This is where we are: swinging wildly on the pendulum of visitors (yay, visitors) and overtime (boo, overtime).
Friends of ours who are expecting their first baby had her water break at 8 weeks to go. They've been able to stabilize her, get steroids into the bambino, and are hoping to keep her stabilized for another week or so to give the kid as much in-oven time as possible.
She just posted about it on Facebook, and I was shocked by the tone of the responses. I don't know why. They were mostly in the "praying for you, much love, thoughts are with you," category. It's not like I was expecting nasty comments, but there was something about the tone that reminded me of people dealing with bad stuff, like they'd announced a cancer diagnosis or something truly awful.
Now, yes, preemies have issues and I get that. But it didn't occur to me--and this might be because they are at a relatively-safe 32 weeks and not a scary pre-28-weeks--to be anything but excited for them. When my sister was born, she had problems, serious, life-threatening problems, and people kept saying to my mother, "I'm so sorry."
And she got indignant, and said, "Nobody died; someone was born." That's how I feel when I read all those well-intentioned and laden-with-love comments. Someone's being born. Someone's being born to two people who should really be parents. They should have six or eight kids and raise them all to be hell-raisers and world-beaters because these are the kind of people they are. The world needs more people like them.
But again: Someone's being born. That's an amazing thing.
Showing posts with label birth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Why is VBAC a vital option?
This is a birth post, while we climb out of the mire of sickness. ICAN, which is an organization dedicated to giving moms the support and knowledge they need to avoid unnecessary repeat C-sections, is having a blog carnival on VBAC and why they're important.
I didn't have a VBAC--but I wanted one. Desperately. My first C-section was on the heels of 45 hours of labor, including three hours of pushing, and it took months until I felt like myself again.
This place in this post is where typically, now, I would list the reasons for the C-section. But I'm not going to, because I've learned something in the three-and-a-half years since my first son was born: most of my pro-natural-birth sisters believe a necessary C-section is rarer than a polar bear in the Sahara.
And I knew I wanted a VBAC for my second. I wanted the otherworldly thrill of pushing another being out of my body; I wanted to have a sore bottom for a couple weeks instead of intense pain while walking or lifting for a couple months. When I got pregnant, I researched doctors to find the one most committed to VBACs; we hired a monitrice/doula to help me labor at home for as long as possible before we went to the hospital. I perched on a birth ball for the last trimester for optimal fetal positioning and took my vitamins and thought positive thoughts.
Then, birth number two happened. I had a husband, a monitrice, an OB/GYN all pulling for the VBAC and it didn't happen. I'm a statistical freak: two births that each have a different almost-never-happens legitimate reason for C-section.
So why would I, a woman who's never had one, consider a VBAC a vital option? Making VBACs a true option would help me connect with other mothers. I've already had the unfortunate experience of having someone ask me my birth story, and once I said, "Repeat C-section," it was as if I've admitted to flaying my children or formula-feeding them, at least. The first C-section is a mistake; the second one is apparently a choice.
For the most part, the ICAN crowd wants to know what interventions I had. They want me to tell stories about the mean, pushy doctors; the awful hospital policies; how foolish and uneducated I was. They want my medical chart. They want to point out my first misstep, whether it was walking into the hospital to deliver or having an OB/GYN instead of a midwife in the first place. If I think the C-sections were necessary, I haven't done enough homework yet.
Lots of C-sections are done for the wrong reasons. I get that. Mine weren't.
If every woman in this country had loving support for VBACs, then when a statistical anomaly like me tells her birth stories, I could get the same respect as every other mother for birthing my children. If VBACs were the norm, then my C-sections would be assumed to be necessary until proven otherwise. Right now, my friends, that's not what's assumed at all.
I didn't have a VBAC--but I wanted one. Desperately. My first C-section was on the heels of 45 hours of labor, including three hours of pushing, and it took months until I felt like myself again.
This place in this post is where typically, now, I would list the reasons for the C-section. But I'm not going to, because I've learned something in the three-and-a-half years since my first son was born: most of my pro-natural-birth sisters believe a necessary C-section is rarer than a polar bear in the Sahara.
And I knew I wanted a VBAC for my second. I wanted the otherworldly thrill of pushing another being out of my body; I wanted to have a sore bottom for a couple weeks instead of intense pain while walking or lifting for a couple months. When I got pregnant, I researched doctors to find the one most committed to VBACs; we hired a monitrice/doula to help me labor at home for as long as possible before we went to the hospital. I perched on a birth ball for the last trimester for optimal fetal positioning and took my vitamins and thought positive thoughts.
Then, birth number two happened. I had a husband, a monitrice, an OB/GYN all pulling for the VBAC and it didn't happen. I'm a statistical freak: two births that each have a different almost-never-happens legitimate reason for C-section.
So why would I, a woman who's never had one, consider a VBAC a vital option? Making VBACs a true option would help me connect with other mothers. I've already had the unfortunate experience of having someone ask me my birth story, and once I said, "Repeat C-section," it was as if I've admitted to flaying my children or formula-feeding them, at least. The first C-section is a mistake; the second one is apparently a choice.
For the most part, the ICAN crowd wants to know what interventions I had. They want me to tell stories about the mean, pushy doctors; the awful hospital policies; how foolish and uneducated I was. They want my medical chart. They want to point out my first misstep, whether it was walking into the hospital to deliver or having an OB/GYN instead of a midwife in the first place. If I think the C-sections were necessary, I haven't done enough homework yet.
Lots of C-sections are done for the wrong reasons. I get that. Mine weren't.
If every woman in this country had loving support for VBACs, then when a statistical anomaly like me tells her birth stories, I could get the same respect as every other mother for birthing my children. If VBACs were the norm, then my C-sections would be assumed to be necessary until proven otherwise. Right now, my friends, that's not what's assumed at all.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The labor that wasn't
This is the gory details birth story post. If you're not interested, you should skip it. But there are a lot less gory details with this one than the last one.
Sunday night almost two weeks ago, C and I are doing our normal Sunday night thing, which is us watching something on TV (Season 2 of Buffy, for the curious) while I fall asleep on the couch. Then C plays video games until he wakes me up to go to bed.
We'd also wrapped up a bunch of pre-baby tasks and were enjoying the calm: Getting the tree. Getting the tree decorated. Getting a new (Scotchguarded) slipcover on the couch, because I'd been doing a second shift of sleep on the couch practically every night and I didn't want to ruin the couch by having my water break on it.
So at 10:30PM, my water broke and I woke up, staggered to the bathroom, swearing. (The couch was fine.) I'd tested GBS-positive, which meant that I needed to be in active labor within 24 hours of my water breaking or risk serious damage to the baby. My doctor had said on my last visit that if my water broke, they'd want me to head to the hospital immediately. And since I had a C-section last time, they won't want to induce me, so I'd just be sitting in a hospital waiting for contractions to start.
I call my monitrice: water broke, no contractions, 10:30PM at night. Should I call my doctor or can I wait until morning, unless hard and fast labor comes on? She says, go to bed. Check your temperature and worry if it spikes.
The odds of a woman's water breaking before she goes into labor is about 1 in 10. The odds of labor not starting within a reasonable amount of time after her water breaks are even smaller than that. I know you all know how exceptional I am, and that's carrying through to this labor.
C and I fuss about doing things: finding new blankets for the couch, making sure the reservoir for the tree is attached and full, starting that last load of laundry that needs to get done before I go to the hospital. We go to bed. I wake up halfway, not with contractions, just with my usual midnight pregnancy insomnia, and fall asleep on the couch watching more Buffy.
We get a full night's sleep. My monitrice calls: how's the labor? No contractions. Nothing. GBS means one way or another, there will be a baby coming today or early tomorrow, so let's get A off to school and cared for. C makes some phone calls and our fabulous friends pitch in to take A on a playdate afterschool.
My monitrice comes over and checks the baby with a Doppler (doing great). We call the doctor. Doctor says, well, I have to tell you to come in to the hospital, but I obviously can't force you. (I believe there would be winking in person.) We come to a consensus that we'll all check in again four hours later but I'll stay at home for now (unless crazy things happen).
My monitrice tries some belly massage to get contractions going, and leaves once C is back from dropping off A at school, leaving us with the instructions to go to bed and fool around.
C and I have lunch. We watch TV. We make sure A's been picked up and is being taken care of. We go to bed. We fool around. We take a nap. She calls and wakes us: any contractions? Nope. Some erratic tightenings, but nothing to knock me on my butt. She's coming back over with castor oil and an enema (sounds like a party, right?), since it's 2pm-ish now and we're getting into the do-or-die stage of kicking off labor.
I ask C, "I would know what a contraction is, right? I didn't have such horrible back labor with A that a regular contraction would feel like a walk in the park?"
C says, "Well, if I've learned anything from Bill Cosby, it's that when you have a contraction, you'll make a sound like WHHOOOOOOOOOOO." The fact that I find this funny is why we're still married after all this time.
My monitrice comes back. The enema sounds much better than the castor oil (oh I so hated that castor oil, if you can't tell) but she wants to get the doctor's blessing before we proceed. The doctor's office doesn't call us back for hours, making the whole discussion moot. There's just not enough time left before the 10:30PM deadline to allow either method to work.
It's 4pm. I'm eating apples and string cheese. We're at a confluence. Previous C-section = no Pitocin induction, GBS-positive = 24 hour deadline from water breaking to active labor kicking in. This is all leading up to a repeat C-section.
"How many hours will they not want me to have eaten before a C-section?" I ask, and my monitrice says six.
"Well, it's 4pm, so let's cut it off here and we'll have the kid at ten," I say.
And that's pretty much what we did. At that point, I was resigned, but I couldn't see any way around it. Then it became a question of logistics: when should we get to the hospital (8 and not 7 due to shift change), what's A going to do, when should we call the locals, when should we call the far-off people who wanted to be notified, is my bag packed, where's the extra battery for the camera, who can we trust to get a present for A from the baby, and so on.
We stop by our friends' house where A is staying the night to drop off a backpack of stuff, only to be told that he's already been given a toothbrush, put into PJs, and put to sleep. He's doing well, we're told, although he's had no nap.
By the way, it is the "worst storm ever seen" by our kindly elderly neighbor and San Diego native: pouring rain all day, blowing wind. In the night a tree will be blown over and bash in one of our neighbor's roofs. Our children chose diametrically opposite days to be born.
Miss Julie meets us at the hospital, yay, as does our monitrice. The super-friendly doctor's on-call and will be doing the surgery, yay. He does an exam and says, to nobody's surprise, that I'm only 1.5-2 cm dilated. "Yeah, C-section," I say. And I'm bummed because it's not what I wanted, I know the recovery will suck, but we're going to have a baby and so let's get the darn surgery over with and get to the baby part.
Surgery is, well, surgery. It's not fun. I get a spinal instead of the epidural. C's not allowed in the room until I'm flat on the table and prepped, and not having any of my peeps present while I'm getting the spinal makes me more panicky than anything else (although, truth be told, seeing big needles plunged between my vertebrae is not C's strong point--which is okay, since he's not my anesthesiologist). Dr. Wonderful says, "I'll hold your hand, okay?" and he does; in fact, he hugs me and talks me through the procedure--which is someone sticking needles between all the spaces of your lower spine) to help me relax and cope.
While I was waiting for the spinal to kick in, I read a whiteboard in the OR that has my information: R C-S, the doctor's name, and then my last name, which is spelled wrong. I tell the anesthesiologist, who says that the whiteboard is not part of his domain. I tell Dr. Wonderful, who says, "Oh, come on, guys, can we spell her name right?" which made me feel so much better because you all know how batty it would make me to lie there and read it over and over again.
C comes in and says, "T's here too," which was so amazing and sweet and I was so touched, even though I was shivering and nervous about surgery and all that. (T brought a book, remembering the last labor, and debated whether or not he needed two books.)
This surgery went faster, and they were kind enough to hold the baby over the big drape so that C could tell me the gender, "A boy!" It's 9:58pm. Apgars are 8 and 9. Eight pounds, eleven ounces--this is a big baby. C counts fingers and toes and tells me the right number this time. And when the pediatric nurse is done, C sits near me and holds the baby and we discuss names, since we hadn't really gotten around to picking one. I stare and stare since this one does not, as I anticipated with either gender, look like A. There are similarities, but the differences are what strike me: this one has C's tiny cute ears instead of the huge ones A inherited from me. I check to make sure the nurses didn't just hide them under the cap.
Anyway, the discovery during surgery: L as a true knot in his umbilical cord. This happens in .6-1% of births. This means that if we'd actually had labor and/or a vaginal delivery, the odds of L dying in the process would have increased by about 400%. When I think about that, it gives me goosebumps: all the things that I resented for leading us to a C-section are suddenly all the things that kept L alive.
C left the room with L while they tied me up with lots of adhesive tape (which I would have a nasty-ass allergic reaction to, leaving me welted and red all across my very delicate regions until three or four days of Benedryl took it down). We were reunited in the same room we'd been in before the surgery, which was nice. I was surprised by how much I wanted to just hold this one all to myself after surgery. J & T came in to see him while C made phone calls. I ended up sleeping with L all night.
Anyway, after that, we were transferred to the postpartum rooms. I had three roommates in as many days. Most of them were short-term, but it was still incredibly stressful for me. All I wanted was quiet and privacy and sleep, and listening to other people's small dramas is incredibly tiring. (Especially when your new roommate shows up at 3AM after you've just gotten you and your baby to sleep.)
But they moved me to the window side of the room where I could watch hummingbirds in the tree outside the window, and the nurses (for the most part, with one glaring exception) were fine. They all agree with me that L looks like a full-term baby and not a baby with a week or so left to go. Since I thought my due date was the 9th and the ultrasound dating put it at the 16th, I feel vindicated.
Still, I was texting C at 4AM on Thursday morning: They will discharge me today or I will sign myself out AMA.
Happily, my doctor must have recognized that, because he said sure, go home, just come to the office tomorrow to get your staples out.
Now L is ten days old, and he's snuggly. As long as he gets snuggled, he's happy. He's been a good sleeper so far; nursing is going well. He has a half-smile that makes him look exactly like Indiana Jones. I'm besotted and engrossed (which is why there's no blog updates or quick responses to emails).
A's back into the swing of life with his mean mommy and daddy instead of the party life with everyone else who dotes on him, and he seems to be coming around to life as normal, which is what we're striving for. Today he gave L a kiss and a hug on the way out the door to preschool, so he's coming around to L as well.
I'm moving, still easily tired, still on painkillers, still taking it slow. We did an IKEA stop today, but slowly. C is a fantastic father and husband and is the glue holding our house together and the one who keeps us all laughing. I'm so glad I have him. I'm so glad have all of them.
Sunday night almost two weeks ago, C and I are doing our normal Sunday night thing, which is us watching something on TV (Season 2 of Buffy, for the curious) while I fall asleep on the couch. Then C plays video games until he wakes me up to go to bed.
We'd also wrapped up a bunch of pre-baby tasks and were enjoying the calm: Getting the tree. Getting the tree decorated. Getting a new (Scotchguarded) slipcover on the couch, because I'd been doing a second shift of sleep on the couch practically every night and I didn't want to ruin the couch by having my water break on it.
So at 10:30PM, my water broke and I woke up, staggered to the bathroom, swearing. (The couch was fine.) I'd tested GBS-positive, which meant that I needed to be in active labor within 24 hours of my water breaking or risk serious damage to the baby. My doctor had said on my last visit that if my water broke, they'd want me to head to the hospital immediately. And since I had a C-section last time, they won't want to induce me, so I'd just be sitting in a hospital waiting for contractions to start.
I call my monitrice: water broke, no contractions, 10:30PM at night. Should I call my doctor or can I wait until morning, unless hard and fast labor comes on? She says, go to bed. Check your temperature and worry if it spikes.
The odds of a woman's water breaking before she goes into labor is about 1 in 10. The odds of labor not starting within a reasonable amount of time after her water breaks are even smaller than that. I know you all know how exceptional I am, and that's carrying through to this labor.
C and I fuss about doing things: finding new blankets for the couch, making sure the reservoir for the tree is attached and full, starting that last load of laundry that needs to get done before I go to the hospital. We go to bed. I wake up halfway, not with contractions, just with my usual midnight pregnancy insomnia, and fall asleep on the couch watching more Buffy.
We get a full night's sleep. My monitrice calls: how's the labor? No contractions. Nothing. GBS means one way or another, there will be a baby coming today or early tomorrow, so let's get A off to school and cared for. C makes some phone calls and our fabulous friends pitch in to take A on a playdate afterschool.
My monitrice comes over and checks the baby with a Doppler (doing great). We call the doctor. Doctor says, well, I have to tell you to come in to the hospital, but I obviously can't force you. (I believe there would be winking in person.) We come to a consensus that we'll all check in again four hours later but I'll stay at home for now (unless crazy things happen).
My monitrice tries some belly massage to get contractions going, and leaves once C is back from dropping off A at school, leaving us with the instructions to go to bed and fool around.
C and I have lunch. We watch TV. We make sure A's been picked up and is being taken care of. We go to bed. We fool around. We take a nap. She calls and wakes us: any contractions? Nope. Some erratic tightenings, but nothing to knock me on my butt. She's coming back over with castor oil and an enema (sounds like a party, right?), since it's 2pm-ish now and we're getting into the do-or-die stage of kicking off labor.
I ask C, "I would know what a contraction is, right? I didn't have such horrible back labor with A that a regular contraction would feel like a walk in the park?"
C says, "Well, if I've learned anything from Bill Cosby, it's that when you have a contraction, you'll make a sound like WHHOOOOOOOOOOO." The fact that I find this funny is why we're still married after all this time.
My monitrice comes back. The enema sounds much better than the castor oil (oh I so hated that castor oil, if you can't tell) but she wants to get the doctor's blessing before we proceed. The doctor's office doesn't call us back for hours, making the whole discussion moot. There's just not enough time left before the 10:30PM deadline to allow either method to work.
It's 4pm. I'm eating apples and string cheese. We're at a confluence. Previous C-section = no Pitocin induction, GBS-positive = 24 hour deadline from water breaking to active labor kicking in. This is all leading up to a repeat C-section.
"How many hours will they not want me to have eaten before a C-section?" I ask, and my monitrice says six.
"Well, it's 4pm, so let's cut it off here and we'll have the kid at ten," I say.
And that's pretty much what we did. At that point, I was resigned, but I couldn't see any way around it. Then it became a question of logistics: when should we get to the hospital (8 and not 7 due to shift change), what's A going to do, when should we call the locals, when should we call the far-off people who wanted to be notified, is my bag packed, where's the extra battery for the camera, who can we trust to get a present for A from the baby, and so on.
We stop by our friends' house where A is staying the night to drop off a backpack of stuff, only to be told that he's already been given a toothbrush, put into PJs, and put to sleep. He's doing well, we're told, although he's had no nap.
By the way, it is the "worst storm ever seen" by our kindly elderly neighbor and San Diego native: pouring rain all day, blowing wind. In the night a tree will be blown over and bash in one of our neighbor's roofs. Our children chose diametrically opposite days to be born.
Miss Julie meets us at the hospital, yay, as does our monitrice. The super-friendly doctor's on-call and will be doing the surgery, yay. He does an exam and says, to nobody's surprise, that I'm only 1.5-2 cm dilated. "Yeah, C-section," I say. And I'm bummed because it's not what I wanted, I know the recovery will suck, but we're going to have a baby and so let's get the darn surgery over with and get to the baby part.
Surgery is, well, surgery. It's not fun. I get a spinal instead of the epidural. C's not allowed in the room until I'm flat on the table and prepped, and not having any of my peeps present while I'm getting the spinal makes me more panicky than anything else (although, truth be told, seeing big needles plunged between my vertebrae is not C's strong point--which is okay, since he's not my anesthesiologist). Dr. Wonderful says, "I'll hold your hand, okay?" and he does; in fact, he hugs me and talks me through the procedure--which is someone sticking needles between all the spaces of your lower spine) to help me relax and cope.
While I was waiting for the spinal to kick in, I read a whiteboard in the OR that has my information: R C-S, the doctor's name, and then my last name, which is spelled wrong. I tell the anesthesiologist, who says that the whiteboard is not part of his domain. I tell Dr. Wonderful, who says, "Oh, come on, guys, can we spell her name right?" which made me feel so much better because you all know how batty it would make me to lie there and read it over and over again.
C comes in and says, "T's here too," which was so amazing and sweet and I was so touched, even though I was shivering and nervous about surgery and all that. (T brought a book, remembering the last labor, and debated whether or not he needed two books.)
This surgery went faster, and they were kind enough to hold the baby over the big drape so that C could tell me the gender, "A boy!" It's 9:58pm. Apgars are 8 and 9. Eight pounds, eleven ounces--this is a big baby. C counts fingers and toes and tells me the right number this time. And when the pediatric nurse is done, C sits near me and holds the baby and we discuss names, since we hadn't really gotten around to picking one. I stare and stare since this one does not, as I anticipated with either gender, look like A. There are similarities, but the differences are what strike me: this one has C's tiny cute ears instead of the huge ones A inherited from me. I check to make sure the nurses didn't just hide them under the cap.
Anyway, the discovery during surgery: L as a true knot in his umbilical cord. This happens in .6-1% of births. This means that if we'd actually had labor and/or a vaginal delivery, the odds of L dying in the process would have increased by about 400%. When I think about that, it gives me goosebumps: all the things that I resented for leading us to a C-section are suddenly all the things that kept L alive.
C left the room with L while they tied me up with lots of adhesive tape (which I would have a nasty-ass allergic reaction to, leaving me welted and red all across my very delicate regions until three or four days of Benedryl took it down). We were reunited in the same room we'd been in before the surgery, which was nice. I was surprised by how much I wanted to just hold this one all to myself after surgery. J & T came in to see him while C made phone calls. I ended up sleeping with L all night.
Anyway, after that, we were transferred to the postpartum rooms. I had three roommates in as many days. Most of them were short-term, but it was still incredibly stressful for me. All I wanted was quiet and privacy and sleep, and listening to other people's small dramas is incredibly tiring. (Especially when your new roommate shows up at 3AM after you've just gotten you and your baby to sleep.)
But they moved me to the window side of the room where I could watch hummingbirds in the tree outside the window, and the nurses (for the most part, with one glaring exception) were fine. They all agree with me that L looks like a full-term baby and not a baby with a week or so left to go. Since I thought my due date was the 9th and the ultrasound dating put it at the 16th, I feel vindicated.
Still, I was texting C at 4AM on Thursday morning: They will discharge me today or I will sign myself out AMA.
Happily, my doctor must have recognized that, because he said sure, go home, just come to the office tomorrow to get your staples out.
Now L is ten days old, and he's snuggly. As long as he gets snuggled, he's happy. He's been a good sleeper so far; nursing is going well. He has a half-smile that makes him look exactly like Indiana Jones. I'm besotted and engrossed (which is why there's no blog updates or quick responses to emails).
A's back into the swing of life with his mean mommy and daddy instead of the party life with everyone else who dotes on him, and he seems to be coming around to life as normal, which is what we're striving for. Today he gave L a kiss and a hug on the way out the door to preschool, so he's coming around to L as well.
I'm moving, still easily tired, still on painkillers, still taking it slow. We did an IKEA stop today, but slowly. C is a fantastic father and husband and is the glue holding our house together and the one who keeps us all laughing. I'm so glad I have him. I'm so glad have all of them.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Needing a pedicure will not stave off birth.
Nor will needing to get your roots done.
Baby L made it here on Pearl Harbor Day, at a whopping 8 pounds, 11 ounces.
We came home Thursday, a day earlier than necessarily recommended for a C-sections but the hospital was Not Restful. Home is much, much better, even if it looks like our house threw up all over itself.
L and I are sleeping and nursing most of the time; A has one more week of school before he's with us full-time for four weeks of vacation; C is amazingly not insane as he cares for a newborn, a three-year-old, and me.
I will write up the birth story, but the bambino is crying and must need fed. He's really gotten the hang of this nursing thing.
Baby L made it here on Pearl Harbor Day, at a whopping 8 pounds, 11 ounces.
We came home Thursday, a day earlier than necessarily recommended for a C-sections but the hospital was Not Restful. Home is much, much better, even if it looks like our house threw up all over itself.
L and I are sleeping and nursing most of the time; A has one more week of school before he's with us full-time for four weeks of vacation; C is amazingly not insane as he cares for a newborn, a three-year-old, and me.
I will write up the birth story, but the bambino is crying and must need fed. He's really gotten the hang of this nursing thing.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Completely random
So I was reading a L&D nurse's blog (pointed to courtesy of Jennifer, thanks!). Recently she's got a collection of birth stories there; one of which had the most beautiful term for a sunny-side up (OP) baby like Mistah A here: Sternengucker (German) or "star gazer." My little star gazer! How fab!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The Gory Details: Part 2 (8AM Saturday until 4AM Sunday)
Again, if you don't like gory details of birth stories, this is not the post for you.
The difference between the birth center and the hospital was a shock. Instead of the homey birthing suite with queen-sized bed, we're in this stripped down formica and plastic room about the size of my old cubicle. C, J, and T all barely fit in the room. The nurse feels like it's her job to personally judge me for having gone to a birthing center; she argues with the legitimacy of my records from the birth center because "this says your water broke 1AM Friday and that can't possibly be right." No, you've got four intelligent people here who have all been awake for most of the night and can tell you my water didn't break eight hours ago. Bitch.
I've got an IV in an incredibly painful and movement-restricting point on the inside of my left wrist and I'm tethered to the EFM and the Pit pump. They're throwing forms and disclosures at us left and right to sign; C and I refuse to sign anything until we've read them which seems to annoy the nasty nurse. I balk at giving permission for all "labor and delivery procedures" and the nurse is annoyed when we ask what that covers, exactly, and doesn't answer anything but direct questioning (i.e., "Does this cover a C-section, yes or no?"), can't be bothered to explain. We're both incredibly tired and my contractions slow to 7-9 minutes apart, probably due to the hostility of the nurse and the strangeness of the situation. The nurse insists that we weren't really in labor before the Pitocin, which is not what you want to hear on your second day of labor.
The Pitocin kicks in around 9AM and I have really strong, vicious contractions. At first, I'm bound and determined to not have any pain meds. But I am just not able to move; even the slightest movement on my part disconnects the EFM and shows up as "baby in distress" at the nurses' station. If I keep disconnecting it, I am told by nasty nurse, they will have to assume the baby's in distress. (Note: for the entire labor, the baby's heartrate never dropped below 135 and was in the 140s most of the time. That is peachy perfect.) The nurse keeps scolding me to keep my eyes open and focus on one thing and breathe. I have been relaxing lovely well for the last 24 hours and don't feel like being scolded.
I get an epidural about 12:30, but I first talk to the nice doctor and tell him I want an epidural for the purpose of still delivering vaginally by getting some sleep and rest before I have to push, that I want the lowest dose possible to minimize effects on the baby, and that I want to be able to turn it off before pushing so I can feel my contractions. He was kind and gracious and at that point, I was re-energized by being treated like a human being instead of an irrational, irresponsible, crazy birth-in-the-bushes wacko. He even tolerates the questions of all four of us and calls questions the sign of intelligence. I take a nap and C gets something to eat, for which I am profoundly grateful for J and T being there since he wouldn't have left me without T staying behind. There's meuconium in the amniotic waters now, so we're going to have to have a pediatric team there when he's born. I am elated because that means the kid has an anus and it works.
I'm fully dialated at a little before 6. We turn off the epidural. I push until a little after 9PM. (I did turn the epidural back on at 8PM - pain was still most vicious in my back). T stepped out. J and C helped me push and the nasty nurse was relegated to someone else's labor, thank God. I got a wonderful L&D nurse (two with a shift change, actually) who was encouraging and sweet. It really makes the world of difference to have people around you who say, "Yes, you can do this." At the end of three hours of pushing with contractions about 2 to 3 minutes apart, the kid has not moved significantly, although we are getting glimpses of the head, which thrill J and C.
At 9PM, the doctor says the kid is most probably stuck; we can opt for a trial vacuum extraction which may not work (and may require an episiotomy) or the C-section. C and I discuss it and opt for the C-section. I'm exhausted and the prospect of an episotomy and a C-section is more than I can think of bearing at this point.
C-sections get the kid out fast; it was like there was a C-section pit crew. Epidural gets bumped up, catheter goes in, some surgical prep, and boom, down the hall we go to the OR. It was the fastest procedure we had done the whole time. Happily, the nice nurse asked what kinds of things we wanted to happen at the birth and all of them were adhered to: C to hold baby ASAP, baby not to leave at least one of our sights, breastfeeding as soon as possible with no bottles or pacifiers; rooming in and C to stay in hospital with me as much as possible.
Our beautiful boy was born at 10:07PM; the nice L&D nurse actually had to push him back up to extract him. We were worried the epidurals would have made him groggy, but he was beautifully bright-eyed and alert. Apgar scores were 9 and 9; I'm hoping to find out what the point off was for this week at our checkup. C told me the gender since we didn't know ahead of time - I was glad since I had forgotten to tell the doctor not to announce it, that I wanted C to tell me. The pediatric team worked fast - no problems at all - and C was holding our son within five minutes. I shook violently and was freezing throughout. A gripped my finger with his little hand and I fell asleep on the OR table not long after that. It took about 45 minutes to put me back together again.
I got wheeled into the recovery room around 11PM. A was still quietly alert and breastfed like a champ. His head was unevenly lopsided on top, so it looked to me like he really had been stuck. Then he had to go to the nursery for the routine drill and a bath; C went with him. I can't say enough about our friends at this point; J stayed with me and T went back and forth between the two groups spreading information. I was released to the Family Birth Unit at midnight and dozed there off and on with J and T until C came back with the baby.
A spent four hours under the warmers in the nursery so his body temperature could register 98.6 so they could bathe him; C sat by his side the whole time. We were utterly exhausted at the end of it. I feel bad for J and T since they just stuck with us for two days even when it would have been easy to say, "Yep, kid's out; time for us to go." They didn't leave us until C, A, and I were all back together in one room again.
We were in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon. The nurses were all super and I can't say enough about the kindnesses they showed us. We were put in a double room so we could have a bed for C and they didn't put anyone in the room with us the whole time, even when they had a record 22 women there. I'm told they try to do that for C-section patients, but I think it was also due to the dedication C showed the whole time - it's hard not to notice a big guy sitting by a warmer with a tiny baby in the nursery for four hours straight from midnight until 4AM.
So now we're home. Life revolves around little A-man here; he eats, poops, sleeps, and then the whole cycle starts again. The entire labor seems pretty surreal now, but I keep thinking, oh yes, that did happen. I've got the best evidence in the world to say so.
The difference between the birth center and the hospital was a shock. Instead of the homey birthing suite with queen-sized bed, we're in this stripped down formica and plastic room about the size of my old cubicle. C, J, and T all barely fit in the room. The nurse feels like it's her job to personally judge me for having gone to a birthing center; she argues with the legitimacy of my records from the birth center because "this says your water broke 1AM Friday and that can't possibly be right." No, you've got four intelligent people here who have all been awake for most of the night and can tell you my water didn't break eight hours ago. Bitch.
I've got an IV in an incredibly painful and movement-restricting point on the inside of my left wrist and I'm tethered to the EFM and the Pit pump. They're throwing forms and disclosures at us left and right to sign; C and I refuse to sign anything until we've read them which seems to annoy the nasty nurse. I balk at giving permission for all "labor and delivery procedures" and the nurse is annoyed when we ask what that covers, exactly, and doesn't answer anything but direct questioning (i.e., "Does this cover a C-section, yes or no?"), can't be bothered to explain. We're both incredibly tired and my contractions slow to 7-9 minutes apart, probably due to the hostility of the nurse and the strangeness of the situation. The nurse insists that we weren't really in labor before the Pitocin, which is not what you want to hear on your second day of labor.
The Pitocin kicks in around 9AM and I have really strong, vicious contractions. At first, I'm bound and determined to not have any pain meds. But I am just not able to move; even the slightest movement on my part disconnects the EFM and shows up as "baby in distress" at the nurses' station. If I keep disconnecting it, I am told by nasty nurse, they will have to assume the baby's in distress. (Note: for the entire labor, the baby's heartrate never dropped below 135 and was in the 140s most of the time. That is peachy perfect.) The nurse keeps scolding me to keep my eyes open and focus on one thing and breathe. I have been relaxing lovely well for the last 24 hours and don't feel like being scolded.
I get an epidural about 12:30, but I first talk to the nice doctor and tell him I want an epidural for the purpose of still delivering vaginally by getting some sleep and rest before I have to push, that I want the lowest dose possible to minimize effects on the baby, and that I want to be able to turn it off before pushing so I can feel my contractions. He was kind and gracious and at that point, I was re-energized by being treated like a human being instead of an irrational, irresponsible, crazy birth-in-the-bushes wacko. He even tolerates the questions of all four of us and calls questions the sign of intelligence. I take a nap and C gets something to eat, for which I am profoundly grateful for J and T being there since he wouldn't have left me without T staying behind. There's meuconium in the amniotic waters now, so we're going to have to have a pediatric team there when he's born. I am elated because that means the kid has an anus and it works.
I'm fully dialated at a little before 6. We turn off the epidural. I push until a little after 9PM. (I did turn the epidural back on at 8PM - pain was still most vicious in my back). T stepped out. J and C helped me push and the nasty nurse was relegated to someone else's labor, thank God. I got a wonderful L&D nurse (two with a shift change, actually) who was encouraging and sweet. It really makes the world of difference to have people around you who say, "Yes, you can do this." At the end of three hours of pushing with contractions about 2 to 3 minutes apart, the kid has not moved significantly, although we are getting glimpses of the head, which thrill J and C.
At 9PM, the doctor says the kid is most probably stuck; we can opt for a trial vacuum extraction which may not work (and may require an episiotomy) or the C-section. C and I discuss it and opt for the C-section. I'm exhausted and the prospect of an episotomy and a C-section is more than I can think of bearing at this point.
C-sections get the kid out fast; it was like there was a C-section pit crew. Epidural gets bumped up, catheter goes in, some surgical prep, and boom, down the hall we go to the OR. It was the fastest procedure we had done the whole time. Happily, the nice nurse asked what kinds of things we wanted to happen at the birth and all of them were adhered to: C to hold baby ASAP, baby not to leave at least one of our sights, breastfeeding as soon as possible with no bottles or pacifiers; rooming in and C to stay in hospital with me as much as possible.
Our beautiful boy was born at 10:07PM; the nice L&D nurse actually had to push him back up to extract him. We were worried the epidurals would have made him groggy, but he was beautifully bright-eyed and alert. Apgar scores were 9 and 9; I'm hoping to find out what the point off was for this week at our checkup. C told me the gender since we didn't know ahead of time - I was glad since I had forgotten to tell the doctor not to announce it, that I wanted C to tell me. The pediatric team worked fast - no problems at all - and C was holding our son within five minutes. I shook violently and was freezing throughout. A gripped my finger with his little hand and I fell asleep on the OR table not long after that. It took about 45 minutes to put me back together again.
I got wheeled into the recovery room around 11PM. A was still quietly alert and breastfed like a champ. His head was unevenly lopsided on top, so it looked to me like he really had been stuck. Then he had to go to the nursery for the routine drill and a bath; C went with him. I can't say enough about our friends at this point; J stayed with me and T went back and forth between the two groups spreading information. I was released to the Family Birth Unit at midnight and dozed there off and on with J and T until C came back with the baby.
A spent four hours under the warmers in the nursery so his body temperature could register 98.6 so they could bathe him; C sat by his side the whole time. We were utterly exhausted at the end of it. I feel bad for J and T since they just stuck with us for two days even when it would have been easy to say, "Yep, kid's out; time for us to go." They didn't leave us until C, A, and I were all back together in one room again.
We were in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon. The nurses were all super and I can't say enough about the kindnesses they showed us. We were put in a double room so we could have a bed for C and they didn't put anyone in the room with us the whole time, even when they had a record 22 women there. I'm told they try to do that for C-section patients, but I think it was also due to the dedication C showed the whole time - it's hard not to notice a big guy sitting by a warmer with a tiny baby in the nursery for four hours straight from midnight until 4AM.
So now we're home. Life revolves around little A-man here; he eats, poops, sleeps, and then the whole cycle starts again. The entire labor seems pretty surreal now, but I keep thinking, oh yes, that did happen. I've got the best evidence in the world to say so.
The Gory Details: Part 1 (1AM Friday-8AM Saturday)
If you don't want to know the birth story, then don't read this post. If you want the gory details, this post and the next one are for you. This is Part 1, the birth center experience.
Friday the 28th at 1AM, my water broke. We were joking about how punctual the kid was, right on the due date. After talking to the midwife on duty, I ended up going back to sleep until 7 or so and waiting until the contractions got stronger. We went to the birth center at about 11AM. They check me (1 cm dilation) and say contractions aren't beastly strong, so I might as well go home until they're strong enough that I can't talk through them. The midwife strips my membranes, breaks a forebag of waters still present, then tells me to take 2 oz. of castor oil when I get home and another 2 oz. two hours later. (You've got to be in active labor within 24 hours of your water breaking or they transfer you to a hospital, so speeding up things by any means necessary seemed like a good idea.) I take the castor oil like a drunken sailor - straight up and fast. All this brought on pretty strong contractions, all in my back. Since we knew the kid was OP, it wasn't that much of a surprise but it hurt.
The one thing I regret about this whole thing: taking the second dose of castor oil at 3PM. Seriously. I only got half of it down maybe before I knew I was going to throw up. Mistah C, our resident vomit expert, called it "firehose vomit," and that's what it was. If I hadn't taken that dose, I might have been better nourished for what happened in the next two days.
We labored at home until 6PM, then went back to the birth center with my friend J. (Her husband T came later but I don't know when because I wasn't watching the clock - I was in labor, people.) Progress is really slow but the contractions are steady at 3-5 minutes apart. Because progress is so slow, we think the kid is definitely OP and might be having issues, so we are trying all sorts of positions and postures to move the kid - in bed, out of bed, in the tub, birthing ball, lunges, everything.
I'm doing well handling the contractions, although I think there's a lot of muttering of "oh, it hurts, it hurts," going on during the contractions. I am breathing through the contractions and look so relaxed I keep having to tell people when I'm having a contraction.
My midwife can't deliver babies at the birth center due to her agreement with her new employer, so around 1 or 2AM (I really don't know since I was pointedly not watching the clock), another midwife I've never met named Brooke shows up. Brooke is super cool and has a whole other bag of tricks to try, including suspending me from a rebozo and shaking me like a bowl of jelly. The kid makes no downward progress between 4AM and 8AM and I am only at 6cm. The baby's basically slightly turned off-axis and as such may not be able to come out normally. We had known that the kid was OP (sunny side up), but we didn't realize he was also turned.
At 8AM Saturday, we've come to the end of what they can do at the birth center. Because the baby's turned, he's not making contact with my cervix and as such isn't invoking more productive contractions. They're recommending that we go to a hospital for Pitocin to see if that will induce harder contractions which will turn the kid to allow me to deliver vaginally. C and I are crushed because a hospital birth is so not what we wanted. We've been laboring for about 21 hours at this point. The midwives call the two potential hospitals to determine which they'll transfer me to depending on who the attending doctor is that day. This is to give me a better chance at still delivering vaginally. I ask what my odds are of avoiding a C-section and they say 50/50. We drive ourselves over there.
The birth center was wonderful and I can't say enough nice things about it. The kid was just not lined up right and they exhausted all the methods at their disposal. I believe they say they have a 9-10% transfer rate. More than that, C and I participated in the discussion about transferring. If either of us had thought that a longer labor at the birth center would have changed something, I'm pretty sure the midwives might have let us go at it longer. But it just wasn't happening.
Friday the 28th at 1AM, my water broke. We were joking about how punctual the kid was, right on the due date. After talking to the midwife on duty, I ended up going back to sleep until 7 or so and waiting until the contractions got stronger. We went to the birth center at about 11AM. They check me (1 cm dilation) and say contractions aren't beastly strong, so I might as well go home until they're strong enough that I can't talk through them. The midwife strips my membranes, breaks a forebag of waters still present, then tells me to take 2 oz. of castor oil when I get home and another 2 oz. two hours later. (You've got to be in active labor within 24 hours of your water breaking or they transfer you to a hospital, so speeding up things by any means necessary seemed like a good idea.) I take the castor oil like a drunken sailor - straight up and fast. All this brought on pretty strong contractions, all in my back. Since we knew the kid was OP, it wasn't that much of a surprise but it hurt.
The one thing I regret about this whole thing: taking the second dose of castor oil at 3PM. Seriously. I only got half of it down maybe before I knew I was going to throw up. Mistah C, our resident vomit expert, called it "firehose vomit," and that's what it was. If I hadn't taken that dose, I might have been better nourished for what happened in the next two days.
We labored at home until 6PM, then went back to the birth center with my friend J. (Her husband T came later but I don't know when because I wasn't watching the clock - I was in labor, people.) Progress is really slow but the contractions are steady at 3-5 minutes apart. Because progress is so slow, we think the kid is definitely OP and might be having issues, so we are trying all sorts of positions and postures to move the kid - in bed, out of bed, in the tub, birthing ball, lunges, everything.
I'm doing well handling the contractions, although I think there's a lot of muttering of "oh, it hurts, it hurts," going on during the contractions. I am breathing through the contractions and look so relaxed I keep having to tell people when I'm having a contraction.
My midwife can't deliver babies at the birth center due to her agreement with her new employer, so around 1 or 2AM (I really don't know since I was pointedly not watching the clock), another midwife I've never met named Brooke shows up. Brooke is super cool and has a whole other bag of tricks to try, including suspending me from a rebozo and shaking me like a bowl of jelly. The kid makes no downward progress between 4AM and 8AM and I am only at 6cm. The baby's basically slightly turned off-axis and as such may not be able to come out normally. We had known that the kid was OP (sunny side up), but we didn't realize he was also turned.
At 8AM Saturday, we've come to the end of what they can do at the birth center. Because the baby's turned, he's not making contact with my cervix and as such isn't invoking more productive contractions. They're recommending that we go to a hospital for Pitocin to see if that will induce harder contractions which will turn the kid to allow me to deliver vaginally. C and I are crushed because a hospital birth is so not what we wanted. We've been laboring for about 21 hours at this point. The midwives call the two potential hospitals to determine which they'll transfer me to depending on who the attending doctor is that day. This is to give me a better chance at still delivering vaginally. I ask what my odds are of avoiding a C-section and they say 50/50. We drive ourselves over there.
The birth center was wonderful and I can't say enough nice things about it. The kid was just not lined up right and they exhausted all the methods at their disposal. I believe they say they have a 9-10% transfer rate. More than that, C and I participated in the discussion about transferring. If either of us had thought that a longer labor at the birth center would have changed something, I'm pretty sure the midwives might have let us go at it longer. But it just wasn't happening.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Everyone Else in Birth Class Gave Birth
One couple moved up a week from their due date and had their baby on the 4th; the other couple with the original due date of the 4th gave birth yesterday. Both were girls. That's three girls and one boy for our class so far.
Now it's just Mistah C and me waiting. I will roll 37 weeks tomorrow or Saturday, depending on whose math you're using. Then I will enjoy the "we made it to full term" sigh of relief and celebratory Ben and Jerry's.
I'm not at the fabled "I'm so sick of being pregnant" point, although it will be lovely to roll over in bed in the middle of the night without feeling like I need a crane to assist me. I keep telling this kid to stay in until it's done, which in my mind is at least 40 weeks but I won't quibble on timelines between 37 and 40 (or 42) weeks. It's just been a surprisingly easy pregnancy.
Now it's just Mistah C and me waiting. I will roll 37 weeks tomorrow or Saturday, depending on whose math you're using. Then I will enjoy the "we made it to full term" sigh of relief and celebratory Ben and Jerry's.
I'm not at the fabled "I'm so sick of being pregnant" point, although it will be lovely to roll over in bed in the middle of the night without feeling like I need a crane to assist me. I keep telling this kid to stay in until it's done, which in my mind is at least 40 weeks but I won't quibble on timelines between 37 and 40 (or 42) weeks. It's just been a surprisingly easy pregnancy.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Boy Howdy, Another Baby!
Another couple from our birth class had their baby. He was born on Saturday night. These people were due next week (or close, July 2), so the baby's full-term. I'm assuming from the excited two-line email I got from the mom that they're fine, but they're actually planning on being in class tonight. This will be the newest kid we've gotten to see.
Class tonight is a mishmosh of things; there will be a lactation consultant and possibly a couple baby stories from people in our class. Wow.
This morning I am going to a prenatal appointment, then with Mistah C to volunteer at a blood drive for most of the day, then to class. There is no work for me today and I am thrilled, let me make that THRILLED.
Class tonight is a mishmosh of things; there will be a lactation consultant and possibly a couple baby stories from people in our class. Wow.
This morning I am going to a prenatal appointment, then with Mistah C to volunteer at a blood drive for most of the day, then to class. There is no work for me today and I am thrilled, let me make that THRILLED.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Bradley Class 11: And then there were four...
Four couples left in class with babies in utero, that is. Yup, someone in our class gave birth yesterday. Unfortunately, she was the last one due and wasn't due until August. The baby's premature and going to be in the NICU until she reaches 5 pounds and/or the original due date (birth weight 3 lb, 6 oz). But mom and baby are both apparently doing well. For all you Bradley folks out there, they managed to have a natural, drug-free childbirth.
I think it took our instructor 20 minutes to tell what she knew of their birth story, all in typical tangent-laden Jan-fashion. It was quite the saga: pre-term labor, doctors nagging the mom to get an epidural, getting transferred from one hospital to another mid-labor due to the NICU being overrun at the first hospital, an ambulance driver who massaged her back with tennis balls during the transfer, ending up at a different hospital than intended, a mom who began begging for drugs at transition and her charming husband-coach who helped her understand she didn't need them. This is apparently the first preemie Jan's had in class; it looked like it shocked her.
Note to self: When telling a story about anything medically-worrisome happening to someone, like pre-term labor at 32 weeks or a car accident, start the story by giving the current status of that person. For example, an introductory sentence like, "Tallulah went into labor yesterday and had little Belle this morning prematurely; both of them are doing fine. Belle is in the NICU but was breathing on her own and had an Apgar score of 7 at birth," does so much less for the imagination and so much more for sanity than a sentence like, "I didn't know if I should call all of you and let you know before class, because I thought maybe I should call each of you and tell you each individually and I've been thinking about it all day, but Tallulah went into pre-term labor yesterday." Do not dramatically pause after delivering any kind of statement like that; people think you're about to tell them horrible things.
This is especially useful when speaking to a room full of pregnant women who are worried about someone they've known who has been having problems throughout the pregnancy.
Anyway, it was Class 11, How to Be a Super Coach. We watched two films, one friendly natural waterbirth in a US facility and one with a midwife and a sculptor having their child in their beautifully-tiled outdoor hot tub in a garden in Mexico. The one in Mexico was idyllic. I'm not sure what this had to do with being a super coach.
We did some relaxation techniques, one imaging a place you've been and I honestly can't remember the other technique. I watched the fishtank and tuned out. We re-visited circumcision as a topic for discussion, although I don't know why because nothing new was brought to the conversation by our instructor. The class is rabidly anti-circumcision; there's one couple having a boy (not circumcising him) and there's us having whatever we have (not circumsizing it whatever it is).
She asked if anyone had been to a bris; I had and I was struck by how great the potential for minimizing or disparaging the solemn and sacred traditions of another religion was. So I was extra careful. Honestly, what I remember about it was how fast the baby stopped screaming. The doctor in our class described doing circumcisions in the hospital (with scissors that sound like a cigar cutter) and he also commented that it was surprising how fast the babies stopped screaming. I'm not sure Jan was happy with my trying to explain how significant and joyful the act of circumcision seemed to the family I saw in the context of the Jewish Covenant with God, but I'm also not sure I did it justice. Mistah C said he could tell I was being very deliberate.
We had to discuss how there's no medical reason for a baby to be circumcised in the US today although we did at least talk about Africa and AIDS transmission theories. Our instructor made some comment connecting "AIDS and the morality you teach your children" which tweaked me; I made a neutral comment that AIDS had nothing to do with morality but with making sure your kids had sex ed. Maybe it wasn't that neutral. I wish she'd said more so that we could all be morally outraged together here on the blog, but unfortunately, that's all I've got. The larger conversation was too interesting to get into the gory details of what connection Jan thinks there is between AIDS and morality.
At the end of class, we took pictures of us preggo vimmen and then of the couples (except the ones who gave birth yesterday, sigh) so we can compare the bellies to the babies at our class reunion. Mistah C did not have his super new camera so we'll have to depend on others to send us pics. I'm now the last one due - everyone else is due in early July. It was fun to take the cheezy pictures but a little sad with one of our class's babies in the NICU. Let's all think good thoughts for her.
I think it took our instructor 20 minutes to tell what she knew of their birth story, all in typical tangent-laden Jan-fashion. It was quite the saga: pre-term labor, doctors nagging the mom to get an epidural, getting transferred from one hospital to another mid-labor due to the NICU being overrun at the first hospital, an ambulance driver who massaged her back with tennis balls during the transfer, ending up at a different hospital than intended, a mom who began begging for drugs at transition and her charming husband-coach who helped her understand she didn't need them. This is apparently the first preemie Jan's had in class; it looked like it shocked her.
Note to self: When telling a story about anything medically-worrisome happening to someone, like pre-term labor at 32 weeks or a car accident, start the story by giving the current status of that person. For example, an introductory sentence like, "Tallulah went into labor yesterday and had little Belle this morning prematurely; both of them are doing fine. Belle is in the NICU but was breathing on her own and had an Apgar score of 7 at birth," does so much less for the imagination and so much more for sanity than a sentence like, "I didn't know if I should call all of you and let you know before class, because I thought maybe I should call each of you and tell you each individually and I've been thinking about it all day, but Tallulah went into pre-term labor yesterday." Do not dramatically pause after delivering any kind of statement like that; people think you're about to tell them horrible things.
This is especially useful when speaking to a room full of pregnant women who are worried about someone they've known who has been having problems throughout the pregnancy.
Anyway, it was Class 11, How to Be a Super Coach. We watched two films, one friendly natural waterbirth in a US facility and one with a midwife and a sculptor having their child in their beautifully-tiled outdoor hot tub in a garden in Mexico. The one in Mexico was idyllic. I'm not sure what this had to do with being a super coach.
We did some relaxation techniques, one imaging a place you've been and I honestly can't remember the other technique. I watched the fishtank and tuned out. We re-visited circumcision as a topic for discussion, although I don't know why because nothing new was brought to the conversation by our instructor. The class is rabidly anti-circumcision; there's one couple having a boy (not circumcising him) and there's us having whatever we have (not circumsizing it whatever it is).
She asked if anyone had been to a bris; I had and I was struck by how great the potential for minimizing or disparaging the solemn and sacred traditions of another religion was. So I was extra careful. Honestly, what I remember about it was how fast the baby stopped screaming. The doctor in our class described doing circumcisions in the hospital (with scissors that sound like a cigar cutter) and he also commented that it was surprising how fast the babies stopped screaming. I'm not sure Jan was happy with my trying to explain how significant and joyful the act of circumcision seemed to the family I saw in the context of the Jewish Covenant with God, but I'm also not sure I did it justice. Mistah C said he could tell I was being very deliberate.
We had to discuss how there's no medical reason for a baby to be circumcised in the US today although we did at least talk about Africa and AIDS transmission theories. Our instructor made some comment connecting "AIDS and the morality you teach your children" which tweaked me; I made a neutral comment that AIDS had nothing to do with morality but with making sure your kids had sex ed. Maybe it wasn't that neutral. I wish she'd said more so that we could all be morally outraged together here on the blog, but unfortunately, that's all I've got. The larger conversation was too interesting to get into the gory details of what connection Jan thinks there is between AIDS and morality.
At the end of class, we took pictures of us preggo vimmen and then of the couples (except the ones who gave birth yesterday, sigh) so we can compare the bellies to the babies at our class reunion. Mistah C did not have his super new camera so we'll have to depend on others to send us pics. I'm now the last one due - everyone else is due in early July. It was fun to take the cheezy pictures but a little sad with one of our class's babies in the NICU. Let's all think good thoughts for her.
Monday, March 20, 2006
We have a niece!
She was born yesterday; mom and baby are doing great. She apparently looks like her big brother. The Boy and I are relieved and happy.
Update: We got an announcement in the mail with a teeny weeny picture of the niece. The hot contenders in the "who does she look like?" poll were Grandma and Marilyn Whirlwind from the long-departed Northern Exposure series, although the Mistah and myself are always mildly confounded by the need to have a kid look like someone. What, birth wasn't enough to prove the kid is yours? Seriously, the latter contender may just be from the terribly serious expression on that little face. If I didn't have a fundamental problem with posting pictures of someone else's kids out here on the scary internet, I would post a side-by-side.
Update: We got an announcement in the mail with a teeny weeny picture of the niece. The hot contenders in the "who does she look like?" poll were Grandma and Marilyn Whirlwind from the long-departed Northern Exposure series, although the Mistah and myself are always mildly confounded by the need to have a kid look like someone. What, birth wasn't enough to prove the kid is yours? Seriously, the latter contender may just be from the terribly serious expression on that little face. If I didn't have a fundamental problem with posting pictures of someone else's kids out here on the scary internet, I would post a side-by-side.
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