Stuff I Learned from Being a Mama #3

Part 1 Prenatal Stuff I learned
Part 2 Labor, Delivery, Postpartum stuff I learned

So here is the last part (for now) in my First Year Survival Guide.  Or Stuff I Learned from Being a Mama THAT NO ONE EVER FREAKING MENTIONED BEFOREHAND!  This is what I have gleaned from these last 11-odd months with a growing, changing, demanding, wonderful, funny, frustrating little being.  I know there is so much more to learn, for both of us.  But here are some been-there-done-that things I wish I had known about before being in the thick of it.

Don't read parenting books.  Seriously.  They only served to convince my sleep deprived brain that I was doing everything wrong and I was a bad mom.  Oy.  If I could go back and change one thing, I would never read a single book on parenting techniques, parenting philosophies or sleep issues.  I had sleep book overload.  They all contradict each other and even baldly write that the other books and their authors are full of crap.  Nice.  And the worst part was, nothing we ever did ever changed the fact that Lucy was a frequent night waker. Some babies are natural sleepers, some are not.  Eventually she outgrew the waking every 2-3 hours thing.  She still doesn't sleep ALL the way through, but is usually only up once. 

Letting your baby "Cry it out" is very very very hard (and should NEVER be done with a baby under 4 months old).  When I wrote this post a few weeks ago, Lucy was still waking at night.  I finally hit a wall.  I could no longer function on only 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I had nothing left to give - to my daughter, my husband or myself.  So we shut her door and didn't go back til morning.  This was not in my original parenting plan, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.  It took about 5 nights.  The first two were AWFUL.  2-3 hours of screaming.  I had to will myself not to go running in to comfort her.  The third night, she barely peeped at her usual wake-up times.  The fourth night, even less peeping.  The fifth night there was more screaming, but only 45 minutes.  The sixth night (and most nights since then) - 11 1/2 straight hours of sleep.  So it can work.  It is hard.  It feels cruel.  But we are all getting more sleep now, and we are all happier for it.
I also didn't realize that "sleeping through the night" for a baby means 5-6 hours.  Not my own personal definition of sleeping through, but that is what the experts all say.

Don't ask other parents of young  babies about when their baby reach such and such a milestone (er, especially sleep).  It led to me being extremely disappointed when Lucy didn't sleep through at 3 months or 13 lbs or 16 weeks or 18 lbs, or whatever everyone else said.  Your baby is your baby and will do just exactly what your baby is going to do.  I really REALLY wish I had just accepted that and not bothered asking anyone else what their baby was doing.  "Does he/she sleep through the night?" is absolutely the cruelest question you can ask a new parent.  And really, can't you just tell from how they look?  A mama with purple bags under eyes and a fresh-from-the-grave-zombie look does NOT have a baby who sleeps through the night. 
 
Don't rub it in if you do have a baby who sleep through the night.  If someone asks you that question (especially the fresh-from-the-grave-zombie-looking mama), you can say "She's a decent sleeper" or "He does okay most nights".  It's kinder that way. 
 
Everyone has their different issues.  Lucy's was (and to some extent still is) sleep.  But she wasn't colicky, she didn't have reflux, she was a good eater.  So even if Super Mom has the Amazing Mircle Sleeper, that mircle sleeper might be a screaming demon half the day where you have the angel baby who never cries. 
 
Milestones are placed at different intervals for all babies.  Focus on yours, not on anyone elses, or where the experts say a particular milestone should be.  In that same vein, some babies are just more interested in on set of skills than another.  Just the way you are intersted in yoga and your husband is interested in motorcycle racing.  Until he gets himself killed, that is.  Then he won't like anything.  Not every "missed" milestone is cause for concern.  For example, Lucy could feed herself large chunks of whatever I put in front of her by 7 1/2 months old, but was still dragging herself on her belly to get around.  My friend's baby was still exclusively eating purees at that age, but could crawl like a speed demon.  **shrug**  They do what they are gonna do at their own pace.

Don't forget to eat.

Put down that parenting book.  I'm not joking.  Consulting a book for a specific problem might be okay, but trying to align yourself with one philosophy or another makes it that much more difficult when something recommended by "the experts" doesn't work.  I found the best thing I could do was ask other moms in a online forum what their experiences were and if they had any tips.  Sometimes they recommended a particular book or author, but more often, they told me what they did and how it worked.  I found this to be much more practical.

Do your babyproofing way too early.  Have a friend's toddler come check it out for you.  MUCH easier than babyproofing while trying to corral a zippy little crawler.

Tracey Hogg (the self-described Baby Whisperer) is sort of crazy.  Don't take her breastfeeding advice.  Some of her scheduling ideas and her sleep advice are good, but otherwise, I would steer clear.  Plus she calls her readers "ducky".  As in "Take my advice, ducky, and you'll have a perfect baby who never cries and sleeps through the night at 2 days old. Plus you've already made a lot of mistakes, ducky, so stop being a crappy mum and do what I say."  Okay, she never said that, but she does call her readers ducky.

Join or start a mom's group for moms with babies the same age as yours.  I walked my neighborhood for months and never ran into another mom.  I know they are out there, but I would have made no mom friends witout the group I found at http://www.meetup.com/ .  I am so grateful for the women I have met.
 
Don't forget that you LOVE your partner and you were a couple before you were parents. Kevin and I have a rule when we go out together that we only talk about Lucy in the car on the way to wherever we are going. It was hard to follow at first, but it makes our time out without Lucy about us rather than about her.

The days drag.  They really do.  Sometimes I find myself wishing it were naptime.  It is hard to find time to do things outside the house, let alone join in any scheduled activities, when your baby only has a MAXIMUM of two hours of really good, happy awake time.  So I just try to remember how fast the months are flying.  Soon enough we'll have all morning to go to playdates and take yoga classes and swimming lessons and baby macrame and baby jujitsu and baby Japanese cooking classes.  Soon enough.  Right now, she's happy puttering in the house or in the yard or taking the occasional outing to the fountain in downtown Silver Spring.  It is much less stressful than trying to take a full courseload of classes with less value for her than for me.  Plus she can't even get college credit for them til she's out of diapers. 

On that note, you are not required to sign your baby up for any classes at all.  They are more for you than for her.  A reason to get out of the house.  This, of course, is enormously valuable...if it is not a huge, stressful struggle to get to them every week.  I have found that almost all baby classes, storytimes and activities are scheduled smack-dab in the middle of Lucy's morning naptime.  This makes getting her to class a juggling act I am not willing to perform.  I sort of feel like I should be out there with her everyday, taking music and yoga and mommy 'n' me classes, but I try to remember that not taking her to these things does not make me a bad parent.  Perhaps I am lazy.  Fine.  But I am not stressed and Lucy is perfectly happy.  So whatever.  Of course if DADDY wants to sign her up for a class and leave me alone in the house every week, I would be all for it!

So that's it.  Everything I know.  There are major gaps in my knowledge.  I look forward to filling them in as Lucy gets bigger and even more fun.  I love being a mom and I love having a teacher as sweet as my little girl. 

What do you know now that being a mom has taught you?  What blindsided you?  What did you see coming a mile away?  Tell me tell me tell me!

Stuff I Learned from Being a Mama #2

For the first in this series, go here.  Also, TMI ahead.

So here's part 2.  Stuff I learned during labor, delivery and postpartum.

Make sure you have a birth plan and make sure your caregiver has seen it before hand.  I didn't really need one since "home birth" sort of implies everything I would have put in a birth plan, but if you are going to a hospital, know what you want and make sure everyone there with you knows, too.  This includes informing the staff if you plan to breastfeed.

"We think the baby is too big" is not a good reason to induce.  Weight estimates taken by ultrasound are notoriously inaccurate.  A friend was told she had a baby too big for her pelvis - over 10 lbs in all probability - so she scheduled an induction.  Wound up with a c-section and a 6lb 6oz baby.  Nature knows best.  My midwife said "I have never seen a baby NOT come out".  Unless there is a medical PROBLEM, there does not need to be an induction.  It is harder on the mom (contractions just take off into the stratosphere instead of gradually build to a peak) and harder on baby, which can lead to more interventions and complications, etc. etc...

Your estimated due date is just that - an ESTIMATE.  Not an expiration date.

Less than 10 minutes before
Lucy's birth - still smiling!

You just don't know what you are going to want, what you are going to do, or how you are going to act during labor.  Be flexible.  That being said, you have the choice to allow it to be a horrible experience by being scared and tense.  Or you can choose to allow it to be peaceful and gentle.  Your mind is a powerful, POWERFUL thing.  Believing that something is going to be pleasant, easy and uncomplicated goes a long way to creating that experience.  I imagined the sensations of labor as pressure and opening, not pain.  I imagined my cervix opening, actually saying "open" and "peace" during pressure waves.  I grabbed onto the mantra "The wave always breaks" and said it over and over through deep breaths.  And it did always break.  It always passed.  It was intense.  It was challenging.  And it was fine!  Another mantra I remember repeating over and over was "You CAN do it, you ARE doing it..."  I did a Hypnobabies class and actually had no pain during labor.  Yes, that it correct.  No pain during labor.  Now it wasn't 100% comfortable, but I had no sensations that I would have called PAIN.  And how did I achieve this improbable feat?  I trained my mind to believe that labor was not going to be painful.  And my mind believed me, so my body believed me. 

The house was so quiet, calm and dark.
Perfect

Ask for what you need.

Eat.  Drink.  You need your strength. 

A waterbirth is AMAZING.  I would have stayed in that tub for the full 50 hours if I didn't need to stretch my legs occasionally.

Sing.  It relaxes the jaw, which in turns helps to open the cervix.  Ina May taught me that.  Also, singing made me feel less like a moaning cow and more like the awesome, powerful birth goddess I was.

Pushing Lucy out

Everything - EVERYTHING - can wait till you have met your baby and held your baby and nursed your baby (if you so choose).  Fight for it if you have to.  It is the sweetest, most amazing moment you will ever have.  Don't let anyone take it away to poke and prod and weigh and measure.  It.Can.Wait.

Sewing up the tears hurt more than pushing the baby out.  I'm just sayin'.

One thing that surprised me was how...disconnected I felt after that first heady moment holding Lucy.  For a LOOONG time after Lucy was born I kept expecting her REAL parents to knock on the door and tell me they were there to pick up the baby that I had been watching for them. Not that I didn't love her and take care of her and feel the instinct to protect her...but it was just so WEIRD to have a baby.  There was this total disconnect between the baby BUMP and the actual BABY.  A friend of mine said after she pushed out her baby (no drugs, so she felt everything) they put it in her arms and she actually said "Whose baby is this?"

 

Your girlie parts will hurt.  Get some rubber gloves and fill them with ice, wrap 'em in a washcloth and stick 'em right up there.  Oh, you might also want to get a supply of cheap washcloths.

 

It might take a week (or more) for you to take a shit.  And it will be more painful than giving birth. And I hear you can't get an epidural for a bowel movement.  Not one person ever told me this beforehand, but EVERYONE I have mentioned it to afterwards has said they had the same experience. All I could think of was "WHY THE HELL DID NO ONE EVER MENTION THIS??".

Maxi pads sprayed with witch hazel and put in the freezer feel SO GOOD on tender areas that have recently squeezed out a something the size of a large butternut squash.

40 week "belly"

Postpartum bleeding is nature's way of getting back at you for not having a period for nine months.  It lasts a long time and sucks.

Pregnancy hormones are nothing compared to the postpartum hormone crash.  I forgot things and cried a lot, was utterly elated and completely defeated, transported and feeling stuck - all within an hour of each other.  It passes, so just take a deep breath.  Talk to someone if you are feeling more than just a little blue.

It took a while to get over the "My God WHAT HAVE I DONE" feeling that settled over me when my midwives and parents all left.  I don't think this happens to everyone, but it don't be surprised if it does.  The enormity of my new job just swallowed me whole.  It still does sometimes, but now it is more joyful and anticipatory as opposed to a feeling of being lost at sea.

My deflated baby belly was not nearly as depressing as everyone said it would be.  Every time I looked in the mirror I just made a point of saying "You look pretty darn good, considering" and it really helped.  However, that doesn't work anymore almost a year later:-).

Breastfeeding will seriously melt away the pregnancy pounds. Melted away like butter. Awesome.

First attempt at breastfeeding...
neither of us took to it right away

Breastfeeding might be hard. Don't give up!! Ask for help! See a lactation consultant! Go to LLL meetings! Talk to a friend! There are so many resources out there for breastfeeding mamas - USE THEM! It is so worth it. http://www.kellymom.com/ is a wonderful resource for all things breastfeeding. Lucy and I had just about every newborn breastfeeding issue imaginable (thrush, cracked nipples, mastitis, tight bite reflex, oversupply, etc). Every single day I would say "I will just do it for one more day. If it still hurts tomorrow, I'll quit." I am so glad I stuck it out. It is such a joy. Of course now my daughter is a boobaholic who will be impossible to wean, but that's another story.

It took me MONTHS to realize that most of the shocking pain I had for when Lucy latched on the first several weeks was not, in fact, an incorrect latch (well, mostly, we had some latch issues at first). It was the milk letting down. OUCH OUCH OUCH! I would feel it when she latched (new mama boobs are really sensitive to a baby suckling, as they should be), but also randomly throughout the day as my supply tried to regulate. I only realized this in retrospect when the sensation mellowed out to the gentle pins and needles feeling it is now. Milk letting down can really freaking hurt at first.

Lansinoh is okay, but chilled gel nursing pads feel really really nice.

Don't get a Belly Bandit.  Worthless piece of uncomfortable (expensive) crap.  A belly wrap is not a bad idea in theory, but this one was so uncomfortable.  Plus if recently giving birth isn't an excuse to let it all hang out, I don't know what is.

Don't get an ItzBeen.  All it will do is make you obsess over how little sleep you've gotten and how demanding your baby is.  I remember looking at that thing and crying "But it's only been 45 minutes since she went to sleep!"  It made a challenging situation into what felt like a crisis.  If you must use something like this, don't use it for timing sleep.  Seriously, trust me on this one.  Newborns are not ones for keeping to a schedule, especially when it comes to sleep.  Now, if you happen to have a miracle baby who is a great sleeper from day one, knock yourself out.  It might be helpful when baby is older and you are trying to get them on a schedule.

I don't like parenting books.  They have done very little besides make me feel like a bad mom who does everything wrong.  That being said, The Happiest Baby on the Block would have been a lifesaver if we had discovered it when Lucy was a newborn. GREAT ideas and tips for calming a new baby (0-3 or 4 months).

Get a swaddler. The Miracle Blanket literally calmed Lucy down the minute she saw it.  Well, most of the time.

Everyone says "sleep when the baby sleeps".  This is good advice, in theory.  In practice it doesn't hold up as well.  not that you should take every opportunity available to sleep - God knows you'll need it - but when the baby is sleeping, you get to be JUST YOU for however long the little angel is sleeping.  And this becomes increasingly important as the gravity and enormity of your newly-acquired job starts to sink in.  So my advice is do something - anything - that makes you feel normal.  Wash the dishes.  Sit on the porch alone.  Go get a pedicure.  Have a friend meet you for coffee without the baby.  Anything that makes you feel like a normal person will do.  I remember putting clean sheets on the bed (while crying, incidentally)just to do something mundane and normal.

Get someone to come help you for a few hours every day for the first 2 weeks or so.  This would be a good time to take a nap.  I thought we would want to be alone, just me, Kevin and Lucy, for a while.  I was wrong.  I wanted to be with my new family, but I also wanted someone to make me dinner and get me ice and fill my water bottle and take the baby away for a while so I could sleep.  Kevin was too tired to do all this himself, so I was only too glad to have my mom and dad there to help.  Believe me, you will have plenty of time with the baby and your spouse.

It goes so fast.  I know it is hard to enjoy something when you have not slept, but enjoy your tiny little miracle.  They get so big so fast!

It is okay to cry for no reason.  I spent a number of days wandering around the house crying.  It was cathartic.  A little pathestic, yes, but cathartic.

Don't try too hard to enforce a schedule.  It will make you crazy.  You can try to follow a loose routine - wake, eat, activity (like staring at a mirror and changing a diaper - newborns are PARTY ANIMALS!) and sleep, but don't expect things to be the same every day for a while.  Go with that proverbial flow.

Sleeping when the baby sleeps...for once...

That being said, I had every intention of being a feed-on-demand mama.  Of course, having never done this before, I totally misread hunger cues.  Just because baby is crying, doesn't mean they are hungry.  I am going to venture out on a limb here and say Lucy was not hungry every 45 minutes.  But I fed her nearly every time she cried.  Oh, my aching (cracked, bleeding) nipples.  If I had been a little more savvy about hunger cues (rooting, turning face towards me, opening mouth when you tickle their cheek), I may have saved myself some pain and frustration.  So while it is important, especially when breastfeeding, to feed a baby frequently, every 2 hours is probably a perfectly reasonable place to start.  If they are fussy before then, it is probably not hunger.

A good thing to remember as your baby get a little older (from about 3 to 6 months) is that infants only have 90 minutes to 2 hours of happy-awake time.  They need their sleep!  That might mean 3 or 4 four naps in a day, depending on when they wake up in the morning.  90 minutes of awake time, down for a nap.  Don't push it - if he yawns or rubs his eyes, get him down for a nap - by hook or by crook, in my opinion!  I would accidentally let Lucy get really overtired and it started a vicious cycle of overtired baby not being able to sleep because she was so overtired.  It is a really hard pattern to break.  They say "sleep begets sleep" which is totally counterintuitive, but I have found it to be true.  If Lucy takes good naps, she will sleep better at night.  If her naps are crap, I know I am in for a long night.

Ask for help. Accept help. Seriously. You do not have to do it all.

The first six weeks are hard.  They just are.  They are magical, exciting, awe-inspiring and beautiful.  But they are really hard.  It will get better.

And then all of a sudden you'll wonder where a whole year went.  I hear that someday I'll turn around and wonder when she could have possibly graduated college, since she was just a baby yesterday...

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

A Long Time Coming

I have been working on this baby blanket since May...of 2009.

 I started working on it on a trip I had last year to San Antonio, Galveston and a few other towns in Texas in mid-May.  A friend's baby was due July 3rd, and I thought I could finish it before the baby arrived.  I had it all planned out.  If I did two squares a day, it would take me roughly 2 weeks to finish, giving me plenty of time to do any finishing work and send it off to the mama- and daddy-to-be before the little one arrived.  Done and done! 

Except that it didn't really work out that way.

I got to this square by the end of my 5 day trip to Texas (I should have been done with 10 squares if I kept to my schedule):

Yes.  That's "B"

When I got home, we closed on our house.  Then we spent 4 days painting and cleaning said house (which was in a state of dreadful neglect when we bought it) before we headed off to my sister's wedding in North Carolina.  Rebecca's wedding was on May 30th, meaning I should have been completely finished according to my (as it turns out, completely unreasonable) schedule.  I was on this letter:

So now it is June.  We have until July 1st to be out of our old house.  Which means we have until July 1st to complete any of the major upgrades we wanted to get done on the house before we moved in.  We spent the entire month of June finishing our basement, cleaning up the yard, re-doing the front walk, painting and generally making the house pleasant and liveable.  Which means that by the time litte KG made her North Carolina debut three weeks early, I was only on:

Oops.

After my self-imposed deadline passed, I took a much more laid-back attitude towards getting it done...meaning I stopped working altogether for at least 3 weeks while we cleaned our old house and moved into out new house and got settled in.  So by KG's actual due date, I had progressed to here:

After we were mostly settled in, I started working again.  Slowly.  I was getting pretty pregnant myself by this point.  I was tired.  I had a house I was trying to settle into, a nursery to decorate, diapers to make, and - oh yeah!  Work.  So I took my time, now that I had missed the big event.  I got hung up for days on a space holder square:

It was actually before the "G", but the "G" looked so quick and the spacer so...not quick that I skipped the spacer, and worked the "G" first.  Perhaps it was a premonition.  I ended up having to improvise a new pattern because I screwed it up so badly and dreaded the thought of pulling all the stitches out and starting over.  You can't really tell, but this little square is out of proportion with the rest of them.  **sigh** No one's perfect.

I doodled with this for the rest of the summer, working on it in front of the TV at night, before bed, after teaching at the arts camp where I was working.  Number one on my list of bad ideas, by the way, teaching drama and yoga in August to small children while vastly pregnant.

Kevin left for the Berkshires for 2 weeks in early August.  I was left at home with my mom, who came to keep me company and make sure I was taken care of should Baby Corbett make an early appearance.  I worked on the blanket sporadically, but mostly just sat like a beached whale, wishing it were time to have the baby. 

The night I went into labor with Lucy, I was stitching this square:

I was watching TV when the contractions started.  They were pretty mild and I could still work through them.  I wasn't entirely sure I was going into labor, because my body had been a Braxton-Hicks festival for weeks.  They just seemed different.  Anyway, when I put the blanket down, shockingly enough, I didn't pick it up again for about 2 months.

After I so blatently missed KG's actual birthdate, I though HEY!  Christmas gift!!  Yeah!  So when Christmas rolled around, I was still working:

Clearly I was just not meant to give this thing away as a gift. 

I remember working the "S" when we were recording the April Fool's Day radio show at the end of March:

The piano player said "You still working on that??"  Yup.  At this point I was pretty much only bringing it to shows to work backstage in my downtime.  The same piano player said a few weeks later "I know you don't have many shows because you are still working on "S".

I decided finally that I would give this blanket to KG for her first birthday.  Surely I could manage THAT.

By KG's birthday, I am here:

SOOOOOOOO CLOSE.  Yet so very very far.

Lucy is 10 months old now.  KG celebrated her first birthday on June 23rd (I THINK - it may be the 22nd.  Or the 24th.  Grr.  I am terrible at dates).  When we were recording the JULY FOURTH radio show at the end of June, I was on:

I told LW (the piano player who was mocking me in March) that I would SURELY FINISH before the radio shows were done.  This was on June 25th and 26th.  The whole cast of the Capitol Steps has been cheering me on...and making fun of me...for over a year now...DW said to me "You can't give that away now!  That's a family heirloom!"

Last night, I put the finishing touches on the last letter:

I frayed the edges of the blanket.  I ironed out the marks left by the embroidery ring (you can tell which ones I spent the most time on by how deeply entrenched the creases around the letter are).

So that's the story of the baby afghan.  Now I am faced with the conundrum - do I keep it, hang it in Lucy's room and pretend it was never meant for anyone else?  Or do I box it up with a copy of this post and send it on to our dear friend's and their now 13-month-old daughter?

Hmmm....

The Mom Switch

I just don't feel any different.  On a basic level, I mean.  I feel like the same old Jenny, but now with a baby. Of course, I generally still feel like the same person I was when I graduated college.  A lot more stable, yes, but basically the same.  I thought that being pregnant would make me a completely different person.  When that didn't happen, I thought something would "switch on" when my daughter was born and I would be a completely different person then.  So now I am still waiting.  When do you start feeling like a mom?  Or a grownup for that matter?

I thought when I got engaged I would feel like a grownup.  Nope.  Married?  Nope.  How about buying a house?  Nope.  Actually, this process made me feel even more childlike and inept than planning a wedding.  Okay, SURELY when I found out I was pregnant, I would feel like I was an adult?  Wrong again.  So why did I expect actually giving birth to be any different?  I mean 14 year olds do it every day and they certainly aren't grownups. 

I remember the first thing I felt when I held her was not some overpowering emotion.  It was exhaustion.  I was just exhausted.  It took weeks - if not months - for me to get over the feeling that I was doing a 24-hour-a-day babysitting gig for some mysterious set of parents who would eventually (please God, SOON) come and take away their tiny, extremely demanding baby.  I thought I would just automatically be different.  Lucy is 9 months old now.  I am still waiting for the Mom Switch to turn on.  I am a MOTHER, after all.  I created life.  Shouldn't that change a person? 

Even the whole process by which my baby came into the word is shrouded in that fuzzy post-birth-hormonal-cocktailed haze.  It could easily not have happened at all.  If not for the constantly changing, sweet, funny, beautiful little girl that is sleeping in the next room, I might think I had dreamed the whole thing.  If anyone actually remembered childbirth for the way it really is for many women, we would have died out as a species long ago.  And I had a pretty easy time of it (if you don't count how long it took).  Yes, giving birth is a right of passage...but it is rarely honored as such in our culture and people don't generally have a celebration for the birth of the mother that happens at the same time as the birth of the baby.

All that aside, I know I have changed.  When I see kids in danger on TV or in the movies, it hits home in a real, visceral way.  She is in my thoughts most of the time.  My husband and I can refer to "she" or "her" out of the blue, in no context at all, and we both know who we are talking about.  My heart has expanded an infinite amount.  It has expanded so much that I wonder how it could possibly expand any further to include any more children.  I yearn for her when we are apart.  I worry about her safety, her development, her health.  I imagine her future with a smile on my face.

I guess the Mom Switch is much more subtle than I thought it was.  I expected to have a complete personality overhaul or something.  An ex-boyfriend of mine once said, "I want to be a fly on the wall when the doctors take you away after having a baby.  I want to know what they do to a woman to make them into moms."  Implying, of course, that he would recognize me after I had turned into one myself.  I suppose I took that more to heart than I ever should have.  I suppose I am still me.  Just "Mama" me.  I sometimes wonder if my mom ever looks at us and thinks "Wow, I can't believe I have KIDS!" or if the wonder of it all wears off after 30 years or so. 

So maybe the Mom Switch is really just a reshuffling of priorities as opposed to the total system reset I was waiting for.  I think of Lucy first and myself and my husband second.  That covers it, in a nutshell.  I think it might also be the switch that grows your heart to 1000 times its original size.  But I suppose even the Mom Switch can't make a perennial kid feel like a grown up.

I have to admit, though, having a real dining room set made me feel a little grown up.

Mama Yoga

You may have gleaned this from my previous postings, but Lucy is not a good sleeper.  She has her moments of great sleep, but generally speaking, I have not had a full night's sleep since she was born.  All this was tempered by the fact that she was usually a great daytime sleeper.  She's sleep for 2 hours in the morning and the another 2 in the afternoon and then sometimes 45 minutes in the early evening. 

This stopped recently.  So now she's a mediocre nighttime sleeper and a mediocre daytime sleeper.  She wakes up any where from 2-4 times a night (ouch) and she takes catnaps.  45 minute naps, 35 minute naps, sometimes an hour and 15 minute naps...but she always wakes up fussy and rubbing her eyes, making me think she needs more sleep.

So I started camping out by her crib about 10 minutes before she usually wakes up.  And I wait.  Sometimes she stirs and wiggles her fingers and goes back into a sleep without so much as a whimper.  Sometimes she jumps like someone has shocked her, rubs her eyes and starts wailing.  My goal is to pat her back to sleep before she actually wakes up.  It works like a charm.  If I can catch her before she is fully awake, it only takes a few gentle pats to get her to go back to sleep peacefully.  Usually if she makes it past 45 minutes, she'll sleep for 1.5-2 hours.  But if I miss the stirring and she actually wakes, it's game over, better luck next time.

The tricky part about all of this is not waking her up in my attempt to make sure she doesn't wake up.  A sleep cycle in an infant is 40 minutes long.  Around 30 minutes, they start to come up out of their deep sleep, crest the wake of barely waking around 40 minutes and - if you are lucky - sink slowly down into another deep sleep around 45 minutes.  Some babies can't make the transition from one sleep cycle to another, thus waking up around 40-45 minutes into their nap.  Often, this is Lucy.  So I have to quietly open the door to her room and wait quietly by her crib for her to stir, then quietly pat her down, then quietly leave when she is back asleep. 

Easy right?

WRONG!  The door squeaks.  It has been painted over so many times that it sort of lightly sticks to the frame, so that also makes a noise when you open the door.  The crib will move ever so lightly if you bump it in the wrong place.  The floor boards squeak.  My GOD do the floor boards sqeak!  I have to do a little jig to avoid the squeaky ones on the way to the crib and back out the door after the naptime intervention is done.  I have to put weight on one foot ever so slightly, testing the squeak of the floor before putting my full weight on it.  Then do the same with the other foot.  Then soooooooo slowly lean on the edge of the crib without moving it.  Or I can stand stark still in the middle of her room on the one spot I KNOW has no squeaky boards and do a mad dash to the crib side if she starts to wake up, often bumping the crib in my rush to keep her from waking.

Once I have found a quiet position at the edge of her crib, I have to wait.  I usually wait for 15 minutes, from 30 minutes into her nap to 45 minutes.  After I while I want to move.  My back starts to ache or my elbow hurts or the bottoms of my feet start to get really hot (don't even ask.  I have no idea why this happens).  So I start the cribside boogie.  Arching my back, wiggling my hips, rolling my neck.  I do every stretch I can think of that doesn't actually require me to move my feet or my arms. 

Then it occurs to me that this is my yoga.  Not just the stretching, but the waiting, the patting, the watching.  I breathe.  I am in my body, exactly where it is.  I stretch a little.  I watch my daughter sleep.  I love the idea that she thinks I watch over her every moment of her slumber.  Of course this is not true, but I love the idea that she might think this.  Whenever she starts to wake and can't go back to sleep, I am there for her with a gentle hand, a gentle pat.  She is so sweet while she sleeps. She smiles randomly, sucks her phantom pacifier, sighs deeply.  I breathe peace to my sleeping baby.  I practice patience as the clocks ticks the minutes off - minutes I could be using for any number of things for myself.  This is Life Yoga and I love it.  This is Karma Yoga (giving of yourself freely to others).  This is Mama Yoga.  What a blessing.

Boiled Milk

I am a yoga teacher.  I teach kids yoga to children ages 3-10.  Before I was a yoga teacher, I was just a yogini, utterly addicted to Bikram Yoga .  I once took class 60 days in a row - lost 20 pounds, dropped the depression that stemmed from the crumbling of the 5-year-relationship with my college boyfriend,  got a new job, a new car, a new life.  Yoga really, truly and in all other ways changed my life.  Bikram Yoga is a series of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises practiced in a hot room.  A very hot room.  A very hot and sweaty room.  I practiced Bikram Yoga for 6 years, more or less regularly depending on my travel schedule, before getting pregnant. 

When I go pregnant, my husband said "Please don't practice hot yoga...", my doctor said "Please don't practice hot yoga...", when I switched to a midwife, she said "Hmmmm...let me ask the perinatologist we consult with." but I could see behind her eyes "Please don't practice hot yoga...".  I think she would have been okay, having practiced for so long and being used to the heat, but who wants to take that chance?  Besides, the fact that I don't have a thyroid makes my body more susceptible to overheating and dehydration.  So I stopped practicing so as not to cook my unborn baby in the womb. 

I stopped practicing for 15 months.  That is a long LOOOOOOOONG time to be out of the hot room.  I used to worry about going back to class after having not been for a week.  Imagine my dread at returning to class after over a year.  But my friends, Lara and Yasmin - both Bikram teachers, bought me a 10 class pass at my home studio for Christmas.  So now I had to go back.

I went once in January.  Then roughly 3 feet of snow fell and my husband went travelling for work what seemed like every week.  So I didn't make it back again till last week.  It was a surprisingly strong class!  I didn't die, which was really the goal of the whole exercise, honestly, and actually did all the postures, except for one side of Balancing Stick  and one side of Triangle.  I felt GREAT!

I went back again last night.  It was not so great.  It must have been 10,000 degrees in that room, and 175% humidity.  I realize this is impossible, but it was impossibly hot.  I think I actually died three times.  I am not sure what kept me from running out of the room screaming, sweat flying, hair sticking up, crying for my life.  But I stuck it out.  I did almost everything.  Okay, that might be stretching the truth a bit, but I didn't sit out the whole class.  What I did notice was my milk letting down like CRAZY all throughout class.  Heat, apparently, opens the milk ducts and allows it to flow.  I knew this, having often take a hot shower to relieve clogged ducts, but I didn't really put 2 and 2 together as far as the heat in class was concerned.  I could have nursed every orphan in Haiti by the time class was over, and still had enough for a milk shake.

It didn't really bother me too much until we came to Rabbit Pose.  I LOVE Rabbit Pose.  It feels SO good on my back.  I used to try to do it while pregnant, but frankly, the position doesn't leave much room for a baby-laden belly.  I would literally dream about the day I could really do a full forward bend to finally release the tension in my back brought on by lugging a bowling ball around in my belly for so long.  A forward bend...like Rabbit Pose.

I am not sure why I didn't notice it the first two classes back.  Maybe I had nursed Lucy more recently before class.  Maybe I didn't go as deeply into the pose.  Who knows.  All I know is that when I got into Rabbit Pose, my shockingly-full, already-enormous, covered-with-sweat, breasts slapped themselves neatly right over my nose and my mouth.  I couldn't have breathed if I wanted to, and certainly not through my nose, as the teacher dictates.  So much for a great forward bend.  The way to pose compresses everything on the front side of your body makes it impossible to even hold your breath for length of the pose.  I was defeated in my favorite pose...by my own boobs.

When I got home after class, I pumped before bed like I always do. I usually get about 5-6oz of body-temperature milk.  Last night I got a solid 12oz.  And I swear it was boiling.

Baby Fingers

Lucy has been waking up less frequently at night.  She went from waking 4-5 times between 7pm and 7am, to waking just once around 2 am.  Sometimes twice, depending on whether or not she decides to poop out three days worth of food around 5 am.  This is a WONDERFUL development...but...

...I must say, one of these days I will miss snuggling with her in the quiet darkness of extremely early morning. 

Last night, she work up at 2:15am, after sleeping for a solid 7 hours (!!).  I stumbled half-asleep into her room (my sweet, slumbering husband barely stirring) and gathered her in my arms.  We sat in the rocker and nursed.  I took one little hand in mine, playing with her fingers, and her other hand was gently tickling my waist.  Her fingers were so chilly I almost jumped when she touched my skin.  She always goes for skin-to-skin contact during her night-time feedings.  She'll reach up and put her hand on my face, or on my breast as we nurse, or wrap her sweet little fingers around my thumb.  Sometimes her other hand will touch my waist or burrow deep up under my arm (I am shockingly ticklish - this is a hard one to deal with) - anywhere she can feel the warmth of Mama close by.  It is a powerful joy I cannot even come close to describing, mostly because of it's complete and utter lack of "specialness".

So nothing special happened last night, except that I was nursing my long-desired, often dreamt-of, precious baby girl in the wee hours of the morning. 

Perfect.

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.