birth class & general update October 25, 2008

After a week that’s been the most stressful of my pregnancy, work-wise, Tom and I went to our first of two “intensive” birthing classes today.  This class is taught from the book Birthing From Within, a classic of the homebirth/low-intervention childbirthing genre, and both Tom and I were worried about how foofy (read: crazy New-Age woo-woo weird) it would be, but our midwife recommended it and other mothers I had spoken with a while ago said they took it and got something out of it.

It was a really good class in that it was great to talk to other couples about their pregnancies and births and also because Lanell Coultas, the instructor, had some great advice about letting go of expectations and also on how to cope with the pain of childbirth.

One of the things I hear a lot when I tell people I am going to birth at home is, “Wow, you’re brave.”  And I don’t really see the bravery of homebirth as I’ve mentioned before – it’s simply the way that works best for me as I face the issue of labor.  That being said, I’m aware that it’ll hurt, and that there are ways to make it hurt less if I were birthing in a hospital, and so I suppose there is a bravery component in the decision to eschew epidurals and drugs and just take the pain head-on.  (Head-on!  Apply directly to forehead!)

We learned some pain-coping techniques that actually worked really well, insofar as helping us handle the pain of holding ice cubes in our hands for a minute at a time, and I just need to mention how cold-sensitive my hands are, so this exercise seemed particularly apropos to me.  Without the techniques, I was really suffering with the pain of the cold in my hands, and really ANGRY at the ice and the exercise, and with the techniques it felt that the minute went by very quickly and that the pain was substantially less intense.  So that was heartening.

I am drained after this class, though, I must say – it was really emotional for me to hear other people’s experiences and hear Lanell talk about certain things, especially mother stuff.  I teared up multiple times and actually completely lost it when one woman talked about her first birth, which was one of those nightmare Pitocin-epidural-C section whirlwinds that is so common in hospitals for unwary parents.  I’m trying not to be so scared of having to go to the hospital that I actually call it down on myself, and I really can’t visualize it at all, but it was such a sad story and SO what I don’t want for me that I was really moved by it.

Saw the midwife this last week, BTW, and everything’s great with the baby: she’s head-down and moving reliably and her heartbeat is strong.  I’m growing just as I should, though I lost 4 pounds at some point in the last couple of weeks, but she’s not concerned.  Any swelling I’m having is fairly intermittent, BP is good and I have no protein in my urine, so many 3rd trimester ailments seem to be holding at bay.  She did say that in the next month or so, Amelia will be DOUBLING in size, so to work extra-special hard to eat as much protein and as little sugar and fat as I can, which seems quite daunting as I’ve been so careful about that for so long, but it’s worth it to keep me and the boo healthy.  Wish me luck in staying on the straight and narrow.  Most protein seems really disgusting and unappetizing to me right now, and all I really want is sugar and carbs, but I’m exercising my willpower as much as I can.

It’s starting to be real to me that we’ll have this real whole person in our lives soon, breathing air and peeing and eating and cooing and crying, and that’s still very “WHOA,” but it’s also pretty “Yay!”

giving you the business September 5, 2008

Many people at my workplace have opinions about my choice to eschew* an obstetrician and birth at home  (and many of them don’t tell me what they think to my face out of politeness). I am not necessarily an evangelist about midwifery, any more than I am about anything other than spelling, but I do hold forth on occasion about the upside-down nature of modern medicine’s approach to pregnancy – largely resulting in people politely finding other things to do.

I was touched then, when a woman at my office told me the other day that she had watched The Business Of Being Born, a recent documentary about pregnancy, modern medicine and midwifery that was produced by Ricki Lake. It’s SUCH a great doc, though… juicy in parts, and I can’t recommend it enough. You can watch it for free on Netflix, by the way.

So I recommend this movie all the time, but my colleague is the first to actually watch it per my reco – and she was just as appalled and impressed as I was when I saw it. We had a good 45 minute conversation about everything from the Holocaust nature of twilight sleep (in which laboring women were drugged and then tied to beds, sometimes for days and in their own filth) to the possible reasons for society’s pathologization of pregnancy and birth. It was really cool.

*My darling husband Tom got me a super-extravagant, super-nerdy birthday gift: the Oxford English Dictionary on CD!  So I can look up Words I Love, like eschew, and tell you that the first recorded English usage is from 1375, and the word is probably derived from the Old French “eschiver” meaning to dodge.  Isn’t that fabulous?!!

birthing = crafting? well that’s all right then. September 3, 2008

So, yesterday I read in Birthing from Within that a labor project is a good idea for that first stage of labor. If I understand the concept right, the general idea is that if you’re working on, say, lacquering a rocking chair (if you’re the very chill Amish lady in their example, for example), you won’t be getting all hyped up and tense and freaky about the upcoming pushing-the-kid-out-your-vag part of the day(s). Plus you’ll be active and zen, thereby helping labor hustle itself TOWARD the upcoming pushing-the-kid-out-your-vag part of the day(s).

They have clever suggestions like baking chocolate chip cookies, bringing your photo albums up to date, or washing and folding baby clothes. In my case, cookies take me like 2 hours to make from start to finish, I rarely print photos, and laundry makes me tense. But I could see this as a great opportunity to start a super-fun crafting project, selected just for the occasion like crafty candy.

But which to chose?

Knitted boobies?

An infant-themed cross stitch? (Or something my midwife can put on her labor bag?)

An eloquent bookmark?

More onesies like this one I already made (patterns by awesome Austinite Jenny Hart)?

too young for earrings, but...

sssstinky

Any ideas for a really great craft project to help Amelia into the world? (I can easily knit and embroider, and I can fumble through crochet. I would love to be a better seamstress, but I tend to get in arguments with my sewing machine.) I’m taking suggestions!

Verklempt August 28, 2008

I have been reading books about labor with a lot of verve lately, including Ida May’s book, and have been thinking about my upcoming labor off and on because of all my reading. Haven’t been feeling scared necessarily, despite the fact that I keep getting almost double-edged compliments about how brave I am to have a home birth. On the contrary, I’ve been allowing myself to daydream about my ideal labor experience, in hopes that I could manifest that for myself as well as I’ve done with all this rain…

And yet, when my midwife asked me about some of my self-confessed labor daydreams, I became suddenly and surprisingly incapacitated by tears. Granted, this is a super-hormonal time for me, with intense rushes of emotion one minute and weird drunken energy the next. But I’m getting choked up again, just thinking about how I was getting choked up.

What gives?

Bubble Bubble August 19, 2008

So you’re not supposed to have a birth plan, according to the home birth-crunchy granola books. Mostly it’s so you won’t come to the labor with expectations that will then be disappointed, tensing you up and making you fight the flow of the birthing work.

(I say this as if I really know my shit, which I don’t. I’m extrapolating like a champion.)

However, while reading these books my mind naturally turns to thoughts of what I want my labor to be like. Not in a rigid first-this-then-this-then-that kind of a way, but in an I-sure-would-like-it-if-this kind of way. I’m having increasing success in manifesting good things for myself these days (witness this week’s glorious rain – yeah, that was me – just had to wait until after the wedding), so I figure why not try manifesting a super labor experience?

In my non-rigid imaginings, there is a large tub of warm water that buoys me when the contractions get intense. There is some tasty food to snack on, not sure what it is yet, but Indian’s sounding tasty. The house is clean, and there are funny movies and friends cracking jokes. There’s no hurry.

My most genius imagining, the biggest brainstorm I’ve had in weeks, is the champagne. I’ve always held that it’s impossible to be unhappy when you’re drinking champagne, and so why not apply this to the potentially stressful situation of childbirth?

I’m planning on buying about three Very Decent bottles – no, I’m not planning on drinking them all for the labor, but we need to have extra to celebrate with afterwards! I think probably a nice Franciacorta and two Frenchies. Something toasty and classy, with richness and snap. I’ll pop the first bottle when I think the contractions are for real, and sip a glass every other hour or so – not to get drunk, but to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, and maintain that bubbly high.

I do plan to clear this with my midwife, don’t you fear. But I honestly can’t imagine she’ll deny me completely. Especially if I offer to share!

tell them to cut you August 17, 2008

The wedding of our dear friends yesterday was unutterably perfect, to the point that many of us felt a renewed sense of faith in the goodness of the world. The reception was relaxed and fun, and the after party was cozy with a healthy touch of debauchery. Everyone got a little drunk, with the exception of myself and a grandma or two.

Seeing a few friends & acquaintances for the first time in my pregnancy brought up all the usual questions and congratulations. Fathers talked about their wives’ experiences and mothers talked about their labors and pregnancies.

One thing I’ve noticed is that when you talk about planning a home birth, it seems to bring up insecurities for other mothers who did not birth at home. I get a lot of “wow, you’re hard core” and “oh, I couldn’t have done that.” Reminds me a little of when I was an English teacher and would get a lot of people confessing to me how much they hated the subject.

Most notably in discussions of my forthcoming labor experience, however, was a conversation with a woman who had never given birth but seemed to have the inside scoop via her two sisters. This in-the-know lady took it upon herself, sloshing rose out of her glass as she gestured, to explain me how important it was for me to have an episiotomy.

“Tell them to cut you, so you won’t tear,” she urged me, over and over. “If they don’t cut you, you’ll tear. Tell them to cut you. It’s only a few stitches and it’ll help your sex life after.”

I was feeling quixotic, so I tried to explain to her that episiotomies are not necessarily de rigeur, depending on circumstances. That the birth canal is built for birthing, and that in many cases women do not rip their coochies when giving births. She was having none of it. Finally the conversation ended, and I drove home peacefully with my sweetie and my super-elastic vag.

For the record, I’m not Rocky. Don’t cut me, Mick!

Things I’m learning from Ida May August 13, 2008

A friend of ours sent me a care package of books, baby clothes and a prenatal yoga video. Coincidentally, many of the books she sent us were books that my midwife had just recommended I read, if I felt like I simply must read preggo books. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth is written, of course, by Ina May Gaskin, a premier doyenne of the midwifery movement that started in the 1970s.

The first part of the book is story after story of births, told by the mothers who were attended by midwives at The Farm, one of the hot beds (ha-ha) of midwifery’s return to US culture. I read these stories almost compulsively, I confess. It’s great to read birth recounts that do not involve drugs or enemas or stirrups or doctors yelling at women to PUSH!

The second part is called The Essentials of Birth, which is a compendium of the wisdom gathered by Ina May and the other Farm midwives via their attending thousands and thousands of natural births. This shit is blowing my mind.

Did you know that if a mother is shocked or disturbed during labor, the progress of her cervical dilation can actually reverse? That some women actually experience orgasmic or ecstatic childbirth? That both laughter and deep breathing can help the cervix dilate?

Suddenly I’m planning a Steve Martin Film Festival for a special date in December: Three Amigos, The Jerk, My Blue Heaven… What am I forgetting?

Back in the game August 11, 2008

Feeling good this Monday as my weekend was so productive: we installed all the kitchen back board, and then on Sunday when Tom had to work all day I got all the laundry done as well as the grocery shopping. Then I roasted a turkey breast in the crock pot and baked blueberry scones and bread pudding.

It’s been a battle to get as much protein as my midwife wants me to eat every day, especially since I seem to have developed an adverse intestinal reaction to soy. According to her, a diet with 60-80 grams of protein a day can prevent preeclampsia, which is definitely a motivating factor. 80 grams is about double the protein the average American eats a day. For someone who doesn’t eat a lot of meat usually, that’s a major shift in diet. Hence the turkey breast, as my diet has turned into All Protein, All The Time…

ice storms are laudably chill

Have I mentioned how cool my midwife is? GB is this lovely solemn, bird-like woman with a gentle manner, spritely wit and very long hair. She lives in my neighborhood, and comes over to my house for our monthly prenatal visits. She’s been catching babies for something like 22 years. I’m really looking forward to her attending my labor with her kind, patient eyes and all her chillness.

If someone were to ask me to write a birth plan, it would go like this: everyone will be chill and then the baby will be healthfully breathing air and then we’ll be very happy and amazed and again with the chill. Chill is my pregnancy’s word of the day.