23 weeks!!

Feelin' good at 23 weeks!

Johnny and I got our garden planted this weekend complete with fencing to keep all the neighborhood rabbits away. We have 9 tomato plants (slicer and cherry), sweet corn, green beans, broccoli, lettuce, squash, and zucchini. Johnny is also growing his own cascade hops for his thriving homebrewing adventures.

It has been busy around here making preparations for our little girl. We met with our doula tonight. She is from Germany and was actually a nurse midwife in Germany! But, because it would take too long to get her U.S. nursing degree, she now is a certified doula and we are hiring her to be our birthing coach in September. We are so excited!

We have decided to switch from an OB at our old practice to a nurse midwife to deliver our baby at Clark Memorial Hospital's Family Birth Place. This change has really helped us feel more at ease with our wishes for a natural birth and we now know that everyone working with us is on the same page---valuing the fact that birth is a natural event, and for the majority of births NOT a medical emergency that requires multiple interventions! Women have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years--Mom had all 4 of us naturally, and I am excited for the opportunity to have our little girl naturally and treasure every second of labor and delivery, no matter how hard it will be.

In other news, we officially joined Our Lady of Lourdes parish--a Catholic parish and school about 3 minutes from our house (we can actually walk to church!!). It is such an awesome community and we feel so welcomed there. We are actually already making plans for baptism!! There are tons of little ones being born into this parish--so we were advised to start thinking of a date because the days are already booking up!