I have a secret.

I have a secret.  I guess it's not going to be a secret for long.  I'm 32 years old and I've finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up.  In the days after I had Zachariah, as I slowly came back to reality (man those drugs they give you after surgery are killer!) I realised that it wasn't supposed to be this way.  Why would God (or Mother Nature, if you prefer) make our bodies to create beautiful new life and not create a way for us to bring that life into the world?  The answer is that he didn't.  The original intent of a cesarean section was to separate a baby from a dead mother.  Sometimes that child survived, sometimes it was simply to satisfy religious edicts that a woman not be buried while she was pregnant.  Now don't misunderstand me, I KNOW that c-sections save lives.  One saved my sister's life, and her son's.  However, the national percentage for cesarean births reached a staggering 32% in 2007 (the most recent year that final data is available), which is more than double what the WHO recommends.  So I've decided to stop being pissed off about the medicalization of birth, and do something about it.  Namely, I wish to study to become a midwife.  This process is going to take me a few years.  Currently, I have a lovely son who despises bottles.

I'm not going to be able to leave him at a moment's notice.  My wonderful husband travels for a living, so I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle that with these lovelys.

But I do know that I have to try, because this was not how it was meant to be.

My first step is to be certified as a Trust Birth Facilitator.  I'm working on my training now, and hope to start running meetings by summer.  At least that way I can start to get the word out that birth is natural.  I think somewhere along the line, we've forgotten that.  If I'm stepping on any toes here, I apologise.  Please remember that I had three very medical births, so I'm preaching to myself here as much as anyone else.  I read a great article the other day about being an activist.  It basically said that people are passionate about things because they've been touched by that particular subject in a profound way.  And I have.  If you really want to know the ugly details, I could tell you about my first birth.  It would turn your stomach.  If I had known then that midwives still existed and practised, I may have come to this conclusion 13 years ago.  Regardless, I'm here now, and I'm telling you because I want to be held accountable.  I know that this is going to turn our lives upside down.  There are probably going to be days when I'm not so sure about this course of action, but I will not quit.  Because I'm sure that birth should be much more like this

and much less like this.

Zachariah's first vacation and a new (to us) car!

My super awesome brother-in-law...

Love this guy!!!  :)

 bought a new car, and offered us his old one.

So when Jonathan had a show in DC, Zachariah and I flew up to meet him.

As you can see, I had a frog pillow sticking through my backpack.  While I was walking through the airport with Zachariah a man came up behind me and said "Ma'am, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have a rather large frog on your back.  I don't think they're going to let you through customs with that!"  hehe!  We definitely attracted a lot of attention with Zachariah in my ring sling, and a bright green frog hanging off my back!
Zachariah did great on his first airplane ride.  I fed him just before we left Nana and Papa's house so that he would be hungry about the time we were boarding.  He nursed as we took off, slept, and woke up just in time to nurse while we were landing.  Perfect timing, as his ears never gave him any trouble! 

Grandpa Martin met Zachariah for the first time...

Awwwww

as did Christopher.

Have you ever seen so many pretty blue eyes in one place?

And I was a good girl and finally got some pictures of my son with Grandma Martin who came to visit us in December.

Zachariah was so sleepy!  He fell asleep shortly after this pic was taken.

We enjoyed a (far too) short visit.

The doggies weren't sure what to think of this little person.  Jazzy kept watch while Zachariah played on the floor.

We've spent lots of time around this table sipping coffee and playing board games.  Jonathan and I almost brought it home, but when gas prices went up, decided that it wouldn't be cost effective.  Funny how no matter how large a house is, family time always seems to occur around a kitchen table.

It snowed while we were there, and the only shoes I brought were flip flops.  I should really know better.  I've made the drive between Dallas and DC four times now, and three of those, it's snowed.  lol

Zachariah was packed into his new car seat with some new toys, courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Martin...

and we set out toward home in our new Escape!

The drive home from Northern Virgina is a loooong trip, but the scenery is absolutely amazing!  I took literally hundreds of pictures, and it was really difficult to narrow down the ones to show here.  I actually ran out of storage on blogger and had to purchase more before I could finish this post!  :)
On Monday, we conquered Virginia and made it into Knoxville, Tennessee. 

This handsome man drove almost the entire way.  <3

Bad picture, but the best I could get of the "Welcome to Tennessee" sign at night through the dirty windshield.

We stopped at a state park on our first day of travel just to take a break, as all three of us needed to get out and walk around a bit.

Z was so happy to be out of the car seat for a bit!

Tuesday it rained all day long.  We made it through Tennessee, and spent the night in Little Rock, Arkansas.  If you ever find yourself driving through Arkansas and think "Little Rock is the capitol of this state, surely there will be a decent Italian restaurant and a good place to stay" think again.  While the Holiday Inn Presidential was nice, food was a chore to find, and we finally gave up driving around in the rain, and ordered a pizza for a very late supper.  Little Rock is as its name suggests, little.

The mighty Mississippi River

My sweet boys in our hotel room in Little Rock.

Breakfast at the hotel seemed the easiest solution.  It was pretty tasty.

Zachariah let us know when he was hungry like clockwork every two hours...

and did a fair amount of sleeping, too.

We stopped in Hooks, Texas to get a Blizzard...

Stopping for Blizzards in Hooks is a Bradshaw family tradition.  We always stopped there when we visited family in Tennessee.  :)

and let Zachariah try out the Escape.

 I took the wheel for about the last hour and a half...

and Jonathan took a well deserved nap. 

 I love it when we cross Lake Ray Hubbard, because it means we're almost home.

My feelings are always conflicted when I travel.  I'm amazed at the beauty of other places, and how much of the country really is wide open space.  Part of me thinks I would love to live somewhere more remote, and the other part of me loves being in a city where everything you could possibly want or need is in an easily drivable distance.  For now, I'll stick with the great state of Texas!