The Comfort Zone - May 28, 1998

Hi OBGYN.netters,

Remember me, that woman who used to be around all last year who had a baby in October and has since practically dropped off the face of the planet??? Yes, it's me, Noelle Haland. I realized recently that I haven't talked with you guys or been to OBGYN.net in way too long. Please forgive me for being so M.I.A. these last months. I hope things are going well with you all? I've been to the site and things look really GREAT! So many new additions, it's wonderful! I especially love the Spanish/Portuguese sections! And I see that Mary Shoup is the chat coordinator there....that is really neat! We spoke the other day...it felt great to be in contact again after letting WAY too much time pass.

Things here have been for the most part very good. Max will be 7 months old tomorrow --- yikes! I can hardly believe it's been that long. The pregnancy lasted so LONG and now he's been here almost as long.,....hard to believe. We still have birth announcements and thank you notes waiting to be sent out, on our dining room table! He's doing really well....just this weekend he has started to crawl, and our lives will never be the same! We realize that the only room in our house that's baby-proofed is his "bedroom" which isn't really a bedroom but more of a storage room, since Max sleeps with us...haha....

I've been keeping busy.....we're very active with ECFE here (Early Childhood Family Ed) as well as our pregnancy after loss group which has a postpartum component as well. I've been doing more volunteering with them...mostly transcribing interviews they're using for a video about childbirth after a loss. Also, the biggest news from my front is that I'm training to be a childbirth educator -- YAY!! I originally decided I wanted to do *something* in this field before Ethan died, but it's taken me this long (and a healthy pregnancy and birth in between) to come back to that original point. now I'm working on the readings and modules for certification through ICEA (Intl Childbirth Ed Assoc). The other big "decision" for me is that I want to become a certified nurse midwife.....but since I have no nursing background and the RN will take me awhile to get (not to mention the master's), that's still a ways in the future. I figure childbirth education meshes nicely with that ultimate goal, so I'm pretty excited. now, if I could just get a BIT more studying time in,....hehehe....

Well, Max is waking from his nap -- Time to get back to work!

I hope you are all doing well......

Noelle

ps...here's a pic of Max from a couple of months ago.....already he looks so different! His hair is filling in again :-)