We discovered we were pregnant in the summer of 2005. We had moved the previous fall and were finally in a house with a yard where our 2 boys could play. I struggled to lose weight, but we decided it was time to have another baby. We were so excited to be pregnant again that we shared the news with everyone immediately!
Over that fall and winter, I continued to see our family practitioner for my ob visits. We were due at the end of February, and thankfully, I was not alone! My older sister was pregnant with her first baby, also with the same due date, my sister in law pregnant with her 4th, with the same date, and my cousin with her second, due just 2 weeks later! It was great to be able to commiserate over our pregnancy "ailments" and to have emotional support from one another. There were so many women around me pregnant and due around the same time!
At about 30 weeks, my doctor told me the baby was breech. I felt that there were no worries, he (at this point, unconfirmed) would turn and we would have a regular delivery. Well, the weeks kept ticking past and finally at 36 weeks, she sent me next door to consult with her mentor, Dr. A, the doctor who would perform the cesarean if the baby would not turn. She held out hope that he would turn, but stated clearly that with my history of delivering large babies, she would not let me try to deliver breech. Dr. A met with me and set an appointment for an inversion.
I tried everything to turn that baby. Hand stands in the pool, a bag of frozen peas at the height of the fundus while sitting in a warm bath (supposed to encourage the baby to turn toward the warmth?), dromedary drops... nothing seemed to work. I had heard about chiropractors who could turn babies, but my doctor advised against it and I didn't know of anyone locally who treated women at full term. Did I mention that my back had been screaming with pain my whole pregnancy?
The date of the inversion, I checked my self into the hospital, and the doctor administered the medication that would help make my uterus "palpable". Dr. A tried for 15 or 20 minutes to turn the baby, but to no avail. Finally, he brought in an ultrasound machine and did a scan to check on the baby's heart rate and position. Everything was fine, but he was definitely breech and according to the machine's measuring abilities, topping out at a whopping 9.8 lbs! Definitely no breech delivery for me....
With that failed attempt, we went ahead and scheduled the cesarean appointment for almost a week before my due date. I was upset. I was a mess. I was so worried about what could go wrong during a c-section that I could hardly sleep, especially with the back pain. I would wake up in the night to check the baby's position, hoping that he would turn. He would get side ways, and then flip back to breech. The day of the c-section did come though, and to the hospital my husband and I went, bright and early in the morning. Our other boys, then 2 and 4, stayed overnight with my mother. We checked in to the hospital and Dr. A came in to do paperwork with me and go through the typical procedure with me. I insisted he do one more ultrasound, and even though it irritated him, he did. The baby was still breech.
I have no idea what time I was rolled into the O.R. My family doctor was there along side Dr. A and there were 3 or 5 nurses in the room as well. The anesthesiologist asked me to sit up and roll forward over my round belly to expose my spine as well as possible. I have seen women get epidurals and knew what he was going to do. My husband watched as he inserted a VERY long needle into my spinal column, missing once or twice before finally getting it into the correct position. I'm a big girl, but when someone is sticking a needle into your SPINE, you would expect them not to miss! You can't exactly control the jerk that comes with the miss when nerves are hit! I lay back down, with my husband on my right and the anesthesiologist on my left. Up went the curtain over my belly and things went numb. I am so glad that I asked to stay awake.
The surgery seemed to go so quickly. They opened everything up, started to get the baby out and he didn't seem to want to budge! Dr. A said that his head was stuck up under my rib cage and gave my ribs a massage and a thump and with a loud "pop", the baby's head came free and he was out! He was crying before they got him cleaned up. I don't remember if they let me see him or hold him, I only remember that I looked over at the baby warming station, where a nurse was cleaning him up and weighing him, and marveled at how big he was! No wrinkles like the last one, no cone head like the first. He was perfect and round! He weighed an even 10 pounds, until he peed! His birth certificate actually says "9 lbs. 14.6 oz" because he peed as the nurse was weighing him. At 20 and 1/2 inches, he was a beautiful boy. My husband had plenty of time to hold him while I was stitched up and rolled out to a recovery room while my lower body was waking up. I was given pitocin to make my uterus contract and left in a dark quiet room with my sleeping newborn.
After I was moved to a regular ob recovery room, and my legs began to wake up, I was overjoyed to nurse my new son. My husband told me he had watched the surgery and that this baby had been wrapped with his umbilical cord to, and he thought maybe that prevented him from turning. At that point, I was thankful that I had not insisted on trying to deliver him breech. I felt that things had worked out how God had intended, not knowing how that cord would have hurt him or I during a vaginal delivery, but still very frustrated that I had to have a c-section. I had a rough night in recovery, moved again to the noisy wing! I let my anger fly at the nurse that day, letting her know that this was NOT conducive to resting after surgery or giving birth! Finally, after 2 days, they let me go home. So much of that time is hard to recall because of the drugs I was on.
The recovery process after the c-section was hell. I was in constant pain, trying to nurse a baby who was getting drugged by my breast milk, and trying to preserve my medication by taking half pills. My husband was able to stay home and take care of the other 2 boys and prepare all the meals, help me to the bathroom, do all the things that I normally do! My feet were so swollen that I could only get out of bed for a few minutes at a time before they would become painfully engorged. It turned out that I didn't leave my bed for almost 2 weeks, it was 2 months before my husband went back to work and it was 6 months before the pain subsided and I finally felt like I had just delivered a baby! It was terrible. The only upside is that I had plenty of time to bond with our new baby, holding him all the time and my husband got to be there for his first 2 months too. He was such an easy going baby, full of smiles and joy from the beginning.
Our little guy is now almost 5 and is still as laid back as ever. He has been a joy and is our boy who likes to cuddle. I couldn't be more thankful for him.
I came away from this birth feeling like a failure. I never wanted to go through another cesarean section again! I began to get chiropractic treatment for my still aching back and discovered that my sacrum was twisted more than 30 degrees! I wondered if that prevented our son from turning, blocking the head down position. I had heart palpitations, migraines, lost vision and high blood pressure, which I had never had before, that started after the delivery. I found out later these are some of the potential side affects of having a spinal block or epidural! Some of the fluid in the spine can be lost and create a strain on the heart and brain! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT BEFORE THE PROCEDURE!?! Even though the baby was healthy, I decided that would never happen again, and if it did, I was going to be sure to have my tubes tied because there was no way I was going through that 3 times! I didn't understand why a woman would choose to have every baby via c-section when a vaginal delivery was so much easier and healthier.
Only one more birth story to go...
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Birth of the second son....
We found out that we were pregnant with a second child just weeks before our first turned one. We were newly married, had a 3 bedroom apartment and it seemed just great, even though my husband had said "We're never doing this again" after baby #1! I still weighed in at just 10 pounds below my full term weight with baby #1, which was not too difficult to adjust to, since I had been overweight as a teen, but still not a healthy way to start another pregnancy. I told my folks we were expecting, and neither one was very supportive, but we were excited.
What wasn't working for me was living in the apartment complex where we were. It was loud and full of drug abusing tenants, our downstairs neighbors smoked in their apartment, meaning the smoke was coming right up to our place. My pregnancy was pretty uneventful, nice and easy, but the stress of living there, after one of my husband's ex-girlfriends moved in, would have torn our marriage apart so we started looking for a new place to live. At 8 months pregnant, we moved. I had just one month to get the house unpacked and ready for a baby! Thankfully, we didn't have much to unpack :)
At this point, we had no idea that baby #2 was a boy. Our doctor (God bless her) isn't so great at deciphering gender via ultrasound! So at 32 weeks, after she was pretty sure that this baby was a girl, we both clearly saw in the ultrasound that indeed, it was not! I returned the cute crib set that had I purchased and cried for a bit. My husband was pretty irritated that I was upset, mostly because the baby was healthy and that was all that should matter.
40 weeks came and went and we started planning for the baby to arrive at any moment, leaving a packed overnight bag by the door and making sure we had a sitter lined up for our toddler. We walked at the grocery store, and at the local indoor hockey rink. It wasn't enough. At 41 weeks, the doctor decided that we should induce. We scheduled the appointment, sure that we would have a baby before then. On a Wednesday morning at 6 am, 11 days overdue, we went in to the hospital for induction. I was partially dilated to 2, and had been for 2 weeks, but the doc decided that we should start the induction with a 1/4 dose of a tablet that she would insert near the cervix, where it would dissolve and jump start labor. I found out later that this was an experimental drug, only approved for trial testing, but it seemed to work okay in very small doses. I received antibiotics for Strep B, which I had tested positive for, and sat back to wait for labor.
Early contractions started, nothing consistent, until I stood up to use the bathroom and my water broke on the way there! I went potty and hurried back to my bed, where I was checked and found to be at 6. The doctor had left for a meeting somewhere in the hospital and wouldn't be back until 1, with it now being noon. Labor picked up quickly and before I new it, I was telling the nurse to find the doctor because it wouldn't be long now! She paged the doc and my husband and I focused on contractions and breathing. I found that the smell of the alcohol hand sanitizer the nurses used helped me to feel better (ethanol anyone?!) and made the nurse wave her hands near me so I could breath it! Finally, the doctor rushed into the room, sliding on her gloves to do a check, found me at 9 and immediately ran back out to scrub up and get on her gown. She slid back into the room just in time for me to get situated at the end of the bed and we started pushing. It seemed like it took relatively the same amount of pushing as the first baby, its hard to remember. I did have to pause again, for an episiotomy and the cord to be flipped off his neck. Our little boy arrived in the world at 1:55pm, wrinkly and underweight at a whopping 9 lbs, 11 oz and 22 inches long!
He looked like a little old man, all wrinkles and bald. I'm convinced that had he been born at 4o weeks, he would have been well over 10 lbs. If we had chosen to wait for me to go into labor, who knows what would have happened to him. It worried me that he was so skinny, but other than that, he was healthy. My husband and I had our baby all to ourselves, no repeat of our mothers swooping in to hold the baby before he did. Dad got to be the first one to hold his son!
Our hospital stay was pretty typical, but they moved me to another wing of the hospital, just around the corner from the maternity ward. It was loud, there were orderlies up and down the hallway all night and we shared an adjoining bathroom with another room, meaning the loud flush of the toilet kept me up. It was difficult to rest and I was ready to go home after the first 24 hours. Thankfully, the staff let me watch the safety videos and do the car seat check and get on my way. I was so happy to be home in my own bed and finally rest.
Our son had a hard time adjusting and was a very fussy baby. He is now almost 7 (in a few days!) and still needs extra cuddling, probably because I failed to give it to him as an infant. I had no idea how to handle a baby that had stomach issues (probably from the antibiotics, which also caused diaper rash) and needed to be held constantly! It was so different from our first son, who slept for 12 hours at just a few days old (but never slept during the day) and we were still struggling to find our balance as a married couple. Thankfully, he is a loving little boy and we have worked hard to rebuild whatever trust may have been damaged. Much like our first son, I had a really hard time producing enough milk and he lost a pound in weight, so we started supplementing with formula at just over a week old. The story of my difficulty with nursing is another one altogether....
Again, not too much to complain about with this birth, right? I still came away from it with goals about how I wanted the next one to go, what I saw that caused complications later for our son, and goals that focused on what I thought I was physically capable of and had failed to accomplish during this birth. I didn't want antibiotics again (I hadn't had them since I was a very small child), I didn't want to be induced, and I was DAMN sure that they were not going to put me in a room in that wing again!
Thanks for hanging in there. These stories don't mean a lot to anyone else, but they help to shape the picture of why I want to birth at home this time. Still 2 more births to recount...
What wasn't working for me was living in the apartment complex where we were. It was loud and full of drug abusing tenants, our downstairs neighbors smoked in their apartment, meaning the smoke was coming right up to our place. My pregnancy was pretty uneventful, nice and easy, but the stress of living there, after one of my husband's ex-girlfriends moved in, would have torn our marriage apart so we started looking for a new place to live. At 8 months pregnant, we moved. I had just one month to get the house unpacked and ready for a baby! Thankfully, we didn't have much to unpack :)
At this point, we had no idea that baby #2 was a boy. Our doctor (God bless her) isn't so great at deciphering gender via ultrasound! So at 32 weeks, after she was pretty sure that this baby was a girl, we both clearly saw in the ultrasound that indeed, it was not! I returned the cute crib set that had I purchased and cried for a bit. My husband was pretty irritated that I was upset, mostly because the baby was healthy and that was all that should matter.
40 weeks came and went and we started planning for the baby to arrive at any moment, leaving a packed overnight bag by the door and making sure we had a sitter lined up for our toddler. We walked at the grocery store, and at the local indoor hockey rink. It wasn't enough. At 41 weeks, the doctor decided that we should induce. We scheduled the appointment, sure that we would have a baby before then. On a Wednesday morning at 6 am, 11 days overdue, we went in to the hospital for induction. I was partially dilated to 2, and had been for 2 weeks, but the doc decided that we should start the induction with a 1/4 dose of a tablet that she would insert near the cervix, where it would dissolve and jump start labor. I found out later that this was an experimental drug, only approved for trial testing, but it seemed to work okay in very small doses. I received antibiotics for Strep B, which I had tested positive for, and sat back to wait for labor.
Early contractions started, nothing consistent, until I stood up to use the bathroom and my water broke on the way there! I went potty and hurried back to my bed, where I was checked and found to be at 6. The doctor had left for a meeting somewhere in the hospital and wouldn't be back until 1, with it now being noon. Labor picked up quickly and before I new it, I was telling the nurse to find the doctor because it wouldn't be long now! She paged the doc and my husband and I focused on contractions and breathing. I found that the smell of the alcohol hand sanitizer the nurses used helped me to feel better (ethanol anyone?!) and made the nurse wave her hands near me so I could breath it! Finally, the doctor rushed into the room, sliding on her gloves to do a check, found me at 9 and immediately ran back out to scrub up and get on her gown. She slid back into the room just in time for me to get situated at the end of the bed and we started pushing. It seemed like it took relatively the same amount of pushing as the first baby, its hard to remember. I did have to pause again, for an episiotomy and the cord to be flipped off his neck. Our little boy arrived in the world at 1:55pm, wrinkly and underweight at a whopping 9 lbs, 11 oz and 22 inches long!
He looked like a little old man, all wrinkles and bald. I'm convinced that had he been born at 4o weeks, he would have been well over 10 lbs. If we had chosen to wait for me to go into labor, who knows what would have happened to him. It worried me that he was so skinny, but other than that, he was healthy. My husband and I had our baby all to ourselves, no repeat of our mothers swooping in to hold the baby before he did. Dad got to be the first one to hold his son!
Our hospital stay was pretty typical, but they moved me to another wing of the hospital, just around the corner from the maternity ward. It was loud, there were orderlies up and down the hallway all night and we shared an adjoining bathroom with another room, meaning the loud flush of the toilet kept me up. It was difficult to rest and I was ready to go home after the first 24 hours. Thankfully, the staff let me watch the safety videos and do the car seat check and get on my way. I was so happy to be home in my own bed and finally rest.
Our son had a hard time adjusting and was a very fussy baby. He is now almost 7 (in a few days!) and still needs extra cuddling, probably because I failed to give it to him as an infant. I had no idea how to handle a baby that had stomach issues (probably from the antibiotics, which also caused diaper rash) and needed to be held constantly! It was so different from our first son, who slept for 12 hours at just a few days old (but never slept during the day) and we were still struggling to find our balance as a married couple. Thankfully, he is a loving little boy and we have worked hard to rebuild whatever trust may have been damaged. Much like our first son, I had a really hard time producing enough milk and he lost a pound in weight, so we started supplementing with formula at just over a week old. The story of my difficulty with nursing is another one altogether....
Again, not too much to complain about with this birth, right? I still came away from it with goals about how I wanted the next one to go, what I saw that caused complications later for our son, and goals that focused on what I thought I was physically capable of and had failed to accomplish during this birth. I didn't want antibiotics again (I hadn't had them since I was a very small child), I didn't want to be induced, and I was DAMN sure that they were not going to put me in a room in that wing again!
Thanks for hanging in there. These stories don't mean a lot to anyone else, but they help to shape the picture of why I want to birth at home this time. Still 2 more births to recount...
Monday, November 8, 2010
The birth of the first son
The birth of son number 1 was about as ideal as one can expect a hospital birth to go. Let me preface this story by saying that I did not enter into motherhood with any disdain for hospital facilitated births, but now I do! If you don't feel the same way, lovely. Hopefully your experiences have been better than mine....
The contractions for son #1 started half-way through the day on my due date. We had company over that day, another expectant mother who was due about a 10 days after me but would go on to have her son a little over a week late. We had a good chat, took a belly to belly picture, and I declined going to shoot a few games of pool because my back had been hurting off and on for the last hour or so. Who tries to play pool at 9 months pregnant and how would I even bend over the table to shoot?! We said good bye and I sat down to rest a bit.
I started timing my back aches, because they were starting to feel like menstrual cramps, and it turns out I was having contractions, all in my back, but I was able to go to sleep at about midnight that night. I woke at about 3, when the contractions were closer together and more regular, called my boyfriend (gasp, we weren't married or living together?! Surprise, no - we were married when son #1 was 5 months old), told him to get dressed and get over to my father's house to drive me to the hospital. I took a shower, watched a movie, ate a sandwich (all with my father peeking in on me to see if I was okay). My boyfriend finally arrived and we got to the hospital at about 5:30 a.m.
I checked in and told the nurses I was having contractions about 5 minutes apart. They did the usual, hooked me to a monitor so they could evaluate, and once they did, they checked my cervix to find that I was only at a little over 1. Apparently, you can't be admitted to the hospital "in labor" unless you are dilated to a minimum of 3! Guess I would have learned that had I taken a birth preparedness class, huh? pssshhh....
So walking I went. Almost 2 hours of that and they finally officially checked me in, allowing me to rest for a while. I spent most of the day walking to get labor to progress, mixed with visits from my doctor, a painful i.v. insertion (at least until they called the phlebotomist to do it properly) and conversing with my mother and mother-in-law (yes, both HAD to be there). Finally, the doctor offered to break my waters to help speed up labor, which had been lingering at 4 to 5-ish for a couple of hours. Things picked up pretty quickly after that.
My soon-to-be husband was wonderful, rubbing my back during contractions, which lasted 2 minutes or more, and then we would switch and I would rub his arms in return. Our mothers sat watching us and as labor picked up, I actually had to ask my mother to stop talking because her voice was making me feel like I was tripping! (Long story short, I ate a poisonous plant as a small child and her voice was all I could hear during the effect of it, and it used to reoccur during very stressful situations.) Anyway, she sat quietly, trying to be helpful getting me pillows and I'm sure praying for me and the baby, as my wonderfully faithful mother does. I couldn't get comfortable in any position and I knew that the moment was approaching very fast. I stood, I sat on a ball, at one point I got in the tub in water birthing room, hopping right back out when it made the contractions stronger! At one point I ended up naked, on my hands and knees on the bed, with both of our mothers there! Yeah, not how I imagined the birth of my first baby going, especially since I had gained almost 60 pounds during pregnancy!
Eventually I settled on bracing myself in a standing position with my hands on the bed and my doctor came in and after checking me and finding me to be at 8cm, asked me if I was ready to push yet and did I need anything for the pain. I said yes to both and the nurses started prepping equipment, and the doctor gave me a half dose of morphine. I sat back on the bed and told her I was ready to push. The nurses propped my legs up and the doctor let me push as I needed to, only asking me to pause when she thought I might tear, quickly administering an episiotomy. It was only a few pushes and out came a healthy baby boy, 8#10oz, born at 5:55pm. She put the baby on my stomach and let me hold him while the placenta was expelled. Daddy cut the cord and our little son was taken over to the warming station. The doctor left me to attend to the baby on the warmer, massaging his head and checking his vitals. He had a deep cry, a lovely sound I will never forget! Our mothers swooned and coddled the baby.
The doctor stitched me up, stayed to visit for a bit and then left, only to return the next morning to check on us and circumcise our son. Thankfully, the hospital in our area prefers rooming in and really encourages mothers to nurse immediately. Unfortunately, I delivered at shift change, so all of the wonderful nurses who had attended my labor and the birth had clocked off and gone home for the night. The new nurse was... awful. She was irritating and I didn't care for her, which I was able to share with my one of my doctor's students who came in to visit and she gladly asked to have another nurse care for me. All in all, it was a good delivery. It was exactly what I expected the delivery of a baby to be, since I had only ever seen 1 birth before mine and no one had ever told me I could do it differently. I guess you could say it was text book. We stayed for 2 days, because I was a new mom and wanted a little extra help, and then we were on our way home, new parents and a healthy baby boy.
Not much to complain about with that birth, is there? Everyone was healthy, my labor went very well and was uncomplicated. I was informed later that the baby had the cord wrapped when he first emerged, but the doctor swiftly flipped the cord off his neck on the way out and he was none worse for the wear. She really is a wonderful doctor. My only criticisms of this delivery were my own shortcomings - I could have done without the morphine and I'm sure I could have done without the episiotomy. I didn't yet have an opinion about artificially rupturing membranes, so it wasn't on my list of goals for the next birth.
Tomorrow or the next day I will talk about the birth of our second son. Thanks for indulging me!
The contractions for son #1 started half-way through the day on my due date. We had company over that day, another expectant mother who was due about a 10 days after me but would go on to have her son a little over a week late. We had a good chat, took a belly to belly picture, and I declined going to shoot a few games of pool because my back had been hurting off and on for the last hour or so. Who tries to play pool at 9 months pregnant and how would I even bend over the table to shoot?! We said good bye and I sat down to rest a bit.
I started timing my back aches, because they were starting to feel like menstrual cramps, and it turns out I was having contractions, all in my back, but I was able to go to sleep at about midnight that night. I woke at about 3, when the contractions were closer together and more regular, called my boyfriend (gasp, we weren't married or living together?! Surprise, no - we were married when son #1 was 5 months old), told him to get dressed and get over to my father's house to drive me to the hospital. I took a shower, watched a movie, ate a sandwich (all with my father peeking in on me to see if I was okay). My boyfriend finally arrived and we got to the hospital at about 5:30 a.m.
I checked in and told the nurses I was having contractions about 5 minutes apart. They did the usual, hooked me to a monitor so they could evaluate, and once they did, they checked my cervix to find that I was only at a little over 1. Apparently, you can't be admitted to the hospital "in labor" unless you are dilated to a minimum of 3! Guess I would have learned that had I taken a birth preparedness class, huh? pssshhh....
So walking I went. Almost 2 hours of that and they finally officially checked me in, allowing me to rest for a while. I spent most of the day walking to get labor to progress, mixed with visits from my doctor, a painful i.v. insertion (at least until they called the phlebotomist to do it properly) and conversing with my mother and mother-in-law (yes, both HAD to be there). Finally, the doctor offered to break my waters to help speed up labor, which had been lingering at 4 to 5-ish for a couple of hours. Things picked up pretty quickly after that.
My soon-to-be husband was wonderful, rubbing my back during contractions, which lasted 2 minutes or more, and then we would switch and I would rub his arms in return. Our mothers sat watching us and as labor picked up, I actually had to ask my mother to stop talking because her voice was making me feel like I was tripping! (Long story short, I ate a poisonous plant as a small child and her voice was all I could hear during the effect of it, and it used to reoccur during very stressful situations.) Anyway, she sat quietly, trying to be helpful getting me pillows and I'm sure praying for me and the baby, as my wonderfully faithful mother does. I couldn't get comfortable in any position and I knew that the moment was approaching very fast. I stood, I sat on a ball, at one point I got in the tub in water birthing room, hopping right back out when it made the contractions stronger! At one point I ended up naked, on my hands and knees on the bed, with both of our mothers there! Yeah, not how I imagined the birth of my first baby going, especially since I had gained almost 60 pounds during pregnancy!
Eventually I settled on bracing myself in a standing position with my hands on the bed and my doctor came in and after checking me and finding me to be at 8cm, asked me if I was ready to push yet and did I need anything for the pain. I said yes to both and the nurses started prepping equipment, and the doctor gave me a half dose of morphine. I sat back on the bed and told her I was ready to push. The nurses propped my legs up and the doctor let me push as I needed to, only asking me to pause when she thought I might tear, quickly administering an episiotomy. It was only a few pushes and out came a healthy baby boy, 8#10oz, born at 5:55pm. She put the baby on my stomach and let me hold him while the placenta was expelled. Daddy cut the cord and our little son was taken over to the warming station. The doctor left me to attend to the baby on the warmer, massaging his head and checking his vitals. He had a deep cry, a lovely sound I will never forget! Our mothers swooned and coddled the baby.
The doctor stitched me up, stayed to visit for a bit and then left, only to return the next morning to check on us and circumcise our son. Thankfully, the hospital in our area prefers rooming in and really encourages mothers to nurse immediately. Unfortunately, I delivered at shift change, so all of the wonderful nurses who had attended my labor and the birth had clocked off and gone home for the night. The new nurse was... awful. She was irritating and I didn't care for her, which I was able to share with my one of my doctor's students who came in to visit and she gladly asked to have another nurse care for me. All in all, it was a good delivery. It was exactly what I expected the delivery of a baby to be, since I had only ever seen 1 birth before mine and no one had ever told me I could do it differently. I guess you could say it was text book. We stayed for 2 days, because I was a new mom and wanted a little extra help, and then we were on our way home, new parents and a healthy baby boy.
Not much to complain about with that birth, is there? Everyone was healthy, my labor went very well and was uncomplicated. I was informed later that the baby had the cord wrapped when he first emerged, but the doctor swiftly flipped the cord off his neck on the way out and he was none worse for the wear. She really is a wonderful doctor. My only criticisms of this delivery were my own shortcomings - I could have done without the morphine and I'm sure I could have done without the episiotomy. I didn't yet have an opinion about artificially rupturing membranes, so it wasn't on my list of goals for the next birth.
Tomorrow or the next day I will talk about the birth of our second son. Thanks for indulging me!
Searching for quality care...
I contacted a midwife last Thursday. I knew when I called that she would tell me that she wasn't allowed by law to attend vbac births. In Alaska, a midwife cannot knowingly attend a vbac birth, which I was aware of before calling. In many parts of Alaska, women are still delivering at home, and if they are lucky, there may be a midwife or a very experienced mother in the village.
I did manage to ask the midwife if she was prohibited from providing pregnancy care for a mother who had previously vbac'd and possibly helping her prepare for an unattended home birth. She said that she would look into it and give me a call back in a few days....
I think my best course of action at this point is to purchase text books that a midwife would read during their schooling and arm myself with knowledge. There are some really good books out there, like this one and this one, and I think that if I took good care of myself (my back, specifically) then I have a very good chance of delivering successfully at home. I'm going to call around locally to find a chiropractor who knows the Webster method. I swore of chiropractors nearly 3 years ago, but I might consider getting help if I knew it would produce good result for aligning things in my pelvis.
The next post will begin my history of the births of my sons. I haven't decided where to start, so you'll just have to read on!
I did manage to ask the midwife if she was prohibited from providing pregnancy care for a mother who had previously vbac'd and possibly helping her prepare for an unattended home birth. She said that she would look into it and give me a call back in a few days....
I think my best course of action at this point is to purchase text books that a midwife would read during their schooling and arm myself with knowledge. There are some really good books out there, like this one and this one, and I think that if I took good care of myself (my back, specifically) then I have a very good chance of delivering successfully at home. I'm going to call around locally to find a chiropractor who knows the Webster method. I swore of chiropractors nearly 3 years ago, but I might consider getting help if I knew it would produce good result for aligning things in my pelvis.
The next post will begin my history of the births of my sons. I haven't decided where to start, so you'll just have to read on!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Bite my tongue... for now
I didn't get to tell my doctor that I will be birthing at home this time. When it came time to discuss what my plans were for birthing this time, it was at the end of my appointment, on our way out the door. I did manage to tell her that if my water breaks early this time, I will be staying home until I have a good labor going. Her response was "You're so funny!" Yeah, hilarious! I suppose she thinks that I will go to the same doctor who did my c-section and attended the vbac, that even though I was frustrated with him, I have no other choice but to use him as my doctor.
In a way, she is right. In my town, excuse me, no, in the town next to mine (did I mention that I live in Alaska and my town has NO doctors in it because the only hospital in my immediate area is in the next town over, a mere 10 mile drive away) there are 3, yes, just 3 doctors capable of performing c-sections. One is a family practitioner (male, older, terrible bedside manners), one is a petite woman who has a "midwife" on staff (but who generally does what the doctor tells her to do), and the third is also a man (I hear he has a good sense of humor, but also tends to treat women as if they have a "condition" instead of treating them like people and often has terrible manners himself). Of these 3, only the first willingly lets women vbac, and only if he determines they are good candidates. The other 2 tend to push women toward repeat cesarean, since it is convenient for their schedules (and I suspect they like the fee a lot more than an uncomplicated vaginal delivery). So you can see that I was stuck with doctor #1. He's a very good doctor, well learned, has been doing this for AGES and in surgery, no one is better. Part of my problem with him is that he HAS been doing this forever, and over the last trimester of my last pregnancy, was very impersonal and dry, to the point that I wondered if I could give birth with this person in the room! I do not intend to go through any type of delivery with him again!
So my only option now is to keep quiet until the time is right, find a midwife who will accept me and not give me a hard time about my decision. I don't even know if midwives are allowed to knowingly attend a home vbac in Alaska, but I will find out. If you have any recommendations, I'll take 'em!
In a way, she is right. In my town, excuse me, no, in the town next to mine (did I mention that I live in Alaska and my town has NO doctors in it because the only hospital in my immediate area is in the next town over, a mere 10 mile drive away) there are 3, yes, just 3 doctors capable of performing c-sections. One is a family practitioner (male, older, terrible bedside manners), one is a petite woman who has a "midwife" on staff (but who generally does what the doctor tells her to do), and the third is also a man (I hear he has a good sense of humor, but also tends to treat women as if they have a "condition" instead of treating them like people and often has terrible manners himself). Of these 3, only the first willingly lets women vbac, and only if he determines they are good candidates. The other 2 tend to push women toward repeat cesarean, since it is convenient for their schedules (and I suspect they like the fee a lot more than an uncomplicated vaginal delivery). So you can see that I was stuck with doctor #1. He's a very good doctor, well learned, has been doing this for AGES and in surgery, no one is better. Part of my problem with him is that he HAS been doing this forever, and over the last trimester of my last pregnancy, was very impersonal and dry, to the point that I wondered if I could give birth with this person in the room! I do not intend to go through any type of delivery with him again!
So my only option now is to keep quiet until the time is right, find a midwife who will accept me and not give me a hard time about my decision. I don't even know if midwives are allowed to knowingly attend a home vbac in Alaska, but I will find out. If you have any recommendations, I'll take 'em!
Baby #5...
I'm starting this blog with a posting to announce that we are pregnant with baby #5! I am very surprised and very happy. I had suspected that I was pregnant, given my emotional reactions to things and my husband's persistent nausea. That's right, I rarely get nausea while pregnant, which is wonderful, but my loving husband seems to get it instead. Those two symptoms alone made me suspect that something was amiss.
We are the proud parents of 4 boys already! Our oldest is closing in on 9 years old and the youngest is just 1 this past week. Prior to finding out that we are pregnant, we had thought about waiting until the littlest one was about 18 months before trying again. We weren't trying to prevent pregnancy, but we normally don't work towards it either unless we feel lead to have another one. That is a story in itself!
There are so many topics to discuss that are centered around this baby and the coming birth. Ultimately, my goal is to have this baby at home. I'll discuss the previous 4 births in another posting soon and you will start to see why I would pursue this, but delivering baby #5 in a healthy, peaceful setting where I am in control of my own labor is what this blog will be about. Blogging should be cathartic and I plan to take full advantage of this by working through the history of each child's birth and my experiences with them.
I named the blog "Birthing Sons" because it seems that I am destined to be the mother of sons! With 4 already and no stark differences in this pregnancy so far, I am guessing that this is another boy. This pleases my husband immensely, I suspect because he is afraid of what a daughter might do to him emotionally! lol I shouldn't tease, but it is darling. There is every possibility that this could be a girl and that I am blessed to have easy pregnancies!
On to the first posting....:
Today is my first "pregnancy visit" with our family doctor. She has been my o.b. since baby #1 and I love her dearly. She is a good doctor. I have had to refer to another doctor for the last trimester of both baby #3 and #4 due to some "complications" and I have not been so pleased with that doctor. Today I will be informing my personal doctor that I will be having this baby at home. Let me clarify just a little - this will be my second VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), so I might be met with a good bit of hesitation or hostility, though I don't see her taking a hostile approach.
I am at just about 11 weeks of this pregnancy and there is still plenty of time for me to prepare myself and if necessary, seek out another doctor or midwife who will support my decision. As far as I have been told, the other doctors willing to take on a vbac patient (other than the one who attended the last one) tend to push for repeat cesareans and most midwives in my area will not take on vbac clients either. Whether or not this will change once they are informed that I have vbac'd once successfully, I do not know, but that is all part of this journey. I suspect that I will come home today with a determination to find a midwife....
I have also chosen not to inform anyone that I am pregnant. If you know me and happen to read this, please keep it to yourself. I am blogging only to share my experiences with other women who may be going through similar challenges. I have not been met with joy or support when sharing my views of family planning, even in my immediate family, so I will not be telling anyone that I am pregnant until it is no longer concealable. Thankfully, I am overweight and will be able to pass it off as "weight gain" until possibly the 3rd trimester! Our children do not know either, though they often talk about wanting to have more babies and so we feel they will not feel deceived when we do tell them. Please honor my wishes. And thanks for reading!
We are the proud parents of 4 boys already! Our oldest is closing in on 9 years old and the youngest is just 1 this past week. Prior to finding out that we are pregnant, we had thought about waiting until the littlest one was about 18 months before trying again. We weren't trying to prevent pregnancy, but we normally don't work towards it either unless we feel lead to have another one. That is a story in itself!
There are so many topics to discuss that are centered around this baby and the coming birth. Ultimately, my goal is to have this baby at home. I'll discuss the previous 4 births in another posting soon and you will start to see why I would pursue this, but delivering baby #5 in a healthy, peaceful setting where I am in control of my own labor is what this blog will be about. Blogging should be cathartic and I plan to take full advantage of this by working through the history of each child's birth and my experiences with them.
I named the blog "Birthing Sons" because it seems that I am destined to be the mother of sons! With 4 already and no stark differences in this pregnancy so far, I am guessing that this is another boy. This pleases my husband immensely, I suspect because he is afraid of what a daughter might do to him emotionally! lol I shouldn't tease, but it is darling. There is every possibility that this could be a girl and that I am blessed to have easy pregnancies!
On to the first posting....:
Today is my first "pregnancy visit" with our family doctor. She has been my o.b. since baby #1 and I love her dearly. She is a good doctor. I have had to refer to another doctor for the last trimester of both baby #3 and #4 due to some "complications" and I have not been so pleased with that doctor. Today I will be informing my personal doctor that I will be having this baby at home. Let me clarify just a little - this will be my second VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), so I might be met with a good bit of hesitation or hostility, though I don't see her taking a hostile approach.
I am at just about 11 weeks of this pregnancy and there is still plenty of time for me to prepare myself and if necessary, seek out another doctor or midwife who will support my decision. As far as I have been told, the other doctors willing to take on a vbac patient (other than the one who attended the last one) tend to push for repeat cesareans and most midwives in my area will not take on vbac clients either. Whether or not this will change once they are informed that I have vbac'd once successfully, I do not know, but that is all part of this journey. I suspect that I will come home today with a determination to find a midwife....
I have also chosen not to inform anyone that I am pregnant. If you know me and happen to read this, please keep it to yourself. I am blogging only to share my experiences with other women who may be going through similar challenges. I have not been met with joy or support when sharing my views of family planning, even in my immediate family, so I will not be telling anyone that I am pregnant until it is no longer concealable. Thankfully, I am overweight and will be able to pass it off as "weight gain" until possibly the 3rd trimester! Our children do not know either, though they often talk about wanting to have more babies and so we feel they will not feel deceived when we do tell them. Please honor my wishes. And thanks for reading!
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