Jude's Birth Story, Part 2

For part 1, click here.

In triage, everything looked great! All my vitals were good, baby sounded great, and contractions kept progressing. I really needed to squat and slow dance with John to get through them, which I took as a really good sign of my progress.

So I was a little shocked when the doc (the on-call family medicine resident) finally checked me and said I was 4-5cm, 80% effaced, and baby was at a -1.

What?! For reals? I was definitely feeling around the same level of pain I had when I was around 6cm with John Paul, but I was possibly just a 4? And no progress at all with cervical effacement? Eep! Did this mean we were in for a lonnnnngggg night of labor?

But once the the doc and nurses left the room, my doula and husband both assured me that they thought he was wrong. And probably just being . . . conservative. Why? No idea. Perhaps because he was still a bit of a newb at the whole labor and deliv thing, being a first-year resident and all. But based on the length of my contractions and the level of pain I was experiencing, we all thought I was probably more like a 6. Phew!

From there, we all walked a few feet over to the delivery room: room number 2071. It was around 2am when we settled in, and I immediately changed into my L&D dress, the same dress I had worn for John Paul's delivery. I don't actually have any pics of me in it from this delivery, since I only wore it for approximately 2 seconds. But here's a pic of it from John Paul's labor . . .

Snaps all the way down the back and front for easy monitoring, and snaps at the shoulders for easy access to the bubs for breastfeeding. Pretty floral design for enjoyment. Much cooler than your average hospital gown.

So why was it only on for a few seconds, you ask? Right after I put it on, Wendy filled up the bath tub and recommended I hop in soon, since we were at a good point for tub laboring. So off it went!

I grabbed my bikini out of my hospital bag, but my rib cage has probably grown a bunch of sizes since I last wore it, so it didn't fit. Eep. So naked bathing it was! I was a little embarrassed by my complete nudity, so I knew I wasn't in the 8-10cm stage of labor yet. You know you're there when all modesty goes out the window.

Wendy found a mini towel I could wear over my upper parts, so that made me feel a bit more comfortable. Modesty restored!

Just like John Paul's birth, we lit LED candles and listened to Tibetan monk chant music while in the tub. It was so peaceful. Aside from all the painful contractions that is.

John stayed by my side the whole time, letting me squeeze his hand through each contraction, telling me I was doing such a great job, all that cheesy sort of stuff. But I needed it. The positive, gentle encouragement was my lifeline. Words of praise for the win!

While the water definitely slowed the contractions down just a little and made them a tiny bit more comfortable, they were getting more intense by the minute. Pretty soon, the moaning started.

Before giving birth to John Paul, I thought moaning was the most embarrassing thing ever. I would hear moms do it while watching birth videos and think, yikes! That's awkward. But during the really painful parts of labor, there's nothing better than letting it all out through your vocal chords.

Wendy kept encouraging me to relax all my muscles, so that I wasn't fighting against the contractions, and to keep the moaning at a low pitch, since that also helps keep things relaxed. When you moan in a higher register, you're tightening things up everywhere and essentially fighting against your cervix. Weird but true. So I tried to keep things low.

Actually, the moaning almost sounded like it was part of the Tibetan monk soundtrack. I joked at one point that it was like a sing-a-long in the tub. Or maybe John made that joke. I was quite in the zone at that point, so the details get hazy.

Pretty soon, it was getting reeeally really hard to keep the moans in the lower register. And I was squirming in pain all over the tub through every contraction. The pain was getting rough. Like probably 9-out-of-10-on-the-pain-scale rough. I even started to think to myself, "If this goes on much longer, I don't think I can do it." Contractions were long and painful and I was only getting like 1 to 2 minutes between each one.

At that moment, my body thankfully decided to take a break. A nice 4 minute break, or something like that. It was seriously glorious. No contraction for 4 minutes. Heck freaking yes.

But! IT'S A TRAP! Following the break, I had 3 HUGE contractions right on top of each other. Bam, baaaaam, BAMMMMMM. So much squirming and moaning and hand squeezing ensued.

I made it through, but after that, I was pretty much exhausted. It really was hurting quite nicely and if I was due up for another triple-traction soon, I didn't think I was going to make it.

I recall turning to Wendy at that point and saying, "Do you think I'm getting close? I really don't think I can do this much longer." And, thank God Almighty, in that moment she responded with the sweetest thing a laboring girl could ever hope to hear:

"You are so close. You're gonna have this baby in your arms very soon."

Amen, sister. Amen.

When the next contraction hit, I started feeling the urge to push. Which brought me right back to John Paul's birth, when I was in the tub and felt the urge to push, but was only 8cm dilated. Eep! If you push when you're not fully dilated, you can really hurt your cervix, so I was scared that's what was happening again. And I didn't want to get out of the tub to get checked yet because getting out at that point was going to require a huge effort on my part that I didn't want to do if I still had a few more centimeters to go. If the contractions were that rough in the tub, I didn't even want to think of how bad they'd be out of the tub.

We decided to use the ol' "blow through the contractions" trick, where you blow a brrrrrrrrrrr sound like a horse. For whatever reason, blowing like that helps you to stop yourself from pushing. Which sounds weird, right? Can't you just not push? But no. You can't just not push. Trust me. When your body wants to, it just does it. So you really of have to fight against it to stop it when your cervix isn't ready yet. I brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'd my way through the next contraction and all was well.

And then Wendy advised me to hop on out of the tub. She thought my body was trying to push because I actually was at 10cm! And since she's seen about a bazillion labors, I trusted her. So at around 3am, she and John helped me up, and I started to make my way back to the bed to be checked.

But not a step away from the tub, I suddenly had the intense urge to have a bowel movement. I think I may have shouted, "I NEED TO POOP." Gah! So embarrassing to think about now. But like I said before, all modesty goes out the window when you're in that 8-10cm zone.

I immediately plopped down on the toilet and started pushing.

And then the nurse immediately started freaking out.

She shouted, "IS THE BABY COMING OUT?! ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT PUSHING OUT THE BABY?!!!!!"

For part 3, click here.

Jude's Birth Story, Part 1

In case you missed it, our sweet baby boy, Jude Francis, arrived on January 30th! Yay baby!! And now I present to you, his birth story. For your reading pleasure and for my memory preservation. ;) 

Baby Schweitz was due January 28th.

As you may recall, we were doing everything possible to naturally induce labor, so that my wonderful OB could attend Baby Schweitz's birth before he left for St. Lucia on February 1st.

In addition to all the pitted dates and red raspberry leaf tea and borage oil pills and neighborhood walks and eggplant parm and sex . . .

On January 23rd, I got my membranes stripped. Ummm. Yeah. OUCH. Doc gets his fingers all up in your business and SWOOP, runs his fingers along your cervix to separate it from the placenta. Not fun. But a low risk way to naturally induce if baby is ready. So we did it. It obvi didn't work, but it caused me to lose my mucus plug. And doc checked me and discovered I was already 3cm dilated AND 80-90% effaced. At the very least, we were pretty pleased to hear that!

On January 24th and 26th, I went to the chiropractor to get aligned for labor. I wasn't expecting this to  really induce, and it didn't, but I was happy to be lining up all my bones and such to make an easier escape route for baby. And I think it actually helped!

On January 27th, I went all hippy and tried acupuncture. When booking the appointment, the receptionist claimed the last 3 pregnant mommas they treated had their babies in their arms by the next morning. SAY WHAT?! Sign me up! First, the acupuncturist burned a moxa stick over my lower back for about 5 minutes. Then, she put needles in 15 different points all over my body and left them in for about 45 minutes, popping in my room every once in a while to wiggle them around and activate the points. Each needle and point had a different purpose: one in my forehead to calm me, two in my legs for cervical dilation, two in my feet for pain management, and so on. Every point used was specifically related to labor and delivery, so if my body and baby were ready, it would have sent me into labor. Throughout the procedure, I felt one Braxton Hicks contraction, but that was it. Nothing the rest of the day, nor the next day. So I'm not sure it worked. But it definitely was relaxing!

On January 28th (THE DUE DATE!), I drank a hyper concentrated version of my red raspberry leaf tea. It was bitter and so so so strong. I had been drinking red raspberry leaf tea pretty much daily for my entire 3rd trimester, to tone up the uterine muscles for labor, but this hyper brew, called Labor Day Tea, was supposed to get things going if body and baby were ready. It may have helped, as I started to feel contractions less than 24 hours later, but who knows, right?

Also on January 28th, I was starting to get antsy about castor oil, which was basically the last natural thing I had left to try to induce labor. My plan was to drink it on January 30th if baby still wasn't making moves. But I was so nervous about how sick I would feel. Was it going to make labor even more painful? Was I going to have continuous castor oil diarrhea and great bowel discomfort while also going through labor contractions? Ick! It didn't sound fun. But of course I was also desperate to deliver with my OB, so I was pretty determined to try.

While listing all my worries to my dear husband, he says, "Well, why don't I try it first? And that way if it's terrible, we'll know and we won't have you do it." Ummm, prince charming, much? He's seriously a doll. So as mean as it may have been, I took him up on his offer and he drank the crazy castor oil concoction and, well, paid the consequences.

4 oz castor oil + 2 oz vodka + 6 oz orange juice.

CHUG IT.

He said it tasted like an oily screw driver. Yum, right?

It went down so easy and then for 8 hours after, absolutely nothing happened. And all was right with the world.

But then, it hit him ALL at once. Poor poor guy. Through the entire night, he was in and out of the bathroom, clearing out his system, one gush of fluid at a time. Oof.

He was pretty much recovered by the next morning, a little less than 24 hours from that gross dose of castor oil. In summary, he said it was rough, but not so rough that he thought I'd need to avoid it. But he wasn't going to be trying it again any time soon. I also ran it by my doula, who said it would work a little differently on a pregnant woman, more like a natural prostaglandin, and labor would start after I was entirely cleared out. That all made me feel a little better.

So by the afternoon of January 29th, with John fully recovered from all the castor crazy, and me still definitely pregnant, we decided I would, in fact, try the castor oil bright and early the next morning.

Except God laughs.

Not even a few hours after making that decision, right around 3pm, I had my first contraction.

Lolololololol. Sorry, John!

But seriously, PRAISE THE LORD! Castor oil avoided.

The contractions started off super mild, actually without pain at all, just tightening in my belly. But predictable tightening. They lasted a bunch of seconds and happened every few minutes to every 20 or so minutes. I know, not very specific. But I could tell things were progressing. They weren't just your average, run of the mill Braxton Hickses.

We were due over to John's parent's house for Sunday night dinner (which we do every Sunday night) just an hour after contractions started, but with them being so mild, we decided to go anyway and just not tell anyone, cuz I'm pretty private like that.

Turns out, dinner was a lovely distraction and we got through the whole affair without anyone knowing what was going on.  Win win.

Upon arriving home, around 8pm, we put John Paul to bed and decided to play a board game, to keep the distractions going. Contractions were getting a tiny bit stronger and longer and closer together, but still nothing serious. We stood through the whole game to keep me in a good position to keep the labor progressing and it definitely helped. Oh, and in case you were curious, our game of choice was Forbidden Desert, a co-op game that we love and that night we totally won. Boom. Labor luck.

The game ended around 9:00pm, and we still weren't exactly tired, so we decided to rent a movie: The Girl on the Train. The more distractions you have going during early labor, the better. And this was yet another good distraction.

During the movie, contractions started to get just a tiny bit painful, longer, and closer together. They were coming every 2-4 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds. Progress! I bounced on an exercise ball and it was honestly way comfier than I was expecting. Great labor tool, as it turns out!

By the time the movie ended, around 11pm, we decided it was time to call my doula and make a plan. She suggested trying to sleep for a while while things were still low-pain. If we were about to labor through the night, getting in just a few extra hours of shut eye was going to be super helpful. She figured once they were painful enough to wake me up, it'd be time to get things into gear for our trip to the hospital. So up to bed we went.

But sleep didn't happen. Within 10 minutes of lying in bed, the contractions really picked up. They went from a 2 out of 10 on the pain scale to a 4. While that doesn't sound like much, it was enough to make me anxious to get a move on. We still had to alert the in-laws so they could drive over and watch John Paul and we had a 40 minute drive ahead of us to the hospital. Plus, I knew I had been 3cm and 80-90% effaced before any contractions had started, so I didn't want to suddenly be in a HOLY MOLEY THIS BABY IS COMING OUT situation while driving because we decided to wait too long.

Contractions got even more intense while we waited on my MIL to arrive, so I was happy with our decision. We slow danced through the contractions and I squatted by hanging on John to work with the contractions and keep baby low.   

One last pic of the belly . . .

And by 12:45am, we were off. And in the snow! We've barely had an inch or two all winter, and the night our baby decides to make moves, snow is sticking to the roads. Perhaps, even with all that natural induction stuff, all I really needed was a change in barometric pressure to kick things in the gear. We may never know. ;)

Labor in the car got even more intense. I prayed for everyone's intentions between contractions, each followed with a Hail Mary to our sweet Heavenly Momma. And when a contraction hit, I'd pause and squeeeeeeeze John's hand. All while he prayed along and navigated the snowy roads. Seriously, I married super dad, folks.

After what felt like an eternity, (because seriously, car contractions are the woorrrsttttt!) we finally arrived around 1:30am. Wendy, our doula, met us at the doors of the L&D unit, and we all walked up to the nurses' station together. A little oversight on our part . . . we forgot to do all the pre-registration stuff, so between my contractions, I filled out a pile of who-knows-what paperwork as quickly as humanly possible and then we were moved into the triage area so they could check my vitals and my cervical dilation.

For part 2, click here.

Introducing...

Jude Francis!

Born on January 30th at 3:17am, which means . . . 

Your prayers worked! He arrived before my doc went out of town. :) BUT, because God laughs . . . 

Little Jude decided to arrive SO quickly, my doc wasn't able to make it to the hospital in time to catch him. Ha! 

Despite that little glitch, it was still an amazing birth experience, which I'll be sharing just as soon as time allows. Stay tuned!

This little peanut was 7lb 8oz and 20 inches, which means he was actually smaller than John Paul, who weighed in at 7lb 15oz at birth. And here I was expecting an 8+ lb baby. Crazy! 

Speaking of John Paul . . . 

He's already so in love with his little bro. This morning, he excitedly exclaimed "JUDE!" when he first saw him. Heart-size doubled? CHECK! And then some. ;)

By the way, it was an honor praying for all your intentions throughout Jude's natural labor. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! <3 

Let's Swap Prayers!

I gotta start this off with a warning . . .

Please skip to the bottom of this post if you'd like to avoid hearing a silly sob story about my upcoming labor and delivery and some related prayers I'm asking for.

I wouldn't blame ya if you did!

 ---

We're getting so close to the arrival of our newest babe!

38 weeks and + 5 days pregnant as of today.

At this point, I'm just brimming with excitement and joy and a little bit of nervousness but mostly pure eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

If I could humbly ask for prayers, though. It's sorta over something silly, but it's causing me piles of stress, so I'm just gonna throw it out there.

You may recall from John Paul's birth, I'm super pro-natural childbirth for myself. I wrote a ton about it here and here in case you're curious. We ended up having the most amazing, empowering, all-natural birth experience with John Paul and our super pro-natural childbirth doc was a huge part of that. So when we moved to east Tennessee after John Paul was born and found out we were pregnant again, I searched and searched until I found another super pro-natural childbirth doc in the area, to help us on our journey to another awesome natural birth experience.

We love our new doc so much. He's very supportive of my birth preferences and has a low low c-section rate of only 16% (for reference, the national average is 32.2%). We've seen only him through the whole pregnancy and he's totally cool with coming in to deliver our little bean, even if he's not on-call when the main event happens. It doesn't get much better than that.

BUT! (You knew there was a but.) We just found out a few weeks ago that he's going on vacation right after my due date.

*insert sobbing emoji here*

Which means, if I don't deliver by 40 weeks + 2 days, I don't get to deliver with our doc and I'm left at the hands of one of the other random docs in his group (both with a c-section rate of 35%).

These are silly things to worry about, I know. But I already got in a leeeettle bitty disagreement with one of the other docs in his office over something in my birth preferences. Ugh. So this is causing lots of fears and worries at a time when I really need my worries and fears to be nil.

Annnyyyyywayyyyy.

Would you mind praying that I deliver with my doc, some time before 40 weeks + 2 days?

I'm actually doing everything I can to naturally go into labor ASAP.

-- Eating dates. Lots of dates.
-- Drinking red raspberry leaf tea. Lots of red raspberry leaf tea.
-- Borage oil, since my doula recommended it.
-- Stripping membranes next week.
-- Eating all the eggplant. (It totally worked last pregnancy. Or was totally a coincidence.)
-- Walking around our hilly neighborhood.
-- *cover your eyes* . . . doing the deed, if you know what I mean.
-- Getting adjusted at a chiropractor, to get things lined up for labor.
-- Considering acupuncture and moxibustion . . . some sort of therapy which involves burning moxa over certain points on the body. I just learned about it today. Am I hippy enough?
-- Considering drinking huge amounts of castor oil. Eep.

None of these things will put me into labor if baby isn't ready, which is good because the last thing I want is to rush baby along. BUT, if my body is ready and I just need that extra little boost, these'll do it. And if you recall, I had John Paul on my due date, so I'm thinking this babe will be ready right around his/her due date too.

I know I sound like a crazy person. I just love my doc so much, and trust him so so much. So prayers for delivery with him would be much appreciated.And if that's just not God's will, prayers for another amazing, empowering all-natural birth experience with whoever is on-call the night this baby decides to arrive. Many thanks, friends! <3

---
Ok, you're officially at the bottom now. We're at the good part . . .

More important than all the above, I'd love to pray for YOU!

During labor, I'll be offering up all my pain and fear and crazy emotions for your intentions. So please leave your intentions in the comments here or shoot me an email at stephschweitz [at] gmail [dot] com. If you have a private intention, just write something like, "prayers for a private intention" and I'll totally cover you too. Please don't be shy! I'll also be praying for the general intentions of all my followers, especially those suffering through infertility, so you're sure to be covered even if you don't comment. But please, comment or email if you're up for it! I'd love to shower you with prayers.

Can't wait to share our newest baby with you! Hopefully soon. ;)

Our Asheville Babymoon

To celebrate the upcoming arrival of the newest little Baby Schweitz, John and I got away for a night for a short babymoon in Asheville, NC. And it was awesome!

When my mother-in-law and father-in-law suggested we do an overnight away so they could practice watching John Paul through the night (since they're gonna be doing it again when we go into labor and baby makes an arrival!), we were completely on board. It was going to be our first night away from John Paul ever, but we figured we needed to try it some time. And thankfully it just so happened to be around the time we were hoping to go on a babymoon. I was 32 weeks pregnant, which seemed like about the latest we should be traveling. So it worked perfectly. Win win!

We decided very easily on Asheville, NC. It's only about an hour from where we live and it's jam packed with fun things to do and good things to eat. So we figured it would maximize our adventure time while keeping our travel time to a minimum. When you only have 24 hours for a trip, that's the way to go!

We said our goodbyes to John Paulie (ugh, my heart) around 10:30am and drove straight into town for a most delicious lunch at a Lebanese place called Gypsy Queen.

I enjoyed their house tea, while John enjoyed his first-ever Lebanese beer. We ate way too much, including their Lebanese fries (fries smothered garlic aioli and tahini dressing, sprinkled with parsley . . . mmmmm), baba ganouj (smoked eggplant dip), and a kibbeh wrap (the national dish of Lebanon!). We were so full, we basically had to be rollllled out of there.

From there, we drove a few quick miles into downtown Asheville for a relaxation appointment at the Asheville Salt Cave. I wanted to do some sort of special-to-Asheville activity while we were in town, and this strange yet intriguing manmade cave of salt exactly fit the bill.

source

For $25 a pop, we both got to sit in this salt cave for an hour and breathe in the calming, healing salty air. You can read all about the benefits on their website if you're curious. I just thought it was something neat to do. And it was! Gosh, I feel relaxed again just looking at that picture.

After the salt cave, we wandered around downtown Asheville on foot, popping in and out of shops, and taking in the hippy vibes that make Asheville, well . . . Asheville.

We made sure to stop at a shop called Bathe, just as we had on our Eureka Springs babymoon, pre-John Paul. Just a few days before our Asheville babymoon, we ran out of the lavender bath salts we had purchased on the Eureka Springs babymoon at the Bathe store there. It was totally fate.

At Bathe, you pick the product you want (hand lotion, scrubbing salts, beard scrub . . . ) and then, using approximately 100 different scents, combine to make your own unique scent for the product. It's pretty neat. We created a sandalwood tobacco and vanilla salt hand scrub and lavender bath salts. As we checked out, we mentioned to the cashier that we had enjoyed visiting their shop in Eureka Springs (I believe the only other one) and she said we were the first people she met who'd been to both shops! Woohoo, achievement unlocked!

Following Bathe, we continued adventuring for a while until we stumbled upon a kombucha bar, AKA quintessential Asheville joint. I was thrilled to discover they serve kombucha flights!! When you can't drink booze (because pregnancy), but you find something that sorta mimics the fun things about booze, you do a happy dance.

In case you're not in the know, kombucha is fermented tea. It's a little fizzy, a little vinegary, and a lot of fun. I actually brewed it at home for a few months. And then I got pregnant and it lost its appeal. But I totally intend on picking up the brewing habit again. It's chockfull of so-good-for-you probiotics, so you really can't go wrong.

The flavors I tried, all made by Buchi Kombucha, were . . .

Fire -- cold pressed ginger + cayenne + spices (what?! too spicy)
Water -- elderberry + blueberry + coconut water (my fave!)
Earth -- roasted roots tonic (tasted like rootbeer . . . meh)
Sovereign -- ginger + peach + molasses (second fave!)
Avonlea -- orange + mango + sea buckthorn
Holiday -- cinnamon + cider + vanilla + clove

Belly up to the bar!

;)

We decided we needed a little break following all the downtown adventures, so we headed to our hotel to check in. We didn't stay anywhere fancy. Just a regular ol' Baymont Inn & Suites. We figured it was best to save a little cash on our hotel so we could really go all out on a fancy adventure a little later in the evening.

(Hold your horses, I'll get there!)

After some quick R&R, we headed south south south of Asheville to a Korean restaurant for dinner. We figured heading away from downtown Asheville on a Saturday evening was a smart choice. Good thing this city is so cool that super delicious restaurants can be found still several miles outside of downtown.

We considered tons of different cuisines, but Stonebowl Korean won out, simply because (1) the pics on yelp made me salivate and (2) we don't have any Korean food restaurants near home. Easy choice.

We split dumplings as an appetizer and ordered the beef bi bim bop for dinner. It came with all these fun side dishes. And the bowl arrived at our table snap, crackle, poppin'! The stone bowl was hot hot hot, so the ingredients inside continued cooking while we enjoyed. It was all fantastically delicious AND fun! 5 out of 5 stars! Would recommend! *thumbs up emoji*

And from there, we headed to the main event . . . Christmas at Biltmore! This was our maj splurge during our babymoon, and it did not disappoint.

source

The Biltmore is a ridiculously huge mansion set in the beautiful mountain scenery of western NC. This crazy estate, finished in 1895, sits on over 10 square miles, and the house has 250 rooms, including 33 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms (what even?!?), 65 fireplaces, an indoor pool, and a bowling alley. It's like Downton Abbey on steroids. Need I say more?

Our admittance time wasn't until 8:45pm because they were already pretty booked by the time I got our in-advance tickets. So we spent some of our extra time wandering through the gift shops and drinking hot chocolate in the cold. It was pretty romantic. 

We were finally allowed into the house and, guhhh, just breathtaking, guys!

I had to take a moment to pose in front of the largest decorated indoor Christmas tree I think I've ever seen. It was in their banquet hall, which has 70-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceilings. Umm, tall much?

We also needed a selfie at the bottom of the massive 4-story spiral grand staircase. 

But seriously, it was gorg. The whole thing. It was all decked out for Christmas and they had professional musicians set throughout the house singing and playing classical Christmas tunes. So many happy feels.

We explored for about an hour, maybe more, then decided it was time to say goodbye to the crazy life of wealth and excess and head back to reality.

Our hotel room randomly had a hot tub in it. Like, attached hot tub room for two. It was a little weird and out of place, but wait . . . why am I complaining? We used our newly purchased lavender Bathe bath salts and relaxed in the tub for a tiny while. But then, like the old farts we are, we got super tired and realized we neeeeeed sleeeeeep. So sleep we did!

We totally failed at using this overnight away from our toddler to sleep in (doy.), but we had to squeeze in breakfast and Mass and a trip to Trader Joe's before getting home in time, so we didn't really have a choice. The good news is, we spent our non-sleeping time on so many adventures that missing out on the extra sleep felt totally worth it. :)

Breakfast was at Biscuit Head, a breakfast joint that specializes in creating crazy delicious biscuit dishes.

John got a brisket biscuit (YAS!) and I played it simple with an egg, cheese, and bacon biscuit, plus a side of their homemade yogurt with granola. I also raided their jam and butter bar, as evidenced by the 8 little containers of jam and butter laid across the table in front of John. That didn't even cover half of the available flavors. That jam bar was my JAM!

We sat around a bit to digest the biscuit bombs in our bellies and to wait out the 1-hour-before-Communion fast, and then headed into downtown Asheville one last time to attend Mass at the Basilica of St. Lawrence!

Mass was just lovely. It was the first weekend of Advent, and the Deacon gave a fantastic homily, reflecting on a much more realistic version of the Nativity than we typically hear or see.

Check out this gorgeous Church . . .

*swooning for Jesus*

And since we can't go to Asheville without a stop at Trader Joe's, we headed straight there after Mass to wander the aisles and aimlessly by all the things we don't need but looked too tasty to leave behind. (TJ's, if you're listening, PLEASE COME TO EAST TENNESSEE! PUH-LEEZ!)

We squeezed in a trip to a neat little coffee shop, sorta en route to the highway, Liberty House Coffee & Cafe, and I tried my first London Fog: earl grey tea with honey and almond milk. Mmmmm. They had these ridiculously huge pumpkins on their front porch, which I obvi needed to pose with.

And from there, we headed straight back to good ol' east TN, refreshed from all our fun and adventuring, but ready to see our little John Paul again. 

'Twas perfect.

Thanks for the memories, Asheville! You're pretty neat.

Life Lately & How We Do Advent

And just like that, Advent is upon us!

Things have been moving at super-sonic speed here in our household. Is that true of every household this time of year? I'm starting to think so!

We finally announced our little addition to the whole world (AKA facebook + instagram) with this little diddy . . .

 

In real life, it took about 30 pictures to get it just right. But it turned out pretty presh if I do say so myself. John Paul is super excited to be a big brother, not that he gets what that means at all. And if I'm being honest, neither do I. Eek! Two kids under two? We got this! But seriously, what's it gonna be like? 

I'm 32 weeks now and am scratching my head over how we're in the SINGLE DIGITS of weeks left 'til due date. Time, you fly. 

We had an ultrasound today and baby looks great! Well, we couldn't actually see babe's face since he/she had both hands scrunched up there and in the way. But honestly, it was so dang cute to see baby snuggling up like that, how can I be mad? We were just thrilled to see that baby is in head down position and looking healthy as can be, measuring about 4 lb 7 oz at this point. The doc even saw some hair! Could it be?! A not-bald baby Schweitz?!?! The doc called it "peach fuzz," so I won't hold my breath. :P

We're finally starting to buy the few items we need to welcome this sweet babe, all the things we skipped out on last time but regretted, like a bassinet and changing tables and zip-up outfits. We're also making a mental checklist of all the things that need to be done before babe arrives, mostly house related stuff (paint this room, buy a rug for that room, unpack the remaining boxes . . . eek!). And we hired a doula, who's also training to be a midwife, so that's pretty neat! AND I'm starting to read my favorite prepare-for-birth book again: The Birth Partner. ACCOMPLISH ALL THE THINGS!  No big. Only took me 32 weeks to get motivated. 

Let's rewind a little now, and see what's being going on the past few months . . . 

For Halloween, John Paul and John dressed up as Luke and Darth Vader from Star Wars. (But seriously, if you didn't already know they were from Star Wars, we have a problem. Also, you deserve the following spoiler . . . )

"Luke, I am your father." 

Get it? ;)

 

John Paul was a leeeettle freaked out by the Darth mask (and pretty much all the people we saw on Halloween in masks), so we decided Darth should go unmasked for their lightsaber duel.

Oh, fun facts . . .

1.) Our new neighborhood seems to be the type that people drive to and drop their kids in for some quality trick-or-treating. So we were living it up as our first year with actual trick-or-treaters. We started off giving out 4 pieces of candy to every kid, since we figured we wouldn't get many, but by the end of the night, had to rummage through the closet to pull out leftover candy from last year's trick-or-treating and other oddball candies (Lindt and Gharidelli chocolates and such) to be able to last through the night. Lesson learned. But a fun one!

2.) Apparently adults drink adult beverages as they take their kids out trick-or-treating, out of inconspicuous plastic cups or travel mugs. Is this real life? Or perhaps this is another quirk for our neighborhood?? All I know is that my husband was not shy about joining in once he saw the other parents doing it. Ha!

Moving on to Thanksgiving.

John Paul is actually a pro kitchen helper. He was eager to stand on a chair and watch me create our Thanksgiving dessert contribution: Peanut Butter Lasagna. (Don't judge me.) It may have been because he got to sample every last ingredient as I layered it in the baking dish. Or perhaps we have a future little chef on our hands. I'll let you be the judge . . .

And now Advent!

Just like last year, we're still sorta figuring out how we want to do this Advent/Christmas thing. When do we get the tree? What music do we listen to? What feast days do we focus on? How many presents does John Paul get? We try to answer all these questions with the real Reason for the Season in mind, but we're still not exactly sure how it'll play out. And we still feel like we have a bit of time to decide on things since John Paul isn't exactly aware of what's going on. Yet. Prob by next year though.

So our rough sketch currently looks like . . .

1.) Only listening to Advent music (at home and in the car) during the season of Advent. To me, this reeeeally builds the anticipation for Christmas because I love love LOVE Christmas music. So to hold off on it for these 4 extra weeks makes it feel like we truly are waiting for something special. Now, truth be told, the pool of Advent music is rather small. But, I've found some pretty great Advent playlists on Spotify, specifically this one called "Simply Advent." So whenever I'm feeling tempted to get my Christmas music jam on, I listen to one of my Advent playlists instead and I'm reminded of exactly what we're waiting for. Plus, these songs are dang beautiful. So it's all good!

2.) Decorating only for Advent during the season of Advent. That basically means the Nativity (minus Jesus) and the Advent wreath, plus pink and purple decorations (once I find the time to buy some).

This year, I finally got around to making an Advent wreath! I found a picture of one similar to this online and went with it . . .

Apparently each candle of the Advent wreath symbolizes a deeper meaning, which is new to me this year. (Sorry! Clueless Cradle Catholic, party of one!) The sample picture I used to make my wreath had them like you see above. This website tells me otherwise. Oops. It's apparently Hope, Faith, Joy, and Peace, in that order. But anyway, I'm loving that we have one specific virtue to focus on for each week now. And that, with the use of some fancy shmancy purple and pink ribbon, I can get away with never buying the all-too-difficult-to-find 3-purple-and-1-pink candle combo again! John Paul is happy about this too!

3.) Celebrating St. Nick's feast day (Today! December 6th!) by putting out our shoes the night before and getting candy and some other small gifts in St. Nick's honor in the morning. Being honest here, TOTALLY failed to do this this year. But like I said before, I think we have another year before John Paul really gets into all this stuff, so . . . phew!

4.) Celebrating St. Lucy's feast day (December 13) by putting up ALL THE LIGHTS. Her name means "light," so it's basically perfect. We'll put lights in all our windows and set up the tree, but only decorate it with lights. This is another one of those things that's so hard to hold off on. I've wanted to put up a tree since Thanksgiving now. But I'm glad we're holding out. Another reminder of the anticipation we're supposed to feel as we await the birth of Christ!

5.) Really go crazy decorating the tree on Christmas Eve, when we are only one sleep away from welcoming our King! ALL THE DECORATIONS FOR JESUS!

6.) Only giving 3 gifts to John Paul on Christmas day (and all future kiddos). These three gifts will be a nod to the three gifts Jesus received from the Wise Kings. We're also thinking they'll always follow this pattern: one item you need, one book to read, and one gift you really want . . . or something like that. And they'll be presents from us, not Santa Claus. We've chosen to leave Santa Claus (or Santa as our culture knows him) out of our Advent and Christmas seasons, for many reasons. This post from another Catholic blogger really resonates with many of our reasons, in case you're curious. 

7.) LIVE IT UP celebrating the birth of Christ during the true Christmas season, December 25 through January 9 (the Baptism of the Lord). That means all the Christmas music, all the homemade tasty Christmas treats, all the Christmas movies, ALL THE CHRISTMAS!! All the waiting of Advent finally pays off in the biggest celebration we can throw, for the Coolest Guy we know. :)

We'll still go to Christmas parties during Advent (if we're invited) and listen to Christmas music when it's blasted at us in shops and restaurants and eat tasty Christmas treats if they are gifted to us over the next few weeks. We're not going to try to shut down the rest of the world or poo-poo anyone else's celebration. But in our home, we'll do our best to make Advent and Christmas two different seasons, as they truly are. And we're pretty excited about that! 

But also, I'm pretty sure many of our Advent and Christmas traditions will continue to change and grow over time. So don't hold us to it. We're just trying to do our best for our family, trying to create our family culture as we grow. And this is what feels right for now. Can't wait to give it a spin!

Wishing you and yours a hopeful, faithful, joyful, and peaceful Advent!

Picking Paint Colors for Our New Home

Choosing wall colors for our new house has been both exciting and daunting. Exciting because we're finally getting to personalize our space! And colors are fun! Woohoo design! But daunting because paint is permanent . . . or at least that's how it felt when we were making our choices. Sure, sure, you could always repaint if you hate it. But with the number of hours and days we spent painting, plus the cost of the paint, it felt important to get it right the first time.

So, I went a little paint-research-crazy on pinterest in the weeks leading up to closing on our house. I had a general idea of what I wanted in most rooms, but gosh, there are lots of variations for each color. That's where pinterest came in handy. I'd search "green bedroom" or "gray kitchen" and get specific names of paint colors to try in each room. Handy dandy.

When I say I spent hours of my life deciding on paint colors, I mean hourrrrsssssss. And they were mostly fun hours. But also, at some point I was just like, "Let's please just close on this house RIGHT MEOW so we can start trying out some samples, mmmkay?"

We closed on the house (yippee!) and painting started the very next day. We wasted no time getting to painting, as we wanted to get as many rooms done as we could before moving day, two weeks later.

Within those two weeks, my mom and husband (and two guys we hired to do the 2-story walls in the main entrance) worked so hard to paint so many spaces and for that, I'm so grateful! While we haven't painted every wall yet, we're well on our way.

At this point, I'm not quite ready to show the world pictures of our messy, only-half-unpacked space, but I can show you swatches of each color and pictures of other peoples' houses that inspired the colors we chose.

(Psst -- it might help to look at pictures of each room in our home before diving in.)

Here we go.

Main Entrance / Kitchen / Office / Playroom / Sunroom 

For these rooms, which are all connected, I wanted the perfect neutral gray. We've lived in beige-walled apartments for the last 7 years and felt ready for a change, so gray it was!

My friend, Sew, gave me some good advice: If you want your space to seem larger, more open and spacious, paint it all the same color! So that's exactly what we're working on in these 5 rooms. 

Now, finding the perfect neutral gray was not easy. By the time we closed, I had narrowed it down to three grays: a beige gray, a blue-ish gray, and a light gray . . . 

But once we got samples of all three up on the wall, I wasn't convinced. Back to the drawing board. We added two more grays to the wall of samples: 

Can you see how wildly different all of these grays are?! And yet they're each classified as "gray" by the different brands. 

Once they're on the wall, they take on even different personalities:

On the wall, Gray Shimmer looked almost purple, Revere Pewter looked more beige than we wanted, Passive was blue-ish, Gray Owl seemed pretty neutral, and Moonshine was super light. 

(I should note here that we used Behr Premium Plus Ultra brand paint for all of our painting. It comes highly recommended from Consumer Reports. Thankfully, Home Depot can color-match any color from any brand to their Behr paint line. So these are color-matched versions of each color and may be slightly different than if the colors had been purchased from the brand -- Sherwin William and Benjamin Moore -- that created them.)

After seeing all five samples together, we narrowed it down to Passive (John's favorite) and Gray Owl (my favorite) and painted two much larger samples in another room:

Both seemed like the perfect light-medium shade of gray, but Passive was more cool while Gray Owl was more warm. Ultimately, we decided warm was the way too go, since we worried cool would feel a little too sterile. And so the winner was:

Source

And we've been pleased as punch with it. :) It takes on a slight blue color at random times of the day, and at night it's almost green under our warm, ceiling lights. Overall, it really freshened up the space (which was previously cream in some rooms and dark beige in others) and gave our home a more modern look. 

We've only painted the kitchen and main entrance so far, but hopefully soon, we'll paint the playroom and office and sunroom as well. 

Family Room

The family room, AKA the projector room, is connected to the kitchen, and so we considered also painting it Gray Owl, same as all the other first floor rooms. But we felt it needed its own personality. Plus, the tile floors in the family room are a dark tan color and didn't work as well with the gray. So, we started to look for colors that worked with the tiles and our existing furniture and came up with: 

Which I had originally spied here:

Source

Our family room is naturally suuuuper dark since it doesn't have many windows, which honestly works in our favor, since the projector looks best in low light. But, the dark dark dark orangey beige the previous owners had on the walls made the room feel so drab and cave-like. We love how Colorado Gray lightens up the room but still gives it a pop of personality when compared to the rest of the first floor. And Colorado Gray also happens to be a perfect complement to Gray Owl. Win!

Laundry Room

For our itty bitty laundry room, I wanted a light, calming, happy color. Since the space is so small, I figured a light color would make it feel more open. I also wanted calming and happy since . . . who wants to be angry and sad in their laundry room? The process of laundry-ing is maddening enough, so I wanted the wall color to naturally make it a more serene space. 

This color seemed to fit the bill:

Guys, I seriously love this color. I told John, "This color basically is my life." If you could summarize Stephanie in one color, this would be it! It's the perfect mix of blue and green. The perfect light teal, I suppose. I love love love it! 

And I also love how it's yet another perfect complement to our Gray Owl. 

Thanks to this room for the inspiration:

Source

Guest Bedroom

Our guest bedroom is brought to you by the color green. Rich, dark, cozy green.

This color was love at first sight. From the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew I had to put it somewhere in the house. Here's the original photo that inspired my obsession:

Source

Since it's a bit of a bold color, we didn't want to put it in a large space, or an open space. So we decided our first-floor guest bedroom would be exactly the right spot for it. And while the guest bedroom still has a long way to go, decor wise, the color is just swoon-worthy perfection. I imagine once I get some creamy drapes and gold accents and dark wooden furniture in there . . . ugh. I die.

John Paul's Room

I knew I wanted mint in John Paul's room. The trick was finding a mint that wasn't too girly or too saturated, but also wasn't too baby blue-ish either. So after much searching and hemming and hawing, we landed on this perfect shade of minty blue:

Which actually looks entirely different than that in real life. 

Source

When the sunlight hits it just right, it's this lovely greeny mint shade. But other times, it morphs into more of a powder blue. I can't get enough of it! I hope John Paul likes it too. :) 

Yet To Be Painted

And then there's the rest of the house, which is yet to be painted. And mostly also yet to be decided. Baby Schweitz's room, the guest bathroom, and the master bathroom are the rooms I'm really scratching my head over. We may just wait until after Baby Schweitz is born to choose his/her room color. Right now I'm leaning toward a rich teal green though. The guest bathroom needs to complement Gray Owl and Dragonfly since it joins the kitchen and the guest bedroom. I'm thinking possibly just Gray Owl again. And the master bathroom . . . no idea! Any thoughts?

We do have some ideas for the master bedroom though, mostly inspired by the color navy:

Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore - Source

Stunning by Benjamin Moore - Source

We're not sure if we'd do the whole room navy or just paint the wall behind the bed navy and the rest white. I lean toward the whole room because I like grown-up bedrooms to be bold, dark, and sleepy. But I'm open to debate. 

And the kids' bathroom is going to be Palladian Blue, just like the laundry room. In case you've forgotten how wonderful a color it is:

Source

The Whole House 

In summary, when you put it all together, our house looks a little something like this:

Feels good to be home. :)