Reflections of a UBAC

Having a baby is a joy that I love to share. I love that people want to see her, strangers want to know how big she was and family members love to give me looks when I tell them her name. One of the things that come with having a new baby is people asking about the delivery. Generally, these are women that are close to the mother and honestly, sharing our birth experience builds a bond between women, allowing us to find things we share in common and giving us validation of our feelings and actions. I don't mind swapping stories, usually.

Here are a few questions I have received as I have shared the story of our daughter's birth:

What did you enjoy most about birthing at home?

By far, the best part of having a baby at home is the privacy. I was able to labor in peace, no nurses coming in to "check my progress" and afterwards, I went to sleep in my own bed. I really enjoyed the quiet, private recovery time as well.

Did you think might end up at the hospital? Did you have any last minute doubts?

Honestly, if had I thought, at any point, that I would need to be at the hospital, I would not have chosen a home birth. Despite my confidence in my ability to birth naturally and safely, I did have back up plans for complications that could arise. Not only did I have a "worst case scenario" plan (ambulance and hospital), but also I had a personal comfort limit for how far over my estimated due date I would go before seeking assistance from an obstetrician.

Would you do it again?

I would! Right now, we are happy with 5 children, but if we have anymore children, I would definitely want to deliver at home unassisted.

How did the doctor react to the news of your home delivery?

Our family doctor is wonderful. I have been seeing her since I found out I was pregnant with our oldest son. She was very happy to see our new little baby, but she did say that she wished we had been at the hospital because of the risks. Overall, she was positive and thrilled that I had such an easy, uncomplicated labor and a beautiful healthy baby.

What would you do differently?

I would really seek to have prenatal care with someone supportive of my decision to homebirth. As I said, our family practitioner is great, but I'm not sure how she would feel about me openly planning an unassisted birth. Having that extra support is wonderful and its important that the people who may end up overseeing my healthcare in an emergency situation are people who I have a relationship and connection with. I need to know that they are going to listen when I need them to listen. My husband was wonderful and read whatever I read. We were a good team. I would seek to have a little more outside support, maybe widen that circle of trust to include more women. Men don't talk as much as women and I think my husband may have been sick of pregnancy talk well before the 3rd trimester began!

What about child care for your other children while you are in labor and recovering?

I read somewhere that the majority of women who are left to labor in their own way and time will deliver in the wee hours of the night and morning. I was really counting on this for our delivery because it was important to me to keep our plans quiet and arranging childcare would have meant letting someone into our circle of trust. It was also very important to me that the children be the first to see the baby, instead of all the friends and extended family members dropping by to see the baby. We are very fortunate that our baby kept to the plan and our other kids were all sleeping. We did end up arranging back up child care with my aunt who lives just 3 miles away, so again, we made sure we had options.
During recovery, my husband ran things. The boys are all very helpful and I think they really like having Dad spend his days with them.

What would you say to other mothers who wish to vbac at home or have an unassisted birth?

My experience with an unassisted home birth is just that: my experience. I would not tell someone else that they should attempt the same thing but I would happily share my story and how we came to this decision. It was a rewarding and healing journey that culminated with the birth of this baby. I finally felt like I had a labor that was easy and comfortable and done in my own time and way, something I knew I was capable of despite being labeled as "high risk". There is a lot of freedom in throwing off the constraints and labels of a hospital birth, but it certainly has its place in emergency situations. Each person has to make their own decision based on accurate information and personal comfort.



I feel like I have come to the end of a long journey, one that ended as I had hoped. We had a healthy pregnancy, a wonderful labor, and now a beautiful baby girl. What more could I ask for? I am a more confident person now, I feel more educated and I have regained a lot of my self esteem. I doubt that I will keep this blog going now. Maybe an occasional post to update. There are so many great blogs out there that are dedicated to educating women on just how amazing their bodies are and how pregnancy and birth can be so much more and so much easier than the image pushed on us by doctors and hospitals. The most important thing anyone can do is to educate themselves. Keep looking for answers to your questions. You may have been told that YOU are the reason your child "had" to be born the way the doctor prescribed, but the truth is out there. Don't stop looking or striving for a better way.

Thanks for reading. Take care :)

Now Birthing.... Daughters!

Well, I may have to change the name of this blog, because..... It's a girl!

We are so proud to be the parents of 5 children now, and even more excited to welcome our first girl. She is a beautiful baby and looks so much like our oldest boy when he was born. The funny part is that she has red hair, so my previous post, where I'm ranting about "not over doing it with the pink clothes" probably needs to be disregarded. Red heads look great in pink! That will teach me...!

I have a lot to say about the whole home birth/unassisted experience, but for now, I just want to share the actual birth story. Its not a messy or unusual birth story, pretty typical thankfully.

After my last post on Thursday, my husband and I sat down for our nightly ritual - watching a few episodes of "Highlander". I sort of timed contractions, but after nodding off during the 2nd episode and having contractions wake me up, decided I should go to bed. It was about 1 am and I felt that we would probably have a baby soon, maybe even before morning, so we set about getting things ready. We put water and washcloths in a crock pot and put it on low heat (by the way, this was too hot! If you are going to use this setting, put it on the warm setting so your attendant doesn't burn their hands when getting washcloths out. Thankfully, my husband works with very hot water every day and has hands made of Kevlar!) I prepared a small tea pot of the herb Shepherd's Purse, just to have it on hand in case of hemorrhaging. We got out some towels for catching the baby, set our umbilical scissors in an alcohol solution by the bed and got the bag of homeopathic remedies out. And then we went to bed. Or rather, he went to bed and I tried.

After laying down for about 10 minutes, it was clear that the contractions were NOT going to go away and that laying down was actually making them MORE uncomfortable. I decided to sit up in my rocking chair (sitting on a puddle pad) and try to watch a movie. These contractions were strong, but nothing I couldn't work through. Over the next hour, they moved from 10 minutes apart to 6 minutes and finally, I got to a point that I just couldn't count the passing seconds or relax through the contractions anymore. I had to get up and evacuate my bladder 2 times with the last 2 contractions and as I got up for the third time, I decided that I just couldn't go through anymore contractions without my husband! I needed my back rubbed and some help focusing through the difficult parts, so I woke him up. As I was sitting on the toilet, I started to feel that familiar feeling of pushing, making its way toward me. I knew that I had to get off the toilet, but I really wanted to ease the pressure on my bladder and was waiting for my water to break and give me some relief. It must have broke while I was there, but I couldn't tell. My husband helped (read: MADE me get off the toilet) me get out of the bathroom and I made it to the bed and stood at the foot. We realized it was almost time.

While he busily gathered supplies, I focused through the next contraction. The need to push started to take over. Part of my preparations for this birth was realizing that I didn't want to push when my body wasn't ready or push too fast and end up with a tear. I really tried to let my body do the work. Just as I needed to bear down, my husband was there and ready to catch. I started to push and still felt like there should have been a rush of water and maybe the bag was in the way, so I asked my husband to check if the head was coming down and if he could feel a bag. He said that there was no bag, just a head. My husband applied a hot washcloth to my perineum and I pushed with the next contraction. The head was completely out and with the last contraction, our little girl was born at 2:55 am!

After a few hours of sleep, we woke up our boys and let them all come visit their new little sis. Our toddler was probably the most excited. He couldn't stop laughing and saying "baby!" It was so nice to have them be the first people to see their sister and have that peace of being at home. It was very special.

We made an appointment that morning with our family doctor so we could both get checked out. I had no major tears, just one small "stretch" that is a little tender, but did not need stitches. Our little girl checked out beautifully. She wasn't covered in vernix, just a little left in the creases of her legs and arms, so we know she was born right on time! She had great color and vigor from the start and has been nursing like a champ! Really, the whole process could not have gone better and I feel so blessed to have come through pregnancy and delivery healthy and with a healthy baby.

If you have any questions about the birth or anything else that I've written about, please feel free to ask. I'm hoping I can cover a lot of those in my next post. Take care :)

Possibly in Labor?

My due date has come and gone. I don't hold to fast to the due date given to me by the doctor, but I do feel that it is fairly accurate and somehow thought that I would actually be holding a baby by now! I was really hoping for my brother's birthday, since we are giving this baby (if it's a girl) the same middle name as both him and my father. We still don't have a boys name!

Tonight I am having some good contractions. They are spaced about 15 minutes apart and are the crampy kind, not the full stomach tightening ones. I would love to say that I am in labor, especially because one of them woke me up earlier during my nap, but there is every possibility they will stop and I could do it all again tomorrow. Last Saturday I was having some really intense, full stomach contractions with LOTS of pressure in the pelvic floor, but I chose to go to test them by going to bed and they stopped. I've had some contractions pretty much every evening since then. I guess I will have to wait and see.

I'm going to use this fun little webpage to track contractions tonight. And I'm going to stay up and sitting up to see if that helps. I don't really know what else to do. Maybe I can sit out on the porch and repot plants? Something to keep me busy and distracted. Maybe sewing?

Anyway, if you read this tonight, keep me in prayer. All of our supplies are ready, our bedroom is ready, we have child care lined up for emergency situations or change in our plans to birth unassisted, but above all things, I am relying on God to bring all of us through this situation as He has intended by design. Thanks and Shalom :)

One week....

I made the mistake of going to the doctor about 2 weeks ago. I gave in and told my aunt about our birth plans and let her comments pressure me into going to the doctor "one last time". It was a disaster!

I didn't fully disclose my plans to the doctor, but I did tell her that I was just going to "take my chances" when it came time to deliver. She took that as I was just going to take whatever doctor I got when I checked into the hospital. I ended up crying in the exam room, which was good because I don't think she understood how frustrated and overwhelmed I was with how the last delivery went. The idea of having someone else tell me how to give birth and give me pitocin without my consent is just more than I can deal with again and although I had been telling her this since my first postpartum check after that delivery, and all through this pregnancy, she really didn't see how upset I was.

I left her office feeling pushed to make a decision about which local OB would be attending me during labor. She called Dr. A and let him know that I was almost 38 weeks, had not been going to appointments because of some deeply rooted fears about delivery and apparently he sees no reason why I can't vbac again. He also said something like "well, she can do whatever she wants during labor, its no bother to me". Right. But hospital policy dictates what he can and can't do and that effects the woman giving birth! That is no guarantee that I won't end up with pitocin again! Not to mention, I just don't want to have my baby at the hospital! Worse, if I just wing it and go in, my doctor is responsible for not letting someone know my prior history of delivery and the "risk" could get her in trouble.

I was very upset about the whole appointment and being bullied into choosing an ob, being pushed into going to another doctor's appointment at all and then having my husband on the other side, telling me not to let them push me around and getting upset that I was upset! It's not helpful to try to force someone who is already feeling pushed around into making such a big decision (like "do I continue on with my plan or bail out now and get an ob?"), especially when your main concern is not your wife or her feelings, but the idea of someone else being in control of your child's future! Men do not know what it's like to have a doctor telling them what they need to do, being in control of the whole pregnancy and delivery, from the first pelvic exam, thru every test and conversation weighted with scary statistics and "what ifs"! They don't know so they forget that really, this is all about the woman being in control of her own body and labor!

I know he will be great during labor and delivery, but it was maddening to have that all hit in one day.

Since then, family members have been offering to take the other kids "while we are at the hospital" and I have used that opportunity to tell them we plan on staying home and having the kids stay too, barring any emergencies. My mom was very receptive to the idea and far more understanding than I thought she would be. My father in law thought that my husband delivering the baby was a great idea, after all, "people have been having babies for centuries without doctors". It has been good to have their support.

With only a week until my due date, I am more resolved to stay home. I had a few days of worry and stress after that appointment, but I have not called the ob for an appointment and as long as I don't go to far over my date, I won't. I have even started getting baby clothes set aside. Want to know a secret? I think it might be a girl, too. The reality that there will be a new baby soon and I will no longer be pregnant is starting to sink in and I'm finally getting ready. I would appreciate prayers during this time. For peace in our home, preparedness, safety and a healthy baby. Thanks for reading! Maybe next week I can post about our new little one :)

4 weeks! Eek!

Just 4 weeks left!

I realize that my due date is an estimate, not an exact date, so I am prepared to go over a bit. I have not decided what I will do if I go more than 1o days over. That is about how long I was over due with baby #2, so that is where my comfort zone extends too. Beyond that, I suppose I would call the doctor and ask for a check up? Not sure. I have some primrose oil that I will start using near my due date, but I don't want to get all crazy about having a baby "on time."

I am feeling well. My blood pressure is stable, my weight is stable, the baby is rolling around quite a bit, and I have only had one day of minor swelling in one foot, and I assume that is because I was up on my feet for two whole days, retexturing the nursery! I will have to start taking my alfalfa supplement again to help ward of swelling. Thankfully, I usually avoid any edema until after delivery, and its much easier to have your feet up afterwards. I find it hard to sit around during the last trimester, waiting, especially when there is so much to be done in a house that is still in need of organizing, unpacking and repair. I promise to slow down and work on easy stuff for the last month, though, like cooking and sewing and gardening :)

As you know, we decided not to find out what the baby's gender will be. I am happy with that decision and have not worried in the least about getting ready for the baby. I wish that I had made this choice with the other ones! I would have freed myself from a lot of stress and disappointment (when told that I was having yet another boy) and probably enjoyed my pregnancy more. Knowing that there is a very real possibility that this baby is a girl, I have started to take notice of some gender bias in our culture.

I guess I noticed it a little before, but it never really bothered me. Have you ever noticed that everyone gets really excited about someone having a little girl and not so much with the boys? When I go to a baby shower for a little girl, the presents abound, everyone is excited to buy dresses and "cute" stuff, and its pink Pink PINK everywhere! When the shower is for a boy, gifts are much more practical - onesies, diapers, toys. Its nice, its fun, but its just not as exciting to everyone. This could just be the fact that females bond over clothing and shopping, so we naturally extend that to our daughters, even the smallest of them.
I've also noticed while shopping online that there are far MORE crib sets for girls than there are for boys. There is more wall art for sale, better car seat covers, just MORE STUFF targeted towards those shopping for girls! I know I'm not crazy, I have noticed this before, but it never bothered me when I knew I was having a boy. I just found what I needed (or made it if I couldn't ) and called it good. Now, with the prospect of having a girl, it is both insulting and disgusting to me! I am offended that so much focus has been put on "how great it is to have a girl"! HELLO! Can our society function or continue without men? No? huh. Then maybe we should get a little more enthusiastic about our boys.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited that we could have a girl. But I am more excited that we will have a new family member, no matter their gender! Another boy would be great! I just want him or her to be healthy. I adore my boys and loved dressing them in their tiny clothes, every trip out of the house a chance to show off the baby! It was fun.

What I am NOT excited about is having a girl and then being flooded with gifts and PINK STUFF all over my house. I like pink, but I don't think that girls need to wear pink ALL THE TIME to let everyone know "I'm a girl!" I have tried to warn people that this is how I feel about pink, but they laugh it off like I'm being silly. SERIOUSLY. Pink doesn't make your little girl any more of a girl!

I have pulled pants and onesies, pajamas and sleepers out of my baby clothes totes, some blue or green, some yellow or white and I intend to use what I already have, whether it is a boy or girl! If it is a girl, I will not go out of my way or break my bank to put her in something "girly" every day! I did buy a few tops/dresses to pair with the pants and overalls I have on hand, and yes, a couple of the things are pink or floral. But mostly, I intend to make A line dresses, that can be worn as tops as she gets older, out of fabric I have on hand. Red, blue, green, yellow, purple, grey, orange, whatever I have is what she will wear and she will still be a girl! I don't want to be flooded with pink! I wonder if mother's of girls who suddenly have a boy feel the same way about boys stuff?

Ha! It's silly, I know. But for the love of rainbows, enough with the pink!

Last minute worries

I am so much less stressed since I decided to quit going to appointments! I get to just enjoy being pregnant without the hassle of so many appointments, especially in this last trimester.

I do have one concern, and maybe you have some advice for this: what will my doctor (who is our family practitioner) do when she figures out I haven't gone to the other doctor who would handle the vbac and what will I do if she refuses to be our family doctor after our ubac? I am very worried about this! It is difficult to find a great doctor in our town and I don't want to be kicked off her roster!

Part of the reason I decided to stop going to appointments is because the doctor she has to turn me over to is very unpleasant and the stress of having to go to him again was more than I could take! I am happy with this decision. I'm not even worried about the possibility of ending up at the hospital and trying to explain my decision to the on call ob. Really, I just don't want to have to find a new doctor after all this.

Deciding to ubac at home has not been completely stress free. There are a few things that I am worried about happening. The biggest one is hemorrhaging. I watched my step sister give birth to her first baby (in the hospital) and she had a placenta break and there was blood everywhere, so I know how fast you can lose blood during that kind of hemorrhage! I do have some herbs on hand, but that is my number one fear.

The other is that the baby will not breath on his/her own. I know infant cpr and I know how some other emergency techniques for this situation, but it still worries me. I shouldn't worry about either, since all of my vaginal births have been routine and complication free. But there is nothing like being woken in the middle of the night with the "what if" question. Thankfully the worry subsides quickly and with some prayer and focus, I feel everything will be fine, like it is supposed to be.

Other than that, baby is head down (YAY!) and kicking away as I type. We have switched to decaf coffee, since quiting it altogether was impossible. I have also taken the advice of a friend and started to keep a weekly log of my vitals - blood pressure, weight, fluid retention (if noticeable), fetal movement, that kind of thing. My iron is low, I can tell, but that is normal for me and I have started a supplement. And I ordered a fetoscope and can NOT find a heartbeat to save my life! I think I may be too fat!

We are nearing the 7 weeks left mark and I have just a few more items to collect before I can say I am "ready". Can't wait to meet our new little one!

On our own

I came to the tough decision to abandon further ob appointments for the remainder of this pregnancy. I was making myself ill with the stress of disappointing one of the doctors! I have been very healthy this pregnancy, so I am choosing to go it alone. If I feel like something is off, I will make an appointment. I am not even going to the ob/gyn, since I will only be going to the hospital if there is an emergency, all my approvals are in place and in that situation, I would end up with any 1 of the 3 surgeons on call (and the one I was referred to is one of them).

All of my items have arrived in the mail, along with some very good books. I am reading "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth", and another book called "Active Birth", and other books about emergency deliveries, fetal positioning and I even dug out the "What to Expect.." book.
I have never read so much during pregnancy! I finally feel educated about my choices and wish I had pursued this with baby #1 or had people around who could have handed me a book and said, "Read this!" Who knows how different this journey could have been.

I wish it was different, but I am no longer resentful or upset with myself. I know that I have been down this path, with all the turns in it, for a reason. I know I'm not the only one who has walked it either! I'm thankful to get the chance to have another baby, another birth experience, another chance to solidify who I am. For me, the birth experience is one that I identify with womanhood. They are inseparable. It might be the physical test of it, it could be the result of bringing a new life into the world through my own labor, I'm not sure. It is dangerous to say my self identity rests on this one event. That's not exactly what I mean, but to some extent, my self worth, my own estimation of my womanhood does hinge on these experiences.

Beyond that, I am comfortable with what my body has been capable of before and know that when left to do the job it was created for, this body will operate almost completely without my help! That is a comfort! My responsibility at this point lies in preparation - good food, good rest, having supplies on hand and listening to what my body is telling me. That will be the most important part of laboring. I am ready!

Today's appointment

Well I saw my doctor today for a 28 week check up. In 2 or 3 weeks, I will need to go see the other OB for a pre-vbac consultation. Assuming he still feels I am a good candidate for a vbac, he will approve my choice and then I will schedule an appointment at 37 or 38 weeks with him and finish up the last couple weeks with him. I am supposed to ask him (per my doctors instructions) if he wouldn't mind me seeing her for my appointments between 32 and 38 weeks. I'm not going to ask.

I am sick of playing "doctor, may I?" I am tempted to go without care for the next 3 months, I am that frustrated. Part of me doesn't want to burn the bridge with my family practitioner, but the other part of me is sooooo tired of not being listened to and jumping hoops, and since I plan on doing this at home, how can I possibly avoid upsetting someone?! If I continue with care and then just deliver at home, I will upset the doctor who had me in his "schedule". If my baby is breech (baby was still transverse today, though I could tell we had been vertex last week), he will push me for another c-section. Worse yet, since I have a request in to my insurance for a tubal IF I end up with an emergency c-section (and only in that circumstance, because for me, a second section is the last section, even though I want more children. Just another back up plan.), he will somehow work things so that I end up in that situation anyway!
I will go to him to make sure I am in his schedule as far as a due date. I WILL be going to my own doctor for the last appointments. I will NOT be letting him strip my membranes or schedule an induction for me. I WILL be delivering at home. If my baby is breech, like #3 was, and I cannot turn him, I will be delivering at home anyway. The complication here is that I have 2 doctors working with me and if I burn one, then I probably burn them both. What do I do?

Seriously, any advice on how to navigate the personal side of this would be appreciated.

I have a couple tests left: glucose tolerance and Strep B. Both will be done by my physician. Should I just not go to the other doctor? Should I contact that friend who offered information to a traditional midwife? I don't even want to go to the OB, but he is my back up should things go wrong..... I am frustrated.

History of breastfeeding

Nursing has been a frustrating journey for me. I have not been able to offer any of our children only breastmilk. I have always had to supplement with formula. You might be saying to yourself "Had too? I doubt that!" but the truth is, I really, REALLY worked at nursing each baby, going further into the art of stimulating a better supply with each one. The longest I have nursed is 7 months with #4 (each baby I have been able to go one month further), and that was supplemented with formula also.

As I anticipate the arrival of baby #5, I am preparing myself for the challenge of exclusively breastfeeding this one. I feel more prepared than ever. I feel that the knowledge I gained after baby #4 has finally armed me with what I need to be successful!

A little background:

The frustration of the vbac delivery with #4 bled over into the frustration of nursing a baby and I pushed myself (and the baby) into exclusively nursing for the first month. My baby cried for the first month and at one month, when he still was not up to birth weight (scary, considering he should have had a gain at that age) I relented and gave him a bottle. Miraculously, he stopped crying. He was hungry. He was underweight, not gaining and I was so determined to be successful at nursing that I was starving him.

The very next day, I saw an posting on craigslist for free breastmilk! The mother donating the milk had extra, had a clean bill of health and it turns out, was able to give me some of the BEST advice I had ever had (and trust me, by the 4th one, I had all kinds of advice and counselling). My baby gained a full pound in that first week of supplementing with her milk! She loaned me her electric pump (yeah, where were you with that one, WIC?), a good pumping routine, and recommended supplements that actually WORKED! In the end, I discovered that I don't have a "relaxed setting", meaning I have a hard time allowing myself to relax completely and experience a milk let-down, which means the milk won't keep flowing.

I supplemented with Mother Love's More Milk Plus and Ignatia Amara (homeopathic remedy), which is a common stress helper (not her advice, but a La Leche suggestion). Pumping, for me, had to be continuous, I couldn't miss a post feeding pumping or my supply would drop drastically. Very hard work and very time consuming, especially with 3 other kids who need you and who are homeschooled. In the end, between the round the clock pumping, buying a house, packing, regular chores and school, I chose to stop pumping and let my supply take the course it would, giving in to formula again.

Our #4 is now 17 months old and will have a new baby sister or brother in just 2 short months. I think that I can do the pumping regiment now, since we are moved completely, school will be over just as the baby arrives and I am scaling back ALL outside the home activities! I am even looking forward to it! When my supply is in and the baby #5 is eating well and gaining weight, I am even considering switching #4 back to breastmilk in his bottles! He has refused to be weaned from soy formula and I would feel better about him taking a bottle at bed if it was breast milk. A little unconventional, I know, but healthier (and far less expensive!) than feeding him a chemically based formula. Am I setting my goals too high? Maybe.

Wish me luck!

Preparing!

I am nearly 28 weeks along (already!) and today I ordered my birth supplies! I still don't know the gender of our baby and I'm very excited to have a surprise at the end of all this. It does mean I will be picking through the baby clothes we have and finding gender neutral items. I may purchase one or two pink things just for fun!

I also discussed my resistance to seeing the OB for my last trimester with my family doctor. She said she would be happy to continue my care through that time and all I will have to do is go to him for the primary consultation (at 30 weeks) so he can put me in his calendar, and then again at 40 weeks to check on my progress. I told her that going to all those appointments at the end is really inconvenient, given that I have 4 other kids to care for, and that I would like to space them out unless I feel something is wrong. She has been very agreeable with that. This week I have another appointment and I will make sure she takes notes on my choice not to have my membranes stripped and to have her add a tubal in her notes, should I end up with another c-section (which is totally NOT going to happen).

Anyway...

I chose to go with the bare minimum for delivery supplies. I think that birthing at home will allow me to use things I already have on hand. I'll list it out below, but if you see something that you think I really NEED to have on hand, let me know :)

Today I ordered:

Cord clamps and scissors
sterile gloves for the hubby
knit baby cap in white (since all we have are blue ones)
shepherds purse
Peri bath herbs
Peri oil for massage
New bulb syringe and peri bottle
Foot printer and birth certificate

Things I already have:

Receiving blankets
Towels
extra sheets and plastic mattress covers
Ziploc bag for placenta
1 pack of chux pads (disposable soaker pads)
washable soaker pads

Things that I have that need a little work before I can use them:

Moses basket - needs to be lined and padded
cloth diapers and wipes - I'm turning my traditional foldable diapers into prefold all in ones!
Breast pump - Have all the attachments I need, but my sister needs to mail me her pump :)


Still need:

A bassinet
Husband to read the emergency birth manual
More meals for the freezer


So I am feeling fairly prepared. I have a plan, and a back up plan. A select few people know about our plans and are praying for us, which means so much to me! The baby is moving good and feels like it is in a good position. I'll know more at the end of this week. Take care!

The birth of the 4th son....

We became pregnant with baby #4 nearly 3 years after the birth of baby #3. My husband felt that 3 children was enough for him and the c-section was a difficult recovery for all of us. Life was good, we had a little bit of balance and our kids were finally all potty trained! But I was starting to feel that a large family was more of what I wanted, starting to feel like we were still trying to control this life that ultimately God is in control of! It had been years since we had discussed birth control and our youngest was just getting out of the cute toddler stage. So we decided that it was time for another one and this time, NO c-section!

As I've mentioned before, there are only 3 local doctors who are capable of c-sections, and 2 of them prefer not to do vbacs, and state law prevents midwives from attending vbacs. The third doctor is not my favorite, but he had done my c-section and had been suprisingly compassionate when I had a concern or question about the incision site. After seeing my family practitioner for the first 2 trimesters, I was finally turned over to doctor #3, who agreed to attend my vbac.

Visiting him for appointments was awful. I mean TERRIBLE. He was fairly impersonal, offered up no advice or reassuring, typical "this is what you should expect" conversations, nothing. Getting him to just affirm anything was painful. I was stressed and uncomfortable with the idea of him attending and his inattentiveness only made it worse. I actually called my doctor and cried on the phone about how unhappy I was going to appointments there! She listened, but her only advice was to tough it out, he was the best and he would allow me to vbac. I was so frustrated, knowing that he was my only option.

Finally, on Monday, at 40 weeks and no active labor (I had thinned, but only dilated to 1-ish), the doctor did a pelvic exam to see where we were. Then attempted to strip my membranes. Talk about uncomfortable! I don't remember him asking my permission, he just shoved his hand in further and told me thats what he was doing! I went home and waited that day and another, and finally, on Wednesday morning at 5 am, my water broke. I had been instructed that it was "vital" that I get to the hospital because I was vbac-ing. Why? "There's a risk of infection if you walk around with your waters broken". PSsssh! And the risk what, magically goes away when I walk thru the door at the hospital? Ha! The risk comes from having a million strangers sticking their fingers up there, trying to figure out what's going on!!

I checked in at about 8 am, having no solid contractions, and sat hooked up to machines for most of the day. The nurses suggested I go walk the halls for a while. Walk. Walk back and forth, down the 200 feet of hallway available to me. That's going to help. I expressed my irritation to my husband and chose instead to sit in bed, attempting manually start labor by expressing milk. My contractions would get started and then the nurses would come in and I would stop, and the contractions would stop, because I was embarrassed to do that in front of anyone. Visitors popped in, all asking "how's it going?" It's not. Please go away. Nurses would come in, reminding me that the hospital (and the doctor) had to keep a surgical team on standby during my labor and that if things didn't get up and moving by 8 pm, the doctor would administer Pitocin. Like reminding me of that would push me into labor!

At last, the shift change came and I got a new nurse. She asked me about my day, my labor and my thoughts. I told her about the expressing and how it helped with contractions. She offered to bring me an electric pump to help. How I wished she had been on duty that morning! I felt a moment of support! I told her that I was extremely against getting pitocin. I was immediately let down - she repeated the threats of the other nurses and the doctor. I turned to my husband after she left and threatened to divorce him if he let the doctor give me pitocin against my will. I had seen women get pitocin and I knew that was not how women should deliver babies! The woman in the next room was screaming and it was a pitocin scream.

8 pm came and the doctor appeared. Another check, another discussion about labor not progressing how they wanted it to. Another reminder that the surgical team was on standby. I looked at the doctor and told him "I do not want pitocin." He kind of shrugged and said that was my only option, repeating yet AGAIN the "if we wait, your waters... blah blah blah". I was on the verge of tears, but at 9 pm, they inserted an i.v. and started the pitocin.

I was uncomfortable from the start - going from no contractions to what I would call a 5 in under 15 minutes. A dear friend came in to visit just after they had started the pitocin and I found it difficult to focus or talk during contractions, the whole time fighting the tears of frustration at having my personal wishes completely ignored. By the time she left, I sat up on my bed and felt like I needed to pee, so asked my husband to help me up and get to the bathroom. Thats when things really picked up. I remained frozen on the edge of the bed as the contractions climbed quickly up to an 8, the whole time insisting that I needed to go to the bathroom. The nurses tried to help me, but all I could think about was "THIS IS NOT HOW LABOR SHOULD BE!!!" I started to insist they turn off the pitocin and they at first refused. One of the nurses called for the doctor and he came in to check me, making me lay back. He said I was at an 8 or 9 and left to get his scrubs on. By the time he came back, I was beside myself with pain and the contractions were unbearable.

I started to feel an unnatural pushing sensation, much more intense than my first 2 deliveries, coupled with intense pain. I could tell that things were going way too fast and I remember screaming and praying in tandem during those contractions. Finally, the table front dropped and everyone was in position, the bed was inclined to help me sit up and I was informed it was time to push. I don't know how long it took or how many pushes, but I remember that this was the hardest delivery I had gone through and that the pushing took far more work. My eyes had burst blood vessels from the strain and I remember my lips going numb because I was being told to push harder. If it is possible to be angry at your doctor (and nurses and husband) while giving birth, this is what it is like.

Thankfully, my son was delivered just fine at 11 pm. His cord was unusually short, something the doctor commented on immediately, while laying him onto my stomach and seeing to the afterbirth. He weighed in at 8# 6 oz, 19 inches, by far my smallest baby. I tore a little during delivery and received some stitches (which I later had my family practitioner see too, since I had been over stitched, leaving me with a weird, painful pulling sensation in my perineum). My son was content and nursed immediately. After everything was cleaned up and he was ready to leave, the doctor looked at the clock and said to me with a wink, "Looks like I'll be home before midnight after all! Tell the team they can go home." HA. Glad I could be convenient for everyone!

I was so relieved it was all over and so thankful to see my own doctor come in to check on me after he left. She offered to do my postpartum check ups and we agreed this was best.

We were moved to another room, in the old wing that I hated, but that had thankfully been remodeled and turned into a dedicated maternity recovery wing. It was quiet and private and each room had a private bathroom! My husband went home to be with our other boys and get some rest himself. The baby and I slept and I woke in the wee hours of the morning, restless and wanting to just nurse and hold my baby. He slept for what seemed like an eternity. The delivery must have been very hard on him as well. We received visitors sporadically throughout the day and thankfully, the hospital discharged me that evening. Going home was the best part of the ordeal!

It wasn't long after his birth that I decided I would never have another hospital delivery. Can you blame me? I felt so violated and ignored. I felt pushed into what I saw as a violent delivery and I believe it has played a big part in my son's personality, one that I describe as angry and frustrated. The first year was hard for us both! I know what a good delivery is like, what a "normal, healthy" should be like. Why would I want to deliver any other way? Having my membranes stripped was key in how things went. My body was not ready to deliver and I was pushed into having pitocin, by a doctor that I wasn't comfortable with.

I did come away from this last birth with some big revelations of God's hand in the process: how our son was smaller than any of his brothers, allowing for an easier delivery; how his cord was extremely short, preventing the possibility of it wrapping like all the others. Had his cord wrapped or had he been much bigger, a fast, violent delivery could have seriously hurt him. I really believe God created him just the way he needed to be for this delivery. Only He could know how events would play out. I am so thankful for that! I trust that our choice to deliver at home is part of His plan and I feel lead to do it.

Thanks for reading!

New Year, new baby

Well, I finally told everyone that I am pregnant. We told our children on Christmas and they were all very excited. We told everyone else on New Years Day. Our announcement was met with the usual "Congratulations", and " Don't you know what causes that (har, har, har)". My mother's response was the same as the last 3: "Oh, that's interesting". Its pretty discouraging when your own mother can't be happy for you that your family is growing. I get so sick of people assuming that because they couldn't possibly want anymore children, then you shouldn't either! Even if you tell them that you and your husband plan on having a large family, they still react poorly. People suck. Sorry, I have a little bit of a bad attitude right now.

Our decision to have this one at home is solid now. We are not telling anyone, not the OB, not our parents, not even our children. I think it will be easier for me to just do it and then share it. I do not feel like listening to anyone's opinion on why we should be at the hospital (even though 95% of the people on the earth were born at home!) or how we are putting everyone in danger (really? there is a 3 time increase in mother and infant mortality at the hospital!) I'm no dummy. I know that my body can do this, and has done it, and should be able to do it BETTER if I am comfortable and have no "help" (or rather, interference) of "trained hospital staff". Believe me, when you hear how #4 went, you will probably agree.

I have been reading, reading, reading and one interesting thing that I have discovered is that the hormone estrogen is responsible for women feeling contented and for the progress of labor. The level of this hormone drops when a women is in a situation that she is not in control of or feels dominated over or pressured to do things in a way that goes against her instinct. A drop in estrogen PREVENTS labor from progressing! Think about it - if you have a cat that is preparing to deliver her litter and someone moves her, it may stall or stop labor or lead to her delivering dead kittens! She no longer feels safe and that interrupts the natural labor process! It is the same with women in labor. If they do not feel safe or feel dominated and out of control (yes, labor cannot be "controlled" but most women do not feel worried because they understand that their body was made to do this) then labor may not start or progress as rapidly as it would under more soothing conditions, leading to all kinds of medical interventions that actually increase the risks of childbirth!

I am just past the middle mark of this pregnancy. My stress level is through the roof right now, mostly because our house is in the chaos of a remodel that has stalled. I will go to no more than 3 more appointments with doctors. Hopefully 2 more with my doctor and one with the OB surgeon who would perform a c-section if I needed one. That is my back up plan. It is less than 10 minutes to a hospital from here and 5 for the ambulance to get here. I have been through this enough to know when something is not right, and both my husband and I are reading emergency childbirth manuals in preparation. Hopefully our house will get set in order and be the peaceful place I need it to be before labor begins!

Birth of the 3rd son...

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...

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...

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!

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!

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!

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!