. The washer is still limping along, and the tech said it was fine to keep using it, so at least there's that. 

It's funny how much we get used to modern conveniences! It will be nice to have all my things working right again, hopefully sooner rather than later. 

Lesson learned: In a large family, buy new, and pay extra for extended warranty. My husband is too busy to play handyman and car mechanic, and I depend on equipment being in working order to keep life running smoothly. Since we use everything at near-commercial levels, those warranties WILL come in handy, and save much money and headaches in the long run. 

Freezer Cooking

One of the ways I am able to serve food from scratch every day AND keep my sanity in spite of my large-and-growing family is precooking and freezing meals. 

Originally, I did this only in preparation for another baby, aiming to have about 4 to 6 weeks worth of breakfasts and dinners prepared and ready to go by about 36 weeks of pregnancy. Which, honestly, is pushing it because my already low energy levels during pregnancy go to virtually zero sometime by week 32. And my belly gets too large to stand in front of the kitchen counter comfortably, and turning sideways is only feasible for so long each day - ha! So this time around, I will be aiming to have all meals done and stashed by 7 months of pregnancy. 

As our family keeps growing (and growing), there are ever more opportunities for unexpected events to crop up that could throw dinner for a loop. I also like to precook meals for the times my husband and I go on little getaways, so that my awesome mother-in-law doesn't have to worry about cooking when she comes over and keeps the family circus running in my absence. Finally, I run several produce, meat, and other food-based co-ops that land me with huge loads of food at one time, typically about every other Saturday. Needing to process lots of food at once naturally led me into batch cooking and freezing.

Every family is different. What works best for us is to make enough of any one meal to last us for dinner one night, as well as lunch the next day. By planning on serving leftovers for lunch every single day, I never have to stress about making lunch during our busy mornings (homeschooling or otherwise). In addition, I try not to serve cold cereal more than once per week for breakfast, usually less often, which means that every day I cook breakfast and dinner. 

Since most recipes for our family already need to be quadrupled to be enough for two meals (dinner one night plus lunch the next day), freezer cooking for me looks different from most. Rather than making 20 or 30 meals in one day to last all month, I can on an average Saturday only make about 4 entrees, 4 breakfasts, as well as do the usual prep work for the week ahead. Since my family still wants to eat even on marathon cooking days, I can count on stashing 2 or 3 each of those breakfasts and dinners in the freezer, and leave the rest for immediate consumption that weekend, further freeing up our busy Sundays. Consequently, freezer cooking is not a monthly, but typically weekly event around here, usually on Saturdays as that is a day us homeschoolers like to stay home anyway and let the rest of the world enjoy the crowds at stores and everywhere else. :) 

In addition to these big cooking days, I cook dinner every night except most Sundays and those days when life is crazy and I have to pull a frozen meal out to save dinner. This is how slowly, over time, I can build up a freezer stash for those extended times like vacations or baby breaks.

I got ALL this organic produce, plus a 22 lb box of dried dates, for just $10!! I don't think there is another place in the country where healthy produce is this inexpensive!

The pictures above are from Saturday two weeks ago. In one day, with the help of some of the older kids, we made:

16 lbs pork carnitas (enough for 8 meals - I froze half)

10 pints pesto (enough for 10 meal - I froze all) 

6 pans of jalapeño poppers (enough for one meal and one snack - bwahaha! - I froze none)

2 quarts pico de gallo (enough to last for various meals that week - I froze none)

1 gallon of cooked pudding (enough for 1 breakfast and one snack - I froze none)

10 quarts of tomato soup (enough for 2 meals - I froze none)

32 strawberry scones (enough for 2 breakfasts - I froze half)

3 quarts tomato sauce (enough for 2 meals - I froze all)

 

 Miriam made all the jalapeno poppers by herself!

While there are free resources for freezer cooking available online, these do not work well for our family. Most focus on making small (for us) amounts of many different foods. Quadrupling a batch means that all the grocery and prep lists will no longer work for us, not to mention it would be impossible to make that much food in one day. 

For years, my favorite resource for freezer cooking has been Once a Month Meals. For a membership fee of $16/month, members get access to ALL their menus for all menu types. These include traditional, real food, paleo, vegetarian, slow cooker, allergen, diet (with several THM-compliant menus!), gluten free dairy free, baby, mini, and Instant Pot. 

The last two menu types are my favorite! Mini menus save me the work of having to put together my own menus with fewer meals. I just simply up the serving size to our needs. With the recent gift of an instant pot, my batch cooking has been made even faster and easier, and the Once a Month Meals menus even more helpful! 

 This is a very helpful infographic breaking down the various menu types

Members can use any new menu or any menu in the archives (they have over 600!), and do not have to choose a specific menu type. Additionally, members can fully customize any menu to fit their individual needs and preferences, or even design their own menus from the thousands of recipes on the website. The program then generates the necessary grocery and prep lists. This is great for someone like me who would rather make mass amounts of fewer meals.

In addition, one really helpful resource is the Once a Month Meals Community, which all members have access to. You can search for tips and advice, connect with other freezer cooks, and share your story and experience.

Last but not least, I love how beautiful the Once a Month Meals website is, how easy it is to navigate, and how thoroughly everything is explained. They even have a YouTube channel! 

If you would like to give Once a Month Meals a try, you can sign up for their newsletter and receive a dietary specific mini menu. (Note: These menus come in a PDF format and are set for four servings and cannot be customized. But they give you a good idea of what the printed resources look like and how to set up a freezer cooking day.)

Homemade fajita bowls with the pork carnitas. They were incredible!!!

I have recently become a Once a Month Meals affiliate, which means that if you sign up for membership through any of the above links or the ad in the side bar, I get a small referral bonus at no additional cost to you. And if lots and lots (and lots) of you sign up, I can replace my old counter tops and finally bring you food photos without 30-year old tile - ha! :)

Please note: This post contains affiliate links.

A pregnancy scare, and relief

Scare is an understatement. It was more like a nightmare. But all's well that ends well, so in hindsight is was only a scare. 

I had my first prenatal appointment one week ago today, at 15 weeks pregnancy. Everything was picture perfect - strong heart beat, baby kicked the Doppler a few times, lab work all came back perfect, my own health was excellent. Today's world makes a big deal about a) moms of many, and b) 'older' moms (over age 35). In medical terms, I am a 'geriatric grand multigravida' because at the ripe old age of 38, I am pregnant with my 10th child.

Personally, I think that moms in general live healthier lives than teens and single young people. Consequently, my health and finances with our first were not anywhere near as ideal as they are now, after 17 years of marriage and the health and stability that brings. God has marvelously designed it in such a way that women stop being able to get pregnant well in time to see even their youngest into adulthood. Of course, catastrophe can strike anyone at any time, but that has nothing to do with age. 

Anyhow, on Sunday afternoon I was alarmed to notice I had some spotting (brown, which means old, blood). I know this is very common for many moms. In fact, I had a full-on period this pregnancy around the time I was 4 weeks pregnant. Still, anytime I had seen blood in past pregnancies, they had ended in miscarriage. I have had five miscarriages, all around week 5/6, and the 20-week loss of Boaz' twin brother, Jachin. But I had never had a miscarriage this late into a pregnancy. Seeing blood was highly alarming, no matter how common or normal it is considered for others. 

My midwife was 2 hours away, and sent one of the midwives she works with (who has been to my previous births) to check on baby. After ten minutes of listening all over my easily palpable uterus, she had not been able to find heart tones. She hung around for a little bit, giving baby a chance to move into a different position, and checked for several minutes more. Still nothing. We heard what we thought was blood pumping through the placenta (it sounds distinctly different from the cord, mom, or the baby), but it was in time to my own pulse and not the baby's (which would be about twice as fast), indicating the worst - baby had died and was no longer showing a heartbeat.

No matter how many kids a mom has, losing one is a devastating tragedy. My husband was at church, preaching the evening service during this time. He had not stayed home with me because we figured chances were everything was fine. Now I had nobody to share the heartbreaking news with. 

The midwife spoke to me about what to expect. Due to the size and age of the baby, I would actually have to go through labor and delivery. There might be excessive blood loss. I was remembering back to all the steps necessary to obtain a burial permit and make arrangements with the cemetery.

It was a nightmare indeed. I hardly slept that first night, expecting labor to start. Hoping, actually, that it would be soon. My husband had a trip planned for Mon/Tue which he canceled, and another to Canada later this week that he could not back out of without major financial losses for tickets that had been purchased months earlier. I myself have a pastor's wives retreat later next week for which PW's are flying in for from out of state. There's never a good time to lose a baby, but this certainly was about the worst timing possible. 

I got up yesterday determined to spend the day doing something other than sitting at home with everyone all day, tending to their unending needs, and waiting for the inevitable. I packed up Anna, Stephen, and Boaz and took them to a kiddie pool to play and have fun while I sat watching and just resting. My husband and older kids stayed home taking care of the baby and household. 

As I sat there, I noticed I still 'felt' pregnant. And by 'felt pregnant', I mean I was still starving hungry 24/7 and craving nothing but fry bread, Mexican food, steak, and pizza - the themes this pregnancy. Normally, my pregnancy symptoms and appetite subside immediately after a loss. In fact, sometimes that is my first indication that something is wrong. Here I was sitting pool-side, stuffing my face with disgusting chili cheese fries and wanting more yet. 

I started texting with my midwife and she said there was a chance baby might be alive after all. She had slept on it and woken up doubting the results from the previous day. She didn't think a full ultrasound was a good idea because though not very invasive, it might aggravate whatever issue had caused the spotting. But she did want to check me herself with a stronger Doppler than the other midwife had used. I did not want to go in and listen to a dead womb again. I thought she was just overly hopeful and I would be setting myself up to relive the previous day's nightmare. But my husband really wanted to make sure because of his trip later this week so I agreed to go.

I took the kids home in the early afternoon and laid them down to naps, then my husband, Chloe, and I went to see the midwife. 

 15 weeks pregnant

No joke, not five seconds in, we heard the familiar little clop-clop-clop of the baby's heart beat. You can imagine our relief! I wanted to keep listening to it just because it was such a beautiful sound after 24 hours of agony. We were so happy and relieved we all went out to dinner afterward to celebrate. 

And yes, I'm still starving hungry today. I just had a second breakfast of steak after my usual oatmeal this morning, and am already planning on hitting up a super-good local taco truck during nap time. I suddenly have a whole new appreciation for my ravenous appetite! 

Praise the Lord for what I consider nothing short of a miracle! Please do pray for the little one if you think of it. The spotting was minimal and had stopped by Monday, but we don't know what caused it. I will go in for a full medical ultrasound in a couple of weeks to give everything a chance to settle down and stabilize, and see what's going on, if anything. Chances are, it was nothing. 

Now please excuse me while I chase down the Taco Truck...

New Baby on the way!

Regular readers will not be shocked to hear that we are expecting another little one! :) This makes Baby #10 on earth - double digits! 

 Nine week ultrasound - yes, there's only one!

I am currently 12 weeks pregnant, with a due date of mid-January 2018. That will make five babies in my 20s, and five babies in my 30s. Who knows what my 40s will bring?!?

Anna's 'family'

Now for the million-dollar question: How am I feeling? In a word: fantastic! This has been my best pregnancy by far. It has only taken me almost two decades to figure out how to overcome hyperemesis! I will do a detailed blog post on what new improvements I have discovered this time around.

And now for a fun little fact that was entirely unique about this pregnancy: I did not know I was pregnant until I was almost 8 weeks along! (TMI coming, so stop reading now if you don't want to know) When I was 4 weeks pregnant, for the first time ever in 15 pregnancies (five of which ended in miscarriage), I had a cycle after becoming pregnant, at the exact time that cycle would normally have been due. It was a little lighter and a day shorter than a normal cycle, but I thought nothing of that because the difference was so minor and I was still nursing Chloe every few hours. Just before my next cycle was due, I had a few days of nausea that felt an awful lot like morning sickness. I took a cheap little Dollar Tree test in the middle of the afternoon a few days shy of 'being late'. Normally, only the super sensitive early pregnancy tests show up for me, if taken first thing in the morning, after I am a couple of days or more late. The fact that this cheap test, taken in the afternoon, days early, came back BRIGHT and BOLD positive was a first for me. Plus, my morning sickness does not start quite that early. I knew this could only mean that 1. there was more than one baby in there, or 2. I was farther along than I thought. It was at this point that I remembered my previous, lighter than usual cycle and the penny dropped. I did go for an ultrasound the following week just to make sure of dates and rule out multiplicity, both of which it did. 

In spite of having done it so many times, pregnancy is still not my cup of tea. Being four weeks further along than I usually am when I found out was a huge bonus, because I find every day of being pregnant a chore. Babies are a blessing, no doubt about that, but I think pregnancy and birth are part of the curse. It's definitely not the wonderful, magical time my romantic brain imagined it to be as a child. With this pregnancy being so much better in regards to nausea, I actually did for the first time ever almost enjoy the first trimester. I only felt despondent for one day, when nausea and fatigue coincided with a day that my little people were all sick and throwing up. In bed. In the middle of the night. Yeah, that was rough... Thankfully, my big boys volunteered to do all the cleanup and laundry the next morning.

I was able to stay active and go bike riding with my husband many evenings. I was able to eat sensibly and healthy and only gained a couple of lbs during this time, compared to the typical 15 lbs in the first trimester alone as the only way to stave off nausea in previous pregnancies was to munch on something non-stop. I was down to being within 6 lbs of my Weight Watchers free lifetime weight when I found out I was pregnant, and no longer allowed to go to the meetings (they do not allow pregnant members). Needless to say, I didn't want to undo much of my hard-earned progress in a matter of weeks. 

Size M maternity clothes for the first time since my first pregnancy? - Yes please!

The other kids are excited. They could hardly keep from spilling the beans to their friends before we were ready to announce it. 

Cute little Boaz in church

Enjoying some cereal on the sofa with me on a particularly tired day. 

I'm hoping for a little sister for Chloe. It would also settle the score of five boys and girls each. Plus little girls are just the sweetest!