... out like a lion!

This last week has been crazy weather-wise. We had beautiful weather at the beginning of last week - a couple of days at or near 70 degrees! Then on Thursday morning we woke up to about 1/2 in of snow on the ground (of course this is the day that I usually drive to my midwife's house for an appointment). It stayed fairly cool on Saturday but the sun came out. Then on Sunday we woke up to some snow again with some still falling from the sky. Apparently it snowed or did a freezing rain again last night because the roads were terrible this morning. Luckily I didn't have to go anywhere, but DH said that he was glad he went in a little late to work because roads were even worse earlier in the morning. The temperature when we got up this morning was in the low 20s!! And it stayed that temperature until mid-morning! So much for spring!! I think the baby's waiting for some warmer weather to make its grand entrance into the world! ;)

Views on Childbirth - part 6

Read part 5: M&M's Birth here

Luke's Birth
When I became pregnant with Luke I did a lot more reading about natural childbirth and there was someone in my ward that had recently had a homebirth. The more I read the more I knew that natural childbirth was the best & safest option for me & my baby and I was increasingly interested in homebirth where the natural process would be uninterrupted. I also had a good conversation with the mother in the ward who had had a homebirth an learned that the homebirth midwives carry things like oxygen & pitocin for emergencies. I didn't think though that DH would ever agree to a homebirth, not in a million years. I was talking with someone in the ward once about childbirth and they asked me if I had asked my husband about homebirth. I responded that I had not so I vowed to go home and ask him that day. When I got home and just mentioned, almost in passing, that I would really like a homebirth - to my surprise he said sure, why not. After talking over the subject a little more with him I realized that he was really put off by the hospital with M&M's birth and if things could be carried out just as safely at home then he would support me in my decision. At this point I had been seeing the CNM group again and we decided that I would stick with them until my 20-week ultrasound and then provided everything looked healthy with the baby I would look for a homebirth midwife to switch care to.

Well, everything went fine for the ultrasound & we found out we were having a boy (yea!). I called up the homebirth midwife that my friend in the ward had used and found out that she was already full of clients for the month that I was due but that she had a partner that had just started attending births on her own that I could interview with. So I interviewed with "Hugs" and I really liked her. She has a very laid-back attitude, is LDS and I just felt good about choosing her as my provider. I found out in the interview that in this practice they always have a backup midwife there at the birth as well as one or two apprentice midwives who are studying to become midwives. I also learned that this practice did waterbirths as well for those that wanted one. They provide the pool and you just have to set it up during the labor. When I mentioned the back labor that I had in M&M's birth Hugs told me of some things they can do to relieve back pain if I experience it with this next birth. She also didn't sound concerned about M&M's trouble breathing after the birth and that it wasn't unusual. The midwife practice had a "library" of birth books & videos that you could borrow and I certainly read my share during this pregnancy. I was excited & nervous about the upcoming birth, but even after four births under my belt now, I still get the same feelings when my due date approaches.

Luke was due on Friday, February 2. My mom decided to fly out about a week before the birth and stay for 2 weeks. That would give her a little bit of leeway on either side of my due date (you have to remember though that she missed M&M's birth because M&M was 12 days early). I was a little more anxious to have my mom at this birth because she could take charge of M&M for us. M&M was 2 1/2 at this time and I wanted her to be present for the birth so she would feel included in this big family event and so she didn't feel left out and jealous of her new baby brother.

The Saturday before Luke's due date I had some pretty intense baby pain all day long. I was very uncomfortable and was wondering if this meant that I would be going into labor soon. As it turns out I wasn't in labor and we think that the baby was just moving positions which caused the pain. I was afraid that my mom would miss the birth again though because I don't think she flew out until the next day, on Sunday.

Well, nothing happened for the next couple of days and then on Wednesday night I got up around midnight to use the bathroom and felt a little "ping" and then next thing I knew there where water gushing out. My water broke! (Luckily for me it happened over the toilet...) I woke up DH and we decided that we would go back to bed and get what sleep we could before labor started. I knew at this point that the baby's head was engaged in the pelvis so there was no chance for a prolapsed cord and that the baby doesn't have to be born immediately after your water breaks. About two hours later I started having contractions and couldn't really sleep anymore at that point. So I stayed up managing on my own for several hours and then I woke DH up. I was having back labor again and wasn't too happy about it. DH called Hugs around 6 in the morning and then we woke up my mom shortly after that to let her know what was going on. Hugs arrived around 7 to see how I was doing. We discussed some options for dealing with the back labor and I decided to try a device called a TENS unit. This is a device where some electrodes are connected to the skin and there is a controller that sends electric pulses to the electrodes. These electrodes were placed over my lower back and then I could control how strong & how often the pulses were sent. I think that the device helped a little at first but as labor progressed I think the unit got bumped and I ended up having severe pain afterwards as a result of it. (I don't think that I will ever use it again during labor...)

After Hugs arrived we also were trying to decide if there was enough time to set up the birthing pool and get it filled with water. The problem with the birthing pool is that it takes quite a while to get it filled with water. It has to be filled with hot water because the water heater can only maintain the water at a certain temperature, it can't heat the water. So once you've emptied the hot water heater, you have to wait for it to fill up again with hot water. Hugs thought that I was far enough along in my labor that there wasn't going to be enough time to fill up the pool so we decided not to try this time around. I don't think I really cared at this point but it would have been nice to have soaked in some hot water to help relieve some of my back pain...

I labored in the living room for a time and then decided to move back into our bedroom. I tried laying on the bed for a little while and then Hugs checked me and I was dilated to a 10 finally! I tried pushing a little on the bed and then we decided to use the birthing stool. DH sat on the bed behind me to help support me. As I was pushing Luke out the apprentice midwife was listening to his heart rate. Apparently whenever I would push his heart rate would drop. This is usually a sign that the umbilical cord is around the neck. Hugs told me that I really needed to concentrate and I needed to push hard and deliver him. After another push or two Luke's head came out and Hugs unwrapped the cord from around his neck and then I delivered the rest of him. Luke was a bluish color and wasn't trying very hard to breathe at first. The midwives tried putting an oxygen mask on him but for some reason the oxygen tank wasn't working quite right so Hugs gave Luke 2 quick puffs of air into the mouth. After that he started to breathe and started to pink up finally. We think that what happened is that the cord was pulling tighter around Luke's neck as he was being pushed out of the birth canal. (I have since found out that the cord around the neck is a very common problem and that it occurs in about 1 out of 3 to 1 out of 4 births.) I could see my mom holding M&M in the doorway of the bedroom and could tell that she was somewhat concerned over what had just happened so I invited her over to see her new baby brother. She was very sweet with him and I was excited to have the birth part finally done with.

After the placenta was delivered they moved me onto the bed to check me out a little. This involves massaging the uterus to get the bleeding to stop and checking for any tears. I think that I was most nervous with this birth about tearing again. As it turns out I only had a really small tear that didn't require any stitches. I was really excited about that! I think that the part I dislike most about birth though is what happens afterwards. Hugs started massaging my uterus to get out any blood clots and to get the bleeding to stop and it HURTS!! When M&M was born in the hospital the CNM gave me a shot of pitocin afterwards to help the uterus stop bleeding and I don't remember her doing any massaging (I also think it doesn't need to be done as much after a first birth). Hugs was concerned that the bleeding wasn't stopping and was considering giving me a shot of pitocin. First though she suggested that I take a trip to the bathroom since I hadn't been in a while. After they helped me into the bathroom I apparently sat down on the toilet and then passed out... The next thing I remember was DH carrying me back to the bedroom and laying me down on the bed. The midwives put the oxygen tube near my mouth & nose and then proceeded to check on the bleeding once again. Well, apparently the trip to the bathroom helped (or maybe the fainting) because after that my uterus started to clamp down and I didn't need the pitocin after all. (I found out later that at this point it was actually illegal for these midwives to be carrying and administering pitocin which is why they later pursued legislation to legalize it.)

The other thing that I dislike more than the birth itself is the afterbirth contractions that you feel for several days every time you try to breastfeed the baby - they are PAINFUL! And since I have back labor with all of my births, the afterbirth contractions I feel afterwards are also in my back - and they get worse with each child! (Actually I think they were the worst with Luke because of the TENS unit that got bumped into overload at the end of the labor.)

The other not so fun thing after Luke's birth is that we had to go to the hospital for me to get a rhogam shot. I have O- blood and DH has O+ blood so after each birth the baby's blood has to be typed to determine if I need a rhogam shot or not. M&M was born with O- so I didn't need the shot after birth, but Luke has O+. That means that within 72 hours of the birth I need to get a shot of rhogam so that my body does not build up immunities to the positive blood which could result in a miscarriage of a subsequent pregnancy. So the day after the birth DH & I went to the local hospital to get the shot. We brought Luke with us because we weren't sure if they would need to draw his blood or not. The hospital staff was all confused about how to handle my case. At first they thought that I was there for a 30 week rhogam shot (it is typically given during pregnancy as well) and then once they figured it out they sent me back to get my blood drawn. I was trying to explain that I didn't need my blood drawn because I knew that I was O- and my baby was O+, but I got the response that that is just what they have to do... (I found out later that the reason they do this is to test the sensitivity that my blood already has to the positive blood so that they can give me the right dosage of the shot. It would have been nice if they could have told me that upfront.) So, I had my blood drawn and then we had to go home again and come back the next day for the actual shot - what a pain!!! When I went the next day to get the shot, the nurse that administered it to me had to relate to me how unsafe homebirth can be and that one of her babies would have died if it had been born at home... (Unfortunately, this is a response that I hear quite often when people find out that I give birth at home. With each case that I hear about though, when I ask my midwife about it she explains to me how they would handle that particular situation at home - and usually it is not an emergency situation that will result in death, no matter what the doctor may tell the mother.)

Luke was born on Thursday, Feb 1st, at around 10:23 in the morning. So my labor with him was around 8 1/2 hours, much better than the 29 hour labor with M&M. He weighed 8 lbs 4 ozs and was 21 in long. It turns out that we probably would have had time to fill up the birthing pool because the labor took a little longer than Hugs thought it would. The thing I would change about Luke's birth would be not to use the TENS unit - other than that I was really happy with the way things turned out and it was a nice, peaceful, natural birth. I talked with Hugs afterwards about Luke's breathing problems at birth and she said that they were never terribly worried about him since he was still attached to the umbilical cord. As long as the umbilical cord is still attached and pulsating, there can be up to several minutes before the baby has to make a total switch over to breathing on its own. That is why most homebirth midwives don't cut the cord immediately after the birth - there is really no need to. With M&M's birth, M&M probably would have done better if we had left the cord attached and just tried to stimulate her breathing while she was resting on my chest. Also, M&M must not have been in too much danger or they wouldn't have had DH over there doing the work...

New poll

I thought it would be fun to add another poll to my blog to vote on when you think the baby will be born. This is how my births have gone so far:

M&M - 12 days early
Luke - 1 day early
Blondie - 2 days late
Kitty - 6 days early

I had a prenatal appointment today and everything is looking fine with me and the baby. I measured about the same as I did last week but my midwife said that the baby's head isn't really low down yet.

So, vote on when you think the baby will be born as well as what you think we are having! Read this posting for possible tips on the gender: Pregnancy update - 37 Weeks!

Views on Childbirth - part 5

Read part 4 here

M&M's Birth
For the most part, my pregnancy with M&M was pretty normal. I had some high blood pressure now and then but I think it was mostly due to white coat syndrome (my b.p. rising when having it taken at the office). I was also retaining a LOT of water for about the last month. My ankles were HUGE towards the end. A lot of this can be attributed to a very hot summer (with no central air in our apartment & no air conditioning in the car either) as well as the fact that we moved to a new apartment when I had just a little over a month left & I did a lot of the moving of the smaller stuff. DH & I were happy with our decision to see the CNM group for maternity care and we loved the natural childbirth class that we were taking. My due date was August 11 and everyone told us to plan on the baby being late with the first pregnancy. So I was all set to have the baby in the middle of August and my mom was set to fly out from Virginia to help out around that time.

On Wednesday, July 29, I went to a regular prenatal appointment with the CNMs. The night before I lost my mucous plug and I mentioned it to the midwife. She did an internal exam and was a little concerned because there was a little bit of blood. She said that I was dilated to about 1 cm and was 80% effaced. She checked my chart and noticed that with my first ultrasound the placenta was low-lying in the uterus. She recommended that I have a follow-up ultrasound done to make sure that the placenta had moved up in the uterus and wasn't anywhere near the opening. They were able to fit me in for the ultrasound not long after that so I called DH at work and he drove up to join me. The ultrasound showed that everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about with the placenta.

DH & I drove separately back to work (we worked at the same company) and once I got there I sat at my desk and not too long afterwards started noticing what I thought were contractions (after all this was my first baby). They were fairly mild & far apart but they were also fairly regular. I went downstairs and told DH this. He was quite surprised (as was I) and I decided to go home to rest a little. When DH came home the contractions were still coming and we realized that we needed to go to the store to buy some last minute things. So we headed off to the mall and we had to pause every time a contraction came on. Unfortunately I was having back labor and was starting to get somewhat miserable.

Around midnight we decided to phone the CNM on call and head up to the hospital. When we got there I was checked and found to be 2 cm dilated & 90% effaced. I was informed though that this could still just be false labor and could stop at anytime (especially since I had another 2 weeks until my due date). The CNM recommended I get a shot of morphine and go back home to try and get some rest. I was somewhat disappointed at this point because I was in some pretty intense pain and was only at a 2!! So we agreed to a morphine shot and drove home. The CNM was pretty sure that I would be able to get a few hours of sleep after the shot and then would be able to tell afterwards if I was really in labor or not.

We got home around 5 a.m. and I slept for maybe an hour and then was up again with contractions. I let DH sleep as long as I could manage without him so he was able to get a couple of hours. After that I woke him up and with every contraction I had him press on some counterpoints on my back to try and relieve the back pain. It ended up being a pretty long day and we put off going into the hospital again as long as we thought we could - the last thing we wanted was to be sent home again. Around 3 p.m. DH called the midwife office and said that he would bring me in to the office to have me checked out there before the office closed for the day.

It was a very hot day & as I mentioned before we had no A/C in the car. When we arrived at the office DH & I walked in and they quickly rushed me back to an examining room. I'm sure that I scared all of the pregnant women in the waiting area with the moaning noises that I was making and the fact that I looked (and felt) utterly miserable. Two of the midwives came in and helped me up onto the examining table to check me out. As they had me laying there I tried to get up saying that I really needed to use the bathroom. Well, they quickly kept hold of me and said that I wasn't going anywhere and when they checked me I was dilated to a 10! The midwife also asked when my water broke because there apparently was some amniotic fluid present. (We think that it was just a small break because I hadn't felt any gush of water or any wetness up to this point.) Looking back now I laugh at myself because I didn't know at the time that the urge push out the baby is the same feeling like you're having a bowel movement. At this point we had one more childbirth class left and it was the class where we were going to discuss the actual delivery & how to push... I think also that up to this point I was still in denial that I was really in labor and going to have this baby. I was still planning on 2 more weeks of pregnancy!

Well, the midwives quickly went into action and prepared to deliver the baby there if they needed to, but at the same time called 911 so we could take an ambulance to the hospital. At this time the midwives' office was across town from the hospital. (They later moved to a new building right next door to the hospital.) I'm sure that everyone in the waiting room was scared once again when an ambulance pulled up to the front door and I was wheeled out on a stretcher. The midwife that was on call for the day went in the ambulance with me and DH was told by the ambulance driver to follow closely in our car. My midwife advised me before we got into the ambulance to NOT PUSH if I could absolutely help it. She wanted to make it to the hospital first so that she could deliver the baby and not the paramedics. She said that paramedics usually have to deal with tragic cases such as car accidents & traumatic events at people's homes and that they absolutely love anything to do with happy events such as birth. I thought that it was a pretty funny advice. The paramedics kept trying to give me an I.V. or oxygen but the midwife kept declining.

Luckily it was a relatively short ambulance ride (a first for me) and I didn't have any urges to push. I think that when the midwives told me at the office that I was dilated to a 10 my body went into a time-out so I could get a grip on the situation. We arrived at the hospital with plenty of time to deliver the baby there and DH arrived a few minutes later (he got stopped by a red light at one intersection and didn't feel right about running the red behind the ambulance). The ambulance driver actually apologized to him afterwards for losing him.

Once at the hospital they got me into a room and we got ready for the birth of M&M. The midwife that attended me was not one of the 2 midwives that I had gotten to know really well but that was okay. I had an awesome delivery nurse who was really positive and gave some great help & support during the pushing. The midwife broke my water the rest of the way once I started to push and I definitely felt a gush after that. M&M was born about an hour after arriving at the hospital. As I was pushing, the midwife wanted to give me an episiotomy because she could tell that I was going to tear, but we didn't want one and she didn't push the issue. DH & I were grateful about that. (What I had learned about episiotomies is that if you start a tear by cutting an episiotomy, it is much more likely that you will tear even more. I also learned that a natural tear will actually heal better because it is not a straight cut so the tissue will fuse back together better & stronger. Unfortunately, though, most doctors & some midwives don't believe this.)

When M&M was finally born the midwife put her briefly onto my belly and then they quickly took her away because she was having problems breathing and was "floppy" (poor muscle tone which is a result of breathing problems). They had DH go over to the warming table with M&M and had him hit her on the back to try and stimulate her breathing. DH said that they kept telling him to hit her harder - which he felt really weird doing to his newborn baby...

After they got M&M breathing they still had to take her to the nursery for additional oxygen - she had a low blood/oxygen level so they wanted to keep her under an oxygen bubble. DH was able to carry M&M to the nursery and he kept asking when I would get a chance to hold her and be with her - to which they didn't really give him an answer or said that it was up to the pediatrician. She ended up being put on an I.V. which complicated the initial breastfeeding somewhat.

I did end up tearing somewhat (a deep 2) but I had a relatively pain free recovery afterwards and healed up just fine. After I was stitched up they wheeled me to my recovery room and we stopped at the nursery on the way to take a look at M&M. Once we were situated in the recovery room DH & I proceeded to call our families with the surprising news. She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 ozs and was 18 1/2" long. DH left for the night because there was really no place in the room for him to sleep.

I slept for a couple of hours and then I woke up around midnight and felt very much awake. I wanted to know what was going on with M&M so I got up and walked down to the nursery to look in on her. I felt like I was a stranger there and didn't even feel comfortable walking in to see her. I think that the nurses noticed me though because a few minutes after I returned to my room they brought her in for me to hold & try to nurse. They said that she was doing much better. There was a sensor attached to her foot to measure her blood/oxygen level. The nurse handed M&M to me and I ended up just falling asleep with her resting on my chest. I was so grateful to finally be able to hold her & was in tears when I called DH in the morning to tell him.

The most irritating thing for us about M&M's whole birth experience was all of the hospital rules & procedures that we had to follow. There was a lactation nurse at the hospital who came in to help me with nursing. They had a chart that we were supposed to fill out on how much the baby nursed and how often we changed a diaper. At one point one of the nurses said to me that they would have to start supplementing with a bottle if M&M didn't nurse better. That's when the lactation nurse told me to just make up numbers for the chart because the worst thing you can do with a newborn is to supplement with a bottle when they are learning how to breastfeed. We also had to stay an extra day because the pediatrician didn't want to release her the first day even though they could find nothing wrong with her. No one that I told the birth story to afterwards seemed alarmed at all about M&M's breathing problems and just said that she had a rough transition which is not an uncommon thing to happen. The other rule that we didn't care for was that I had to be wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair even though I was up and walking perfectly fine on my own. It was also frustrating that none of the nurses seemed to be able to answer any of our questions on M&M's condition or on when she would be allowed to go home. Everything that happened just made us feel like we were patients, not parents, and that the hospital definitely had control over everything.

Aside from the hospital rules, the thing that I would change the most about M&M's birth would have been the whole pushing stage. I think that the midwife was too anxious to have me push M&M out - that my body wasn't given enough time to stretch and the result was the tearing that occurred. I also think that I would have done better if I had had more support at home in addition to DH. DH was just plain worn out at the end and having never had a baby himself or attended a birth didn't quite know how to best help me at times during labor. He also learned that I turn into a completely different person when I am in labor. :) I was also told by several CNMs in the practice that if we had arrived at the hospital earlier I probably would have asked for pain medication because of the back labor I had (but I'm not so sure of that).

Overall I achieved my goals of a drug-free labor & no episiotomy which made me feel great! I actually did it (and thanks in large part to the support I received from DH, who initially thought I was crazy for wanting to try)!

Pregnancy update - 37 Weeks!

I am officially 37 weeks today (if due dates are at all accurate) and can now give birth at home with my midwife. 37 weeks is that "magic" date where all of a sudden the baby can most likely survive at birth without any breathing complications. One book I was reading recently said that the baby is usually full-term by 35 weeks but the medical community adds 2 more weeks to that to compensate for due dates possibly being off.

So, I've decided to put a poll on the website to see what everyone thinks we are having, so please vote (and please only once per person). I will give you a little info on the pregnancy and previous pregnancies to see if it influences your answer at all. This is the first pregnancy I have had where I haven't thrown up at all. I was the most sick with M&M, second most sick with Blondie, third with Kitty and with Luke I was only sick for about a week. We found out the gender of babies one & two (M&M & Luke), but before the ultrasound my guesses were boy for both. With Blondie I was pretty confident that she was a girl and I was pretty confident that Kitty was a boy. :) So, I have been about 50/50 for my guesses so far. I must say though that with M&M's pregnancy, since it was my first, I didn't really have anything to compare the pregnancy to & DH really wanted a boy first. So I think it may have just been wishful thinking more than anything else that I thought M&M was a boy. Kitty's pregnancy was just different from the rest of them & we were very much surprised when I found out that I was pregnant. I didn't really have a lot of "morning sickness", but I did start out the pregnancy with severe back & neck pain which laid me up for a couple of weeks - to the point that I finally went into the doctor to get checked over and felt like I should take a pregnancy test to rule that out. They gave me some prescription pain medications & the next day I got a phone call saying, "Congratulations! You're pregnant!" That quickly put a stop to me taking the prescription pain medications...

So, good luck on the voting! If you have any questions you want to ask me before you vote, feel free.

Happy Easter!

Here are the kids in their Easter outfits. The dresses will double as dresses for my sister's wedding in June. She picked out the colors that she wanted the girls to wear. I made M&M's dress & my mom made Blondie & Kitty's dresses this year (I just did some of the finishing for them such as the hem & flower/waistband). I put curlers in Blondie's & Kitty's hair Saturday night and they turned out really cute for Sunday. We went over to my parents' house for dinner & an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the backyard. We all had a great Easter Sunday!

Temple progress!

It is exciting living in the Salt Lake valley where we can watch the progress of two temples being built! I have been meaning for some time now to take pictures of the Oquirrh Mountain & Draper temples under construction so that I can post them, but whenever I am driving past it is either too dark for pictures or I don't have my camera with me. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple is just a few minutes from our house and we see it a couple of times a week - DH passes it every day to & from work. The Draper Temple we see whenever we drive to my parents' house. It's fun to point them out to the kids and watch as the construction moves along. The picture of the Draper Temple was taken on March 9 and the Oquirrh Mountain pictures were taken today. The latest we've heard is that the Draper Temple will be completed towards the end of this year and then the Oquirrh Mountain Temple will be finished the first part of 2009.

Draper Temple

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Another picture of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. You can see the top of the steeple on the ground in front of the temple.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sunday, March 16th, was my birthday - I turned 32. This was an interesting birthday because it was on a Sunday first of all and we had Stake Conference - which is good and bad. Our stake holds 2 sessions of conference to accommodate everyone and our ward was assigned to the afternoon session which started at 1 p.m. So we got to sleep in, but then we had to deal with 4 active, noisy kids for 2 hours... It's also hard having a birthday when you're in your last month of pregnancy. I don't want any new maternity clothes at this point and I'm not sure what size I'll be able to fit into after the baby. My parents & DH's parents both gave me some money that I will definitely be using for new clothes after the baby comes. The kids surprised me with some presents that my mom had helped them pick out and wrap. DH gave me a couple of Jane Austen movies & Little Women. My visiting teachers brought over some flowers for me yesterday as well.

DH & I went out to dinner on Friday night (since Saturday we had Stake Conference & my birthday was on Sunday). My parents & sister came over to watch the kids. We went down to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square and ate at The Roof Restaurant. It is a buffet style restaurant with a flat fee per person. We had a beautiful view overlooking the temple and the food was excellent. (It was quite expensive though, almost $90 total for the two of us.) I ate somewhat slowly so that I wouldn't fill up so quickly - we ended up being at the restaurant for almost 2 hours! I think that's the longest we've ever taken on a meal with just the two of us. By the time we got home (around 9:30) my family had started into the cake already that my mom had brought over (it was fine though & DH & I were too stuffed from dinner to eat any cake at that point anyways). My brother & his wife were there as well. They stayed with us Friday night (my brother was in town for some choir performances for the BYU-I choir he sings in).

Pregnancy update - Week 36

Well, I think the baby dropped yesterday. While this doesn't necessarily mean that I will give birth anytime soon, it's definitely a sign that things are progressing & getting closer to the birth. I am excited about this mostly because I can sit up & bend over more comfortably and can breathe better. Over the last couple of weeks the baby has really been pushing up on my rib cage and making some things very uncomfortable to do - especially driving or sitting in the car.

Views on Childbirth - part 4

I want to start out this blog by clarifying some statements that I made yesterday in part 3. I have nothing against OB/GYNs and the care that they give to women. I only mentioned that I have never seen one during my pregnancies because I wanted everyone reading these blog entries to know where I am coming from and what experience I have had with them. I have never had a doctor attend to me in pregnancy or childbirth so some of what I say concerning them is just what I have heard & read, not what I have personally experienced. I have been very fortunate to have had so far 4 low-risk pregnancies & births and am nearing the birth of my 5th child which has so far been an uneventful pregnancy. I know that there are some excellent OB/GYNs out there and I have seen several for non-maternity related care.

Regarding childbirth in general I think that all women need to do their own reading & research and make the decisions that they are most comfortable with for them and their situation. I do not think that homebirth is for everyone and I also don't think that unmedicated childbirth is for everyone. I will say though that I think that the more satisfied a woman is with her birth experience, the less likely she is to suffer from postpartum depression and the quicker her recovery will be after the birth. Childbirth can be an incredibly powerful experience for a woman and the more control she has over that experience, the more power she will feel from it. We also need to remember though that complications can & do arise with no warning and we need to be able to cope with that change in situation as well and be able to come to terms with it if a complication does arise.

Daylight Savings Time

Blondie & Kitty slept in until 10:30 this morning thanks to Daylight Savings Time...

Yesterday we had to get up early for 9 a.m. church and no one took a nap at all even though I tried to get them to. Kitty fell asleep on the way home from my parents' house last night and she had a rough day yesterday because we think she is suffering from pollen allergies (runny nose all day long and watery eyes). We're trying some Benadryl today to see if it helps at all - she is pretty miserable and spent church in the primary room with me instead of going to nursery or with her dad.

Signs of Spring!

We have bare ground again in our yard (instead of just snow), the weather is getting warmer (I took the kids to the park on Friday to fly a kite),

and my bulbs are coming up!

This is what I saw on Saturday:
This is what we saw when we came home from church on Sunday (same crocuses):

Views on Childbirth - part 3

Doctors vs. Midwives

As I mentioned in part 2, DH & I decided on a hospital birth with a Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) for our first birth. The main difference between midwives & OB/GYNs for childbirth is that the midwife will pretty much stay with you throughout the whole labor & delivery whereas a doctor will just check in periodically and show up in time to catch the baby at the very end. Unfortunately for those who deliver in the hospital regardless of who your provider is, you are still at the mercy of all the hospital procedures that are routinely done for everyone unless you put up a big stink about it and are really proactive.

Midwives in general have a more natural philosophy of childbirth and are usually willing to let you try out different techniques & positions for the birth. The midwife group that I saw for Emily's pregnancy had about 6 midwives and I was able to meet them all at least once before the birth. There were two in particular that I really liked and that I really got to know throughout my pregnancy. (Unfortunately neither of them were on call the day I had her.)

Doctors in general just want you to be their patient and do what they tell you to do without questioning anything. They will routinely order pitocin to speed up the labor and are usually more than willing to induce a woman early for no particular reason other than the mother and/or doctor wants to. Now I realize that there are many exceptions to these generalities, but unfortunately those doctors are getting harder and harder to find.

I have never seen an OB/GYN for any of my pregnancies but if I had some complications develop, I wouldn't hesitate to see one because that is what they are trained in - dealing with complications & high-risk cases. Doctors have a hard time just sitting back and letting a woman's body control & dictate the labor - they like to feel like they are in charge and are there to "deliver" the baby for you. The problem with that is that the woman's body knows better what to do during labor & delivery than the doctor knows - and each labor is unique and different - which doesn't always conform to the hospital/doctor time-frame.

I can't tell you how many stories I've heard of a woman being in labor in the hospital and things aren't going as quickly as the doctor would like so he/she orders pitocin to speed up the labor. The pitocin then causes the contractions to be much stronger & closer together so that the woman can no longer manage the pain. The woman then asks for an epidural for the pain. In the meantime the increase in strength of the contractions leads to distress in the baby so that the doctor has to rush in and save the baby by performing a C-section. The sad fact is that in the United States, the C-section rate is over 30%!!! That is an outrageous number! Not only is a C-section major surgery, but it reduces the number of children that a woman can have and a lot of doctors & hospital are now developing the philosophy that once a C-section, always a C-section - which will greatly reduce the number of kids you can have.

The other unfortunate statistic in our generation is that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate out of all industrialized nations. Why is that, when we have the best obstetrical care that money can buy? My feeling is that the more interventions that are done during labor, the greater the risk of complications which can lead to infant death. These routine procedures in the hospital are not without risk to both mother & baby and once you start down that path it is harder to reverse the effects.

More articles on autism

Here are two somewhat disturbing articles on possible causes of autism. If you are currently pregnant or planning on having kids in the future, I would definitely read these. One is on a possible link between ultrasounds & autism and the other is on a possible link between pitocin during labor & autism. One thing is definitely clear to me and that is that there has been a HUGE increase in autism rates over the last 20 or so years in ALL industrialized countries - and these numbers cannot be justified by the explanation that there are better tests available today to diagnose it. Another disturbing trend is that a good portion of these children come from families that have high incomes and are well educated - who have the best obstetrical care money can buy. While I personally don't think that having one ultrasound during your pregnancy around 20 weeks will harm your unborn baby, this first article does make me question the use of multiple ultrasounds throughout pregnancy & especially ones in the first trimester when the baby's brain & neurological system is initially developing.

Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism by Caroline Rodgers from Midwifery Today website

ATTN: Researchers- Look in the first environment, the womb from Autism Today website

Late night session...

Yesterday was the last day of the legislative session and they work up until midnight. Unfortunately, we had to wait up until almost midnight to find out if the midwife amendments bill would pass or not. I was watching a video feed on my computer almost all day long and the bill kept moving up to the top of the list and then the House would move some other bills up ahead of it. This happened numerous times and finally at around 11:30 p.m. they got to the bill. There wasn't really any debate on it, just a couple of representatives got up and stated that this was truly a compromise bill between the UMA and the midwives group and that both groups agreed to not pursue anymore legislation on this issue until the end of the statistics reporting period in 2011. They had to vote on a couple of minor amendments and then the voting was almost unanimous to pass the bill.

Then the bill had to go back to the Senate for them to decide if they would accept the new substitute and changes that were made while it was in the House. Once the Senate received the bill, the whole voting process was over in less than 5 minutes. Senator Dayton just stood up and asked that everyone vote to concur with the House changes and then they voted - she didn't even state what the differences were from when they voted on it originally a couple of weeks ago. The bill passed both houses just barely before the midnight deadline.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the bill passing. While the midwives won the majority of issues that they were fighting to preserve, there were a couple of issues that were lost which means fewer choices for women in the state. The two big issues that were lost were breech births & twin births. Now while I am not sure if I would want to have my baby/ies at home if I fell into either of these 2 categories, I know many women who would still like to do so. I know several midwives that deliver twins at home and are very competent at what they do. The sad fact is that both of these cases are almost a guaranteed C-section today in the hospital which is why some women would choose homebirth over the hospital. Women that fall into either of these 2 categories can still choose homebirth with an unlicensed midwife, but unlicensed midwives cannot legally carry things like pitocin for hemorrhaging or oxygen for resuscitating. I do like the fact though that the UMA has agreed to leave the issue alone until 2011 (we'll see if they keep their word) and that we did win VBAC homebirths if the woman signs a waiver. Overall I think that it was a great bill and I really can't see the UMA ever agreeing to a bill that allows breech or twin homebirths. I really wish they would allow a waiver though instead of making it a mandatory transfer so the woman still has the ability to choose for herself.

Pregnancy update - Week 34

I can't believe I only have 6 weeks left - actually we're hoping less than that. I'll be 37 weeks at the end of this month so I can have the baby at home anytime after that! M&M was 12 days early & my only late baby was Blondie who was 2 days late. Regardless, I hope that the baby does not end up sharing birthdays with Kitty on April 17th... I'm also hoping the baby will be a little early because the kids will be off track March 20-April 13 and it would be nice to not have to worry about school for a few days after the baby comes...

My midwife came over to our house today for a prenatal visit and things are looking good. I usually go to her house but she was going to be in the area & she leaves tomorrow for a 2 week trip to Africa. I've been measuring about 1-2 cm bigger the last couple of visits and she said the baby feels like it's probably close to 5 lbs right now. Hopefully this all means that my due date is a little off and that the baby will come early. :-> The baby was really active while she was here and she had a hard time finding the heartbeat because there was so much other noise going on inside.

One great thing with this pregnancy is that my blood pressure has been pretty low. Today she measured it at 114/66 - which I think is the lowest it's been for any of my pregnancies. She thinks part of it is that she came to my house where I was relaxed and in my own environment. That definitely could be part of it because I always seem to get the "white coat syndrome" when I am at a Dr's office. My weight gain has also slowed down since I started exercising in January. I've been trying to do aerobics 4-5 times a week and have been successful except for the week when I was sick with the flu. I've only gained about 3 pounds over the last 7 weeks.

Overall I feel really good except for occasional heartburn & occasional sleepless nights. The baby definitely has an active period in the evening between dinner & bedtime and sometimes the kicking & moving around isn't the most comfortable. I also have periods where I can't sit very comfortably or bend over because the baby is taking up so much space - but that's to be expected at this point. I'm definitely getting excited & nervous about the next couple of weeks!! I don't think it will hit me that this is my 5th child until he/she is actually here!

Growing kids

It definitely seems like kids grow in huge spurts. I feel like I have been buying the same size clothes for M&M for about 2 years straight and then all of a sudden all of her clothes are too small for her. I have been noticing her pants getting shorter over the past few months and have been slowly replacing them here and there. I have the kids pick out clothes for school the night before so we can minimize the noise & commotion in the mornings and one evening last week I found M&M in tears in her room. She asked me if I had done any laundry that day and I told her that I hadn't. Then she starts telling me that she had nothing to wear because all of her shirts are too small. I got a little frustrated at this because she has a closet & 2 dresser drawers FULL of clothes. She proceeded to tell me that none of them fit or she doesn't like them... She finally found something to wear and I told her that the next day when she got home from school she had to go through all of her clothes and take out the ones that she doesn't wear so that I can see what she needs the most of. It was a long process but over the next 2 days she managed to clean out her closet & drawers and I now have a huge pile of clothes that I need to do something with (either save for Blondie or give away). I made a stop at the D.I. one day last week and found several shirts and a couple pairs of jeans for her and then on Saturday we went to Kohl's and bought a bunch of shirts on clearance for $3-4 a piece. Now her problem last night was deciding which of her new clothes to wear because she had so many to choose from...

Luckily Luke has a good supply of clothes because someone in our ward gave me some clothes that her son had grown out of & then Blondie & Kitty have hand-me-downs (and they love it when I get them out because it's like a whole new wardrobe for them). So for the moment we are set on clothes - at least until shorts weather comes...

Sunday hair

Saturday evening after I had bathed Blondie & Kitty I thought, why don't I put Blondie's hair in curlers tonight and see how it turns out. I have some of the sponge curlers that wrap around the hair that I bought when M&M was younger and I had never used them on Blondie yet. (I remember having this done to my hair when I was little and the worst part about it was having to sleep on the curlers all through the night. They are not the most comfortable things to sleep on.) So I asked Blondie if she wanted to have curly hair and wear curlers to bed and she said yes. I think she thought that I was going to curl it with my curling iron at first because she kept trying to go into my bathroom to wait for me.

After I started putting Blondie's hair up in curlers I started getting a little concerned that Kitty would want the same thing done to her hair and I didn't have enough curlers to do both of them. So I tried to use as few on Blondie as I could but with each curler that I took away from Kitty (she was sitting on the couch next to me holding them all), the more concerned she got as well. I ended up with just 2 left and Kitty was in absolute tears (remember she is only 2 years old)... DH was trying to convince her to just get braids in her hair but I managed to have her come to me and I put the remaining 2 curlers on the top of her head. Blondie thought that the curlers were hilarious in her hair and kept going into the bathroom to look at them in the mirror and she kept shaking her head back and forth. Kitty was very happy to have the 2 in her hair that she had so it worked out alright in the end (I guess I will have to buy some more at the store before I do it again - I'm not sure how Kitty would like sleeping on them though).

When I took the curlers out of Blondie's hair the next morning she said that she looked like someone else. The part of Kitty's hair that I curled I put into a ponytail that hung off the side of her head. These 2 girls have some of the straightest hair that I have ever seen so having it in curls was very cute and very different for both of them. Blondie absolutely loved her hair and Kitty loved her "tail" (that's what she calls a ponytail). Blondie couldn't stop grinning all day when she thought about her hair and would walk around shaking her head back and forth. This is how their hair turned out Sunday morning: