And a very merry half birth day to you..

See that? yep that's me with my preggo clone army when I was about 8 months pregnant with "little" Ori. I was also still riding a bike 8 miles a day to work... anywho...
Six months ago today my not so little third child made his exit from me and entered this world. When I think about it now I envision a caricature of myself bent over with legs spread in my bathtub. My face is twisted into some exhausted grimace as I grasp the tub’s edge, white knuckled and holding on for dear life as my companion and my midwife stand on each side of me – with one hand on my son’s cartoon-ishly large head, and a foot on their (my) respective butt cheek for leverage as they try to pull him out. The baby, of course, has a huge grin on his face - (because as everyone knows children plot against us… and he finds the whole thing hilarious.) and my mother is standing by with the oxygen tank. The whole ordeal seems rather humorous now.
Though I suppose it wasn’t so dramatic…
no one planted their feet on anyone’s butt cheeks.
Sometime close to noon the day previous to Ori A.'s arrival I suddenly felt the need to move all the furniture in my house around. I deny that this urge was nesting. Characteristically, I am a messy person and I knew that this baby was going to be here (hopefully soon) and I was going to have a lot more to deal with and I wanted to start off ahead, and I also kind of hoped that all the activity would start labor. So I spent the whole day in a (seriously until 2 in the morning) furniture moving, grout scrubbing, organizing, laundry doing/folding, bathroom bleaching frenzy. Then with some cramping (that I probably had all day but Braxton Hicks contractions were c.ra.zy through the whole pregnancy so I did not pay much attention to it) I decided it was time to try and get some sleep. I took a shower and decided I should try to spend some time with My Love because I had a feeling baby would be there (here) soon. I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep, and getting up, walking around because whatever pains I was having were too much to sleep through, then the nausea hit. It was awful and with it came diarrhea. The nausea and a fever lasted into the afternoon when I finally vomited and felt a little better. *lol* The My Love came to tell me goodbye since he was about to ride his bike far far away to tutor his middle school children. I told him he could not leave me, after a discussion of whether it was time, whether he would be able to get back in time, and how I did not feel capable of taking care of the children he called and rescheduled. After awhile it became apparent that I was actually in labor - terrible labor where all the contractions felt like end stage contractions. I spent my time walking around, and alternating between the bath, the shower, the rocking chair, and oh yeah screaming there was lots of screaming. Worst labor. EVER. Seriously the contractions never intensified right from the beginning it felt like those right before you can push contractions, that is until those contractions when, you know, I was pretty sure I was going to die, and/or something was terribly wrong... but I didn't want to look like a sissy so when the urge came (and it came often) to scream out what the f*** is wrong with you people take me to the hospital and cut this thing out of me I told myself to suck it up or at least keep quiet, you know, besides all the screaming. I told My Love that I wanted my mommy so he called her and let her know it was time to come (she took an eternity BTW, love you mom). Then eventually he called the idiot midwife who shall remain nameless. Active labor was filled with lots of screaming, crying, and giving up... I would even try to stop breathing and just float in the bath. Anything I tried to do to cope with the pain only worked for a moment. It. sucked. At last I could feel the baby's head crowning. I Thanked God! quite loudly and announced the accomplishment. I thought I had finally come to my sweet relief, that wonderful pushing stage where all the pain seems to subside in natural childbirth... but not this time. Crap, it was strait crap. I pushed and pushed, Idiot Midwife was no help. After what seemed like an eternity my sons huge head was finally birthed, in the process My love had hoisted me out of the water so I was now standing up bent over the bath. I pushed and pushed but our sweet baby was very much stuck. I pushed they pulled, but it felt as though they were trying to push him back in, so I asked why the hell possibly f*** they were pushing on me - like I wasn't having a hard enough time holding my exhausted shaking body up. Eventually (and I mean a really long eventually) or baby was out (I scream OH Thank GOD!) and not screaming or breathing just making some very low rattling noise. I was dying to turn around and sit as opposed to being in that damned 'on all fours position' but Idiot Midwife felt the need to put baby on my back (like I'm a table or something). She sent my mom to get the oxygen tank and asked if it had a name, we asked what it was, A boy she exclaimed. We told her Ori and then for what (again) seemed like an eternity we all talked to the baby and slapped his back. "Come on baby" over and over again. Then he cried his loud foghorn cry that lasted for the first few months, pushing me past my sanity threshold... I think he misunderstood what we were going for. And we had our second son. Our 10 lb 23-24in (the Idiot Midwife didn't stretch out his leg when she measured)son Ori Azariah who's name in Hebrew means "My Light" "Is helped by god". He was a black and blue mess after all that being stuck and not breathing, I do have one terrible picture that was taken on the wrong settling just as my battery died:
I know terrible, right?
Eventually the bruising went down and he got a nice red colour to him, *lol* then he turned orange - but what can you do?
Here he is looking less like a boxer that lost the fight and died (thanks to the camera setting) and more like Mr. Magoo the next day.

And here he is looking less puffy (and rocking his baby legs) on day 4.

Now just for fun here are pictures of Rowan Elíse (sorry this picture was taken when 3 megapixel was alot and i had a 1.5 megapixel camera*lol*):

And Teijah Matthias

When they were around six months.



and if I find my camera I may add one of the little half birthday boy here. stupid missing camera.
These were his first socks (and Babylegs):

and this was supposed to be his first hat:

but it kept falling off so he wore the bigger pink version that I made, you know, just in case he was a girl.
and here's his bed that is about to get lowered, and switched to the hungry caterpillar sheets in preparation to move him into his brothers room.

Ah they grow up so fast and this little man is certainly no exception to the rule! He is my go, go, GO! baby and is in such a hurry that he is far ahead of where his brother and sister where at this point. *sighs* Now I'll spend the rest of the day reminding myself that I want to wait for the next one, and that I do NOT actually want to be the next Michelle Duggar. :)