OCM, Shampoo and most importantly, Baby Jace update

So I am on day 9 of my OCM routine, of 50/50 ratio castor oil and EVOO, and my skin is still looking amazing! I have to admit, I have had an extremely stressful few weeks here, I had 3 doctors appointments dealing with VERY serious issues, and my husband is applying for a part time youth ministry position at a friends church, and we happen to have a out of town guest magnet on us! We love having people, but this is the 3rd weekend in a row preparing for an out of town guest, and I love to be hospitable, but hate figuring out how to do it on a budget... so anyways, through all that stress I have got one zit, and it just popped up today. Now, this is actually a huge improvement for me, in a week I usually have little clusters of tiny pimples, and once a month I get a behemoth that hurts so bad I can't leave it alone. I have seemed to rid myself of the little pimples, but here's the monster... so I will have to keep updating on if the oil kills it or not.

I had a hard time going back to trying my baking soda shampoo. I came to the conclusion (after using my shampoo a couple more times) that I loved it, it smelled amazing, it felt great, it styled well, it was familiar, and maybe it was bad for me and my family, but it was a relationship that just beckoned me to lather. But, I stuck to my guns and tried adding more baking soda to my shampoo free shampoo, then more apple cider vinegar to my conditioner free conditioner. IT WORKED! My hair feels super clean! I think our water is hard, so from now on, I am going to keep up with 2 tbsp per cup of water. I am thinking I could even try doing the baking soda every other wash, and then working my way down from there, that way I won't get into such a huge love affair with my shampoo! :) My hair is really soft, and doesn't feel at all oily today. Wow, maybe this will work too!

Laundry soap...Check!
Liquid Hand soap...Check!
Toothpaste..... Check!
Face wash... check!

Shampoo.... in progress!

I would love to start my 1 year old on a shampoo free method, I just read that the baby shampoo we use has some pretty crazy known carcinogens in it. She has tons of curly hair, so we use a conditioning shampoo. My biggest concern is getting it in her eyes though... either baking soda or apple cider vinegar would sting really bad I think... and she always seems to get soap in her face... How can I get her on something more natural??? I am going to look around for a safer, more natural baby shampoo until she is older.


OK, so the most important update, on my baby Jace (in-utero). We were told 4 weeks ago that Jace has a heart issue called hypoplastic left heart syndrome.  With this, he would most likely make it to birth, but there would be an immediate need for open heart surgery as the entire left side of his heart would not work on its own and no blood would pump through the left side, and thus his entire body would be without blood. Only his lungs would get blood. This also meant that I would have a repeat c-section because the heart surgery would have to happen ASAP and we would have to have the peds cardiologist surgeon available to do the surgery. WELL... while Jace's heart is not good, it is in very bad condition, he does not have hypoplastic left heart syndrome, he has a hypoplastic left valve in his heart. Basically, his pulmonary artery and aorta are straight, and both receive blood from the right valve, and while the left valve is underdeveloped, one of the ways it is working is that it is not separated from the right valve, so both valves are working together, essentially, to pump blood to the body and the lungs. This is a crazy situation, and while it is not normal, they basically are going to just tighten his pulmonary artery so the majority of the blood goes to the body, and so his lungs aren't overwhelmed with too much blood flow, which would damage them. It will still take 3 surgeries to fix this, but they are not considered open heart, they just have to cinch the arteries. Still scary, still not so cool, but a quicker recovery is certain. He also doesn't need it as soon as he enters the world! so for me this was HUGE, because I don't want a repeat c-section, I want to go natural, and start breastfeeding him right away. Last week that was not a possibility, but this week they are encouraging it! WOW! I am still praying for a miracle, because lets face it, God makes a better heart than we can with surgery, so I am praying that God will completely heal my sweet boy's heart. I feel so much closer to him this week, since I heard his heartbeat three times and saw him on sonogram machines twice. He is precious, I hope we meet under PERFECT circumstances, at least health wise, I know for a fact the perfect scenario for birthing is not too likely! :-)

Praying for a Miracle. Please pray with me!

(Oh, I am also working on some knitting, because I just ordered some AWESOME wool yarn! you guessed it! Jace is going to have some sweet longies and soakers when he is born! I will try to post pics and tutorials... but I am so slow at knitting, so we will see how that goes!)