She's Here!

She's Here!

Ava Nathalie
June 27 at 6:46 a.m.
7lbs, 19 inches

I had an easy birth, and no bleeding (woo hoo!). She's a little jaundice and has some trouble nursing, but other than that she's great. I should be able to post the birth story and some more pictures soon.

The Waiting Game (Not So Fun)

Now pregnancy just gets weird. Yesterday the midwife told me that I’m 4 centimeters dilated. I didn’t know a woman could be that dilated and still carry on normal life! I’m just 38 weeks tomorrow, and I could walk around like this for weeks, according to my midwife.

As I try to fall asleep, and the baby keeps kicking and pushing and squirming around, I keep thinking, “Is that a backache or a contraction?” This drove me crazy until about 1:30 a.m. last night. My body? Exhausted. My brain? Working overtime.

Pregnancy has many disconcerting aspects, but nothing gets me more than this last phase: the waiting. Knowing that at any time my water could break or contractions could start makes me crazy. Knowing the baby’s posterior and that labor now means back labor puts me right over the edge.

I found some information online about turning a posterior baby (thanks, Jamie!), so I spent the weekend on all fours with my butt in the air or crawling around on the floor. The midwife said yesterday that she has started to turn a bit, so the crawling and ass raising may be working. Plus, I see The Best Pregnancy Chiropractor in the World tonight at 5, and she'll do the Webster Technique to try and turn her. If I can make it until then, I will have done all I can, besides clutching my stomach and yanking her into position (which, believe me, I will do if I back labor starts).

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but since I’m already 4 cm., won’t labor be pretty intense right off the bat? Doesn’t the mean my mom should come stay with me now, even though I’m not due for two weeks? Doesn’t that mean that Brian should not work on Saturday or work late on Tuesday? Doesn’t it mean that the world should just stop and attend to my needs, like, now?

Oh, I guess not. I guess I have to go serve breakfast and wash my hair and get the kids dressed and take them to the park for a while. Then figure out what to feed them for lunch, and drive to get the veggies at the coop.

And hope labor doesn't start, at least until I get to the chiropractor.

Growing Pains

My latest post, Growing Pains, is up at DotMoms. And no, it's not about my ever-expanding belly (although it would be a fitting title for that)!

Three Down, Seven to Go

Things are looking up on the OB/midwife front!

First, I found a good hypnobirthing practitioner. She was an R.N. for 25 years, then became a hypnotherapist, and a few years ago started teaching hypnobirthing. I go back to her for one more session on Tuesday.

When I went to her in May, I discovered that she works out of a chiropractors' office, one of whom specializes in pregnant women and children. This was a Godsend, since I’d been looking for a good chiropractor and had no leads.

I don’t normally go to chiropractors, but I did go at my doula’s insistence before I had my second baby. As opposed to the back labor I had with my first, John came out in four hours without one back pain, still in his bag of waters.

At first I wanted to find a chiropractor again based on superstition (hey, it worked once!), but then my back started hurting. Standing, sitting, it didn’t matter. I felt like I had a 300 pound gorilla sitting on my back.

Within a few visits, she made my pain vanish, and I feel as normal as one can with 30 extra pounds hanging from her midsection. She also has worked on my neck, which I trashed in a car accident three years ago. That feels better too!

In other good news, I finally worked out a plan with my OB that I feel comfortable with. I had postpartum hemorrhages with my first two babies, caused by uterine atony (the uterus didn't shrink and firm up as it should after birth). They both left me on the verge of transfusion and requiring four weeks of recovery on the couch. This meant feeling lousy, watching my house fall to pieces, not getting out of the house, and relying on my mom and in-laws so Brian could go back to work. It was also very scary, considering that many women have died from this kind of thing, or required emergency hysterectomies.

My OB had told me that he would give me a boosted dose of Pitocin first, then Methergine, then wait. Well, this didn’t sit well with me since that is what they did after John's birth, and I ended up bleeding out in my maternity room while ordering lunch three hours after delivery.

So at my next visit, I brought it up again, and we added these precautions:

• When I’m admitted, they will type and crossmatch my blood, so that if I do need a transfusion the blood will be there (this can take 45 minutes or more, so better to do it in advance).

• I will stay in labor and delivery for 8 hours postpartum, so I can be closely watched.

• They will keep Hemobate, the drug that stopped the bleeding last time, in my room.

• The nurses will check me every half hour or so for the first 24 hours postpartum, to make sure my uterus is firm.

Once we got this plan in place, I asked him The Big Question: Can I birth with the midwives and have the doctors take over postpartum? He said sure. I’m so relieved about this! I’ll miss my doula, but at least I won’t have to miss my midwives, too.

Yesterday, I saw my midwife for the first time. The bad news: The hospital got rid of their birthing pool, so that’s not an option. (What is wrong with them?) The semi-bad news: This baby is face up, and if she stays that way, I'm looking at back labor again. So this baby and I are going to have a talk this evening, and if she doesn't turn her little fanny around, she's going straight to the naughty corner after she's born.

But then, this good news: At three weeks before my due date, I’m 3 centimeters dilated and 80 percent effaced! I said, "Maybe I'll go early!" And my midwife said nothing. So I said it again. "Maybe I'll go early!" And she said, "Don't get too excited. Women can walk around at 3 or even 4 centimeters for weeks." But I'm not convinced, I think it looks good for an early delivery! Don't you think?

Of course, now I’m in hyper-nesting mode. My bag’s not packed, my paperwork’s not complete, the baby’s laundry’s not done, and she doesn’t even have a name! So you know what I will be doing all weekend ...

What's Your Name, Little Girl?

I know that naming our baby girl is a personal decision, one that Brian and I will have to make on our own. But, we are not the best decision makers. It takes us at least six months to buy a new car. When we bought our house after seven months of extensive hunting, we stayed up until all hours drawing up countless pro/con lists before making an offer.

Naming our babies has been no different. We didn't name Ben until we were on our way out of the hospital. I did choose John in advance, but it took awhile to get Brian on board with it.

For some reason, I always thought choosing a girl's name would be easier. Now, I have no idea why I thought that. Here we are at T minus 25 days, and our shortlist, well, it isn't that short.

So here are the names we're considering.
- Ava
- Laura
- Anna
- Jaime
- Tess, Tessa (short for Theresa)
- Leah

The list would be longer if Brian and I each had our own list. These are the ones we both can stand. Any opinions or other ideas out there? I'd love to hear them! Oh, and if it helps at all, here is her picture from four months ago.

Belly Shot

I can't believe I'm doing this, but here's a shot I took in the (dirty) mirror last night. Does this look like a belly with four more weeks of growing left? I think not. I'm hoping it's got just about two weeks left! Yes, my belly button popped, but it's been like that for a few months now. For some reason, I find my belly button showing through my shirt really embarrassing (yet posting it on the Internet is just fine)!

P.S. Notice the shorts... They're supposed to be up around my belly, but they just don't make it.

The Perfect Man

 

Why am I advertising a movie on my blog? Because its director is a client of my good friend Mieke's. And? It's opening on June 17, the same weekend as another big-budget, suck-up-all-the-attention flick called Batman. So it will need a little extra help in the publicity department.

Let's all help out a fellow blogger and all-around hard-working mama! Head out to see The Perfect Man during its opening weekend, and tell your friends about it. As Mieke put it, "PULEEZ."

You can watch the trailor here.

Here's a synopsis: In The Perfect Man, teenager Holly Hamilton (Hilary Duff) is tired of moving every time her single mom Jean (Heather Locklear) has another personal meltdown involving yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man...an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her shaky self-esteem. When the virtual relationship takes off, Holly finds herself having to produce the suitor, borrowing her friend's charming and handsome Uncle Ben (Chris Noth) as the face behind the e-mails, notes and gifts. Holly must resort to increasingly desperate measures to keep the ruse alive and protect her mom's newfound happiness. . . almost missing the real perfect man when he does come along.

You Never Forget Your First

Recently, my good friend Jen stopped by for a surprise visit. This was remarkable because 1) she lives in clear across the country in Texas and 2) I've known her online for four years but had never met her or even spoken to her on the phone. It was such a shock to get an email from her saying she was nearby and had some time to meet!

Four years ago, while pregnant with my son John, I began working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for the second time. I had never gone online to do anything but shop, do research, read the news or job hunt, but I had heard a lot about chat rooms, mailing lists and such. So after reading about sacred circles in Cameron's book, I got the idea that maybe I could find such a thing online.

So I went on to Google and entered "The Artist's Way." Within an hour, I found a group and joined. Within a few weeks, I was having email "conversations" with a handful of talented, thoughtful, giving people who shared my philosophies (and Cameron's) about the artist's life. Jen was, and is, one of those people.

Jen owns another list -- a philosophical, Thoreau-inspired discussion group -- and I've spent a good deal of time there, too. In this venue, I've gotten to see the depth of Jen's patience and kindness. She's respectful to the rude people who cannot participate in political discussions in a civil way (even as she's kicking them off the list). She's always sweet as honey to me too, even though we barely agree on anything politically.

I find it so hard to believe that I've had these friends in my life for four years now. If I ever had a crisis, I know I could call on any one of them for help and they would be there. And I would do the same for them. It's amazing to me that I could forge such a strong bond with people I've never even met, until now that is! This was the first time I got to meet an online friend, and I hope it's the start of a new trend.



Originally uploaded by clouth.

Thanks for taking the time to stop over, Jen! It meant the world to me, and I hope we get to do it again sometime soon. (In case some of you didn't know, I'm the hugely pregnant one.)