A few pics from the day we burried B’s placenta, 2 days after her  birth.
Arp heading down the path to one of the mango and citrus fields on our property:

The placenta.  What more can I say.

It was hot as hell and humid, but I had to wear a hoodie to guard against bugs.  My face is still puffy and I look tired, but I feel pretty good for two days after giving birth.  M is the photographer.

The Birth of B
B’s Birth was so different from the birth of J (now age 4) and M (now age 6) that it surprised me in most every way.
One major differenc came before the birth.  B made us wait a bit more than I expected.  With M, I gave birth a day before my due date.  J came 2 days after her due date.  So with B, I was reasonably expecting that she might show up sometime close to the due date.  I figured it was simply my genetic makeup.  …

It’s a girl!  B was born 9 days ago, at home and in water.  My third child, she was my first waterbirth.  She was also my quickest labor yet, at 3 hours
(compare that to 24 hrs. & 19 hours for my first and second babies)!  B was also my first baby to come out without a compound presentation, so I guess that might explain something.
These last nine days have been a whirlwind.  B nursed almost 24/7 for the first two days.  Then, when my milk came in and suddenly swelled …

After a night of tossing and turning (aka trying to lift the weight of my huge pregnant belly from one side of the mattress to the other), I was hoping to get out of the house for an hour or two with the family.  There is some sort of environmental festival going on in our town this weekend, and I thought it would distract me from feeling so miserable that I’m still pregnant.   But then I headed over to the closet and proceeded to try on literally all of my …

On Monday, the whole family and I headed into the city so that I could meet with the backup OB for my midwife.  Partly, this was a visit so that I could be familiar with the OB just in case of a transfer.  But mostly, I was just documenting that I was having prenatal care in Costa Rica so that we will have an easier time getting a birth certificate after the birth.
Initially, I was a bit freaked out about seeing the OB at all.  For one thing, I often …