Magnolia Gwen

My Birth Story:

Sharing this birth story is very hard for me, because I have the birth story that no Mountain Midwifery Center (MMC) patient wants; I don’t know if anyone will even want to read it. Being an MMC client, a transfer to the hospital is a dirty word, it’s the last thing in the world you want, and it’s the worst thing possible; at least in my mind. But maybe sharing this will help me heal mentally because I don’t know how to stop grieving for the birth that I had always wanted. I know this is very long and if you get through this whole story, I thank you for reading it.  My story actually starts way back in the year 2000; I was in college and got very interested in midwifery when I was in my junior year. I took many midwifery classes and I knew that if I were to have children someday, I would not have them in a hospital setting. When Josh and I started trying to have a baby, I did some research to find a place to deliver outside of the hospital and came across the Mountain Midwifery Birth Center.

I read birth stories on their blog and loved them, the staff seemed great and the classes they required were exactly what I wanted to learn about during my pregnancy.  I knew we had found the right place to deliver our child. In Feb, 2011, we found out that we were pregnant and I scheduled our orientation at the birth center.

Aubre was the person who did our orientation and seeing her smiling face for the first time, I knew that we had found the right place to give birth. We scheduled our first appointment and from then on felt like we were always in the right place, I enjoyed the checkups each month, the classes and all the staff; it made me feel connected to the place where we would give birth. Each time we walked up the stairs for our appointments and saw the door to the ‘birthing’ side of the center with the sign that read “Stop, are a Woman in labor?” I got excited and looked forward to walking through that door myself, in fact, I couldn’t wait to walk through that door and deliver our baby.
Our official due date with the midwives was November 2nd; and I kept hoping babe come on or before Halloween, but Halloween came and went and no contractions or baby. The next morning, Tuesday, I had an appt with the midwives around 11am, and from the instant I woke up that day, I had a fear about having to birth in the hospital. Maybe it was a premonition. It was always an underlying fear of mine, but I kept trying to push it down and away, I am healthy, baby is healthy, there is no reason to go to the hospital. We got to our appointment and met with Cassie and Tiffany; my blood pressure got taken and it was a bit high at 140/90. I knew that having a high BP was a reason I couldn’t deliver at the birth center and I fretted about that, but kept thinking it was because I was having a bad morning, I had been crying and emotional all day and figured that had to be the reason for the high BP.

Very early labor

Cassie asked if I wanted my membranes swept and I agreed to it because of the high BP, I knew going into labor and getting baby out was the only cure for pregnancy induced hypertension and I hoped this would help get labor going and I would stop fretting about the BP. Before my appt. ended, Cassie checked my BP again, it was still high, she took some blood and ran some labs and said that I needed to take home a 24 hour pee jug; catch my pee for 24 hours and we will check uric acid content to make sure nothing was very wrong. I would receive a call later that night regarding my labs and if I needed to start the pee jug. The bloodwork came back normal, but the pee from the cup came back inconclusive, so I was to start peeing in the jug the next morning. I was very nervous at that point, tearful and scared, but kept my chin up in hopes that things would change.  The next morning I lost my mucus plug and I was very excited to be going into labor, at least early labor; I focused on seeing my baby and not the tests, kept peeing in the jug and had lots of bloody show all day.

At one point I had a question and called the midwives and talked to Aubre, who reassured me that my labs were good and answered my questions and helped me calm down. She really helped me to focus on the baby and labor, not the labs. I was able to stop worrying so much that afternoon and I was grateful for that gift she gave me. I definitely had early labor contractions all day, I rested and hoped they would get stronger; I focused on keeping my blood pressure down and hoped it would work.
The next day I had to take my 24 hour pee jug back to MMC for testing. I was just going to drop it off and leave, but when I stepped out of the car I had a trickle of water run down my leg to my flip flop. I thought it could be a slow leak in my bag of water, and being GBS positive, I’d rather have it checked now, then get home and have my water break and drive all the way back for antibiotics. However, it happened to be a very busy day at MMC, my good friend Laura was in labor (I can’t share my birth story without including her; we shared the same due date, birthing classes and many other similarities during pregnancy, her water had broken yesterday when I lost my mucus plug and she and I had chatted all day about our labors until hers got pretty intense and she went to the birth center). It happened that the only midwife that could check me was Sarah, who was helping the mamas in labor; I waited until she came over from the birthing side of the center and she checked my water (it had not broken), swept my membranes again and told me I was 3cm dilated and 50% effaced. I was making some progress at least. I also tried to talk with her about my high BP, but wasn’t getting much positive reassurance from her, I really needed someone to talk to me with some compassion about this huge fear of going to the hospital, no MMC client wants to be at the hospital and I was scared, my birth plan was changing in front of me and I didn’t have my husband there for support.
Next, Tracy came into the room and wanted to check my BP, she checked laying down which was a bit high but not higher than 140/90 and then sitting up. It was 141/91 sitting up. Not good. She talked to me about going over to a doctor at Swedish and I said I’d prefer to deliver with a woman; but even with this brief conversation I still believed the 24 hour jug of urine was the decision maker, I didn’t understand that she was setting me up to transfer to the Swedish hospital midwives and I was very confused at what transpired next.

Amelia while our babe kicking inside me

Tracy asked if I could hang out for a few minutes, I said yes, and about 30 minutes later Abby the nurse came back into the room with a sticky note saying they had scheduled me with the Swedish midwives in an hour and a half. I was very confused, I said ‘this means I am not coming back here?’ and Abby said ‘no.’ I couldn’t understand why Tracy had not come back and talked to me about this, I couldn’t understand how they were just kicking me out, I didn’t have Josh there with me, it happened so fast, I was bawling and so very upset. I thought I was dropping off a jug of pee and now I was being transferred to the Swedish midwives that I didn’t know at all, in the middle of early labor, I was practically hysterical! Even as I write this, I cannot stop the tears from flowing; everything I had hoped for our birth (the birth that I had wanted for 10+ years) was pulled out from under me so very suddenly, and it didn’t seem like a big deal to them at all; I was actually told to ‘go get some lunch before the appointment.’ Um, no I don’t think that will work while I am hysterical. I couldn’t understand how after being so invested in the place where we were giving birth that we could be sent away so casually.    The only saving grace that day was Heather T, who was working reception, she suggested that I call the ‘on call doula program’, she also said that they weren’t abandoning me (I very much felt like they were) and she tried her best to help calm me down and prepare me for what was next.

Even then I realized Tracy did us a favor in setting me up with the Swedish midwives rather than with physicians, I also realized that she was trying to do this so I met them ahead of time, rather than when I was actually in labor and had to be transferred. These things didn’t escape me at all, but what I really needed was a much better conversation WITH MY HUSBAND and the MMC midwives so that our questions could be answered and we could feel comfortable with the change of plans and we did not get that at all.

I hysterically called Josh who rushed to MMC and I sat in the downstairs room and cried while waiting for him, I also asked if Tracy could come down and talk to us when he got there. She did, but was on her way out the door and the conversation felt very rushed. For those of you who know us personally, you know that Josh is about the most mellow, calm, and joyful person you could ever meet; that day he was mad, and that is very rare for him. He could hardly comfort me (although he did his best) because he was so upset. I could see it in his face and he couldn’t let it go. We called the on call doula program, and we were so glad that we did; Ann was recommended by Heather T and so Josh talked to her and she offered to meet us at the Swedish midwives appointment.
We left and walked over to the Swedish midwives office, their staff was really great, offered me some food, all I had eaten was breakfast that morning, and brought us into a room so I didn’t have to be bawling in the waiting room. Even the nurse sat with us and talked to us while waiting for Jennifer, one of the Swedish midwives. We consulted with her, asked a zillion questions, got answers some that we liked, some that we didn’t; one being that because of the possible hypertension (the labs weren’t back so really we had 2 high BP’s when I was very nervous and normal blood work) that I would have to be hooked up to monitors for the entire labor and I could walk around the bed and sit on the ball, no water laboring, no walking around in the hallway, nothing to help me cope with the pain besides the bed and ball and rocking chair. That was about the worst news I could get that day besides the transfer, I felt devastated, and how was I going to deal with labor on a leash of cords and monitors? The plan was to wait for the 24 hour pee jug to come back and see what that told us, and I would probably be induced the next day. I did understand the implications about continuing pregnancy with high blood pressure and I knew delivering sooner than later would be better for baby and me.

Labor in the afternoon

During the consult with Swedish Midwife Jennifer, Ann the doula arrived at the appointment and after our consult with the midwife we decided to grab a bite to eat with Ann to get to know each other and talk about this huge change of plans.
Ann had heard from Heather T that the transfer was very sudden for us and that I didn’t really get all the counseling that I probably should have, so she knew what she was dealing with; two sad and upset parents to be who had their entire plans change in a matter of a few minutes. Ann asked about my biggest fear and what I was most sad about, my answers c-section and not being able to write a birth story for the birth center birth. Her words of wisdom that I cherished that day were; ‘you can still write an empowering hospital birth story, many women can’t deliver at MMC for a variety of reasons and you can show them that you can have an empowering hospital birth.’ I took this to heart and focused on it.  We went home that afternoon, Josh and I still grieving and waiting for Swedish midwife Jennifer to call regarding labs. My uric acid content was slightly elevated (later I found out it was still within the parameters of normal, but on the high end) and she recommended induction the next day at 7am.

We agreed to that because I was just ready to have this over with, my birth was not going to be what I wanted and I just wanted to meet my little baby. We tried all the things to start labor naturally that evening, in hopes to avoid the pitocin, but nothing seemed to work. We never heard from the MMC midwives that night, but we had expected they’d follow up with us. The worst part of all of this was leaving MMC so upset because we were never able to calm down and leave the anger behind, we didn’t sleep much that night and I knew this was going to be rough for labor the next day.
I texted my friend Laura who was laboring at MMC that I hoped she had her baby girl by that time, I hoped she had the birth she wanted and that everything was great. I also said I had to be induced and was going to Swedish the next morning. I received a text back that she had placenta problems and was recovering at Swedish and would be staying the night, maybe we’d see each other the next day. Laura and I had so many similarities during pregnancy and it was just one more conscience that she and I would both be at the hospital, the place where we didn’t want to be at all, on the same day, at least she was able to give birth at the birth center.
Josh and I got about 4 hours of sleep that night and got up very early to eat breakfast and get to the hospital by 7am for induction. We were meeting a different midwife, Mary, for our birth, which made me sad because I had gotten to know Jennifer at least a little bit. Mary was nice, a beekeeper and grandmother; I liked her, we asked questions again about delayed cord clamping, skin to skin, and many others which she answered. I still got the same answer about my leash of monitors and laboring around the bedside. Ann requested all the birthing items from the nurses; they set me up on pitocin and vancomycin for my GBS positivity. The vanco made me very nauseous and flushed when it was started at 9am, and I needed another dose 12 hours later; I said that I am getting this baby out before my next dose of vanco because it made me feel awful.
We had texted our friends Laura and David who happened to be on the labor and delivery floor, right across the hall from us, apparently Swedish recovery was full and that is where they ended up! Shocked, I said they could come over and see us and bring new baby Amelia; Josh went over to see them and later that morning David brought Amelia to see me while Laura rested. I got to hold her and my baby was kicking while I was holding Amelia. It was pretty adorable. David told us about Laura and Amelia’s birthing experience; Laura had a rough delivery and handled it very well, I took strength from her that day after hearing her story. She was much in my thoughts throughout my labor.

Afternoon of labor, 8+ hours

That morning went pretty smoothly, I was still a little angry but trying to focus on contractions; my highest BP was the first one taken that morning, from then on they continued to get lower and lower as my labor progressed. Basically I had been told a woman in labor doesn’t have her BP go down, but mine was; so maybe there was no pregnancy induced hypertension at all, just nerves. This really upset me, because I could have been at the birth center after all. At one point, I looked over and it was 120/70. What? I continued to labor on the ball, then had to be unhooked to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes, I enjoyed the time on the toilet because I could feel my hips opening up more and more. I stared at the tub though, and wished I could get into it.
Around noon Laura and David stopped in to say goodbye, Laura talked to me a little bit about her birth; I asked ‘can I do this?’ she gave me some encouraging words and they were on their way home. Shortly after they left, my contractions picked up. It was then that the nurse realized no-one had plugged my pitocin back into the wall after my last potty break and my contractions were getting stronger on their own; they were actually getting strong enough that I had to breathe through them. At that point, they checked my BP again and baby, then unhooked me from the machines and said I could labor naturally, in the tub, I could walk around, and I just had to be monitored every hour. YAY! At least something was going my way. I got into the tub and felt so much better.  Then one of the best things happened, MMC midwife Cassie came into the room; I was so glad to see her I almost cried.

She apologized profusely about how I was sent to the Swedish midwives and said we could talk about this now, or not, whatever I was comfortable with. Of course, I needed to talk about it. She said we should be very mad at them, and that she hoped we’d forgive them but they made a huge mistake; when they were discharging me a text was made to her (since she originally did my labs) and she never received it because it was sent to the wrong number. It should have never went down like it did and she was very sorry. I really needed to hear that, a weight was lifted off of me with those words, and I really did feel like I could have an empowered hospital birth at that moment. I asked her if I could still put our baby’s name on their baby ‘tree’ painting in the waiting room, she said ‘of course you can.’ I really thought I would not be able to since I didn’t deliver there; I was so happy about that. Cassie stayed with me for about an hour as she sat on the bathroom floor while I labored in the tub and between contractions we talked. She said I was doing so well, so strong, she was very impressed; that also made me feel great; she said that Ann had created a great environment for me and she was glad things were going well. Cassie talked to Josh too; he really needed that, and both of us felt like we were on the right track again; not in the right place, but the anger was fading away. It was around maybe 2pm when she came and I told her I wanted babe to be out by 9pm so I didn’t have to have another round of antibiotics, she said it sure looked like baby would be out by then; this is a woman who knows what she is talking about and I hoped she was right. Cassie said we could call her if we needed her, she was on call that night and she went to check on some other patients.
Ann had created a great environment for us, with candles in the bathroom (not real ones), lavender oil, we had our birth music blaring, and things seemed really peaceful and beautiful. This was my favorite part of labor, I felt at peace and happy to meet babe soon; Ann and Josh rubbed my hips and back, and continued to pamper me while I dealt with the waves of pressure. At one point Ann left Josh and I alone in the tub for some alone time and we were able to kiss and hold each other, it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life and I will always cherish it. I think I fell more in love with my husband that day. Not all labor is bad or painful, and there were several hours with intense contractions where I felt pretty at peace, the contractions hurt, but weren’t unbearable and with each one I was closer to holding our baby.
Surprisingly time seemed to fly by during labor, contractions picked up and up; I labored in the tub, on the toilet, on the ball, got checked and was progressing some 5cm, 90% effaced. They wanted to break my water then, but I wasn’t comfortable with any interventions that early and declined. Mary was a little concerned (and had been all day) about babe’s heart rate variability, which didn’t change much; she said we’d like babe to be an A+ and babe is a B+ right now.

Ann our doula, Josh and I; nursing babe

I felt okay with that, and let them worry about it while I focused on laboring. I was told by Ann and heard the nurses say how amazing I was doing without pain meds (I guess they don’t see that much at the hospital); it made me feel good to know that I was being strong.

I was checked again a few hours later and was at 6cm. Not much progress. They wanted to break my bag of water and we agreed at that time. It didn’t hurt to have my water broken, the gush of water was warm and I hoped this would speed things up some. I was told there was a moderate amount of meconium in the water and they wanted to monitor me more closely and babe too. I was able to get in the tub once more, and after that next hour getting back on the monitors babe’s heart rate variability wasn’t doing better, in fact a little worse. I started to worry about this and hoped everything was alright. I had been at 6cm for several hours and nothing was changing, baby’s head was coming down some, but that was about it.

This is the point where I think that if I was at MMC, they would have suggested different positions, and other things to speed up the labor, and I didn’t get this with our new midwife.  Mary talked to me about trying some things different; she suggested some IV drugs to see if I could relax some (not a change of position or other natural intervention), and get some rest, because it looked like this would be an all nighter.

I was a bit hesitant toward this, but I was getting very tired at that point, we hadn’t slept much the night before and I felt like something needed to change. Josh and Ann went to get some food, I got the drugs (we were assured they were safe for babe at this point in labor) and they helped me relax me for an hour; I felt every contraction but just not as strongly. Mary stayed with me and monitored babe, I knew she was concerned at this point, and so was I. I wasn’t able to get off the monitors from that point on because they were worried about baby, I kept telling Mary, please no c-section; I just want to push baby out. After the drugs wore off, I felt overwhelmed with the stronger contractions and thought of getting the epidural at that point, but I pushed through the pain to get in a better mental space, Josh helped immensely with that, he was being so amazing. I was leaning on him while on the toilet, water continued to spill out of me with every contraction and at some point all modesty went out the window as I was walking around naked, half peeing and half dripping water; leaning on Josh moaning. I sat on the ball and leaned into him for each contraction, he was holding my entire weight; I kept chanting things to myself and he and Ann helped me breathe differently through the contractions, I was definitely in laborland and didn’t care what was happening to me, just riding each contraction out, they were coming on top of each other at that point. Water continued to come out of me along with pee as I sat on the ball moaning in pain and wishing each contraction would end, but trying to welcome them as they would help bring babe to us. This was the most intense part of labor for me and I was sure I was in transition or something. Ann was amazing at rubbing my back and shoulders, she was great at queuing me about breathing and so was Josh. They were both such a great support team and I couldn’t have done it without them. Ann kept telling me I was a rock star, doing so well, I heard one of the nurses say this as well (a different nurse, we had been through shift change 2-3 times) and that made me feel pretty good and gave me the strength to keep welcoming the contractions.
I was checked again by Mary hours later and still at 6cm, by this time I had been stuck at 6cm for 6 hours. I asked Josh to call Cassie and see if she had any suggestions (it was hard to completely rely on Mary who was an awesome midwife, but I didn’t know her and wanted confirmation from Cassie that we were doing the right things, we trusted the MMC midwives completely). Cassie told Josh that when a woman gets stuck like that her body stops producing oxytocin and that’s probably why the contractions were so intense, but I wasn’t making progress. She said they would not have kept me at the birth center much past this point because labor becomes too intense for the mama without her body giving the hormones she needs to cope with the pain.
Around that time things get a little foggy for me and I am glad I am writing this so soon after giving birth. Babe was still

The day after delivery

not doing great and Mary wanted an internal monitor to be put in so we could check baby and make sure my contraction were strong enough to get baby out. It really pissed me off when she said that because I felt like my contractions were plenty strong and it made me feel a bit inferior. I did not want the monitor that gets stuck to baby’s scalp and made them try the other internal monitor first, which fell out when they wanted me to change positions pretty much immediately. They ‘had’ to use the monitor which attaches to babe’s scalp; I didn’t like this because I can imagine putting a monitor into babe’s scalp can’t feel good, but tried to think back to childbirth class when Heather told us that sometimes these monitors are necessary and it felt necessary then. I never heard if my contractions were strong enough, and the monitors kept falling off baby, I am not sure if they ever got it attached correctly and they had to try it twice, poor little one.

It was around midnight then, and Mary said we needed to do something different I had been stuck at 6cm for too long, something wasn’t right and I still needed to dilate to 10 and push baby out. I also felt my body was different, I felt something wasn’t quite right, things felt too intense. I was getting major back labor, even though little babe was in the right position throughout the entire pregnancy, babe had turned ‘sunny side up’ for the delivery. My poor mother was in labor for 3 days with me because I was in this position, I knew this meant a very long labor and I wasn’t’ sure how I was going to do this, but I knew I could do it, women have done it, my mother did it, I could too; but I didn’t know if baby could handle it. I was persistent that I could continue to labor without any more interventions as long as baby was alright, this is when Mary said that baby was not doing well at all. I was worried. I think part of her reasoning for wanting me to get an epidural was because she felt a c-section was inevitable and wanted me to have the proper anesthesia to be awake during the surgery. She didn’t tell me this, I could just sense it. Again, I think the MMC midwives would have realized that baby had turned face up much sooner and they would have helped me change positions and do things differently to get baby to flip; this is what midwives do.
Mary pretty much said we had some two choices, an epidural or c-section. I chose epidural, Josh tried to rally for what we originally wanted and he kept saying that I had only been in labor for 18 hours, sometimes labor takes days, we know this, we expected this, and tried to get me to continue naturally. But I knew something wasn’t right, my premonitions in the past several days had all been pretty accurate and I knew this was what needed to happen to give me the best shot at delivering vaginally. Josh continued to try to sway me into our original birth plan, but Mary came over and told me that it was my decision, not his. I knew that Josh didn’t like that, but he just was trying to keep me on track with the wishes I chose for labor, I told him ‘something is not right inside of me, I need this to relax and maybe still have the vaginal delivery we wanted. I felt like the intervention was for the right reasons, as we had learned in childbirth class; maternal exhaustion is a reason to get an epidural so that a vaginal delivery can happen. I sort of tried to remind him of this, and I think he understood.
They called the anesthiologist, who took for-freaking-ever to get there and put the epidural in, and even while we were waiting, my back labor picked up in intensity and babe’s heart rate variability continued to decrease. The epidural didn’t actually help me very much and took forever to kick in; then babe’s heart rate really took a dip (I questioned if we had done the right thing) and suddenly all the staff were talking c-section, safety of baby, etc. etc. I asked Josh to call Cassie again and she said this is what needed to be done, we got on speaker phone with her, I could hear the sadness in her voice for me, but it’s what needed to happen. Babe was telling us it wasn’t handling things, it had told us that from the meconium being in the water, it probably wasn’t the epidural that caused it, babe was in some distress all day long and was handling it but it was becoming too much.

Just after birth

I had also felt things were not right before the epidural, I felt funny and knew something had changed. So we proceeded to an emergency c-section. This was the last thing I wanted, I cried for the birth that I didn’t get to have, I cried for the loss of not being able to push this babe out of me, and I cried because she was going to be born under harsh lights, and be yanked from my body, no delayed cord clamping, no skin to skin, all of our wishes for this birth were gone and I was devastated.  At that point, I almost thought that our c-section became inevitable when I was transferred to the hospital and induced, if labor had progressed naturally, maybe all of this wouldn’t have happened? I mourned for the birth I wanted, not just because I wanted that birth, but because I was about to be cut open and the baby was going to be yanked out of me. Why did I have to have my BP checked that day, why didn’t I just turn in the pee jug and go home?

I cursed myself and my decisions that day, and I was very upset that even though I had 2 high BP’s, my BP in labor was normal, and I could have stayed at MMC for delivery. I was later told that the high BP’s were probably from nerves, my labs were all fine and my BP in labor was very good. This did not make me happy, just grief stricken.
Things happened very fast then, a nurse anesthetist came in and gave me more spinal anesthesia to numb me up to my shoulders; which actually caused me major pain in my shoulder blades (I still have the pain as I type this), I kept asking why it hurt so bad and never really got an answer, baby needed to come out and my shoulder pain wasn’t important. I remember her saying that this was going to be a big baby; we were going to be surprised at how big she would be. I wondered about that, but I didn’t think she was right.
Josh was scared, I could see it in his face, and he was sad and worried and scared; trying to cope. Thank goodness we had Ann there with us, she packed up all of our belongings and helped calm Josh and myself; she was actually able to be in the room with us during delivery, which was helpful to me because I wanted Josh to be with the baby. They wheeled me into the room. I wanted him next to me during the c-section, but he really couldn’t be because he was told to stand on my right side and I couldn’t turn to the right because I was shaking uncontrollably from the medication and I could only look to the left for some reason. I wanted to see his face, but could not turn my head; I stared to my left, watching my arm shake and looking up at the ceiling at the stupid light pictures they put up there to try to calm you and give you something to look at. They weren’t working, I thought.
They asked me if I could feel sharpness when I was poked, I could not, and the surgery started, Dr. Hall was the surgeon and I had met him briefly before being wheeled into the surgery. I could feel tugging and pulling, but it wasn’t actually as bad as I had expected and in a few minutes baby was out. Josh said; “it’s a girl, she is so beautiful, she is so beautiful….over and over.” I wanted to see her, but no-one brought her to me, Josh said he was going with her and Ann stood next to me. I think she told me they were sucking blood out of her lungs, later Josh told me it was a lot of blood that came out, and that is why she was so distressed. She was wailing though! I cried hearing her cries and wished I could see her, it felt like eternity waiting. I asked if she had hair, someone told me she had a little (she has a LOT). Eventually Josh came back with her and put her on my chest, he was crying, I was crying, she was so pretty. My hands were numb and I couldn’t really hold her, but I could feel her on me. I stared into her eyes, and she cried and cried. I cried too, we both cried for the way she was yanked out of me, she didn’t like it and neither did I! But she was here, she was safe and she was a girl!

Amelia (left) and Magnolia, best buds

I said her name was Magnolia Grace, but I wasn’t sure about the ‘Grace’ (we chose Gwen as a middle name later, Grace was not suited for her, she was too strong willed). Also, Gwen was a family name and I wanted part of my family in her name.
We were wheeled into the recovery room and Josh went with Magnolia while Ann stayed with me and then went to get our stuff situated in our room. I could see Josh was annoyed with the nurse who was trying to do testing on Magnolia, she was telling him the baby needed formula, Josh was saying, ‘she was just born, you didn’t even give her a chance to breastfeed,’ the nurse told us we were risking brain damage (c’mon lady, she is 15 minutes old) and he refused the formula and practically took Magnolia from the nurse and brought her to me. We tried to breastfeed, she latched on some, but was wailing still, and I didn’t blame her, it was a crazy experience and not the birth we had ever wanted for her.

I was doing skin to skin with her but my hands were numb and I couldn’t hold her; so Josh took off his shirt and did skin to skin with her in the recover y room. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, my husband sitting there with our daughter on his bare chest, my heart took a picture and I will never forget it. I kept telling him I loved him, we kissed, I kept saying that I had never seen anything more sweet in my life and he kept saying how proud he was of me. It was a beautiful moment, but I was so out of it and tired, I kept falling asleep and then waking up.
Later, I talked to Dr. Hall and asked about why baby couldn’t come out and he said that my pelvis was too small, that I couldn’t have a VBAC and if I were to have another baby I’d need a c-section. He said baby was sunny side up and her head wasn’t fitting through my pelvis. She had a tiny bit of cone head (6cm worth) from trying to fit through my cervix. This news is pretty devastating to me; not only was I not ever able to go back to the MMC midwives, but I was a c-section mama, a mama who maybe can’t even have a VBAC, and I am still grieving this loss. Later I talked to Mary who didn’t completely agree with what Dr. Hall said and she gave me some reassurance that maybe I could have a VBAC, she said she has only ever told 1 mother that a c-section was inevitable and she wasn’t going to say that to me now because she didn’t agree. This helped me feel somewhat better, but I still grieve the loss of never walking through the MMC doors as a woman in labor, and maybe never pushing a babe out of me. I loved my experience at MMC despite the issues with the transfer and it makes me so sad that I cannot go back there for my next birth; but maybe by the time I am pregnant again they will do VBAC’s there; I can hope right? The next day MMC midwife Laura came to our recovery room (I hadn’t expected to see her at all) and we talked a little about the transfer and c-section. I mentioned writing my birth story and she reminded me that 10-11% of all of their patients get transferred to the hospital, and this is what a transfer looks like and feels like, it’s a good story to hear. I liked that she said that, it helped me a lot. She also told me another mama got transferred and was on this floor as well, even though I didn’t know who it was, my heart went out to her and I hoped she was doing alright.
Now that birth is over, you will never hear me say that even though this was not the birth we planned, mom and babe are safe and that’s all that matters, because it’s NOT all that matters. A mothers birthing day matters and stays with her for the rest of her life, ask any mother and she can recount minute details of her birth, my mom 32 years later can tell you every detail of my birth. But the outcome is a good outcome, Magnolia Gwen Mason is here, she weighed 7lbs

worth it!

7.4oz and was 20.5 inches long; she was born 1:33am on 11/5/11 at Swedish Hospital via C-section. She is beautiful with a full head of hair and we love her so much.

Now, I have always thought that the journey of the mother mattered through pregnancy and childbirth (because I really think life is about the journey, not the outcomes) but before my own pregnancy it was just what I thought to be true, I hadn’t experienced it myself, so maybe it wasn’t?  However, now that I am pregnant and about to face childbirth, I feel even more sure that the mother’s birthing day does matter and this is why…

Back in my first trimester, Josh and I watched the movie The Business of Being Born and in the movie they discuss this subject at length.  One of the mothers didn’t have the experience she wanted, for reasons out of her control, and it bothered her immensely.   Coincidentally, that very next day I met a girlfriend for lunch whose daughter is 19 years old, I had never heard her birth story before and when she started to share it, she prefaced the story with; “I am still so angry about my birth experience.”  And went on to tell her story of unnecessary c-section and intervention that she adamantly tried to avoid while choosing a care provider and making clear her birth plan.  Even after 19 years, the day of her daughter’s birth still brings back anger, fear and a flood of emotions that are still vivid and clear in her mind and it was not the birthing day she wanted or even needed to have.  Her story has stuck with me during my pregnancy and has helped me plan for our birth in a way that I feel most comfortable and in control.

Several months ago, I found a facebook page and blog called Birth Without Fear, which very liberally discusses no intervention births and many women share their stories on their page and blog weekly.  Recently, the page has become flooded with women who are birthing their second or more child via VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-section, statistically safer per the World Health Organization than a second c-section in healthy women) after having traumatic first-time births resulting in interventions that they either didn’t want, didn’t need, or didn’t know they didn’t want until it was too late. 

37 weeks pregnant - hiking

I think my journey is important too, this is not just another day in the life for me, this is the day I become a mother; I will remember this day forever and the emotions that I experience will stick with me forever.  My own mom was in labor for 3 days with me, yes, 3 DAYS at 42 weeks pregnant;  if that long of a labor occurred now in the hospital, she would have certainly had a c-section.  She wears that badge of labor proudly, although I personally think that it was very difficult for her and clearly the difficulty stuck with her, but so did the reward of having a healthy child.

Mothers in labor do matter.

Again, why do we say that the only thing that matters is a healthy baby?  Where did this notion that mama’s don’t matter come from?  But if that’s all that matters, then we are doing birth very wrong in this country because our c-section rates are around 30%, way higher than the World Healthy Organization’s (WHO)guideline of 5-15%, and intervention during birth is the norm nowadays, even though 70-80% of mothers are healthy and not in need of medical intervention.  We as a nation rank very low in infant and mother mortality rates and our NICU admits are very high and costly to our health-care system.   So, did this saying get adopted when our births started to become much more medical and we are seeing worse outcomes?  Are we now saying to mothers;  ‘phew, all that intervention was needed to save your baby, but at least you have a healthy baby and thats all that really matters?’   That is my theory.  I’d like to hear yours.

32 week belly

To bring this back to a personal note, the birth experience does matter to me and I know it will be something I remember for the rest of my life;  a good or bad outcome will affect me.  There is no major experience in life that doesn’t right?  So, that’s why we chose to have our child at a birth center with midwives.  Now, as I have said before in this blog that I work in medicine, in oncology specifically, I also spent many years as a CNA taking care of patients from teenage years at Craig Hospital through geriatric patients in a nursing home.  If I had cancer right now, someone would really have to convince me that herbs, prayer and positive thoughts would cure me rather than chemotherapy and radiation which is what I know to be proven statistically.

But a baby is not a disease, and the midwives provide a good balance between having the natural birth that I want and providing a safe environment that I feel comfortable with.  In their practice only healthy, low risk, mom’s can deliver with them (which is 70-80% of mothers), babies can only be delivered in a normal head down position (not breech that is known ahead of time), only between 37-42 weeks in gestation (which is per the guidelines from the WHO) and the midwives don’t take any chances beyond what is recommended.  This balance of natural/medicine provides me with an amazing environment to birth naturally, but allows me to feel safe, and if a decision is made for me to go to the hospital that they are making the decision for the health and safety of my child and myself.  While I hope to stay away from medical intervention completely, I have to ‘let go’ and feel comfortable with their sound medical decision if they feel that I need intervention.   Finding a care provider during childbirth that you trust is essential and we have done that in choosing this midwifery practice.
For now, I hope and pray that our birth goes as planned and to accept change if the unexpected does happen. I am nervous, but excited too, I am ready to meet this baby and start this new chapter in our life.

Again, this is not meant to offend anyone who chooses to have  a c-section or induction; this is meant to discuss whether your birth experience matters vs. whether having a healthy baby being the only thing that matters.  How you choose to birth to get that outcome is your choice, and I am telling you why I made my choices to go with a birth center.

Here are some more links that I found interesting and helpful as I was writing this post:  By far, this first link is my favorite.  Women who didn’t have a healthy baby reflect to read this powerful story; click here.
Metropolitan Mama
Women Uncensored.

Between 12-16 weeks, I continued to feel better physically and mentally but what I didn’t think about yet was having the baby, I didn’t consider the emotional part of it at all or the actual act of taking care of a child. I thouht abstractly about ‘a baby’ and names for this baby, I read tons about birth and natural childbirth, I listened to hypnobabies and read as many birth stories that I could get my hands on, but what I didn’t do was think about actually taking care of a baby myself.   Maybe every first time mother feels this way, but I am guessing some of you mom’s are probably more prepared that I was and think about the realness of the child from day 1?   What I needed to do was to let go of the life I presently had, for motherhood, which is something that was difficult for me, you only have to read earlier posts in this blog to know that!  Mentally, I was exhausted and overwhelmed with the changes happening in my life, but I was starting to accept them a little bit.
In the middle of my second trimester, I finally got over the shock of being pregnant, and what set in next was the need to get ready for this baby.  For me, it wasn’t the need to buy items for the baby (yet), it was the overwhelming need to get our fixer-upper house finished!  Which Josh called ‘nesting’, however I remind him that every year I get really antsy about getting house projects complete and I get a little crazy when I am tripping over the air compressor in our living room for a month at a time because the project is nearly complete but not quite done (one of Josh’s faults, never fully completing a project, it took 2 years to finish our patio in back; but we got it done this year at my insistence) .   Nesting or not, I was ready to dive into house projects, which took all of my strength and energy to complete our home before focusing on the baby items or baby’s room.   While I didn’t feel mentally prepared yet, physically I felt better and emotionally I was more at peace.

Also in the middle of my second trimester, I actually started to look pregnant and at around week 23 I started to feel the baby move around inside me.  Now, that is a weird alien-like feeling the first few times, but eventually it became routine to feel baby squirming around from time to time  and then more frequently until it became routine to notice movement around 10am, 3pm, 7pm, when I would lay down at night to relax and then at 2am, when baby would wake me up kicking in the night.  I also got my energy back in the middle of my second trimester and enjoyed hiking again; I would also start picturing having the baby and taking care of it, rather than ‘baby’ in the abstract.  At one point, Josh and I erupted into laughter after we realized that the midwives were going to ‘let us take a baby home…in our car…to take care of… forever…’ and I began to wonder when having this child in your life became normal, rather than new.   I actually enjoyed some of my second trimester, I had a fun 10 weeks of lots of energy, love and peace of mind, which I was grateful for after feeling so overwhelmed early on during pregnancy.

Nearing the end of my second trimester and into the beginning of my third trimester, I continued to feel good and we started to prepare the baby’s room which I loved doing!  After developing a theme for the baby’s room, I enjoyed painting the room and collecting items that fit into my nature theme.   I love to decorate and creating this warm and cozy space for the baby was a lot of fun, I’d think about it for hours at a time, my mind always wandering back to getting organized and what items we really needed vs those that we could live without.   Also, I started thinking about holding the baby in my arms, getting excited to meet this little one who has been kicking me for so long and wondering what they looked like.

When I hit my third trimester, I felt pretty good about pregnancy, my mental state and emotional well being, but what I wasn’t ready for again was the discomfort.  The third trimester really takes a toll on your body physically, my upper abdomen began to hurt and pull painfully and by week 33 I had a terribly pulled muscle which bruised and looked awful.  I started to worry about hernias in my abdomen (a cause for concern when your upper abdomen gets pulled) both during and after my pregnancy and I worried about this muscle healing before childbirth.  After several weeks of miserable pain for my abdomen, the midwives suggested an herbal remedy that worked very well, and the pain started to subside.  Just as that pain was becoming manageable and I started to get back on my feet again, I came down with my first real sickness during pregnancy, a viral and ear infection, which continue to last as I type this blog post.  This sickness knocked me on my butt and after weeks of laying on the couch with a torn muscle that burned painfully with each movement, I was sidelined with a terrible cold, congestion, sore throat and ear pain.   Physically, I stopped walking and hiking and spent my days laying on the couch, in the chair or in bed; my abdomen hurt when I sat up and engaged the muscle, but was too congested to lay down for any length of time.  These uncomfortable side effects combined with the normal aches and pains of the 3rd trimester; the constant pressure of this baby trying to break out of my belly alien style, the swollen ankles and feeling how difficult it is to maneuver with an extra 40 pounds of weight.  Supposedly this is nature’s way of making a mama prepare for birth and get ready to push this baby out, and I can believe it!  My discomfort has made me start to get excited about labor and birth, I am counting the days until week 37 when this baby is considered full term and I can definitely give birth at the birth center (the birth center only allows births from 37-42 weeks of gestation, beyond that a patient goes to the hospital). 
It’s been in these past several weeks that I have been highly motivated to buy all the necessary items for baby and we almost have everything we need to bring this child home.  I definitely experienced nesting while getting the baby’s room ready and purchasing the necessary items to house an infant. 
Now, we are practically ready for baby, a few things still need to get done, but if they don’t it won’t be the end of the world, and again I am faced with the realization that I am going to push this baby out of me pretty soon; and then I am going to have a baby to care for, that relies on me for it’s survival.  I start to question the details; do I have enough cloth diaper covers?  Do I need to get a breast pump right now, or can I wait until I know if I need one?  How do I really care for the umbilical cord, or give baby a bath?  It all seems to make common sense, but then again, will I do it correctly?  What will our life be like after the baby is born?

Today Josh and I attended the second birthday of our friends first child, it was a picnic at the park with the other kiddos in the group and it made me think that next year at this time, I will have to watch my child play and mind themselves, rather than enjoying the other childrens antics (while their parents deal with the crying and/or their safety).   It does give us a glimpse of what our life will soon look like.

The 10 months and 3 trimesters of pregnancy really prepare a women for this new life change, and letting go of the fears and embracing change has been difficult and empowering for me.   But I think it’s all necessary in becoming a mother myself. Now, I will prepare for the challenge of labor and childbirth; but I look at that as being the end of this marathon called pregnancy and the new chapter of being a ‘mom’ will soon begin.

First, I have noticed and discussed in this blog before, that people really want to get involved when you are pregnant, people want to know what choices you are making regarding everything, especially with the baby’s name.  I think that people are so interested in the name because it’s something that everyone can relate to, everyone has a name and everyone has an opinion about names; so its something that people with or without kids can talk about.   Personally, I have a hard time with those people who choose to keep the name secret; and its not because they aren’t telling me the name at all, (because I love surprises) its because these people tend to get really defensive when talking about names and they don’t want to discuss the subject of names at all!  It’s the defensiveness that bugs me for two reasons:  it’s your child’s name, why should you care what anyone else thinks about it, be confident about it and don’t get upset when people want to get involved; and second because names are fun to talk about and it makes people feel connected to your pregnancy and your child.   I asked a friend once why she wouldn’t share names and she said; if I tell the name after the baby is born and people don’t like it, no-one will say anything because the child is already named.  I think that is totally wrong, if people don’t like the name, they are still going to say they don’t like it, whether they say it to you or not, it still will be discussed either amongst themselves or maybe even to you.  (as she found out later)  Don’t fool yourself into not hearing the negative, because you might still hear it and its gotta be harder to hear the negative words about the name that’s already written on the birth certificate than it does when the baby is in utero.

I remember when one of my cousins was born, and my aunt and uncle didn’t tell anyone the name they had picked out, it was uncomfortable hearing that they didn’t want to talk names at the baby shower or any other time, and it was a touchy subject for 9 months that we had to tiptoe around because they got so upset when names were even brought up in conversation.  Not every person in the family knew they didn’t want to share names, so every time someone asked  they got more and more defensive and upset.   No matter what, people are going to ask and talk about names, its one of the few things everyone can get involved in, and you can’t expect people to know your decision not to share the name.  This defensiveness is how every single person that I know, who did not want to discuss names, reacted.   One girlfriend’s sister wouldn’t even tell her names they discarded and their relationship as sisters changed in that time because it was such a touchy subject.   Of course, its the parents decision to make these choices, but my advice (my opinion) is to just roll with it, if you don’t want to tell that name you picked, totally fine, but at least let people be involved with name process and don’t get so defensive when asked about it; share your discarded names, share names you sort of like, share family names;  talking about names is fun and its the conversation about names that people really want; people like to talk names, that’s just how it is.  They will never know you didn’t tell them the name you picked out and it helps people feel involved in the process who care about you and are excited about this baby.

On the other end of the spectrum are those people who pick out a name and stick with it, they paint the name on the wall or have it printed on baby items, but they have not even met this baby yet.  What if the gender was wrong from the ultrasound, or what if the name doesn’t suit the baby?  I don’t fully understand this either, only because I never think anything is set in stone  (but that’s just me).  My question is; what if the baby really doesn’t fit the name, then what do you do?  Do you stick with the name because that’s what you have been telling everyone and calling baby for so long, or do you change it at the last minute?  I have one friend whose daughter is 19 now, and she was originally going to name her daughter Sienna; but when ‘Sienna’ came out and she held her daughter for the first time and called her this name, it didn’t fit and she had such a hard time making the decision to change it at the last minute.  She had already bought Sienna letters for the nursery and told everyone baby would be Sienna…but she went with her gut and changed the name.  I wonder how often this happens and how many families just stick with the original name even if it doesn’t suit the baby?   Maybe when you create a name and personality for the baby while it’s in utero then it will fit the child in your eyes?

I see posts on facebook all the time about people who picked out the name already, and are calling their child this name and buying her princess clothing and creating a personality around the name.  But what if this child doesn’t like that stuff?  What if they are a little tomboy instead?  Then again, everyone has to choose some sort of theme before the baby is born and who really knows if your child will like princesses, trucks, or sports?  I almost think then you are creating a personality for the child around a name and then they won’t get to develop that personality themselves.  But maybe its not?  I am not judging, I am honestly just curious; and the gender stereotyping of names, clothes, and personality is another subject completely.

Of course, everyone has the choice to do what they want with the name; and for us, we will discuss the names we like, but we really don’t care if one of the names we like is that of  your high school ex boyfriend, or the coworker you hate; because this is our choice.  I think the last time to worry about judgment is when you are choosing your child’s name, its our decision and I am not going to feel badly if you don’t like the names that we do.  While I am pretty sensitive about lots of things, this is one area where I am learning to overcome judgment without being sensitive or angry.   We have heard a lot of opinions about the names we like, many people don’t like our choices, or will say; ‘don’t name your baby that, it reminds ME of this,’ or they will try to give us another name instead.  Some people get offended when we say; “I don’t like it” to the name they chose for our baby.  But not everyone is like that, and because I don’t have a name for this baby, I do enjoy hearing other people’s name choices, I just wish they wouldn’t get upset if I don’t like them.  Just like I am not getting upset when you don’t like those names that we do.  Its all a matter of opinion and this is once incidence where I can say “you can’t please everyone so you have got to please yourself” and that is what we will do.  So if you don’t like the names we do, that’s okay by me, you will love our child just the same and the name will grow on you, and if it does not, at least we know that we chose something that we loved.

Again, this is just my opinion on the subject, and none of it reflects my judgment of your choices, so as a reader, don’t take it personally; as I am learning to not take things personally regarding my decisions for pregnancy, childbirth and even baby names.  There is no ‘right or wrong’ answer, just a topic to think about.

25 weeks pregnant

It’s been a long time long time without posting; and there are so many reasons for that.  I haven’t been so stressed about being pregnant, so the need for blog therapy hasn’t presented itself as much as it did earlier in my pregnancy, but mostly because Josh and I have been busy getting ready for this little baby!    If you had read this blog in the past  (I’ve been blogging since 2007) you’d know that we bought a house that had lots of fixing up to do.  We have built a basement, bathroom, bedroom, landscaped most of the yard, added a deck, patio, raised gardens, and now we are finishing things up by painting and adding new flooring to the upstairs.  We will also finish drywalling the laundry room, add slate tile to the dining room and kitchen and will get new carpet for the living room.   This is a lot of work in general, but now that I am in my third trimester its making it a lot harder for me to help with the house projects, even though we need all hands on deck to complete them.  On top of just getting ready for the baby and all the house projects; our foundation which we had repaired when we bought the house is still settling and we have to have more work done on it, which was not a problem before we drywalled the downstairs, but now that the project is complete and we have to tear holes into the drywall that we hung ourselves feels like a step backward and another project that needs to be completed before baby is here. I am worried it all won’t get done in time, but am trying not to stress about it. 

Looking back at my second trimester: I found that I grew to like pregnancy a little more; not that I loved it, but I felt much better than the first trimester and my energy level was much higher and I felt more ‘normal’ than I had in months.   I finally began to not only ‘accept’ my pregnancy but to embrace it and try to enjoy the good parts of pregnancy because I’m definitely a ‘push through and get it done’ type of person and 9 months is not something that you can speed up, so I decided that I might as well try to enjoy it.  This summer I was able to hike some amazing and difficult trails by myself including a 13er Mt. Cupid, The Incline in Manitou Springs  (with Josh), and several trails in Coal Creek Canyon around the reservoir.  Those hikes during the week have been such stress relievers for me, and have helped me focus just on myself and baby which is something that I needed.

Baby Movement:  I started to feel the baby move around week 21 which is a little late and that is due to having an anterior placenta (in the front, so the baby is kicking through that placenta like a pillow muffling it’s movement.  When I felt those first few movements I must admit they were very alien feeling, people used the terms “flutter” and “butterfly wings” but to me it felt like something was trying to get out from inside me!  The movements were stronger than a ‘flutter’ and maybe thats because the baby was much bigger at 21 weeks than when people usually start to feel he movement at 16 weeks; but due to my placenta being anterior  it took several weeks longer for me to notice it.  When I did start to feel the movements, they were on the sides of my body and not in the center, which was very weird to me.  After a few weeks the feelings started to become more normal and that helped me to enjoy the movements and connect a little bit with the baby inside of me.  Now the baby kicks are much harder and stronger and they almost hurt a little bit, and I can only imagine what they will feel like in the weeks to come.

28 weeks pregnant, 32nd birthday

Body Changes:  Just as my third trimester started, I started to become uncomfortable again.  My belly is much bigger and I have to use momentum to sit up or get out of bed, bending over is becoming a real chore, especially putting on my shoes and socks, or even clothing.  I can’t imagine needing to wear tennis shoes in the fall months and have been lucky that I can usually make due with flip flops in these summer months.  Something else that has become uncomfortable are what I think are Braxton Hicks contractions, which aren’t supposed to hurt, but these are a little painful.   I’d love to hear if other mothers experienced this?   Also, my feet, ankles, hands, fingers and every part of my body is swelling and I have already gained 30 lbs in my pregnancy  The weight gain has really bothered me and I don’t handle standing on the scale very well at the midwives office to check my weight.

Growth:  I’ve learned that no matter what, people will give you opinions and advice on pregnancy, childbirth, and child raising; even on your baby registry and baby products.  While some of the advice may be helpful and all well meaning, it does make the mama-to-be a little overwhelmed with her decisions and choices.  It’s like every parent knows better than you, which they probably do from experience, but that doesn’t mean your opinions and choices aren’t valid.  And just like anything in life, parenting might not turn out exactly how you want it to, but like with anything you will grow, adapt and change.  Child rearing isn’t the only unpredictable part of life, all of life is unpredictable but somehow child rearing spurs on tons of opinions/advise and I am not sure why?   But knowing that helps me accept those unwanted opinions and advise with a better attitude.

Now that I need to rest more in my third trimester, I hope to be able to blog a little more, so stay tuned!

Clearly science has proven that breast milk is the best, I don’t think anyone could disagree with that statement right?   But saying that is not a judgement of those women who can’t/don’t nurse and we can have opinion without judgement, can’t we?  I am not looking down my nose at someone bottle feeding their child, that’s just crazy and not the point at all!

Maybe this odd quote will sum up my philosophy in approaching difficult situations ; its a quote from a cross country coach at camp one summer way back in high school.  Out of all the great quotes and inspirational stories we heard over that week each summer, I don’t know why this one sticks with me after all of these years, but it has.  “Aim for the Eagle, Bag the Pheasant, but you never eat crow.”   The coach explained it better than this, but; aim high and you won’t likely completely fail, instead you’ll bend in the wind when things change.  This is how I have tried to live my life, especially when I am nervous about something difficult and I am definitely nervous about both nursing and childbirth.

But the bigger point I was trying to make in the blog post is that breastfeeding women are being pretty harshly judged by society, and I was enlightened by a comment that judgement goes both ways to non nursing mothers as well.  I totally agree with that, but I think those mom’s get a different type of judgement, and neither are right.  We are still judging our mothers in society too harshly and that’s not the point at all!  In a previous post a gal had commented she got glares from a 16 year old for ordering coffee while visibly pregnant; but would that same 16 year old glare at her for nursing in public?  Women who nurse publicly are judged by a part of society that think nursing is a private personal act and should be done out of the eyes of the public.  While mothers who don’t nurse are judged by those who do.  At least, that is the opinions that I am reading into from the comments/emails that I received.  Maybe I am wrong though?   Seems like a lot of judging being thrown around, unfortunately, to mothers who only try to do their best for their child.  Or maybe its that people are very sensitive to this subject and nursing /formula feeding is a topic like politics and religion that just should not be discussed because it’s such a heated topic?

Another completely different point that was brought up in the comments section of the previous post is that the hospital experience during childbirth has changed significantly in the past 2 generations.  Now, women are sent home after childbirth in 1-2 days; instead of the 5 days women use to stay in the hospital just a generation ago.   During that 5 day stay, I expect women are able to rest up after childbirth (and last several months of pregnancy), have someone else assist with childcare, and have a nurse/lactation specialist very nearby to answer questions about breastfeeding when in need.  I know some of my friends and sister in law received good follow up care with nursing if they wanted it after going home from the hospital, but I am sure not every insurance offers this and once at home a woman has to learn to breastfeed by herself without support of someone nearby when it can be painful and difficult.  I absolutely think there is a correlation between the way we birth babies in this country (which has gone from natural to medical) and the decrease in breastfeeding.  This is a great topic that I plan on continuing in another post along with my reason for choosing to birth in a center, not hospital.

All I had really hoped for with this post is to make people think a little bit more positively about nursing, it was mostly aimed at those people who tell women to cover up while nursing in public, or make ridiculous comments about nursing being sexual. It’s that ignorance about breastfeeding that boils my blood, one just needs to read all the negative comments posted about nursing, or about the breast pump being deductible in a flex plan from my previous post, to see that people are very confused about what boobs are really for.  They actually aren’t for sexual pleasure; like all mammals, they were designed to nourish a child.  Mixing up sexuality with breastfeeding is just nuts.
My husband said something really interesting after reading my posts; “I’d like to see a photo of a mother cow nursing her calf next to a woman nursing her baby and hear the comments people would have.”  Its the same thing, isn’t it?

As for me, I’ll be darned if I don’t give nursing a really grand attempt, because I have carried these over-sized girls around all of my life and finally they will have a purpose to do something amazing!  I will hope for the best and will bag pheasant, but not eat crow.

21 weeks pregnant, 5.25 months

It’s been a few weeks since I posted, and mostly it’s due to my annoyance with people taking the blog personally, but I’ve also been very busy trying to get the house ready for my parents visit (which has now come and gone) and of course for baby too.  But now I have some more time on my hands, and lots more thoughts in my head so I write on

To get it out in the open, right away, it annoys me that we are a society that doesn’t breastfeed as a common rule anymore.  Instead, nursing is scoffed upon by society, I have heard words like “gross, disgusting” and “I don’t want to have to see that in public;” women are requested to use the bathroom, of all places, to nurse.  Who wants to eat a meal while sitting on the toilet?  Not me, and not my child either!   Besides, how unsanitary is that?  Yet, we don’t provide places for nursing mothers to feed their children at most locations, and many people react negatively when seeing women in public nurse.  Over the years, I have heard nursing mothers share their unfortunate stories of people calling them “gross” or telling them to “go somewhere private.”  Even popular Victoria’s Secret, who openly allows nursing mothers to use their dressing rooms, had an incident where a female employee turned away a nursing mother wanting to use the privacy and comfort of their dressing rooms; this happened in 2005 and prompted a protest by nursing mothers to breastfeed at their local VS store.  (click here and here for articles on this subject).  Some of my friends at the time participated in the “Feed-In” protest, which I thought was awesome!  

But a mother only has to read one article posted on yahoo or google about nursing, and then see the comments below posted by people, to know how vulgar people can be about nursing mothers, and even other women have this hang up!    Bill Maher, a talk show host who I usually enjoy even calls it an “intimate act” that should be done in private and is something “he doesn’t want to see.”  So is that supposed to mean that all nursing women are to be confined to their house, or out of the house in only short snippets between the feedings of their child?    Here is another good article about the stigma of nursing in public, which is actually LEGAL in every state and women can nurse where-ever children are allowed; and yet another article here about Americans getting over their hang-up about nursing.  Again, the comments on the post say it all, and the latter article is coming from a pretty progressive blog, even their readers still find the negative in nursing.

I’d like to know if a mother was ever kicked out of a place for feeding a baby with a bottle, my guess is no?

With all of this stacked against women, its no wonder many women just choose to not nurse.  But, that doesn’t mean its the right thing for our culture.  Nursing has way more benefits than downfalls for both mom and baby, and recently it was found that it decreases childhood obesity, a huge problem in the United States.  Here are some other reasons to nurse: children who nurse have a higher IQ, less risk of SIDS, fewer allergies and illnesses, less gas, diarrhea, stomach upset, and many more reasons stated here.  Plus its cheaper and has a zillion of good benefits for mom too, like better bonding with child, loss of pregnancy weight faster, less risk of ovarian and breast cancers, its convenient, saves time, and its clean and safe to name a few.   With all of those positive reasons, why is it that I see so many women opting to just not nurse at all or quitting nursing after just a few weeks; I see this from women of all ages, I know nurses and doctors who didn’t breastfeed, and many other mothers that absolutely did every single thing by the book while pregnant, but the moment the baby was out, they abandon the single best thing to do for the baby.  Why, I really don’t understand?   To me, its disappointing that we are allowing this age old way to feed our children to fade away, and we are caving to society’s distaste for nursing.  The stats are less than 50% of mothers are exclusively breastfeeding at 3 months of age, and even less at 6 months of age.  This is from the 2010 breastfeeding data; find the chart broke down by state here.   Look closely at the chart, many women appeared to start nursing (other stats say the starting of nursing is solely from in hospital data) but when they come home, they forgo the breast for the bottle.

Many excuses that I have heard from women is that it hurts, my milk didn’t come in, I didn’t produce enough milk, etc etc; but these were the same problems both my mother, mother in law, and grandmother had, yet they pushed through it and kept nursing, because that was “the right thing” said my grandmother.  Why did this norm change?  Many women are going back to work after 6 weeks, and can’t nurse due to time; but what happened to pumping, and employers must give a nursing mother time to pump/nurse when needed.  Maybe its because nursing is such a negative thing in society that women just don’t want to do it anymore?  But, in my opinion we see more boob on a TV show, Victoria’s Secret ad, or a bathing suit commercial than we do when a mother nurses, so how did nursing turn into something sexual?  Society, that is your fault!  We flaunt women’s breasts as sex objects, but forget that women have them for an actual reason, to feed their babe.  Men can show their useless nipples in public, but a women doing so is sexual, even when they are producing food for their offspring?  We are mammals, and all mammals nurse their children, but we humans (in the United States) have such shame around this, which I find infuriating.

My sister in law, who is from Germany said something to me many years ago when she was nursing her oldest child;  she said in Europe you would never hear of such negative things regarding nursing.  She was shocked at the comments she received, even while nursing her child at a day care with other mothers and babies and mentioned her pediatrician kept pushing formula on her.  Which brings up another topic altogether, are physicians pushing formula like they are other drugs from popular drug companies who kickback physicians (even though this is illegal, it does happen, I work in medicine and SEE it happen in my specialty which is not obstetrics).  This could be another cause?  I remember very recently a friend on facebook posting over and over her concerns over her child’s weight and pediatrician continually saying that the baby was underweight.  The mom kept saying, “he eats often and until he is finished, he is happy, he is growing and achieving other milestones” but she kept getting told that she wasn’t giving him enough food.  She stuck to her guns, kept nursing and at the 4 month mark, he had a growth spurt (solely on breast milk) and is doing great, no problems, not underweight.  All babies do grow at their own rate, in the womb and outside.  Why is a doctor pushing her to do something un-natural when the baby is at the low end of the scale but still within the ‘normal’ range?  I have heard over and over, babies grow and develop at their own rates, so why are we trying to fit everyone into a certain box of height and weight?

Lastly, here is another interesting article about the history of how our society changed from a nursing culture, to a non nursing culture, if you read one article I posted today, this is the one.  Another other thing I will briefly mention in this post is that Michelle Obama has been integral in promoting nursing, and even was able to allow breast pumps to be deducted from flex plan funds (tax free) to promote using breast milk more, which is directly linked to childhood obesity, the cause she adopted while First Lady.  Here is an article on the breast pumps, one only needs to read the comments to see the negativity she faced for this decision. {One thing I do want to clarify is that the breast pump is NOT paid for by the government as many of the comments suggest, rather if you have a flex plan (which allows you to pay for certain medical expenses before taxes are taken out) you can use that plan to buy a breast pump, YOU are still paying for the breast pump, but its not taxed.  Just like using your flex card to pay for prescriptions, that money is coming out of YOUR check, not from the government.}  I don’t think people really understand that concept.

I will leave you with this quote from the 1920′s campaign to promote nursing instead of cows milk, which I thought was an interesting campaign.  And I hope to get your comments and post another blog on this interesting topic.

“To lessen baby deaths let us have more mother-fed babies. You can’t improve on God’s plan. For your baby’s sake—nurse it!”

—-  since I have had so many people taking my blogs personally, please understand this is not aimed negatively at women who didn’t nurse, I understand every mother does what is right for her and her baby, but I am trying to make people think differently about it, especially about women feeling comfortably openly nursing.  Nursing is normal and natural, and we as a society need to get back to thinking that way.

Leg up in the air, tyring to reach feet in mouth already!

It might sound awful to some that I have finally hit the ‘acceptance’ phase of this pregnancy; the pregnancy that we planned, tried for over a year to get pregnant, and now at 19 weeks I am finally ‘accepting’ it.  But its true.

I guess its the same way that I had grief/mourning when I got married, accepting that I wasn’t able to fly free after getting hitched, but that I always had an attachment, my husband.  And while I wanted to get married, just like I wanted to have a child, it’s still a major life change and one that brings up fears and anticipation.    Josh and I have learned to become a pretty good team over the years and its a decision that I would make again in a heartbeat a million times over even though marriage is a lot of work.  Its worth it and we get better and better at it all the time.

Thinking back, some of the changes in life that I have mourned, like graduating college and having to get a ‘real’ job,  moving to Colorado at age 22, or getting married, all have lead to some of the best experiences of my life.   And I’m expecting motherhood to be the same way; while I will be giving up some things, I’ll be gaining so much more.    I also look forward to watching Josh with a child, almost more than myself because I know he will be such an amazing parent and its something he has always wanted.

A few notes on the growing belly:  This does go with the ‘acceptance’ part, I promise!  In the last 2 weeks my belly has gotten a bit bigger, fortunately I can fit into some of my non-maternity summer clothes but its getting close.  I keep thinking, “thank goodness this belly grows gradually” because its quite an adjustment for me.  What will it be like to be 8 or 9 months pregnant>  I can’t even imagine it, but at least it happens little by little for me to get used to.  The belly helps with the acceptance too, looking a little bit pregnant and knowing there is something growing inside there makes you accept it, even though I still haven’t felt the little one move yet.   However, it still sorta makes me feel a little weird  but I think thats an issue that I just have about myself being pregnant.   Pregnancy is such a personal/intimate thing, your body is changing and its all so different and new; your breast growing (huge) which makes me a little uncomfortable,  people are very personal with you about pregnancy (which doesn’t bother me with friends and people I know, but sometimes its uncomfortable with other people) and I didn’t realize how weird it pregnancy makes me feel.  Not sure how to vocalize this yet except with words like; ‘weird’ and ‘uncomfortable’, which really aren’t getting to the heart of what I am trying to say.  I just keep thinking that pregnancy and birth is a natural thing, many women do it, its not weird its normal, people are interested in pregnancy (again, self included), so just be cool about it because its a beautiful thing.  But its sorta gross in some ways, and I think that’s my hang up.  Lots of bodily changes are hard for me.  This is something that I am learning still how to accept, but I feel much better about it than I did early in pregnancy and that acceptance has helped me grow so much since the first trimester.

Did any other mothers out there experience this, please post your comments, I’d love to hear them!

18 week ultrasound

My husband Josh and I have been together for nearly 9 years and married for 7 this October,  I am so lucky to have him in my life and he helps me to become a better person everyday.    We are similar in a lot of ways but very opposite in others, and after years spent together we’ve learned when to use his strengths and when to use mine in our relationship.  But every now and then we both find out things about the other person that surprise us, and now with baby in our lives we notice these things more and more because we don’t seem to be communicating as well as we typically do.

In a nutshell, Josh is a very positive person; he doesn’t worry about things, he brushes things off easily, doesn’t take anything personally and he has a quiet confidence that I am envious of, and that I hope he instills in our child.

I, on the other hand, have a tendency to worry about things and in the last few years Josh has picked up the very annoying habit of saying to me “it’ll be fine” about every single thing that I ‘worry’ about, no matter what the intensity of the worry is.  This makes me think that he isn’t actually listening to what I am really saying.  He just assumes I worry about everything and doesn’t take the time to understand the deeper concern that I have.Josh says that he thinks positively and I think negatively, this bugs me and I have always contradicted it because I don’t feel like I am being negative about things.  In trying to explain this to my therapist recently, she asked “why don’t you think you are being negative.”  My answer was something I hadn’t even realized before; when there is the worry/concern of something bad happening, I think in my head ‘this could never happen’ or ‘this won’t happen’ but what I say out loud is “this could happen or will happen.”  My therapist asked why I think positively in my head but verbalize ‘negatively’ and I thought about this for a long time before answering that I think it prepares me for the worst.  I hope for the best in my head and prepare for the worst verbally.  Which means, everyone around me just hears me thinking the worst, even though the entire time in my head I am thinking “this bad thing cannot happen, it won’t happen, everything will be okay.”   This started at childhood, when my grandmother was dying of inevitable cancer, I kept saying she was NOT going to die, she did and I was crushed.  While I haven’t vocalized this yet to Josh, I am sure it will come up sooner or later and maybe it will help him understand my thought process and that I am not always being negative, just trying to cope.

One thing that I am concerned about is being a good parent; to which Josh always says, “don’t worry, you’ll do fine”  (not very helpful), so when he had a dream recently about loosing our ‘baby’ I felt a little vindicated that I wasn’t the only person who had some anxiety about this change in our life.   The dream went something like this:

I had this dream, we had a baby, but it was a bird.  Then I was watching the bird baby while you were working and I lost it.  I knew that you’d be really mad if you knew that I lost our baby, so I was frantically looking for it.  Sometimes I’d find it and then loose it again, then there was this trail of crumbs that I was following, (cause the bird baby was leaving crumbs for him to follow?) but I couldn’t find it, and I woke up.

After laughing hysterically about our bird baby for a half a day, I started to think about what the dream might have meant, and with my amateur dream interpretation skillz,  usually loosing something or someone means anxiety about a life change.  Loosing your ‘old’ self which is being replaced by a new self.   I mentioned this to him and he denied being “scared” about parenthood, that he didn’t have any “fears” about it.  These words confused me because I am not referring to a paralyzing fear, like standing on a tall building if you are afraid of heights, I was just asking if there was a part of him that was a little worried about not doing it right.  We bickered about this for a while until I realized that he viewed any ‘worry/concern’ as a big fear and since he isn’t completely scared of parenthood, he thought those words didn’t apply to him.  This lead to some iphone thesaurus work on ‘fear and worry’ and more discussion until I finally thought of an analogy that I knew he’d understand and made perfect sense.  Years ago, when I met Josh I had to get used to him riding a motorcycle, it wasn’t something I was familiar with and it scared me a little because you are so exposed on the bike.  His answer was, “yes, I am a little scared every-time I get on the bike, but you wouldn’t be a good and aware driver if you didn’t have some fear for your life, and if you aren’t a little scared then you shouldn’t drive a motorcycle.”  I tried to equate that analogy to the fear of parenthood; if we didn’t have some concern that we’d do a good job, then we should worry, because we are raising a human being and that is a big deal.  This seemed to make sense to him and we both chuckled that we didn’t seem to understand each other very well during pregnancy (because of this and many other confusing mishaps and conversations lately)

The bird baby dream lead to a good discussion for us and we learned two vital things from each other.  From me, he learned that everytime I say the word “worry or concern” it doesn’t mean this terrifying fear, its not me saying that I can’t do it or that I am freaking out, its me wanting to do it right and having an understandable concern that I choose to vocalize, but he chooses keeps to himself.  But when I tell him that I am scared of something, that is very different than if I am worried about it.  Besides, I told him, 50% of the pregnancy books tell me that worry is a good thing while pregnant, it helps ‘prepare the mother. ‘  (we got a chuckle out of this, see previous posts for inconsistent information in pregnancy books)

What I learned from Josh is that he is a little worried about being a parent, which is a relief to me because sometimes I think his positivity doesn’t allow him to cope when bad things happen, which they eventually do sometimes in life, no matter what the circumstance.  Additionally, what I hope he also learned is to not say “its fine” all the time, because using those terms for a flat tire and also for raising your child doesn’t quite make sense.  But I suspect this is something we will continue to have to work on.

I recently was given a lot of pregnancy clothes from friends and have been wearing the shirts, but my old pants still fit me pretty well so I keep wearing those for now, and lots of skirts that I would wear anyway at this time of year.  My body changes everyday and I am trying to get used to how weird that feels to me, Josh keeps saying “its just natural” or “normal” which it is, of course, but its still weird and I am uncomfortable with it.  I wish I could feel all glowing and beautiful, but that is just not the case at all!   Funny, I still look at other pregnant ladies and think they look beautiful, cute, and glowing, but I can’t see that within myself.   It bothers Josh a lot because he sees me that way, but I don’t like to hear about what  I look like.

In the last few weeks I have been able to look at baby items and re-organize our little house to accommodate the newcomer into our lives.  It’s been more fun for me lately, and I am trying to enjoy pregnancy because I don’t want to have any regrets later after the baby is born.  Also I need to make sure to get in some hiking time by myself, its going to be a lot harder to hike solo during the week with a baby that I’ll be taking care of.   And I am hoping to make it to one more peak solo this summer, even if it is a lower altitude summit.  Now that I can actually carry enough food to sustain me while hiking, I have no excuses.  During the first trimester, I was sooo very nauseous, but starving at the same time and I ate constantly but I was just choking down food.  It was a fight between nausea and starvation, a weird combination.   The drop in blood sugar is brutal when it happens and isn’t safe for mother or baby either, especially not while on a trail far from a car.

I still haven’t felt the baby move, which is starting to worry me a little bit, but I keep trying to remember that many first time mom’s don’t feel movement until 20 weeks or so.  However, there is a slew of babies being born this October and this fall and from their mothers posts on facebook, many are feeling baby move already and have been for some time now.    We have an ultrasound next week, so it will be good to see baby wriggling around on the screen and hear that everything is going well.  Keep us in your thoughts

Overall, when I look back at the first trimester and having such a difficult time I felt like I was doing something wrong,   like I should be stronger and tougher, I should be able to handle it better.  But I did get through it, I am still here, baby is still here, we are safe, and even though every women gets through it, you can still give yourself a pat on the back because it wasn’t easy.  You can still say to yourself ‘good job, you are 1/3 of the way done with growing a baby’ and for some the beginning is the most hormonal and emotionally toughest part  so I am trying to celebrate that, instead of saying that I should have done it ‘better.’