Chloë Ann Blakey

Our Little Girl is here. Beautiful and healthy, we give thanks to God for his timing and grace.

Chloë Ann Blakey was born at home on Sunday, June 13th at 12:13pm, weighing 7 lbs, 10 oz, standing 20 1/2 inches tall. With the assistance of two amazing midwives, we somehow did the most difficult and amazing thing we've ever done. 15 hours of "active" back labor was pretty intense, to say the least. Not to mention the 50+ hours of "non active" labor, mostly on-again, occasionally off-again, since the evening of Thursday the 10th.

But we did it. She is here, in our arms, and we are still resting and enjoying her dad's week of paternity leave from work.



Just minutes after she was born. She didn't cry, but held her head up and looked around, and noticed it was just a little bit bright and cold here in our world.


A few hours old. We think she's the cutest baby in the whole world.


5 hours after she was born. We were all exhausted, but we got to introduce Chloë to all of her Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles (all officially receiving these titles for the first time that day), except for my sister, who was in Europe, and my oldest brother, who was in Oregon. They've both met her since.


5 hours old, and she already had him wrapped around her finger.


Two days old. I didn't know it was going to be this wonderful.





Two days old, and we just can't get enough of snuggling our Little Pea Pod.




4 days old. Some of the adorable little faces she makes.


Today, 5 days old. We think she's pretty great.

We still can't believe that she's finally here and that she's really ours. I think we'll keep her.

False Alarms

I have three due dates. June 15th, June 16th, and June 17th. I love it. Some women have a three or four week spread between due dates. That would just drive me crazy.

So Monday, the 7th, I had a little false alarm. I've been having lots of good Braxton-Hicks contractions for quite a while now (I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with all of the packing and moving and unpacking and nesting I've been doing). But Monday evening I noticed that they seemed a lot stronger than normal, and actually uncomfortable. I went to bed, tried to sleep, but kept thinking about the possibility of labor. So of course my brain went wild, and I had a pretty crummy night of rest, and nothing progressed. Oh well.

Then on Wednesday the 9th, I had my 39 week appointment. We're planning on doing a home birth, with an absolutely amazing midwife, and it was kind of surreal talking about labor and delivery as a real possibility of something in the near future. Our Little Girl is in the optimal position for delivery (LOA, for anyone who cares), she's "dropped," and her head is well engaged. It looks like my body just might preparing to birth a child.

The only thing is, my amazing midwife also has a life aside from delivering babies all the time, and is going to be out of town from the 13th to the 19th. And my due dates are right smack dab in the middle of those dates. I had decided quite a while ago that if things were beginning to look ready, maybe I would try to nudge nature along before my midwife leaves town. And if things didn't look very ready, I would just lay low and hope I don't go into labor until my midwife gets back in town.

So yesterday morning, Thursday the 10th, I tried a handful of labor inducers... including castor oil. Let me just say, castor oil is the most awful, horrible thing I have ever done to myself. Terrible, terrible stuff. I tried mixing and chasing it with V8 splash, and I don't think I'll ever be able to drink it again. So the afternoon passed, and not much was happening. I just figured my body wasn't ready, and I'd tortured myself for no reason. But then about the time Bryan got home from work, I noticed the contractions were picking up. He has a fancy app on his iPod Touch, so all I have to do is push a button when a contraction starts, and again when it stops. No fumbling with paper and pencils and watching a clock.

So around 9 pm, I realized that for the last several hours, contractions had been lasting 1-2 minutes, and coming every 2-5 minutes. Some were actually riiight on top of each other for 8 or 10 minutes. I thought "oh wait a second, I've seen this before... oh right, when women are in labor." So I gave my midwife a call, and she told me try to get some sleep, and to call her when I couldn't talk through my contractions. Then I threw up for the first time in three weeks. And then the contractions reeeally started hurting. I was even using some of the fancy breathing techniques I learned about in our birthing class.

I was so sure this was it. I got a few things together in between contractions, and even had Bryan set up the birthing pool. I tried going to sleep around midnight, but was waking up frequently. I almost picked up my phone to call my midwife about a dozen times, but kept thinking "I'll bet I could talk through this contraction if I had to if Bryan were awake, so I'll let everyone sleep just a little bit longer."

So I dozed in and out of consciousness for a few hours, and then woke up at 6:30 and realized I'd just slept soundly for two hours. I got up, walked around a little, tried the stairs a few times, and realized the contractions had given up. I was very confused. And extremely tired. So I went back to bed. Awoke again at 9:30, and realized I wasn't actually going to be having a baby any time soon, despite everything my body had just done. So I shook off my frustrations and disappointment, and have been mildly productive today, with the exception of a few naps.

I guess this Little Girl just isn't ready to make her grand appearance into the world. Which I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the horrible back pain and spasms I've been having (if only Ibuprofen weren't contraindicated, especially at the end of pregnancy). And if she decides to come when my midwife is out of town, there are two very wonderful midwives all lined up for back up. God is in control.

Self Portrait

I couldn't resist a little sarcasm this late into the pregnancy.

My first Baby Shower

My dear friends Katie (who lives in Seattle) and Betsy (in Spokane) threw me my first baby shower! They put together an absolutely amazing shower. I was very overwhelmed and blessed by all of the ladies who came, and all of the beautiful gifts they brought for our Little Girl.


Betsy (holding her Eva), Katie, and Bess (holding Katie's Kay).


The amazing spread of food
(and notice Katie's amazing baby pram cake!).


I opened presents for a very long time!


It was such a wonderful shower. And now I just have to wait patiently for the Little Girl to get here.

We're almost there.

On Sunday, at 8 1/2 months pregnant (37 1/2 weeks!), during one of the few warm and sunny moments we've had in the last couple of weeks.


In front of our new home!

Soon, our new family.

We're really excited to meet her!

We heart our baby.

Gluten Free

...and dairy free, and potato free, and legume free (which includes peanuts), and citrus free, and nightshade free (tomatoes and peppers and eggplant)... and I think that's all my dad has cut out of his diet so far. My sister is keeping her cool and is "only" gluten free.

I've learned a lot in the last few months about cooking and baking with strange ingredients. And that you have to read labels verrry carefully. Whowoulda thought that simple products like soy sauce are not gluten free? Or that oats are processed on equipment that also process wheat products, which deems them contaminated. So, when my family comes to visit, I pull out my ever growing supply of weird baking ingredients, and search the internet for something new to try.


I'm always perfecting my bread recipe. I use my own concoction of white rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, sorghum flour, soy flour, garbanzo flour, guar gum, and xanthan gum (which, at $20 a pound, is a good thing I only need a couple of teaspoons). If I make muffins, I'll throw in a little buckwheat flour (which incidentally, is not really a wheat at all).


Since it's my sister's birthday on Monday, I went all out and made a chocolate cake. I considered a "flourless" cake, but the reviews all said they were really brownie-like. And I really wanted something that resembled an actual cake. It was really tricky, because lots of chocolate is contaminated with dairy. I couldn't find a dairy-free frosting recipe that didn't include margarine or shortening, so I created a chocolate frosting using tofu. The end product looks almost normal.

I'm very grateful that I'm not a glutentard.

Looking Pregnant

My dear friend Alisha Dalbey asked to take a few pictures of me with my pregnant belly. Here are a few of the shots. This was a couple of weeks ago, right at Week 35, and the 8 Month mark.

We Moved!

We moved on Saturday, the 22nd. We had a grand total of 16 friends helping us move boxes and lifting heavy furniture. After a week of packing up boxes, I was very grateful that I did almost no lifting that day. In fact, once the truck arrived at the house, I sat on the grass and directed traffic. B and I have certainly managed to collect our fair share of worldly possessions over the last few years.

And now comes the phase of the unpacking and organizing and painting and nesting and settling in.


The Study/Spare Room/Guest Room at the old duplex, piled to the ceiling.


It felt a bit like this.

Remodeling. Phase 1.

Here are a few pictures of the remodeling of our main level bathroom. I'm so glad to be rid of the beige-brown porcelain, the drop ceiling with fluorescent lights, a super drop ceiling over the bathtub, diagonal siding, and the general ugliness of the 70s.