Yikes, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry about that, all three of you who are reading. :)
So yesterday I hit 24 weeks and 20 pounds gained. The holiday season is already killin' me on the weight issue! But I don't care. I'm still way ahead of the game compared to last time.
We have officially decided to hire the midwife, and my first appointment with her is the 11th, the day before we leave for Hawaii. The timing sucks--it takes at least 45 minutes to get there, and the appointment itself is at least an hour long, possibly 1.5 hours, so I'm looking at around 3 hours or more of my day down the drain when I will most certainly have twelve million things to do for the trip. But oh well.
I was at the chiro today getting my butt pummeled. My stupid muscles are SO JACKED UP. Sitting hurts, standing hurts, walking hurts, lying down hurts. Except when it mysteriously doesn't. There's a new prenatal yoga series starting at the new studio in town; I'm going to get some info and see if maybe that helps. What really sucks is that tomorrow Dan and I are taking the entire day to clean out the garage, and I just know I'm going to be of NO help to him whatsoever. I feel so bad. The last time we did a big garage clean I was pregnant and had the same issue. Why do we keep doing this when I'm quasi-paralyzed?!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
It's official!
Well, I made the call yesterday to hire the midwife--we are officially doing a homebirth! I am so excited. The midwife is tremendous--a sweet disposition, obviously extremely knowledgeable and experienced (she's caught six HUNDRED babies!), and a strong Christian to boot. And I started thinking last night about how different it will be do do this at home as opposed to the hospital: how I'll be free to do pretty much whatever I want and not treated like I'm sick, how I won't have to deal with people who don't get the hypnobirthing thing (like the second nurse we had who barged in, turned on the lights, and started rearranging the room while talking a mile a minute and completely ignoring Dan as he tried to clue her in to the kind of environment I wanted to stay focused), and how I won't have to worry about the staff automatically thinking, "Well, she's *trying* for a vbac" as though my chances are slim and they're just humoring me. Michelle (midwife) is confident I can. (In fact, her transfer rate for vbacs is 2 people over the course of the 15 years she's been doing this!) And *I* of course am confident that I can, or else I wouldn't be doing it!
So I chatted with the baby a bit last night and told him/her about our plan and how cool it would be to do this here, and how I really needed him to cooperate. I think s/he was understanding. :)
So now I have the unpleasant task of announcing to my OB that I'm leaving her practice. To say I'm dreading that conversation would be a VAST understatement. Michelle does well woman care as well, so I won't have to go back to Dr. Robinson, like, ever. Which is sad in a lot of ways because, truly, she's a lovely and wonderful woman, and an excellent doctor. But I need to be cool when we talk because I want her to be my backup in the extremely unlikely event that I get transferred. So yeah, that'll be fun: "I don't want you to deliver this baby, really, but I do want to keep you in my back pocket just in case. You're my second choice, really." everyone just loves knowing they're your second choice.
So I chatted with the baby a bit last night and told him/her about our plan and how cool it would be to do this here, and how I really needed him to cooperate. I think s/he was understanding. :)
So now I have the unpleasant task of announcing to my OB that I'm leaving her practice. To say I'm dreading that conversation would be a VAST understatement. Michelle does well woman care as well, so I won't have to go back to Dr. Robinson, like, ever. Which is sad in a lot of ways because, truly, she's a lovely and wonderful woman, and an excellent doctor. But I need to be cool when we talk because I want her to be my backup in the extremely unlikely event that I get transferred. So yeah, that'll be fun: "I don't want you to deliver this baby, really, but I do want to keep you in my back pocket just in case. You're my second choice, really." everyone just loves knowing they're your second choice.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Paradigm Shift
I signed up for my hypnobabies class. Have I talked about that on here yet? Those of you who joined us for our last pregnancy probably remember that I took hypnobirth classes and couldn't stop raving about how awesome they were. They got me through 20 hours of labor PAIN FREE. Well, one of the women in my book club is a certified hypnobabies instructor, which is a different program but still a self-hypnosis program that helps you have a pain-free or nearly pain-free birth. She's giving me a break on the tuition for the classes so I'm taking those this time around, just to add some different tools to my arsenal.
So anyway, I signed up and she sent me the information packet, and on the last sheet she had a list of "cool" OBs and midwives. The midwife thing started me thinking. And y'all know how dangerous that can be.
Anyway, after some mulling, I started to realize a few things:
1. My OB, who told me at my intake appt that I was a great VBAC (vaginal birth after ll be, "Oh, she's *trying* for a VBAC. But she couldn't deliver last time, so..." And then, the minute the birth stops looking textbook, they'll start in with the "Well, you tried, you gave it a good effort, but it looks like you're just not meant to do this." Which is crap. But hey, they have to get that bed cleared so they can get someone else in there. And a c/s means payday for the anesthesiologist, the surgical team, the OB...
3. My c/s last time was unnecessary. There was no distress for either Abby or me. I dilated to 9.5 cm, so it's not like I wasn't progressing. Basically, the doctor and the nurses just didn't know what else to do for me. When things stop going according to plan, their arsenal is pretty much "break water--pitocin--epidural--c/s." No one stopped to say, "Hey, the baby seems to be doing fine, the mom has progressed, there's just *something* keeping the baby up there. Why not try changing her position?" (They had me on my back on the bed the whole time.) "Why not try changing the baby's position?" (Turns out that probably would have worked--the only problem was that she was was tilted at the entrance to the birth canal.) Nope, they just said, "Sorry, you tried, but it ain't working."
Okay, so, mulling over, I found myself pretty depressed. It's not so much that I'm DYING to have a natural birth, so much as it's an issue of me NOT wanting ANOTHER UNNECESSARY major surgery. Especially since I don't get to come home and lie around with a baby--I have to come home and take care of a toddler who isn't going to get why Mommy can't lift her up, plus will probably be a little irritated with this squalling, squirming blob that gets to nurse when she, Abby, doesn't get to anymore. Oh, the issues!
But, there is definitely a great desire to have a natural birth. My body was built by God to do it. It's an experience I very much want to have.
So when I saw the list with midwives on it, I started thinking. Women who birth with midwives have a much lower occurrence of c/s, and far fewer medical interventions. One of the area hospitals has two midwives who work there, one of whom a number of my friends go to and who comes highly recommended. The wheels began to turn.
And then I saw the third midwife name on the list. Next to it was the acronym HBAC. As in "homebirth after cesarean."
Homebirth.
I've never, never considered a homebirth before. But suddenly it seemed to me to be the absolute ideal. The privacy, the freedom, the simplicity--how could I not give this a try?
On November 12 we have a consultation with this midwife, Michelle Freund. She called me yesterday and apologized for not returning my call sooner--she caught three babies in 24 hours over Wednesday and Thursday so she'd been, shall we say, a little preoccupied. She's located in Oceanside, about 40 minutes south of here. I've been emailing Dan with links to various sites that discuss the practical side and safety of homebirthing, and a short discussion today revealed that, while not enthusiastic about the thought, he *is* supportive of it if it's what I really want to do. I think that the meeting with the midwife will clarify a lot for him.
So at this point, I think it's safe to say that my chances of an HBAC are much better than my chances of a hospital VBAC. I don't relish the thought of telling my OB I'm leaving her practice--I'm strongly tempted to just send her a letter--and I'm not expecting any support from my girlfriends, not that they'll be vocally unsupportive, but I will get weird looks and feel like no one realizes that I've actually done research on all this and didn't just wake up one day saying, "Hey, here's an idea, let's just stay home!" But they already think I'm nuts and crunchy, so oh well. It would be nice to have them gush and fawn and emphatically agree that this is how a baby's entrance in the world is supposed to be, but they won't and I'll get over it. I've got enough barely-contained excitement to last me awhile.
So anyway, I signed up and she sent me the information packet, and on the last sheet she had a list of "cool" OBs and midwives. The midwife thing started me thinking. And y'all know how dangerous that can be.
Anyway, after some mulling, I started to realize a few things:
1. My OB, who told me at my intake appt that I was a great VBAC (vaginal birth after ll be, "Oh, she's *trying* for a VBAC. But she couldn't deliver last time, so..." And then, the minute the birth stops looking textbook, they'll start in with the "Well, you tried, you gave it a good effort, but it looks like you're just not meant to do this." Which is crap. But hey, they have to get that bed cleared so they can get someone else in there. And a c/s means payday for the anesthesiologist, the surgical team, the OB...
3. My c/s last time was unnecessary. There was no distress for either Abby or me. I dilated to 9.5 cm, so it's not like I wasn't progressing. Basically, the doctor and the nurses just didn't know what else to do for me. When things stop going according to plan, their arsenal is pretty much "break water--pitocin--epidural--c/s." No one stopped to say, "Hey, the baby seems to be doing fine, the mom has progressed, there's just *something* keeping the baby up there. Why not try changing her position?" (They had me on my back on the bed the whole time.) "Why not try changing the baby's position?" (Turns out that probably would have worked--the only problem was that she was was tilted at the entrance to the birth canal.) Nope, they just said, "Sorry, you tried, but it ain't working."
Okay, so, mulling over, I found myself pretty depressed. It's not so much that I'm DYING to have a natural birth, so much as it's an issue of me NOT wanting ANOTHER UNNECESSARY major surgery. Especially since I don't get to come home and lie around with a baby--I have to come home and take care of a toddler who isn't going to get why Mommy can't lift her up, plus will probably be a little irritated with this squalling, squirming blob that gets to nurse when she, Abby, doesn't get to anymore. Oh, the issues!
But, there is definitely a great desire to have a natural birth. My body was built by God to do it. It's an experience I very much want to have.
So when I saw the list with midwives on it, I started thinking. Women who birth with midwives have a much lower occurrence of c/s, and far fewer medical interventions. One of the area hospitals has two midwives who work there, one of whom a number of my friends go to and who comes highly recommended. The wheels began to turn.
And then I saw the third midwife name on the list. Next to it was the acronym HBAC. As in "homebirth after cesarean."
Homebirth.
I've never, never considered a homebirth before. But suddenly it seemed to me to be the absolute ideal. The privacy, the freedom, the simplicity--how could I not give this a try?
On November 12 we have a consultation with this midwife, Michelle Freund. She called me yesterday and apologized for not returning my call sooner--she caught three babies in 24 hours over Wednesday and Thursday so she'd been, shall we say, a little preoccupied. She's located in Oceanside, about 40 minutes south of here. I've been emailing Dan with links to various sites that discuss the practical side and safety of homebirthing, and a short discussion today revealed that, while not enthusiastic about the thought, he *is* supportive of it if it's what I really want to do. I think that the meeting with the midwife will clarify a lot for him.
So at this point, I think it's safe to say that my chances of an HBAC are much better than my chances of a hospital VBAC. I don't relish the thought of telling my OB I'm leaving her practice--I'm strongly tempted to just send her a letter--and I'm not expecting any support from my girlfriends, not that they'll be vocally unsupportive, but I will get weird looks and feel like no one realizes that I've actually done research on all this and didn't just wake up one day saying, "Hey, here's an idea, let's just stay home!" But they already think I'm nuts and crunchy, so oh well. It would be nice to have them gush and fawn and emphatically agree that this is how a baby's entrance in the world is supposed to be, but they won't and I'll get over it. I've got enough barely-contained excitement to last me awhile.
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