"Trust Me" - Annika Joy's Birth Story

On Monday, November 12th, I was very frustrated.  Isaac spent a lot of the day talking with our doctor’s nurse, trying it figure out what our Baby Plan was.  We knew we couldn't be induced Tuesday morning, but didn't know if we would go to the appointment Tuesday afternoon just to be induced Wednesday morning.  We also had the possible option of going to the appointment on Tuesday and being a 4 and telling the doctor to admit me as in labor and start pitocin.  I was getting stressed out.  Supper did not go over well.  After my Bible Study, we went to Isaac’s parents’ house to tell them our plans (which we still didn’t know.)  Isaac's mom was supposed to substitute teach on Tuesday so she needed to know if she should take off work.  I felt this overwhelming feeling of God saying to me, "Trust Me."  I finally told her that she should teach and we'd call her after school to let her know where the kids are and we went home.  I was too exhausted to do the laundry and shower, telling myself I could get it done tomorrow before noon when we would leave for my appointment (if we even went to it!).  At 4:35 am, I woke up feeling wet, needing to go to the bathroom, and having a mild contraction.  I went to the bathroom and changed.  I started to realize that my water broke and this was *it*!  I tried to wake up Isaac and when he finally woke up, I had to convince him that this was the real deal, too.  Realizing that I'm having consistent contractions every 3-5 minutes, I have him call his mom.  He gets in the shower, and I run around trying to figure out if we have everything we need.  MIL shows up just and I'm getting anxious to get on the road.  We pull out right at 5 am.  We go on the back roads to Kirksville since it is usually faster.  What we didn't account for was SLOW driving deer hunters.  We passed a couple vehicles like they were standing still.  Contractions were 2-6 minutes apart the entire time we drove.  In the Kirksville, I was still feeling anxious, knowing how far we still have to go.  Isaac went through a red light and passed a super slow vehicle in the center turning lane.  In Macon, we got behind another slow vehicle but don't pass it.  I'm feeling better knowing we are only a little over an hour away.  Contractions started to get harder as we got closer to Columbia.  I pressed my right foot on the front of the van floor where it goes up at a bump to get through contractions because they are getting worse.  My back was aching with them but there was no moving to get myself more comfortable.  We finally arrive at 7 am and go in to the hospital.  Mr. Grumpy (name changed to protect the guilty--not that I paid attention to see what his name was anyways, though!) greets us and asks how he can help.  I tell him "I'm going to have a baby!"  I can't remember what he said but he wasn't really impressed and said something about "if" they admit me.  I had already told him my water broke so he knew good and well there was no "if".  Registering with him took FOREVER.  I would stop talking during contractions and I'm pretty sure he thought I was faking it.  One contraction, I had my head down on my arms leaning on the counter and he told me I had to look up for my picture for my bracelet.  Could he not wait 30 seconds for it to pass?  We finished with that finally.  I declined his offer for a wheelchair and he told us to go up to the baby floor since no one was in the triage.  The nurses station was a lot more friendly and we were led to our first room.  At 7:40, I was 4 cm and -2 station.  I was not impressed that the last week, especially the last three hours of contractions, didn't get me more than half a centimeter!  We moved on to the labor and delivery room, stopping for contractions as we walked.  The nurse came in and introduced herself as Anneke (ann a ka)  I immediately thought, "If I changed the spelling to Annika and pronounced it ah ni ka it would be the cutest girls' name.  There was also a student nurse who, after the birth, told me it was the first one she got to attend, so that was really neat.  Somewhere around this time, we realized that there was meconium in my amniotic fluid--not a big deal, it just meant the pediatrician would be there at birth to make sure Baby was okay.  I spent the next hour or so mostly on a labor ball.  I made Isaac apply tons of pressure on my back during contractions while I bounced.  I was so exhausted, though.  I felt like I was going to fall asleep during contractions.  Of course, they were too intense at this point to be able to, but all I wanted right then was a good nap!  At some point in this hour, my doctor came in before her morning appointments and I met the on call doctor.  I asked if we could check my progress and decided in my head that if I was a 7, I would fight it out, but if I was any less, I was going to request an epidural.  At 9 am, I was only a 6.  Anesthesiology came in and we started to get ready.  I was on the bed on my knees and felt the urge to push.  I told Anneke and she checked and in twenty five minutes I'd made it to a 7.5!  Now I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow through with the epidural, so I asked them to wait for me to have one more contraction.  Yup, I was ready for it!  We got it going around 9:40 and it was instant relief.  I could barely feel anymore contractions without ever upping my dosage. (Quite contrasted to Jeriah's when I was pushing my "more" button every couple minutes!). I was finally able to relax a little bit for the first time since I woke up.  Of course, I wasn't facing extreme exhaustion anymore and was too keyed up to sleep! I even checked Facebook and replied to aunt asking if I would have the baby before thanksgiving.  We were planning on telling very few people about baby's arrival within the first 24 hours to limit visitors, so at 10:08 I simply told her "Yeah.  They won't let that long."   I guess I was a bit distracted to have left out the "me go"!  I also made my daily thankful post that I didn't get around to making the night before.  Isaac moved the van from the 15 minute parking space (oops!) and brought in the stuff we needed, including the camera.  (Note for next time, if I don't get an epidural, there will be no time for Isaac to leave to retrieve camera during labor, so just take it inside in the first place.)  I think I might have dozed for a little bit at this point.  When Anneke checked me the next time she came in, I was thrilled to hear that I was complete and it was time to push.  At 11:25, I was pushing.  My regular doctor had finished her morning patients and was able to be there alongside the on call doctor.  The epidural took away most of my urge to push so I had to be guided in that.  At one point, Dr. W told me one more push and Baby would be out.  Well, that was at the beginning of a contraction and my three pushes for that contraction didn't get Baby out.  I was not impressed!  But the next contraction finally did the job and at 11:44, we had a baby.  There were lots of bodies and hands so Isaac couldn't tell immediately but he finally told me "It's a girl!"  I remember saying "What?!?"  He later recounted the story as me screaming, but I think he might be exaggerating!  I was completely surprised though.  I was thrilled to have a girl.  They whisked her off to the little take-care-of-baby room to make sure she was okay with the meconium.  I delivered the placenta and got  stitched up.  They brought Baby Girl back and we got to nurse.  I also got orange juice and ordered lunch--nice timing!  In the next hour or so, I decided I was never having another baby.  I'd forgotten about the pain of post-delivery!  (Don't worry, I got over that idea before the end of the day so I guess the memory of the pain faded quickly enough!)  Recovery rooms were full, so we got to hang out in L&D.  It worked out well because Anneke was our nurse the whole time and we got moved over right at shift change.  Isaac and I spent the rest of the afternoon discussing girl names.  We were tossing around Annika and one other name.  I read through my list of middle names and we weren't in love with any of them.  Isaac decided that both of our first names needed a one syllable middle name.  And, to meet our name requirements, it had to be Biblical.  So I said something like "there are tons of one syllable Bible names, like love, joy, peace, hope, faith....."  And in the list I rattled off, Joy struck me as one not previously on my list.  (Peace wasn't either but it wouldn't ever be!). So, we tried out the name with both first names and she was suddenly Baby Girl Joy Houf.  We finally agreed to call her Annika the next afternoon.  (I'm pretty sure Isaac was threatened by his mom to make him choose the one I was leaning towards most at this point.). We had a really good experience this time.  Not that the other times were bad (minus the lactation nurse who was there for Kadin and Jeriah--lactation nurse this time was super nice and very helpful), but this time we were blessed with really super nurses and a great pediatrician.  He was so good with the older two, telling them what he was doing during his thorough exam and having Kadin try to sound out his name when he wrote it on the white board.  We got to leave as soon as the test results from the tests they do at the 24 hour mark were back.

Beef Freezer Meals

Meatloaf

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup breadcrumbs
salt & pepper
any other spices you want! (onion powder/flakes, parsley, garlic powder, etc.)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In one bowl, combine beef, egg, milk, and breadcrumbs.  Add salt, pepper, and spices.  Mix and mold into baking dish.  Bake 30-45 minutes.  Add meatloaf topping (below) and cook an additional 10 minutes.


You can just use whatever meatloaf recipe you would normally use, but this is the ratios I try to stick close to.  I get the breadcrumbs by leaving aging bread on the counter to completely dry out and then running it through the food processor.  If I were making meatloaf for the freezer, I would cover the meat in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil.  Our family of four can eat a 8x8 pan with about 3-4 cups of mixture (I never make it one pound of meat at a time, I just try to keep around 3-4 cups in each pan that I make.) with enough leftovers for one person's lunch.  


Meatloaf Topping

6 Tbsp. brown sugar

½ cup ketchup

½ tsp. nutmeg

2 tsp. dry mustard

Mix ingredients together.  Add to top of meatloaf about 10 minutes before it is finished cooking.

This is my favorite meatloaf topping.  The recipe is from Teresa Fleshman.  We always had this on top of the meatloaf we would eat at a youth group retreat in Colorado and I had to have the recipe so I could eat it more than once a year.  I cut the recipe in half when I make a 8x8 pan.  I'm guessing you'd need the whole recipe for a 9x13.  I have made extra batches of the topping in individual baggies to put in the freezer and it worked really well, but a lot of times I will just make it at some point while the meatloaf is cooking.  As with all freezer cooking, you'll have to watch the times depending on how long ago you got the meat out of the freezer.  

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Oven BBQ Beef

3 lbs. Round Steak

2 Tbsp. Oil

½ cup Chopped Onion

¾ cup Ketchup

¾ cup Water

½ cup Vinegar

1 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp. Mustard

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire

½ tsp. Salt

⅛ tsp. Pepper

Cut steak into 10 equal proportions.  Brown on both sides in oil, in skillet.  Transfer to a roasting pan.  Add onions to oil in skillet and brown slightly.  Add remaining ingredients to make BBQ sauce.  Simmer 5 minutes.  Pour over steaks.  Cover and bake for 2 hours at 350 degrees.

This recipe is from my aunt Debbie, who actually got it from my Grandma Carney, but I have never know her to make it--only Debbie. When I am making this for the freezer, approximately 3 pounds of meat will be enough to fill an 8x8 pan (which again is enough for our family of four--but only sometimes there are leftovers with this meal!).  I would suggest making one and a half or two whole recipes of the sauce mixture when dividing the recipe into two pans to make sure there is plenty of liquid.  I cover in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil to put in the freezer.  When getting ready to bake, take off the plastic wrap and put the foil back on!

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Salisbury Steak

1 (10.5 oz) can condensed golden mushroom soup, undiluted (I've always used regular mushroom)

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 large egg, beaten

1/2 cup chopped onion

salt & pepper

garlic salt or garlic powder

1/3 cup water

Combine 1/4 cup soup with ground beef, breadcrumbs, egg, onion, salt, pepper, and garlic powder; mix well.  Shape into 6 patties.  Place in a shallow baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Drain off fat.  Combine remaining soup and water; pour over patties.  Bake an additional 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

This is another recipe where you might already have a favorite way of doing it, but hadn't thought to make extra for the freezer.  I haven't made this for a really long time.  If you are using several pounds of meat to make extras, you can make the patties however big you want and put as many as you need in each pan.  I always had to use a 9x13 pan to make them fit.  I mentioned in my first freezer meal post that when I froze the mushroom soup with water, it got lumpy and pretty gross looking as it unthawed, but the taste and texture was perfectly fine when it cooked for the 10 minutes.  

Pork Freezer Meals

Honey Baked Pork Chops

6 boneless pork chops

½ cup honey
¼ cup cider vinegar
¼ t. ground ginger
1 clove minced garlic
2 Tbsp. soy sauce

Mix honey, vinegar, ginger, garlic and soy sauce. Place uncooked pork chops and honey mixture in a freezer bag and freeze.

Directions for Serving Day: Thaw completely. Place pork chops and honey mixture in a baking dish. Bake for 350 degrees for 1 hour or until pork chops are cooked. Turn pork chops occasionally while baking.

I can't remember where I got this recipe, but it is one we really like.  We usually serve it with white rice because it has got an Asian taste to it.

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Lasagna Ravioli

My aunt Melody gave me this "recipe" and it is my preferred way to eat lasagna.  I don't have an exact recipe for this one.  It would change depending on what size of pan you used anyways.  We make ours in a 8x8 pyrex.  It feeds four of us with usually enough leftovers for Isaac's lunch.  We use browned sausage because I was raised that sausage was the meat ingredient in lasagna and spaghetti.  We've made it with cooked chicken before and you could used browned ground beef if that is your preference.

Frozen cheese ravioli

Browned sausage

Spaghetti sauce

Shredded mozzarella cheese

I put a thin layer of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of my pan and then line it with frozen raviolis.  Put on as much meat as you think looks good.  Cover in spaghetti sauce.  I usually try to put a spoonful on each ravioli.  Repeat with ravioli, meat, and sauce and then cover in mozzarella cheese.  Cook at 350.  The time will vary depending on if you're cooking one you just assembled or how long it has been since you pulled it out of the freezer.  I usually cover it aluminum foil and start checking it after about 30 minutes.  Sometime in there I will take the foil off so it can brown up the cheese better.

Freezer Meals: My Introduction

I made a Facebook post last week about making four meatloaves and a cheesy hashbrown casserole to put in the freezer for later use.  I had a couple people ask me about what meals I made for the freezer, so I thought I would just put them on my blog so that I could share the recipes with them and anyone else who wondered but didn't ask and for myself to have a list of all the meals I've made all together in one place.  Freezer meals are something I really love but have gotten out of the habit of making lately.  I want to get back into the habit, especially before November when we will have our new addition here and spending a lot of time in the kitchen will be the last thing I want to (am able to?) do!

My first freezer meal trick is one we have been sticking with and it's just like second nature to us now.  We brown ground beef and sausage 5-10 lbs at a time in a large electric skillet, fill quart sized freezer bags, and put the meat into the freezer.  We don't do any seasoning to the meat, just cook it as is.  Ground beef is used for tacos, taco soup, chili, goulash, sloppy joes (We make ours with just meat and Cookie's BBQ sauce.  No Manwich in this house!), and any random recipe I find on the internet.  Browned sausage is used for spaghetti, biscuits and gravy, breakfast burritos, ravioli lasagna (more on it later!) and again random recipes found on the internet.  Along the same lines, we will cook a crockpot full of boneless skinless chicken breast in water and shred to put in the freezer for meals needing precooked chicken like chicken casserole, enchiladas, and chicken alfredo.  (You could also cook a whole chicken, but boneless skinless chicken breasts are so much easier!)  I'm not going to post my recipes for any of those meals (except ravioli lasagna) so if you want one of them, let me know.

My second freezer trick is buying glass baking dishes.  I found a website (Shop World Kitchen) when they were clearancing their purple pyrex 8x8 and 3-quart 9x13 dishes.  They have a buy 3, get 1 free deal, but I have no clue how that compares to a local brick & mortar store.  You can search garage sales or just slowly stock up on them.  I've never had one explode like you might have heard stories of, even with taking a pan straight from the freezer to the oven.  You could buy disposable aluminum pans, but over time, the glass ones will pay for themselves and it's more "green." Along the same lines, you probably need a deep freeze if you don't have one.  Ours was one of our first purchases after we bought our house.  I couldn't live without it and can't believe we did for the first year of our marriage in our small upstairs apartment.  You need freezer "ziploc" bags not just regular storage ones.  There is a difference and you will be able to tell after your regular storage bags rip out in the freezer.  We have always used ziploc brand because we were buying them in bulk at Sam's Club cheaper than off brand at other stores, so I can't tell you if I'd recommend other brands.  I haven't gone "green" in this area yet.

My third freezer trick is cooking extra when you are making your meals.  Some people do a month's worth of freezer cooking by taking an entire day and dedicating it to freezer meal preparation.  Not me.  Like I mentioned before.  I wanted to make meatloaf for supper.  We had just bought a bunch of ground beef.  I mixed up 8 lbs of ground beef with lots of eggs, breadcrumbs (made from bread that was going stale so we set it out on a plate and ran it through the food processor), and whatever spices I threw in... I wasn't using a recipe!  I divided it up between my pans.  I'm a bit OCD, so I had to measure it all out to put the same amount in each of the 8x8 pans (I think it was 4 cups) and then the rest went into a 9x13.  One bigger mess on one night gave us the four freezer meatloaves and supper for that night.  I did the same thing with the two hashbrown casseroles I made that night.  It's not much harder to make extra and the cleanup only has to happen once!  One word of advice, though.  If you are making a recipe for the first time, only make enough for one meal.  I once had to throw away a chicken pot pie after it sat in our freezer for a long time because the first one we made was completely disgusting and we couldn't bring ourselves around to eat it a second time.  Don't be afraid to look at the meals you are already making and love and ask yourself if any or part of it could be made ahead of time and frozen for later use and try freezing a meal's worth to see.  And then share your recipe with me!  Also, don't forget to freeze your cookie dough!  We almost always make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and freeze all of it in balls but the 10 or so cookies that we make at that time.  We mostly only freeze chocolate chip cookie dough and monster cookie dough so try out your favorite recipes!

I've heard that you shouldn't freeze dairy products like sour cream and cream of "whatever" soups, but I have never had a problem in the recipes that I've made.  I did have a salisbury steak recipe that I froze cream of mushroom soup and water in a ziploc baggie to add to the steaks after they cooked for awhile.  The soup came out of its freeze pretty lumpy but the taste and texture was completely fine when it was cooked for the 10 minutes the recipe required.

So, with all of this said, I'll start making posts with recipes that we freeze, as I find the time because this post got really long!

Hello. My name is Rhonda.
And I have an addiction.
I like to buy my children cutesy-matchy outfits for Easter and Christmas.
Like this:

And this:

In my defense, it is written into the budget and I bought it when the store had it on sale "up to 40% off" and I used a 20% off coupon. Plus, I got free shipping because I bought this adorable shirt for the little man who LOVES his ties because it was either buy something for $5 and get free shipping or pay $5 in shipping:


That is all.

One week overdue...

...Or at least I should have been because I like to bake my babies for as long as possible. And I don’t mind, either. I just love being pregnant and don’t feel a bit miserable being 41 weeks pregnant. Even in the August heat. Once they are born, you have to actually take care of the baby… feed him, change him, and wake up in the middle of the night. Not so much when you are pregnant (or at least, I don’t have to wake up in the night to go bathroom like so many other women complain about!) And I say him because I am convinced that our little one was a “him”. We do not find out the genders of our babies before they are born, but so far, I’ve been two for two in correctly predicting the gender. When I was pregnant with our angel baby, I had a couple people ask me my prediction and I didn’t know then. (I usually don’t know until about 7 or so months along.) But, I joked that it was probably because it was one of each! Little did I know that we would never know with 100% certainty. But, one day Isaac and I were talking about names and out of nowhere he suggested a name that I had been thinking about and was a top contender on my long list of boy baby names. Corban, a gift devoted to God. Taken from Mark 7:11. While Corban probably could be a gender neutral name, you’ll never convince me that he wasn’t a boy or a wonderful gift from God, taken back to Him way too soon.

Anyways, last Wednesday was the day that I was due with our baby that went to heaven way too soon. I had a pretty tough start to the week. Monday, I got a telephone call with a health survey. They asked me a ton of health questions and at the end asked if I was pregnant and some more questions along those lines. So, by the end of the conversation I was nearly crying and trying to get him off the phone as soon as possible. And then Tuesday, I was going through the tubs from the basement of clothes that the kids have outgrown and looking for summer clothes. I came across the very adorable owl onesie that my sister and brother in law bought for our baby and gave to us when I was 8.5 weeks pregnant, two weeks before my miscarriage. This one was doubly hard. When I told my sister about the pregnancy, it was by asking what their plans were for this coming Easter and telling her there would be someone new for them to meet. Renee and Nathan had decided the Easter before that they wanted to come up to our house for this year because Easter was more fun with little kids around. For those who don’t know, my brother in law, Nathan passed away at the way-too-young age of 25 this January, so next week we will be missing two people. He adored our kids so much and I’d like to believe that he is able to take care of little Corban up in heaven. By the way, I think Renee is holding up amazingly well for all she has been through the past year and a half with Nathan’s leukemia diagnosis, treatment, and passing and you should all follow her blog. (http://minusambition.blogspot.com) She writes much better and much more often than I. Anyways, on Wednesday Isaac, who is not typically a very sentimental kind of guy, had half a dozen red roses sent to the house. It was a very wonderful surprise which caused me to shed a few tears. That night when Kadin was getting ready to go to bed, she gave me a hug and said, “I’m sorry about your baby.” She has such a caring heart!

I didn't realize that my upcoming due date was going to cause so much heartache, maybe even more than I had at the time of the miscarriage. But, I'm doing well now. I'm so thankful for the two wonderful kids I do have. And maybe next time, I won't wait 5 months to make a new post!

Menu Plan Monday... again already?

I did a really good job sticking to my menu plan from last week. The only difference was that on Friday, we ate at Isaac's parents' house, so I pushed the Salsibury steaks back to Saturday since I'd already gotten them out of the freezer when we decided to go.

Monday: Meatloaf (Isaac made five meatloaves for our freezer yesterday!)
Tuesday: Velveeta Cheeseburger Mac by request from Kadin
Wednesday: Spaghetti (We'll try it again for this week.)
Thursday: Eating at the in-laws
Friday: Not sure yet what we'll be doing.
Saturday: Hosting my mom's family for Thanksgiving--turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, hot rolls with honey butter, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cranberry salad, pumpkin pie, pecan pie
Sunday: Leftovers!

And a random helpful household hint: If you are going to wash your curtains, be sure to make sure that they are not dry clean only FIRST. Otherwise, they will come out of the dryer completely wrinkled and about six inches shorter. (Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...well, maybe a little bit...)