31

I don’t know nuthin bout birthin no babies!

This is not the pregnancy/birth experience that I wanted. Neither was my first. I know I’m not alone in this and I’m not the only woman to feel betrayed by her own body, to be steamrolled into medical interventions that she doesn’t want, to be run through a system that doesn’t necessarily have her best interest at heart.

(Let me begin with a caveat: I adore my OB. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I trust him. I trust that he truly cares about my health and the health of my child and will do what he believe is right in any given situation. If I didn’t feel this way, I wouldn’t be his patient. However, he is still a member of the medical profession and is looking out for himself and his practice.)

I make no secret about the fact that my first delivery was a living hell. My epidural took more than an hour to be inserted and then it only worked on the right side of my body. I felt my c-section on the left side and the nurse anesthetist didn’t believe me. I didn’t get any relief from the pain until my daughter was delivered and I was being put back together. I spent five days in the hospital where I packed on 20lbs of fluid. My feet were so swollen that I literally could not get socks on them. Once I was home, my incision ruptured and I found myself lying in bed in a pool of blood and fluid. I spent WEEKS with a washcloth folded in my pants to absorb the constant leaking fluid from my incision. It was painful and humiliating and scaring. I had nightmares for months after my daughter’s delivery. I honestly believe that it greatly contributed to my postpartum depression and affected my ability to bond with my daughter.

We all know the goal of pregnancy is to end up with a healthy baby at the end and we’re told that it doesn’t really matter how you get there. I believe that it does matter. I believe that women have been told for so long that they don’t know how to give birth that we actually believe it. Medical interventions have become the norm, rather than the exception. I’m grateful to be the recipient of modern medical care and to have not lost my unborn child to extremely premature labor. However, I know this leaves me wide open for further medical interventions that I don’t want or even believe that I need.

What I want is to not give birth lying flat on my back on the most counter-intuitive position imaginable. I don’t want to be hooked up to all kinds of machines and IVs so that I can’t get out of bed and move. I don’t want to be forced into pitocin and then an epidural because the pit contractions are too painful to bear and then a c-section because well, hell, I’ve already got the epidural so we might as well. I don’t want to be treated as though the birth of my son is a medical event that requires treatment. I’m not sick. I’m giving birth. There is a HUGE difference.

But I’m having a VBAC so I know most, if not all, of these things are inevitable. I had to sign consent forms to attempt a VBAC and they were so skewed toward pushing me into a repeat c-section. All this garbage about uterine rupture and the fact that I’ll probably end up needing a section anyway and the recovery from attempted labor and then a section is worse than if I just had the section in the first place. It wasn’t really a consent form so much as a tool being used to frighten me into an unnecessary medical treatment.

When this baby is ready to come into the world (at an appropriate time, mind you!) I plan to have as little intervention as I can get away with. There will be absolutely no pitocin. If I choose to have an epidural it will be because I want one and not because I’m being coerced into it. I will try my hardest to not be supine when I’m ready to give birth. I will only have a c-section if it is clearly a life and death situation for me or my son. I will be my own advocate and I won’t be steamrolled into anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.

Damn and Double Damn

So, I ended up in Labor and Delivery on Friday night with one determined little boy. There were contractions and dilation and shots and monitoring. It was very exciting.

I was admitted but I got to come home on Sunday. However, I’m now on Strict Ass MoFo Bed Rest (note: not an actual medical term). I’m allowed to go to the bathroom, spend an hour once or twice a week outside my house and that’s about it. And the best part? Since my FedEx delivery on Friday we can’t afford to pay for daycare for the girl. I’m incapable of caring for my daughter and incapable of paying for someone else to do so. Parenting FAIL of epic proportions. Our saving grace came in the form of Gerald’s mom and Aunt. They were still in town and volunteered to take Maddie back to southern Texas with them for the next two weeks. It’s a burden for them, but they’re willing to do whatever they can to help us. How lucky are we to have family like that?

Of course, I’m wrestling with a metric ass-load of guilt over this. I can’t gestate my unborn son properly, I can’t care for the child I already have, I can’t work, I can’t keep my house, etc. I feel like one big, giant fail. I miss my girl and feel so bad that I had to ship her off so that I can lay on my effing left side 95% of the day. Will she think I wanted to get rid of her in favor of the baby? Will she even care at all? I can’t decide which is worse. GAH!

Anyhow, I figure I’ll give myself a few days of pity partydom and then suck it up and do what I gots tah do. Which is, you know, nothing.

30

My in-laws have left the building, my husband is out running errands and my daughter is (STILL!) napping. This seems like the perfect time to post.

First of all, I had my 30 week OB appointment yesterday, complete with sonogram. I was able to take my MIL and Aunt-in-law with me so that they could see The Boy. They were blown away by the casualness seeing as they didn’t get sonograms when they were pregnant. The Boy cooperated and put on quite a show for the ladies. He’s already 3 lbs 10 oz, which is in the 77th percentile. He’s gonna be a Big Boy, it seems. This thrills me because I’ve only gained 10 lbs so far and my OB was worried about the baby getting enough to grow. Doesn’t appear to be a problem!

Everything else is looking good. I’m back up to three doses of anti-contraction meds a day and was admonished to do more actual “resting” than I had been. My cervix is still closed and I only have to make it two more weeks before my OB says it would be safe to deliver. I joked that he’s going to end up having to induce me at 42 weeks.

Maddie’s really starting to get excited about the baby. Yesterday, we were at Target with Nana and Maddie ran up to the baby boy clothes and shouted, “OH! Look at this for my baby brother!” and proceeded to try and get me to buy a size 2T shirt for him. Instead, I took her over to the clearance rack and let her pick out an outfit for him. Later in the evening, she was laying on me and felt the baby kick. She decided that she wanted to sing him the ABCs, so she put her head down by my belly and sang for him. Of course, my eyes welled up and I saw the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Once he gets here, all bets are off and I’m guessing it’ll be three days, at most, before she’s trying to get rid of him.

Since we’re in the final countdown to The Boy’s arrival, I’m going to be posting soon about my birth “plan” (as if I actually have one) and breastfeeding. Please stay tuned because I desperately need your advice, commiseration, sympathy and level-headedness.

Reaching the Maximum Out of Pocket

I took the Madster to a pediatric ENT yesterday on the recommendation of her pediatrician. My poor girl has had more ear infections and bouts of strep throat than any other child I know. She spends two weeks on antibiotics, gets well, and within a month is sick again. At first we attributed it to the evil daycare germs, but then began to wonder if she wasn’t reinfecting herself. Turns out, it’s been her all along.

The ENT said that it’s fairly obvious to him that Maddie’s reinfecting herself and it’s not coming from outside sources. Her tonsils looked ok yesterday, but the lymph nodes that they drain into are distended from being filled so often. She’s got fluid built up behind one eardrum and the other is protracted. The ENT believes she’ll benefit greatly from having a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy and ear tubes placed. This doesn’t come as a total surprise, but still.

It’s a day surgery, so that’s nice. And she’ll need about a week to recover. We’re going to go ahead and have it done right away so that she can have undivided attention during recovery instead of dealing with a new baby at the same time.

I saw my OB this afternoon for a follow-up. Things are going well. He reduced the amount of procardia that I’m taking and relaxed some of my restrictions. So, YAY! for that. I go back in two weeks for a full blood work-up and sonogram. I’m still taking it easy because as much as I’d like to explode in a flurry of activity, I sure as hell don’t want to end up in the hospital for the next six weeks, you know? Although, it was pretty damn nice being waited on hand and foot and not having a kid running around like some kind of deranged hellbeast. OH! OW! Contractions! I’d better get to the hospital right away! (Think Gerald will fall for it?)

Full Circle – Or some other ironic title like that.

Well, it seems that life is, indeed, cyclical here at Chez Dressed Up. Apparently, I only grow the over-achieving babies who don’t feel like they need a full 37 weeks of gestation. Thank goodness this is our last kid.

Here’s where things stand presently: I’m at risk for pre-term labor. I’m home on bed rest until 34 weeks. Luckily, it’s the “light” kind of bed rest in that I can still do things around the house and sit in my recliner instead of lying in bed on my left side all damn day. I’m taking a medication called procardia to ward off contractions. It works unless I’m too active, but it’s got some shitty side effects like racing heart, dizziness, headache, and shakiness. Plus, I already have pretty low blood pressure to begin with so this stuff lowers it even more and makes me feel like ass.

Those of you following along at home will remember that I started a new job a little over two months ago. Queen of Horrible Timing? Yeah, that’s me. Anyhow, the good news is that my job is totally work-from-home-able and management would much rather me work from home then do my work themselves for the next however long. I’m going into the office tomorrow to meet with them and go over the details. And if for some reason that all goes to hell in a hand basket, then I’ve got short-term disability that will cover me. The fact that I’ll still be getting paid means that Maddie can continue to go to daycare during the day. We’ve reduced her hours to 5 hours a day, 5 days a week and I feel like it’s a win-win. She gets to sleep in since we don’t have to be there until 9am, she still gets the benefit of playing with other kids and learning new things, and I can rest/work without feeling guilty for ignoring her.

Most importantly, The Boy is doing very well. At my last sonogram on Wednesday, he weighed 2lbs, 8 oz and was in the 69th percentile for size. This is a relief since I’ve lost another pound, putting me at gaining just 7 pounds for this entire pregnancy. All of his parts are accounted for and seem to be functioning within nominal parameters. He’s extraordinarily active which is a blessing and a curse. I’m guessing he’s going to end up being a total spaz like his big sister but it’s reassuring to feel him kick the shit out of me and know he’s still in there and doing all right.

The big downside to the whole bed rest debacle is that I’m crazy nesting and can’t really do anything about it. I’m trying to limit myself to one chore per day so that I feel like things are still being done and my house is still clean without overdoing it. I’m DYING to put together the nursery and start buying things, but that has to wait. The Boy’s room is currently our guestroom and last remaining bedroom. (Note to self: Go back in time and choose to build the bigger house. You’ll thank me for it.) Gerald’s mom will be here next week for a follow-up on her heart valve replacement, so we need a guestroom for her. Then, we can at least set up most of the baby’s furniture. Gerald’s mom will be coming back again when The Boy is born and staying for a few weeks, so she’ll need a place to sleep. We’ll leave her bed in there and then move it out when she goes home. We’re most likely going to move it into Maddie’s room and move her out of her toddler bed. (The guest bed is a twin trundle, so if we have guests we can expand it and boot Maddie out to sleep with us or whatev.) All in all, we’ll be in pretty good shape. I’m just so anxious to GET GOING, ALREADY!

GAH! This post is rambley and all over the damn place, isn’t it? I go for months not posting anything worthwhile and then BAM! Overload! Well, you’d better get used to it, my pretties. I have a feeling I’m going to finally have the time to blog again on the reg. Now might be the time to manage your Reader subscriptions, if you catch my drift.

Life Savah

With my first pregnancy I was on bed rest for months. Which translates into “not working.” Which equals BROKE. Therefore, we relied on the generosity of our family and friends in order to outfit both our daughter and her nursery. We were so blessed in that we were given just about everything we could possibly need to bring home a newborn.

With this pregnancy, we are in a much better place financially and we have the benefit of being able to use the majority of the items we got for Maddie. The only things that I really need to get for The Boy are clothes (that aren’t pink!), a travel system (that isn’t pink!) and a dresser for his room. HOWEVER – there are some items that I really wanted to get for Maddie, but they weren’t necessities so finances dictated that we skip them. For instance, I really wanted a Baby Bjorn carrier for her and never got one. (Aside: A month or so ago I lucked out and got one for The Boy at Target in an open box for $27 marked down from $98. SCORE!) I’m not going crazy spending money on this kid, but I want to know what was the ONE THING you purchased, or were given, when you had a baby that was indispensable. What saved your sanity or made your life easier and will forever be the shower gift you give your pregnant friends and family?

Unfortunate

Instead of regaling you with my tale of The Terrible Week (hint: premature labor scare! norovirus! broken bones!) here at the Dressed Up Homestead in a blatant attempt to garner your pity, I shall instead talk about pregnancy/babies. Because who doesn’t love babies?

Communists. That’s who.

There are several “unfortunate” developments in my pregnancy. I’ve reached 22 weeks and have begun to waddle. Seriously, I waddled today. I’ve also got that sway-back action going on. I end up with a sore back every evening because I spend the day over compensating for the weight of  my son’s giant penis my womb.

Also, my belly button is no longer an innie. Well, it’s still an innie, but it’s got a serious case of bloat. It’s almost a flatty. Since I was so overweight when I was pregnant with Maddie, my belly button never popped or even got to be a flatty. I thought I’d be thrilled with getting to experience something I consider to be a normal part of pregnancy this go ’round… instead, I feel like a turkey that’s about to be fully cooked. POP!

In other tragic news, I’ve got cankles at the end of every work day. Despite my constant water/decaf iced tea consumption and 50 trips to the bathroom, that is. My feet nearly burst out of my pink ballet flats today. Not exactly the look I was going for this morning when I got dressed. Good thing my office is casual and I don’t have to worry about wearing dress shoes all the time.

The Boy is in perfect condition, btw. A surprise in-depth sonogram last week showed him to be on track and chugging full speed ahead. He weighed 14 ounces and was all formed with no evidence of defects at all. He’s also Very Active like his sister was. He was actually so active today that it was distracting as I tried to work. I swear to gawd he’s doing scenes from A Chorus Line in there. Maddie’s activity level in utero was definitely indicative of her personality, (read: she’s a hyper spaz) so I hold little hope that The Boy will be calm and mellow. I’m pretty much figuring that I’ll spend most of my time chasing them around and wondering why the hell I ever thought having one kid was a good idea, much less two.

But oh, he’s so adorable. I got to see his little face in the sonogram and he looks like a baby now. Not some amorphous blob or alien being. He’s got a little nose and little cheeks and little fingers and toes. I cannot wait to meet him and introduce him to The Best Big Sister EVAR.

The words “cute” and “little” were used in a sentence about ME.

Today at work, an unknown coworker stopped me in the hallway and proclaimed that I was “so cute with my little round belly!” and wanted to know when I was due.

I wanted to hug and kiss her for 1. knowing I was pregnant and not just chunky and 2. calling me cute and my belly little.

When I was pregnant with Maddie, I never heard anything like that. Let’s call a spade a spade… I wasn’t cute and my belly wasn’t little. But that’s ok. I have the awesome experience of having to vastly different pregnancies. Not a whole lot of women can say that, right? Last time I couldn’t find maternity clothes big enough. This time, I’m wearing size small maternity clothes. Last time, I was so fat that Gerald couldn’t feel Maddie kicking. This time he’ll be able to with no problem once the Little Man is strong enough to be felt by anyone other than me.

I know that other pregnant women out there HATE when someone comments on or even rubs their belly, but I’m just eating it up with a spoon. I feel so great about myself! (Except for the face full of zits I’m currently rocking thanks to over zealous exfoliating and moisturizing. What’s the deal with pregnancy sucking all the moisture out of your body? I’m constantly flaking and itchy no matter how much lotion I use. GAH!)

Also, I’m only a few days away from being halfway through this pregnancy. How in the hell is time going by so fast this go ’round??? I guess not being confined to my bed helps, right?

Things that suck about being pregnant: A list

* Permanent congestion
* Heartburn
* Only being able to sleep on your side(s)
* Daily headaches and only being able to take Tylenol for pain relief
* Fatigue
* Cravings for obscure food items that you don’t possess in your house
* Waddling
* Moodiness (Granted, this sucks more for the family members of the pregnant woman, but still.)
* Round ligament pain
* Maternity pants – Every pair ever made.
* Sore boobs and constantly erect nipples.
* Gas
* Discharge

* And the worst one is heightened desire. Because the above list is bound to make you incredibly sexy to your partner, right? “Hey babe, wanna get bizz-ay? Just let me blow my nose for the 12th time this hour, burp and yell at you for breathing too loud. Then we can get it on.”