Immediately after Phoebe's birth!

Phoebe Katherine from Michael Martin on Vimeo.

Phoebe's Birth 8/23/2009

Phoebe's birth from Michael Martin on Vimeo.

Fourteen & Three

...That's how many weeks and days pregnant I am! If you ever visit this blog, and I don't blame you if you don't, because I certainly don't keep it current, you've already noticed the little baby widget and come to an educated guess about what's going on in our lives!

We are planning to have an ultrasound and find out the gender of this baby this time around. I have such a strong feeling that this is a little girl. We didn't have an ultrasound at all with Leo, and wanted a birthday surprise, even though I had very strong feelings that he was, indeed, a boy. Claudia was also a birthday surprise, but Karl & I found out with Caleb, mostly because of that strong feeling of mine about his being a boy, and I wanted to confirm. Ultrasound for this baby will be around the end of March.

Lot's of other things going on, too: Michael and I got married Jan. 25th, and took a honeymoon to O'ahu. It was lovely. We are settling in to married life quite nicely, I think. It looks like I will finally pass Chemistry this term, so that will be a relief! Michael is taking a Philosophy course, and I would trade him for Chemistry in a heartbeat. His brain is much more suited to Chem and mine to Philosophy!

More later...you know, months from now!

Christmas Morning

Chistmas video 1 from Michael Martin on Vimeo.


Michael gets the credit for this post--all I had to do was copy and paste; thanks Michael! I know, I am not so good at posting regularly (sorry Molly). I will resolve to do better in 2009. Happy New Year everyone!

Pioneer Day Owie

Leo & I went to the Pioneer Day parade on the 24th of July. Claudia was at Girl Scout Camp, Caleb slept in, Michael was in Singapore, so it was just me and my baby boy with my next door neighbor Carolyn on her friend's porch right on the parade route. So, Leo, being a typical three-year-old, found a box to fall OFF of and construction staples to fall ON to -- the only debris on the entire porch, of course! (Proper English conversation with self: ...box off which to fall...staples on which to fall...???) I had to tote him about 8 blocks to the car so I could drive him up to Primary Children's Hospital. The ER was empty, so we got right in, and Dr. Eric and Dr. Soprano fixed us all up like new. Leo did great and hardly cried. The cut was shallow but long, so they used a skin adhesive product--glue, basically--instead of stitches, which Leo would have to have been sedated to receive. Leo got a big kick out of getting his bandage changed every day and walking around showing of his "owie." I took the pics with my cell phone, so they aren't the greatest...

-Before glue-

-After glue-
-All better-

Hippie Offers to Get Me High!

My hippie (one of the original hippies!) hostess, Ramona, was sitting with me on her back deck on The Farm just before the shuttle came to get me to take me to the airport in Nashville. I was teasing her a bit about the "herb" smell in the house for a few nights in a row. She laughed and said she didn't think we could smell it, and then she told me she had some "really good stuff" and asked me if I wanted some right then--offered to get me high before my flight! It kinda would've made the whole Farm experience complete, huh? Too bad I don't smoke pot...

The Farm

Summertown, TN, August 3-9, 2008

I was privileged to spend a week on The Farm, home of Ina May Gaskin, author of Spiritual Midwifery, first published in 1975 or so, and in it's fourth edition today. She's also written a great book called Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, which I think every woman thinking about having a baby should read. I took a Midwife's Assistant Workshop there with 14 other fabulous women from around the country and Canada. I was the only one that traveled from West of the Mississippi. I'm feeling very energized and excited about taking on more responsibility with the births at the birth center here in Salt Lake City. The Farm is like Mecca for those of us that call ourselves Birth Junkies with pride!

Okay, so maybe it's really lazy of me, but I uploaded a bunch of pictures from the week to my Facebook page, and it's just quicker to post the link here for you. If you're not familiar with Facebook already, click on the first picture to see it larger and then click "next" to see each picture, some with captions beneath:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5651&l=5782c&id=1019891512

To learn more about The Farm (which offers much more than midwifery stuff--it's pretty much full of aging hippies and some young families into environmentalism, alternative agriculture, eco-building, etc...) or Ina May Gaskin, here are some other interesting links:

http://www.inamay.com/
http://www.thefarm.org/