There’s a new kid on the block! B’s goat Hazel had a male kid on Saturday late in the afternoon. We just missed the birth as he was pretty slimy and slick when we found them. B named him Lokie. He got into trouble within the first hour after birth by getting stuck in between the pallets of the stall. We completely forgot about “kid” proofing since we are slightly out of practice. He’s cute even if he is troublesome!
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing and participating in The Waiting review. We are being compensated by Tyndale Publishing and The Motherhood. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review and compensation, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.
All I wanted to do this past Mother’s Day was relax and read The Waiting by Cathy LaGrow. My husband let me sleep in and when I woke up I read my book. What I didn’t expect to give myself was a huge headache, a pile of tissues, and red, puffy eyes!
Lighting in our bathroom is awful! Should have taken it somewhere else!
I don’t think I have ever cried as much while reading a book as I did during The Waiting. That’s why I took pictures of my pile of tissues and red, puffy eyes.
On to the review….
The Waiting is a true story of a woman’s wait to see her first born daughter again after giving her up for adoption.
I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down until I was done. I shooed my children away , mostly because I didn’t want them sitting there on the bed with me watching and staring at me while I cried buckets of tears!
As emotional as the book made me, I cannot imagine living it as Minka did. I cannot imagine giving up my child and waiting 77 years to see her again.
There are so many facets of the story that show God’s faithfulness to a young mother and her years of praying and waiting. The fact that all the letters Minka wrote to the director of the “home” (like a pregnancy crisis center where young girls were sent to hide their pregnancy) were put into Betty Jane/Ruth’s adoption file, which would eventually be proof to Betty Jane/Ruth that her birth mother loved her fiercely for 77 years and never, ever forgot about her.
I loved the reunion and family bond Minka and Ruth’s families experienced upon meeting. I loved the honor and love bestowed upon Minka and how active and involved she continues to be even at age 102 (or possibly 103 at the time of this review). There’s so much more I could say but I think you should just read the book…how often do I say that!?
I highly recommend this very inspirational book. You won’t regret it. My daughter B read it the same day I did!
The NBC TODAY Show interviewed the author of The Waiting, Cathy LaGrow, who is Minka’s granddaughter. The interview aired on Friday, May 9, click the NBC link to watch it.
Enter to win one of five copies of The Waiting below!
As I mentioned last week in our MommysClub giveaway post, we have been reviewing the MommysClub All In Bundle.
None of the products smell chemically. They barely have any scent. I love that they are organic and or all natural, toxic-free and hypoallergenic.
Total Body Health with Multivitamin – To be honest this is weird tasting but I’m not one to shy away from weird tasting health products. Now bad tasting products, I usually won’t buy again. Weird I can get use to. I think only my oldest and I have been taking it.
Total Body Health for Children with Multivitamin – Only our youngest son likes to drink this. The rest not so much. I’d describe it as liquifying crushed up multivitamins. This would be great for those who cannot swallow pill form vitamins.
Children’s Multivitamin – All the children loved these chewable multivitamins!
Pre-Natal Plus – This is the same as the other liquid vitamins above but for expectant or nursing mamas. I did taste it. The flavor kind of reminded me of another health drink we’ve taken.
Daily Cleansing Foam – I’ve barely used this but it is a no-rinse hand washing solution that hypoallergenic with moisturizer for post-diaper clean up, cuts and burns. This would be nice to keep in the car.
Baby Shampoo – I haven’t even had a chance to fully review this product. I kind of forgot about it amidst all the other products. It smells great though!
Rash & Remedy Skin Relief – Haven’t had any use for this yet. Though Jr. does seem to have some spots I could try it on now that I think about it. It is for rashes and common skin problems.
Perfect Touch Sanitizer – Since we’ve been sick, I’ve been using this sanitizer on taps, door knobs etc. Yep, sick for the first time in two years and we’ve been double slammed in the last month. 
I cannot honestly say how any of these products work long term because we have only been using them a short time. I can just give you our general thoughts about our initial usage.
MommysClub is a network marketing company so becoming a member may enable you to earn an income from sharing their products with others. As a part of the giveaway and upcoming review, I became a member so this post includes my unique link.
You can learn more about MommysClub via their social media pages:
https://www.facebook.com/themommysclub
https://twitter.com/themommysclub
http://www.pinterest.com/themommysclub/
https://vimeo.com/user21859339
“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Dad Central Consulting for CBR (Cord Blood Registry).”
Guest Dad Blogger: Scott
Did you know that Cord Blood Stem Cells have been used for treatment for more than 80 conditions? I never knew this.
Here’s another interesting fact:
“Newborn stem cells can trigger natural repair processes in the body by reducing inflammation and increasing blood flow to injured or diseased areas. They can also stimulate the growth of new blood vessels and other tissues.”
It just goes to show you how important it is to choose a Cord Blood Registry. More treatments are being evaluated by FDA-regulated clinical trials to help with common health issues including autism. Yet, 90% of blood cord is discarded and goes to medical waste.
With the capacity to create diverse cells for our own immune system, tissue, blood and organs; stem cells are often called the body’s “master cells”. If your family decides to make the decision to bank your child’s cord blood, you need to do this before the due date. Obtaining the blood cord cells is very simple and painless. After the umbilical cord is clamped and cut, the blood cells are then transferred to a “collection bag”. You have options with banking cord blood cells, you can private bank or donate to a public bank.
During February CBR is having a promotion of $200.00 off of banking services. Log onto cordbankingbasics.com for more information.
My-Baby-Book app is a cute little app to record all the necessary information from your pregnancy test, pregnancy through to your baby’s first 18 months of life. I think it would be a great tool since so often I would write down milestones on sticky notes to add to our baby book….once I got around to it. Then I would end up losing them or misplacing them. Whereas with the app I always have my phone on me and it would be easy to grab it and make the necessary notes in the My-Baby-Book app for milestones baby reached as they happened. Very handy and convenient. Busy moms, techie moms and moms trying to go digital will appreciate what this app has to offer by way of storing important dates, times, milestones etc.
The home page needs to be swiped to start the app and takes you to the cover of the My-Baby-Book app, which allows you to edit and personalize it with your baby’s name:
The next page is the table of contents. The main menu is a bear with building blocks…cutest menu I’ve seen yet! The main menu is located in the top left corner when not in use.
Here’s what Kim, mom of two, had to say about My-Baby-Book app:
What a useful app! I love that you can store all of your baby’s growth information on your phone or tablet so when you’re at the doctor it’s on hand and easy to update. My favorite is the baby’s firsts section. I’m always writing down on post-it’s when my daughter does something for the first time. The post-it notes have been piling up since I haven’t had time to dig out her baby book to write them in. Great features and super user friendly!
More of the Table of Contents:
There’s even a page for details about Mommy and Daddy:
A page for pregnancy notes:
Growth charts:
There are even pages for baby’s firsts and birthday details:
Overall, we think this app is very useful!! It can be found on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id780610409
Yesterday Dr. M, one of our vets, was out to check Miss Moo to see if she is with calf……she WAS indeed pregnant but she miscarried.
Warning contains some graphic cow anatomy details! Not so wordless this week, but that’s not really new.
A week ago Friday or Saturday evening a couple of the children came in from the barn saying Miss Moo had a bubble in her butt. By the time I got down to the barn the bubble had popped and she had a clear, mucous like discharge, not bloody, but indicative she could have miscarried. Believe me I googled every known term for “cow miscarriage”, except spontaneous abortion since I hate that term, to learn what I could about miscarriages in cows. Then I prepared B, just in case, because I didn’t want her to be shocked if the vet did announce Miss Moo had miscarried.
Yesterday when Dr. M checked Miss, she only had two thirds the fluid she should have and Dr. M could not feel the calf. We were half expecting it, but it’s still disappointing. Miss Moo should absorb (such an awful way to describe it) the calf in the next 10-14 days and go back into her heat cycle at which time we will try to AI (artificially inseminate her) again. The vet suggested we switch bull semen and instead of trying for a pure bred Guernsey to try for a cross breed. There may be some incompatibilities, though she has been bred to “Grumpy” before. So we are going to try our friend’s Dutch Belted (otherwise known as Oreo cookie cows black with a big white strip in the middle of their bellies) and see if the third time works. It will be interesting to see what the calf looks like, that’s for sure!
These are my friend’s Dutch Belted cows, she sold the heifer, the one in the background, if I remember correctly.
Here’s what my friend said about the Dutch Belted bull semen (like you all want bull semen education, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to, blog if I want to! 
Extreme tiredness = silliness):
Your straw (or more, if it takes more than one try) will be from “Snappy”. Supposedly, Snappy sires “easy-calving”, vigorous calves, so we’ve used his stuff on two heifers now. Funny, the heifer that just went to C’s friend in North Carolina is carrying a Snappy calf, half-sibling to your eventual calf.
Dr. M and I thought it would be a good fit, because both of our heifers “took” on the first try with Snappy, and both kept their calves past the time when they could have lost an early pregnancy.
Good luck!
Miss Moo is finally up to her normal body condition after coming to us last April extremely underweight so the vet was impressed again by her weight gain. At his last visit he said she needed another 100-200 lbs, so that she looked good to the vet was good news. We knew she was doing well because none of her ribs are showing anymore, it’s just that confirmation is extra nice, you know? Hopefully her improved body condition will help her conceive this next time. We will be upping her minerals too. He said she isn’t a “fertile Myrtle”. Even if she isn’t we would never get rid of her. She’s a pet, as well as a food source. Besides now that her weight is up she won’t be anything to feed once she’s on pasture and we grow our own hay for winter so it’s not like we have to pay out a bunch of money for hay. I am going to hope and pray this next AI sticks.
Now, here’s to hoping for a fall calf!
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.
The Long Awakening by Lindsey O’Connor is a memoir dedicated to Lindsey’s youngest daughter, Caroline Aileen. This book is a story of Lindsey’s 47-day coma just after giving birth to Caroline, her journey of her recovery, and that of her family’s.
I have 2-3 pages of little bits from the book that touched my heart. After three pages I stopped because I would have an incredibly long review if I wrote about all of my notes. For the sake of this review, I will just touch on a few more important ones.
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed The Long Awakening and found myself reading faster to see what how Lindsey’s story ended.
First, I am always impressed when a family rallies around one another and does what needs to be done through difficult circumstances, such as the O’Connor’s 47+ day tragedy. For example, Lindsey’s oldest daughter postponed college in order to stay at home to take care of her baby sister. This is something no parent wants to force on their oldest child, but the fact that Jacquelyn decided on her own her baby sister needed to be in their family home and not “farmed” out to another home to be cared for showed her love, devotion and sacrifice to do what was in the best interest of not only Caroline, but the whole family.
Jacquelyn’s intuition about her sister Allison was amazing too. I loved reading about how she got her little sister to open up and showed her it was ok to cry, to grieve over what had happened to their mom. The O’Connor’s must have been so proud of her.
Secondly, Lindsey’s family had so much support, love and help that it was a sweet testimony to one nurse in particular, who said, “she’d never seen people come around a family like that.” They had a church that put love into action – for the long haul.
I’ve been taken to emergency surgery during a couple of my miscarriages, but I never uttered the words Lindsey did when she was being wheeled away:
“Please take care of me. I have five children now.”
Weird, but I felt guilty. Granted her situation was completely different but still. It’s amazing what another woman’s story can illicit from my own soul.
I could not have been as calm as Lindsey was when she found out she had an emergency hysterectomy. Listen to what her response was:
“Why does this matter? Uterus in, uterus out. A little rain. Get out the umbrella. I had no use for that body part anymore.”
Not having been in her situation, I can only imagine how I would have responded. I guess this was the least of her concerns at the time. More important matters had her attention, such as, communicating, moving, holding and bonding with her baby, getting her life back.
I could go on for another 500 words, but the last thing I wanted to share had a profound affect on me was when Lindsey spent two hours tapping a spoon against her bedside table only to be ignored. The reason they found out later was because this was a physical quality brain damaged people exhibited. Lindsey’s words were:
“I lay brain damaged and didn’t warrant a response.”
That made me so very sad. The hospital staff heard her but ignored her. Thank God she had her husband advocating for her!
I highly recommend this book. It will make you cry, but Lindsey’s story is a must read. Talk about triumphing over huge hurdles!
“Available October 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”
A couple months ago I applied to be a part of a new beta moms forum called Moms.com. I thought it would be fun to be part of a new website for moms as well as earn a little extra money on the side. It has been a lot of fun getting to know the “beta” mom group as we have created content for the site, which is full of topics from trying to conceive to pregnancy, babyhood, toddler, preschooler, big kid to just for mom stuff. In just over a month of working together, I believe we have laughed, empathized and cried together/for one another through sharing our lives and experiences as mothers – from the first day of school memories to reminiscing about our children’s births and so much more. Unlike other mom type sites, Moms.com encourages moms to be themselves and enjoy the daily sharing of our lives without harsh words and criticism for individual parenting choices. All of the mom members so far come from a diverse background and are a variety of ages, yet we have come together to unite as we share our thoughts and experiences about motherhood, as well as encourage each other in the journey of being a mom.
The Site
The site does require you to join if you want to participate in the conversations. Otherwise the site is very much public, not private. Though I just learned they are working on privacy controls, to be released soon, so this is about to change. When you join you will receive an email confirmation with your login information.
The Moms.com site has different sections such as Mom Moments where we can share photos or animated images in a card form with a few words as a description or caption. This section can be used to share photos of family, write an encouraging or humorous note.
The Best of Mom section is a catalog of topics where there are questions broken down and sub-categorized according to the different stages of Motherhood.
The Find Moms search button on the site allows you to follow other moms, look for moms in your geographical location or for moms with children the same age as yours.
Join Now!
Moms.com went live to the public this week and is open to new members. You can join now!
Follow Moms.com on:
Hope to see some of you there!
Nope, it isn’t me that’s having a baby. It’s little Miss Moo! Well, hopefully. We had the vet (Dr. M) out on Saturday for a meet and greet. Kind of ridiculous but we have three vets, one for the horse, one for the cow and one for the cow and dog. Anyways, we’ll figure that all out later and hopefully narrow it down to one eventually! I wanted this vet to look at Miss Moo because we’ve been having a hard time putting weight on her. She came to us thin and while she’s gained some, she still isn’t where she should be and we’ve had a friend telling us she’s too thin and of course people driving by call Animal Control. So now I can say we’ve had her looked at by two vets who say while she’s a bit thin, she’s fine or she’s healthy and happy. Whew! That’s a load off my plate. Not only do I have children to worry about but now I have our animals! Oy, oy, oy!
A May Baby
This week the calendar indicated Miss Moo’s heat was due. We were kind of disappointed to find out that it takes a week to get bull semen straws for AI (artificial insemination). Then as “fate” would have it I get into a conversation on Facebook with Miss Moo’s second owner, who shared that she still had a straw left in Dr. M’s tank (they freeze bull semen and keep it in a freezer tank that he carries around) from the last time Miss Moo was bred and would I like to buy it!? I said sure, of course.
So when our daughter “B” told me yesterday that Miss Moo was showing signs of her heat cycle I put in a call to Dr. M. He came out yesterday afternoon checked her and confirmed she was in heat, he AI’d her with “Grumpy” a Guernsey bull that two of our cow friends have recommended.
If the AI “sticks” we will have a May baby calf! We are kind of hoping for a heifer calf (female) as Dr. M suggested thinking about replacing Miss Moo since it takes a couple of years. Miss Moo is such a sweet cow we’d love to have one of her heifers so that’s what we are praying for! We want to try raising beef sometime in the future too but have to finish our fencing, which is a whole ‘nother blog topic or two!
For now, I told my husband if I’m not having any more babies I’m going to be excited and plan for farm babies! 
He just kind of looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head. Nah, just kidding! He likes Miss Moo too.
Please note: I’ve never done this before. A graphic image is contained in this post. My purpose is not to gross anyone out by sharing my pregnancy loss, but to prove to Right to Choose proponents that life does begin in the womb and that a baby is not just a piece of tissue, but a human being fully formed. This is also my personal experience and should not be taken as medical advice.
Just when I should have been able to get a little comfortable in my pregnancy at a day short of being 14 weeks, the unbelievable happened to me two weeks ago Thursday morning. I woke up around 2-2:30am as I have been doing for the past 6-7 months to do the paper route and discovered a pink show upon using the bathroom. Inside I was freaking out. I told my husband, who is very groggy at that hour, and woke up one of my girls so I could just drive and she’d throw and deliver to customers requiring porch deliveries. We bagged in the car to save time and to keep me from having to stand on the concrete warehouse floor for 30-40 minutes.
I tried to remain hopeful during the day but the fact of the matter is…I do not bleed during my normal full-term pregnancies. Ever. Any bloody show has always meant a miscarriage for me. I rested as much as possible that day. My husband went to work as normal, though I feared what would happen if I lost the baby while he was gone. I have lost the past two babies at home, thankfully with him at home both times. I have refused to go to the hospital in spite of passing out several times. Scary? Yes. But for me the decision was easy – be cared for by my loving husband in the comfort of my own home, in my own germ environment or go to the hospital to be cared for by strangers who usually only care about the almighty dollar. I’ve only had a handful of hospital staff seem truly interested and invested in my personal well-being. Oh, don’t even get me started on hospitals either. I hate them. As long as it is in my power to do so, I will continue to refuse to go to a hospital unless absolutely necessary. And yes, I have hospital experience 5 live births and 3 miscarriages all occurred at the same hospital. So maybe it’s just THAT hospital I hate.
Thankfully, the loss occurred after my husband got home. I started experiencing more painful cramping (contractions) about a half hour to an hour after Robert arrived home. With the cramping came the heavy bleeding. The heavy bleeding lasted for a few hours. Yes, I passed our about four times scaring my husband and oldest daughter. I hit my head once because my husband was unable to react fast enough to prevent it. I also bruised my arm somehow, we aren’t sure how. I believe the fainting occurred due to the pain I was experiencing, the amount of blood I witnessed and lost. In two of my previous pregnancy losses, I have gone to the hospital only to be told by the doctors that I was almost done bleeding. Based on that knowledge, I begged my husband not to call, unless absolutely necessary. As long as I had consciousness, I begged him to wait. When I was finally resting in my bed, I made my daughter write out a letter to the medics and hospital staff explaining it had been my choice alone to remain at home during my miscarriage. I listed my history of miscarriages, my births, and any other minute detail I thought my husband would not remember or know to answer, should he have had to call 911. I did not want him being blamed should the worst happen. I’ve read too many negative news stories not to take this precaution.
The worst didn’t happen and while I was weak the first week, I have experienced a lot of improvement this past week. I am in much better spirits from having been cared for by my husband in my own home. We’ve been through so much together and he loves and respects me enough to abide by my wishes. I didn’t need medical attention. I needed time to let my body do its work. That doesn’t mean we did nothing and were ignorant. We called my midwife, we used our essential oils for hemorrhaging to stop bleeding, my husband pushed the Gatorade and water to replenish my lost fluids, I’ve been taking my prenatal vitamins, eating red meat and molasses to get my iron back up and I’ve been resting. I know my body and I listen to its signals.
My husband was scared, but we made it through because…again, I know my body and my history. I should after 14 pregnancies – 6 losses to 8 live births. I don’t really like those odds as my losses are creeping up on my live births, but I am against invasive birth control. I let nature take its course and trust God to do His will. My husband and I would prefer not to have anymore losses and we aren’t even sure about any more children, but we won’t do anything drastic to our bodies or take harmful chemicals to alter what God deems natural for a woman’s body. That’s just us though.
Michael, was born around 4-4:30pm on Thursday, June 13, 2013. Fully formed. Perfect for being so early. We are grieving. I feel sad some days. But I’ve managed to have a friend over to make goat milk soap with one of my daughters, picked up herbs and veggie plants from another friend’s farm…so life goes on. However, I am still getting use to the fact that I am no longer pregnant. I just took down my little pregnancy ticker that was on my blog side bar. It was hard to do because it meant acknowledging again that I am no longer pregnant. Photos of infants make me cry because I know I will never hold Michael in that way. In some strange way, and I am ashamed to admit it, I am even relieved. I don’t understand God’s plan in this pregnancy loss, but I do know we have a lot on our plate already and now I don’t have to worry about how a baby will fit in to all that is going on in our family and business(es). I no longer have to worry about working in the hot sun in our garden beds because I’m pregnant. I no longer have to worry about working hard physically to provide quality products to our farm customers. Yet, a part of me is missing and I will always hide in my heart that I am a mom to 14 – 6 of whom are angels – Hope, Matthew, Faith, Grace, Charity and Michael. Not angels in the true sense of the word but heavenly sent, waiting for that day when I will meet them, hopefully, face to face. Though the thought is hard to even comprehend.
P.S. We put him on plastic wrap since he’d stick to tissue paper. See his ribs, his spine, his ear buds, eyes, nose….he’s curled up in fetal position with his legs tucked up and under, but we do have photos to prove he’s a boy. Just did not think them appropriate to post.
