Baby-Making Music?

I worked really hard on my labor playlist. It's really lovely. Probably not for anyone but me, though. I listened to it a lot in the days and weeks leading up to Tycho's birthday. It helped me get to a happy, calm, zen kind of place, which was especially important when I was approaching that 42 week deadline.

But I didn't actually listen to it in labor. When I was hanging out at home I felt very content with the normal sounds of a peaceful summer Friday on our quiet dead-end street, so no music. And by the time we got to the birth center, all I wanted was to get into the damn tub, and no one even thought to plug in the iPod, so no music. Tycho was born into silence. Well, silence, plus all my screaming and moaning, of course.

I'm not at all upset about that. It turns out my labor playlist also makes an excellent mellow evening breastfeeding playlist. One night we were listening, and my mom came over to cuddle Tycho. She asked me why I was playing Cat Stevens, as Cat Stevens is not really my usual fare. I told her about the playlist. "This was on mine, too," she said.

We listened longer, and maybe half the songs I had chosen for my labor were on the mix tapes my dad made 26 years ago, that he and my mother listened to while I was being born. Lovely.

Birth Story, Part Three: The Pushening

I pushed for just under three hours, alternating between the birthing stool, and various positions on the bed. Most of the time Nicole had her hand all up in me, pushing back the lip of my cervix. It was not fun. I had heard from a lot of  people that after a tough first stage of labor pushing was a relief or even felt good, but for me it was the worst part. I was still puking through all of it, but it actually felt better and helped make my pushes stronger. It was all water by that point anyway, which makes me feel better about it splashing out of the bowl onto Nicole.

After struggling on the bed for a while I asked to move back to the stool, because my pushes felt much more effective there. Gravity, and things. Kyle sat behind me on the bed and made sure I had access to water and chapstick.  After a bunch of contractions we finally got him past the lip of my cervix. Nicole kept asking me if I wanted to see his head in the mirror or reach down and feel him and I was completely uninterested. I just wanted him out of me.

It was really intense when he was actually in my birth canal. At that point I stopped waiting for contractions and was pushing pretty much continuously because it hurt too much not to. My moans were turning into screams, and Roxanne had to remind me to keep things low. It felt like my clitoris was ripping in two! I was not prepared to feel pain there, and I was scared that I might be doing permanent damage to it. But in between all the pushing and the screaming I would look around at my birth team and my mom and Ashley and I felt very supported and amazing.

It was such a relief when his head was finally out. His cord was around his neck, so Nicole had me breathe through a contraction while she slipped it over his head, no big deal. The rest of him was easy in comparison.

He had apparently passed some meconium during labor, so they had to suction out his mouth before they handed him to me. I was totally agog. Looking down at him he seemed way too big to be a newborn baby, and instead of love I felt disbelief that something so huge had just come out of me. He didn't cry at first, but after a few seconds of holding him and stroking him and talking to him he started whimpering and then let out a healthy wail. He was born at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday, July 23, 2011.

I barely even remember birthing the placenta, but it certainly was no big deal compared to my enormous baby. We got into bed with our son, and my mom called my dad and my sister to announce Tycho's arrival and have them make their way over to the birth center. Kyle called his parents to tell them the news.

Everyone was shocked by how big he was. (Two days previously they had written in my chart that they expected him to be around seven pounds.) We all made our guesses on how much he would weigh, and Nicole was right on the money: nine pounds, two ounces.

I apparently had a pretty huge placenta, too. Nicole did her examination of it and showed us all of its parts. We tried to get Tycho nursing, but he must have been overstimulated, because he would only latch on for a minute at a time.  After some more visiting, everyone left to go home and get some sleep. 

Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Four

Birth Story, Part Two: Centered

We ended up driving to the birth center with me kneeling over a yoga ball in the back of our SUV. It's about a 25 minute drive, and in the back of my mind I was worried that  we might get pulled over. Kyle talked me through the drive, telling me how close we were and reminding me to breathe. My midwife Nicole and the student Tara met us there. BFF (and photographer!) Ashley and my mom made their way in as well.

I was still doing pretty well when we got there, and everyone was worried that I wasn't really that far along. After listening to the baby through a contraction Nicole checked me and I was 6cm dilated, and my cervix was paper thin. Victory! It was so reassuring to know that my instincts were right and I had already done most of the hard work, and I was still under control. I could totally do this!

I got into the tub almost immediately after they checked me. It felt wonderful, and reset me a little bit. I was breathing through my contractions, in a world of my own. I was mostly doing well, although baby boy had a mean habit of thrashing about just as my contractions were dying down and I started to relax. Everyone laughed  when I kept shouting at my belly for him to cut it out. But besides that, things remained manageable for me. We had spent so much time in class talking about when you can no longer handle contractions and your partner needs to swoop in with his take charge routine, but I never really got there, and I kept wondering when it was going to happen. 

After a while of peacefully lying in the tub and breathing through my contractions, I think I hit transition. I suddenly NEEDED to change positions, and started to vomit at every contraction.  I leaned over the side of the tub, and Kyle made sure that I was drinking in between my contractions to keep hydrated.

I was starting to feel kind of push-y but I tried to ignore the urge. I did okay for a while, but all of the sudden it was getting to be too much, and I wanted OUT. OF. THE. TUB. Nicole checked me again. I was almost completely dilated, but I had a small stubborn lip of my cervix. I tried to breathe through a few more contractions, but the urge to push was getting really strong.

Prologue | Part One | Part Three | Part Four

Overdue

I've been putting off writing this post,  as it feels a bit like admitting defeat, but here I am. Still no baby. My due date has come and gone and nothing really has changed much. Baby boy shows no signs of being ready or willing to come out ever.

40 weeks, this past Wednesday

I am.... barely holding it together. There are lots of tears. LOTS. I think I am dehydrating myself from crying so much, actually. I have a wicked headache this morning. I'm trying to rein it in and get more fluids in me, you know, in case I have the occasion to need to buttload of energy in the near future, but I'm really no match for my hormones and emotions right now. Yesterday Kyle decided that an hour of hysterical wife sobbing was a reasonable excuse not to go into the office and took me to lunch instead. And before he went out in the evening for baseball-related activities, he had me invite myself over for dinner at my parents. They thought it was hilarious that he was having them "babysit" me, but it was probably for the best, since I likely would have otherwise sat at home in the dark crying. Yes, I know I am pathetic.

I also got myself a Frappaccino yesterday afternoon and walked around the lake listening to my labor playlist, and it was very nice. 2.8 miles and it only took me an hour and twenty minutes. It was actually lovely, even though it started raining a couple times. The headphones means that no one talked to me and I got to get some alone time without it making me feel depressed and isolated and helpless. And you know, the walking thing, that's supposed to help, right? I think it's going to be a regular afternoon activity for me until baby boy decides to show up.

My sister is also back from France now. She got in Wednesday night. I'm happy she's here, of course, but I was really hoping to have a baby before she got here, so I haven't been as joyful about it as I perhaps should be. I love my sister, but she can be somewhat emotionally draining for me, and I'm spread thin already as it is. And she doesn't understand why I am so short and so angry and so quick to fly off the handle, that I'm not really ready to spend a lot of time with her quite yet. Unfortunate.

I really want to have a baby soon. If I make it to my next appointment on Thursday I have to have a non-stress test and we'll sweep my membranes and schedule an ultrasound and I really want no part of any of it. Please please please please please let me have a baby first.

34

You know what sucks? Rain. Still messing with my all dresses all the time plan. I am probably unecessarily angry about this. I think I went through 12 outfits today before I settled on one that didn't make me feel like crying, and I wasn't really even planning to leave the house or do anything productive. This last bit of pregnancy? Infuriating.

34 weeks today. I need to get my shit together. Today I googled every single family practice and pediatrician covered by my insurance so I can get going on finding a doctor for baby boy. It's 2011, you'd think the internet would be a lot more helpful when it comes to finding a doctor, but no, not really. Rarely did I find a doctor that had reviews, and almost never was the information in the reviews helpful. That's nice that he had a friendly receptionist, but what's his attitude on vaccines? Ugh. I keep getting the feeling that I'm going about this all wrong, because if it was this hard for everyone I would have heard about it, right? Maybe?

But hard as they are, things are going. Kyle is going to put our childcare deposit down tomorrow, assuming the space is still open--cross your fingers, because otherwise we are shit outta luck on that front. Our childbirth class is going well. Penny Simkin is truly the bees knees. I wish she could be my doula.  We're setting up appointments with doulas, too. Better late than never, I suppose. And I got myself accepted into a pilot study about placenta encapsulation and post partum mood disorders, so get that done for free. And I'm like, participating in science, woo. Tomorrow mom is coming over to help me paint our "nursery." I don't know why I am using the quotes there, since it is just the nursery, but it doesn't really feel real yet. Something.

I've gone down to four days a week at work. Three this week because of the holiday. I'm not super happy about it, and I'm only doing it because I have PTO I have to use up by the end of the month. I was hoping it would last a little longer and I could roll it into my maternity leave, but no such luck. But honestly, I think I kind of needed to step back a little anyway, because I am exhausted.

Too exhausted to think of a way to wrap this up. The end.

Week 23

Yesterday was 23 weeks. Yesterday was also my mother's birthday. I spent a very exciting evening with her eating finger foods and doing a puzzle. Not exactly heavy lifting, you know. But then when I got home I was having these horrible cramps. I thought maybe Braxton Hicks? But the hurt, like menstrual cramps, and Dr. Google diagnosed that as BAD NEWS. So I freaked out, obviously.

I called Kyle to COME HOME NOW from wherever he was out with friends because I couldn't handle it on my own at all. I couldn't be sure if it was okay to be worried or if I was being an insane paranoid hypochondriac or what. He was hesitant that I needed him, but when I started sobbing he said he was heading home.

I curled up in bed and cried. Curling up in bed helped with the pain, like it always has with my period, and by the time Kyle got home it had stopped. But I was still a mess and I wasn't sure if I should call and wake someone up in the middle of the night or not but how would I live with myself if anything happened? Kyle called the on call midwife for me and we decided things were probably okay if the cramping had subsided, and to keep an eye on things. But even after being reassured I just could not stop crying.

Today I felt much better after getting a full night's rest, so I went to the zoo with my mom as we had previously planned. We had a good trip. I love the zoo. I hope baby boy will love the zoo, too. Certainly we'll take him there often. But as the day progressed I started getting antsy again, because I hadn't felt him move all day. I wouldn't have been so worried under normal circumstances, but after the cramping episode last night... well I couldn't get it out of my head.

I ended up going to see my midwives after their last appointment of the day. Everything is peachy keen of course, and I'm feeling slightly stupid for being so worried, but I was SO. WORRIED. And while I'm no longer fearing any present danger, I can't shake this cloud that's hanging over me. I just don't know what I would do if something happened. It makes me feel physically ill.

I can't imagine this will get any easier once he is on the outside.

achoo.

So I was doing all fabulous and everything when I got hit with a motherfucker of a cold. They weren't kidding when they said this shit hits you harder in pregnancy. I spent all of yesterday and Sunday in bed. Eating chicken soup and drinking gatorade. I tried a goddamn neti pot I was so desperate. (It was effective, but disgusting.) This is serious business.

I'm glad I took it easy, something I rarely seem to do when I am sick, because I felt much better this morning. Good thing, as I had a midwife appointment. Standard. I am the most boring and uncomplicated patient ever, so my appointments are boring and uncomplicated, but I guess that's a good thing. I finally did gain some weight, though and I am officially on the plus side for the first time this pregnancy. Four pounds! Go me! They also had a little trouble finding my fundus because apparently my abs are so "rock hard." Hilarious and awesome at the same time.

However, it seems that the exertion of driving out to a belly-poking and helping my mother pick out a pair of glasses and eating a bagel was too much for me, because by the time I got home this afternoon I started feeling like I should probably lay down immediately. I did, as I am actually learning to listen to my body (hurray!), but at some point I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Violently. Good grief. Clearly this is no longer morning sickness, and more likely just related to post-nasal drip, but really, I have barfed more than enough this pregnancy, thank-you-very-much.

The good news is that even though I've been sick, my appetite seems not to be suffering at all. Although all I want to eat lately is chocolate cake. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to crave food with actual nutrients in it, but what do I know.  I'm sure once this cold passes I'll be back to pregnancy-is-awesome-land. I could do without the freaky things that are happening to my navel, though.

Where the hell did my butt go?

So, I think I'm feeling the second trimester awesomeness now. I don't feel like barfing, but I'm not huge and unwieldy yet. My appetite is back, thank goodness, and most things taste pretty good. I'm finally starting to look sorta kinda maybe pregnant, although I'd be happier if I didn't also sorta kinda maybe look like I have a beer belly. However, I still have to pee all the damn time, or possibly even more often, even though the internet said my bladder should calm down, and I'm still so freaking tired and need like fourteen hours of sleep a night to feel well rested, and that happens pretty much never, so yeah. But still, pretty good.

I also hear (well, read) that I should be able to feel baby move soon, but I haven't quite been able to will that to happen yet. I spend a lot of time concentrating on my abdomen and trying to feel it, but I don't think it works that way. I am trying to be patient, and I think I'm doing as good a job as can be expected, you know, for perhaps the most momentous thing so far, but it's haaaaaaard.

Tuesday brought another prenatal appointment, so now I have met all three of the midwives at my practice. I do have a favorite, but I am happy with them all, which is good, since you don't really get to pick who will be on call when you go into labor. I brought my mother with me to see the birth center, and she was happy. I gained back four of the five and a half pounds I lost, and my uterus is in the right place, blah blah blah normal perfect wonderful. I feel like we should be doing more at these visits, but when you're pretty much complication free there's not much to do. I probably shouldn't complain about that.

 

As of Wednesday we're at seventeen weeks. No pictures of my cute outfit, because I forgot to take pictures until I got home from yoga. However, as cute as outfit was, it was made up entirely of pre-pregnancy clothing, and as such, was only cute when I was standing perfectly still. Once I moved at all everything rode up or fell down or just generally looked awkward and askew and I spent all day readjusting everything and it sucked. I have now acquired a few maternity pieces, but nothing even close to a functional wardrobe, and I really need to get on it. Beyond being impractical and annoying, things are getting downright uncomfortable, and perhaps worse, unflattering, and ugh. Shopping shopping shopping. 

As much as I love shopping, I don't really spend all that much money on clothing. I mean, I do, but not all at once. In general, I buy stuff that has longevity, and I wear my clothes for years, until long past when I should probably get rid of them, so having to buy a lot of stuff all at once, that I can't even wear for very long is super difficult for me. I guess I just have to get over it, though.

We now have our appointment for our next ultrasound, where we'll find out if baby is a he or a she. I've thought about it long and hard,  and I really, truly have no preference, but still I'm really excited to KNOW anything more that we can know about baby. I'm excited for it to stop be an IT. We've been working on names, and I think knowing more about who we're naming is going to make it so much easier to talk about. And I just can't wait to see baby again, because OMG! BABY!

France Update.

So, my trip! Remember that? Yeah, well, after my last post on the subject, things went a little downhill. I did get in a good shopping trip with my sister, and that was pretty wonderful, although all I ended up buying was a pair of sunglasses, because I wasn't really interested in amassing my maternity wardrobe on the Champs Elysees.  But I did find it a little bit difficult to enjoy my time with her on the whole. I think it was because she's going through such a huge life transition right now, but it was making her quite insufferable most of the time, and that was disappointing.

Sis and I before I got sick.

The last couple days of our trip I fell ill. I actually ended up leaving the restaurant in the middle of lunch with my parents and my sister and taking the Metro back to our apartment alone, without a good idea of where I was going because I just all of the sudden couldn't handle being vertical anymore. Laying down in the dark helped, and I napped for several hours. But later when my dad was cooking dinner, and everyone kept coming in to check on my, the smells from the kitchen wafted in every time the door was opened and I lost my lunch. And by lunch I mean a few bites of salad, because that's all I had eaten. And I spent the next twelve hours alternating between bed and the bathroom floor. I didn't leave the apartment for the remainder of our trip. Slept right through New Years Eve, although I think Kyle woke me up at midnight. I also had about an hour of panicked delirium where I was sure I had contacted Listeriosis from the mass amounts of smoked salmon I had ingested and was going to give birth to a baby with three arms and called a nurse-line with the most unhelpful answers ever, and then gave up and figured I'd see my midwives when we got back to Seattle if I hadn't died yet.

I'm pretty sure I had some sort of virus, and not just pregnancy related nausea, although maybe one just exacerbated the other. I think I had a mild fever for at least part of the time. Anyway, it's not exactly how I had planned to spend my time in Paris. And I was just so very relieved to come home. Especially after lugging my suitcase through the Metro system to the train station and eventually out again to the cab because there was an accident and booking it through the airport so we wouldn't miss our flight only to have it delayed, and feeling like I might be about to faint the entire time. When we got to Seattle we just took a cab home without even really considering trying to use public transportation (which is actually very easy here), because neither of is could fathom not getting home as quickly as humanly possible. And then I went straight to bed even though it was only three in the afternoon.

Now I have a pretty nasty cold that I'm trying to get through, and the coughing and post-nasal drip definitely trigger my nausea, so that's less than fun. But I think we're on the upside of all of this. Fingers crossed.

Confirmed!

So, wow.


I started with a negative test on Saturday, but I wasn't super bummed out because I was pretty sure that I was in fact pregnant, and it was just too early to tell at only 10 days post ovulation. And I was right. I got that super faint pink line yesterday. Kyle didn't really believe me that it counted. I told him that any line, no matter how faint means I am pregnant, but he seemed to think that I was saying that out of wishful thinking. But the digital test this morning is loud and clear.

I'm pregnant. Pregnant. I'm so happy and my body is positively humming with excitement and I don't want to work or sleep or talk about anything else. At the same time, it all feels very casual and comfortable to me. I am almost positive that I felt implantation as it happened, and when my breasts started hurting I knew. And even when I got that negative test I still knew. So when I did get the positive it was almost old news. Almost. Clearly, I am thrilled, but I also feel very calm and prepared, even though I know I can't possibly be. I'm just so ready. I have had so long to think about this, and honestly I'm not really scared or nervous. Just excited. It's wonderful.


How in the world are you supposed to keep this a secret? I'm doing okay so far. I've told my sister and both my parents, and Kyle called his mother today. But I feel like that's pretty standard. I'm going to tell BFF as soon as we can get a lunch date scheduled, but if that doesn't work out in the next week or so the phone might have to suffice. I'm trying to wait until Thanksgiving to let the cat out of the bag but who knows. My dad said his money is on everyone knowing within a week. Oh well. It might be nice, because it was so hard not to say anything today at work. I wanted to respond to all the "how was your weekend?" with "ONLY THE BEST OF MY LIFE" (in all caps like that, you know), but then clearly they would ask why and where would we be then? I'll likely tell my boss as soon as I have symptoms which might start interfering with work, though. We'll see.


According to my calculations I am 3 weeks and 5 days pregnant. 36 weeks and 2 days to go! And I thought waiting for ovulation was hard... I can't wait to start seeing changes and I can't wait at all to start feeling my baby and talking to it, because I will all the time I know, and just wow. Wow.

That's all for now.

The Waiting Game

I can't make coherent posts when i am distracted by the possibility of pregnancy, apparently.

I've been obsessing over The Preconceptionist's list of early pregnancy symptoms. Maybe my mild constipation these days is related? Every little wave of queasiness I wonder if it's because I am pregnant, or its just the regular waves of queasiness I get anyway, and have been getting for the last ten years. And then I think that if its not worse than normal then there's no way I could be pregnant, and if I was I'd be cowering over the toilet bowl. I am psyching myself out. But I still have exceedingly tender breasts, and the nausea is there, even if it is all too familiar.

I'm not even really sure what I want to turn up on my imminent pregnancy test. All of the negatives I've received so far have be disappointing, but I was always pretty sure that I wasn't pregnant, so I never really had to face the reality of what those two pink lines really mean. But now that I am more sure than not, I am kind of terrified of that positive. Don't get me wrong, I want this, but it's scary to me that if I am in fact pregnant, there's no backing out now.  We can't decide to wait another month or year or three. And that somehow at the end of many month of discomfort that I signed myself up for I have to remove a human being through my body via my vagina, holy crap, am I really ready for this? Well, it may be too late. And that's okay. But frightening, none the less.

On Wednesday night, as my mom an I were eating enchiladas, as we do after yoga class every week, I told her that I think that this time might really be it.  I realized I don't really know much about how my sister or I were born, so we talked. Mom said that she knew right away with both pregnancies. She delivered us both without medication, so that's a relief to hear, but she ended up with an episiotomy with my sister. (P.S. Chrome does not recognize episiotomy as a word.) Her labors were both very short, with mine lasting about twelve hours from waters breaking to delivery, and my sister's was even shorter. My sister breastfed easily, but I was lactose intolerant, so she pumped and added lactaid to her breastmilk for me.  We were both weaned to formula after her three month maternity leave, but this was 25 years ago, when pumping at work just wasn't an option for my career minded mother.

Hearing all of this makes me feel really confident about my own pregnancy and birth, whether that comes now, or further off in the future. I am really lucky to be so close to her and to have her nearby to go through all of this with me when and if I do find myself pregnant.

I am also looking forward to sharing pregnancy with my mother in law. I know she is itching for grandkids. She won't come out and say it, of course, because she's much too polite for that, but the hints have been coming hard. Kyle's parents just put an offer on a house, and she mentioned to me in an email that she is excited to move because she can imagine playing with her grandchildren in her (hopefully) new neighborhood. Sigh. At least I know that when the time comes my news will be good news.


All right, that's all I've got for tonight. Think pregnant thoughts for me. I think.

The cat's out of the bag.

So I didn't intend on telling sister or our parents that I am not using birth control anymore, but sister is home for the long weekend and I was at my parents' house for dinner last night and holy hell am I ever terrible at keeping secrets. Sister is angry at me because she wants me to be unpregnant to come visit her in France. According to her, it is impossible to have a good time in Europe unless you are drinking wine.

My family also fails to understand the difference between us forgoing birth control and actually, you know, trying. With the having sex all the time and on the appropriate days and all that business. So they gave me a hard time about that. And about the hypothetical baby names husband and I have agreed on and hey, I guess this is why I didn't plan on telling anyone until I had good news(!!) to share. Too late now.

In other news, husband and I ventured back to my dear gynecologist to discuss "family planning," as the nurse so politely put it. After which she remarked how young we are. God, I get tired of hearing that. Doctor assured us that getting pregnant should be quick and easy and we talked about all the thing I already know, like how sushi is verboten, so yesterday I most definitely ate sushi for lunch. I probably will continue to do so on a regular basis until there is a possibility of pregnancy because sushi, you will be greatly missed. Now I just need to get me some prenatal vitamins.