I have split the birth story into two versions: the short PG-rated version, and the longer uncensored version:

Short Version: tells you everything you need to know about how labor progressed, and how our baby was brought into this world. To read, just keep reading this post.

Uncensored: tells the ENTIRE story from beginning to end. It describes every feeling, every thought, and it gets explicit on body experience (such as going to the bathroom, feelings of labor, and goings on during and AFTER delivery). To read, which you could only possibly be interested in if you are a future mother yourself, or if you are just a pathologically curious individual, you can go to the The Birth Story (Uncensored) post and type in this password: veryexplicit (Enter at your own risk!)

— The Birth Story begins here —

THE BIRTH TEAM

• Midwives: Birth Matters Midwifery Care
  • Jessica Petrone, (508) 254-4424, jessica@homebirthmatters.com
  • Sarafina Kennedy, (904) 234-1196, sarafina@homebirthmatters.com
    Read my review on Yelp!
• Doula: Motherbaby Doula Services
  • Kathryn Orr, (513) 673-1664, kathryn@motherbabydoulaservices.com
    Read my review on Yelp!

It took 4 days of labor, but only one hour of pushing to welcome little Greg into the world.

Day 1 (Wednesday): I started feeling the contractions on my lower back when I woke up to get ready for work at 5:30am, so my midwife suggested I waited a few hours to see if they went away. I decided to work from home that day. The contractions continued throughout the day, but only became regular that evening. At midnight, I asked my husband to put together the birthing tub, and I called my doula over to keep me company. I refrained from calling my midwives until I knew labor was imminent.

That night I slept propped up on the couch, since the contractions were very uncomfortable to go through in a lying down position.

Day 2 (Thursday): I woke up with every contraction throughout the night to track them (using a Blackberry app called BirthBaby). The contractions remained at 10min apart all night long. Nothing seemed to be going anywhere fast, so at 7am I sent my doula home and took my mother out to breakfast (Baby Apple at Bickford’s — yum!). At that point I really couldn’t pretend I wasn’t in labor, so I called the whole team over (1 doula, 2 midwives) and we spent the whole day in and out of the tub, having lunch and dinner, watching a movie, and taking walks. By midnight my contractions had gone from 5 min apart all day to 10-15 min apart. Everyone went home, except for one midwife who stayed behind to make sure the baby’s HR stayed up throughout the night. She allowed me to take a Benadryl to get some rest, and it worked wonderfully. I still woke up with several contractions, but I was able to rest until 8am.

Day 3 (Friday): My midwife left at 8am. I woke up cautiously, had breakfast, went back to sleep for a couple of hours, had lunch, visited my neighbor, and tried my best to get distracted. The contractions were about 10min apart but they had gotten debilitating and intense. By the early evening I didn’t want to eat, and I lived in fear that another would strike any second, because these contractions did not seem to care for ‘timing’: they were guaranteed every time I changed positions in any way! I couldn’t even speak or look straight during these. I looked like I was in a trance. I just tried my best to relax my whole body, close my eyes and wait for them to pass after 30 seconds or so.

That night I slept in my bed, but propped up in a sitting position. I thought maybe I would get lucky and get another good night sleep. No such luck.

Day 4 (Saturday): At 3am I had to wake Brian up to help me track the contractions (they were back to being 5-6min apart) and to help me try different positions for relief. None were working. We called the team over at 6:30am and they were there at 8am. I spent the morning feeling these intense surges, and the only relief I could get was when my doula or my husband would apply counter-pressure around my hips or on top of my lower back.

I got in the birthing tub at 12:30pm and my body would no longer let me relax my muscles during contractions. Every contraction I got would make my body PUSH. I was trying to help it! I was trying to relax my muscles, but it was a completely involuntary reflex. At 1:33pm, announcing to everyone that “something was going to come out” the head popped right out! The only person to see it was my husband Brian, whose hands I had been holding onto the entire time.

Everyone rushed over to our side and took the baby out. He was born in the amniotic sac. I never ruptured membranes! I was so proud of this little guy.

The cord was also tied around his neck, so my midwife had to cut him out of the sac and unwrap the neck before giving him to me. And that is when this picture was taken:

Baby Greg came out by complete surprise just 1 hour after I had started pushing. My mother didn’t even know I was pushing at all. She thought that the noises I was making meant that the contractions had FINALLY gotten to me (ahem, 4 days later) 🙂 She was one of those people extremely concerned that I wouldn’t be able to handle the labor without anesthesia, so she had been waiting for me to scream and freak out at any moment.

And so our little bundle of joy was born 🙂 10 fingers, 10 toes, perfection all around 🙂

ina

Jump to week: 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38

Week 28

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!! WE ARE HAVING A HOME BIRTH!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! BUT… I can’t call anybody! I can’t tell anyone without getting into a “you’re crazy”/”no I’m not” argument! I’d like to enjoy our decision for a little while… so I’m just going to keep this to myself for as long as I can without BURSTING! Here’s what happened:

Based on the unpleasant meeting with Midwife C, but before we got their letter kicking us out, we decided we needed a pick-me-up. So we called up Sarafina Kennedy (our birthing class co-teacher) fully intending on getting a pep talk about hospitals, because Sarafina has worked in that setting before dedicating full time to home birth midwifery and has had some good experiences with Newton-Wellesley midwives. But before we could talk, we got that unfortunate letter dumping us from the WHA practice, and NWH was no longer in the picture… but we still wanted to meet with Sarafina.

We told her our whole story, and she was APPALLED at the letter (GOOD, outrage is exactly what people should feel about this). We asked her about the Cambridge Birthing Center (back to square one), and she said that her own experiences and that of her peers has not been the best there. Mostly because the Birthing Center is very quick to transfer people to the hospital if they fall into their “risk” categories, because their rules are still dictated by the hospital. Some situations where they might transfer you to the hospital but you would be fine with professional help at home would be situations like: there’s traces of meconium in the amniotic fluid (that’s not ALWAYS a guaranteed intervention), or if the baby is in the wrong position, or if the baby’s heart beat slows down, etc. We knew this, but we were crossing our fingers that everything would be ok.

Seeing as I wasn’t feeling much better about institutions, I asked her straight on: tell me that it’s possible to have good experiences at hospitals. She said that absolutely you can, and mentioned some situations in her experience that were handled very well at hospitals. However, it does mean working a little harder to get everybody on the same page. I still wasn’t feeling it.

Then I asked her everything I needed to know about a home birth: cost, situations when it would require a transfer to the hospital, situations that have prompted her to call 911 in the past, situations when being away from the hospital would be life or death situation for me or the baby (which are a couple of situations in which minutes would matter and happen once in a blue moon), etc. She answered every question openly and completely truthfully. Brian and I looked at each other, and we both agreed that there is a higher chance that things won’t work out at a hospital (c-section, bad experience overall) than of having a lightning-strike probability of bleeding out at home. We simply couldn’t excuse planning to avoid a lightning strike by aiming for a car wreck. We agreed home birth was looking better.

Sarafina said that our inquisitive nature and our wish for taking control and assuming accountability for our decisions made us perfect candidates for home birth. Home births are not for everybody. They are not for people who would rather leave all decisions to professionals. It’s more for people who want the responsibility for the entire experience, and it looked like to her that we were.

I won’t lie: I wanted this so bad. After spending the past 6 months hearing every story about home birth, every story about hospitals, watching every video and reading every website, there was no doubt in my mind that a home birth was the right one for me. So I looked at Brian, and asked him to ask any questions he needed to ask about home birthing, ’cause I most likely was going to try to get him to agree to one 😉 He said he had had all his questions answered (including price, Sarafina’s availability for September, risk factors at home, etc). By the end, we both just knew. We wanted this. As soon as Sarafina left, Brian asked me “so are YOU going to tell my mother?” I was SO happy! We did sit down to say things that we couldn’t share in front of Sarafina, like what he was so worried about. He said he wasn’t worried about the birth, he was actually kind of giddy. He even likened it to asking me to marry him: it was a “giddy” kind of nervous. I knew this was a great sign 🙂 I was jumping up and down, I was BEAMING… I couldn’t believe it! All my anxieties can be kissed BYE BYE. I was going to have exactly the birth I wanted, exactly where I wanted it, with a team of people who actually care about ME, our plan, our wishes, and who prefer to get questions and to spend the time discussing anything we want. THIS is the path for informed individuals. I’m still so surprised more people don’t go for it…

Anyways, we still had the daunting task of telling our families… we knew they wouldn’t like it ONE bit.

First, I told my mother over the phone. I was scared out of my mind, so I had to get it out of the way ASAP. I explained everything from Sarafina’s visit through my train of thought, and tried to remain cheerful. I stressed how much thought and research had gone into this decision, how it was not a light one, and how much I think she will enjoy the experience once she’s in it. She started to cry and said that if that was my decision, then there was nothing she could say. She tends to do that thing where she keeps all her feelings bottled up inside (but they still manage to come out her eyes), while saying whatever she thinks she’s supposed to say. Then my father came into the conversation because he saw my mother was upset and he was already hearing her side of the conversation, so he wanted to be let in the loop.

I started with an inside joke we have where I say I’m scared (of him). They laughed a little, and I told my father what was up. Again, I kept a cheerful attitude and explained this feels right and we have not totally improvised this, it’s well thoughtout and we are in great hands. Then he started with his (expected) questions about the qualifications of the midwife, and how I should get seen by a doctor that could confirm that I’m really fine (he doesn’t have much faith on midwives because they don’t have a medical degree). I assured him I was in good hands, but I would let him know what we decide about his suggestion that we see a doctor for a pre-natal appointment to make sure everything is alright. I don’t know what to do about that one yet… I don’t see any harm in getting checked out, but it’s unnecessary. It might just be $15 and a few hours off work for me. Maybe I’ll do it just to appease them, but I don’t think that’s a good reason to do anything. Brian says that if that’s all we have to do to keep them happy, then we have to pick our battles and just do it. I’ll keep thinking about it. I managed to keep my cool through his remarks downgrading midwives, and didn’t argue for the sake of argument. I only answered questions when there was any.

He asked me about Plan B for complications, I told him our midwives normally use the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but if it was a 911 situation, we would go to Norwood Hospital (5 min from my house). He seemed ok with this.

Other than that, they just said this was a “revolutionary” thing they are not used to, and they hope it works out. I was out of the dog house!

Then came the task of telling Brian’s mother. He called her on the phone, and just stated that we are doing a home birth matter-of-factly, and expecting her to make a scene. Well, she didn’t disappoint. She started ranting about disabled kids she works with that stayed too long in the womb, etc, and started to really cry. Then she said she couldn’t talk anymore and hung up the phone.

Later that day Brian called her back to see how she was doing. She was upset that her input and experience weren’t thoroughly inquired upon and utilized in the decision-making process, therefore we must not appreciate what she can offer. Brian didn’t quite know how to react to this, because he pretty much calls her to consult her on EVERYTHING under the sun… in his mind, it was simply not true. I think she avoided us for the whole weekend, but hopefully she’ll at least get over the shock and we can have family dinners together again. She’ll be ok, I’m sure.

That was the hardest part: telling our families. People are worried about all sorts of things: whether we are getting good prenatal care (after all, to paraphrase my father’s words, if the care provider is not an MD and can’t prescribe medication how good can they be?), or whether I will actually be able to withstand the pain and end up regretting not getting immediate relief, or whether a sudden death situation presented itself even if risk factors remain low. All of these concerns are founded in fear that others have around birth. It’s our job to be here for them to provide information, but it is not our job to chase after them and make them understand. They might never understand.

I think what makes the discussion so difficult is that there is no right or wrong in this situation. Mothers who pick hospitals are not wrong, and mothers who choose home are not wrong. It’s just two different ways to do things based on present risk factors. I can’t argue that any mother could have avoided a c-section if they had been at home, because the facts of the case may be completely different. Just like they can’t for sure say that giving birth at home will lead to death for all involved. There are just a lot of grays, and we both have to agree to disagree.

For all who wonder why we are doing this, this article roughly walks you through our thought process: Mothering.com: You want to give birth where? There are some things I wouldn’t say exactly like that, but it kind of gives you an idea for how the whole home birth concept came to mind as a viable alternative.

In my mind, there is a very simple explanation for our decision: with a home birth, I have a 95% chance of having the birth I want outside of a hospital environment. In a hospital, my chances drop to 30% (there’s already a 30-40% chance of a c-section, coupled with my own fears around hospitals which will have the effect of exacerbating labor difficulty, plus the risk of running into a care team member that is not in alignment with my birth plan). So the choice was really a no brainer for me.

Alright! Parents have been notified, first prenatal appointment has been set up, so it’s now onwards and upwards! 🙂

Weight: 135lbs (delta 20lbs)

Symptoms

• Terrible back aches wake me up in the middle of the might. I attribute this to our very uncomfortable bed.
• I’m getting more tired as the day goes by. I find I can’t walk around or stand for long periods of time without needing to rest.
• Strange but true: one night I was feeling anxious about something, and noticed that whenever I shifted focus to my belly, it started to hurt a little. It was more of a nervous feeling that can be felt not only in my chest, but all around my stomach. There is no reason for pain, so I basically managed to isolate the impact that anxiety alone can have on your body on the day of labor. I want to remain calm that day, but it’s harder said than done!
• Sarafina said I have a lot of water in there. Maybe that is why my belly looks so big. Babycove’s size is fine.
• Sarafina checked babycove’s position: head is down, ladies and gentlemen! She also taught me to feel for the head, the bum, the back, the feet. AWESOME.

Actions

• Bought a new bed! Memory foam rocks! Now, I wish I had a new ergonomic pillow
• Continue practicing Hypnobirthing CDs. Started listening to the “Affirmations” and they are great!

Reading

• Mothering.com: You want to give birth where?

Week 29

This week has been less stressful than last. Now that we are “out” with our decision, our parents have begun the process of getting used to the idea. I still have to get some answers for my parents, such as: will I get an x-ray to determine whether my pelvis is large enough to see a baby through (uhh no thanks), and whether I can get lab tests reviewed by an MD (unlikely). I’m still working on figuring out how to address those types of questions/suggestions; at the same time, I’m trying to get my mother prepared for the birth, since she’ll be present. She said she’d be open to checking out home birth videos and information while she visits prior to the birth. I thought that might be a good way to set expectations and calm some anxieties.

As for Brian’s mother, she has begun asking questions (and expressing opinions) about vitamins, vaccinations and circumcision. It’s a good thing to see she has reestablished communication and does care. I still think it’s a bit strange that she won’t talk to me directly… I feel like a 12 year old being left out of the parents conversation about “grown up” things. I’ll just give her her space.

Going back to the “MD” stuff, I did email my PCP to see what she recommended as far as getting checked out by a doctor and be “cleared” as low-risk. As far as I understand, pregnancy is considered a single episode of care by insurance companies, and OBs don’t actually get paid after every appointment, but only after the baby is delivered (I suspect this is one of the reasons we got kicked out of WHA: the risk that they would spend all this time with us, without getting paid in the end if we decided to leave). So what can I do to get a checkup? I’ll wait for my PCP’s answer.

In the meantime, we were supposed to have a prenatal appointment with Sarafina and her partner, Jessica, but a birth presented itself and we had to reschedule for next week. I was a little bummed, but I’m so looking forward to it!

Lastly, this week we got to meet our doula (labor coach/assistant) for the first time. She’s only starting out now, so she doesn’t have much experience at all, but she’s very eager, very passionate, and very organized! I know she’s not going to let us down 🙂 We basically covered what is included in her role, and all of my wishes and expectations. I’m happy 🙂

Symptoms

• Babycove is doing CARTWHEELS in there. You can totally see it from the outside… it’s very alien-like!
• Constipation continues, although I have managed to continue going “No. 2” at least once a day, even if it’s not much. I’ve been getting up too late to make my prune juice smoothies, so maybe that’s making things worse.

Actions

• Met our doula for the first time!
• Penny pinching has begun! Since home births are not covered by insurance, we are left to pay upwards of $3000 on our own. So we have started cutting back on luxuries, such as parking (we walk to the train instead), piano lessons (*sniff*), gym membership (or as I like to call it, “my favorite charity”), and eating out. We also make sure our daily lunches stay in the $5 range. We’re going to save a LOT this month!
• Emailed my PCP to find out what to do to get a checkup to “clear” me of any risks.

Reading

• Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child – my neighbors gave us this book so we can start thinking about establishing healthy sleeping habits that may help us in the long run.

Week 30

This week started with a tiny budget and a huge task: organizing the gazillion boxes of baby stuff that my sister so generously left at my house before her big move down south. After all, we have to figure out what we have in order to figure out what we need. It was a very pleasant task, and it made for a very relaxing Fourth of July weekend 🙂

This week we had our first prenatal appointment with Sarafina Kennedy and her business partner Jessica Petrone (visit their website at HomeBirthMatters.com). Lovely women. We spent about an hour doing a full medical history, and spent the last half hour checking out the baby’s position (head is still down!) and doing certain measurements. Turns out I’m doing textbook well 🙂 My blood pressure was 118/60 (compare to “optimal” 120/80 for healthy non-pregnant people), which is not surprising considering I’ve always been on the low end of normal. They also measured the size of my belly and I’m at a perfect 30 cm, which is supposed to match the number of weeks you are (30!) 🙂 They also made me pee on a stick of tests for protein, glucose, and some other gazillion tests, and they all came out completely negative. Basically, I could not be any healthier if I tried. I do have homework: to keep track of everything I eat for 7 days. What? Keeeping track of stuff? That’s what I DO! Not a problem there 🙂

I was so excited to talk them. We covered everything under the sun. I asked them about the birth tub (do we really have to buy one to just use once??), they said they rent one out so we’d have to pay $200 for that. In terms of hygiene, the tub comes with a plastic lining, so renters never actually touch the tub and they have their own disposable lining for the duration of use. We also have to buy the birthing kit… price TBA. I also mentioned to them that my parents wanted an MD to check me out, and they had no problem at all. For this reason, I decided to hold off on having them take my blood, assuming a doctor will order blood tests (maybe we can save us all a little money that way).

When they were feeling for the baby’s head, they said they could feel his little hands on the head, so maybe he was sucking his thumb. It was so cute to hear them talk about him! It’s like he’s really in there!

In the end, I was very happy and very excited about the whole thing. I was jumping for joy!

On a side note, I downloaded a countdown application for my phone and a birth companion application. I use the first one to track when my full term date is, so I know when little babycove will come “any minute.” There are a couple of reasons why this date is more important than the due date: (1) since only about 5% of women actually give birth on their due date, it is actually quite meaningless; and (2) most first time mothers are actually late in delivering, the average being 41.3 weeks into the pregnancy, so sticking to a certain due date can be stressful for the mother. What you do is leave the date tracking to your care providers. They will tell you if the time to wait is up (42 weeks for most providers before you are induced).

The second app, the birth companion, is there to help you track the length and frequency of your contractions. This is a better tool than using pen and paper because usually the job of tracking falls on the dad, when really that’s the moment when mommys need him to be there with them the most! So tracking by way of pressing a button is a convenient way to remove all the distraction. It even has a setting to send an email to your care provider when the surges (aka contractions) are 1 min long and 5 min apart (which is the very definition of active labor). I guess I’ll let you know how it works out!

About the OB visit, I tried to get a specific doctor that was recommended by my coworkers, but she only services high-risk pregnancies. So I was assigned to another one and the appointment will be next week. I’m still afraid they won’t help me because they won’t be delivering the baby. Why does this matter? I’ve heard that they don’t get paid for prenatal appointments unless they ultimately deliver the baby, and I have also heard that if they are not certified for home births, their insurance won’t cover them for anything that may happen. All these things are motivations for doctors to turn us away. We’ll just do our part by trying.

I know this post is long enough already, but for the past couple of weeks I have been feeling these uterine spasms. At first I was afraid that it would be the baby having seizures or something. It feels like the whole baby is shaking, and you can tell it’s not a normal movement. I went online, and found out that many women feel this around 28-32 weeks (phew!). Here’s a forum I found on Baby Center where mothers talk about the “Seizures in utero (forum)” they have been feeling:

We are feeling the Uterus going through a fit of spasms. If any of you have ever exercized to the point where your muscles seem to “quake” or “shake”, this is the same thing for the Uterus. It is getting a constant workout by the Braxton-Hicks contractions. And we don’t always know when we are having Braxton-Hicks Contractions…but they are purposefully to “exercise” the uterus for labor and delivery. Since all of our timelines are late in the pregnancy, we’ve probably been experiencing these contractions for many weeks now, which would explain the uterine muscle spasms. I confirmed this with my Ob-Gyn, and was reassured that this was the most likely cause, since I know-as the pregnant one-that there is NO WAY my baby could be moving that fast!

I’m reassured it’s the uterus and not the baby 🙂 Phew! That was scary. If you’re experiencing this, I encourage you to read other women’s responses… they all explain exactly how it feels and what their doctors have told them. Surprisingly, not many women talk about this openly, so doctors may tend to overreact and put you on bi-weekly ultrasounds… so make sure you read and save yourself the anxiety over this one!

Symptoms

• I am Nap Central. I wish there were nap times at work so I could rest during the day without worrying about my schedule.
• A few weeks ago I had to take off my wedding band and engagement ring because they hurt going in. Midwives said that I did not look like I was retaining fluid, and that because I am producing 50% more blood, it is expected that I’ll be a little “fuller” around my face, fingers, etc. It’s good to hear I wasn’t swollen from fluid retention.
• Uterus spasms

Actions

• Sorted baby clothes
• Started creating a baby registry online
• Had first prenatal appointment with home birth midwives
• Pinching pennies and selling books on Amazon continues! This home birth stuff can be really pricey if you were counting on an insurance-covered hospital birth!

Reading

• Forum topic: Seizures in utero — NOT 😉
• Home birth on the rise by a dramatic 20 percent – Brian found this article in the Boston Globe, and I forwarded it to my parents before realizing that all the comments below the article were very much anti-homebirth. Yikes! But the stats are good and real and wouldn’t be on the Globe if they hadn’t been verified, so I thought it’d be good supporting material for them.

Week 31

This week I finished logging all my meals in the 7-day food journal that Sarafina, my awesome midwife, had me fill out. I’m feeling ok about it, but I’m sure she’ll ask me to add more veggies to my diet.

Anyways, something more important happened this week: we went to see an OB at the request of my parents. Here’s the play-by-play:

I called the outpatient OB unit of the hospital where I work, and made a plain old prenatal appointment. I didn’t think it was worth explaining the whole situation to the receptionist, I just wanted to see an OB. So I got my appointment for the following week.

When we got there we were first seen by the nurse. She took my blood pressure (120/60 – perfection), got my weight (140 lbs – perfection), and told me to wait for the senior nurse, who was going to get the scoop before we saw the doctor.

The senior nurse was very sweet and nice. We explained to her that we are having a home birth, and we were just there to get a second opinion on my overall health. In other words, is there anything we may have missed to test, or we should make sure our midwife tests? She was a bit confused… we were having a home birth, we were not there to get “talked out of it,” and still we wanted to see an OB? She excused herself and went to talk to her boss, the Nurse Practitioner, to ask her how we should proceed. She said that in her 30 years in this field she had NEVER ran into this situation. When she came back, she informed us that, first off, the kind of appointment we got was wrong. They were under the impression I’d be transferring care, but all I needed was a consult. Luckily, the fellow doing the consults, who is a high-risk pregnancy OB, had a cancellation, so he could see us right away. Yay!

So we went to see the fellow (a fellow is an MD in training on a specific specialization in his field). At first, he was going to try to give us the hospital side of birth and see if that would persuade us to not have a home birth, but I stopped him before he started and clarified why we were there: we just want you to check me out and make sure that my midwife and I are correct in believing that, at this point, I am a healthy person. He was SO confused! He said he’d probably just need to get a CBC (to get my hemoglobin level), get a syphilis test (routine), and have me take the glucose test that I missed on week 28. I told him all that sounded good, and he left the room. He came back with HIS boss, the attending high-risk OB, and now SHE wanted to know what is it that we wanted from them again? So I explained one more time:

Me: We are here for a second opinion on my overall health at this point in my pregnancy.
Doc: Don’t you already have a care provider?
Me: Yes, that is the 1st opinion. I’m here for a 2nd.
Doc: But what makes you think you are unhealthy?
Me: Absolutely nothing!

This is where she caught me. I couldn’t excuse in any logical terms WHAT ON EARTH I was doing in their office. I had to come clean. I explained that my parents would feel more comfortable if an MD could confirm my current health status. She seemed to understand that, and explained that pregnancy is a continuum of care, and that a single evaluation would not make her feel comfortable “signing me off” for a home birth. I told her I completely understood, and I just wanted to get this over with for my parents’ peace of mind.

She explained that she concurred we should do a CBC to check for anemia, a syphilis test, and the glucose test. I asked her if I could do the jelly-bean version of the test, and she said that their results were standardized so the process for taking the test was only the drink. I told her I’d just take the test with my midwife, and she was totally fine with that.

So, they measured my belly (31 cm at 31 weeks – perfection), and they just told me to come back to get my blood drawn, which I did.

Then, I called my mother. I told her the whole story. She was surprised that this was such an unusual request that they were all so confused. I explained to her:

Me: Ma, people don’t usually go to an OB to get a consult when they have decided to do a home birth or they are with another practice, ESPECIALLY if there is nothing wrong with you.
Ma: but your care provider is not a doctor!
Me: that is irrelevant!
Ma: How could it be irrelevant??? It’s like going to the butcher shop, and the cheese guy ends up cutting your meat!
Me: No Ma!!! The cheese guy has nothing to do with meat, but the midwives ARE the care gives for birth!!! I could have chosen the midwifery group at the hospital, gotten through my entire delivery, and STILL not having seen an OB doctor ONCE!!! Midwives are trained, knowledgeable and educated in this!!! This is what they do! And BY THE WAY, you can lay off wanting me to have a pelvimetry. They haven’t done X-rays on pregnant women in more than 30 years!
Ma: (laughs) You guys are so weird! You go back to the 1800’s way of doing things, and you expect us to agree with everything!
Me: No, Ma! You guys are the ones that are stuck in the 1980’s when we are all the way over here in the 21st century!
Ma: (laughs) Could be… fine!
Me: So now you feel good? Are you happy?
Ma: Now let’s wait for the test results!
Me: Sigh…

So things turned out fine in the end. I hope they are coming around to the fact that this is not weird, and they simply just don’t know anything about it. I really hope that home birth movies and the documentary The Business of Being Born (2008) bring my mother around to our way of thinking. Fat chance, but there’s hope.

Weight: 140lbs (delta 25lbs)

Symptoms

• Little babycove woke me up with his kicks at 3:30am one morning. I couldn’t get mad, though, I just held onto my belly to make sure I didn’t miss a second of it.
• I’m definitely starting to feel the effects of this new body weight on my legs. I can’t stand for long periods of time, and I am walking quite slowly.
• I am so tired all the time…
• I felt a weird pain on my belly this week. It’d go away when I moved around, but it was very different from the usual intestinal discomforts… it was a bit scary, but there was no sign of preterm labor at all (some of which are passing your mucous plug, bloody show, feeling the baby drop). It was just a different kind of pain. Could have still been intestinal for all I know. It’d gone away by the time I had gotten home. Weird…

Actions

• Visited an OB
• Penny pinching continues, to save up for the birth!

Week 32

Welcome to my 8th month of pregnancy! Little Babycove is super active and I’m feeling good!

Tons of things to talk about this week. Let’s start with: my lab results are back! I only know this because I work at the hospital and I have access to my own medical record, otherwise, I’d still be waiting for a call-back from one of the physicians to interpret my results. Doesn’t anyone follow up on these tests??? Anyways, here are my results:

The results scared me a little at first. I was convinced I was anemic, and perhaps, technically, I am. The lower limit for hemoglobin is indicated to be 12g/dl, while mine is 10.4g/dl. But how do you explain that the quality of my red blood cells (MCV, MCH) are normal? I searched online, and I found a few things about anemia during pregnancy:

• I found multiple studies (here’s one: The Journal of Nutrition: Iron-Deficiency Anemia: Reexamining the Nature and Magnitude of the Public Health Problem) that showed that there was no direct link between taking iron supplements and preventing preterm labor or low birth weight, which are the risks of gestational anemia.
• A pregnant woman’s body produces more plasma than red blood cells. It’s a fact of the condition and it is ubiquitous by design.
• Because of this, the “floor” value for hemoglobin in pregnancy is supposed to be 11g/dl, and in some countries even 10.5g/dl.
• Anemia presents with clear symptoms: being tired all the time, looking pale and exhausted, even lifting your arms seems like too much work.

After I did my homework, I realized that although my hemoglobin count is “low,” it’s really border line. Also, taking into account that this is the way the woman’s body is designed to work during pregnancy, and that I am asymptomatic, I have no other option but to accept the fact that I am not anemic.
I even went on Yahoo! Answers and asked the question: “why would a woman’s body be designed to dilute hemoglobin?” and I received a very thoughtful answer from a user named “C.J.” Here’s the answer:

By Yahoo! Answers user C.J.
I had thought about this when I first got pregnant. I had decided against any sort of supplements while pregnant and through my research I found some interesting theories on this. Most surround the idea of the balance between calcium and iron in the pregnant woman’s system. As I am sure you know, too much calcium in the diet can block the absorption of iron.

The theories I saw talked about how it is possible that pregnant women in a natural state probably do NOT need higher levels of iron in their diet in order for the fetus to develop. In fact, the recommendations and definition of a pregnancy levels of anemia are based solely on ratios of plasma and red blood cells in non pregnant women, then applied to be the same ratios in pregnancy. But why must this be? There is no evidence that the fetus actually requires such high levels of iron. In fact, it is thought that any woman within a normal pre-pregnancy range while pregnant is providing enough for her child.

Now obviously this means that some women will likely still not be in this range if their diets continue by modern standards. The use of calcium supplementation through pills, tums and fortified foods is a major problem here. Calcium is of course important for a healthy pregnancy and to help prevent against osteoporosis. But the most healthy way to gain this calcium without interfering with iron is through cheese and yogurt as your primary sources, with milk secondary. Obviously most pregnant women end up eating more milk and taking supplements nowadays, leading to a distortion in our data on the actual consumption needs of pregnant mothers.

So, it appears that iron levels may not really need to increase (or not by much) while pregnant, and thus our red blood cells do not need to increase as much. Plasma does need to increase because of the variety of other nutrients that needs to be processed through our systems at higher rates than pre-pregnancy.

I ran all this information by my midwives. They didn’t seem to necessarily agree with my “screw iron supplements” attitude, but they did agree that my condition was border line, and that if I wasn’t feeling any symptoms, then they really don’t have any reason to recommend that I take iron supplements. However, they did say I should be adding more protein to my diet, incuding beans, red meats, and dark green vegetables. They said they have been successful in bringing an actual anemic pregnant woman back from the depths of anemia to a semi-normal level by diet alone. They also said that although studies can’t find a link between iron deficiency and risks to the baby, they do believe that the iron deficiency, rather, is a risk for the mother. They didn’t want ME to be anemic. Mothers should stay healthy. I don’t really have a comeback for that 🙂 It’s their job to take care of me.

So that’s my iron update, for whatever it’s worth.

On related news, we had our second prenatal appointment. My pee-stick test continues to be perfectly negative, my belly measures 32cm at 32 weeks, my baby is moving like there’s a dance party in my belly, and the heart beat is strong. This coming Sunday I’ll be making a carb-rich breakfast and measuring my own glucose levels with a diabetics hand-held device my midwives gave me. Brian is worried that I am thirsty all the time, and that might be a sign of diabetes. Recall that the risk of diabetes is that the baby will grow too big, and considering my baby is growing just fine, I don’t really think it’s a concern at this point… but it doesn’t hurt to test it out and see how it goes. I’ll let you know what happens.

On unrelated news, Brian and I continue to pinch pennies like we never have before. I’ve been taking care of our meals during the week by doing very conscious grocery shopping on weekends, and cooking at night. This week I even made one of my mother’s staples: Pasticho (it’s sort of a meat lasagna). It took me 1.5 hours to make, but it fed me for 6 more meals after! 🙂 I also continue selling my books on Amazon, and I’ve made around $350 in one month! I think that’s pretty good, don’t you? So we keep on churnin’!

ALSO, Brian’s family threw us a baby shower this past weekend 🙂 It was very nice and everyone was so generous with their gifts. I’m lucky to be a member of such a caring family 🙂

–I thought I was done with this week, until something happened at the last minute…–

As I’ve been shamelessly posting in these updates, I have experienced on-and-off rectal bleeding throughout pregnancy. On Friday of this week, I went to the bathroom and struggled a bit, which resulted in quite a bit of bright red blood releasing. I assumed this was related to the same thing, and tried not to give it too much thought… until I realized that I was still “spotting” after going to the bathroom. I called my midwife, and she asked me a few questions: had I had sex in the past couple of days? Had I made any significant changes to my diet in the past couple of days? Was I feeling any preterm labor symptoms (i.e. lower back pain, cramps, etc)? The answer to all these questions was No. She said she would recommend an ultrasound, and given that it would be easier for me to get it at the hospital where I work, I might as well do that. The outpatient clinic directed me to the emergency room, and the emergency room directed me to the Labor & Delivery unit (where I recognized everybody because I had been there for work-related observations that same morning — so embarrassing!). Anyways, they put the fetal monitor on, and at 10 minutes, I asked for it to be removed. The baby’s heart rate was fine (~135-140 bpm), and I did not see the necessity to keep blasting my baby with high-frequency ultrasound waves just for the sake of it. To my surprise they did not recommend an ultrasound, but a vaginal exam. Reluctantly, but understanding the necessity, I agreed to it. (All gory, humiliating and horrifying details have been omitted). As it turns out, I have a small benign polyp hanging from my cervix, and it was bleeding. They confirmed I am not dilated, so the blood is coming from outside the uterus. I was relieved to hear a reason for it. The nurse midwife said to just keep an eye on it, and to not ignore it if I bleed through a pad in an hour. She said they don’t usually do anything for those, and I could get it removed after the baby is born. She also made clear that she did not think it was ok for me to refuse the fetal monitoring. She said they like to make sure the baby is moving and there are no neurological issues that prevent the baby’s heart from increasing when he moves around. Considering that I KNOW the baby moves around A LOT, and I did see a spike while he moved during the 10 min it was strapped on, I said I understood, and still refused it.

My discharge orders were to watch out for preterm labor symptoms: contractions, bleeding, decrease in baby movement. They said the baby should be moving 8 times an hour. I won’t lie to you, having refused the fetal monitoring, I had to be reassuring of myself that I had done the right thing, so every 7.5 minutes or so I had to make sure the baby was moving. Even through the following morning I was just feeling for the baby’s movements. It’s been a couple of days now, and my little babycove is as active as he usually is. Nothing to fear. Spotting has not gone away, but it’s not a lot, so I can live with it.

To read more about other women’s experiences with cervical polyps during pregnancy, read this BabyCenter forum.

Symptoms

• I can’t stand for more than 3 min at a time… my legs hurt like a motha’! I can walk longer lengths, though, as long as I do it slowly.
• Felt light-headed at times. This happened especially after learning about my test results. I may just be very susceptible to suggestion. If you are anything like me, just be really conscious of when your “symptoms” begin — did you just get a lab test that matches those symptoms? You may be bringing them onto yourself! What “cured” me was finding out more about iron supplements and understanding exactly what was going on.
• Been wanting to get home, have dinner immediately, and crash. Sleeping at night is still very uncomfortable, so I appreciate the comfortable times I spend napping on the couch.
• Spotting due to cervical polyp

Actions

• Had my 32 prenatal appointment with my midwives. These last approximately an hour, where we get to discuss ALL of the questions I’ve been gathering for the past 2 weeks. Good prenatal care cannot be served in 20 min intervals… it just can’t!
• Got my lab results back
• Started eating more red meat, and adding spinach to my morning smoothies

Reading

• The Journal of Nutrition: Iron-Deficiency Anemia: Reexamining the Nature and Magnitude of the Public Health Problem
• BabyCenter forum: Cervical polyp during pregnancy

Week 33

Other than feeling like I REALLY didn’t want to work at all, this week wasn’t half bad.

I took our home-made glucose tolerance test. I made a sweet breakfast of 3 organic buttermilk pancakes, 1/4 cup of syrup, 1 egg over-easy, 1 Dunkin Donuts chocolate chip muffin, and a smoothie containing about 1/2 cup of strawberries, 1.75 cups of all-natural prune juice, and spinach. Here were my glucose test results:

• Fasting, before getting out of bed: 77mg/dL (normal range*: less than 95mg/dL)
• 1 hour after finishing breakfast: 115 mg/dL (normal range*: under 200mg/dL)
• 2 hours after finishing breakfast: 126 mg/dL (normal range*: under 140mg/dL)
• 3 hours after finishing breakfast: 107 mg/dL

* Normal ranges obtained from MedLinePlus

My question is: why was the 2 hour one higher? I would have expected the number to come down… I guess it doesn’t really matter. My numbers don’t even touch the limits of the normal range. The only thing I can think of is that the measurement unit I used has a 10% or so margin of error, so the 115 was actually meant to be higher, and the 126 was meant to be lower. Also, fats added to the carb-full breakfast are supposed to delay the absorption of carbs, so maybe that egg slowed down the results. That’s all I can think of. My midwives said that as long as I was below the limits, they could safely assume I did not have diabetes and was not at risk for it. Obviously, keep an eye on any symptoms in case a follow up test is needed. Yipee!

As a somewhat-related update, someone from the hospital is yet to contact me about my hemoglobin lab test results. Seriously? Not that I want to talk to them at all, I guess I would have expected someone to call me to read the results to me.

Symptoms

• Swollen ankles after having tons of sodium-packed chinese food, and being exposed to extreme heats of summer. You could tell it was related to dehydration (due to the increase in sodium and sweating) because if you pressed the swollen ankles with your thumb, you’d see the imprint after you let go. Yikes! This got better by the next morning.

• Upper backache. On my left side, in a particular spot. Someone suggested it could be deferred pain from a gas bubble… I don’t know enough to confirm nor deny such a theory.
• Going to the bathroom (to do number 1) at least once an hour. Sometimes multiple times an hour depending on how much water I’m drinking.
• Still can’t sleep comfortably at night. Wake up in so much pain all over!
• Pressure from my baby on my rectum worsened my constipation, which, combined with a pre-existing condition of internal hemorrhoids, turned into external hemorrhoids this week 🙁 Luckily, every website says that this is very common among pregnant women, and it’s bound to resolve itself after the baby is born. But still! 🙁

Actions

• Finally got around to buying a body pillow for bed. Seriously, I can’t stand it anymore!

Reading

• Cure Hemorrhoids Naturally
• Wikipedia: Hemorrhoids

Week 34

This week was mostly marked by drama than anything else (really, what are shower thank you notes for if not to spice up your life?). But moving on, little babycove is moving around and getting bigger every day. Just 2 more weeks until full term! We are so close!!!

This week we also made some amazing advances in the setting up of the nursery. I managed to organize all the gifts we got (which were ABUNDANT), and Brian’s family very kindly volunteered to come and paint the room. It looks beautiful! I can’t wait to start putting things in their rightful place and getting it all ready to go. I’ll do some more organizing this weekend, and then have Brian’s family over the weekend after to help me organize some more. Hopefully that will be the end of it and we will be ready so that we can put the birth tub in place (in the living room) on week 36, and everything looking good for when my mother arrives on week 37. Things are coming together!

I also noticed that I’m missing a few things from the registry, such as a diaper genie! I had a long discussion with Brian about it last night, and it appears as though he is against having one! He thinks we should just have a regular trash can, and take out the trash every day. So, basically, he’s missing the very important factor of odor control. I decided to compromise a bit and buy a used one on Craigslist for $5 (as opposed to the $35 one on Amazon), and see how it goes. But of course, I can’t get over the fact that each bag costs around $6!!!! That’s how they get you! So I read some advice online, like putting only poopy diapers in the genie, and all others in a regular trash. That way the bag lasts a lot longer (it holds up to 270 diapers)… I just wonder if the odor will remain hidden for 270 diapers. Anyways, we’ll figure it out!

Other things I’m still missing are a hooter hider, a breast pump, a white noise maker, a sound monitor, and a moby wrap. I hope to be able to use most of my gift certificates for these… ayayay. $_$

Next update: I had my prenatal appointment with Sarafina. Everything seems fine, but I seem to be leaking some white blood cells (leukocytes). She mentioned that, all on its own, it’s not really an indicative of anything major, but coupled with some other results, it could mean a urinary tract infection (UTI). I have not had any burning while urinating, and my test didn’t come accompanied by anything else, so we’ll just keep an eye on it.

In this appointment I got to ask about the Group B Strep test. Sarafina said we could do it in our next appointment, and she explained briefly how the treatment at home would go. Instead of getting IV antibiotics, I would basically get a vaginal wash with Chlorhexidine, which is apparently the way they do it in the UK, every so many minutes during labor. I found an article on PubMed saying that the treatment is 50% effective, so I got curious to see how effective antibiotics were. I found an article on PreciousPassage.com from 2003 saying that:

Approximately 0.5 percent of women found to have GBS bacteria in their genital areas at 35 to 37 weeks into their pregnancies and who are not treated with antibiotics will go on to deliver a baby who becomes ill from GBS.

and that

Some studies have shown a decrease in GBS infection in newborns whose mothers accepted TV antibiotics during labor, but no decrease in the incidence of death. (8,9) Still other research has found that preventive use of antibiotics is not always effective. (10) In fact, one study found no decrease in GBS infection of deaths among newborns whose mothers were given IV antibiotics during labor. (11)

I thought I should find more sources before building an educated opinion, so I looked further and found this article from 2011 on ScienceDaily.com that basically said that the third trimester test was only 69% effective, so even if they had GBS, they would go on to have their babies without any treatment:

Among 559 women, GBS prevalence was 19.5% with the third-trimester culture and 23.8% with culture performed on samples collected during labor. Compared with the culture obtained during labor, the third-trimester culture correctly predicted GBS positivity at the time of labor only 69% of the time versus the rapid test which correctly predicted GBS positivity 91% of the time.

I only wish they had reported how many babies actually got the infection from the positive-test mothers in this study. So I found this article on PubMed that actually said how many babies were infected in another study:

568 cases were identified, equivalent to a total incidence of 0.72 per 1000 live-births […]; the incidence for early-onset disease (n=377) was 0.48 per 1000 […], and for late-onset disease (n=191) was 0.24 per 1000 […]. Risk factors were identifiable for 218 (58%) cases of early-onset disease. 53 infants died (overall 9.7%)

So, in other words, in this study between 2000-2001 in Northern Ireland and the UK, they found that 568 babies were infected, which was the equivalent of 0.72% of the total population. And only 58% of those had been identified as high-risk. This paints quite the picture: although the consequences of being infected with Group B strep can be quite dangerous (meningitis, or death), the risk is actually quite small EVEN if you have been identified as high-risk.

Considering that the test poses quite a small risk to your pregnancy and the baby, and it can be done by yourself with a cotton swab, I don’t really see any reason not to do the screen. It’s just important to know that although I have a 30% chance of carrying the bacteria, my baby still has less than 1% chance of becoming infected. It’s just some food for thought.

Weight: 145lbs (delta 30lbs)

Symptoms

• It’s getting harder to breathe. Little babycove is pushing up against my diaphragm and restricting my breath, especially when I lie down.
• For the first time I felt him pushing against my cervix. It only happened for a second, but I think he’s finding his way to the “locked-in” position. Some women have reported the baby locking in as early as week 33, so I gotta watch for that!
• My ankles tend to swell at the end of the day now… I don’t know if it’s the weight, the heat or the things I’ve been eating (or all of the above) but I really gotta start being more careful. I’ll start after my pizza leftovers for lunch 😛

Actions

• Painted the nursery, sorted baby shower gifts

Week 35

This week I have been feeling that breathing issue that I’ve read so much about. Women experience shortness of breath because the baby gets bigger and starts pushing against the diaphragm. Well, now I feel it whenever I walk a lot, walk up the stairs, or when it’s muggy outside. I just have to remember that I’m not superwoman and I should take it easy.

Also on the forefront of my mind this week is how uncomfortable it is to wake up in the morning. I sleep just fine all night (I’ve never had any issues sleeping), but in the morning (or the middle of the night, 3-4am), I wake up in a sea of muscular pain: my hip, my legs, my back muscles, all of it hurts. I change positions at that time so I can survive the next hour or so (I believe my exact feelings at 3am are: “screw sleeping on your left side!”). After my alarm sounds, some days I get over the leg pain right away, and I just feel tired. Other days I am in such state of discomfort that I opt for driving to the train station and paying the $4 for the day just so I don’t have to walk for 10 min uphill. I don’t like to do that often; after all, it’s better for you to remain active and walking around.

I do have to admit that I don’t understand my limitations yet. The day will come when I can follow these easy rules to avoid further aggravations:

• Rule: Drink a glass of prune juice every day.
  Consequences of noncompliance: I do not get to go to the bathroom that day.
• Rule: Eat moderate amounts for every meal, and keep snacks between meals small and healthy.
  Consequences of noncompliance: belly pains, gas, abdominal discomfort.
• Rule: Watch for signs of tiredness, and give in to them.
  Consequences of noncompliance: you’ll get whiny, your muscles will start to hurt, won’t be able to find a comfortable position sitting down, lying down, or standing up, unless you are in your bed, and, last but not least, you might succumb to the temptation of throwing a temper tantrum (à la misbehaved 4-year-old) at your in-laws house, making a sad spectacle of yourself. Ahem, or so I’ve heard.
• Rule: Limit foods high in processed sodium (aka junk food).
  Consequences of noncompliance: Shrek feet (aka swollen feet)

I’ll learn my lesson one of these days…

On other news, my department at work threw me a little baby shower 🙂 Isn’t that sweet? Some of them had heard me complain of how poor I had been feeling now that our financial situation was about to change, and they were very generous in their gift. What a great way to show me they care 🙂

Symptoms

• Random and short-lived episodes of shortness of breath
• Abdominal discomfort. Most likely rooted in my ongoing constipation issues.
• Tired, aching muscles. Absolute need to rest.
• Swollen feet happen whenever I have junk food. Moral of the story: stop eating junk food! It gets better as soon as my diet changes.

Week 36

Ok… so I am shamelessly giving up on taking care of myself. I have had more pizza, more take-out, more ice cream, more cake, than I have ever had in the span of a week. My body aches, my ankles are swollen, and it is clear that I’m just letting myself go. At 9 months of pregnancy, people’s reaction to this is “good for you! You’re pregnant! You can get away with it!” But I say NO. I should not ever put my own health second, even when I’m “eating for two.” Sure, my blood pressure continues to be normally low (this week it was 98/54), and my pee-stick tests are all perfectly negative at every appointment, but that does NOT give me the right to put myself through this much completely-avoidable discomfort. On Thursday I even went the extra mile (quite literally) and walked to and from a meeting that was WAY too far away in another building. My legs were hurting so much that my department let me borrow a wheelchair to get to the break room and the bathroom all the way down the hall. After a couple of trips, I felt way too silly to continue. I wish I could just make sensible choices the first time around, and then these measures wouldn’t need to be taken!

Just to give you an idea of the excess I’ve been “enjoying” this week: On Tuesday I had pizza left overs for dinner, followed by a big bowl of Cookies n’ Cream ice cream (my favorite flavor), and then a bowl of pop corn with some Crystal Light fruit punch. I mean, seriously, did I need to eat all of that? Not only that, but Friday I got free pizza lunch at work at a meeting, and then go to Brian’s parents’ house to celebrate his father’s birthday where they served… anyone?… you got it! PIZZA. Come ON people! Not helping here!

Oh, btw, a different team from my own department at work threw me and another pregnant girl (who’s due on the same day as me) a baby shower this week. They were so generous and so thoughtful. What a gesture.

Anyways, this week was action packed, especially in the house organization department. Brian’s mother and two sisters came over and smelled, vetted, washed and folded every little piece of hand-me-down baby clothes I got from all sort of different sources. They were AMAZING and now the baby’s room is almost done. We just need one more weekend to finish cleaning everything up and getting my mother’s room all set, and we will be ready for this little fella to join us whenever he feels like it 🙂

There was also some action regarding maternity leave. Long story short: I might be able to take 12 weeks after all, AS LONG AS I deliver by September 1st. There was some drama at one point because HR had told me my benefits would stop after the 8th week, but I’ve cleared all that up and I might be able to make this maternity leave last 3 months. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Details are yet to be ironed out, but it’s all good. Please please please let’s hang on for 2 more weeks! It’s funny how things change: I wanted to last until week 37 so bad, and now I have a new goal 2 weeks away from now! Will I make it???

My mother is coming to stay for a few months starting next week, so she’ll be present at my next prenatal appointment, and I’ll be showering her with videos and imagery of a home birth. The best case scenario would be if she felt comfortable with the idea and felt like she could ask questions about it. I’ll let you know how that goes as well.

In other news, one of the girls from my birthing class had her baby! Read her story at the Good Morning Gloucester blog. What’s neat is that she told her side of the story, and then her husband did. It’s a great read.

Also this week, our doula and our midwives met for the first time. They all came to our house and we walked them through every room of the house, where we keep towels, where we keep paper towels, and we reassured them that we purchased all the items on the list they gave us, plus the birthing kit. As long as we can finish cleaning up the house and putting things in order this week, I think we’ll be good to go!

Lastly, like you haven’t read enough, I am a lot more comfortable telling strangers that I’m having my baby at home 🙂 Ever since I went to visit my friend in Rhode Island, and she told me how excited she was for us, and how she would be screaming it from the rooftops herself, I got a whole new level of confidence 🙂 I’m not shy about it anymore! Bring it on!

Symptoms

• Terrible muscular pain when I get up in the morning or in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom
• Getting up at 2, 3 or 4am every night to go to the bathroom
• Ankles continue to swell like a wet straw wrapper when you add water.
• Legs hurt a LOT aft
  

Jump to week: 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

Week 14

This week has felt a lot better than past weeks. I don’t feel like throwing up immediately after feeling hungry, and I feel like I have been taking care of my food intake a little bit better. I also feel good about not missing my twice-a-week workout sessions. I even went swimming this week! One thing is for sure, though: I miss liverworst and deviled ham and turkey deli meat. What I wouldn’t give for some liverworst. Anyways, we visited Norwood Hospital and Newton-Wellesley Hospital this week. I also informed my sister (who has 2 kids) and my mother about my intentions to go natural (I’d been dreading the conversation, big *gulp*). See the chronicle in the “Actions” section below.

Weight: 128 lbs (delta* 13lbs)
* henceforth used to describe “difference from pre-pregnancy weight”

Symptoms

• The nausea is mostly gone. I still feel a little sick when I am hungry, but I am able to not eat for longer periods of time (yay)
• I’m really looking more pregnant now… a guy coworker stopped me in the elevator and asked me if I was expecting, and I said yes, but not without warning him that he probably should not be asking women if they are pregnant! What if he was wrong??
• Snoring continues. Still banned to the guest room on weeknights. Big boo.
• My tailbone is starting to really bother me. It started this past weekend when I went to the theater… and now it hurts every time I sit or lay down on it. I can’t be THAT heavy… can I?
• Constipation was pretty rough this week

Actions

• Started to freak out about getting super duper fat legs, so I re-focused my workout to slimming my legs.
• Booked us for the natural birthing classes with Nancy Wainer for April
• Visited Norwood Hospital. The reason to consider it was convenience: 5 min from home. We quickly discarded it when they informed us during the private tour that they do not have a midwifery service (and we are not interested in having an OB surgeon do our care). However, the tour guide (who is also some kind of manager for maternity) was kind enough to spend 2 whole hours with us talking about natural birth, how she had 5 of her 6 children naturally, and only the second one was a C-section (2 were born at Newton-Wellesley, while the other 4 were born at home). We talked about all of my questions and concerns, and she was a wealth of information. Having gone through it herself, and having been in the birthing business (giving classes, being a doula and midwife herself, etc) in several hospitals in the area throughout her career, we found her reassurance of the natural process refreshing. We were on the same page. She quickly noticed Norwood would not be the right place for us, but she had great things to say about Newton-Wellesley, which we would be seeing 4 days later. We asked why she picked Newton-Wellesley over Norwood, and she just said she was not comfortable giving birth around all her coworkers (can’t blame her!), but that was really the only reason. She said Norwood had a very small and tight-knit practice, and our wishes would be respected there (just like anywhere else). She gave us her email address, and offered us her help in contacting doulas so we can interview a few. It was a great talk. I’ll definitely go back for the free breast-feeding classes after babycove is born. She also said she had worked with Nancy Wainer before, and, although she believes the classes will be great for us, she did warn us about taking certain suggestions with a grain of salt and really be discriminative about the advice we receive. After all, there are all different points of “hardcoreness” in the spectrum of natural birth, and we have to find the point that is right and comfortable for us. We thanked her for all her advice.
• Visited Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH). There were 10 other couples there, which made the tour very impersonal and overwhelming. It wasn’t like the tour at Cambridge Birthing Center, where the 10 couples got to sit down for about an hour and just ask all the questions they had about how things worked. In NWH, we jumped straight to the tour. It was intimidating to ask questions because you felt like you were holding up the tour. That didn’t stop me, of course, but it did overwhelm me. It made me feel like the whole operation was one big factory. My husband noticed it, too. Turns out that they didn’t have any labor rooms that were clean to tour, so while we were waiting to see if one would get cleaned, my husband pointed out the “factory” resemblance to me, and I just broke down and cried. I don’t want to have my baby in an assembly line. I was also surrounded by people who were getting their deliveries induced or having a c-section, which made it uncomfortable for me (once again) to ask questions about the needs in a natural delivery situation. I asked the tour woman if they would be careful to pair you up with a nurse who was more supportive of natural deliveries, and she had the gonads to say that “all nurses are supportive of natural delivery equally” — umm, excuse me, but that can’t be possible. In every other place we have seen, they are careful to note that they DO understand there is a difference and it requires a special kind of nurse; what makes NWH so special that this wouldn’t be the case here? I just found it useless to ask any more questions after that. If she didn’t know how things really worked, then I couldn’t trust any of her answers. Later on, my husband brought up the excellent point to me that we had been spoiled in other tours with very personal attention, and maybe we just got a really bad tour. He suggested we interviewed a nurse-midwife who delivers at NWH and get her take on how things really work, and maybe get a new tour of the labor rooms when it’s not so busy. He had a good point… but my mind kept going back to Cambridge Birthing Center. It’s still far away and it still defaults to Cambridge Hospital (not the best), but it met my needs exactly. And, if we ever wanted to do a home delivery in the future, I felt more and more strongly that Cambridge Birthing Center would be a good stepping stone in our preparation as opposed to a hospital.
• Set up two pre-natal appointments for the first week of April: one with a nurse-midwife from the Women’s Health Associates (WHA) midwifery group (which services NWH), and another with a nurse-midwife from Cambridge Birthing Center. Turns out they won’t let you just “screen” or “interview” groups, so I had to set up full blown pre-natal appointments with both. They asked me all my insurance information, and WHA even asked me to bring a copy of my medical records.
• Told my mother and my sister (Monica Geller) about my intentions to go natural. To my surprise, my mother was more open-minded about the whole thing than my sister was. My mother had pretty rough deliveries (all with epidural, some with pitocin), but her sister (my aunt) had a very seamless one, so she’s giving me the benefit of the doubt and has vowed to be super supportive once she has the opportunity to tell me about her own experience (they say your mother’s labor is similar to your own, so I asked for the stories). On the other hand, my sister was more inquisitive: “why do I want to go natural? When she had her first, she felt good about the epidural, and for her second she had to get a c-section even though she had not gotten an epidural, so really all this preparation I’m doing is going to go out the window on that day” — if that’s her way to be supportive, I don’t want to see her trying to instill actual fear! I told her I expected her to be more supportive than that, and she vowed to change her tune. As a side note: going natural is like going against the grain in the United States; so, if you live here, you’re probably finding that everybody has an opinion about why you would be so crazy to do this without drugs and that you are being close-minded by not wanting to hear other people’s real-life stories. But remember: this is not one of those situations when listening to other people’s experiences help your own, because every single labor situation is different, and just because something happened to one person doesn’t mean that it will happen to you. Who knows how they prepared (if at all) for their delivery, who knows what kind of support they had around them, who knows what kind of doctor they had — these factors will likely be different for you. So you could arm yourself with all the stories you want to hear, but if they are mostly negative, your mind will be affected negatively, you will breed fear, and your chances of making it through natural delivery will diminish. Think of this more as one of those situations when positive thinking, a LOT of preparation and study, learning new pain-management positions and ways to breathe, and people around you cheering for you and praising you, are the things that are going to help you through. So hang in there, and make sure that you do have a strong support group around you. The greatest enemy on the day of labor is fear. Fear tenses the muscles and exacerbates pain. Make sure you will have people around you telling you you are doing great, and you are doing the right thing. This is almost the most important piece of the natural-birth preparation puzzle because, take it from me, you will need the help.

Week 15

This was a pretty boring week in terms of things to do. In fact, I didn’t really do much at all. I just went home and watched TV. Since I had been putting in early mornings at the hospital, I had come home totally BEAT. I took more naps than I care to admit. I did, though, get a chance to cook a little more (check out the recipes here). Because of that, I didn’t get to the gym 🙁 So I feel myself getting out of shape, and I didn’t get to measure my weight. Oh well, maybe next week?

Symptoms

• Bloody nose continues. I don’t know when this started, maybe about 3 weeks ago? But every time I blow my nose I see blood. It’s normal now.
• Zero nausea.
• Rectal bleeding when doing number 2.
• I can feel the baby move! It’s still early, and it’s about the height of an apple, but it IS moving. So if I lie really still, and put my hand under my belly button, I can feel something moving in there. It feels like a muscle spasm, and it’s very irregular. It’s hard to hear it over my own blood-flow/heartbeat, but it’s there! My husband can’t feel it yet, because I can’t really feel it with my hand, I feel it inside. The reason I have to put my hand on is to apply pressure, so that the movement can be felt by my outer “hull” nerve endings. Quite exciting, though 🙂 It’s like having an alien inside you: you can’t control it! It’s alive, and it’s just there!

Actions

• Purchased maternity tops. It was starting to look pretty pathetic trying to fit into my old shirts.
• Bought a new bra (went up one cup size… and, by the way the new bra feels, most likely a whole size around my torso – ouch! Might need to go back for a new one)
• I continue to use a face scrub at night to prevent more acne (I’ve tried Noxzema, and it’s great! But this time I’m using Neutrogena gentle scrub). It’s actually helped keep my face clear. After all, I don’t wear foundation on a daily basis, so the visible acne does get pretty embarrassing.
• Continue to think of baby names, which my husband continues to shoot down without adding any to the list. Great help, huh? I actually got mad at him for this this week. He better start contributing some names! I’m not in love with any names yet… this is so hard!!!
• I did not go to the gym this week, and I definitely paid for it on week 16!

Reading

• A friend of a friend, Lily, had her second baby at Cambridge Birthing Center and she loved it! Read her story here

Week 16

This week was both exciting and a little blah. I sent a picture of myself to my family, and the consensus is that my belly looks really big for how far along I am. Some chuck it to it being a girl (girls, according to the old wives’ tale, make you fat during pregnancy) and some others say it’s just a big baby (my husband, standing tall at 5’11”, is the shortest of his brothers). So who knows. Baby Center says that the top of my uterus should be half way between my belly button and my pubic bone. Here’s a tip: if you have an orgasm, your uterus contracts (hardens) for about an hour, an hour and a half. So it’s a lot easier to feel where the uterus begins and ends just by feeling your belly with your hand. My uterus appears to be right at my belly button. Maybe it’s happening like that because I have a small frame, so the normal measurements are not applying to me exactly.
This week, my next door neighbor, Ethel, gave birth to a little baby girl! I was so eager to help out and to be there for her, that I took the day off from work. To my inexplicable surprise, her husband’s family was around to help them take care of the house, their 2 year old daughter, etc, so there wasn’t much for me to help with. It just made me realize that my eagerness to be there for them was analogous to my missing my family so much, and not knowing if they are going to be around when I give birth myself 🙁 It was really sad for me. I just miss them so much and I wish they could spend this chapter in my life with me 🙁
Oh, and in case you were curious, Ethel bravely made it through 80% of her labor without anesthesia, but really needed a break a couple of hours before pushing so she got the epidural. Her pushing stage was long and hard (as expected), but everything went very well and she’s recovering.
Let’s end this week on a bright note, though: we now have 2 girl names on the list, and 1 boy name. We need more boy names! I’m almost wishing it was a girl, so we could pick one of the awesome names on that list. I also got my husband’s family excited about thinking about them, so it’s been fun 🙂

Weight: 131lbs (delta 16lbs)

Symptoms

• Sleepy… zzzzzzzzzz. I got a great night sleep, but I could not keep my eyes open beyond 3pm. What is wrong with me?
• Constipation continues.
• It might just be the dry winter air, but I have a lot of little irritated dots on the back of my hand. They seem to be multiplying. They feel like scratches, so it could just be dry hands. On the same dry skin note, I had to start bringing facial moisturizer to work and apply multiple times a day: my face is SO dry! It had not been like this all winter! I’m blaming pregnancy.
• Due to my gaining weight around my thighs, they have started to rub against each other when I walk, which is making them chafe! It’s painful, so I’ve had to start wearing spandex under my pants to prevent further skin friction

Actions

• Finally got around to sending a picture of my belly to my family. It looks HUGE considering I’m only 4 months preggo, but they liked it 🙂 The main authorities on determining the sex of the baby by just looking at my belly are my aunt and my mother, and even they are split (aunt = girl, mother = boy). Interesting.
• Resumed going to the gym, with special attention to my thigh muscles
• Stopped taking my pre-natal vitamins until further notice. I might be a little crazy, but I just don’t think it’s natural to add something to your body all of the sudden, and to trust stuff made by companies that are not even certified by the FDA especially when what you intake is so crucial to the development of your baby. I took them for the first trimester, which is when it’s critical to take folic acid for the baby’s formation, but after that, you just need good calcium and iron intakes (and obviously some other Vitamins), but I do eat a lot of meat (tons of iron) and I don’t shy away from cheese or ice cream or some milk with my cereal in the morning (calcium), so I just don’t see the point of taking them. Who knows what they are really made of anyway? I’ll ask about this in my next pre-natal appointment next week. The article below says that you could opt for not taking them, as long as you are getting some nutricional counseling. I’ll look into that, too.

Reading

• To Take or Not to Take Pre-Natal Vitamins by Allison Hutton

Week 17

This week I had two pre-natal appointments: one with the Newton-Wellesley Hospital midwives, and one with the Cambridge Birthing Center midwives; however, after going to the former, I decided to cancel the latter. Read about our experience below, under Actions. At the pre-natal appointment we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat! It was fast and strong, and made me feel so proud of my little resident. It’s there! It’s really in there!
We also had to make a decision of whether to have an ultrasound in the next couple of weeks, or not at all. As I may have mentioned, I really didn’t want to have an ultrasound until the baby was older… but apparently the insurance will only pay for the ultrasound if it’s done between weeks 18-20. The reason is that this is the optimal age for the doctors to detect certain defects in the baby, which may not be detectable by this method in the future. If we wanted to forgo this ultrasound, it is 100% our choice, but we would not be able to get another one later on just to find out the sex, unless we paid for the test out of pocket (ouch). I really didn’t want to do an ultrasound, but we do want to find out the sex of the baby so we can prepare. What I am scared of is of finding out something that might be worrisome through a test that is not conclusive. You see, the ultrasound is a screening device, NOT a diagnostic device. If they do find something, it would be the “probability” of something. The actual diagnostic would happen later through additional testing. I’m just really afraid of them suspecting something, add all that extra stress, and then it turning out to be false. My husband is of the thinking that the baby is totally fine, and the screens will come out negative, and this is just an opportunity to find out the sex of the baby. If he’s right, there’s really nothing to fear.
On a side story, Ethel has been having a really hard time breast feeding (her ducts are clogged, so it takes a long time to massage them and finally feed — it’s taking up all of her time). I feel really bad and I wish I could help. I went over there last night and basically offered my services for laundry or to babysit or to bring them dinner some night. ANYTHING that will get her to feel a little bit less overwhelmed. I really hope they take me up on it. Hang in there, Ethel!

Weight: 131 lbs (delta 16lbs)

Symptoms

• My tailbone is KILLING me: it’s so painful! I can sit, but it’s so hard to stand back up. I definitely look like a pregnant lady when I am getting up off a chair (picture it… that’s what it looks like).
• Constipation continues.
• I’m more tired now after a workday. On Monday I fell asleep after dinner (around 7pm), and didn’t wake up until 11:30pm. Went back to bed at midnight and slept until my alarm at 5am. I still can’t make an official direct correlation to the pregnancy, since I have been getting up early for work meetings. I’ll keep an eye on it and report back.
• Bloody noses have subsided. I still show a little blood when I blow my nose, but it’s nothing like it was in the past few weeks.
• The baby has been kicking up a storm! It’s like it’s trying to tell me something in morse code 🙂 They say I’m feeling it really early, it could be due to my small frame.

Actions

• Went to the gym! It’s definitely getting harder to exercise… maybe I should go more often to keep up. Twice a week might not be good enough anymore. Man, I wish I owned a treadmill.
• Visited Women’s Health Associates: this is the midwifery group that services Newton-Wellesley Hospital. The midwife we saw was Midwife A. The practice has 3 midwives in total, which is great, because that means I’d only have to go through the trouble of meeting two other midwives in preparation for delivery (any one of them could be on call that day, so it helps to know all of them personally). The practice is located in Wellesley, MA, on Rt. 9 westbound, right off of I-95, which is very convenient as it does not require a lot of backroads. The exam room was lit with a warm pink light, which felt strange at first, but then I understood why it was that way: if they had used regular hospital-like exam-room fluorescent lights, it would have felt very cold and impersonal, while the soft lighting made the entire experience be very intimate. Midwife A sat us down and started explaining their philosophy: most women come to them because they are interested in a drug-free delivery, and that is their specialty. She calculated that about 25% of women receive an epidural when under their care (making for a 75% success rate with natural deliveries, which was encouraging). She was very patient with all of our questions, which ranged anywhere from “can I eat liverwurst?” to “I want to stop taking pre-natal vitamins” (see my Q&A below). She was very patient with all of our questions; however, I did want to make sure she understood what we needed and I wanted to walk away with a clear feeling on how they would handle the day of delivery. So I told her that my biggest fear around hospitals was that because the epidural would be THERE, I’d be inclined to ask for it, even though that is NOT what I really want. I told her I really needed a strong support team around me to help me through this. She said that, although the epidural IS there and they will not deny it to anyone, they will probably take my request and ask me something like “well, why don’t we try this position for the next couple of contractions?” things like that, to try to keep me away from the drugs. That’s EXACTLY what I wanted to hear. If they caved in at the first request, then there would really no point in even trying to go natural. Her response was very reassuring. She also explained that, because they don’t work directly at the hospital as staff, they are able to stay with you for most of the time you are in labor (this is different from other hospitals, where the midwives have multiple deliveries going on at once and might pop in once every couple of hours). I asked her if, in that case, it would even make sense to have a doula (see the Q&A). In conclusion, it was a great idea to talk to the midwives and find out how this actualy works. It was encouraging and very reassuring. NWH has a leg up on Cambridge Birthing Center because it’s closer to my house, which makes the uncomfortable commute time far shorter. Here are a few questions I asked the midwife, and what she said:
  Q&A
  • Should we have a doula? A: She said that the doula might be really helpful at home, because the biggest mistake people make is to come to the hospital too early. The doula will come to my house and help me through it, and determine when it’s time to head for the hospital. Once at NWH, the midwives will assess the situation: if I have a groove going with the doula or with my husband, they will not interrupt that groove. They will only assist in any way that they are helpful, but they will not take over. The involvement of the midwife is then dependent on what is happening at the moment.
  • What are these dots in the back of my hand? They feel like broken skin from the dry winter air, but I’ve never had them before! A: They are just dry skin. Keep it moisturized.
  • What is the redness on my face? I thought it was acne, but I have not seen any zits… just red bumps. A: If you don’t see zits, it doesn’t look like it could be acne. Might be rosacea. If it really bothers you, you could see a dermatologist about it. Just use a mild soap.
  • Is it ok to exercise, even though I have never exercised before? I do some brisk walking, swimming and stationary bike. A: Yes, regular exercise is great. Just listen to your body when you think you’re overdoing it.
  • My tailbone is killing me! What should I do? A: That is a common symptom, and it will get worse. It’s your joints stretching and getting ready to carry your new weight. Do some stretches and/or yoga to help the pain, but don’t expect it to go away. If it really bothers you, you can see a chiropractor.
  • Will the pain on my tailbone make labor that much harder? A: It depends on how bad you perceive the pain to be.
  • Can I eat liverwurst? A: You can eat anything that is not raw. Check the package and make sure it’s PASTEURIZED. The same goes for soft cheeses. (sadly, liverwurst does not say “pasteurized” on it 🙁 neither does deviled ham)
  • I am done with pre-natal vitamins. The way I look at it, I know what is going into my body, except for those things. They are not regulated by the FDA which means that I don’t truly know what is in them… and even if they WERE regulated, I still don’t know if I should trust it so blindly. I’d like to compensate with diet. A: No doctor is going to give you a hard time if you feel so strongly about it. Just make sure you are watching your iron intake, which is the one that your baby will deplete you of the fastest, and compensate with a lot of fruits and veggies.
  • What can I do about my constipation? A: You should drink a lot of water, and may take colace (over-the-counter stool softener)
• Chose a hospital!!! This is a big big big milestone. Glad all that is done.
• Scheduled our first (real) ultrasound for April 22nd. My parents are going to be here then, so it couldn’t have been timed better!
• Started asking around about pediatricians in the area. Ethel is very happy with hers (Norwood Pediatrics). I also ran into my basement architect, and he said his friends were happy with one in Westwood. I’ll keep you posted of our research!

Reading

• Baby Center – All you need to know about epidurals

Week 18

My husband left me this week. Not for good, just for a week. Still hurts, though.
This whole week I was wishing I didn’t have to work. I wanted to be home, take care of the house in preparation for my parents’ visit next week, cook my meals, clean up… sigh… anyways, no such luck. I worked all week long, and it wasn’t an easy one either! However, I did manage to change my routine a little bit: I started waking up at 5am in order to have a better breakfast and to spend a little more down time in the morning. Also, this allows me to take the long way to the train and do a little bit of walking even before the day has begun! Other than that, the baby has been really active and kicking up a storm. Loving every second of it.
I also started interviewing doulas. This will be interesting…

Weight: 129.5lbs (delta 14.5lbs)

Symptoms

• Constipation continues
• Baby’s kicks are getting stronger! Maybe soon my husband will be able to feel them! I pretty much feel the baby every few hours. I’ve gotten so used to it that I worry if I don’t feel it for a while. Little babycove has become my little body companion 🙂
• Maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the newfound motherly instinct, but I find myself crying to songs I have been listening to and enjoying for YEARS. The latest one to make me cry is Las Chicas del Can – Me siento tan sola which is about a girl who gets pregnant by her boyfriend who dumped her quickly afterwards, and has to run away because her parents were adamant about her getting an abortion. It’s a merengue song, of all things… great song, but makes me cry when I hear it now.

Actions

• Began interview process for doulas. Our contact at Norwood Hospital was kind enough to send a message to the doula list-serv, and I got 16 responses over 2 days!!! I picked 4 (pretty much at random) and I interviewed 2 this week, and will interview 2 more next week. I figured if I don’t feel 100% right about any of them, I could keep going down the list.
  Things I look for in a doula:
  • Reasonable price (the range appears to be $700 to $1200 for 2 prenatal appointments, help throughout labor and delivery, and 1 post-partum visit)
  • Chemistry. I have to get along with her, not be afraid to speak my mind, and make sure that my wishes are the priority here.
  • Speaking of wishes, she has to be 100% supportive of MY plan. I do not welcome anyone with their own agendas. After all, there are a lot of points in the wide spectrum of natural delivery, and I can’t expect everyone to share EXACTLY my point of view, but I do demand that they respect it.
  • A GOOD answer to the question “what if I crack and I say I want the epidural after all?” I have to say the best answer I have received so far is “we’ll have our own code word for when you can’t handle it anymore and you are POSITIVE you want it.” I really liked that. That means I can ask for it, but as long as I’m not saying my code word, I know I won’t be taken seriously. Knowing me like I know myself, I know when I’m asking for things just to test the waters, and when I’m asking for something because I really mean it. So that technique would work great! I look forward to more good responses.
  • Non-bossy demeanor, but strong-willed. I should be the bossy one in the room, but I will need her to stand her ground and defend my wishes to the docs and nurses.
  • Someone who will help my husband become engaged in the process.
• Made sure to work out most days, either by going to the gym and doing leg/thigh exercises, or by taking the long way to the train in the morning (30min walk vs 10min walk).
• Took some colace (or the CVS generic equivalent)
• Invited my inlaws to our ultrasound. If they accept the invitation, it will be a full house! (my parents will be there for sure)

Week 19

Tons of things happened this week… let’s get organized here:
Found a Doula!
I ended up picking the one that was the LEAST experienced of all the ones I interviewed, but the one that I had the best chemistry with. I am very glad I interviewed 5 doulas ranging from $700 to $1300, because I knew what was a good deal and what wasn’t. I’m excited about my choice!
Had my first hormone-induced burst-out-crying-for-a-stupid-reason event
I burst out crying when the lady at the appliance store service department was totally rude to me on the phone. I called my husband and I started to bawl! I can’t imagine what my husband must have been thinking of me right at that moment.
Started Birthing Classes
I attended the first of nine sessions to learn about natural birth (hypnobirthing tecniques, and getting you in the right mindset to deliver without drugs). My mother went with me, since my husband was out of town. The class was good, but I definitely have my reservations. Listen, I am the first proponent of natural delivery and a completely drugless process, but I felt like I was too “liberal” for that class. Every single couple there was planning a home birth, which I applaud with all sincerity, but I felt very much on the spot. The midwife, Nancy Wainer, did say to me that many couples change their mind after her class and decide to do it at home. I felt a bit uncomfortable at the thought that she might want to change my mind, as opposed to just letting me do my thing. Recall that a hospital was not my first choice either, but now that our decision has been made, midwives and doulas alike are supposed to just support you in your plan. So you’ll understand if I was a little put off by her comments about how hospitals are just the worst places to have babies, and she admitted herself to being somewhat cynical. I had vowed to take the class with a grain of salt (I was kind of expecting her to be way out there), and to watch for anything that might not “fit” my style… but it might take more concentration than I thought. I would recommend that she stuck to telling us about all the techniques and wonders about having a baby on your own, and empower us to do so, and I wished she checked the fear-mongering cynical remarks at the door. There is no further need to compare home birth to hospital birth when the people sitting in the room have already made their choice. You got our attention, now you can stop trying to “sell” the idea to us.
I do have to say that her associate, Sarafina Kennedy was lovely. I wished she taught every class. She was very supportive and never once put down hospitals (I did make it clear from the start I would not be doing it at home, so she appeared to be sensitive to that which was much appreciated!). Instead, she focused on the facts and misconceptions, and how they might not make sense sometimes. It was a very educational session, and I felt very free to ask my questions. Sarafina is just awesome. Next week the class will be taught by Nancy… I just hope her rants don’t turn off my husband from ever coming back with me.
My Belly Popped!
How do you know when your belly pops? It’s the first time you notice that your belly is now hard and getting its own shape. It’s no longer a blob of fat gathering in your front midsection, but like an actually pregnant woman’s belly. My belly was red for like a half day, and it just felt very hard overnight. In short: it popped 🙂
Had an ultrasound
We found out we are having a boy!!! Here’s how that went: I was quite scared of the experience. I don’t like to be manhandled, and I didn’t want the tech to push too hard on my belly. I was dreading the whole thing. We ended up having a very nice tech who talked with us, shared with us, and talked us through what she was looking for in the images. When it was time to tell the sex, I asked her if she could show me, and I would call it. She went ahead and took a perfect picture… it was really easy to tell it was a boy!!! And she concurred. To prepare for this, I trained myself on how to read gender in ultrasounds (here are some great examples), and then I took a quiz here.
I always thought I’d be having a boy, so it felt good to be right. The reason I thought this is because there is a theory out there that says that Y-chromosome spermatozoids (which produce boys) travel faster than X-chromosome sperm (which produces girls), but they die sooner. Conversely, X-chrom sperm travels slower but lives longer. Since we conceived towards the end of my egg’s life (a whole 2 days after ovulation), I suspected that the Y-chrom sperm had gotten there first. We didn’t actually plan it this way (we had actually thought that we had missed ovulation when we decided to “try” but we went ahead with it anyway knowing we’d have a 10% chance of conceiving at that point), but I knew where we were in our ovulation time and knew of this theory. Anyways, that’s why they tell you that if you want to have a girl, you should have intercourse 2-3 days before ovulation so that the Y-chrom sperm has died by the time the egg meets the sperm that is left alive (X-chrom), and if you want to have a boy you would wait until after ovulation to make sure that the sperm that gets there first will fertilize the egg. This is called the Shettles Method.

Weight: 129.5lbs (14.5 delta lbs)

Symptoms

• Belly popped!
• Constipation continues. This is by far the worst symptom of pregnancy. I’ve been feeling little sharp pains all over my belly, just like you feel when you have some gas. The colace was not really helping (I took small dosages) so I took the max dosage last night (3 pills) and we’ll see how it goes.
• Hormone-induced crying spree.
• Feel the baby fluttering about pretty much every hour

Actions

• Took first birthing class (1 of 9)
• Took max dosage of colace for the constipation
• Got my ultrasound done and found out the sex of the baby.

Reading

• Accuracy of Ultrasound Gender Determination: this was a great guide to what studies have been done regarding accuracy of ultrasounds.
• Examples of boy and girl ultrasounds
• Boy or Girl? Ultrasound reading quiz!
• Baby Name Wizard

Week 20

My parents were here all week. Visiting parents always seems like a nice enough idea in theory, doesn’t it?… to my credit, it took a whole WEEK before we had a blow up argument. That’s gotta be worth something, right? At least it’s worth the lesson that: 1 week is the visit limit! Anyways, in short: my father had no interest in understanding what this whole hippy-granola natural-birth situation was all about, and he did all he could to provoke me and try to get me to trip over the information I was giving him. They say I was getting defensive, but I tell you: how can you be the one to be labeled as “defensive” when someone else is coming at you on the “offensive”??? It is not paranoia if someone is ACTUALLY out to get you! (Deep breaths) I did apologize for totally overreacting in the end… but we’ve pretty much determined that my father’s presence might be a detriment to the process… so he’s been encouraged to come visit after the baby is born (as opposed to coming before the due date like my mother plans to do). I feel good about that. To all natural-birthers out there: check non-believers at the door. You’ll need all the support you can get, and stress is the last thing you’ll need around on labor day.

Symptoms

• Baby is growing so his kicks are getting more and more noticeable! My husband was able to feel them by placing his hand on my belly! FINALLY!!!! Great times.
• Weird dreams! I had a horrible dream where I was bleeding out uncontrollably (although it look more like marinara sauce) and even some amniotic fluid was being released. They thought I was in labor, as apparently (in my dream) these were normal signs. But I had no cramping, no contractions, nothing. So the doctors wanted to wait a couple days to see if the issue went away on its own. In the meantime I was worried that I was miscarrying after 20 weeks. Then the girls from Sex and the City suggested I hired Matthew McConaughey as my OB, when he was just an orderly (according to the hospital’s physician database). Then there was something about replacing a tub in the second floor of an old southern house… Which Matthew McConaughey also took care of. Anyways… dreams go into overdrive during pregnancy. Weird dreams are bound to ensue.
• Constipation continues. I drink water like a fish, and every so often have the maximum dosage (3 pills) of CVS’s generic equivalent of Colace. Exercising seems to help a lot more when combined with these treatments.
• It’s become very uncomfortable to sleep on my side all night. I keep waking up belly-up in the middle of the night and then freaking out and turning to my side (you’re not supposed to sleep on your back as the weight may put too much pressure on a vital vein running through your body).
• It’s also uncomfortable to go to bed right after dinner… I’ll have to opt for early dinners now. This is what Baby Center recommends:
  

  Heartburn and indigestion can make it extra uncomfortable to lie down in bed. What to do: Avoid foods that trigger your heartburn, give yourself two to three hours to digest a meal before going to bed, and try sleeping semi-upright in a comfy recliner or propped up with extra pillows under your upper body.

• My legs cramped up while I was taking a nap yesterday. Here’s what Baby Center says about that:
  

  Leg cramps jar you out of a deep sleep. What to do: Ease the cramp by straightening your leg, heel first and gently flexing your toes back toward your shins, or walk around for a few minutes.

• Acne has gotten a bit worse. I keep telling myself to lay off chocolates, but I eat such few sweets anyway, that I allow myself a bite-sized Twix if I want to during the day. This is what Baby Center has to say about acne:
  

  Acne. Increased oil production may contribute to the development (or worsening) of acne. If that’s the case, be diligent about washing well with a gentle soap or cleanser twice a day, and make sure that any moisturizer or make-up you use is oil-free. Don’t take any oral acne medications – some are very hazardous during pregnancy – or use any topical acne products without first checking with your practitioner.

• My nipples have definitely gone from Pretty in Pink to Brown Eyed Girl. This is what Baby Center has to say about it… it’s not much, but you are definitely not alone!!!
  

  You may be able to see veins under the skin of your breasts, and you may find that your nipples are getting bigger and darker. After the first few months, your areolas — the pigmented circles around your nipples — will also be bigger and darker.

Actions

• Started working out again (yeah, it’s hard for me to stay on the mark with this… but now that the weather is nicer, it’s been pleasant to go outside and do some walking/jogging in the morning)
• Found out that my sister is getting varicose veins… so I think I should start following some advice to prevent them! This is what Baby Center has to say about it:
  

  Varicose Veins. As your pregnancy progresses, there’s increasing pressure on the veins in your legs; higher progesterone levels, which may cause the walls of your veins to relax, can make the problem worse. You’re more likely to get varicose veins if other family members have them. Also, they tend to get worse with each successive pregnancy and as you age. To help prevent or minimize varicose veins, exercise daily, prop up your feet and legs whenever possible, sleep on your left side, and wear maternity support hose.

• I’ve been allowed back into our bedroom due to my parents taking up the guest room, yay! Hope it sticks

Week 21

Week 21 started out with allergies allergies allergies. I called my insurance company’s nurse, and she said I was only allowed to spray saline in my nose. Then I called my midwife on call and she said that Claritin was fine (normal dosage, daily until symptoms subside – notice this is NOT the same as Claritin D which you should stay away from!!!), and Benadryl was good (but makes you drowsy, so only take it at night IF NEEDED, instead of Claritin). She also said to stay away from Sudafed… and if it’s absolutely necessary, use it very sparingly (one dosage, period). Anyways, took a Claritin for a couple of days (one pill per day) and I feel much better. Other than that, I’ve just been battling constipation. You are probably sick of hearing about this crap (hah — or lack thereof!), but I guess it’s become one of those things that has DEFINED this pregnancy. I have been drinking 5 bottles of water at work (between 7 and 5) since I don’t drink much water once I get home, and also take Colace whenever it gets really bad. Anyways, other than that, the belly has been growing and kicking up a storm. I love feeling it in there! I’m certainly going to miss my little alien companion when he comes out.
Also, this week we grew disillusioned with our birthing classes, yet again. The main midwife, Nancy Wainer, showed us a slide show of high risk pregnancies that had successfully ended in vaginal deliveries, but continued to dodge questions about the options and techniques available to deal with those situations without recurring to C-section. I became very fearful and angry at not getting the information right away, so we set up a meeting with Nancy to discuss these concerns for Sunday (it actually turned out OK! Read my debrief on week 22).

Symptoms

• Constipation continues
• Acne has gotten worse… it’s not pimples, just red spots… some are itchy. I have started washing my face with Neutrogena more often (mornings and evenings).

Actions

• The backup doula replied she would love to be the backup, but has not answered my question about her backup rates… not sure if she has any? I wait.

Week 22

Week 22 started with a BANG. First of all, I quit eating cheese altogether in hopes that will help my constipation issue. By Saturday, I had a great urge to go to the bathroom, but nothing was coming out. After an embarrassingly long time, and a really painful process, I was able to release what I think has been clogging my whole system from the start. It’s as if I had swallowed a plug that was slowing everything down, and I finally let it out. Of course, rectal bleeding ensued. I really hope that was the worst of it, and we are able to just get along from now on. Still, cheese is out of my life for a little while.
As for my conversation with Nancy Wainer, it went much better than expected. We charged in there, and basically explained to her where we were coming from: we have done all the research that can be done, and we were committed to a natural birth (even against the, albeit uninformed, wishes and concerns of our own family and friends). We had also decided that a hospital might be the best place for us. Having said that, it is very important that we KNOW what our options are if the baby is breeched, or if I’m pushing for 4 hours without any outcome, or if they want to do a c-section ’cause they just don’t know what is wrong. If we don’t know what the alternatives to C-sections are, we will not be able to fight the C-section suggestions, and all of this would be for naught. So it’s time for her to start spilling the beans on what to do! She profusely apologized for creating any additional anguish, and stressed that wasn’t her intent. She then proceeded to spend 2 hours with us telling us about high risk pregnancies, high risk baby positions, and when a C-section was ACTUALLY warranted. She also suggested some books (Ina May’s Guide to Birth, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to A Better Birth, and Gentle Birth Choices) and articles regarding when to cut the umbilical cord (1 hour to 1.5 hours after birth), and why babies do not need a shot of Vitamin K immediately after birth. We felt very relieved afterwards, and ended up asking her what her fees were to do (additional) pre-natal appointments with her. We figured that we couldn’t get free advice forever, and there were certain factoids about nutrition that she advises her clients on and my husband wanted to “unlock” those secrets by scheduling a formal appointment 🙂 She was really great, and made sure we didn’t feel rushed at all. I also felt comfortable that now she knows why we made the decisions we made, and, although it really shouldn’t matter whether she approves or not, it’s important to me to not feel judged in her class. Here are some pieces of advice she gave us:

• Make sure that my midwives take the time to get to know me and understand what my wishes are.
• Don’t let them take the baby away from you. As soon as he’s born, press him against your bare chest for however long you need (normally an hour or so). It is also encouraged to try to breast-feed almost right away if possible. Take your time. You are not in a rush. Let the cord stay for as long as it’s needed, and enjoy the moment.
• Ask the midwives for advice on constipation and demand natural remedies. One of her suggestions was: take a really cold glass of water, followed by a warm glass of water, in the morning. Then do it again, but alternating the temperatures in the middle of the day, then do it again at night. After 4-5 days, I should see a change in my digestive system. If not, I’ll have to think of other ways, but it is NOT ok to be constipated, and it will make labor a more uncomfortable ordeal if this hasn’t been properly rectified by then.
• By weeks 28-30, the baby should already be in a head-down position. You can tell by listening for heart sounds: they should be stronger at the bottom of the uterus, as opposed to the top. To help the baby get in a good position from the start, make sure to not cross your legs, to wear sensible shoes with a back (NO heels), and to sit up straight (don’t recline). By week 30 you should know if your baby is breeched, and there are certain exercises to try to get it in the right position (these secrets may be unlocked when the time comes).
• Times when a C-section has been needed in her experience: if the mother has meconium in her water AND the baby’s heart rate does not sound healthy, it is time to take the baby out to prevent the baby from continuous distress and from swallowing the meconium in the water. Other times, if the baby is not coming out and the baby goes in distress, it’s time to take it out. These are somewhat vague, but definitely helped us understand that C-sections are appropriate when they are absolutely necessary.
• She was reassuring about stopping the pre-natal vitamins. She said they are just a supplement to a good diet, so just have a good diet instead, which is better for you and the baby.

Symptoms

• Rectal bleeding, tied to constipation
• I think my body weight has normalized a bit, so I don’t have the thigh-rubbing syndrome anymore! I can wear pants without shorts underneath now! 🙂

Actions

• Backup doula responded that there would be a $50 fee for being on call around the day of the delivery, and $200 if she did end up being the doula in the end, due at the post-partum visit
• Had a conversation about high risk pregnancies with birthing class midwife (story above).
• Quit cheese, started drinking cold-then-warm water 3 times a day
• Started having fruit smoothies with prune juice in the morning, and since I did, I have been going to the bathroom every day! (cross my fingers, hope it continues)

Week 23

There wasn’t much action this week in terms of feelings or pregnancy issues, except for my husband running away from my loud snoring! He ended up buying one of those sleep headphones that play anything you plug them into during the night. It seems to be helping, but he says my snoring is so loud that now instead of not being able to sleep, he’s just going deaf with the waterfall AND my snores!
Besides all that action, little babycove has been hiccuping and quite active! The other day I felt a distinct little foot pressing against my belly! I pushed back and started playing with it, so fun! 🙂

Symptoms

• Felt the baby hiccup!! It was regular intervals of pushing on both sides of my belly, which makes me think the baby is sideways… hope he straightens out soon!

Actions

• Husband purchased sleep headphones to battle wife’s pregnancy snoritis 😉
• Prune juice every morning is making me regular! I’ll keep it up. I’ve added cheese back to my diet.

Week 24

Babycove has officially passed the 24-week mark, where he is most likely to survive outside the womb! Also, I am officially 6 months pregnant. Milestooone! 🙂
Here’s a story for you: at the beginning of the week my husband was feeling very stressed over our yard situation: we’d been busy all weekend and he had not finished mowing the lawn or planting grass, so our yard was one big mess! In order to ease his burden (and get my mild-mannered stress-free husband back), I insisted in helping him out by mowing the lawn for him while he took care of turning the dirt in the front yard (a far more work-intensive task). I thought “not a big deal, it’s just a little exercise…” yeah, well, the next day my back muscles were so sore that they were pressing against my chest and throat and I thought I was having chest pains. I called my midwife who said I should call my PCP, then my PCP told me to go to the ER (since I was already at the hospital where I work anyway). So I did just that. The experience at the ER could have been better… Nobody explained to me what was being done on me, or where I’d go next. Nobody even introduced themselves! I was so scared I started to cry in despair, so my husband quit work early and came to be by my side. In the end, my “tightness in the chest” symptoms were not adding up to any heart-related condition, and I was not feeling shortness of breath, so we and the doctor concluded it must be muscular from the workout I got the day before. Those were the most expensive Tylenol pills I will ever buy.
What’s funny about all of this is that whenever I say I was mowing the lawn, people’s first response has been “and your husband let you???” hahaha! Umm, hello, have we met? My name is ina and there are not many people out there who currently “LET” me do ANYTHING. Poor Brian. He’s stuck in a lose-lose situation every time 🙂
Back to my back, THIS is why they tell pregnant women to take it easy: pregnancy has a whole bunch of side effects, one of which is back strain due to the extra weight (heck, I’m 20% heavier now than before pregnancy! TWENTY percent!!!), so there’s really no need to put more strain on your back muscles, or you’ll end up in the ER like me, like an idiot.

Symptoms

• Got my first (noticeable) Braxton-Hicks contractions. These are not supposed to feel like real contractions, in fact, they’re not supposed to feel like anything. You just notice the tightening of your uterus and your belly gets hard like a basketball. It was so weird!
• My ligaments were hurting. It was a little scary because it felt like cramps. When your ligaments hurt, you feel it along the sides of the belly, way bellow, but on the sides. It’s a sharp pain. It will pass, just make sure to relax. To prevent them, drink tons of water, and make sure you are getting enough potassium and calcium. In my case, I’m going to have to ask my midwife what I can do about calcium since I don’t drink milk and I’ve been told to avoid OJ due to the acidity. Sigh… Lose-Lose.

Actions

• Went to class and practiced breathing. It was actually kind of funny to hear Brian speak softly to try to get me to relax using the Hypnobirthing techniques. It has to sound genuine, otherwise you’ll just crack up. I guess we have a lot of practicing to do!
• Been snacking on Fiber One cereal (51% of your daily fiber intake in ONE cup!!!). So I got myself a bunch of cute little 1-cup size tupperwares, and I keep the cereal in there to snack on at work.
• Resumed eating cheese. The prune juice smoothies in the mornings are really helping me be more regular. Although I don’t “produce” much in one sitting, sometimes I do get to go 2 or 3 times a day (but a minimum of 1). It’s a big relief compared to a couple of weeks ago.

Reading

• HypnoBirthing (2005)
• Gut Sense: Overcoming Fiber Dependence. I didn’t learn much about fixing constipation from this article, but learned a little bit about how to identify constipation based on the stool you produce, and which is the optimal type of stool.

Week 25

Not much has happened this week. Babycove continues to kick up a storm and I’ve become increasingly aware of the strength it’s gathering every day. I’ve noticed he doesn’t like it (aka shifts around a lot) when I recline or lay on my back, which is good because I’m not supposed to be doing those things anyway!
I haven’t been exercising much, but I did make myself go to the gym on Monday (Memorial Day) so I can weigh myself and at least be able to say that I did some intentional exercise. I did take it easy, though, I’ve been putting a lot of strain on my back and I don’t want it to cave.
This week we also started to listen to the Rainbow Relaxation CD (download here) that comes with the Hypnobirthing materials. I have consistently fallen asleep within 10 minutes, so I still have NO IDEA what the first color of the progression is. They say this is a good thing because I’m relaxing, but I don’t think it is so much relaxing rather than my uncanny ability to sleep no matter the time, place, position or noise in the air. I hope these traits help, but they will be no substitute for PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.
I guess something peculiar did happen this past weekend… my husband became increasingly stressed out about a long list of tasks we have to tackle at home. I decided to make my own list (using September 8, 2011

Jump to week: 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

On December 30th, 2010, I found out that our effort* to make a little baby had succeeded. We were pregnant.

Due Date: September 10, 2011

I decided to spare you each little thing I wanted to say over the past 3 months, and I just chronicled it all in one shot! (all for your convenience, see how good to you I am?). If you are expecting yourself (congratulations!), or if you are planning on having kids soon, I hope this guide helps you get a realistic feel for the things you’ll be feeling, thinking about, reading and doing during your pregnancy.

* and by “effort” I mean that it was intentional/planned… ’cause it certainly wasn’t difficult. Got it on the first try in one shot! (my husband is a very proud stud) 🙂

Side note: if you click on the baby images below, it will take you to a new page where the Baby Center has described the development of your baby at that stage.

Week 3

Found out we are expecting! Took a home pregnancy test (ClearBlue digital) for the first time on day 12 after conception (two days before my supposed period), and it came out positive. Confirmed with about 5 or 6 more home tests from different brands over the following few days (the digital tests were definitive, but the chemical “analog” tests showed only a faint positive line). Subsequently, I had to put up with a lot of ugly looks as I told my family and close friends that we are pregnant when I hadn’t even officially missed my period yet! They all had that “wait until 3 months” warning for me… except for my mother, who was so excited she wanted to shout it from the rooftops herself 🙂 I have to say that I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret for any length of time, so talking about it right away felt right to me, and I am very happy I did. Saved me a lot of stress in the long run!
Technically I had only been pregnant for just a week (since I knew my conception date, I knew how old my baby was to the hour!), but how far along you are in your pregnancy is determined by the first day of your last period (not by conception date). This put me at week 3.

Symptoms

• Extremely emotional/depressive a few days before my missed period. I knew this was off, because my “emotional” time of the month normally happens after my period (yes, I’ve kept track).
• Almost immediately my nipples hardened and hurt when I took a shower. Only happened once, but it wasn’t normal for me.

Actions

• Told family and friends (yah, yah, way early… the news just wanted to get out!)

Week 4

Started freaking out about the day of labor (I was TERRIFIED from all the horror stories), so I started educating myself about the stages of labor, and how to make it as painless as possible. Is it realistic to have a natural birth (no drugs)? Looked into advantages/disadvantages and the difference between an OB and a midwife. On an unrelated note, I’m still going through telling family and friends and getting those confused looks from people… so early? Yes, sorry, the news wants to get out!

Symptoms

• Missed period
• Discomfort after emptying my bladder: every time I did, I had this hollow discomfort in my abdominal area, as if all my organs had shifted a little. Made it difficult to find a comfortable position in bed at night.
• EXTREME hunger
• Tender breasts (they hurt when pressed, making sleeping on your belly uncomfortable)

Actions

• Tried to get it confirmed by my doctor, but they wouldn’t give me an appointment. They said to just take a home test, and if it was still positive, we’ll schedule an OB appointment at the 10-week mark. I guess they don’t want to waste their time with false alarms or early miscarriages.
• Booked my 10-week appointment with a recommended midwife (who are usually more open to help you through natural births than OB surgeons are)
• I spread the news at work. Told my boss first, and then the rest of the floor. Again: weird looks (“why didn’t I wait the 3 months??” – get over it, people!)

Week 5

Decided to go for natural birth. Why? Epidural makes the pushing stage longer and exhausts the mother, while natural births allow you to stay alert and have a rush of endorphins which help you manage the pains and makes you wide awake and alert immediately after delivery. Also, and most importantly, medical interventions tend to lead to more intervention (such as induction, episiotomy, c-sections, etc). Recovery time is also less time on a natural delivery. Click here to read more about advantages and disadvantages of epidural, by Baby Center. My neighbor Ethel is also going for natural delivery, sooooo support system: check! Time to start training for the big day! Will need to exercise and work on mental preparation and build up stamina to breathe through the contractions on “labor day” (hehe… labor day).

Symptoms

• Discomfort after emptying bladder continues
• Constipation
• Brownish tissue spotting. Not worried, it’s normal as long as it’s not accompanied by blood, heavy discharges, or cramps/pains.
• Still hungry, but not as bad as last week.
• Tender breasts continue

Actions

• Did yoga one morning, and walked the long way to the train station another day
• Made a more conscious effort to add more vegetables to my meals
• Started taking prenatal vitamins (should have started taking them BEFORE I got pregnant — oops). I ordered chewables online: I can’t swallow pills!
• In preparation for morning sickness, I packed an empty plastic bag in my purse and a bunch of pretzels. Trying to prevent a bad situation on the commuter rail! (this proved very handy on week 11!)

Reading

• HypnoBirthing (2005)
• What to Expect when you’re Expecting (2002)
• Suite101.com: What does natural birth feel like?
• Modern Wife.com: My Home Birth Story

Week 6

Concerned about the brownish spotting that had been going on for a week, I stopped by the OB department and had an ultrasound: strong heartbeat, definitely a baby! The ultrasound also found a cyst 2 inches in diameter in my left ovary. Yikes! They said it happens all the time and it might go down on its own. According to Wikipedia, cysts may cause some spotting… so maybe that’s where mine is coming from? This week I also got sick with a cold for several days and survived on tons of fruit juice. I felt like death by the end of the week, but kept going to work in the snow. Maybe that was a mistake.

Symptoms

• Nausea when I get really hungry
• Not as hungry anymore… actually, I’ve had so much disgust for overeating for the past couple of weeks, that I don’t really have a strong appetite. For the sake of avoiding nausea, though, I usually eat the first thing that my body wants just to make sure I’m eating SOMETHING and keep myself fed.

Actions

• Rest. I did no exercise, no chores, no nothing. Watched a lot of Conan.
• Finished telling all my friends. Again: weird looks… really?

Reading

• Anything online about spotting during pregnancy

Week 7

My cold ended up being a BURNING sinus infection. Went to a walk-in clinic and they prescribed some antibiotics (amoxicillin) and Flonase, but my mother-in-law didn’t let me take the Flonase (which consists of steroids), especially if my nasal passages are clear (which they were). I eventually got better, after taking antibiotics for 10 days (three times a day). It took about week to feel 100% again. As for my state of mind, with all the sickness, snowstorms, and general disarray in my house, I felt I needed a little escape and indulged in some leisure reading.

Symptoms

• Constipation
• Brown spotting continues. I thought the beauty of pregnancy was that you didn’t have your period so you didn’t have to worry about wearing pads or panty-liners! I guess there goes that myth
• “Morning Sickness” begins. I say that because I threw up after getting a little car sick on the train (and I usually don’t throw up after car sickness)… so, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.
• Abdominal discomfort continues, but it’s been exacerbated by the very uncomfortable effects of constipation. At this point I want to crawl out of my own body!
• Rectal bleeding when doing number 2 due to constipation. It was really scary not to be able to tell where the blood was coming from, but the moment passed and no more bleeding came, so I was in the clear. This happened again on week 13.

Actions

• Switched to American Kashi Go Lean Crunch Cereal in the mornings: it has 32% Fiber daily requirement!!!
• Started drinking water every hour (that only lasted a day, after which I didn’t want to drink the office filter water any more for many weeks to come)

Reading

• Dearly Devoted Dexter, Jeff Lindsay (2005)

Week 8

According to Baby Center, my baby is now the size of a kidney bean. That means that my family has stopped calling it “the little lentil” (or in Spanish, “la lentejita”) to calling it “the little bean” (or in Spanish, “la caraotica”). It’s not going to end until Baby Center stops comparing my baby to cute little food names. I started out the week still taking antibiotics for my cold, and still feeling very down. At this point I’m just looking forward to the second trimester, when you’re supposed to feel great, eat anything you want, be full of energy, blah blah blah. Right now I just feel like crawling into a little ball and not get out of bed at all. I know there is a baby in my belly, but all I see is fat fat fat from all the eating I have been doing only to avoid feeling nauseous. When will that pregnancy excitement kick in?

Symptoms

• Spotting stopped!
• Now I get this creamy white discharge (yeah yeah, ew, get over it, it will happen and someone has to talk about it!) — apparently completely normal, and due to the increased production of estrogen during pregnancy
• Extreme hunger, and consequent nausea, continues
• Gaining weight (mostly due to the extreme eating!)
• My mood has been lethargic at best — I don’t feel like doing anything and I’m just literally sick and tired

Actions

• Finally bought a rowing machine so my husband and I can exercise indoors! Did not use it, as it was missing an important screw from Step 1 of assembly!

Reading

• Best gym equipment for pregnancy
• Safe and unsafe exercises during pregnancy
• Feeding the Ravenous Pregnancy Hunger
• Dearly Devoted Dexter, Jeff Lindsay (2005)

Week 9

Being pregnant is uncomfortable. There, I said it. I’m supposed to be saying this is the happiest time of my life and that I’m all giddy and happy about it… but I am suffering! I’m in deep abdominal discomfort (most of the time related to my last or my next meal), I can’t see a belly yet (only fat) so I got no baby to comfort me, and worst of all, I don’t have anyone around me to get my mind off the whole thing! I want to talk about it with someone who can cheer me up (not give me all their opinions and “advice”), but I don’t think any of my friends would relate, or they might say something I don’t want to hear. How can I talk about it and at the same time get out of my head? I’m living in birth and baby land. Wish there was a visible bump so I could at least talk and sing to my little resident.

Weight: 122lbs (7lbs over pre-pregnancy weight)

Symptoms

• My entire digestive system is out of whack. I go from feeling like I completely pigged out at my last meal for like 4 hours straight (very uncomfortable “full” feeling), to immediate starvation. It’s crazy, and I can’t get my mind off my digestive system all day long. Help… me!
• Constipation continues, but I have found a little more relief this week than the past 4 weeks.

Actions

• Called around about hypnobirthing classes. One particular midwife, Nancy Wainer, suggested that I don’t cross my legs, don’t drink a lot of milk, avoid ultrasound unless it’s needed, keep my knees below my pelvis, and not recline. I’ve decided to not have the ultrasound until I want to find out the sex of the baby later on (why inconvenience the poor baby, let’s leave him alone for a little while), and I’ve been trying my darnest to not be in a reclining position. I am not sure why exactly this is a rule, but it’s supposed to help a favorable position for the baby (maybe because gravity will lead the baby downwards towards the exit, as opposed to having the baby get too cozy against my back muscles — I think it makes physical sense)
• I’ll sign up for hypnobirthing classes in April (that’s when Nancy’s classes open up)
• Watched the documentary The Business of Being Born, which reiterated all the things I had been reading about. In short: if you are a healthy woman who has not had complications in her pregnancy, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to give birth naturally without medical intervention. Interventions lead to more intervention, which may create more and more distress for the baby. Women have just been taught that they can’t handle childbirth, which is not true. Women should educate themselves regarding intervention and find out why most major hospitals have 30-40% rate of c-sections.
• Went to get my medical record “opened” by visiting a midwifery group and telling them my whole medical history, and took it as an opportunity to ask for advice on birthing centers versus hospitals.
• They said I should see a social worker regarding my mood, so I’m waiting for their call for a referral near my work.

Week 10

This has been the week of self-awareness: I am heavier, I get tired more easily, I run out of breath more easily, and I am starting to freak out about how terribly out of shape I am. The rowing machine is now assembled, but I’m so often having stomach issues that I want to walk around, not sit down! So, I decided to go back to my old gym. I was mostly depressed all week (feeling down, not looking forward to anything, not enjoying my work), and I really think it had a lot to do with my self-image. I always thought it was ridiculous for pregnant women to complain about their weight (“how vain can they be?” I’d say “they are carrying a baby! of course they are going to gain weight!”)… and now I understand: my baby (plus birthing accessories) is supposed to weigh at MOST a pound right now, but I have already gained 7 lbs! That is NOT baby weight! It is lazy, sedentary, eat-a-lot, fat weight! THAT is why I feel lethargic. I haven’t been this heavy since I graduated college. I really hope working out will help trim that extra fat I’m consuming!

Weight: 122lbs (7lbs over pre-pregnancy weight)

Symptoms

• Nauseous-when-hungry continues.
• Abdominal discomfort continues.
• Ravenous hunger continues
• Mini-depression… most likely hormone induced

Actions

• Re-joined my old gym, and did a ton of walking on the treadmill (1 hour sessions, 3.5 miles/hour)
• Might have, accidentally, consumed about a full glass of white wine in the form of cheese fondue during my Valentine’s Day dinner. BIG Oops!
• I identified a perfect, low cal, delicious snack: whole wheat pita bread and hummus!!! It’s amazing!
• Also, snack-related, I quit saltine crackers on week 4 (ugh, it’s so easy to get sick of those things), so I keep granola bars in my purse at all times. They help me when I’m in a hunger/nausea bind 🙂

Reading

• Cambridge Birthing Center info packet
• Anything online about drinking during pregnancy. Apparently half a glass of wine every day during pregnancy is said to be OK by some OBs in France (you know how they love their wine out there)… so worrying about one glass of wine in the whole pregnancy is kind of silly. Take deep breaths and don’t worry so much!

Week 11

This week did not kick my ass as badly as the other weeks did. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I have been drinking a lot of water, I have been snacking on healthy stuff (like fiber granola/oat bars), and the fact that I started doing some kind of physical exercise. Feeling alright. No more depression, and I’ve been cooking a few meals at home. The most interesting feeling lately has been that of utter fear for hunger spurts: they make me nauseous. And the most interesting thing that happened this week was that I got my first stranger-rubs-my-belly moment. Uhh, guys, how do I explain to you that the fat around my waist is just that… fat? No obvious bump yet… just fat.

Weight: 124lbs (9lbs over pre-pregnancy weight)

Symptoms

• Nausea and hunger continue
• TMI alert: I had my very first bowel movement this week!!! It was glorious!!! By BM I mean actual urge to go do number 2. Now, obviously, I have done number 2 in the past few weeks, but my heart was never in it.
• Susceptibility to car sickness. I threw up this week after a short car ride. Boy, was I thankful to have a plastic bag in my purse! (Remember when I packed it on week 5?!)
• Pants don’t fit around the waist anymore
• Can’t stand the office filtered water anymore… tastes funny. Also, the cafeteria smells like rancid food and trash! How did I not notice that before?

Actions

• Went swimming and walking at the gym
• Figured out that if I keep my heart rate at 110 when I walk, I won’t break a sweat, but it warms up my muscles. I break a sweat at 120. Finally! Working out feels like SOMETHING!
• Scheduled appointments to visit the MGH Maternity Ward, and the Cambridge Hospital/Cambridge Birthing Center facilities. This is crucial for us to schedule our next prenatal appointment (the midwifery group or OB you ultimately go with is affiliated with only one location… so you have to pick the location first).
• Went shopping for a Tummy Tube waist band (I got one black and one white). It helps you to continue wearing your old pants by hiding your midsection such that people don’t notice your pants are really unbuttoned. I also bought a cute polka dot pregnancy bathing suit so I can continue going swimming!
• Started stocking my own bottled water in the office fridge.

Week 12

This week we went to visit the MGH Maternity floor and we were pleasantly surprised to be comfortable with what we heard. They said they try to help you through a natural birth as much as possible, to the point of matching you up with a natural-birth supporting nurse. There is also a midwife who walks the floors and checks in on you (as opposed to the OB). They do let you eat and drink (I didn’t think they’d let you at a hospital!), and they let your family hang around and come in and out of the room. They also said that if your nurse is being difficult (suggesting intervention, etc), it is OK for you to request a different nurse. We felt good about it, so now we’ll move on to visiting other places and see how those feel.
Also this week I had to face the truth in the mirror: I am starting to show. So far I had been saying it was just fat (because of all the stuff I have been eating lately), but on Thursday when I went to the gym, I took a look in the mirror and noticed that my fat was mostly accumulating in the front of my body. My thoughts were “waitaminute, I have been fat before, and it’s never looked like this!” and so it dawned on me: I am getting a baby belly. Wow.

Weight: 126lbs (11lbs over pre-pregnancy weight)

Symptoms

• Nausea when hungry continues
• My belly is now showing!

Actions

• Went to work out on Monday and Thursday: 1 hour on the treadmill at 3.5 miles/hour with ~4-6 inclination grade. Plus a warm-up courtesy of Dr. Cathy
• Visited the MGH Maternity floor
• My husband got me a heart rate monitor so I can keep an eye on it while I work out. I used it for the first time this week.
• Went to a Japanese restaurant and indulged in some California rolls and crunch rolls (shrimp tempura in a maki roll). I didn’t know it until now, but those don’t have raw fish to worry about! Why didn’t anyone tell me before??

Week 13

I felt great this week, although I can’t say my eating habits were any good. We ate out a lot, and I switched cafeterias (the old one smelled) so I was having a hot meal for lunch, and then a hot meal for dinner. I also started having a snack at around 5pm if I wasn’t planning on having dinner soon… the fact that the snack happened to be a buttery grilled cheese sandwich, I’ll leave aside for others to judge. Anyways, the nausea is still there, but not as bad as before. I can go without eating for longer periods of time. I continue to drink a lot of water and make sure I hit the gym at least twice during the week.
It also makes me happy to see a baby bump 🙂 It gives a good motive to all those crazy things that are happening to my body 🙂 Hi babyyyy! 🙂

Weight: 127 lbs (12lbs over pre-pregnancy weight)

Symptoms

• Is prenatal acne a symptom? My face is breaking out like a 14 year old’s! I read an article (link below) about unexpected symptoms, and it appears as though my bloody nose may also be a symptom… interesting. I had just chucked it to the dry air of winter.
• Continue to have really long and strange dreams. I forget when they started, but several weeks ago for sure (sorry I didn’t mark the exact moment!)
• Rectal bleeding when I went to the bathroom to do number 2. Like I mentioned on week 7, it was scary but the bleeding stopped right after, so I calmed down.
• My snoring has spun out of control. I was banned to the guest room for the rest of the week so my husband could get some sleep! (boo!)

Actions

• Purchased my first 3 pairs of maternity pants for work (one was cheap, the other 2 were WICKED expensive… will make sure to check the price tags next time!). On a related note, I can’t hide the fact that I do have a baby belly now. It’s kind of exciting, actually 🙂
• Visited the Cambridge Birthing Center facilities: it looked like a house, but it’s right across a driveway from Cambridge Hospital. It has a living room, 3 birthing rooms (they say usually they only have one family in the house at a time — they’re not very busy). They showed us the tubs they have for relaxation, yoga balls, etc. It was VERY homey and I got a really good feeling about it. They answered all our questions, and we were very happy to see how supportive of natural birth they were. One downside to it all was that if you do end up becoming a high risk pregnancy, you are pretty much stuck giving birth at Cambridge Hospital (which, as hospitals come, is not the top of the line). Considering my sister’s birth history, I am afraid I might be going in early, which would disqualify me for the Birthing Center. After talking it over with my husband, we agreed we both liked it a lot, but it is still so far away from home, and there is such a risk of ending up at Cambridge Hospital anyway, that we are going to continue looking for options. I called Norwood Hospital and Newton-Wellesley Hospital to take a tour of their facilities. Wish us luck!

Reading

• A is for Acne
• Rectal bleeding during pregnancy

I’m ready to tackle The Second Trimester! So exciiiiteeeeed!!!! 🙂

ina

Having a baby can be stressful in many ways: the preparation, the shopping, the name picking, changes in your body, habits, diet, etc. However, if you are like most people, you are probably not really stressed out about the day of the birth. You may be a little scared, but you don’t lose sleep over what’s going to happen that day; after all, you’re in the hands of great doctors, and there is really nothing else for you to know. Ah, ignorance is bliss. Now, if you are anything like me and think it’s important to know WHY things happen the way they do, and you find yourself questioning whether epidurals are for you, or pitocin, or c-sections, or even the place where you will be having birth, then you have added ten tons of stress to your life.

Natural delivery spans a wide spectrum of beliefs and definitions. Some think it means “vaginally” and some think it means “drug-free.” I use the term as “drug-free” or “intervention-free.” Preparation for a natural birth is 100% focused in making sure you understand that your body is made to do this, and there is nothing your body can do that you weren’t built to handle. Leaving high-risk pregnancies and complications aside, this should be true for most human women: your body was made for this, and you should be able to handle it. Once you truly believe that, you are prepared to refuse any kind of intervention, and you may proceed to actually preparing to handle the road to delivery. Management techniques include breathing exercises, massages, tips and tricks like moving around, swaying your hips back and forth, applying a warm rag to your hoo-hoo to help stretch the muscles during surges (aka contractions), etc. One of the most important techniques, though, is the power of mind-over-body. This is why positve thoughts are so important during your pregnancy and leading up to the day of the delivery. This is supposed to be the stress-free approach to labor because you make the rules, you are in control, and you create a supportive care team around you who are on the same page and will help you through all of it.

Stress-free? Stress-free my ASS. I’m going to tell you about the roller coaster I have been going through.

First off, I was very excited to go natural and I was even happier when my husband, Brian, jumped on board. Right now I can very confidently say that he and I are completely on the same page, which is both reassuring and comforting. The problems started the day we started taking the birthing classes.

What not everybody knows is that birthing classes are not one-size-fits-all. Depending on what kind of delivery you want to have, and where you are planning on having it, you might choose to take a class at a hospital (where, as I hear, they mostly focus on pain management leading up to the moment you get your epidural), or take it at a birthing center (focused on the birthing center experience, and tools available to you to maximize chances of a successful delivery), or independent classes focused on any technique you want (Hypnobirthing, Lamaze, etc). We went independent because we wanted an expert Hypnobirthing class, and we did not want to take it at a hospital where the class is mostly made of mothers choosing epidural. Little did we know that our class would be 10 couples planning a homebirth, and us: the sinners of the pack who will have a hospital delivery.

We felt like the Peggy and Al Bundy of the class. I asked a lot of questions about what to do if complications should arise, and nobody seemed eager to hear the answers. I also asked about FACTS and WHY we should do this or that, and I had to press to get a straight answer from the instructors. It was like the whole class had drank some sort of kool-aid and were in a trance. Let me first say that I have nothing against homebirths. In fact, I would have gone for one myself if Brian had considered it. We decided that, since this is our first, and we don’t really know how my body will handle it, we would stay close to medical attention in case it’s needed. We might consider a homebirth for our second baby (depending on the level of success of our first intervention-free birth). Having said that, having a homebirth does not excuse them from not asking tough questions! By not educating themselves all around, they are just as clueless as people who don’t do research at all. I swear, people, I felt completey out of place. Even the teacher would throw zingers at us for choosing hospitals, and every class she would have something to say about how doctors are evil, hospitals are awful, and how homebirth is really the only way to go.

I really wish I had listened to my gut and just gotten my money back on the second week. What I wanted to be a great learning experience on natural birth, managing tough situations, and even maybe preparing us for a homebirth in the future, turned out to be a directed bashing session that made me extremely fearful of my future. I couldn’t help thinking: OMG, are the midwives at the hospital going to do things I don’t want them to do without my consent? Are they REALLY on my side? Am I going to have to defend myself against them on that day? Should I bring a lawyer with me to observe???

You might think this is very silly: doctors and nurses know what they are doing and it should be for the best of the baby, so there is no sense in questioning their actions. The problem is that Brian and I believe that nobody else, except for the two of us, really know what WE want the experience to be like. Doctors and nurses may truly do their best, but we are the ones who want to make the decisions on what to do, approaches, interventions, etc. Being at a hospital is scary because the staff has seen it all and gone through it all, and they will have a standard procedure for everything, even if it might not apply to my particular situation (they’ve seen so many zebras that they often don’t recognize a real horse). In fact, only 10% of births at hospitals are “natural” and many nurses admit to never having witnessed one in their careers. So, considering that I’m going to be pushing a human being out of my body, I expect that I will be in a very vulnerable position to fight them off and have my way on things they might think are routine.

This is the reason I have been crying at the drop of a hat every day this week: I am SCARED SHITLESS. I am full of fear and stress that I’m preparing for a WAR on what should be one of the happiest days of my life: welcoming a new member of a family that my husband and I made out of our love for each other.

It is not a war, but I have taken a defensive stance. It didn’t have to be this way.

Now Brian and I are seriously considering to stop attending the classes, and count our gains/losses. We learned a lot of labor-management techniques, and we will definitely use them. Now it is up to us to create our own plan and undo all the fear we have had engrained in us for the past 7 weeks. We need to focus on building a good rapport with our care team, and learn to trust that everybody will follow our wishes (within the realm of safety), and it will be a wonderful experience.

I have a long way to go to recover from this dreadful episode in what has otherwise been a very healthy and wonderful pregnancy. I am sure Brian’s positive attitude and calm demeanor will help me get there.

Thank you for reading, and wish me luck.

ina

I could use this post to rant about how women have no idea that their bodies are made for childbirth and how to use it, and how they blindly do whatever their OB tells them to do (sometimes to their peril), and how frustrating it is for ME to hear all that after all the research I have done on the topic. Instead, I want to just plant a seed of self-education (utilizing my own bias, of course! After all, this IS an opinion blog… MY opinion) 😉

Here are some things you should consider when planning your birth:

(this post expresses my bias quite shamelessly, so just use these as a jumping off point in your own research either way you decide to go)

• One intervention may lead to another intervention: Fine, I’m a biased woman, but this is a matter of fact and you ask any OB, midwife, nurse, even medical and nursing students about this one: being the subject of a medical intervention (such as anesthesia, aka epidural) increases your chances of being subject to additional intervention. Things could go wrong: puncture your spine through the injection process, overmedication, undermedication, slow-down of baby’s heart beat, etc. Or even when things go right: the slow-down of labor functions and the mother’s inability to feel the “right time” to push may drag the process on to a point when the labor is “not progressing,” which makes uneasy health professionals think of ways to accelerate the process, such as providing pitocin (an induction agent). Pitocin increases the strength of contractions, which, coupled with the anesthesia, may create an unfavorable environment for the baby, which may cause distress to the baby. Once the baby is in distress, the goal becomes to get the baby out at all cost. Hence, a c-section. Therefore, if you don’t want a c-section, the best way to avoid it is to avoid medical intervention altogether.
• Pushing time is longer under medication: anesthesia numbs your limbs from the waist down (and, fyi, it also gets passed onto the baby), making it harder to sense when it is the right time to push. Some have described the feeling as being told to do number 2, when you don’t actually have the urge to go. The decrease in feeling slows down the process, and the pushing stage of labor may easily take 2-4 hours. The effects of the anesthesia make it impossible for the mother to stand up, walk around, or squat, which means the only possible position for pushing is laying on her back. Considering that gravity is working against you, delivery is simply more difficult to accomplish, opening up the opportunity for other types of intervention (such as an episiotomy).
• “I can’t handle a headache, let alone the pains of labor!”: This is the biggest fear of future mothers out there: the pains of labor will be so intense that they will not be able to handle it. Where are new mothers hearing that labor is painful? Maybe from every other mother who went through it and got the anesthesia because “they couldn’t handle it.” I will not say that labor is not painful, but I will say that most mothers are expecting it to be painful, which creates a sense of fear around the day of labor. When you are expecting something to be deadly painful, fear will intensify that pain (this is a fact, don’t shoot the messenger!). This is why mothers who are TRULY preparing for a natural birth attend classes that go on for 9 weeks at a time (as opposed to mothers who say “I tried to go natural” but really they had come to that decision on the day of labor without serious previous preparation). In these sessions, future mothers are trained in (1) pain management exercises, (2) creating a support system that will check fear at the door, (3) preparing mentally for a mind-over-body approach, (4) avoiding negative thoughts that may create fear or negative anticipation for that day, (5) to convince themselves and their partners that they CAN do this. Imagine a woman who did not get this type of training trying to go all natural on the day of labor: it’s as if you showed up on the day of the Boston Marathon without any training at all, and expected to run the full race. The chances of success are slim. However, armed with the proper training, the right support group, and the avoidance of negative thoughts, chances of success dramatically increase. Can a woman who has trouble with her headaches handle the pains of labor? Yes! They just don’t know it yet, and other mothers are not being very encouraging in convincing them otherwise.
• Your experience will be different from other mothers’: Obvious, right? Wrong. Many women assume that their path will be the same as that of other mothers who have been nice enough to share their stories: “I will get to the hospital, get my IV for fluids, get my epidural when the time comes, and pitocin only if it’s needed. If I need to get a C-section, then so be it. All for the sake of my child!” Ladies ladies, it doesn’t have to be this way! OWN your experience! Do your research. Interview places to deliver: different hospitals and birthing centers. Once you have all the information you need, make the decision that is best for YOU. Oh, and don’t you dare making that decision without watching the documentary The Business of Being Born first! This is a well-known documentary about births in America, and will give you a completely different perspective than that of your OB or your sister who went through the most painful labor in history. I’ve even talked to mothers who watched the movie AFTER giving birth, and they wished they had seen it BEFORE the birth. They tend to believe the process would have been a lot easier and smoother.
• You DO have options of care: OBs are Surgeons, Midwives are Certified Nurses: Educate yourself on the difference between the two. OBs are not the only choice you have for care during your pregnancy, and they are SURGEONS. They will use all available medical equipment, tests and knowledge they possess to help you. However, in most European countries OBs are only consulted when the pregnancy is considered high risk (as any specialist should be). Otherwise, a Certified Nurse Midwife can provide the same pre-natal care, tests and support as an OB; with the exception that they will not jump to medical interventions as a default (midwives think horses, OBs think zebras). Most major hospitals have midwifery groups you can sign up for your care, while leaving the heavy lifting to an OB only if your pregnancy has certain risks associated with it. Would you go to a G.I. specialist if you had simple constipation? No, just like you shouldn’t immediately think “surgeon specialist” when you think of such a natural process as birthing is.
• Remember that the OB’s goal is the same as yours (healthy mom and baby), but their motivations for the methods are far different from yours: when an OB decides to do a c-section instead of doing vaginal birth, they are minimizing the risk to the baby (mission accomplished) while allowing the mother to carry all the risk that comes with a major surgery (such as infection, reaction to the anesthesia, and recovery). C-sections also work quite conveniently for OBs: they are scheduled, which means they don’t have to be available for up to 60 hours that labor could last near your bedside checking on how you’re doing and increasing risks and uncertainty. C-sections are also much more expensive (and therefore they get paid more by insurance companies) than allowing a mother to deliver vaginally. All these things considered, it is no wonder that major hospital’s C-section rates are 30-40%. It’s not that 30-40% of women are unable to deliver babies vaginally (that would mean an immense biological flaw in humans), it’s that there is a whole system working in favor of C-sections.
• C-sections are not just major surgery, they also take away from the birthing experience: when a baby is born, it needs its mother nearby right away. That moment of bonding is so important and so worthwhile for all birthing mothers. When you think of what kind of birth you want to have, remember that you are not going to get the “baby out of you” but you are working together with the baby to find its way out. A scientific study showed that when a chimpanzee gave birth vaginally, it would forever take care of that baby; while chimps who delivered through c-section were more detached and did not acknowledge the babies as their own. Now, we are not chimps and we know that it is the same baby, but the biological process of giving birth is universal among mammals, and it marks a significant point in the start of the relationship that mothers should not miss out on. Also, consider that recovery for c-sections is 4 days (versus 8 hours for natural birth), plus time afterwards when you won’t be able to lift heavy things or engage in physical exercise as the wound heals.
• You cannot do this alone: Independent women of the world, I know this is very hard to hear. Even if you are about to be a single mother, you WILL need the support of those who love you to get through labor day. Not only do you need them to be physically there for moral support, but you need them to be in tune with your wishes and to refrain from telling their own horror birth stories on that day. Let them know that you need them to stay positive, to just be there for you, and to check their opinions at the door (in a way, they need training, too!). Only happiness and smiles on that day! It doesn’t have to be the most horrible experience of your life: you can turn it into the happiest and most wonderful time to share with family and welcome a tiny new member.

In short: I wish I lived in a place that was more open to the natural process of labor, and I didn’t feel like I was going against the grain everywhere I go and everyone I talk to. So the best I can do is to pass on the knowledge (biased as it may be), and hope that women out there learn how to make this decision for themselves.

Good luck!

ina

So, with that mantra in mind, I am officially letting go. I declare this THE SUMMER OF GEORGE! (well, the summer of ina, but the original is far catchier). This summer I am going to enjoy the little preparations that I have not had the mental stamina to handle in months: setting up the baby’s room, buying baby car seats, strollers, mini clothes, etc. I also wanted to go to the beach at some point and get a cute picture of me and my oversized belly 🙂 Wouldn’t that be cute?? This summer will be MY summer.

So what to do… what to do… well, first I’ll finish setting up the house. We are having our new bedroom set and mattress delivered this week, which I hope will eliminate the need for getting up at 2am with a back ache and having to finish my sleep on the couch because my husband is taking up 75% of our very uncomfortable full size bed, and then staying awake for 1.5hrs until the relaxation muses have done their thing. Sigh. Man, that was not a good way to start out the week this morning.

Once the new bedroom set is in place (Hallelujah), we’ll set up the guest bed elsewhere to leave room for setting up the nursery. We’ll finally get to put together the crib I got at a garage sale (I’m nervous we might not have all the screws for it!!). Also, Brian’s family already volunteered to paint babycove’s room 🙂 I’ll definitely take them up on that! So maybe I should go to Home Depot and pick a color! 🙂

Anyways, it’s time to start enjoying this pregnancy the way Babies R Us intended. Viva the capitalism! 😉

ina

Photo Credit: http://www.sidereel.com/Seinfeld/season-8/episode-22