Wednesday, June 12, 2013
I've Moved!
I've let AZGreenMomma go by the wayside and have moved over to a site better reflecting my personality...Barefoot in Pearls. Yep, that's me all right. Since you already follow me here, click on more button and follow me HERE. I promise not to disappoint and keep this one full of fun and useful stories!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Secret Thoughts of Mothers
That time has come again for me. The time no mother wants to admit but we have all felt at one time or another...the feeling of not being good enough and dare I put it in print? The feeling that sometimes being "just" a mom is not enough.
I also knew that I wanted to go to college, get married and eventually have children but I never imagined being a stay at home mom. I had a considerable amount of respect for my mom and the time she put into spending with my brother and I as a stay at home mom, but I just never envisioned that as being enough for me. Scarily, I was right. Some days, I really want to get up, get dressed up and head off to work in a shiny new car, get patted on the back for a job well done and come home to my babies with a fat paycheck in hand. Instead, I am lucky to make it out of my pajamas, jump in my 7 year old car (ok, ok, it's a nice one but it IS 7 years old!) to take the kids to a play date or the library and my pat on the back is the occasional hug from my almost 3-year-old and some crusty spit-up hair courtesy of my two month old. Paycheck? Ha! Instead I find myself cutting back on extras, which turn out to be the perks for me like having shiny blond hair and perfectly pedicured toes, so that we can afford to continue being a single income family. My dark roots and toes are none too happy with this arrangement.
This is where mommy-guilt comes in. If you stay at home with your children but miss nice clothes, hair you actually get to blow dry every day and your own paycheck, you feel like a bad mother. If you go to work and miss your child's first steps or first words, you feel like a bad mother. It's as if the moment you become pregnant your happiness and self-satisfaction is 100% dependent on this little bean...and it stays that way forever.
I am not ungrateful that I am able to stay at home, don't misread what I am saying. I simply miss being "me" sometimes, like today. I'm sure a big part is being two months postpartum, hormonal and with some weight to lose. When your roots are showing and your clothes don't fit, things don't seem quite right. I am incredibly thankful my husband has a job and works long, hard hours so that I can be at home to play games with our kids, teach them to be the incredible human beings they are becoming and to cook good, healthy foods every meal. (Nutrition is very important to us and for that reason alone I would have a very hard time ever leaving them at daycare so I could work.)
I know that I need to be patient with myself in adjusting to life as a mom of two, but as moms, we are always the hardest on ourselves. Ideally, I would have a perfectly clean house, the tv would never get flipped on, the seemingly endless mountain of laundry would not only be clean, but folded and put away, my son would be potty trained and we would work diligently on our letters, number and imagination play for hours. That is my life in the stepford wives version playing like a movie in my head. It's the version I compare myself to when I fall flat. It feels like some days I wake up and step out of bed doing it all wrong; we watch too much tv that day or I lose my patience with my toddler. Then there are days we don't get out of our pj's, I don't cook dinner and we scramble for leftovers last minute. You get the picture. Lame mom days.
This is where if I were reading this about a friend I would interject about not needing to be perfect, you're a good mom, etc. I'm starting to think I need to do a better job of treating myself like I would a friend rather than being so self-critical.
I know that I need to be patient with myself in adjusting to life as a mom of two, but as moms, we are always the hardest on ourselves. Ideally, I would have a perfectly clean house, the tv would never get flipped on, the seemingly endless mountain of laundry would not only be clean, but folded and put away, my son would be potty trained and we would work diligently on our letters, number and imagination play for hours. That is my life in the stepford wives version playing like a movie in my head. It's the version I compare myself to when I fall flat. It feels like some days I wake up and step out of bed doing it all wrong; we watch too much tv that day or I lose my patience with my toddler. Then there are days we don't get out of our pj's, I don't cook dinner and we scramble for leftovers last minute. You get the picture. Lame mom days.
This is where if I were reading this about a friend I would interject about not needing to be perfect, you're a good mom, etc. I'm starting to think I need to do a better job of treating myself like I would a friend rather than being so self-critical.
I felt like I needed to blog about this feeling today even though it has nothing to do with being green. There are many of you moms out there feeling like I do and I want to reassure that you are not alone. I understand what you are going through and I truly believe it is normal, natural and only disproves that self-doubt that maybe we aren't great moms....we are! I think being a great mom means we have to keep a little something for ourselves...What do you do to remain YOU? Leave a comment, I want to know
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Welcome To The World Baby Girl
If you have read my previous posts you know that this post is special: the story of my daughter's birth...at home, invention-free and the conclusion to a long self-journey. Here's how it all unfolded:
My mom came into town on the 2nd of December as baby's "due" date was the 5th. On the 1st (39 weeks and 5 days, the exact date at which her brother arrived) I began having contractions. They were irregular, 5-10 min apart for oh, about 20 hours. Yes, 20 hours. Well, fast forward a week and still no baby. Just lots of contractions on the road to nowhere. My mom was due to leave on the 11th, but decided not to chance it and switched her flight to leave a few days later. By the 9th, contractions were picking up again and they seemed "different" somehow and I debated whether to have my midwife come out or not. I ended up in tears on the phone with her because I just couldn't decide if this was "real" or not and definitely didn't want to waste her time. Up until about 39 weeks I had been good and patient and not at all ready for baby to arrive. It was the contractions tricking me day in and day out that started to wear on me to the point where I finally decided I WAS ready and needed baby here pronto. Well, after hearing my tears, my sweet midwife arrived at my door with a brownie and ice cream. We also decided to check my cervix (until this point we had done no checks) and I was dilated to a 2...we felt comfortable with everyone getting some sleep and checking in the next morning.
Well, by 3 am the contractions had picked up enough that I felt ready to call in the team. My girlfriends had all had very brief second labors and I wasn't taking any chances that my support would not be here!
Uh..."short" for me turned out to be 8 hours, not the 1 or 2 my girlfriends all had. During labor I actually mentioned this to my midwife and MAY have called these girls a not-so-nice name...maybe...
Like my labor with my son, I vomited. Unlike that labor, I was encouraged to eat (which I did not want to do) and drink (which they forced me to do) and they held peppermint oil under my nose to stave off the worst of the sickness. My doula reminded me at one point to just focus on the contraction at hand, not to worry about the ones to come. I didn't say anything but inwardly I thought, "There's going to be ANOTHER contraction?!" I had all the intentions in the world of studying hypnobabies (a self hypnosis technique to help with relaxation during labor) but never found the time to complete the program. I guess I picked up enough of it though because in between contractions I would drift off into a deep rest. It wasn't quite sleep, but it helped.
The funny part of all this is that 5 feet away, our son was sound asleep in our bed. When he awoke at 7am to a room full of people he was completely unphased. He said hello to everyone and then went to find my mom who kept him busy all morning. Occasionally I heard him in the other room and later found out that my mom had told him I was "singing" and so he also decided to "sing" to baby to come out. Too cute.
Around 8am things picked up for me. My poor husband...every time I needed to use the bathroom I would nearly cry because standing up I would have a contraction, have another on the way to the bathroom, another before I sat on the toilet, would have to stand up WHILE I was on the toilet to have one...the whole time gripping his shoulders with my life yelling at him to push my back, which he said he was doing but I totally couldn't feel it. Sidenote: the next day I had horrible aching in my back from all that counterpressure I "couldn't feel."
My mom came into town on the 2nd of December as baby's "due" date was the 5th. On the 1st (39 weeks and 5 days, the exact date at which her brother arrived) I began having contractions. They were irregular, 5-10 min apart for oh, about 20 hours. Yes, 20 hours. Well, fast forward a week and still no baby. Just lots of contractions on the road to nowhere. My mom was due to leave on the 11th, but decided not to chance it and switched her flight to leave a few days later. By the 9th, contractions were picking up again and they seemed "different" somehow and I debated whether to have my midwife come out or not. I ended up in tears on the phone with her because I just couldn't decide if this was "real" or not and definitely didn't want to waste her time. Up until about 39 weeks I had been good and patient and not at all ready for baby to arrive. It was the contractions tricking me day in and day out that started to wear on me to the point where I finally decided I WAS ready and needed baby here pronto. Well, after hearing my tears, my sweet midwife arrived at my door with a brownie and ice cream. We also decided to check my cervix (until this point we had done no checks) and I was dilated to a 2...we felt comfortable with everyone getting some sleep and checking in the next morning.
Well, by 3 am the contractions had picked up enough that I felt ready to call in the team. My girlfriends had all had very brief second labors and I wasn't taking any chances that my support would not be here!
Uh..."short" for me turned out to be 8 hours, not the 1 or 2 my girlfriends all had. During labor I actually mentioned this to my midwife and MAY have called these girls a not-so-nice name...maybe...
Like my labor with my son, I vomited. Unlike that labor, I was encouraged to eat (which I did not want to do) and drink (which they forced me to do) and they held peppermint oil under my nose to stave off the worst of the sickness. My doula reminded me at one point to just focus on the contraction at hand, not to worry about the ones to come. I didn't say anything but inwardly I thought, "There's going to be ANOTHER contraction?!" I had all the intentions in the world of studying hypnobabies (a self hypnosis technique to help with relaxation during labor) but never found the time to complete the program. I guess I picked up enough of it though because in between contractions I would drift off into a deep rest. It wasn't quite sleep, but it helped.
The funny part of all this is that 5 feet away, our son was sound asleep in our bed. When he awoke at 7am to a room full of people he was completely unphased. He said hello to everyone and then went to find my mom who kept him busy all morning. Occasionally I heard him in the other room and later found out that my mom had told him I was "singing" and so he also decided to "sing" to baby to come out. Too cute.
Around 8am things picked up for me. My poor husband...every time I needed to use the bathroom I would nearly cry because standing up I would have a contraction, have another on the way to the bathroom, another before I sat on the toilet, would have to stand up WHILE I was on the toilet to have one...the whole time gripping his shoulders with my life yelling at him to push my back, which he said he was doing but I totally couldn't feel it. Sidenote: the next day I had horrible aching in my back from all that counterpressure I "couldn't feel."
I hadn't slept since I had been awake with contractions, so I decided to lay in bed and just ride the contractions out there...they slowed a bit and again, I drifted off between contractions that I got enough rest to make it through, thank goodness. I remember at one point looking at my doula and almost panicking, saying, "I'm getting a break. Why am I getting a break? I don't want a break because it will suck soon!"
My midwife asked me to get up from the bed because clearly my labor progressed faster when I stood. I went into the bathroom and at one point was holding onto the faucet thinking how mad my husband would be if I pulled it off because I remember how expensive and hard to install it was. Eventually, I somehow ended up on all fours. Apparently I made a different sound because all of a sudden my midwife, who had been in another room, was there asking if I wanted to have my baby in front of the toilet. I had been getting SLAMMED the last few minutes with contractions and couldn't see an end in sight, so I really didn't know why she was asking me that, but I logically said, "Well, THAT doesn't seem sanitary!" It was strange because I still had not lost my plug nor had my water broken. On all fours, though, I was involuntarily pushing at the end of the contractions and could feel a strange bulging which I assumed was my bag of waters.I got into the tub and on the second contraction there was a POP and my water broke. Then my midwife started giving my husband directions on how to catch the baby...I remember thinking, REALLY? NOW? I had worked so hard for so long, though I refused to look at the clock, but was somehow surprised that it would actually be over soon. I pushed for 10 min and yelled, "COME ON BABY!" and out came my 8lb 12oz baby girl at 12:15 pm. My husband caught her, actually describing her to me as she came out, telling me she had hair and that he was touching her nose. Everyone told me I should try to look...but I couldn't because I was clinging to the side of the tub with everyone behind me and I was afraid to let go in fear I couldn't get my balance, mental or physical, back again. As soon as she was out we called my mom and son in, who said, "Hi baby!" He was so excited!
Holding my baby in my arms for the first time washed away any tiredness I had. What an amazing rush!
The moments after a homebirth are like nothing you can ever experience in a hospital. No mayhem, no bright lights. More importantly, I was never made to feel scared that my baby's heartrate was dropping or threatened with a c-section if things didn't progress on an abstract timeline. Lying in my bed, I suddenly looked down and said, "I have a BABY!" I gazed into my baby's eyes and she gazed back and I was so overwhelmed that I began to cry...shortly followed by my midwife, her assistant and my mother. It was truly one of the best moments of my life.
If you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant I highly recommend watching The Business of Being Born and reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Be educated on your choices!
If you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant I highly recommend watching The Business of Being Born and reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Be educated on your choices!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Deal of The Day Addiction Pays Off
First, let me start by apologizing...I promise to tell my planned homebirth story soon but this deal came up I had to share.
I check my email in the mornings and see a host of messages of great deals being offered out in cyberspace. Some I buy, some I just pass along and most I just pass up altogether. My go-to sites are www.babyhalfoff.com, www.kidsteals.com, www.babysteals.com, and www.ecobabybuys.com in case you were wondering. (I have gotten some great bargains on cloth diapers through these sites.) A friend posted another site on her Facebook page called DealPulp and that particular day they were running a very "green" deal...a credit to thredUP, a clothing exchange. So naturally, I wanted to learn more. This is the information I found on their website:
How does this work, exactly?
Very simply put, it works like this: pick a box you like, pay $5 plus shipping, prepare a box of items that no longer fit your child, when someone picks your box, send it for free. Here is the step-by-step version:
PICK - Browse boxes listed in the thredUP community and select one you'd like to receive. Hopefully, by now, you have your friends on thredUP so you can just pick their boxes. If you're busy, tell us your clothing preferences and the experts at thredUP can choose a box for you.
PAY - Once you've picked your box, all you pay is $5 plus shipping to have it delivered.
PREPARE - As part of this process, you are required (this is a swap after all!) to list a box of clothes that your child no longer wears. We'll ask for basic details such as types of clothing, number of items, colors, brands, season and sizes. Don't worry, the USPS will mail you empty boxes for your gently used clothes.
SEND - When someone picks your box, thredUP will alert you and ask you to send this box. It is free to send boxes on thredUP because the recipient pays the shipping. You'll be able to print the shipping label and schedule the pickup all in one click. Would you rather drop it off at the Post Office? No problem! Just cancel the pickup and leave a note for your postal carrier. As soon as your box is tracked by the USPS, you will see your box status has been changed to "shipped" in your thredUP closet.
I scooped up the deal and immediately signed up for an account on thredUP. Upon signing up, I got a nice surprise...I had a $5 credit posted to my account for being new and it said my first box would be 50% off! I decided to scout out boxes and found one loaded with spring, Gymboree and Gap clothes for my daughter. (I promise, son, the next box will be for you!) It cost me $2.98! My next box will be free because I paid $6 on Deal Pulp using credits I received when others joined the site at my suggestion.
I received 7 outfits (dresses and bloomers, one with a matching sweater and one onesie with shorts), 3 onesies, and 2 shorts onesies. All in all, I received 21 stain-free pieces of clothing! Even at the $5 price plus shipping it would have been a great deal, but at $2.98 is was a downright steal! Now I have 4 jobs: review the sender (positively of course!), build a box to post on the website, order a box for my neglected son, and spread the word!
This is a great way to be green (see my post about buying organic vs. buying used) and save money.
If you would like to join either site, here are my links:
http://www.thredup.com/134445
and
http://dealpulp.com/i/292kjrxy
UPDATE 2/12/2010
So, since my last post I have officially become addicted. I have
received two more boxes (and sent out 4). These boxes were
actually for me and not the kids, though. I found I was in need
of some items that I just didn't want to put a lot of money into,
like larger clothes, since I am still losing the baby weight. I found
some ladies kind enough to put together boxes filled with all the
items a postpartum mommy needs: nursing tops, a sling, a brand
new nursing bra, and jeans a size bigger than what I currently own.
These boxes were STUFFED, like sit-on-the-box-to-get-it-to-close
stuffed! Each sender added some extra items for me or the kids
and each box warmed my heart by the obvious amount of thought
put into each. I now call ThredUP the "good karma" exchange.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
In Search of Food...
I am always searching for the best deal on organic foods. When we moved into our new home I had part of the yard sectioned off to form a garden. I still have grand plans for that garden, even though I have no idea what I am doing. In the meantime, I have participated in Desert Roots Farm CSA, Bountiful Baskets Co-op and gone to various farmer's markets. This week I tried a new source of local, organic (though not "certified") produce: The Backyard Farmer. Delivered right to my door, I had until Sunday night to pick exactly what I wanted.
Here is the contents of my box for which I paid $38.50. I ended up with 2 lbs each of kidney and pinto beans, 1/2 lb of spinach, 3 heads of garlic, 4 lemons, 1 oz basil, 1 lb broccoli, 2 heads of bok choy, 1 bunch of kale, 2 heads of romaine, 2 lbs of yams, radishes, 3 tomato vine clusters and 1 lb of heirloom tomatoes. There are some bulk buys I want to do in the future and attempt to learn the art of canning. In comparison to the grocery store, I think some things would have cost a little less and some about the same...BUT, this is local and delivered to my door (no delivery fee). I think it is important to support our local, small businesses and farmers so that they don't disappear. I think it is more important to know where your food comes from. If I have any questions about the origins of my beautiful bunch of kale, I can talk to the person that grew it!
I also used this morning's delivery as a learning opportunity. My son was so excited to pull out the contents of the box! We talked about how many yams we had and what color the lemons are...things I should do at the grocery store, but am too intent on making it out with everything on my list without a major meltdown.
I am so excited to use my fresh (picked within the last 2 days!) produce in a new recipe I found for roasted tomato soup on Thursday. As for tonight...stir fry! You can email The Backyard Farmer at thebackyardfarmer@live.com to receive his weekly order form and learn more about how the process works.
Where do you go for your best organic buys?
Where do you go for your best organic buys?
Next post... results of my planned homebirth.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Trust
I promised that the next post would be about choosing a midwife and meanwhile had future plans for another post about trust...then I realized they were really the same.
This pregnancy I have had to learn to trust my body, my baby and pick a birth team I can trust. As a first time mom, I trusted my doctor and nurses and hospital. That trust fell a bit misplaced as my birth experience turned out to be more traumatic than enlightening. I felt blessed to have a healthy baby but it began a long string of events that caused an unhealthy mommy; a mommy that wasn't certain if there would be another baby. As I mentioned in my previous post, it took awhile but I finally came to terms with what happened and how to make it better. I knew I wanted a homebirth this time and set out to find a midwife when I found out I was pregnant.
Now, trust began before this point because we were right in the middle of a big move and my parents had just moved out of state. My son had hit the terrible two's and I felt as though the stress alone might damage my chances of having a healthy pregnancy. I didn't actually begin looking for a midwife until I was 10 or 11 weeks along (if you know me, this was NOT my style at all) still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.
I began with the midwife that was at my monthly birth circle meetings. She is one of the main people that helped me realize what had gone wrong in my previous labor and a friend. We had a great interview and I was planning to stop there. I literally went to bed one night and woke up the next morning with the idea I needed to keep interviewing, like maybe someone I had known for awhile and knew my whole story wasn't what I needed for this birth. My husband had been encouraging me to "be sure" and I thought I was...until I wasn't. I had to trust my instincts were right and I contacted 2 more midwives. As it so happened, the very next midwife I interviewed was calm, reassuring and warm and I exactly needed that at that moment. I hired her. I trusted that my first interviewee would understand my decision to go with someone else, and she did. In birth, everyone seems to know that instinct rules and I find my wishes have been respected all along the way.
Like when I had my initial appointment with my midwife and she went down the long list of tests performed routinely by OB's. She didn't simply draw my blood, she ASKED me if I wanted these things done. When we discussed each test, I realized that a majority of them were related to STD's and the others were things that would have come up during my blood draws during my first pregnancy. I declined. All of them. For now, anyway. This week I will do a gestational diabetes check (no glucose drink!) and an anemia check. Do you know how empowering it was to simply say "No"??? It was awesome. Again, I trusted my midwife to let me know what was important and she trusted me to choose right for me and my baby.
The whole pregnancy I have been quite calm about labor, trusting that my body had the right idea the first go round and that I fouled it up by intervening, trusting that I know what I need to do and that is to respect the birth process and let my body and my baby lead. I also trust that if there is a true emergency or problem, I have set the right birth team in place to get me through it and handle the situation or get me somewhere I can receive the help I need.
I find it sad that in a traditional OB/Hospital birth situation we are expected to let others lead us down the correct path and stop trusting ourselves. We follow their timeline for how quickly birth should occur, we listen to them when they say to get the epidural because we won't be able to handle the pain and we just nod our heads when they say we need an "emergency" c-section but it takes an hour to get an operating room. In recovery we are told our baby is hungry and we should supplement til our milk comes in, even though we though we read that the way to get our milk to come in and increase supply is to keep feeding baby on demand and that they can live on our colostrum the first few days... we stop standing up for ourselves and blindly do as we are told. Only later do we find out that most of what was said or done was unnecessary. Then we can choose to get educated or get defensive. (Oh how many people I have met that just get defensive!)
I'm so glad I decided to get educated and decided for this pregnancy, to trust me, my baby and my body. All 3 will thank me later.
This pregnancy I have had to learn to trust my body, my baby and pick a birth team I can trust. As a first time mom, I trusted my doctor and nurses and hospital. That trust fell a bit misplaced as my birth experience turned out to be more traumatic than enlightening. I felt blessed to have a healthy baby but it began a long string of events that caused an unhealthy mommy; a mommy that wasn't certain if there would be another baby. As I mentioned in my previous post, it took awhile but I finally came to terms with what happened and how to make it better. I knew I wanted a homebirth this time and set out to find a midwife when I found out I was pregnant.
Now, trust began before this point because we were right in the middle of a big move and my parents had just moved out of state. My son had hit the terrible two's and I felt as though the stress alone might damage my chances of having a healthy pregnancy. I didn't actually begin looking for a midwife until I was 10 or 11 weeks along (if you know me, this was NOT my style at all) still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.
I began with the midwife that was at my monthly birth circle meetings. She is one of the main people that helped me realize what had gone wrong in my previous labor and a friend. We had a great interview and I was planning to stop there. I literally went to bed one night and woke up the next morning with the idea I needed to keep interviewing, like maybe someone I had known for awhile and knew my whole story wasn't what I needed for this birth. My husband had been encouraging me to "be sure" and I thought I was...until I wasn't. I had to trust my instincts were right and I contacted 2 more midwives. As it so happened, the very next midwife I interviewed was calm, reassuring and warm and I exactly needed that at that moment. I hired her. I trusted that my first interviewee would understand my decision to go with someone else, and she did. In birth, everyone seems to know that instinct rules and I find my wishes have been respected all along the way.
Like when I had my initial appointment with my midwife and she went down the long list of tests performed routinely by OB's. She didn't simply draw my blood, she ASKED me if I wanted these things done. When we discussed each test, I realized that a majority of them were related to STD's and the others were things that would have come up during my blood draws during my first pregnancy. I declined. All of them. For now, anyway. This week I will do a gestational diabetes check (no glucose drink!) and an anemia check. Do you know how empowering it was to simply say "No"??? It was awesome. Again, I trusted my midwife to let me know what was important and she trusted me to choose right for me and my baby.
The whole pregnancy I have been quite calm about labor, trusting that my body had the right idea the first go round and that I fouled it up by intervening, trusting that I know what I need to do and that is to respect the birth process and let my body and my baby lead. I also trust that if there is a true emergency or problem, I have set the right birth team in place to get me through it and handle the situation or get me somewhere I can receive the help I need.
I find it sad that in a traditional OB/Hospital birth situation we are expected to let others lead us down the correct path and stop trusting ourselves. We follow their timeline for how quickly birth should occur, we listen to them when they say to get the epidural because we won't be able to handle the pain and we just nod our heads when they say we need an "emergency" c-section but it takes an hour to get an operating room. In recovery we are told our baby is hungry and we should supplement til our milk comes in, even though we though we read that the way to get our milk to come in and increase supply is to keep feeding baby on demand and that they can live on our colostrum the first few days... we stop standing up for ourselves and blindly do as we are told. Only later do we find out that most of what was said or done was unnecessary. Then we can choose to get educated or get defensive. (Oh how many people I have met that just get defensive!)
I'm so glad I decided to get educated and decided for this pregnancy, to trust me, my baby and my body. All 3 will thank me later.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Labor of Love
So, it has been a crazy, miraculous, busy, sad time over the last few months which was the reason for my absence. I can't say things have calmed down any, but it was time to get back to the blog. My personal life has been filled with joy; the impeding arrival of a new baby and moving into a new house, as well as sadness, with the passing of my father in law last month. It certainly felt as though we were watching the circle of life in person as we drove from the funeral home to our ultrasound appointment to learn we are expecting a healthy baby girl in December. A bittersweet day, especially for my husband.
As you can imagine, we are overjoyed and some days even overwhelmed at the idea of another baby. Our son turned two in March and while he can be the sweetest, most loving little boy on the face of the planet, he can switch to a "terrible two year old" in .02 seconds! I wonder how it will be to be a mother of two young children and if I'm up for the job. Mostly, I pray for a healthy baby, healthy momma and amazing labor. Amazing labor you say? Yes. You read correctly...I plan to be fully conscious, fully feeling and fully present for the birth of my little girl in the safety and comfort of my own home.
I didn't go into labor with Anderson with any real expectation. I had a birth plan that requested minimal interventions, but I was determined to be flexible to the occasion. After more than a day of laboring, I was given one bully of a nurse who turned the birth of my child into a torture session rather than a beautiful event. I'm pretty sure it isn't normal to bargain with the hospital staff for them to give you a sip of water if you can only push your baby out. There was pitocin, epidurals (that got turned off before the pitocin got turned on), an oxygen mask, threatened c-sections, nurses telling me to stop screaming, hep-locks ripped out of my hand and an unmedicated episiotomy that caused months of physical and psycological damage. At first, I was just happy to have a healthy baby but after a few months went by I began to realize the lasting emotional effects of such a traumatic birth.
In the amazing way that I believe only God can work, I sold some items on craigslist to a woman who happened to be a doula. Being as it is her profession and passion to talk about birth, we ended up discussing my birth story. She told me about meetings held monthly throughout the valley of women interested in birth and in the birthing profession (doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, lactation consultants). She suggested it might be healing to go hear what people had to say. I didn't plan on going as I didn't know anyone, but when I mapquested the address, I realized the house the meeting was held in was literally the neighbor behind me! Certainly this was fate. I went to the meeting and low and behold, the topic of the evening was birth stories. I shared mine and was saddened to learn it wasn't the worst story in the room. What was inspiring though was a new mom that sat across from me. Her labor was just as long and also included vomiting. The difference was that she had two doulas with her at the hospital. She had these people reminding her what her wishes had been before she was exhausted and nearly two days into labor. In the end, she had a totally unmedicated birth and felt amazing afterward!
The more I talked to these women and researched, the more I felt as though my downfall had been in getting the epidural. As I read about labor patterns I realized that I had probably gotten the epidural during transition, the hardest part of labor. Once the meds trickled through my body, my body shut down. I didn't progress for 12 hours, until I gave in to pitocin. That made sense! I don't take drugs (prescription or otherwise) because I don't tolerate most of them well, especially pain killers, because I panic....so my body went into panic mode when I stopped feeling the contractions and therefore, I quit laboring! I will always wonder how quickly or slowly my labor would have progressed had I not intervened.
With each meeting I came home to my husband revived and energized and not quite so fearful of having another baby. We had seriously discussed our son being an only child. Labor had been traumatic not only for me and baby, but my husband and mother who had been there as well. My husband brought up homebirth first. I initially pushed the idea aside...but not out of the way. I had yet to decide, if I did have another baby, if I just wanted to make sure no one ever turned my epidural off or if I just didn't want one at all.
In total, it took about 6 months of meetings, books, documentaries (watch the Business of Being Born!) and online research and we decided that yes, we wanted another baby and we both believed it to be more free of interventions, complications and far more comfortable if we did it within the loving walls of our own home.
The national cesarean rate at nearly 40% seemed outrageous to us and thinking back on our situation that could have easily turned that way, it appeared to be a rate based more on convenience for doctors, hospital staff (and a lot of time, moms!) than out of necessity. (Disclaimer: There ARE valid, medical reasons for a small percentage of surgical births and I am grateful it is an option) From the moment I walked through the doors, everything was prepping me for surgery...no food, no water, hep-lock. Fortunately, even though women getting induced (I did go into labor naturally but they induced when labor stopped) are twice as likely to end up birthing by c-section, I was spared major surgery. I feel like by planning to have my baby at home, if I do end up in the hospital at least I know there is a valid reason and it is not out of impatience of labor progression. In the last 60 years our country has medicalized the natural process of birthing healthy babies to healthy moms, treating woman as though they are sick. I feel like the right decision for me and my family is to bring this birth home.
Next post.......Choosing a Midwife
As you can imagine, we are overjoyed and some days even overwhelmed at the idea of another baby. Our son turned two in March and while he can be the sweetest, most loving little boy on the face of the planet, he can switch to a "terrible two year old" in .02 seconds! I wonder how it will be to be a mother of two young children and if I'm up for the job. Mostly, I pray for a healthy baby, healthy momma and amazing labor. Amazing labor you say? Yes. You read correctly...I plan to be fully conscious, fully feeling and fully present for the birth of my little girl in the safety and comfort of my own home.
I didn't go into labor with Anderson with any real expectation. I had a birth plan that requested minimal interventions, but I was determined to be flexible to the occasion. After more than a day of laboring, I was given one bully of a nurse who turned the birth of my child into a torture session rather than a beautiful event. I'm pretty sure it isn't normal to bargain with the hospital staff for them to give you a sip of water if you can only push your baby out. There was pitocin, epidurals (that got turned off before the pitocin got turned on), an oxygen mask, threatened c-sections, nurses telling me to stop screaming, hep-locks ripped out of my hand and an unmedicated episiotomy that caused months of physical and psycological damage. At first, I was just happy to have a healthy baby but after a few months went by I began to realize the lasting emotional effects of such a traumatic birth.
In the amazing way that I believe only God can work, I sold some items on craigslist to a woman who happened to be a doula. Being as it is her profession and passion to talk about birth, we ended up discussing my birth story. She told me about meetings held monthly throughout the valley of women interested in birth and in the birthing profession (doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, lactation consultants). She suggested it might be healing to go hear what people had to say. I didn't plan on going as I didn't know anyone, but when I mapquested the address, I realized the house the meeting was held in was literally the neighbor behind me! Certainly this was fate. I went to the meeting and low and behold, the topic of the evening was birth stories. I shared mine and was saddened to learn it wasn't the worst story in the room. What was inspiring though was a new mom that sat across from me. Her labor was just as long and also included vomiting. The difference was that she had two doulas with her at the hospital. She had these people reminding her what her wishes had been before she was exhausted and nearly two days into labor. In the end, she had a totally unmedicated birth and felt amazing afterward!
The more I talked to these women and researched, the more I felt as though my downfall had been in getting the epidural. As I read about labor patterns I realized that I had probably gotten the epidural during transition, the hardest part of labor. Once the meds trickled through my body, my body shut down. I didn't progress for 12 hours, until I gave in to pitocin. That made sense! I don't take drugs (prescription or otherwise) because I don't tolerate most of them well, especially pain killers, because I panic....so my body went into panic mode when I stopped feeling the contractions and therefore, I quit laboring! I will always wonder how quickly or slowly my labor would have progressed had I not intervened.
With each meeting I came home to my husband revived and energized and not quite so fearful of having another baby. We had seriously discussed our son being an only child. Labor had been traumatic not only for me and baby, but my husband and mother who had been there as well. My husband brought up homebirth first. I initially pushed the idea aside...but not out of the way. I had yet to decide, if I did have another baby, if I just wanted to make sure no one ever turned my epidural off or if I just didn't want one at all.
In total, it took about 6 months of meetings, books, documentaries (watch the Business of Being Born!) and online research and we decided that yes, we wanted another baby and we both believed it to be more free of interventions, complications and far more comfortable if we did it within the loving walls of our own home.
The national cesarean rate at nearly 40% seemed outrageous to us and thinking back on our situation that could have easily turned that way, it appeared to be a rate based more on convenience for doctors, hospital staff (and a lot of time, moms!) than out of necessity. (Disclaimer: There ARE valid, medical reasons for a small percentage of surgical births and I am grateful it is an option) From the moment I walked through the doors, everything was prepping me for surgery...no food, no water, hep-lock. Fortunately, even though women getting induced (I did go into labor naturally but they induced when labor stopped) are twice as likely to end up birthing by c-section, I was spared major surgery. I feel like by planning to have my baby at home, if I do end up in the hospital at least I know there is a valid reason and it is not out of impatience of labor progression. In the last 60 years our country has medicalized the natural process of birthing healthy babies to healthy moms, treating woman as though they are sick. I feel like the right decision for me and my family is to bring this birth home.
Next post.......Choosing a Midwife
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