Postpartum Haze: Impressions from Day One

The feeling of his head in my hand as I waited for the last contraction to help push him out.  Angel-soft hair.  Little wiggles - he is moving! - as he works to get his shoulder free and join the world.  A strong wave of pressure, a breathless second, a loud cry, my baby is born into my own hands.

Joy!  The air comes back into my lungs, back into the room.  Labor is over, life is beginning.

Catching my breath.  Lucy is coming up the stairs, walking towards us.  Kevin at my side, kissing my head, welcoming his son.  Slippery little man in my arm, crying his little head off!

Out of the pool, onto the couch on shaky legs, surrounded by loving arms, beautiful women, ecstatic family.  Is this umbilical cord a little short?

I feel triumphant, breathless, strong, a warrior, a goddess!  To say "I did it!" seems trite and silly, but I did it!  I made this!  I birthed my baby, in my own house, on my own terms, letting my body do what it needed to do.  Birth is in voluntary, you just have to allow it to happen.  And I did.

Oh the perfection.  Sweet-smelling, gooey little baby snuggling against my chest.  The warm, safe presence of my husband beside me.

Hungry baby, latching on with no trouble, eat eat eat!

And then Lucy is with us.  What happened to my sweet baby girl?  Who took my little girl and turned her into this GIANT?  She's HUGE!  And what big TEETH she has!  Lucy, "Want MAMA MILK! MINE!"  Meltdown in the works.  Oh dear, here we go.  I am not sure I want to nurse this enormous wolf-child who somehow has replaced my daughter.  But the wolf-child insists and I am blissed out on birth and baby, so have at it kid.

Tandem nursing for the first time.  I am already stark butt naked in front of a roomful of people, why not sling a few boobs around for good measure?

The room clears out, we are alone, me, Malcolm and Kevin.  Admiring our handiwork.  My God, he is perfect.  Are those pointed ears?  Does he really have pointed ears??  My God, he is perfect.  Sweet smelling.  Soft.  Squishy.  Still covered in mayonnaise and goop, but wonderful to see, smell, kiss, cuddle.  Bliss.  Absolute bliss.

Mairi (midwife) makes eggs.  Lots and lots of eggs with cheddar cheese in them.  I devour a heaping bowl.  Then more.  Then toast and pineapple coconut water then chocolate.

I take a delightfully hot shower.  OH GOD I AM SO HAPPY TO NOT BE PREGNANT ANYMORE!  Oh God, what a smooshy, misshapen belly is left over from bring pregnant.  It looks like someone took a purple marker to a lump of sloppy bread dough.  Racing stripes.  Don't look.  There will be time for assessing the damage later.  I am scrubbed and cleaned and in my cozy red bathrobe and snuggled back on the couch to watch Kevin watching his son.  More bliss.

There is a minor amount of poking and prodding and checking and measuring done on me and my girlie parts.  It feels like there must have been an atomic bomb that went off down there.  I am glad I don't have to look at it.  No tears, just a split, just swelling, little bleeding.  Kat (midwife student) says "Seriously, Jenny, I was wondering if you lost any blood at all!  But it's in the placenta."  Oh.  Okay.   

Newborn exam.  Malcolm does not like it.  He's a big boy!  8 lbs, 14 oz!  Lucy watches.  Kat explains to Lucy what she is doing.  Lucy cares very little.  "Want to see Baby Muffin," she says, not fully understanding that Baby Malcolm IS Baby Muffin.  I am now almost certain she thought that my belly button was the baby I was growing in my belly.

Bed, blissful, beautiful, cozy, clean.  My bed.  Ah.  I cuddle up with Malcolm on my chest, skin to skin, and Kevin at my side.  We can hardly sleep for being exhausted.  We can hardly sleep from being so in love.

But sleep overtakes us and afternoon slips into evening.  He sleeps on me all evening, all night long.  I can't think of a sweeter day.  

Stuff I Learned from Being a Mama #1

My friend is having her first baby in September.  I had my first baby last September.  She recently asked me if I had any words of wisdom for her.  My immediate reaction was "WISDOM?  What wisdom?  I am making this up as I go!"  Of course, upon further reflection, I realize that IS a sort of wisdom.  It is a trial-by-fire-in-the-trenches-let's-see-if-THIS-works kind of fearless (sometimes) experimentation that has yielded some good results.  It has, admittedly, steered me wildly wrong a few times.  But the path of parenthood seems to me to be an old-dirt-road-looking sort of thing.  Lots of people have passed before me and the path is very well worn, but everyone takes a slightly different course and leaves a slightly different mark in their wake.  Also it's bumpy.

So here it is.  Everything that I have learned in the last 19 months since I conceived my daughter.  Okay, not EVERYTHING, but some little tidbits that I wish someone had told me beforehand.  I am also realizing how long-winded I can be, so this wil be first in a series.   Some of this might qualify as TMI.  You have been warned!

PRENATAL ADVICE FOR MAMAS-TO-BE

You just can't worry about everything.  Everyone has another thing that could be harmful, that will be dangerous, that should be avoided.  And the list is twenty miles long.  You simply can't worry about everything.  I am not saying ignore the list altogether (or the advice of your caregiver), but if you accidentally eat some non-pastuerized cheese or forget to nuke your deli meat till it steams, chances are everything will be fine. 

Eat.  Eat.  Eat.  But eat WELL.  Don't be obsessive about the weight you gain.  Your body needs to gain weight to support the pregnancy.  As long as you are not packing on Haagen Daz or donut pounds, you are doing okay!  Lean protein, veggies, fruits, grains, eat the good stuff.  And then don't worry about it!

Don't look at the scale when they weigh you.  It is just better that way.

That being said, there is only one time in your life that eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's in one sitting is cute (and pregnancy is IT), so if your health permits it, don't be a food nazi either.  

Make lots of food beforehand and freeze it in single-serve portions.  Or buy a bunch of microwave dinners (though the "real" food will be nicer - it will be like your mom is there cooking for you:-).  Fill the freezer.  Don't skimp.  You will bless your forward thinking when Baby is 2 weeks old and there is not a scrap of fresh food in the fridge.  And you will bless your forward thinking when Baby is 6 weeks old and there is not a scrap of fresh food in the fridge.  Seriously.  Freeze everything.

Consider your birth options.  Do some research.  Consider using a midwife for a home or birth center birth.  Studies show that home birth - for healthy, low-risk mother and babies - is as safe or safer than giving birth in a hospital.  The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and the insurance industry want people to believe that home birth is at best risky and at worst recklessly engangering the life of mother and baby.  But this is simply not the case.  The midwifery model of care (as opposed to the medical model of maternity care) is based on allowing a woman's body to work naturally.   The link above explains it much better than I would, but midwives allow the process of birth to unfold naturally.  They are well-trained professionals who know, understand, and HAVE WITNESSED the process of birth from beginning to end without intervention and therefore are an excellent judge of when something doesn't look right or when something is perfectly normal.  My labor took 50 hours from onset of contractions to the birth of my daughter.  FIFTY hours.  Contractions were 5-8 minutes apart for more than 30 hours.  I was dilated past the "you shoud go to the hospital" stage for about 24 hours.  If I had been at a hospital, I firmly believe I would have had a c-section.  Lucy's head was tilted up slightly and was therefore not pressing and opening the cervix as effectively as if her chin had been tucked.  But my midwives knew that everything was fine.  The baby's heartbeat was fine.  I was tired, but not exhausted.  I was eating, I was drinking and labor was progressing, however slowly.  So we let it keep going.  And everything was fine.  She was perfect (Apgar score of 9 at 1 minute).  She was beautiful.  She was born in our family room, among our family, gently, beautifully, naturally.  I also firmly believe that our breastfeeding relationship would have been toast if we had been in a hosptial.  We had so much trouble at the outset that if either of us had been drugged, it would have been a lost cause.  I could go on about this for a long time, so maybe I'll save the rest of it for another post.  That you have a choice.  Know your options, and make an informed decision.  Some books to read:

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer.  Very informative look at hospital vs. birth center vs home birth.

Obstetric Myths vs. Researc Realities by Henci Goer.  Just what it says.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin.  Beautiful natural birth stores along with...well...a guide to childbirth written by one of the country's best midwies.  Also includes a CRAZY picture of a baby coming out FACE FIRST!  Not for the faint of heart.

Journey Into Motherhood - Inspirationl Stories of Natural Birth Beautiful, inspiring stories of women giving birth on their own terms.

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent.  This book clinched my desire to have a home birth.  Wonderful, moving, inspirational, heartbreaking, uplifting. 

Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin.  More from Ina May Gaskin - wonderful.

Consider breastfeeding.  Do the research.  Best for mamas, best for babies.  Get prepared.  It is natural, but almost never instinctual or easy to begin with. Attend La Leche League meetings - they have them all over the country and the leaders are well informed and very very helpful.

The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins is a great breastfeeding reference.  I still reference this book from time to time, and it was a lifesaver in the early months.

Ask questions of your caregiver.  Get REAL answers, not the "that's just how we do it" crap I got from my OBs before I switched.  If you don't like the answers, or if you liked what you initially heard and they start to change to something less palatable the closer you get to birth, switch caregivers.  IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO SWITCH.  My friend switched at 37 weeks when her OB insisted on a scheduled c-section for her breech twins.  37 weeks.  She found an OB willing to let her try a natural vaginal delivery, and that is just what she got.  You are a consumer, not cattle.  You have rights.  Birth is a HUGE business.  HUGE.  A lot of hospitals are baby factories and you will just be another bed they want to empty out as fast as possible.  Doctors want to cover their asses (often with good reason in our overly-litigious society), but it usually comes at the expense of mamas and babies.  KNOW YOUR OPTIONS and YOUR RIGHTS.  Make a decision, make a birth plan.  Be willing to be flexible, but ask questions, ask why, be an active participant. 

No matter where you choose to give birth, consider taking a birthing class.  Even if you intend to show up at the hospital and immediately get an epidural, chances are you will be laboring at home for a number of hours before you are permitted to check in.  If you have no relaxation or breathing techniques at your disposal, these are likely to be very long, uncomfortable hours.  I took a Hypnobabies class and my labor - while inordinately long - was generally very comfortable.  I had no pain (only what I would call discomfort), I didn't feel the baby crown (no "Ring of Fire"), and even though I tore, I didn't feel it at all.  People swear by the Bradley Method, and there are many MANY other classes out there.  Just don't think taking the class the hospital offers will be good preparation.  From what I have heard, it is a "here's the epidural needle, who wants to sign up?" and admission procedures.  I am sure this is not the case for every hospital, but everything I have heard from moms who have taken these classes leads me to believe they are not worth the time.

Take some time with your spouse/partner before the baby comes to talk about who you are and how you see yourself as a parent.  It helps to be on the same page.

Spend some time with your spouse, just the two of you.

Unpackage, wash and put away everything you have for the baby.  Nothing is worse than having a poop blowout and a crying baby and all the clean sleepers are on hangers, stapled together with those stupid unbreakable plastic tie thingies.

I liked taking baby bump pictures every week.  Now I have a visual record of my changing body - and it is really cool!  I also had a fun pregnancy journal called The Belly Book.  It is a really cute and sweet keepsake of my pregnancy that I'll give to Lucy one day.

Get a fork lift to help you out of bed in the morning during your third trimester.  Heh.  If only.

Braxton-Hicks contractions can last for a long time.  I walked around with a rock-hard belly for an hour at a time on occasion.  Call your caregiver if they are coming on regularly or they hurt, but your uterus is warming up and conditioning itself for the marathon of birth.  Don't let it freak you out.

Chamomile Tea will calm BH contractions if they are bothersome.  My midwife said that the Amish have been known to keep an antsy baby inside for weeks just using chamomile tea.  I would make an extra-big, extra-strong cup of tea, mix in some honey, pour it over a liter of ice and sip it all day long.  Once again, always call your caregiver if you are concerned, but if she says you are okay and the BHs are irritating, chamomile is a lovely aid.  And it helps you sleep.

Ask for help and accept help when you need it.  Seriously.

More later on what I learned from labor and birth and the postpartum experience.  If any of you other first-time moms have anything you want to add, leave a comment!  I'd love to hear the things you've learned!

Part II

Part III

Lucy's Awesome Hypnobabies Home Birth

I only wish I had some video of this.

Lucinda Belle was born at 1:01 am on Tuesday September 8th at home!

Giving birth was really the most amazing experience. There has been no time in my life where I have felt so utterly present in the moment. My body knew exactly what to do, I just had to relax and breathe and let it happen. It was incredible.

I found out I was pregnant a few days after Christmas in 2008. Because of my pelvic infection in 2005, I had to have a very early ultrasound to make sure the pregnancy wasn’t tubal. I knew I wanted to use a midwife, but I didn’t feel like I had time to research and interview midwives before finding out if the pregnancy was viable, so I started off at an OB practice recommended by my doctor. I liked the people I met there and they seemed to be a mother-friendly/baby-friendly practice (allowing mother-directed pushing, natural childbirth, intermittent fetal monitoring during labor, encouraged breastfeeding, etc.). However, each time I visited their practice, they sounded more and more like they intended to manage the delivery process in such a way as to limit my ability to allow my body to do its own thing in its own time. So we started looking around for a midwife.

I initially intended to give birth at a birth center, since our insurance would only cover midwifery services if it was provided at an accredited birthing center. However, there are only 3 birth centers in the area, and all of them were at least 45 minutes away without traffic. I wanted a midwife, but I had no desire to have a baby on the side of I-95 or on the Wilson Bridge in rush hour traffic (though that would have made for a very exciting story). And to top it all off, the nearest center didn’t even take our insurance!

I was feeling a little disappointed, thinking we would have to stick with a hospital birth. It just didn’t feel right. Having a baby didn’t seem like it should be a medical event if it didn’t have to be. And my husband Kevin and I both hate hospitals. That was when my sister KB sent me a book called Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife about a home birth midwife. I devoured the book in a matter of hours and was utterly enthralled with the idea of a home birth. It was something I had never even considered, but it seemed so completely right that Kevin and I decided to make it happen. We found Erin and Mairi on a natural childbirth forum and we never looked back. I felt like I was being cared for in a way I have never felt with any doctor – like I was a part of their family. It was a wonderful experience.

On Friday September 4th, I was just past 39 weeks pregnant and DONE with it, but I figured I had at least a week to go, maybe more. That afternoon, I had a prenatal massage from my friend HM and she tweaked the acupressure points that are supposed to stimulate labor. That night, I had a few really strong pressure waves that woke me up, but they tapered off and I fell back asleep. The next morning I had some spotting which made me pretty hopeful that the massage had done its magic and that the baby would be on the way soon!

The next day, I went for a long walk in the morning, hoping to get things started back up again. I visited with Kevin and T who were playing tennis in Sligo Creek Park; I chatted on the phone with family, returning calls that I had meant to return for a number of days. It felt like I was tying up some loose ends before the baby arrived.

I started having the first “real” pressure waves around in the evening of Saturday September 5th. I was hopeful, but not really thinking this would be it. And of course, it wasn’t. I tried to go to sleep that night, but the pressure waves were about 6-7 minutes apart and consistently lasted 90 seconds or more, so it was very hard to sleep for 5 minutes at a stretch. I called Mairi around 2 am to check in and let her know what was happening and she advised me to try to get some sleep (of course), take a warm bath and check in again in the morning. We filled the birth pool and I sat in that for a while, and it spaced out the waves to where I thought I might be able to get some sleep…but I was pretty much up all night.

By Sunday morning they were strong and regular, so I called my midwife and my parents, thinking surely things would pick up now! My parents arrived around noon and one of our midwives, Erin, came around 4 pm. Erin checked me and I was 90% effaced but only 3 cm dilated. And things promptly slowed way down again. The pressure waves never really stopped coming less than 6-7 minutes apart after that, they just lessened in intensity, to the point that I could doze through many of them. I was using my Hypnobabies techniques and I was generally very comfortable, just getting tired at this point.

Erin stayed with me all night. When she checked me again around 10 pm and I was still only about 5 cm. We both decided the thing I needed was sleep. She sent Kevin out with a prescription for Ambien and I took one…and I have never had such weird, psychedelic dreams in my entire life! At first, I thought I was still awake and that there were cars driving all over our bed with weird plant-like growths all over them, ala Dr. Seuss. Then, each pressure wave I had while I was sleeping was associated with some random object. There was the car wave (it was a tan Dodge Ares circa 1989), the lamp wave (a tall, tassel-fringed old fashioned lamp) and the blue-fabric-falling-out-of-my-belly wave (these were actually really nice, and I strangely looked forward to them). They kept repeating themselves over and over and I remember thinking “Not the car wave again! Those are the hardest”! It was utterly surreal and the imagery lasted well into the next day.

At around 4 am I couldn’t sleep anymore and got into the tub, which, of course, slowed things down considerably. The waves were still very strong and long, just not coming at regular intervals. I sang my way through over an hour of contractions – for some reason singing felt better than moaning or doing any special breathing. I was having heavy pressure in my back so Erin checked me and said the baby’s body was in the right position, but her head was tilted up so it wasn’t pressing on my cervix effectively. I was still only 6 cm dilated after more than 36 hours. We walked the stairs and shook my hips for 30 minutes with no changes. Erin left around 3 pm and her birth assistant Susan took her place for a while. We paced the house and walked up and down the stairs for an hour. This sped things up while I was walking, but as soon as I sat down to rest, they slowed way down again.

Kevin was getting pretty worried about me at this point. It had been about 40 hours since the first pressure waves started; I had barely slept and seemed to be making little progress. Kevin wanted to go to the hospital, but I knew that I was too tired to deal with any chemical augmentation of labor and would probably end up with more interventions than I wanted. We decided once again that I would try to rest, so Kevin and I sent Susan home, I had a glass of wine, slept for 90 minutes (no psychedelic pressure waves this time) and I woke up around 6:30 in transition (Thank goodness!). The waves were finally coming regularly and strongly and not stopping or spacing out! They felt completely different from the warm-up, but the only transition “symptom” I felt was an increase in the feeling of energy flowing through me and uncontrollable shaking. The waves were very close together, and very intense but I was still able to stay relatively calm as long as I could move or sing through them.

Kevin called Mairi (our second midwife). I had been feeling pretty pushy for a while and remember sort of moaning “WHERE’S MAIRI??” My dad had been struggling for an hour to get the tub hot again and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to birth in the water. When Mairi arrived around 7:30 pm on Monday night, she checked me and I was 9 cm dilated and fully effaced, so they had a little time to get the tub hot for me. I got in the water about 10:00 pm when my water finally broke. I started pushing around 11:30 pm. Time sort of suspended for a while there. I didn’t have to do anything or think about anything – just let my body do its work. I just relaxed, breathed and allowed the energy to move. It was nice and dark – the only light came from the candle and a red lamp, so the room was very comfortable and safe feeling. My dad had my sisters Karyn and Lynette on speaker phone so they were listening in – the next best thing to having them actually there at the birth, I guess.

I pushed for about 90 minutes. I don’t think I gently breathed the baby down the way we were taught in my Hypnobabies class, but I had very little control over how my body was working at this point. If I tried to control my voice or the way I pushed I felt like I was blocking the flow of energy that was literally steamrolling through my body. I was very, very loud, though and it felt SO GOOD to just let go of my mind and let my body work. The baby came down at first in a little ah-ah-ah-ah’s and then in loud, more sustained AHHHHHHs and grunts. At one point I really thought I sounded like a sick cow and that thought made me laugh out loud. It was amazing to feel the baby moving down! Everyone was so supportive. Erin kept telling me “You have plenty of room, you are opening beautifully”, which was so needed – for some reason my biggest fears was tearing badly.

Kevin was right beside me watching the baby come out and whispering encouragement to me the whole time. The head kept pushing down and then sliding back up after each wave – two steps forward, one step back! I think at one point I sort of growled “GET OUT!!” as I felt the head slide back up once again. When I finally pushed the head out around 1 am (what a strange and wonderful feeling that was!), we saw what had really slowed things down – Lucy had her hand up on her cheek! That had made things a lot more slow and difficult. The head slipped out beautifully without any tearing, but with the elbow coming out where it did, I ended up with two labial tears and a minor perineal tear. I guess the good part about that was I didn’t feel it at all. There was no “Ring of Fire” when she crowned at all – just a tingling and stretching feeling. I pushed the rest of her out in really quickly – even though my first instinct was just to stop after the head was born (that was a lot of work)! Lucy had her cord wrapped around her neck, but otherwise was perfect and beautiful.

I had my baby girl in my arms at 1:01 am on Tuesday September 8th. She opened her eyes immediately and looked around at everyone in the room for a full minute before she started to cry. It was so incredible! I thought I would recognize her – after all, she was so close to me for so long – but she really seemed like a little stranger in my arms. It wasn’t what I expected at all. I think I was more in awe of the fact that there was a BABY in there this whole time! The water in the tub was pretty high, so I got out of the tub to keep Lucy’s face out of the water. I birthed the placenta on the bed about 15 minutes later. Kevin cut the cord and we just stared at her for the longest time…before we realized that no one had even checked to see if she actually WAS a girl! She is so incredibly beautiful and we love her so much I can hardly stand it. We saved the placenta and are going to bury under a tree in the spring.

I am so happy we had her at home, exactly the way we wanted to. I would recommend a home birth to anyone – along with the Hypnobabies class. People have said that giving birth at home, without the opportunity for pain medication, was “hard core”, or some sort of feminist form of machoism, but frankly, I didn’t once wish I had an epidural. I never felt like I was doing anything that wasn’t completely natural and normal, and I never wished I was in the hospital. Birth is a natural and normal process and women’s bodies are designed to do it! I think women today are so bombarded with horror stories of childbirth that they are completely terrified of it and make it much more difficult than it has to be. Eliminating that fear goes a long way to eliminating pain. I also think that women don’t know that they have a choice – you don’t have to give birth in a hospital if you have a normal and healthy pregnancy. There is rarely a reason to manage the natural process. Taking the power away from the mother does not improve the outcome. The female body actually does know best almost all of the time. Childbirth does not have to be a medical event, and it has the potential to be the most empowering and beautiful thing you ever do.