The Love and Joy of All My Babies

I recently discovered a 1952 nonfiction film called All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, I really loved this film. It is a beautiful, touching, and instructive view into what it was like for black women in rural Georgia to birth their babies in the early 1950s. Less than an hour long, it was sponsored by the Georgia Department of Public Health and, according to the synopsis,

shows the preparation for and home delivery of healthy babies in both relatively good and bad rural conditions among black families at that time. The film is in addition both a deeply respectful portrait of "Miss Mary" (the featured midwife) who is revealed as an inspiring human being and a record of the actual living conditions of her patients.

There is so much love and so much joy in this film! And the one live birth that is captured on film – so peaceful, so beautiful. This mother is a woman of relatively good socio-economic status, as evidenced by her modern home, new shoes, and live-in housekeeper. She has successfully birthed two children already, and she is confident, calm, and quiet during her labor and delivery. Such an inspiring birth to watch. (I birthed my children in a hospital with a doctor, a choice I have no regrets about making. I chose to forego any pain medication and birth my babies as naturally as possible, and I can tell you I was not nearly so calm or quiet during either of my births as this mother was – not by a long shot.)

There is some fear and grief depicted. The other mother lives in very poor conditions and has little emotional or physical support. This is her second pregnancy – the first resulted in a stillbirth, and it is apparent that neither she nor her husband have recovered from the devastating loss. This mother has no confidence – she cannot get motivated to eat properly or start collecting the items she will need for the birth and the baby – she assumes this baby will also die. The baby is born premature, but healthy. It is a relief to see this mother four months postpardum looking healthy and stable, coming into her own as a mother. The baby is thriving and the father is so delighted with his young son he can hardly stand it. Although this father presents an unsympathetic character earlier in the film, with his anxiety and apparent lack of support for his wife, he expresses so much joy for his baby.

Which brings me to the portrayal of men in this film. Men are absent from much of the footage, but they are present in the background. There is the white male doctor at the clinic that the midwife takes her clients to see (this is 1952, let’s not forget). Then there are the fathers – waiting outside while their wives labor in their bedrooms, taking care of older children or chopping wood to keep the fire going so that water can be heated and instruments can be sanitized. In this world, although they certainly share in the joy of their new babies, the men have a supportive role. This is ultimately a film for and about women. Women birthing babies. Women attending to them. Strong women. Capable women. Loving women. Supportive women. Joyful women.

In a film like this, race must also be mentioned. This film specifically shows black midwives attending to the home births of black women. There is no indication that white women in the same area during the same time period gave birth in similar circumstances (at home, attended by a midwife). Also, the two white people in the film – the white male doctor and his white female assistant at the health department clinic – are people with obvious power and status. The white female assistant instructs the pregnant women on nutrition, and helps deliver and set up the incubator in the poor household in which the premature baby is born. It is clear that these two individuals have social status and power, and while relations between them and the midwives and families are polite and professional, there is a palpable dynamic between them.

You can watch All My Babies at SnagFilms.com. If you want to learn something about natural childbirth, learn about birthing practices in a particular time and place (this film was selected in 2002 by the Librarian of Congress as a "culturally historically and artistically significant work" for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry) or just see an inspiring, beautiful film celebrating love, joy, midwifery, and babies, I highly recommend you go check it out.

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This post was submitted as an entry in the Feminist Odyssey Blog Carnival. You can find links to the other entries here. Check it out!

Ina May Gaskin on Rising U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate and More

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman interviewed famous midwife Ina May Gaskin. They talk about the rising U.S. maternal mortality rate and midwifery in the U.S. in general. You can watch the interview here, where there are links to download the audio file and read the transcript as well.

A few choice quotes:

We don’t have feedback to our obstetricians, to our hospitals or maternity wards, to find out what we’re doing wrong and why the United States is one of four countries in the world where the maternal death rate is going up, not down.

and

Insurance has incredible power now, power that it didn’t have 70 years ago. It’s the reason that doctors aren’t learning to do breech deliveries anymore...it’s one of the huge reasons that we have very few midwives in this country. We need 120,000 more easily.

Checking in - He's here!

At 3:32am Sunday morning, we became a family of four. I'm currently experiencing the delirium of 3 nights with no or very little sleep so I'm going to make this short. I will likely check out for a while, but will share some reflections on this birth, which I did rock, if I may say so myself. Going into labor naturally and progressing completely on my own all the way to pushing him out was somewhat awe inspiring to me - I can finally see why and how women feel transformed after a natural childbirth. It was really quite empowering. I will confess that I was screaming for an epidural at one point, just before it was time to push. Of course by the time the guy arrived the baby's head was half way out.

Nursing is going well.My milk is already in! This kid is going to be a boobie-monster just like his brother.

Speaking of the big brother, SchmoopyBoy is loving him some baby. I can't believe how great he is responding to him. Here are some quotes:

"He's so small!"

"He has no teeth!"

"He is so soft!"

"I love him" (followed by kiss, yes I started to tear up at that point)

"You have a soft big round belly now!"

Checking In - Still Pregnant

I'm still here. Yes, I'm still pregnant. Yes, I'm uncomfortable as all heck. No, I don't want him to come out yet. I need one more weekend. He can come out anytime after Tuesday. I'll be at 39 weeks starting Sunday so that sounds completely reasonable to me. Plus, that would be infinitely more convenient. ;-)

SchmoopyBoy start T-ball on Saturday and I really don't want him to miss the first day. Then he's got a birthday party on Sunday evening to which we've already RSVP'ed and I would hate flaking on something like a child's birthday party. Then on Monday we are going to be very short staffed in the office and Monday is a very busy day with reports on tight deadlines and meetings, and Tuesday evening the husband has an assignment to do for his class this semester. I know, I know, I'm sure everyone would understand if I was in labor at the time of the event in question. I just don't want anyone to miss anything.

I'm sure I'm being quite ridiculous, and I'm ok with that.

Random Tidbits

SchmoopyBoy is going through another growth spurt. I cannot believe the volume of food this kid is consuming. Seriously. I'm talking twice as much french toast for breakfast than I can eat, or three dinners in one night (separated by about 1/2 hour to 1 hour intervals). He's still a pretty thin kid, so where the heck is it all going? Furthermore, if he eats like this at the age of three, how the heck am I going to feed him when he's a teenager without going bankrupt?

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Wow, I am uncomfortable these days. Which is ironic to me only because of how very different this pregnancy is that my pregnancy with SchmoopyBoy. With SchmoopyBoy, I was so miserable the first half of the pregnancy, I remember thinking that I would prefer 40 weeks of the 3rd trimester over a single week of what I experienced during the first two trimesters. This time has been so easy and relatively comfortable that I'm kind of beside myself that I'm so uncomfortable now.

This baby is just so... rude! It's funny that I don't remember SchmoopyBoy being quite so rude about practicing boxing on my intestines nonstop for over an hour. Or just hanging out on my bladder, putting so much pressure on it, if there is more than a trickle inside the discomfort is so excruciating I cannot even stand up straight sometimes. Hopefully not an indicator of things to come once he's on the outside. ;-)

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At 36 weeks, my doctor is not going to do anything to stop labor once it starts, so I'm officially on baby watch. That being the case, I'm still not ready for him to come out quite yet. I need probably at least one more week at work to wrap things up (although I'm planning on working until the last day to save my leave for after he's born) and my house is definitely nowhere near ready. I have a to do list on my refrigerator, and it feels like for every item I cross off the list, 2 new items are added.

sigh.

Preparing for Joyful Birth - Making Peace with my Soul

Welcome to the First Carnival of Birth Reflections

This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Birth Reflections hosted by Patti at Jazzy Mama and Zoie at TouchstoneZ. Participants are writing posts that reflect on how birth has transformed them into who they are today. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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This is the third post in a series I have written about healing from trauma and preparing for a joyful birth. In my first post, I published the original birth story I wrote in the weeks after SchoopyBoy's birth, and wrote that things had been left unsaid - things that caused me to feel guilt and shame. In my second post, I wrote about making peace with my body after developing pre-eclampsia and then having two consecutive miscarriages. In this final post on birth reflections, I want to talk about what I experienced during the birth, how it impacted bonding with my newborn, and how I am preparing for a more joyful birth experience this time.

Throughout my pregnancy with SchmoopyBoy, I felt that if I needed an emergency cesarean I could live with it because I trusted my care provider and believed it wouldn't be done unless truly necessary. The one thing I had wanted to avoid with all my heart was a chemical induction, which is exactly what I was facing due to my pre-eclampsia diagnosis. I checked into the hospital with dread. My (extraordinarily opinionated and manipulative) childbirth educators had virtually drilled into my head that an induced labor was nothing more than hours of tortuous pain followed by an inevitable cesarean. I strongly considered bypassing the several hours of tortuous pain and requesting we go straight to cesarean, since I figured that was the inevitable outcome anyway.

I actually tolerated the induced labor well – until the bag of waters burst. Wow, what a difference that made! As I wrote in my original birth story, I thought I was less than 4 cm dilated since the balloon inserted behind my cervix had never fallen out. I didn’t think I could handle the pain for an unknowable number of hours, so I requested an epidural at that point. It was during the preparation for the epidural that I found out that I was in transition, at 8cm. My childbirth educator had sat in front of a room full of expecting first time parents and told us that transition only lasts 15 minutes (not that it may only last 15 minutes for a lucky few, but that it does last approximately 15 minutes). I thought I could tolerate the pain for only 15 more minutes, declined the epidural, and set to work.

I was not one of the lucky few with a 15 minute transition. I lost track of time, my head and body reeling from what it was experiencing. At some point, after almost 2 hours had passed, I figured it had been more than 15 minutes and cried out "Why is it taking so long?!” When my doula answered, “It takes as long as it takes” I knew I had been lied to, and was livid.

After another hour of pushing, during which time the intense pitocin-fueled transition contractions never let up, the doctor became alarmed at the baby’s dropping heart rate every time I pushed, and so initiated an emergency vacuum extraction.

Let me make this entirely clear. No living creature should ever experience having a baby ripped out of her nether region without so much as an ibuprofen. Seriously. No one. The sensation is Un.Real.

Having several hours of painful contractions that rated 11 on a pain scale of 1 to 10, culminating in a vacuum extraction left me… in shock. Literally. They immediately placed my baby on my chest, but I could not move. I could not breathe. I felt only a weight on my chest and horror at what my body had just endured.

The only thought in my head was “It’s still not even over. I still need to birth the placenta. What pain still awaits me?”

I finally calmed down enough to realize that I ought to at least look at my newborn son. The only thing I could move were my eyes, which had been staring ahead, seeing nothing. My eyes turned down and I saw blood on my baby’s face. I knew it was my blood. I knew it meant that I had either torn or had an episiotomy, and that I would need stitches.

The thought that ran through my head was “Oh God, it’s still not over. I need stitches too. When will this torture be over? I just want this torture to end.”

Did I mention that my newborn baby son was on my chest this whole time, and all I could think of was “Good heavens please just let this torture end”?

Where was the overwhelming flood of maternal love? Where was the exquisite tenderness? The immediate bond of falling in love with my child the moment he exited my body?

I could not feel any of it. I was so traumatized and in shock over what I had physically experienced that I was unable to bond with my own baby.

What the heck was wrong with me? Here I had just become a mother, my first born child lying in my arms across my chest and all I could think about was my own physical pain? What kind of mother was I? And if my maternal instinct had failed at this most significant of moments, what kind of mother could I possibly hope to be? As far as I could tell, I had no maternal instinct. First my body had betrayed me by developing pre-eclampsia, and now my soul – that which made me ‘maternal’ failed me.

Postpartum depression followed in the weeks after SchmoopyBoy’s birth. I didn’t trust myself. I kept repeating “I have no maternal instinct. I don’t know what to do for this baby, how to respond to him, how to take care of him. I can’t do this.” I think I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. He was a great scary bundle of need, and it terrified and overwhelmed me.

The happy ending to this story is that of course, it did get better. It took somewhere around 8 weeks – about the time it took my body to heal – for me to realize one night as I was nursing him to sleep how truly, deeply, and tenderly I loved him. I started to feel more competent and trusting in myself as a parent.

Today, I can gaze upon his sweet sleeping form and feel so full, such deep and poignant love, that the feeling overflows from my body and spills out in tears.

But guilt remains. And shame remains. I couldn’t bond with my baby. I couldn’t love him the way I was supposed to. I was too self-centered, too focused on myself.

I don’t want another birth experience like this. I can’t stand the thought of going through that torture again. A torture so acute that I cannot bond with my baby.

That is why I freaked out when my doctor once again expressed concern about my blood pressure and put me on medication a couple of months ago. My brain buzzed and hummed No No No Not again. I cannot go through that again. Fear and dread overwhelmed me.

I am lucky to have a great doula team. One, an apprentice midwife, had a similar experience. Her first birth was a cesarean, her second was a pitocin-induced VBAC, and her third was a midwife assisted home birth. She tells me that, according to her experience, the worst of the natural contractions doesn’t come close to the most mild of the pitocin contractions. Her greatest fear is that I will be looking for those intense pitocin contractions, and won’t realize that I’m in labor until I’m in transition, and she and her partner will barely get to me just in time to catch a baby. Ha-ha, the unassisted home birth I never planned!

It was also my doula that suggested, as she reacted to my telling her of this birth experience, that I might be suffering from post traumatic stress as a result of a traumatic birth experience. It was she who emphasized the need for me to forgive myself, that trouble with bonding after a traumatic birth is not uncommon.

So here I am, preparing to birth my second child with joy. Learning to forgive myself – forgive my body for developing pre-eclampsia in the first place, and forgive my soul for reacting to physical trauma in a common and normal way. Writing and sharing my stories to find healing for myself and encourage healing in others. Practicing gratitude for all the joys in my life. Repeating positive affirmations – “I welcome my baby with happiness and joy” so the fear and dread have no room to breathe and are crushed out of existence among all the positive and joyful energy engulfing me.



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Visit Jazzy Mama and TouchstoneZ to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Birth Reflections!

 
 

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• In the Middle - A Progression Through Four Birth Experiences Amy at Peace 4 Parents shares her birth experiences and the central focus that holds them together.


• A Birth Story-The Post Where I Finally Let Go Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama finally frees herself of all of the negativity she held onto regarding the way in which her daughter came earthside.


• From Hospital to Home Birth Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling explains how it took three pregnancies to realize that birth is a natural, empowering life event to be celebrated at home.


• Preparing for Joyful Birth-Making Peace with my Soul Shana at Tales of Minor Interest prepares to birth her second child with joy after a traumatic first birth experience.


• Reflections Rosemary at Rosmarinus Officinalis reflects on the planned cesarean birth of her breech daughter.


• The Top Five Utterances of my HBAC Leah @ Zen and the Art of Cloth Diaper Maintenance comments on how an HBAC brings many new expierences and phrases.


• Labor Phases: Latent, Sleep, Transitional, Hell CatholicMommy shares the surprises of her birth story.


• The Birth of My first Child - Our Miracle Baby Darcel @ The Mahogany Way Birth Cafe shares her story of the traumatic birth of her first child. Darcel still feels guilt over the birth and is looking for ways to heal.


• My Thoughts on Birth: 10 Months Later Adrienne at Mommying My Way compares how she feels about her son's birth now that he's ten months old with how she felt right after he was born, and how that impacts how she relates to other new moms.


• Jasmine's Birth, My Rebirth Patti at Jazzy Mama discovered that the birth of her third daughter would change her entire view of her Life.


• Birth Reflection: It Only Takes A Second Zoie at TouchstoneZ reflects on her third homebirth-the birth of her second living child

Preparing for Joyful Birth – Making Peace with my Body

Earlier this week I posted the original birth story I wrote in the weeks after SchoopyBoy's birth. In the post, I wrote that things had been left unsaid. Things that I now, more than ever, need to face if I am to prepare for a joyful birth this time. In this post, I want to talk about body image, and how my birth experience combined with two consecutive miscarriages left me feeling broken and disconnected from my body.

First, I want to talk about developing pre-eclampsia. I know every woman probably says this, but it really wasn't supposed to happen to me. I was diagnosed with hypertension in my first trimester. This was unexpected given my reasonably healthy lifestyle - lots of fresh and healthy foods, regular exercise, etc. My OB told me I would be lucky to make it to 36 weeks, and told me induction might be likely. I wanted a natural childbirth and I knew I needed to stay healthy if I were to achieve this goal, so I took proactive steps towards that goal. I got nutritional advice and made dietary changes, I took self-hypnosis classes, I went to pre-natal massage, I switched providers to someone who was more supportive of my natural childbirth goals. My risk of pre-eclampsia was about 25%, and I was determined to be in the 75% that does not develop it.

One could say my efforts paid off a bit. I did make it to week 39 before the lab results indicated that my health was indeed heading south. But I was disappointed. Angry. My body had failed me. It hadn’t merely denied me the natural birth I envisioned and hoped for. It threatened the proper function of my critical internal organs. It downright threatened my life, and in doing so my baby’s life.

At 39 weeks, SchmoopyBaby was fine. Better than fine. He was released from the hospital to go home before I was! (We did leave the hospital together just one extra day later.)

Given that both of us ended up fine and healthy, I could have moved on, and in fact did.

But then my next pregnancy, two years later, ended in miscarriage. And then so did my next pregnancy after that.

Now, being a feminist, I do in fact believe that I am more than my fertility. I am a complete and whole valid and worthy human being whether I have 8 children, 2 children, 1 child, or no children. That being said, I also identify spiritually with the feminine Creative Goddess, and desire a connection with what I refer to as the Light of Creation.

Given my body’s failings during my pregnancy with SchmoopyBoy and the fact that my next two pregnancies ended in miscarriage, it’s safe to say I’ve been not too pleased with my body’s performance as the feminine Creative Goddess, and felt decidedly unconnected with any Light of Creation.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how my blood pressure was showing signs of going too high again, so my doctor once again put me on medication. I totally freaked out. I was (am) terrified of reliving what I went through at SchmoopyBoy’s birth. I went into such a state of anxiety that ‘it was happening again’ my blood pressure spiked even more, I got a 3-day migraine, and my digestive system went into a spin. It took me checking into the hospital foe an afternoon and getting labs done – all which came back smashingly normal – to calm down.

This time will not be like last time. This time, the medication is controlling my blood pressure, and at a much lower dose. My blood pressure never got this low during my pregnancy with SchmoopyBoy. I am not swollen the way I was. At this point in my pregnancy with SchoopyBoy I was going to a perinatologist for monitoring twice a week. This time around, my doctor hasn’t even brought up the possibility of needing any kind of monitoring. Everything is on track for a healthy, low risk birth.

I’ve had a few unfortunate experiences along my journey to motherhood. These experiences have taught me a lot, and led me to a path of appreciation and gratitude. I have one wonderful, healthy, energetic, spirited child. I am approaching the end of a surprisingly easy pregnancy. My current physical discomfort this time around is not an indication of impending health crisis, but an indication of a growing, thriving, healthy baby. After all I have experienced, my body appears to be redeeming itself.

It is easy to make peace with my body when my body appears to be making an effort to make peace with me. But what if once again I developed pre-eclampsia in the final weeks and have to face another induction? Would I be able to maintain peace with my body? One of my many learnings is that there are some things in life I can control and some things I cannot control. I cannot control the way my body responds to being pregnant. I can control the food and pharmaceuticals I put in my body, in an effort to optimize the way my body responds to being pregnant. Accepting the limitations of my own power over my body is key to finding peace and acceptance with whatever turn my pregnancy may take (assuming, of course, that whatever turn it takes still results in a live, healthy baby and mama).

I have a lot more to write about my birth experience with SchmoopyBoy. My next post on this topic will delve more into the visceral experience of the birth itself and how it impacted bonding with my newborn as well as my headspace heading into this birth.

A Birth Story and Things Left Unsaid

In the course of preparing for this upcoming birth, I have come to the realization that I have some lingering trauma from my first birth. Lingering trauma that I realize I need to work through before this baby is born. I’ve known this for a while, but the meeting I had with my doula team last month spurred me into taking a more proactive approach. I reread the birth story I wrote about SchmoopyBaby’s birth in the first few weeks postpartum, and what struck me was everything I did not put into it. This birth story is nothing but the basic facts – this happened, and then that happened. There is nothing about my actual visceral experience - nothing about what I felt, or how it affected my ability to bond with my new child.

During the past several months, I found that I had been approaching this upcoming birth with fear and dread, rather than excitement and joy. Quite frankly, I am terrified of having another experience like my first. I have decided to use my blog as a forum to explore my first birth and postpartum experience. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, like with my miscarriages, I find the act of writing and sharing these stories to be therapeutic. Second, I’ve been carrying some shame and guilt associated with my first birth experience. I know that I am not the only woman to experience these feelings, and if another woman reads my words and feels comforted that she is not alone, then I have accomplished something greater than even my own healing.

Today, I am posting the original birth story that I wrote less than a month after SchmoopyBaby’s birth. The only edits I have made are removing names, for privacy. Over the next week or two I will write a follow up post that delves more into my internal experience and what I am doing to overcome the negativity it left behind.

Without further ado, here is SchmoopyBoy's original birth story.

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Well, it wasn’t exactly the birth we had envisioned and planned for, but as the saying goes, life is what happens while we’re making other plans. As you know, I had been diagnosed as high-risk early in the pregnancy due to hypertension. On Friday, May 23, I went to the perinatologist for my regular monitoring appointment and my blood pressure was high. They ordered some blood work to be done “stat” and about 4-5 hours later, literally just as I was getting into bed for the night, we got a call from the on-call doctor. The lab results were in and they were not good. My liver enzymes were elevated, as were my uric acid levels. The diagnosis – pre-eclampsia. The doctor’s order – come to the hospital that night to start the induction.

Unfortunately, it being the start of the holiday weekend, my regular doctor was out of town and couldn’t be reached. So the husband and I finished some last minute preparations and by 12:30am I was admitted. The on-call doctor agreed to insert the balloon behind my cervix that night to help get dilation moving faster (I was already at about 1.5cm), with the pitocin to start around 8-9am.

At 8:30am, my doula arrived, and at about 9am the pitocin started. They started it slow, and the contractions were tolerable. At about 4pm my bag of waters burst, and then things changed *a lot*. The balloon had never fallen out, so I thought I still was less than 4 cm dilated. With so much ahead of me, there was no way I was going to be able to tolerate the pain and asked for an epidural. Before they would administer it, they removed the balloon and checked my progress. I was at 8 cm! No wonder the pain was so bad – I was in transition!

I thought I didn’t have much longer, maybe 15 minutes or a half hour, so I passed on the epidural. Wishful thinking on my part, thus started the most agonizing 3 hours I have ever experienced. The pitocin contractions never let up, even when it was time to push. I was surprised, but relieved to see my regular doctor come in during the pushing. Apparently he made it back into town and hearing the news that delivery was imminent, he came to the hospital. Yay!

They were having a hard time getting the baby’s heart rate on the external monitor, so we agreed to a variation of the internal monitor that sticks to the baby’s head rather than screws into it. His heart rate dropped extremely low (50 beats/min) at each push, and he was too far down for a c-section, so the doctor initiated an emergency vacuum extraction, which necessitated an episiotomy due to the swelling caused by the quick exit. The cord was wrapped once around SchmoopyBaby’s neck, but that wasn’t really the problem. SchmoopyBaby had the cord in his hand, squeezed in a little death grip.

In all I think the hospital staff tried as best they could to follow our birth plan, even with the complications.

Little SchmoopyBaby was fine, and has been doing very well ever since. He was 19 inches long and just 6 lbs, so he is a little guy. He is feeding like a champ though, so hopefully we’ll see him grow soon enough.

Picture Thursday - 33 weeks pregnant

The funny thing is that I think this picture makes me look small. I look a lot bigger in real life.

Gratitude Post - 6/27/11

I discovered the weekly gratitude post by Amanda at Let’s Take the Metro through Zoie at TouchstoneZ, who also posted about five things she is grateful for. What great inspiration! How could I not participate?! So, without further delay, here is my list of 5 things for which I am grateful this week.

1. Communication with SchmoopyBoy – I’ve been struggling a bit with some of SchmoopyBoy’s behavior lately. He knows how to press my buttons to get my attention. I’ve been trying to work with him on this, explaining how, when he wants more attention from me, I want him to use words and tell me “Mommy, I want more attention now.” Sometimes, I have felt like talking with my 3 year old is like talking to a brick wall. This last Saturday morning we were playing amidst a sea of giant foam letters and numbers. He wanted to find some toy or another and I suggested that we put away the letters in case the toy was under them, it would be easier to find it. I started collecting the letters to put them in their proper bag, and soon got distracted with clean-up work. SchmoopyBoy was much more interested in continuing playtime than getting involved in clean-up, and lo and behold, he exclaimed “Mommy, I need attention now!” No throwing. No hitting. Just an exclamation of his needs at that moment. I felt so gratified, of course I immediately dropped what I was doing and tackled my schmoopyboy into a fit of giggling glee. The entire day did not go quite as smoothly as that morning went, but I made a point that night at bedtime to focus on the positive and told him how much I liked it when he communicated his need for attention to me that morning using words, because it makes it so much easier for me to meet his needs when I he tells me clearly what he wants.

2. Our local CSA Farm – I know I gush about it periodically, but really it is making a difference in how we eat. The diversity of fresh vegetables forces me to be more creative in the kitchen (I keep meaning to share some of my recipe experiment successes). The quality can’t be beat, and I love being more connected with my food – knowing who grows it and how it is grown. On a related note…

3. Home-grown tomatoes – So cliché, I almost couldn’t stand to write it, but Oh good heavens the difference in flavor! Seriously, I never want to eat another store-bought tomato again. Between the little tomato plant that we are raising at home and the tomatoes from the farm, I’m hoping I won’t need to subject myself to those flavorless store-tomatoes for quite some time. nom nom nom.

4. The blogging community! – I get so much inspiration from the blogosphere. As I mentioned in my opening, this very post is inspired by bloggers Amanda and Zoie! It is uncanny how frequently I discover a series of posts that is exactly what I need to read during a particular time. (Sneak preview, I have another post in progress that is inspired by the posts these ladies wrote for the Mindful Mama Carnival. I have been conscious that I’ve been struggling with mindfulness for quite some time. Several of the posts I read during the carnival have inspired me to be more proactive in my journey. I’m hoping to have my thoughts put into place by the end of this week!)

5. Parent-toddler swimming lessons – At 27 weeks pregnant, my lower back and hips are giving me all kinds of ouchie reminders that I’ll be birthing a baby soon. I take SchmoopyBoy to a parent-toddler swim class every Sunday morning. Classes are a half hour of fun time for SchmoopyBoy, in which he is learning critical life-saving water skills, and a half hour of water pressure induced physical relief for me. I SO need to get into a pool more often!

Three Open Letters - One of them is to YOU!

Dear Ankles,

Farewell. I hope to see you again before September. If not, have a great summer resting under that layer of poof. I’ll miss you and look forward to seeing you again this fall.

Cheers,
Shana

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Dear Monsters,

It was bad enough when you first started visiting my son’s room at bedtime. Now, however, you are plaguing him all night and all day. At first you were willing to read his sign and stay out of his room. I appreciated your cooperation at that time. Now it appears that you are unwilling to negotiate, and you threaten him with your presence anywhere upstairs, as well as going so far as to haunt his dreams and following him to school. Surely you must understand that the current situation is unsustainable and unacceptable. I simply cannot allow you to continue to terrorize my child in this manner. Please vacate the premises. If we cannot come to an agreement on your departure, I will have no choice but to take evasive measures.

Thank you for cooperation in this urgent matter,
Shana

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Dear Readers,

I am currently soliciting suggestions on how to exorcize monsters from my household. Please leave any and all suggestions in the comments. Help!

Thanks!
Shana

Updates

I wanted to start out with a follow up to my last "oh boo hoo, poor me" post. Thanks for refraining from any "would you like some cheese with your whine" comments. I'm sure I deserved a few.

Anyway, I did have a bit of a scare over the weekend, but things are looking better now. Of course after my appointment last week I pretty much freaked out. I woke up with a migraine headache on Friday, which I fought all weekend long, and my blood pressure readings were right at that borderline of where my doctor told me to go in if it hit that level (150 for the top number, 100 for the bottom, in case you are wondering). I kept making excuses for the headache - I got a kink in my neck so that is making my head hurt, the temperature reached over 100 and I'm still adjusting and figuring out how much water I need to drink to stay hydrated, blah blah blah. But then when I randomly got really nauseous on Sunday morning and threw up part of my breakfast, the husband and I decided I needed to take these symptoms seriously and I went in to the hospital. They took a bunch of labs, all of which came back completely normal. They took my blood pressure every 10-15 minutes for several hours, and while the readings were somewhat elevated, they were nowhere close to the readings I was getting on my little CVS home blood pressure gage. They suggested that the accuracy of my gage was off and I should use one at a drug store to supplement the readings I was getting at home. They also increased my medication a little bit and let me go home.

I've pretty much been fine ever since I got that confirmation. It looks like I probably suffered more from a head trip than a genuine physical problem. I'm not completely off the hook yet. I went in for my follow up appointment this morning and he's going to keep me on the higher dose of blood pressure meds, but as long as I am getting decent readings there's no need for additional unnecessary freak-outs.

I should write that on a sticky note and plaster it on my forehead.

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On a happier note, I think I found the person I want to be my doula for the birth! She doesn't have quite as much experience as the doula we spoke with a week ago (9 months versus 3 years), but she's got this amazingly calming energy. Just sitting next to her and hearing her voice you can't help but feel a little more relaxed. She actually partners with the doula we spoke with last week, so we can either hire them both as a team, or just her alone. We are just trying to decide if we want to spend a little more to have the peace of mind that we also have someone very experienced with a variety of complications and midwife skills (should the need arise), or if we want to just stick with the one person whose "vibe" for lack of a better word, just really seems to mesh well and trust that she has sufficient training and experience to deal with whatever comes up.

Here we go again

I haven't been posting much besides fluff for the past several weeks because, truth be told, I haven't been in a very good head space lately and I haven't been wanting to write about it. Between pregnancy hormones making me increasingly.... shall I say, emotionally unstable, being chronically tired and sleep deprived, and the intolerable three-ness of SchmoopyBoy's behavior lately, I've been having a lot of not so great days. (Don't know what I'm talking about by intolerable three-ness? Check out the warnings left by Liz of Mom-101, then again by Annie of PhD in Parenting, and then again fairly recently by Dionna of Code Name: Mama. Intolerable three-ness, yes we are there. There's a whole post coming just on that alone, I'm sure.)

But again, I digress. What I am getting around to writing about in a very meandering and procrastinating way is the risk status of my current pregnancy and why this is turning out to be yet another not-so-great day, in which I indulge in all kinds of whining, venting and self indulgent miserating.

So yesterday we went to interview a prospective doula. My previous doula team was completely awesome and fantastic and I would totally be all over hiring either one of them again. One is now a practicing midwife, and the other is pursuing her D.O. in plans of opening a birthing center in this city. Fantastic for them, unfortunate for me. But, there are other talented doulas in the sea and I'm in the process of finding the right person for this time around. Anyway, we were talking to this doula yesterday, who is also currently in training to be a midwife. I told her about my history with PIH and pre-eclampsia and how SchmoopyBoy's birth was induced at 39 weeks because my liver started malfunctioning. She asked me how this pregnancy was going and asked if I was interested in having her check my blood pressure. I agreed, expecting it to be fine, the way its been throughout this pregnancy so far. Well, wouldn't you know it, lo and behold it was high. Like, not good high. I thought maybe I'm just a little anxious, meeting a new prospective doula, being in a overall general funk, a little stressed about this, that and another thing.

This morning I had my appointment with my OB. My blood pressure was high again. The nurse took it once, and the doctor took it himself two more times just to make sure. It was high. So now I'm back on blood pressure medication and I've been instructed to monitor my blood pressure 3 times a day and keep a log. I'm also to go back to the doctor's office in a week to see if the medication is helping, and, I'm to go directly to the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital for treatment instead of the ER if I get any severe headaches, see black spots, or start to feel really bad. (Not for delivery at 24 weeks, thank goodness, but for treatment because I'll get it immediately instead of waiting in an ER waiting room for hours and they'll know exactly what treatment to administer and be able to contact my OB immediately.)

Needless to say, I'm not happy about this development.

Sheesh, what the heck do I have to do to have one healthy, normal pregnancy that concludes with a natural labor birthing a healthy baby?!

I was really, really hoping for a natural labor this time around. I so want to experience a completely non-medicated birth. Getting induced really sucked. I got through it without any pain medication, and good heavens, it sucked so hard I won't even get into it here. Maybe another time, but not now. I still am hoping for a natural labor, but given this new development, I feel deflated and defeated. This is my fifth and last pregnancy, hopefully to conclude with my second and last child. I am done after this and I just wanted so much to have a single "normal, healthy" pregnancy. How disappointing. I am incredibly grateful to have one fabulous healthy child, and will be even more grateful if this pregnancy ends with another healthy child. I'm just disappointed I can't seem to be able to enjoy the process more.

The verdict is in, I'm having a...

boy!

Oh, the irony. Before we were married, I told my husband-to-be, "I hope having sons isn't really important to you. My line of women doesn't birth sons. I don't think I am even physically capable of carrying a male child to term."

At least four generations of women in my direct maternal line have only had female children. My great-grandmother birthed 8 children - all girls. My grandmother had two girls, each of which had two girls. Before SchmoopyBoy, my cousins had each had a girl.

And now, it's going to be me and a house full of testosterone. Heck, even my dog is male.

I like to joke with my friends that have girl children, "if the poop and fart jokes get too bad, I'm borrowing your kid for the day". Oh please, who am I kidding? I love me some poop and fart jokes. You people have no idea how I refrain from sharing random tooty stories. I refrain people, I do. 'Cause, darn it, toilet humor is hilarious - to me and 5 year olds at least.

But I digress. (What, me? Digressing about toots? Shocking, I know) ...ehem...

Yes, little Kickypants appears to have boy-parts. Now I will get the privilege of raising two good feminist allies. I hope I am worthy and able to live up to my expectations.

Picture Thursday - Portraits Galore (including gratuitous belly)

For my husband's last photography assignment, he needed a model and a prop in the studio.

This is the picture he turned in for a grade. SchmoopyBoy is the model and my belly is the prop.

In this picture I am the model and my belly is the prop.

These are all just sweet portraits of me with my SchmoopyBoy.




Cute pictures of SchmoopyBoy solo. He is so photogenic!

SchmoopyBoy is finally going to be a big brother!

Nope, this is not an April Fools joke. I am, in fact, 14 weeks pregnant.

There have been so many times I was just about to post, and then I would chicken out. I'll just wait until my next 2 week appointment... I'll just wait until my 11 week ultrasound that tests for down syndrome... well, maybe I'll just wait one more week until I pass the 12 week mark so I don't jinx myself...

The telling is so easy. The untelling is so very hard.

So, I've put off posting about pregnancy, I've put off other posts I wanted to write because they referred to my pregnancy. Finally though, here is my official coming out party post. I'm excited. I'm hopeful. And, largely, I'm terrified. Par for the course, huh?

So what made this 3rd time the charm? Truthfully, I have no idea. Luck, perhaps? There are a few things I did differently this time around.

1. As I mentioned in a previous post several months ago, I got rolfed. My uterus and other internal organs have no structural excuses for not being able to hold a baby.

2. My doctor put me on progesterone supplements. From what the nurse told me, my progesterone numbers were "ok" but given my history of losses the doctor went ahead and prescribed the supplement to be safe.

3. Jedi mind tricks. I bet you didn't know I am a Jedi master in training. I still can't call miscellaneous objects to my hands from across the room (darn it that one's hard!) but apparently I can wave my hand over my belly and say "You shall live. You shall thrive. You shall be born healthy full term." I have yet to see if all that works. So far I'm pretty hopeful.