The price of vanity

Here's a tip, ladies: keep up with the waxing! Not having an income, and not having worn a bathing suit since well before #1's birth, I have been very lax with the bikini waxes. In fact, it has been nearly a year since my last one. We're going on vacation this week, and the hotel has a pool, so here was an excellent excuse to get back into the habit. That and I am vain enough to want to be presentable during childbirth (because I'm sure that that is the only thing my midwife will think about). OOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! Getting a bikini wax after not having one for a while is painful, and can lead to some bleeding. Now add in six months of pregnancy. My poor, violated skin is still slightly swollen, and there isn't really anything I can do about it. Maybe sitting on some ice. Anyway, my vanity is such that I still think it was worth it, but I also made another appointment in four weeks, because this time I will not let things go for so long.

Oh, and I don't mind if you're laughing at me, I am too, even through the pain.

Natural Birth conquers another site!

Since my avatar is the same, I'm probably not revealing too much to say I'm a huge fan of the Nest & the Bump (outgrowths of the uber-popular website the Knot). I've met a lot of wonderful women on the boards, many of whom I've actually met in real life, and many, many more that I hope to one day. Anyway, as of today, there is finally a Natural Birth board. I am so very, very excited! It is yet another outlet for women who want to find out about, talk about, encourage and commiserate over going the route that few in this country do (seriously, about 90% of births in this country are medicated, CRAZY!!!). I hope that as someone who has already gone through this, I can be of help to the first-timers. And if any of them are visiting my blog for the first time today, I say welcome here, too!

(and for those of you who haven't ever been on the Nest or the Bump, I say give it a try if you like having an internet support group for life in general)

I feel pretty!

Or at least I did for the afternoon. I shaved, did full make-up, did my hair, put on a lovely (pink) outfit, and met a friend for formal afternoon tea and a chick flick. Then I came home, pulled my hair back, and put my regular clothes back on. I love, love, love being a stay at home mom. I love being pregnant and that I'm creating another life inside of me. But, oh, I do miss dressing up on a regular basis (even if just for work). My husband and I in general are homebodies (well, we're frugal, and it's easier to be frugal if you stay at home), so it's not like I had a wild social life before settling down with child(ren). But we did at least get really dressed up a few times a year for an "event". Where we live now doesn't really have a lot of "dress-up" events and I sorely miss them. I'm an anachronism and would be perfectly happy to have to "dress" for dinner every night (you know, one that was prepared by the cook and served by the maids/butler). But then again, the grass is always greener. Anyway, it was nice to have my afternoon fantasy, be a girly girl and have a break. And I can't wait until my children are old enough to share the experience with them.

Scared after watching a birth(?)

An on-line community that I take part in had a post from one of the pregnant women today. She had seen a birth in her birthing class last night and was now terrified. Yes, the first time (or first several times) you see that birth it can be really traumatic. Especially depending on the video (seeing the women in labor screaming first doesn't help). But, I highly, highly recommend getting over this by watching more, and more, and more births. Watching until it's no longer shocking and seems commonplace. It's totally not the same as being there for a birth (particularly your own), but the more normal it seems, the less it will shock you when it's your turn, too. This was one of the many, many things I loved about my Bradley class, we watched a TON of births. Natural births. And honestly, watching a medicated birth kind of freaks me out more. And if you want nightmares, watch a c-section. I wish they made all women watch those as well as a natural birth in those "education" classes that hospitals run.

The only birth movies that I've seen that Netflix has are The Business of Being Born which is more about the industry than about births and doesn't have the best birthing examples, and Orgasmic Birth which I just watched two weeks ago and is fantastic. Lots of beautiful, natural births. Home births, hospital births, supportive, loving births (and no crotch shots, so less disturbing for the uninitiated). There is also the medicated birth, but don't worry, it's not balanced at all. I'd love to hear of more if anyone has any suggestions in the comments.

And as a parting thought: WHO (World Health Organization) recommends a c-section rate of about 10%, which means that 90% of women can have healthy, unmedicated births without any problems. It's your body, and your body knows what it's doing.

Before the baby comes

I don't remember if I've written about this before or not, so bear with me if you get a sense of deja vu. While life eventually reaches a settled place after Baby is born, it could be months before you start feeling as though you can handle any tasks outside of basic survival for you and your family. This is why it is SO important to get as much stuff done well before your due date. Things like moving, painting, landscaping, starting a new business; none of this should be contenplated post partum. Our plan for our first baby was buy a house BEFORE getting pregnant (done, I went off of birth control the week after we moved) and get all decorating, painting, planting, etc. done before the baby came. It mostly worked out. We spent the first few months painting (we like color), the summer working on the yard (first baby was born the beginning of September). Unfortunately, we were so busy, that it wasn't until the first weekend in September that we finally finished our list. That weekend we had a garage sale, my husband got his bike serviced, I took the cat to the vet and bought three months worth of food and litter for her, did five loads of laundry, my husband also mowed, weed wacked and stained our new fence (that he had built a couple of weeks before). Then I went into labor. I never had a second to relax (the crazy job didn't help at all with this).

This time around, we have until the end of June to get everything done so I have two months to relax. This means that we've been landscaping like crazy (it's never really done, and we have a tiny backyard, too!). The next project is built-in bookcases for our living room. Then we need to furnish #1's room with new furniture so we can move his baby stuff into the new nursery (at least it's already painted!). There will always be last minute stuff to take care of, but I am bound and determined to enjoy the most miserable part of THIS pregnancy!

Birth Story for first baby

I think it's about time to share with you my birth story from my first baby. I love it so much, I had such a fantastic birth. Yes, it was an easier birth, but please don't think that my support of natural, out-of-hospital births would be any less if it were harder. This was a path I chose assuming that I would have a long, long first labor. (And I had a difficult pregnancy and postpartum, so it more than evened out!) (I wrote this for a previous on-line post)

First things first: #1 was born at 3:21am on 9/8/08 weighing in at 7 lbs, 12 oz and 20 inches long.

Secondly, I just want to say how proud I am of my husband. When we first started talking about getting pg, he was all about a medicated, hospital birth and couldn’t imagine anything else. With all that we went through, he did a full 180 and was 100% behind a natural childbirth in a birth center. And after the birth, he is 110% behind a home birth next time. I’m just so lucky to have a man who can grow and change and not get stuck in his own ideas without considering other options.

Okay, here are the details, up close and personal. I don’t think there’s anything that will scare the potential breeders. It really all started early Sunday morning. I woke up for my one am potty break and saw there was some spotting (bloody show), evidence that my cervix was dilating. Since I’m with a midwife practice, they don’t do any internal checks since you can start effacing or dilating weeks before giving birth and that can just give a false sense of urgency. I was a bit excited, but also knew that this just meant something was happening, not that something was happening soon. I woke up at six am to more bloody show, but no cramping or contractions, so I suppressed my excitement (a bit) and went on with my day (garage sale! Yeah, we really live it up here).

The day was busy and around six I was catching up with a friend in DC on the phone. After about an hour of talking to her, I realized I’d been having contractions the entire time. Not necessarily a bit deal, since I’d been having Braxton-Hicks for about two months. I decided to let her go and start timing with the stop watch we’d finally bought three days before. My husband came inside from mowing the lawn a little bit later to my announcement that I was having light, painless contractions 8-14 minutes apart. We decided to have dinner and see if they would stop. We ate, the contractions continued, but didn’t speed up or get any more intense. We discussed my husband working from home the next day, but decided to see how I would feel the next morning. I took a warm shower and the contractions finally did stop. I thought I was going to be fine, and would be able to go into work the next day and get a few things done.

When I woke up for my first potty break, I realized that I’d had a few contractions, but I thought it was the middle of the night, so I could probably just go back to sleep. Then I looked at the clock. I had been in bed for less than an hour and had had several mild contractions. This was not false labor. I wanted to let my husband get as much sleep as possible, so I just lay there for a while, the contractions starting to get more intense and some back pain with them. Baby was also moving non-stop in between contractions, so there was no chance of me sleeping between them. I made an effort to relax during and between, rubbing the small of my back when it was hurting. It wasn’t much longer when I needed to start vocalizing to help me get through the contractions. They hurt, but they weren’t so bad that I couldn’t cope. But the moaning finally woke my husband up. At first he thought I was just moaning in my sleep, but soon realized I was wide awake. As soon as he was up, I told him to go get the Bradley book so I could see where I was. He couldn’t find that, or the midwife manual, so I got up to go look in the nursery. I made it in there just in time to drop to all fours for the next contraction. As soon as it was over, I felt nauseated and rapidly went to the bathroom to get sick. I crawled into the tub and had my husband call the midwife. Getting into the tub was fantastic. I turned on the water for each contraction and just had it run over me. Sitting there wasn’t terribly comfortable, but the running water made up for it. My cat also sat on the edge of the tub with me, worried about what was going on. Considering what a pain she normally is, it was so touching to see her worried about me.

It was around 1am when we got in touch with the midwife. She listened to me have a contraction, determining that I was in active labor (you think?) and told us she’d meet us at the birth center at 2am. I couldn’t imagine waiting that long! My husband ran around to get everything into the car. Then I hit transition. I let out a scream for that first one, not realizing that it was transition. But the first one was by far the worst, and staying in the tub calmed me down. When I was time to leave, I didn’t want to. I was worried that by changing position and getting out of the tub that I’d be in more pain. What I was dealing with was still within the realm of coping, but I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Then I started to feel a small urge to push. My husband: “We are going RIGHT NOW!”

I finished the contraction, threw on underwear and a robe, and he got me down to the car in record time. Fortunately, the contractions slowed down and were much easier in the car. My husband would only go 5 miles over the speed limit, mentally getting ready to have to explain to a cop if we got pulled over. Fortunately, someone else was pulled over ahead of us and we made it to the Birth Center in about 15 minutes. I walked in the door, meeting my midwife and her two assistants with “I’m ready, now!” They thought this was amusing, until they checked me. The women got me into the room, soft music playing and candles lit, while My husband got our bags out of the car. I lay down in the bed and felt much better. I was so exhausted, all I wanted to do was rest. They had the tub ready for me since I had originally planned for a water birth, but laying on my side was so comfortable. Then they checked me, and could see the baby’s head. I was ready to push, so they told me to go ahead and listen to my body. My husband kneeled by the bed and I held (squeezed) his fingers. I had one assistant at my head, putting cool compresses on my forehead and rubbing my back and arms. I had one assistant putting warm compresses on my perineum and holding my leg up with each push. The midwife oversaw everything and made sure that I had a drink of water during each break. I pushed with each contraction and rested in between. The rest made such a difference in my stamina. I was refreshed and (somewhat) ready to go each time. The pushing was really intense, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be. The first couple I was vocalizing really loudly and the midwife told me to take that energy and use it to push instead, keeping the vocalizations lower in my chest. This made pushing so much more effective. About fifteen minutes before birth, my water finally broke. The feeling was actually quite nice, with the rush of liquid feeling comforting. I had completely forgotten about it so I was surprised when it happened. Before I knew it, I could feel Baby’s head. I wanted him out! He started to crown with one push and I felt him slide back inside. I said, “No, I want you out now!” and the midwife told me it was okay, give myself some time to stretch. Well, I was ready to push a few more times, but I could feel his head coming out with the next push, so I just kept going and my husband was right there when I pushed him out entirely at once. It was so fast, there wasn’t even time for a picture. My husband put him on my belly and my son and I looked at each other for the first time. As soon as I could talk, all I could say was “That was it? I could totally do this a few more times!”

Because he came so fast, and his hand was up near his head, I did have a second degree tear that required stitches, but I didn’t (and never did) feel that. I also had a nasty hematoma (like a blood blister). And I lost a lot of blood, making me really light-headed any time I stood up for the first day. But I am so happy with how the birth turned out. A little extra healing time is so worth how easy labor was. I was fully prepared for a multi-day marathon and instead ran the marathon in a sprint. I took Bradley Method classes beforehand, and while I forgot half of it during labor, I feel as though they had me fully prepared on what to expect at each stage. What I took away from them that helped the most was trying to relax as much as possible during labor. I feel like it made a world of difference in my stamina and the level of pain. And also for the general philosophy of this is what our body is made to do, so we can handle it. While I know that natural childbirth isn’t for everyone, I really do encourage everyone to at least explore if it is an option.

Olympics

I love watching the Olympics: cheering on the USA, cheering on the inspiring stories, cheering on the underdogs (or the occasional sure thing, like Michael Phelps!!). Nothing is more inspiring than watching someone who has spent the better part of his/her life working for this one goal and then getting to stand on the podium. I get teared up just writing about it. How does this relate to childbirth? Wait, I can link it.

You're probably not spending a lifetime preparing, but certainly a large portion of how you've lived your life will affect pregnancy and labor. If you've been eating well, get regular exercise and keep the stress levels down (ha!) this is going to be an easier journey than if not. The better you do with this during your pregnancy, ideally, the easier journey you'll have. If you're just starting now, you'll still have an impact. The better shape that you're heading into labor, the better labor should go.

Unfortunately, this does NOT guarantee an easy pregnancy and/or labor. I know plenty of women who do everything right (myself included) and have miserable pregnancies. And I know of women who do everything wrong and have easy pregnancies (I don't know about the labors). But, I tell myself, if I weren't doing (almost) everything right, how much more miserable of a time would I have? So it comes down to having faith in doing the right thing for your body and your baby.

Birthing Classes

I was talking (okay, chatting on FB) with a friend today who is pregnant with her first and she said she was reluctant to take any birthing classes since there's a high chance that she could end up with a c-section. So today I'd like to write about the importance of birthing classes. Even if you have a planned c-section because you're having triplets, there is still a lot to learn about if this is your first time.

With my first pregnancy I did Bradley Method and we also signed up for every single class that the local hospital offered. The hospital classes were less helpful, but I think they were still worth the money. There is a ton of stuff going into parenthood and childbirth that you just don't even know that you don't know (I can't think of stuff now, but trust me). Particularly some of the post-partum healing that your body does. Or weird stuff that the baby does. Like the various stages of poop that a normal newborn goes through. Or how many diapers s/he should wet the first few days, or when your milk comes in. All of this, and a whole lot more, are covered in birthing classes (or at least good ones). Even if you're (hopefully!) not planning a hospital birth, they can still be a wealth of information. And it's not a bad idea if you're planning a home or birth center birth to familiarize yourself with the hospital, just in case. When it comes to parenthood, there is no such thing as being too prepared, or having too much information. Besides, once the baby is born and you don't sleep for weeks on end, you're going to forget so much that I hope your head is crowded so that some of it sticks.