Milk Share

I just did something extremely gratifying and slightly out of character for me.  It's something that filled an empty place in my soul that I never knew was there.  One thing, however, that is not out of character for me is that I've always liked to help people, and this truly fulfilled my consistent overwhelming desire to help people in need. 

 

I donated my breast milk to a needy baby!

It wasn't at all as hard as I thought, either. Over the past almost 6 months of my daughter's life, I have pumped and collected bags and bags and bags of breast milk.  I pumped almost daily, gathering a good 6-8 ounces of milk per session.  I usually stored it in 3-4oz portions (good serving size for baby), so the amount of little baggies in our freezer multiplied quickly. She hardly every needed to use any of it, since I'm a breastfeeding stay-at-home mom, and therefore always handy if she needs to eat!  The only time I ever fed her a bottle was either when she was being babysat at my mom's house and needed to eat when I wasn't there (which only ever happened like 3 times total) and at night when my breasts were so full, I had to express them both at once, so I'd pump and my husband would feed her a bottle if she woke up.  That happened regularly for quite some time, and pretty soon I discovered that I was making twice as much milk than my baby needed!  

By November, the freezer was bulging with frozen breast milk!  We could hardly fit any of our own food in, so I knew we had to do something.  Luckily, around that same time, my cousin came to visit who had two daughters of her own, ages 3 & 1.  She came with a bit of priceless info, introducing me to the website: MilkShare.  I was surprised you don't have to be tested for a billion diseases, be free of medications and have your milk sent in to a lab for more testing & pasteurization before you can be approved for breast milk donation.  This website has nothing to do with your milk at all, it is merely a place where donors and their potential recipients can meet and arrange to deliver/collect the goods.  It's like match.com, only for milk and babies!

My eyes have been opened to a new urgency in the country.  Breast milk is like gold when you are a mother who is unable, for whatever reason, to produce it (whether it be not enough or not at all).  It is EXTREMELY pricey to purchase donated breast milk from donor facilities/clinics, and most people just can't afford it.  MilkShare is free.  Parents from MilkShare are an inspiration to me.  What I love about all the parents from MilkShare is that they all believe the same, that breast milk is by far the best (or more accurately, the ONLY) choice when it comes to nourishing their infants.  Formula is crap, and they know it.  I know that if I were in their shoes, I would seek out the same for my baby.  

As a matter of fact, I thought long and hard about that very thing back when I was sure the only way I would become a mother was by adoption.  One thing was always for sure, formula was out of the question.  I wanted to breastfeed my baby, and two of the things I looked into were medically induced lactation and breast milk donation.  I always thought I'd come off as kind of a snob if that ever got out, but after becoming pregnant and attending birthing classes and getting swarms of infant reading materials, I was glad to hear that most doctors believe formula should only be used as a last resort, in an emergency situation when breast milk cannot be obtained.  It's nice to see so many other people at MilkShare caring that much about their baby's health to take the time to think for themselves and educate themselves about it instead of taking the easy way out with formula.

Posting my ad for free milk felt rather strange to do, by the way, but not even a day went by before I had a response from an eager milk-less mom who lived 5 hours away from us!  She had a preterm baby girl and was unable to continue pumping for her, as her milk supply had quickly diminished for no apparent reason, and her daughter could not tolerate formula.  So she and her husband were desperate.  Mike and I quickly made plans to meet them, and decided to drive an hour and a half to meet part way at a rest area and do the transfer.  We filled up our entire big cooler with the bags of milk, and I sure wish I had thought to take a picture of it, because it was funny.  Good thing it's winter, because that's a long trip for frozen milk!  It was a wonderful experience because they were so nice and soooo grateful.

So, the Christmas spirit is alive in me now that I've accomplished that very self-less deed of providing healthy breast milk to a needy little baby girl named Tala.  It feels great to help someone else after so many, many years of having to rely on other people to help us.  I can't even begin to tell you how much it means to be able to "give back".  I think it's helped me grow as a human being, become more balanced in my sanity, if you will.  Considering I've spent the majority of my adult life being a bitter selfish cave-dweller, this is big for me.  I have actually extended my heart beyond the boundaries of my home and into that of a stranger's child.  This one's for little Tala.  I wish her all the best of luck in her future! :)

I love being a mommy

I love being a mommy!  Nobody ever said it would be easy, and I never thought it would.  It's a good thing I thought that, too, because it isn't easy.  But in comparison to the struggles of being an outcast infertile couple, I just have to say that being a parent is the best thing that has ever happened to me!

Being a mommy is truly hard work.  I can't even pretend that it's a breeze, and I'm in absolute bliss 24/7, because it's not, and I'm definitely not.  But, to have these kinds daily struggles instead of the ones no one understands is like an answer to prayer!  I absolutely love that my current day hardships & dilemmas consist of the following:

-Getting low on funds or going overdraft because of the outrageous cost of diapers.

-Not having enough room in our tiny house for our stuff because we had to make room for our baby.

-Having to do laundry on a daily basis because of how much babies spit-up or leak on everything.

-Never having any time to do anything (including taking a shower) because the baby demands attention.

-Having to spend 30-45 minutes getting ready to leave if ever we plan to go anywhere with the baby.

-Leaking breastmilk all over my clothes & bed because I had a baby.

-Continuously having to buy expensive nursing pads to contain the milk leaks, only to discover that they shifted in my bra and caused leaks anyway.

-Lingering pelvic pain & weak pelvic muscles from labor & delivery.

-Worrying about our living situation because of the fact that we have a baby that will soon be crawling all over the floor, and we don't want her to get slivers in her hands & knees or worse.

-Having to time our daily activities & outings perfectly with baby's feeding/sleeping schedule in order to maintain sanity and happiness with her--and then discovering that it didn't work anyway.

-Waking up at 4am with engorged breasts and not knowing whether or not to breastfeed or pump and feed baby a bottle, because baby will wake up any minute hungry.

-Having to drag myself out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to change & feed my baby.

-Feeling exhausted constantly because I don't sleep enough with the baby.

-Knowing that my house & yard is a complete mess, but I don't have time to clean it because of the baby.

-Playing video games is out of the question, and movies take like 3 hours instead of 1 to watch because of how much we have to pause to feed/change/check or comfort the baby--then sometimes we just never finish them at all.

-Free time is a thing of the past.

-Writing blogs takes days instead of minutes!

But you know what?  I love it!  Just like all the difficulties of pregnancy, I am so happy that these are my problems now instead of all that infertility crap.  We're going broke, and once again god knows if my husband is going to have a job next year, and we haven't a clue where we're going to be living, but who cares?  Cause I have a baby, and I love her, and that's all that matters to me.

What to do with our Frozen Embryos

A certified envelope came in the mail yesterday from our fertility clinic.  And here I had assumed that our business with them was long finished.  I hadn't forgotten about our frozen embryos, but thought that since July 2011 had come and gone (1 year since our IVF treatment), our contract to cryopreserve them for a year had ended and they had most certainly disposed of them already, which made me really sad to think about.  How wrong I was.  The clinic wants to know what we intend on doing with our 5 remaining frozen embryos.  They say we have 4 options to chose from, and 30 days to decide and respond--before they do what, I don't know.  Maybe the embryos will self destruct or something?

Our options are as follows:

-Continue storage for one additional year at the rate of $1500.00, after which time you will need to make arrangements for long term storage through an outside agency.

-Dispose of your embryos (We will need your signed & notarized consent before proceeding)

-Transfer your embryos to an outside agency.

-Donate to Science.

So, here's our dilemma.  Since we miraculously conceived a baby while making plans to use those frozen embryos for another IVF round, both of us immediately wished a 5th option was available to donate to another infertile couple.  We've looked it up and although it is a more or less new idea, it does exist, and it comes in two forms.  One is called Embryo Donation, which is simply an anonymous donation to infertile couples, all parental rights to the embryos are waved.  The other is unofficially called Embryo Adoption, which is basically the same thing except that you get to chose the recipient couple that you want to "adopt" your embryos, and then chose the level of "adoption" you are comfortable with, just as in a legal adoption (closed, semi or open).  The reason that "embryo adoption" is not a legal term is because right now, the only thing you can adopt are children who have already been born.  Besides, once a woman is impregnated with the embryos, they belong to her.  She will not have to legally adopt them once she gives birth because they came from her body.  It's like in a surrogate mother's case, even though she carries and gives birth to a baby that is not genetically hers in any way, it is automatically assumed hers at birth and the biological parents must actually legally adopt the baby back in order for it to belong to them again.

Anyway, it's hard to think about what to do with the embryos.  Even though your body goes through disposing of genetic material monthly (and a lot more often for men), this seems different somehow because of the fact that they are actual embryos (little fetuses), not just separate eggs or sperm.  They are actual babies!  Now for those anti-abortionists, the answer is simple; keep storing the embryos, no matter what the cost.  Mike & I are not total pro-live activists or anything, but we sure do have a conscience about it.  If given the choice without consequence, there is no question we would keep them forever.  But there are realities to face. Fact of the matter is, when we were undergoing IVF, we had to sign a contract that said we would consider "selective reduction" for the safety and health of me and my remaining babies if I so happened to become pregnant with more than 3 babies.  Selective reduction, in case you haven't guessed, is just a fancy term for abortion of multiple fetuses.  In my head, I decided to just stash that away for when I was actually faced with that situation, because no way could I know what to do until then. 

So other than the emotional connection to these embryos that makes this such a hard thing to deal with, we have the financial side of it.  It won't be too soon before we forget how much it cost us to go through IVF, and the fact that we had remaining embryos was our ticket to getting up to 5 more IVF treatments at a discounted price.  Because doing a frozen embryo transfer is probably a quarter the cost of an entire IVF cycle.  Should we discover that our daughter was a fluke and we are still unable to get pregnant on our own without help, it would be great to know we still have those 5 embryos waiting.  

However, $1500 is a crap load of money (even though that is still far less to pay than an entire new IVF cycle), we still can't afford it.  The best thing we can think of right now--because we can't bring ourselves to just dispose of that much money (especially since our IVF was unsuccessful, and we'd like to think a future one will actually work and pay off)--is to research other cryopreservation banks to see if the cost is less than $1500 bucks a year!  If so, we can transfer them and keep saving for another year when we can once again consider all these options... 

I'm telling you, it's hard.  I've been having a tough enough time trying to figure out what to do with all my frozen pumped breast milk!  I mean, I don't want to waste it, but when am I ever going to use it?  My baby gets all she needs directly from the breast.  Oh well, that's a topic for another time I guess...

My Fear of Vaccinating Baby

Well, my daughter is 2 months old already, and today was the day for her first vaccines!  I am scared...

Before you assume I'm one of those anti-vaccine extremists, be assured I am not.  However, neither am I an all out pro-vaccine activist or one of the many blind followers of them.  I find that I fall somewhere in the middle in the cautious parent category, I suppose. I try to educate myself in all things at least as much as I can, and when it comes to people jabbing my baby daughter with needles filled with diseases (dead or alive), you can bet I'm gonna do my research!

Immunizations have always been scary to me, and not always for the same reason, but when you look at the nature of what they are, it really ties it in to the same perspective.  When I was 6 years old, I can still remember getting my immunizations for school.  I remember the huge needle going into my arm, I remember crying, and then I can remember the little round band-aid the nurse put on me that she drew a smiley face on.  It was scary back then because my young mind knew there was something very unnatural about stabbing people with needles.  Today, my more developed mind knows I was right way back then, and still agrees.  But now I know the reasons behind immunizations, and understand why we do them.

My mother caught the devastating Polio virus when she was all of 4 years old.  Though she was lucky enough to have survived it, she has been crippled ever since, especially now that she is in her 60's and experiencing what all Polio survivors know as Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS), or a return of their childhood Polio symptoms.  My mom now has to walk with a cane or walker and use a wheelchair when she needs to get somewhere that is too far to walk, and she is plagued with chronic fatigue and weak muscles.  Unfortunately, it will never get better for her as she ages, only worse.  So, it was a blessing in her eyes that the Polio vaccine was developed.  That way, she could be assured that her children would be spared such a devastating and often fatal disease.

There's another side to vaccines, though.  A scary, unknown side that makes many people weary of them nowadays.  The fear is that they could be the cause of any number of serious health conditions that plague the population today.  But how would we know?  How could we know unless science proved it?  The fact is, no one has proved anything, so all we can do is trust the doctor.  It is terrifying to think that I could unknowingly be injecting my daughter with something that could potentially harm her health.  But, on the other hand, no one wants their child to catch the horrible diseases that vaccines prevent.  And one thing's for sure, I'm not blind to the fact that vaccines definitely prevent diseases.

Though I am not against children receiving immunizations, when my daughter was born, we were asked whether or not we wanted her to receive the routine Hep B vaccine before she left the hospital, and we declined.  They didn't ask why, but for the benefit of this blog, I will tell you we did so for several reasons.  First of all, what kind of message are we giving our brand new baby by inflicting instant pain on them?  Welcome to the world, baby!  Don't worry, we're you're Mommy & Daddy and we're going to protect you--JAB!!! Trust me, if I'd had any control over my baby getting the PKU test and random blood sugar tests (both of which require pricking of their tiny newborn feet to get blood) I would have declined that too.  And yes, if my baby was a boy, we would have declined circumcision for that same reason (among others, but that's another story). The second reason we opted not to get the Hep B vaccine at birth is because what newborn infant's immune system is so well developed that they can immediately receive a fat dose of disease to fight off? Especially when you learn that a baby's immune system isn't even fully developed until sometime in their 2nd month!  

What happens when you get a vaccine is the same thing that happens whenever your body comes across bacteria, viruses or another foreign invader.  It fights to kill it, and while it is doing this, the immune system is compromised (or more understandably, preoccupied).  When your immune system is compromised, that's when you get sick.  So, I wasn't all that keen on making my baby sick the second she made her debut.  And considering (reason #3) what the Hep B vaccine actually is (a sexually transmitted disease) gave me confidence that she wouldn't likely be catching it in her infancy anyway, so it was probably safe to wait.

My husband brought home several books on children vaccines to read before our baby was even born.  One of them I liked in particular because it was unbiased, siding on neither pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine.  Written by a doctor, it merely stated the facts. In explaining what the Hep B vaccine is for, I will quote him: 

"Hep B is a sexually transmitted virus that causes liver damage and sometimes liver failure.  It can be fatal.  Besides being transmitted through unprotected sex, hep B can also be passed on by the sharing of IV drug needles, the use of improperly sterilized tattoo needles, or an accidental stick with an infected needle.  So any baby who participates in one of the above-mentioned risky activities could catch hepatitis B." -Robert W. Sears, M.D. in The Vaccine Book

So there it is.  Those were our reasons not to vaccinate her at birth.  That didn't mean, however, that we were never going to give her the Hep B vaccine.  I am aware of it's severity.  If she were to catch it, it would be devastating, so that is the reason they offer it at birth.  Because if any mother had Hep B, she would almost certainly pass it on to her baby unless that baby was immediately immunized.  Since I know I don't have hep B, and have been vaccinated against it several times, I felt we were safe.

This morning, our poor little girl received 3 injections and 1 oral vaccine.  DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus & Pertussis), PCV13 (Pneumococcal Conjugate), HBV (Hepatitis B) & Rotavirus Vaccine.  She screamed her little lungs out and made Mommy & Daddy almost cry ourselves!  She was a brave little girl, though, because she stopped crying almost immediately after the nurse was done.  She did, however, become fussy after we brought her home, so as recommended by our pediatrician, we gave her baby Tylenol for pain/fever that could develop following the vaccines.  She has been fussy and quite sleepy all day so far.  A new feeling I hadn't felt before for my little girl has emerged.  It's one of empathy and protectiveness and makes me love her even more.  What all this really boils down to is that I just don't want anything to hurt my little girl.  For sure, this experience has brought me closer to my baby and showed me that I have what it takes to be her mommy.  This was only my first experience with her getting hurt and not feeling well.  There will be many more in the course of her childhood, and I know now that I'll handle it.

Sleepless For Seattle

Maybe it's because I was born there, or maybe because I spent nearly my whole adolescence there, it's where I consider I actually "grew up", transitioning from a child to an adult.  I don't know, but what I do know is that my heart belongs in Seattle.  I like to say it's the atmosphere of the entire Puget Sound area that makes me long to be there.  Tall pine trees and misty rain scented air haunt my dreams.  I know that's when I'm overdue for a visit.

Mike & I never thought we'd end up here in Eastern Washington.  It's strange how lives work themselves out, isn't it?  Not only were we married here, but somehow Mike landed a job here that would ultimately save our lives as we knew it.  Then, miracle of miracles occurred and we ended up having a baby here!  We have been here almost 6 years already--longer than we've been anywhere else in our lives together, and the funny thing is, we never intended on staying this long.  The plan was always to work a while, get back on our feet and then go back to Seattle again to settle in for the long haul.  

When we first met, Michael was smitten with Seattle, since it was the city where he first met me and so associated me with.  It wasn't long after we were engaged that we felt we should move there where we would have children and make it our home.  Easier said than done, however, because sadly my husband lost his really great job in LA and we were forced to leave.  I quit school and we packed up our things and drove to my parent's new place in Idaho where they had ironically only just moved to from Seattle.  My grandmother lived in Idaho, so my parents figured after all their kids left, they should leave too.  We spent the next year & a half living there with them.  It was then that we were married.  A year after our wedding, we decided to make the move to Seattle.  Mike accepted a job at the library there in Snohomish county and I enrolled into school again.  We thought we could make it, but fate had other plans.  It was our infertility that failed us.  That was where we first began treatment and realized it was not covered under health insurance only after we had gotten the bill.  We quit treatment, but the bills didn't go away.  We still owed them in a big way, and they eventually drove us into the ground in debt and we had to find a way out.  The job in Eastern WA was that answer to our pleas.  It was too good to turn down, and we knew it would save us from a lifetime of debt and wars and consolidation programs, so we moved, leaving our beloved Seattle behind us.  

Six long years and one daughter later, we are aching to go back.  There are plenty of reasons we've felt this push to move again, one of which is Mike's job.  Over the years it has become exactly what we had hoped it wouldn't be when we moved here.  It has lost it's stability.  City budget cuts have more than once threatened his job to the point that last year they actually went as far as to inform him that come January, he wouldn't have his job anymore!  The only thing that saved it was the fact that one of his coworkers decided to take her retirement at the end of the year, granting her position to Mike when she left.  So, for the time being, he is still there, but for how long, we don't know.  You would think that plenty of reason to pick up and leave, but there are other things that are keeping us from jumping up and moving so abruptly.  What makes this such a hard decision is that during the last 6 years, my parents decided to move from Idaho to a little town in Oregon, just 20 minutes from here so that they could be close to us as well as my grandparents who live nearby, too.  It's the fact that we just had a baby that makes me feel so sentimental about being near them.  I know my parents (especially my mom) want to be close to their grandchildren, and I want that too.  It's not just that they are a great place to turn to when we need a babysitter or something, but the fact that they are nearby means they get to watch them grow up and share in their lives so much more than if we were living far away.  I guess you could call me selfish for wanting all my family to move back to Seattle too so that I could stop feeling guilty about moving there.

It's not just my family that stops us, though.  It's our daughter.  We felt that we should wait at least a year after her birth before moving anywhere out of town because, first, we want her to have stable health insurance to get her through her first year since that is the most frequent doctor visited year of a child's life.  Second, we just feel that it would be cruel to move her away from her grandparents right now, the second after she is born.  They've waited all these long years right along with us, and that just wouldn't be fair.  Lastly, I just can't see us jumping the gun and moving back to Seattle just because we want to so bad.  We have to be adult about this and think realistically about our chances of survival so that we don't fall into the same financial trap as before.  Seattle is a beautiful and bountiful city, but it is also more expensive than Eastern WA.  Regardless if we buy a house or rent, we'll be paying more than what we pay now, and although we're doing okay, we are already barely scraping by these days. 

So, there is a goal in all this nonsense.  That is to make Seattle our home after a year or two.  It of course depends on the circumstances that befall us, but if all goes as planned, perhaps we'll be in the emerald city by the time our daughter is a toddler.  It's scary, exciting, bittersweet, and thrilling all at once to think of making that change.  I'll miss my parents, I'll miss Andy's Market where I buy most of my veggie meats and fresh local vegetables.  I'll even miss the real seasons of Eastern WA, like sweltering summers, blustery falls, and crunchy frozen winters (spring here is moist and drippy like every season in Seattle, so I won't miss that)!  But it seems worth it all to have the things we've been longing for since we moved away.  These small towns aren't at all as vibrant as life is on the west side.  We love to be out and about, experiencing the world and living life to the fullest.  Seattle has it all for us.  It's full of life and things to do.  This valley is a retirement town.  Seattle is full of young people our age, giving us a greater potential to have friends.  I've never not wanted to live there, and I miss it everyday.  Now the thought of living there is even greater because of my daughter.  I want nothing more than for her to grow up in a place as wonderful as that.  The only thing that would perfect that life would be to have my family close by again.

Untold Postpartum Pains

Warning: This post contains some fairly graphic descriptions about my most private areas, so if you don't wish to know about these things, you might not want to read the following...

Postpartum is the most mysterious time in a woman's life.  Why?  Because before the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" came out, no one knew what to expect.  Even if, like me, you read that book cover to cover when you were pregnant, you might still not know what to expect postpartum, even though there is a fairly thorough (or so you thought) postpartum chapter at the end!

Here's what I knew:  I knew there would be a huge "period" for weeks after.  I'd been warned of that.  And I wasn't dumb enough to think labor & delivery would leave me feeling like a million bucks.  I expected there to be some degree of discomfort post-birth, but what it would actually feel like, and how long it would last, I had no clue.  Then I read about things that didn't actually happen to me at all, like having all my hair fall out, or being horribly constipated postpartum. 

Here's what actually happened:  Postpartum troubles aren't just caused by lack of sleep, 2am feedings and diaper changes.  In fact, those were the least of our problems!  What wears you out is not those continuous actions, but the fact that you cannot schedule any of them.  They will try to tell you in the hospital that baby eats every 2-3 hours, when in reality baby eats when baby wants, whether that be every 3 hours or every 15 minutes!  And when baby poops and you change her diaper, you don't expect that she'll poop again immediately after you're done.  Then you have to change her all over again before you've even left the changing table.  Babies cry, everyone knows that,  but exactly how frequently they cry, and for how long, and what reason, no one prepares you for.  These are what become so tiring about newborns.  You're on their schedule, not the other way around, and you quickly find that you have no time to do anything for yourself, and if you do, you don't ever get a chance to finish it, whether that be lunch, writing a blog or just getting dressed in the morning (or afternoon)!

Starting immediately after the delivery of my daughter, the postpartum weirdness began.  The feeling I felt as she came out was one I could never describe, so I'll just say it left me in awe, with an overall feeling of complete relief.  Then, though I had known this could happen, and desperately hoped it wouldn't, during Sabina's delivery, I tore.  The doctor said it was about a 2nd degree tear, and stitched me up with dissolvable stitches. Only the beginning of a difficult 3 week struggle with the kind of pain most people cringe at the thought of.  I'm not saying I didn't expect that to hurt, but what came with it made it just the icing on the cake.

What accompanied the pain of my delivery tear was the pain of the delivery it's self.  I never knew how it would leave me feeling, and no one really quite described it to me either.  So, here's my best description:  I felt like someone had shoved a watermelon through my birth canal.  My pelvis felt pushed out of proportion, almost broken, and all my muscles were over stretched and extremely sore.  What happens is you stumble when you try to walk for the first time.  Think of a Barbie doll with her legs slightly pulled out of their sockets.  Then, because you pushed so much and so hard that when you try to sit, your insides still feel like they are being pushed out and it hurts.  Really bad.

If you had an epidural like me, you will also experience some kind of numbness lingering a few hours after your delivery, and this means you will need help to the bathroom until you are steady enough to go on your own.  I know every woman is different, but for me, my left leg was numb well into the following day and I couldn't walk.  I actually fell when I tried to stand on the day after my delivery because my leg still didn't work.  

The act of going to the bathroom is also a huge discomfort of postpartum.  I don't mean being constipated either, because I was routinely prescribed a stool softener after delivery.  The discomfort came from the painful stitches and continuing uterine contractions (yes, continuing contractions) that cause the "lochia' or postpartum bleeding as the uterus sheds the remnants of the placenta over several weeks.  Seeing so much blood, even as a women who should by all respects be used to it, is still slightly disturbing, and seems to add to the pain you are already feeling.  The stitches in your v-hole are overwhelmingly sore, and the hospital has a routine set up for you to take care of it and help it heal.  You are given a small squeezy bottle to fill with warm water and take into the bathroom each time you go so that you can squirt your perineum as you pee to lessen the burn.  Afterwards, you gently pat dry--not wipe, because you will probably die from pain if you tried.  Next, dab witch hazel pads to the sore area and then prepare your surprisingly enormous pad in the huge disposable stretchy-gauze underwear by spraying it with pain spray and then shoving a big disposable ice pack between your legs with a couple of witch hazel pads on it before you waddle back to bed.  Ouch.  Then you get to do that all again in another hour.  Expect that you will be taking home a huge bag of supplies for your huge period when you go home, because yes, you will be continuously bleeding and feeling tortured by the pain for at least another three weeks or more.  I am currently in week 5 postpartum and the pain has only recently begun to replace it's self with a mixture of itching and pain instead, and left me with a small lump where the stitches were that I'm wondering about.  Is that going to be permanent?  And how is that going to feel once I become intimate again?  Hey, you know you would wonder that too!

After the delivery, you are given written instructions on how to care for yourself postpartum.  "Pelvic rest" is one of them.  This means no tampons and no sex for at least 6 weeks.  No one explained why you couldn't do these things, so I looked it up and found out it's so your uterus doesn't become infected as it recovers from the delivery.  Among the other instructions was not to lift anything heavier than your baby and not to over-do it when getting back to your regular activities so that you don't cause more bleeding than you're already dealing with.  

The pains of postpartum are there, regardless of what people tell you that you will forget them once you see that beautiful baby's face.  It helps to have your mind on something else besides yourself, of course, but sometimes it is truly overwhelming because while you are thrilled with the birth of your baby, you are also in great need of recovery and rest, neither of which your beautiful baby allows!  

The absolute biggest challenge I've had with postpartum life absolutely has to be breastfeeding!  Never did I imagine how hard it would be.  I mean, of all the things to find difficult after the delivery of my baby, why should breastfeeding be the most difficult? Isn't it the most natural of all feeding methods? I daydreamed about the ease of breastfeeding, and the awesome bonding time I'd be getting with my baby.  I felt proud of my decision to give her the best and most natural start in her little life.  I wasn't totally ignorant to challenge.  I knew it would take some learning, but who knew I'd still be going at it 5 weeks after her birth? I mean we went over some of the difficulties of breastfeeding in the birthing class my husband & I attended, but for some reason, I was under the impression that these were few and far between and wouldn't happen to me.  I wish I could go back and slap myself.  What was I thinking?  Of course it would happen to me!  Who did I think I was?!

Breastfeeding all began with the challenge that my nipples are slightly on the short side.  There are reportedly breastfeeding issues with women who have flat or inverted nipples, and I fell right on the border line of that category.  Every single nurse and CNA assigned to me during my 3 day hospital stay postpartum struggled with helping me achieve success in breastfeeding, and though many came close, none of them actually succeeded.  My success came from the lactation specialist who introduced me to my step-stool to success: the nipple shield.  This is a piece of silicon shaped like an erect nipple that you cup over your own nipple so that the baby has something to latch onto.  In addition to helping your baby latch on, it also helps draw your nipple out farther so that eventually, the baby can latch directly to your breast without the shield.  Great concept, I'll admit, and a god-send when you are constantly trying and failing to get your baby to latch.  More and more stress piles onto your shoulders and you start to feel guilty that you can't provide even the few drops of essential colostrum that the baby needs as she wails and cries pitifully in your helpless arms.  Pretty soon you break down too.

No sooner had we returned home did I begin to show signs of a new problem.  Engorgement had set in, as it is said to do on about day 3 postpartum, and it is a painful day or two you must go through as your milk comes in and your breasts flood with blood and become bigger than you had ever imagined possible.  It was during this time that I developed a breast infection, mastitis.  I was sitting down to dinner when a sudden onset of chills and hot and cold feeling came over me.  I could barely eat before finally going to bed where my husband took my temp and found it was 100 degrees!  We called the hospital and got a prescription to take an antibiotic, but this went on for the next 3 days with my temp going back up to 101 every time the medication wore off.  Finally the doctor got me to take an extra tylenol along with my ibuprofen to keep the temperature stable so I could function to take care of my baby.  It almost landed me back in the hospital, but thankfully the extra dost of fever meds did the trick and my infection went away.  I sadly lost the milk production in my right (infected) breast during the infection, but it eventually came back and my left breast was finally relieved of it's over-time.

The next struggle was weaning Sabina off the nipple shield as it was starting to become more pain than it was worth, and you are supposed to only use it temporarily.  For 3 weeks, I had dutifully tried offering her the breast before the shield and she had refused every time, quickly throwing a baby tantrum (which, regardless of baby's size, are not tiny in the least)!  The lactation specialist told me I'd be tossing out the shields after a week.  It took me three, but with perseverance we did it!  Of course that didn't mean it wasn't still hard to get her to latch on to my breast.  It still took something like 20 minutes to get her nursing, but at least she was refusing the nipple shield!  After so much use, it was getting painful for me.  It felt as though she was only sucking on the nipple it's self instead of getting the whole areola in her mouth, like she's supposed to.

Unfortunately, this was actually the start of an entirely new breastfeeding problem!  I thought she was just a vicious sucker, angry that latching on always took so long, she'd grip my nipple with such vigor I thought she was going to chomp it off.  It just kept getting worse, so finally we sought out help once again from my trusty lactation specialist.  Lo and behold, it was not Sabina's fault at all.  She's mastered her breastfeeding role and latching on perfectly, as it turns out!  However, I have a new breast infection.  This time, it's a different kind.  One called "Thrush", a yeast infection of the nipple that can also infect the baby's mouth.  It, apparently, is a pain to get rid of and the remedy is often a prescription of an oral drug called Diflucan, which I've been allergic to for the past 10 years.  Naturally, it's the only drug I've ever found myself to be allergic to, as well.  The other option is a prescription anti-fungal nipple cream which I'm now using that you must apply 3-4x daily.  But I must continue to breastfeed, and if baby comes down with the infection too, she must also be treated.  Just to be on the safe side, since this happened over the weekend (of course) we are calling her doctor on Monday to see if there is anything we need to do for her. 

So, it's been a month since I delivered my sweet little baby girl.  She is growing, although not too quickly.  She melts our hearts regardless of how hard this parenting thing is.  The bottom line is, my postpartum pains are still very much alive.  I'm still bleeding, the perineum pain is still present whenever I sit down or sit too long.  We're both exhausted from sleep deprivation and nights of calming our colicky baby (this deserves a blog post all it's own)!  So next time a women gets postpartum depression or a case of the baby blues, don't say "how could she be so depressed when she just had that precious little baby?!" There is no doubt in my mind how a woman could feel that way postpartum.  Given all she goes through, it's a wonder she can remain sane at all!  So, there it is.  I tried to be as open and honest as I could about the mysteries of postpartum life.  If I forgot anything, it's because of it!

Independence Day

It was 2 o'clock in the morning on the 4th of July when I awoke with aching contractions.  They didn't feel like the Braxton Hicks contractions I'd been having lately.  These were different and I knew right away that it meant something.  Perhaps I was progressing now a little further than the 1cm the doctor had noted I'd dilated to at my last appointment that past Friday on the 1st.  It was a little exciting, but I didn't think it could mean any more than that.  I was positive this baby would be late.  I was a late baby myself and I figured it being my first, that she would probably take after me.

Just the day before, my in-laws flew in from California to spend a week with us, hoping to catch the birth while they were here, of course.  The baby wasn't even due until July 8th, so I thought they were coming too early and didn't think they would make it.  We all went out to dinner to a Thai restaurant the evening they got here.  I didn't realize that would be the last time I'd eat for a good 24 hours or more!  While Mike's parents went back to their hotel to sleep, his brother and him decided to go see a movie while I stayed behind.  I was exhausted after that long day of getting ready for them to come.  I had done nothing but laundry all day long, cleaning house, folding and putting away baby clothes in the nursery that were piled everywhere.  I didn't want the in-laws thinking we were unprepared when our baby was due any day.  It was the night before the 4th and the neighborhood was alive with fireworks whistling, snapping & booming late into the night.  I was having some fairly tight contractions, too, though they were more of the same Braxton Hicks ones I'd been having a lot of, so I didn't think much of them and got myself a cup of raspberry leaf "mother-to-be" tea while I went online for a bit and then decided to head to bed around 10:30ish.  

The guys didn't get home until after midnight, and I was asleep by then.  It wasn't until close to 2am that I awoke with the painful contractions.  They felt exactly like menstrual cramps, and only got more intense as the night went on.  I tried to wake up Mike after I had been feeling them occur pretty regularly several times in a row, and he just turned over muttering "sorry" as he drifted right back to sleep, thinking I was just waking him up because he was snoring.  It was difficult, but I finally got him awake enough to inform him that I was having some pretty intense contractions and that we should count them.  In our birthing class, we were informed that when your contractions are 5 minutes apart for an hour, you should go to the hospital.  Well, mine were pretty irregular, but still frequent until about 3am.  So, we kept counting them and discovered that by 4am, I'd been having the contractions every 5 minutes for a full hour, but for some reason I wasn't convinced this meant I was in labor, so I continued to count them for another hour just to be sure.  By 5am, they were still 5 minutes apart, sometimes less.  I got up to use the bathroom and that's when I convinced myself something was up because of the streaks of blood I discovered--another clue to labor we'd learned in the class to watch for.  With a rush of adrenaline, I walked back into the bedroom to my husband and told him ever so calmly that it was show time.  

I have to give Mike some credit.  He was way calmer about all this than I ever thought he'd be.  As if he'd done it a million times, he nodded, got up and gave the hospital a call while I jumped in the shower.  I'd be darned if I was going to go into labor with un-shaved legs!  Mike's brother was asleep on the couch when we left for the hospital.  We informed him we'd likely be back soon, since if I wasn't actually in labor, or not advanced enough, we'd be sent home.  I was certain this would be the case and expected to be back in time to start making the food for the 4th of July BBQ we were going to host in our yard that day. But I called my mom anyway to inform her we were headed to the hospital just in case.

At the hospital, the nurse on duty checked my cervix and put me on the monitor to see if I was in true labor or not.  I was still only 1cm dilated and 30% effaced, but my contractions were now just 2 minutes apart.  She was positive I was definitely in labor so she wasn't going to send me home until the doctor came to check me.  He didn't come until closer to 9am. I was able to walk the halls with Mike to try and bring on further dilation and effacement, and then spend some relaxing time in the birthing suite jacuzzi, which was wonderful.  I would have spent the whole time in there if I didn't turn into a prune!  Of course our families showed up fairly early that morning and hung out in the family waiting area right outside the suite all day.  

When the doctor finally came to check me after several hours, he found I was just 1.5cm.  It was then brought to my attention that I could easily carry on like this, unchanged, for a good 20+ hours, as it was not uncommon for first deliveries to be so prolonged.  Given the fact that I had already labored for so many hours without much progress, he told me I had a choice to let him break my water to help me progress faster, or just continue on as I was and see what happens.  Scared that I was going to labor unchanged for another 20 hours, I accepted his suggestion to break my water, and he did it.  It wasn't painful in the least, just slightly uncomfortable with him shoving his hand up inside me for a moment, then a gush of warm and continuously leaky fluid.  I was later told that just after this, the doctor went outside the room and informed our family that we'd definitely have a baby by dinner time that night!

Hour after hour, they checked my progress, only to find it relatively unchanged.  I was definitely experiencing more intense contractions as the day went on, but nothing I did seemed to be helping.  I walked and walked with Mike out in the hallway, but the contractions were so difficult to get through, I wanted to fall on the floor to finish them, so we went back to the suite and I tried the birthing ball.  What I found interesting was that the nurses assigned to me didn't help me labor at all.  They left that job to my "birthing coach", Mike.  If I needed something, they'd get it for me, but they didn't help me.  My mom came in several times to be with me when Mike needed a break to eat or get a little nap.  It was very strange how fast the hours went by.  When 1pm rolled around, I was checked again and left completely discouraged to find I had only dilated to 2cm in a near 12 hour period!  At this point, my doctor ordered that the nurse start me on Pitocin to speed up my contractions and get me dilating.  Knowing this would cause more intense pain, I finally broke down and decided to accept the epidural my nurse had been pushing on me for the last several hours.  She told me that since I was so tired and had been up all night, the epidural would help me get some much needed rest for the delivery and I could progress faster if I was relaxed.  I was so tired, and I believed her.  I was really having trouble relaxing through the contractions as they seemingly took over my entire body.  Once I accepted the epidural and had resorted to the idea that I would soon be pain free, we were informed that the anesthesiologist who could administer it was currently in surgery doing a c-section on another patient and I would have to wait for another hour or so before he could come!  I honestly don't know where I found the strength to do it, but I did--probably because there was really no other choice.  I was now in bed, being constantly monitored and just curled up on my side, closed my eyes and tried to shut out the rest of the world until he got here.

Before Epidural

After Epidural

After the anesthesiologist finally came and administered the epidural into my spine, it was a whole different experience!  It was 2pm and I had been in labor for exactly 12 hours when he showed up.  It took a few minutes before it came, but sweet relief finally hit me and I felt like I could breathe normally again instead of using all the labor breathing techniques from the birthing class.  It was wonderful except for one tiny little thing: it only numbed one side of my body.  The other half was left only partially numbed, but I didn't complain.  All I needed was a little edge off and I could function.  With the relief, I was able to sleep some.  Even though I could still feel the contractions, the felt more like the practice contractions I'd been feeling over the past several weeks of pregnancy, and those were just tightenings of the uterus, nothing more.  Now, the hours went by much quicker, and every hour I was checked, I was a centimeter further dilated.  It was kinda funny how the centimeters matched the hour, too.  Like at 2pm, I was 2cm, etc.  It went on like that all the way until after 8pm when I started to feel a lot more pain on my right side that was suddenly unaffected by the epidural.  At that time, I had just about every kind of wire and tube hooked up to my body and I felt like I was in the ICU or something.  It was such a different picture of labor than the one I had imagined for so long.  The painful contractions were back, I was shaking uncontrollably and there was nothing we could do about it except move on because when they checked me, I was completely dilated!

When the nurse called the doctor and told me it was time to push, I was shocked.  Nothing prepared me for that moment.  I was resigning to the silent idea that I would probably end up in the operating room because of how long my labor was taking.  Once the water is broken, there is a 24 hour window to deliver, and doctors won't let you go any further without taking action to get the baby out safe before infection sets in.  But by some miracle, after 9 years of trying to conceive, 9 months of pregnancy and 19 hours of labor, I was actually at the end!  It was time to meet my baby!  I was thinking about all the birth stories I had watched on Discovery Health and TLC, etc, and could not believe that I had reached that point.  Nothing prepared me for the experience better than watching all those shows because they had taught me how exactly you are supposed to push during delivery.  My doctor and nurse were impressed that for a first timer, I was able to push so well and deliver so quickly.  From the time that I started pushing, I delivered in under 20 minutes, and it was surprisingly the easiest part of the whole 19 hour labor period!  Even though I was in intense pain (on my right side), pushing through it completely masked the pain.  The moment she came out, I'd like to note, was also incredible.  Not just because she was coming out, finally, but because the feeling I had when she did was one I'm sure I can't describe, but it was absolutely amazing!  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me and I could suddenly breathe again.  Perhaps it was because exactly that had just happened!  I was overjoyed and exhausted and completely awed all in one.  I'm not sure any moment in my life can top that feeling.  Even though the hospital staff, Mike and both our moms were there, to me, it was just me and this little tiny baby they just plopped onto my chest.  Everything else was just a blur.  

My daughter Sabina Grace was born at 9:05pm on the 4th of July, she was 19.5" & weighed 6lbs 1oz.  After the birth, we watched the city fireworks go off from our hospital room window.  It was literally the best day of my life.  Even after the heartache from years of trying to become a parent, then all the morning sickness, uncomfortableness & trials of pregnancy, and then hours of the most intense pain you've ever felt and will ever feel in your life, it's all worth it! And yes, I'm betting I would do it all again.

 

The End is Near...

...Or so they say.  Today is my 9th wedding anniversary, it's 90 degrees out, and I'm 9 months pregnant (38.5 weeks).  I still have several braxton hicks contractions daily, and last Friday at my prenatal exam, the doctor checked my cervix for the first time and told me I was dilating, but not much to measure, and my cervix was softening nicely.  Basically, things were falling into place, and I could have this baby any time!

I have to say I'm a little on the fence about how to feel.  I mean of course I'm completely anxious to deliver this baby.  I'm anxious to discover how I go into labor, if I go into labor, and how it goes, etc.  Then I am anxious to meet my daughter (if it's still a daughter!) and how I'll feel holding her and staring at her face for the first time.  All that is a given.  I know pregnancy ends and must end, but it suddenly seems like after all this time of anxiously awaiting the end, for some crazy reason I'm not ready for it to end yet.  Not only do we have a trillion and ten things to do still before we're considered "ready" for the baby, but there's something mental going on in my head about the whole being pregnant thing.  It's not because of the fact that people treat you better when you're pregnant (because they really do), or that my husband absolutely refuses to let me do any chores that might exert me.  It's really not that at all.  It's just that I really have found comfort in being pregnant, finally.  It took me the whole time, but now I love feeling the baby move inside me, knowing she's safe in there with me all the time.  I never in a zillion years thought I'd ever get to experience pregnancy at all, so now that I've gotten that privilege, I'm afraid for it to end.  I wonder if I'll ever get to do it again.  Will I have more kids, or will this be it?  How lucky can an infertile woman get?  At the beginning, being nothing but sick all the time, I wondered who in their right mind would ever want to be pregnant more than once!  But now at the end, I know why.  Because it's amazing to grow a little human being inside you, knowing that you created it and it is yours and no one can take it away from you.  Strangely, it's this fact that makes me so anxious to meet this little being I've been growing inside me for so many months.  

Just last week, my husband & I finally submitted our pre-admission paperwork to the hospital and took a private tour of the maternity floor with one of the nurses.  After hearing about my frequent contractions lately, she smiled at me and said "It won't be long!" 

Baby Showers Plus!

I am pregnant. I'm definitely feeling it now.  While before I had to remind myself not to overdo it because I'm pregnant, my body now reminds me quite loudly that certain things are too much for me to do.  I am tired, short of breath, heavy and my belly is tight as heck!  Everything I do causes braxton hicks contractions and the baby's head is smashing my bladder to the point where I actually wish I could have a catheter strapped to my leg because I always think I have to pee.  

This morning at my weekly prenatal appointment, the doctor exclaimed happily, "Well, you made it! You're full term!"  I am 37 weeks tomorrow, and apparently in the medical world, that is considered full term even though they'd rather you reach 40 weeks.  If I went into labor today, they wouldn't stop me, he said.  I was still thrilled to hear this news as I am still shocked I'm even pregnant.  To think I've actually managed to carry a baby to term already?  I can't put it into words.  The one thing I can put into words is the amount of stuff we still have left to accomplish before this baby is born!  It's all coming to a close now and I can hardly believe how little time is left.

June is the month for everything last minute baby.  Finishing the furniture, painting the nursery, turning in our pre-registration paperwork to the hospital, etc.  Finally we got our seat belts fixed last month in our Jeep that the dog ate!  That is what I call real progress.  At one of our childbirth classes we were asked to go around the room and mention something we'd done in preparation for the baby, and that's all we could say.  Everyone else was totally finished with their nurseries, etc.  We hadn't even started.  June 1st was our last class already.  We had a mini party with snacks, etc.  One of the girls who had attended came in bringing her newborn baby she'd just had and told us all how hard it was.  That was great.  The class, although a bit rushed, seemed to help us out somewhat in feeling prepared for labor and delivery and postpartum expectations.  We got a lot of reading material that we can refer to when we start to forget everything we learned--which I noticed is already happening.  Like what is effacement again?  I know it happens before dilation of the cervix, but uhhh, that's all I remember about that.

Moving right along.  The very next day, June 2nd, was a baby shower that Mike's co-workers threw for the both of us at the Library.  It was dubbed a "bring a book for baby" shower in which everyone gave us books, naturally.  Cute little kid books, of course, and then a few other random baby items tagged on.  They just had snacks and gifts because it only lasted an hour before they had to open the library and get back to work, but it was nice. I didn't know until a couple weeks prior that the library was planning this shower, but thought they would probably at least throw a little something together for Mike anyway.  I was surprised when I learned it was a shower for both of us.

For a few weeks, I'd known that someone was throwing me a surprise baby shower because my friend decided to come clean about it to me, knowing I was feeling slightly miffed that nobody I knew wanted to give us one even after all we'd been through to get pregnant in the first place.  She admitted only as much as the fact that someone was throwing me a shower, but I wasn't sure about who or the details of it.  One random day I came across the invitation at my grandma's house clipped plain as day to her refrigerator.  It had a big yellow ducky on it and said something about surprise baby shower.  That's when I stopped reading.  I knew it had to be for me.  I felt too guilty and decided I shouldn't spoil the surprise for myself any further.  But after that I started to wonder and got increasingly irritated that pretty much everyone I knew was trying to keep a secret from me and downright lying to me.  Then I decided that even though no one had ever tried to throw me any kind of surprise party before, that I didn't like surprises after all.  I guess I'm the type of person who likes to be involved in things, planning and contributing.  Plus, it's always great to know when events are happening so I can prepare for them accordingly.  This time, even though I finally admitted to people that I found out there was a shower, people still wouldn't tell me the details.  I thought what in the heck is the point of trying to keep a secret from me when I already know about it?  Now I was just getting irritated, then started to wonder if there was more to this shower than I thought.  What else were they trying to hide from me?  

Well, apparently there was a lot they were still trying to hide.  I later discovered that not only was my best friend behind it all, but my mom and even my husband were in on it too!  Thinking I was depressed that no one cared about us and didn't want to throw a celebration in honor of our crazy miracle pregnancy, my husband decided to try and get the hint out there in a really direct way that he wanted someone to throw me a baby shower.  Of course I had absolutely no idea he was doing this, and had I known, I might have tortured him, because as thoughtful as it is, it seemed a bit like begging for gifts on his part because really, I mean he's the dad!  

Anyway, the way it turned out was that my friend Martha drove into my driveway randomly on a Friday afternoon.  I was mowing the front lawn and stopped, shocked that it was my friend who had been telling me for weeks now that she couldn't come and was sad she would never be able to see me pregnant, etc, just trying to make me feel it.  Which of course I did.  After the initial shock of just seeing her show up at my house, she gave me a card that said "of course I'd throw you an f-ing baby shower!" I laughed hysterically as all the pieces of this mystery shower started falling into place.  

The shower was on Sunday, June 5th at the same park where my husband & I were married 9 years ago this month.  The last surprise was finding out who came.  Probably the most shocking was my aunt who'd flown down from Alaska.  She brought my grandma from Idaho with her.  Not all that many people came, but it was still fun.  All the food my friend brought with her for the party from Seattle was vegan, and I loved that fact.  Honestly, it was probably the most touching part of the whole party knowing that she had gone out of her way to do that just for me.  :)  Thanks, Martika!  I hope someday I get to do the same for you!

Major Redesign

Well, the house selling thing really isn't going as we'd hoped.  All this time our real estate lady told us "just wait til spring!"  Spring is here.  We've waited, and it's now the middle of May.  Not a single bite in this house since we put it on the market 4.5 months ago.  So, a new plan is in the works.  I still don't know how it will work, but it's all we can think of to do.  With our tax refund, we'd planned to get the cars fixed up; serviced, new tires and most importantly new back seat belts that our malamute, Haku, kindly chewed off both our cars when he was a hyper deranged pup plagued with the worst case of separation anxiety.  I think Mike nearly had him euthanized after that.  In fact, I'm still surprised today that he didn't.  Anyway, with this new plan, we're going to have to stretch our tax refund even further.

See, in order to fit us, and the baby into this house (not to mention along with 2 cats and a large dog), we need new furniture.  In getting this house ready to show, we got rid of over half of our stuff, including some old borrowed furniture that was too big for this tiny house anyway.  Our stuff is still packed up in boxes over at my grandparent's house waiting for us to get a new house.  But since that probably isn't going to happen, we've devised a plan that just may work in our favor for the time being.  

Task #1: eliminate the office!  Our 2nd bedroom has been our storage room & office since we moved in because this house lacks so much in storage space.  We've already gone through everything we stored in here 4 months ago and packed it over to my grandparent's.  Now, it's all about removing the computer and putting it somewhere else in the house so that this room will be all baby's.  When you have a house as small as this, you wouldn't be surprised how difficult this task really is.  So, in comes the devised plan of buying new furniture.  After much searching, we finally found a desk that was both compact and just as importantly economical to our budget.  It is our hope that it will fit into a small corner of our living room that is currently the home of a 4-shelf bookcase.  Of course some re-arranging of the living room furniture is once again in order, but we think we can do it with a bit of hard work.  Once that task is complete, this room will be empty and ready for us to redesign it into a nursery!

Task #2: Prepare the baby's room!  This is really the more fun tasks we get to do, even though it isn't in a new house.  I've already picked out the paint color to use and everything.  It's a pretty pale yellow called "morning sunlight".  I was determined to give our long awaited daughter a room dedicated especially to her and all of her belongings.  And actually, it was important to us that we do this so that we will be able to keep the cats out of her room, since our cats think everything is made especially for them--especially if it's new!  A nice new crib?!  Puuuurrfect new cat bed!  You catch my meaning.  So, as far as baby furnishings go, aside from the crib that we don't have yet, most of them are hand-me-downs.  I mentioned in a previous post that we are refinishing my mom's baby dresser that was made for her, which I also used when I was little.  We're planning on using it as a changing table as well, so we don't need another piece of furniture that we don't have room for.  Aside from that, I have a storage chest that I got when I was little that I'm also refinishing for her, and my grandparents are lending us their little cradle that my dad used when he was a baby and was passed down through many family members, including me when I was an infant.  The cradle, however, won't be in the baby's room.  It will have to be in ours, so that brings me to the next task....

Task #3: Rearranging OUR bedroom!  When babies are first born, it's recommended that you keep them with you at night at least for the first few months, if not longer.  So this is why bassinets and cradles and bedside sleepers are so common.  They are just tiny beds designed to fit where you need them, like in the parent's bedroom.  Well, they obviously haven't seen our bedroom!  Fitting anything in there is a challenge and a half, but one of the things we have to tackle in there is the fact that when we moved half our furniture out, we also got rid of our dresser that I was borrowing from my aunt.  It was a big old thing with one of those huge mirrors on top.  We were always slamming into it, but we needed it for all our clothes because the closet in there is about 2'x2' and barely fits Mike's work clothes all stuffed in--forget about mine!  So, we need a new dresser.  Preferably one that is taller than it is wide so we can utilize what little space we have in there.  For 4 months, I've been living out of a suitcase.  No kidding.  We have one skinny little 5 drawer dresser that we use to store our socks & underwear, and that's it.  I packed all my regular clothes away and put my maternity clothes into a suitcase which I now live out of. That needs to stop because I'm gonna need my other clothes back.  Besides, I'd really like to start living like I actually live here instead of like I'm just visiting!  Then, in order to fit the cradle in there, we're going to have to get rid of at least one of the nightstands, and shove our bed against the wall.  One thing I'm not sure of is whether or not we'll have room to keep that underwear dresser.  It might have to go too, and hopefully we can keep our clothes all in one.  One of my space saving ideas is to get a bed that has drawers underneath to store things.  That would be helpful, but then again, pricey.  So, we're still searching for the best way to go about doing task #3, but hopefully we find the answer soon because it's all driving me crazy.  Just so you know, nothing ever goes as planned.

First Childbirth Class

I'm 31 weeks pregnant, which is about 7 months along, so at our last prenatal exam I asked when we should be signing up for birthing classes and our doctor gave me a list of dates for the classes.  It was literally only a few days before the only class we could attend began, so we tried calling them to sign up.  No one responded until the day before the class started, and we barely got in!  

Class started at the hospital on Wednesday, April 27th and ran from 7pm-9pm and it will do so for the next 6 weeks.  I was really looking forward to starting these classes only because I knew it would give me a better idea of what labor and delivery is like and hopefully ease my fears about it.  The first hour and a half of class was fairly predictable as our instructor mostly talked about all the different stages of labor and what normally happens with an uncomplicated delivery.  Then we watched a video of a live birth during which Mike gripped my leg in alarm.  Clearly, he's nervous about that.  There were about 10 couples there, most of whom looked around our age, or maybe a bit younger in their 20's.  A couple of them, however, looked like they could be about 13, and one pregnant teenage girl was there with her mom and had no male partner.  So, for the duration of the class, the instructor had to constantly correct herself in referring to the husbands/boyfriends as the "birthing coach" or "labor partner" instead of "dad".  That was a little annoying, since it really felt like she was distancing him from me who she called "mom".

I enjoyed the information given, even if I had read about it before, but the part I was most surprised about occurred during the last 15 minutes of class.  We were given a tour of the labor & delivery floor.  I was surprised to discover how nervous it made me to see where I would potentially be giving birth.  We toured a birthing suite that was currently not in use and learned about what would go on there from the moment you check in until the birth of your baby.  It was a fairly spacious room with plenty of bench seating for guests, if you wish to have them.  Most of the suites offer jacuzzi tubs for laboring, but only one has one all to it's self.  The others have to share (first come, first served).  I was a little put off by that because ever since I learned from my doctor that the hospital birthing rooms had tubs, I had been looking forward to having the option of laboring in one.  I plan to avoid medication as much as possible, and any kind of natural pain relief and relaxant such as a jacuzzi tub are extremely welcome and desired!

Having learned that, the instructor told us that one of our things to do this week was to pre-register for a suite and fill out paperwork at hospital admitting.  When we pre-register, we were told if we want the bigger birthing suite with the private jacuzzi, we should ask for it.  Even though they can't guarantee we'll get it, we have a much better chance at it.  This being a small town, I can't imagine how many women will go into labor at the same exact time, but after seeing all the pregnant women around my due date in my class, it certainly isn't impossible!

After the tour of the birthing suite, we were taken around the corner to the next hall in the postpartum ward where we will be moved once the baby is born. The postpartum rooms are SMALL!  There's only enough room for a twin bed, a little rolling crib and a really uncomfortable looking fold-out chair for "labor partner" to sleep on!  Then we were told that we'd be expected to stay usually 2 days, or more if you end up having a c-section.  It did ease my mind to learn that it is the hospital policy that your baby stay with you the whole time and does not go to a nursery unless there is something wrong and it needs special care.  

All in all, I was glad to have gotten the tour and learned what to expect, however it did make me start to feel nervous about it all.  I wonder how my experience will be, and if I will even make it to a birthing suite at all.  I keep fearing that since I'm so focused on having a natural birth, I'm totally overlooking the possibility of having something go wrong and ending up with surgery at the total other end of the spectrum of natural just like my sister did.  I try to remind myself of that possibility now and again, but it's scary.  I know that prior to getting pregnant, I had accepted the idea that if I ever got pregnant with any kind of fertility treatments, I'd pretty much be guaranteed a c-section delivery, due to the complications of multiple birth.  But now that I've actually gotten pregnant on my own, without treatment, and we know it's a single baby, I happily fell back to my old wishes for a natural birth.  If I could, I know I would prefer having a midwife deliver my baby at a birthing center, but our town doesn't have such things.  There are midwives, but the fact that I feel uncomfortable in my own home really ruins the whole home birth idea for me.  I do feel lucky that the hospital has such an updated maternity floor, giving women the option of laboring in comfort rather than being strapped to the bed the entire time.  That puts my mind at ease.  

We were actually given a childbirth class text book and homework assignment to read 53 pages and answer several questions.  Who knew there was a text book for giving birth??? Next week, I'm looking forward to learning all about natural labor and pain relief as well as learning the roll and responsibilities of the "labor partner".  Believe me, my labor partner needs all the coaching he can get!  I honestly believe I'm going to be more calm during labor than he will be, and it worries me that his nervousness is going to affect me in a bad way.  I hope he can learn to be calm and confident and attentive and not freak out.  I have faith in him.  It's just that he definitely needs this next class!  :D