TV-Free Toddler - Ice Cube Dump

Okay, I own it.  I have gotten lazy.  We've watched a LOT of TV in the last few months.  Somewhere along the line of slogging through the last three months of a super-uncomfortable pregnancy and then slogging through the last month of postpartum haziness, I forgot that a 2 year old shouldn't really watch as much TV as Lucy has been watching.  I comfort myself with the flimsy tale that at least she hasn't watching actual TV with endless commercials driving my pure, innocent daughter into a foaming at the mouth consumer zombie.  She watches the good stuff...like TANGLED and UP.  And WALL-E and ELMO and DORA the EXPLORER and WALLACE AND GROMIT and CARS and THE LION KING and...well...you get the picture.

On a seemingly random - but I promise you related note - it is election season.  This means busy season at the Capitol Steps.  This means my husband is traveling a lot.  This means I am alone with a ravenous newborn and a 2 year old a lot more than normal.  And that all adds up to me being tempted to pop in another DVD and sit in front of the telly yet again while I nurse one or both of my children.

I WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

So my challenge is to find an activity every day (uh...or at least every other day, I'm not Super Woman...and I DO still have a newborn) that fills the following requirements:

1) Does not involve the television
2) Fill from 15-45 minutes
3) Can be at least partly self-directed by a 2 year-old
4) Isn't always an art project
5) Involves an exploratory or sensory learning experience.

I realize that this is a way of life from some moms.  I envy the Super Moms who can somehow manage to always have a developmentally appropriate activity planned for their little ones, can keep a schedule, clean the house and cook a fully organic dinner from scratch with one hand tied behind their back while the other hand is writing their disertation.  This is not me.  I am a Slacker Mom.  I embrace this.  I don't read child development books.  I let Lucy play on her own for long stretches (though I think this is actually a good strategy -  she is excellent at entertaining herself and has a great imagination).  Because we work in the evenings and rarely have time at that time of day to sit down and eat dinner together, she eats random meals that one of us throws together while the other is on the way out the door for a show (um...let's see...peaches, spinach, veggie burger and uh...yogurt.  Done!).  I can't manage to keep the bathrooms clean and I don't go to parenting seminars.  Though I really think I could use a few.  I wing it.  I think we're doing okay, but the TV habit has got to go.

TODAY'S TV-FREE FUN: EMPTYING THE ICECUBE MAKER TRAY
Today's activity was actually a chore I needed to get done.  We bought a new refrigerator when we moved into this house, a little over 2 years ago.  About 6 months ago, I noticed the water from the fridge filter tasted...funny...Not like hard water, or a chlorine taste.  It tasted like mildew smells.  YUCK.  I pull out the manual and see that the filter needs to be changed every six months.  So we needed a new filter...a year ago.  This, of course, immediately fell to the bottom of my list of things to do, since we also have a Brita filter on the faucet.  A week or so ago, Kevin noticed that the ice was tasting funny, too.  I am shocked that it took him this long to notice, frankly, since it is made with the same water that was going through the filter.

ANYWAY, we finally got a new filter. So I had to run water through it for 3 minutes or 1.5 gallons-worth. Then I had to get rid of all the ice in the ice maker. 

So I handed to Lucy a big pastic bowl and emptied the ice box into it.  Each time I scooped another cup of ice into the bowl she said "LOUD!  Loud, Mama!" with a sort of shocked glee. 

We went outside to "water" the plants with the ice.  She picked a planter and dumped three full bowls of ice cubes into it. 

Lucy loves to water the plants.  This morning, she picked up a stick and was sort of waving it around over each of the plants as we walked up to the house.  I asked her what she was doing and she said "I watering the plants, Mama!"  See - great imagination!

After the second trip outside (with bare feet), she pulled out her special equipment - the froggy boots!  These are about a size too big, so she had a little trouble walking in them.

On the fourth trip out, I asked her to pick a different plant to freeze with mildew-y ice cubes.

After we finished, she took a souvenier.  I asked her to throw it away since it tasted yucky, but she said "Want to lick the yucky ice."  Okay, kid, whatever.  When we got inside, I noticed it was gone and saw that she had put it on the window sill.  I guess even Lucy knows yucky water when she tastes it.

So maybe today's activity was a cop out.  But kids love to help and I needed to get this job done.  And, it filled those 20 minutes after lunch and before nap that I am always tempted to fill with an episode of ELMO'S WORLD.

Of course, now she is up from her nap an hour and a half early.  And I am already wondering which episode of Dora I can stand to watch again.

Malcolm's Birth

My sweet baby boy was born at home at 8:27 am on September 23, 2011!

I had woken up for 2 or three days feeling very energetic (despite sleeping very poorly)…and I tried very hard not to do anything useful with this energy, hoping it was a sign I would be having the baby soon.  But I was still 2 weeks from my due date, so I assumed that it was a fluke and I would soon go back to feeling exhausted and crabby.  On Thursday night, I went to be early without eating dinner, which was very weird for me, since I had been eating like a starving horse for weeks.  But I just wasn’t hungry.  I lay in bed reading, playing scrabble on my phone, re-reading the last 2 chapters in my Hypnobabies workbook.  I was laying there for hours, not being able to sleep.  I wasn’t having any contractions, other than the strong Braxton-Hicks I had been having for several weeks.  Around 11:30, I started to feel a change in the contractions.  They were coming regularly and starting to feel a little more “real”.  Nothing urgent and nothing painful, just…real.  So I started timing them and was a little surprised to see them coming 5-7 minutes apart.  I tried to get to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening.  I got up to use the bathroom and noticed some spotting.  It wasn’t enough to be called a bloody show, but definitely spotting.  Funny what thrills you when you are nine months pregnant!  I was thrilled to see that little bit of blood!  Maybe this was it!

I got up to walk around and have a few glasses of water to see if that would stop the contractions, but they kept coming.  They were not terribly strong, but definitely regularly.  Around 3:00 am, I sat on the couch in the living room trying to decide if this merited a call to my midwife when I had a really strong, long contraction, as if in answer to my uncertainty.  So I called Mairi to let her know I had been up for a while with fairly regular contractions.  She suggested taking a shower and trying to get back to sleep.  So I took my late-night shower and oh did it feel good, but it didn’t do anything to make the contractions slow their pace.  I tried really hard not to wake up Kevin, figuring this would put me to sleep, but also wanting him to get a good night’s sleep if this actually was it so that at least one of us would be well rested.  I climbed into bed and he said “Are we having a baby?”  So much for not waking him.  I said I didn’t really know, but that we should try to get some sleep.  We both lay in bed for a while, and finally Kevin got up and I rolled over to try to sleep again.  All this time the contractions were staying regularly at around 5-6 minutes and lasting about a minute or so.  At 4:00 am I gave up trying to sleep.  I went downstairs and found Kevin watching TV and he asked if this was it.  I was sort of thinking I was going to have another start-stop-on-and-on-for-days labor like I had with Lucy, but it was feeling pretty progressive at this point, so I said “I think maybe yes…”  At this point, I could still talk through contractions, but I had to stand up and lean over the couch or stairs or something to work through them, so I knew they were getting stronger.  I had stopped timing them, so I didn’t know if they were getting closer together or not.  

So for the next hour and 45 minutes, we set up all the things that we should have had ready before I went into labor.  We dragged the birth pool and supplies up from the storage closet.  We dug out the electric air pump, the pool liner, the thermometer, towels, shower curtains.  We tried to figure out how to turn on the electric air pump without waking up Lucy 2 hours early.  We ended up plugging the pump in out on the deck and attempting to keep the pump outside and the pool inside, hopefully making it quieter, but in actuality, we were just allowing dozens of mosquitoes to pour into the house (this we didn’t discover until later in the day when we all ended up covered in red bumps).  Of course, all efforts to remain quiet were thwarted by the fact that every 4 minutes or so, I had to drop what I was doing without ceremony and get on all fours to work through another contraction.  After literally tossing the air pump across the room as another contraction started, I decided that it was time to call Mairi again.  So at 4:45, I called Mairi and told her I never got back to sleep and the contractions were now strong enough not to talk through.  She called Kat (the student midwife who would also be attending the birth) and they were on their way.  I was starting to think I wasn’t going to have time to even fill the birth pool at this point.  But I was desperate for the warm water, so I went ahead anyway, as Kevin laid out the shower curtain and towels on the couch, lit some candles and got snacks out for the descending hordes.  I started filling the pool, and called my dad to let them know that if they wanted to be at the birth, they should get on their way as soon as possible.  Apparently my mom was not convinced and repeatedly told my dad this was false labor and they should wait for another phone call before heading out in the middle of the night.  I am so glad they didn’t!  Then I noticed that I hadn’t put the liner in the birth pool.  This wasn’t really an issue…but it sure would make clean-up a lot messier without a liner.  There was already 6 inches of water in the pool, so instead of taking the time to drain it, I just put the liner in over the water and started filling again.  And of course, I accidentally moved the faucet while I worked through a contraction and only noticed when the pool was almost full that it was only 80 degrees.  Never try to do anything requiring any measure of precision when you are in labor.  

Kat and Thaddeus (her 4 month old son) arrived around 5:15 and Mairi arrived a few minutes later.  I sat and chatted with Mairi and Kat between contractions.  I hadn’t gotten to practice my Hypnobabies as much as I intended, so while I was not experiencing a perfectly comfortable birth, it certainly wasn’t mind-numbingly painful.  I sat on the couch and breathed through a contraction, and I remember feeling like the earth was opening up and pulling me down.  I literally felt as though I was sinking down further into the earth with every contraction.  Mairi said that was Gaia reaching up and embracing me.  What a lovely image to get me through each increasingly challenging contraction.  We finally got the pool hot enough and I jumped in and stayed there for the next three hours.  I dozed between waves of increasing pressure, trying to remember my relaxation cues.  I read a quote recently that said “birth is involuntary; you just have to allow it to happen”.  It was so much easier – and much more effective - to just let all my tension go and relax into the pressure than to tense up and fight it.  

Lucy woke up sometime before 6:00 am and came down to see what all the commotion was.  She was so incredibly sweet the whole time.  She brought me water and kissed me and patted my head and said “Feel better, Mama” and asked me what was happening.  We had watched a lot of birth videos in preparation for her being at the birth, so I told I was just working hard to get our baby out, like the moms in the videos we watched.  She seemed to understand and was perfectly at ease and really happy to be helping Mama to have the baby.  Eventually, though, she wanted to get in the pool and when she wasn’t allowed to do that, she got bored and restless so Kevin took her to get dressed and play downstairs.  I kept looking at the clock, knowing my parents were on the way and wondering when they would get there.  I wanted Kevin with me, and I didn’t know what we were going to do with Lucy if this lasted all day, which I was fully expecting.  I remember noticing that the sun was rising, seeing that it was 7:30 am, and thinking “30 minutes and my parents will be here to help…”

I heard ELMO’S WORLD starting on the DVD player, and then I heard my parents coming in the front door.  30 minutes had passed in what seemed like an instant.  I had been having pushy contractions on and off for a while.  There were super intense, 90 second or more, this-baby-is-coming-now contractions interspersed with gentler (relatively, anyway), calmer pressure waves.  I was grateful for this unexpected pattern, since it gave me a chance to rest and gather my strength, even though there was never a full break between contractions.  My dad and mom were talking loudly as a particularly long, strong wave hit me, and I remember having my one, less-than-zen moment of labor when I shouted at the top of my lungs “PLEASE STOP TALKING!”  Actually, I might have shouted “PLEASE SHUT UP!”…you’d have to ask my parents.  And I am sure I had more than one less-than-zen moment, I just don’t recall themJ  At one point, after breathing my way through another pushy contraction, I opened my eyes to see that Kat had put Thaddeus in the bumbo right next to the birth pool.  He was smiling and cooing like he was cheering me on.  It was such a delightful, unexpected surprise to see his sweet little face smiling at me – it reminded me what all this was for!  

A few minutes after my parents came, my water broke (according to my labor summary report, this was at 8:09 am).  Clear water, lots of vernix, all is well!  I don’t know how many times I pushed, or how many contractions I had after my water broke.  I don’t remember having a conscious urge to push.  Each pushing contraction did all the work for me.  I tried just to let my body go limp and allow my uterus to do the work for me.  I honestly don’t know how anyone could do anything BUT allow the process to unfold – it was so completely out of my control.  I couldn’t control what sounds were coming out of my mouth, I couldn’t control how my body was moving, and I certainly couldn’t control what was happening in my womb.  The impression I have from the last few contractions was of me, hanging over the side of the pool, body getting jerked downwards and arms flailing about as if I were being mauled by a shark or rolled by a crocodile or something.  Kevin assures me this isn’t what happened, but that is the picture I have in my mind.  These contractions felt like there was a very strong someone pulling downward on a rope tied around my solar plexus on the inside.  On Kat and Mairi’s suggestion, I checked myself and found the baby’s head was less than an inch away from crowning!  Soon, soon, soon!

I had torn pretty badly with Lucy, and really didn’t want to do that again, so as I felt the baby crowning, I covered his head with my hand and applied a lot of pressure where I felt the most stinging and pulling.  Then suddenly, his head was out!  Kat urged me to push again, without a contraction, to get the rest of him out; I guess there is only so long you want a baby’s head underwater before there is a possibility of him trying to take his first breath underwater – which isn’t a great idea.  I gave some pretty hard pushes, but he was not moving anywhere.  I still had my hand on his head, and I could feel him wriggling and turning, helping himself to be born.  This was absolutely the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.  My sweet baby and I had been working together this whole time so I could finally hold him in my arms.  Mairi thought his shoulder was a little sticky (not quite stuck, per say, but not in a hurry to come out), so Kat gently helped the shoulder out while I waited for the next contraction.  Ouch.  One more wave, one more push, and Malcolm swam out into my hands.  I pulled him to my chest and sat back, giddy and laughing and crying all at the same time.

At Malcolm’s huge first cry, I saw someone ushering Lucy up to meet her new baby brother (I have no idea who it was, who was actually there when he was born, or what might have been happening outside the little circle of me, the baby and Kat).  She stopped at Thaddeus and patted him on the head  – she might have thought he was the new baby - and came over to me and the baby.  She put her little hand on his tiny head.  It was so wonderfully, deliciously sweet to have my husband and my baby girl a breath away as we all met our baby boy together.  

MALCOLM OLIVER CORBETT

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

8LBS 14OZ

21” LONG

I am glad he didn't stay in for another 2 weeks - he would have been a ten-pounder, easy!  

Later, Kevin told me that Lucy had been downstairs saying “Mama’s making lots of noise.  Like a heffalump!”   

We moved to the couch where Malcolm took to nursing like a pro – I didn’t even need to help him latch on!  When Lucy saw Malcolm nursing, she immediately wanted to nurse as well (had to stake her claim on Mama, I suppose!).  We had our first tandem nursing session ten minutes after Malcolm was born. I credit Lucy with helping to birth the placenta a few minutes later, and for the amazingly small amount of blood I lost. 

Welcome to the world, little boy!

Talking...

...and talking and talking...

Lucy is full of words.  A few favorite gems from this weeks:

"Cheese is for yummy."

"We be careful with aliens."

"Want to see the thunder."

"Want to color, thunder?  Here's some blue!"

"You want to have some mama milk, Elmo?" (how nice...she's offering my boob to ELMO)

Lucy: (loud fart) Someone has a toot!
Me: Someone has a toot?  Who?
Lucy: LUCY!  (pause, then very quietly)  And a poop, too.

Baziza the Butterfly

Lucy and I went to Brookside Gardens yesterday.  It was a relatively pleasant afternoon and Lucy loves to go in and out of the "teeny little house" they have in the children's garden there. 

So we are walking through the garden and Lucy comes across a little teething toy shaped like a butterfly.  She was very excited.  I said "Someone lost a toy."  She said "He is SAD."  I said, "Maybe.  We should leave here in case they come back for it."  Lucy apparently ignored me and picked it up and put it in her pocket, because 10 minutes later and about 200 yards from where we found it, there was the butterfly toy still in her hand. 

You can see there Baziza in her hand.

Okay, whatever.

In the car on the way home, she starts saying the same word over and over.  It sounds like "baziza".  I don't know if she was trying to repeat something I had mentioned earlier (a flower name?) or what.  So I asked her what she was saying.  "BAZIZA!  Butterfly is named BAZIZA!" 

Huh.  Where'd she come up with THAT one?

Then she goes on.  I will attempt a verbatim recreation of our conversation.

Lucy: Butterfly is name Baziza. 
Me:  Baziza?
Lucy: Yeah.  Someone is sad.
Me: Who is sad?
Lucy: Carlos!
Me: Um...who's Carlos?
Lucy: The boy and BAZIZA!
Me: The boy?
Lucy: Someone is sad he lost a toy Baziza butterfly.  Name is CARLOS.
Me:  The boy who lost the toy is named Carlos?
Lucy: Yeah.
Me: ...
Lucy: He sad.  Make him feel better.  (loud kissing noise from the back seat).  There ya go, Baziza. There ya go.  Feel better.  Awww. (little pat pat pat sounds from the back seat.  Apparently she is hugging the butterfly).

I have no idea where any of that came from. 

Inherent Risks

I had a very interesting conversation today with a family member.  He has been having an abdominal aortic aneurysm monitored for several months.  Thank goodness his most recent evaluation showed that it had stabilized and hadn't gotten any bigger since his last exam.  He was telling me how he thought he needed to find a new surgeon since the guy he was with was pushing an angioplasty on him, which apparently would have done nothing for the aneurysm.  His doctor said they could check it all out and place stents in if they found any plaque as a preventative measure.  The aneurysm being the main concern, he declined the angioplasty, since any surgery carries with it inherent risks.  If it wasn't going to help the aneurysm, he would just as soon not do anything that might lead to further complications.  Since the aneurysm doesn't yet measure 5 cm (the threshold where they start to really consider the risk of rupture and the need to do surgery), he wanted to continue to monitor it closely instead of do anything of dubious value.  Apparently, angioplasty is a cash cow for heart doctors.  They can make like $10,000 in one 20 minute procedure, so some tend to push it on patients whether or not is is medically indicated.  He was telling me of one case where a patient needed open heart surgery, but they couldn't do it because of all the metal stents he had in his blood vessels from several previous angioplasties.  Oops.  (Now, please understand I have none of this as first hand knowledge, just what my family member was telling me today, but this family member has a vested interest in getting his research from credible sources since his life literally depends upon it). 

He then went on to tell me of his distrust of doctors in general and how he only goes if he has tried everything else and it still isn't working.  So when he goes to a doctor, there is a good reason and he wants help, not more watchful waiting.  So I said, as an off-hand comment, "And that is exactly why I have my babies at home".  He sort of chuckled and said "Well, what you're doing carries some serious risks".  I said "You are walking around with an abdominal aortic aneurysm.  That is neither normal nor healthy!  You just said there is a risk of it rupturing and you bleeding out in a matter of minutes.  I am having a baby - which is both normal and healthy.  How is what I am doing any more risky that what you are doing?"  He didn't really have an answer to that.  Looking back at it, I am slightly offended that his research and ultimate decision not to subject himself to unnecessary procedures - on a decidedly unhealthy condition - was somehow more valid than my research and similar decision, for a perfectly normal and healthy condition.  **Le sigh**  He has never made any negative comments to me previously about my decision to have my babies at home, and didn't even really make a negative comment this time.  He has been respectful of my choice.  Or perhaps he has just been silent - but that is good enough.  But it is interesting to see a little window into his thoughts on the matter. 

On the car ride home, I was thinking - and of course I am speaking in the grossest of general terms - that OBs are trained as surgeons and in the pathology of pregnancy.  They rarely see normal, natural births.  My pregnancy is healthy.  I am healthy.  I don't want to be operated on.  Why would I go to an OB?  My midwives are trained in normal pregnancy and childbirth.  They see it every day.  So if something is deviating, they know it and make sure the I see a doctor.  Why would I take my normal, healthy pregnancy to a place for sick people (the hospital) where it is the standard care to hooked up to an IV and monitored so closely that you can even move around?  Where I can't be sure if they are intervening in the process because it is necessary or because it is more convenient or because it is "standard procedure"?  Why would I subject myself to procedures that carry with them dubious value for a healthy woman within the normal process of labor and also the risk of possible complications?  It seems to me it is the exact same decision that my family member made regarding his heart, but for some reason when I make it about my pregnancy and baby's birth, it is suddenly unwise and unsafe.  All medical procedures carry with them the risk of complications.  I am choosing not to subject myself to them.  If it is absolutely necessary, I am happy to go to the hospital, happy to strapped and poked and monitored and even operated on.  If it is absolutely necessary.  But until then, you can find me at home.

Hypnobabies, Home Birth and Naysayers



29 weeks



As I drag my gorgeous, luminous, beautiful (read:ballooning) body closer to my baby's ETA, I am starting to look forward to my second home birth.  When I was pregnant with Lucy, a lot of people looked at me funny when I told them I was having my baby at home.  They also looked at me funny when I said that I was planning a peaceful, comfortable birth with my Hypnobabies training.  A few helpful people even laughed at me.  Outright LAUGHED at my choice to birth differently than most people will tell you is possible.  Ummm...thanks for your support...?  When I told a friend of mine I was birthing at home she said, "I might have done that with my SECOND baby.  But never with my FIRST.  You just never know what could HAPPEN!"  Then I said I was doing Hypnobabies (which is, incidentally medical hypnoanesthesia - the technique they teach to people who have life-threatening allergies to anesthesia but require major medical procedures), and that I was training my mind to feel the contractions as waves of pressure rather than pain.  I said I was fully expecting a pleasant, comfortable birth experience.  She raised her eyebrows with an "isn't she cute?" smirk on her face and said "Whatever!  Good luck with that!"  And again...thanks for your support!

What is it with people who insist on telling first-time moms horror stories about birth?  Seriously?  I know people want to tell their stories.  This is how we connect - and the urge to connect and share is especially strong in mothers because birth is such a life-changing experience.  But the seed of fear is insidious and it can grow out of control.  Most of us are afraid of childbirth to begin with, and fear only exacerbates pain because you literally cannot relax if you are afraid.  It defeats the purpose of the fear in the first place.  You are supposed to be tense if you are frightened - that is how we survived as a species (Eh, there's a tiger coming to eat us.  I'm awfully scared, but I feel so RELAXED!  I'll get around to running in a minute).  However, tension and fear are completely counterproductive to helping the body open in childbirth.  And birth is not something to fear!  It is something to relish and enjoy and triumph in!  Yes, it is intense.  Yes, there is an incredible amount of power surging through your body while you birth.  And yes, it is probably the most challenging thing you will ever require of your body.  But it isn't scary if you allow the power instead of fight it.  And if you allow yourself (and train yourself) to think differently, it doesn't have to be painful.  Really and truly.  The human mind is incredibly powerful, and it controls the body.  THE MIND CONTROLS THE BODY.  Many wise people (including a certain Jewish carpenter) have said "As you believe, so shall you be".  Think about that.  As you believe, SO SHALL YOU BE.  Want something different in your experience?  Believe something different about your experience.  That is what I learned from my daughter's birth.  I didn't want it to be painful or traumatic or scary.  I taught myself to believe that it wouldn't be.  And it wasn't.  Now it wasn't a cakewalk, either, but it was peaceful and generally comfortable and pretty damn easy all things considered, especially in comparison to all those running-down-the-hallway screaming-type births that they insist on showing you in TV.  It was beautiful, and I can't wait to do it again!  I am not in denial, either.  I know things go wrong at births.  You hear about it all the time.  But that is why I have wonderful 2 midwives that I completely trust to tell me if something is amiss.  That is their job.  To make sure my baby is born safely.  If something looks like it is heading in a worriesome direction, they will say, "Hey, Jenny, let's take this to the hospital to have a doctor check things out".  And because I trust their judgement, I will say "You know, if you think it is a good idea, let's go".  The goal for everyone is a healthy baby and a safe birth - not simply a home birth.

And on that note, here's another thing that drives me nuts.  Why can't people just let women birth their babies where ever the hell they want to?  Why all the hullaballoo about home birth?  Women aren't stupid.  Home birthers are not choosing the "experience" of birth over the safety of their child.  People who believe that are idiots, plain and simple.  What do they think we are telling ourselves?  "The experience at home is so nice that I don't care if my baby dies"?  What kind of jackass says that?  The fact is, the research is there (and this link is just the tip of the iceberg).  All the credible research shows that PLANNED home birth with a trained professional birth attendant - for low-risk, healthy mothers - is as safe, if not safer than birthing in a hospital.  So quit telling me that I am irresponsible, irrational, foolish, or even dangerously putting my baby's life at risk and give me easier access to those trained professionals!  Good lord.  And while you're at it, can you please tell my insurance company to reimburse me for my low-tech, low-cost home birth?  "Low-cost" should be a HUGE selling point to insurance companies on home birth.  But certainly, we here in the US don't need to tweak our system at all.  Our maternity stats are some of the best in the world, right?  We have lower costs, lower maternal death rates, lower c-section rates, lower neonatal morbidity and mortality rates than the entire civilized world, right?  Why change ANYTHING in our sleek as a shark, completely efficient, evidence-based healthcare system?  Oh...wait...I was hallucinating again...

So...yeah.  That was a rant.  Sorry. 

So I am planning a second home birth.  A second Hypnobabies birth.  I am very excited about it.  Lucy was born in the water, and I am starting to imagine Muffin being born there, too.  I am starting to imagine holding him for the first time in the quiet dark of the middle of the night.  I am starting to imagine crawling into my own bed with my husband and my sweet little girl and my new baby boy - my beautiful family completed.  I am starting to get impatient to meet him and see who he will be.  

Ten more weeks.   

Third Trimester, Here I COME!

I had intended to do a better job documenting this pregnancy.  Something seems to have prevented me from being as active a blogger as I would like to be these days...I am not naming any names, but she's short, blonde, cute and her name rhymes wth Goosey.

28 week belly!

Anyway, this past Sunday, I crossed the magical divide into the third trimester of my second (and what I hope to be final) pregnancy.  Only 11 weeks and some change to go!  Some people say they coast through the second trimester, barely noticing they are pregnant at all.  This has not been my experience.  I thought I would LOVE being pregnant.  I really thought my body was built for it.  I come from a long line of women who popped out babies on an annual or biannual basis.  (** side note ** I had to look up "biannual" since I am never sure which one means once every 2 years and which means twice a year.  Interestingly enough, "biannual" can mean either.  And my mom and great grandmother both had twins, so it applies in either case).  The problem I seem to have is that I have super flexible hips to begin with, and pregnancy relaxin just makes them SO flexible that it hurts.  All those years of yoga...and I wish I were less flexible...

Anyway, I started to feel this pregnancy a lot faster than my first one.  I guess it is because I got so much bigger so much faster this time.  I sweat, at 25 weeks I was as big as I was at 30 week with Lucy.  And I have the pictures to prove it!  In my community care group (all the mamas in my midwives' practice that are giving birth in October meet once a month for these group prenatal visits), I am by far the largest belly there.  Now, granted, I am one of the earliest due dates in the group and most of the ther mamas are first-time moms (it makes me really happy that so many first-time mamas are choosing hom birth!!!), but at the last meeting, I was seriously out-bellying every lady there, even the one due a week before me.  I guess after you get everything all stretched out once, your body knows where to go. 

Speaking of all stretched out...if I call my stretch marks "racing stripes" do you think it will make them seem less tragic?  I was always so proud of my flat tummy.  Even if I was out of shape everywhere else, my tummy was always flat as a board.  Now I fear my abused abs will be covered by baggy, stretched out skin.  It was already a little droopy after Lucy was born.  I can only imagine the damage being done now by what feels to be the gargantu-baby currently populating my uterus.  Is the fact that my two children can't even share stretch marks a bad omen for how they'll get along later in life (you know, when they are both extra-utero)?  I mean, there was already a perfectly respectable (and well-hidden) crop of racing stripes covering the skin between my hips, but very sensibly not peaking up over the top of a bikini.  Now they are creeping up to belly button level and I am getting mad. 

They have managed to share pelvic girdle pain.  Thank you, kids.  When Lucy was born, she had her chin tilted up and her hand on her cheek.  This is not the most efficient manner to enter the world, and I felt like my legs were going to fall off when I walked too much for a few weeks after Lucy made her appearance.  They popped and swayed awful lot more after that epic birth.  My hips will never be the same.  And to prove it, I started feeling the same loosey-goosey hip feeling almost immediately after I got pregnant with the muffin man.  Now I am worried about my legs falling off before I even give birth.  I swear, my pubic bone is popping.  This is a really unnerving feeling.  I understand that the popping sound you hear in joints (think knuckles cracking or knees popping without any pain) is usually synovial fluid forming bubble and then bursting, thus getting the popping sound.  In your hips, it is often the result of your iliotibal band or iliopsoas, rubbing over a bone.  So what is it when your pubic bone pops?  There is no joint there, in the traditional sense.  The only time it supposed to move at all is when you are giving birth.  So what is that hrrible sound I hear eminating from my front pelvis when I get out of bed the wrong way?  Ugh.  I do not know.  I am not sure I want to, either.  I DO know that if this baby gets too much bigger, I am going to be sitting on his head rather than on my ischial tuberosities.  That is my favorite anatomical term.  That and phalanges.

Things that help with sacroiliac joint pain:
Getting out of the car with two feet at a time
Not standing on one leg (this is tough, since I teach yoga)
Tightening up the abs and pelvic floor muscles when rolling over in bed
Avoiding breast stroke-style kicks while swimming
Sitting with knees together (HA!)
Sitting on a birth ball
Keeping pelvis tucked under and pelvic floor muscles engaged while standing or walking

Anyway, other than that, the second trimester was lovely.  All things considered, I am feeling really well.  Now onto the third!  11 weeks and 4 days to go!

Before I go, I would like to clarify...I don't HATE being pregnant.  I LOVE the feeling of a little life growing inside me.  I love the mystery of what he will look like, who he will be, how the birth will go...obviously I don't love mystery enough to wait to find out the gender, but gender is only one aspect of this completely unknown creature my body is building.  It is just astounding on every level that I am MAKING another human being.  FROM SCRATCH!  I don't even make CAKE from scratch!  The human body is such an amazing machine.  So, I don't get morning sickness.  I don't generally get heartburn.  I don't get vericose veins or swollen ankles.  I weather the pretty incredible changes of pregnancy very well, considering how active my job is and how demanding it is to have a toddler and grow a baby at the same time.  I don't have much to complain about.  It just hurts in my hips.  Too bad you need them to walk.