Cognosco

…I still agonize over when to be pregnant.

I still worry if I will be hired for a job if I am pregnant.

I worry about whether or not I will be able to keep a job or get tenure if I have a baby.

And I am one of the lucky ones. I had my first child while in graduate school, which is actually a great time to have a baby in my opinion. But I’m set to graduate next year with a Ph.D. and get some kind of job in academia. There are few career paths more liberal than academia. Furthermore, my area is psychology, which when combined with academia leads to so much liberalism that you can almost choke on it. I will have my own office so pumping will not be a problem. There is quite a bit of flexibility in the schedule of an academic, so long as you somehow manage to work 50 (+?) hours per week. Doing what you love. Not bad, really. I am incredibly lucky, especially given that I am the first in my family (including cousins ) to even graduate from college with a four-year degree, let alone an advanced degree.

And yet…

…the whole thing has been keeping me up at night. In order to have my kids two years apart, I’ll have to get pregnant in the next few months. Be pregnant on job talks. In academia, job talks can be a two or three day affair, packed with meetings and interviews and presentations and intensity. I wouldn’t want to fly past 34 weeks in a pregnancy. Job talks take place from about November through February for the nicest jobs. For less nice jobs, they can continue through the May. So, we reasoned that if I get pregnant in August, the due date would be in May, which is also the same month I’ll be graduating. Then I’d start a new job the following August. Granted, most programs tend to be a wee bit forgiving in the first year because you are adjusting, but compounding that adjustment with a new baby, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding…what a recipe for disaster. And, I would miss a lot of that child’s first year because I’d be focusing on so many other things.

Sound crazy? I think so too. I’ve been in a constant state of fretting.

So, I decided that I would go for the "easier" jobs. Little or no research. Smaller schools. More teaching. Familiar. Not too challenging.

And then I stopped caring about schoolwork. I couldn’t focus on anything. Writer’s block set in like someone had wrapped gauze around my brain.

Because wait a minute–I love research. I love mentoring. I love teaching too, but to only teach would be like cutting off a limb.

    "For a minute there,

    I lost myself,

    I lost myself."

        –Radiohead

I love my family. But I love my dreams too. 

So, one day, I asked myself why I wanted my kids to be two years apart. Well, my brother and I are 2 years and 3 months apart. I think I never questioned that two years was the best spacing for kids, because it was normal for me.

It would be "inadvisable" to have a baby during the first year or two of a new job. While most universities will stop the tenure clock during that time, you may still be judged negatively for having a child during that time. And really, it would be nice to be settled in first anyway for my own sanity. So, if I have my next child after two years on a job, Albert would be four years old.

I began to contemplate this, and took the same approach to this question that I do most things. I researched it ad nauseum. Turns out that if you ask people what the best spacing is, everyone gives a different answer. There are good things and bad things about any age difference. And it seems that the most important factor in how your kids get along isn’t their age (up to about a 5 year difference), but their personalities. Good luck planning that.

When I let myself accept the possibility that this might be a better choice for our family, a tremendous disappeared from my shoulders. The brain fog lifted. I wanted to do school work again. I felt motivated. My writer’s block disappeared. I felt calm.

The down side is that my future job is not likely to be in the Phoenix area. Even if there was a job here, I don’t want to stay here. Which means that I will not have Connie as my midwife, or Leigh as my doula. And that kind of sucks.

But to be honest, I’ve always had trouble envisioning Connie at my next birth. Maybe it’s because she’s just not meant to be.

And I can accept that Leigh will likely not be there because I can entice her to visit me with the promise of chocolate and the scent of a newborn. And then we can bask in new babyness while we watch the birth video, eat brownies, and laugh.

I think MB can be coerced with chocolate too… 

Nonetheless, I still think it’s bullshit that this whole process has been agonizing. It’s bullshit that I can’t just think about what’s best for our family without worrying about damaging my career. And I am one of the lucky ones.

We have come so far, and yet have so much further to go. 

I’ve been too unmotivated to write anything lately. I’ve been really overwhelmed with school and Albie is such a busy little boy (I guess they all are) that he makes the time I have with him go "poof" and so the blog has been on the back burner.

I just came across a lovely little interview with Ani Difranco, in which she is asked about her home birth. I love her. I have loved her for quite some time. And this quote just made me want to jump up and shout, "Amen, Sister!" It pretty much sums up the whole "why home birth" question:

 I would definitely choose a homebirth again despite the fear mongering of this patriarchal society, which convinces women that they are incapable of having babies without the intervention of men and their machines. I look at societies where women are marginalized and oppressed their whole lives (even covered head to toe in tarps!) but are still in control of birthing practice, in a whole new way now. I mean, who is really more advanced? To take birthing out of women’s hands and deny us the continuum of eons of wisdom and experience is to eject us from the very seat of our power. I believe that women in hospitals are prevented from being able to have normal, healthy birthing experiences because of the intimidation of being on the clock, being pressured to take drugs to make it quicker, being inhibited in their movement and activities, and alienated by a sterile, fluorescent lit, feet-in-the-air type environment. You know the classic “performance anxiety” of not being able to pee or poo because somebody’s watching you? Multiply that by a million! A cervix is a sphincter after all! Then to add tragic insult to injury women are numbed through their great moment of revelation. I believe the act of giving birth to be the single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power and connection to all of nature. You think it can’t possibly be done, you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do — and afterward you look at yourself in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do anything. Check out the books on this subject by Ina May Gaskin. She’s one of my great heroes.

P.S. I was in labor for 43 hours. Pushed for five hours. It was brutal and scary and prolonged, and if I was in a hospital, they would have definitely cut the baby out of me. I thank the goddesses that I was at home with patient midwives who knew how to go the distance. The memory of pain always recedes. The memory of triumph does not.

Hm. Pushed for 5 hours. I wonder what that’s like…

So, I totally missed Blog for Choice Day this year. Here’s my post from last year about why I’m pro choice. The topic this year was supposed to be why I vote pro-choice. Because I do. But I don’t know if I can articulate why I vote pro-choice. It’s just such a core value to me because it is related to so many other issues on so many other levels. Gender equality. Respect. Compassion. Trust in women. Trust in mothers. Commitment to help women in other countries with reproductive options. Deliverance from reproductive slavery and the body as a commodity. Access to birth control. Aid for impoverished women. Good prenatal care. Gentle birth. Informed choices. A rejection of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and their intimidation tactics and the lies they tell women about abortion. A rejection of the abstinence-only education that is putting our teenagers in danger. A rejection of all of the blantant lies fed to our children about their bodies.

It is no wonder that women give birth in a hospital completely uninformed. Many of them have been lied to about their bodies since they were preteens. I am of the mind that sexuality is pretty much the be all end all core of our beings in one way or another. If you can control someone’s sexuality and their reproductive potential, you have control over their entire life.

So for me, reproductive freedom must be protected because it is akin to freedom of one’s soul. And it is under constant attack. Even birth control is under attack because it is "anti-woman" and "anti-life" and preventing pregnancy is the same as saying you hate children and having sex for anything but procreation is equating women with whores. Read the article. I’m not kidding.

I vote pro-choice with the hope that the people I elect have the same passion for protecting my reproductive rights as those who oppose these rights. 

And because I am a pro-choice voter, I am voting for Barack Obama. I think this article sums up my justification for doing so. There are so many other reasons, but if I had to point to one, this is it.

Oh, and he also spoke out against this stupid war we’re involved in. Don’t tell me "we didn’t have all of the facts" at the time. I was one of the people who marched against us going to war because many of us knew, even then, that there weren’t enough facts to go to war, and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We had no business invading that country. It’s great that Saddam is dead. Fine. So let’s get the hell out and let those people have their country back.

Arizona primaries are Tuesday along with all of the other "Super Tuesday" states. To be honest, I am just giddy about the fact that we got to watch a debate last week and there was no white man on the stage. Pretty amazing. Both of the democratic candidates are great choices. I’ll happily vote for either in the general election. But I’d be just a little happier to vote for Obama.

I read a great personal account of postpartum nursing (as in being a nurse caring for a pospartum mom…not postpartum breastfeeding, which would be a terribly redundant term).

So, apparently, Tuesday was my very first blog-o-versary. I discovered the blog world when I was looking for info on homebirths. I was led to Jeanette’s blog, and then Leigh’s blog, and MB’s blog. Then I followed their links. And then those folks’ links. That was back when I could stay up until three in the morning without someone being up for the day two hours later.  And then I had the makings of an addiction. So I decided to start one myself. I don’t know how many readers I have. My stats say lots of people come here, but only a handful leave comments, and I don’t understand all of the stats anyway. But at the very least I have a nice record of the last year of my life.

I went back to read the first few posts, and I find it hard to believe that I had ever thought I would willingly have a hospital birth. I look at the belly pictures, and am amazed that that bump is now the monster pulling up on my chair, grabbing at my computer cord, and conducting all sorts of physics experiments (a.k.a. throwing, dropping, and banging things).

I find it hard to believe that there was a time in my life when I didn’t know M and C, my sweet and loving midwife team. It’s even harder to believe that I didn’t know the wonderful mama friends I have made in the last several months as a result of this blog. That alone has made any time I have put into this so worth it.

The lovely midwife who attended Albert’s birth wrote a really funny post over at Earth Hearth about what she carries for birth "emergencies".

The post made me laugh because number one, I remember being fanned during labor, and seriously, I don’t know if I could have held out without that relief. We had turned the heat high when I started pushing, because we all assumed the the baby would arrive soon. Sooner became later, and so I had some serious work to do while being seriously HOT. Between the fan, icy washcloths, and gatorade, I survived. I hate being hot. Hate it.

Number two, I remember asking a similar question at one of my prenatal appointments. I switched care around 32 weeks, and this was particular appointment was probably the third time I had seen M. I asked whether or not she had a "neonatal transport unit" in case of emergencies. I’m not really sure what that is, but someone had asked me that question, so I asked it of her. She didn’t know what it was either (I don’t think such a thing exists) and then said that her neonatal transport unit was *this* and formed her arms into a cradle shape as if she was holding a baby. She laughed really hard after that. She did go on to tell me about some of the equipment they carried like oxygen, a "space blanket" (which she had not had to use in a very long time), etc. But every once in awhile, she would giggle, make the cradle sign, and say "neonatal transport unit".

It cracks me up every time I think about it.

What does she really carry for emergencies? What is the most important thing a midwife has for emergencies (in my opinion)?

Her hands. It was her hands that helped me push. It was her hands that pushed hair out of my face. It was her hands that gave me strength. It was her hands that brought me gatorade. Her hands that helped me wash up afterwards when I was too weak to stand in the shower.

And what was it that she used to help free Albert from shoulder dystocia?

Not forceps. Not a vacuum. Not a caesarean section.

Her hands.

Period.

I think those hands might just rival the fan for #1. 

…or shall we say, schizophrenia?

 When I was taking prenatal yoga, I remember the instructor talked about "motherhood amnesia". You know, that thing that sets in eventually after each difficult child-related event, such as pregnancy and varicose veins, labor, birth, sleep deprivation, baby blues, endless newborn screaming, etc. The night that Albert was born, I remarked to H that at that point in time, I didn’t think I ever wanted to go through childbirth again and that one child might really be enough. I had a hard time sleeping that night because I couldn’t stop having the sensation of pushing and pushing and pushin. I thought about the amnesia thing then, and couldn’t imagine I could forget the intensity of childbirth that easily. I thought it would take months.

How long did it take for amnesia to set in?

About 24 hours.

The length of time between each difficult period and its subsequent amnesia has only decreased over time. To the point where now, I can utter a statement such as, “what was I thinking having a kid?” or “I am so tired I could die,” only to casually mention within the next 60 seconds I can’t wait to have another child and that it is so much more fun than I thought it would be.

Because when I look at him and he is smiling, it is really hard to focus on any of the negatives.

I was prepared to experience this amnesia thing. I just didn’t think that it would occur simultaneously with the challenging times. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

I am in love with the Feministing blog. This weekly summary of stories is just a cornucopia of interesting tidbits…

Feministing.com 

I’ve been musing over my birth story, and have realized that there are some things that I left out that should be part of the story. They are the kinds of things that aren’t just about the birth story, but are about the home birth story. Like how M asked me the next day if I had any questions about anything that had happened during the birth. I was actually debriefed about my birth experience.

 Like how the midwives gave me a Wonder Woman mug the day after the birth with tea inside that was for boosting my milk supply. And how receiving that mug helped to eliminate any residual feelings I had that I had done something to cause my labor to be long and hard.

 Like how when M came by on the third day, she noticed Albert doing something with his tongue that I didn’t realize was a problem that could have really fucked up the breastfeeding. She said, “babies are smart”. This was not the first time I’d heard her say that. She said, “if he starts that, it’ll be a hard habit to break.” He was sucking his tongue and I had to actually reach in and pull his tongue out when he did it. He didn’t do it any more after two days of that. Despite the many, many people I would have been forced to contend with in a hospital, I have a feeling none of them would have bothered to notice this problem. Furthermore, if I’d been allowed a vaginal birth in the hospital (not likely), then I would have already been home with no one to notice even if they were observant.

 Any time I had any tests done the midwives explained to me exactly what was being tested as well as the risks and benefits of the testing itself and the risks and benefits of doing nothing regardless of test results. I knew what my urinalysis results were because I was holding the pee stick and reading it myself. This was an improvement over watching blood and urine disappear from my sight with no idea where it was going, and facing tones of annoyance if I dared to ask.

 When I switched to midwifery care at 34 weeks, my doctor had not palpated my stomach at all yet. It was one of the first things the midwife did. It was as if she was getting to know the baby.

 I was asked permission to do vaginal exams. Rather than being told it was time for one. Not just exams during actual labor, but even exams to check my status prior to going into labor. It was my decision whether or not I wanted someone’s hands inside of me. I don’t have a problem with vaginal exams, but it was nice to know that it was always my decision and there was no pressure to do otherwise.

 Even though I took several hours to push Dude out, no one ever mentioned I had failed in any way. As in “failure to progress”. You know, that phrase that is justification for a whole cascade of interventions. No one said anything had stalled, like a temperamental car. No one mentioned anything about intervening in any way. They just suggested different positions. And M did do some things with her hands—but for the most part they were gentle, and she had my permission to do them.

 I have a friend who said the other day that she wondered “what her water would do” during her next birth. Apparently, she’s had her water broken in both previous births. The first time by a midwife (shall I say medwife) because labor had stalled (damn car!) at 9 cm. I am curious what definition of stalled they were using. Because really, it seems to me that 9cm is far enough along that maybe the body is like, “ok, everything is good, let’s take a teensy break before we push on to phase two”. My labor slowed down right after transition. The total break wasn’t that long. But then I had quite a period of time when I was pushy, but not intensely pushy. If I was in the hospital, the more I think about it, they would have totally said I had “stalled”. I didn’t feel like I had stalled. I was working hard. I worked much harder after that little slowing period, but it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t an active working participant in the period where little “progress” was made.

 Furthermore, during her last birth, when the doctor came in with his glove with a needle at the end of it to break her water, her guy had just left to get some soup. Nothing had been happening except, you know, contractions, and so she said sure, go ahead, go get some soup. I find it appalling that the doctor was not willing to wait 15 or 20 minutes for her guy to get back to break her water, knowing that breaking the water will cause contractions to intensify. Because, I’m sure that waiting 15 minutes would have made all the difference to the baby’s health, right?

 She came away from both experiences feeling like something was wrong with the way she labored because her water didn’t break at the very beginning. Rather than realizing her body was working just fine, great even, because it was retaining a cushion for the baby’s head and for her as well.

 The women that attended my birth didn’t treat me as an inferior—they treated me as an equal. They helped me, comforted me, supported me, nourished me, and cheered me on. The did not “manage” me. They were kind, gentle, and respectful at all times. I do not hear those words used for hospital births. Ever. It is a feat if the doctor even shows his or her face for more than 5 minutes prior to the baby crowning. These women held my hand, let me push against them, put cool cloths on my neck, and brushed the hair back from my face. They were with me in labor, not waiting for me to finish my labor.

 I know plenty of women who get weepy and sentimental about the birth of their baby. But they are referring to just the actual moment of birth. I am overcome with emotion about the entire experience, especially the difficult times.

 And there have been times since the day Albert was born that I felt insecure about something or needed a little courage. And it’s true that thinking of that day makes other challenges pale in comparison.

 And that, my friends, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

 Photos of the birth can be found here. I can’t quite figure out how to link my flickr account to this blog with the fancy little "most recent photos" icon, so I figured I’d just post the link. The pictures are also not in the correct order due to a minor snafu with the date-time function on the camera. Basically, if the baby is in the picture, those were most likely taken after he was born.

I have intentionally neglected to include many specific times in this story so as not to put my lovely and talented midwives in any danger from the guv-ment. Stupid guv-ment.

This story is ridiculously long. I apologize in advance for my shameless glee in talking about myself and this experience.
 

The Birth of Baby A 

(We didn’t know the sex of the baby, so we just called it Baby ‘A’ because both the male and female names we had picked started with an ‘A’)

When I first got pregnant, I considered having a home birth, but decided it wasn’t for me. I found a doctor who was highly recommended among birth circles and very supportive of natural birth, and decided that I would do a hospital birth.

As I began reading lots and lots of information during my pregnancy, I repeatedly returned to the homebirth option, but told myself that things would be fine in the hospital. However, around 28 weeks, I started to have serious misgivings and a nagging voice in the back of my head. I worried that my doctor would not be on call. I worried that my baby would be taken away. And then my sister in law had an HBAC. And then Ani Difranco announced her plans for a homebirth, and I realized that I didn’t want to be one of those people who is like, “well, it’s cool, but not for me”. Why not for me? I realized that having a homebirth is not just a birth choice, but a political statement. I mentioned it to my husband, and he was totally supportive. So then I started looking for a midwife, and let my doctor know. She promptly terminated care. Turns out, when I was 36 weeks along, that doc retired!

My first midwife appointment (after the interview) was at home when I was 32 weeks along by the doctor’s estimate. The midwife thought I was closer to 34 weeks. We went with the earlier date, knowing we could change it if necessary and not wanting to be in a position of being too “early” to do a homebirth that was actually full term. I was totally blown away with the difference in care with a midwife and how gentle she was when she palpated my belly and talked to the baby.

The day before Valentine’s Day, I had an appointment with the midwife, and I was 60% effaced, 1 to 2 cm dilated and baby was REALLY low. I was concerned about the baby’s position, because baby had been in the same position for several weeks and had suddenly moved to a new position a week prior, and it was really hard for all of us to figure out what was going on. We did, however, know the head was still down, which was a relief.

Later that day, I had some bloody show. I’d had what I thought was bloody show the week prior, but it had been more blood than mucus, and was right after sex. The stuff I had on this day was textbook mucus plug—pink tinted snot. I was excited.

My husband hadn’t gotten much sleep the night prior, and when he got home, I told him I felt really “weird” and that he needed to get to bed early because I thought the baby was coming soon. He asked why, and all I could say was that I felt “weird, really weird”.

That night, I had to get up to pee a lot, and there was a little mucusy stuff each time, but no longer pink. He got up to go to work at 4 a.m., and my back really hurt. I thought it was just my hips hurting. I also felt like getting up and doing stuff, so we both laughed and figured it was the nesting urge, and that it meant I should really try to rest. So I had some yogurt and went back to sleep.

At 8 a.m., I woke to the POP! of my water breaking. I got up out of bed, shaky, and called my husband. He was supposed to be done with work at 10, and so I said to just come home when he was done. Then I called my midwife. She said she’d be over in an hour or two just to check things out. Then I called my friend Sam to tell him that I’d give him a call when things picked up. He was going to help us with the birth, because even though he’s a dude, we’re very close and both of his kids were born at home.

I decided to get a shower, and by the time I got out, my surges had started. I noticed quickly that they seemed to be really close together, and got out the stopwatch. As I was emptying and loading the dishwasher, I realized they were about 1 minute long and 1 minute apart. So, I called my midwife again. She asked if they were strong, and I said it was getting harder to ignore them but that I was still loading the dishwasher. She said I needed to get my husband to come home sooner than later.

I called his work again, and he had already left. I called him and asked him to pick up a few things on the way home, and told him I needed some breakfast. He said he’d make me pancakes when he got home.

By the time he got home, the surges were pretty strong, but I was still up and about, tidying the house. I started some music. It was “Hum Drum” by Left Hand Right Hand. He set to work making me pancakes. By the time one of them was done, I ate a few bites and really didn’t want the rest, and I began to feel nauseated. I now had to focus entirely on the surges. He suggested working on my “birth board”, a piece of cardboard that I’d wanted to decorate in early labor as a focal point. I said, “I really don’t think that’s going to happen.” At this point, I had to stop what I was doing to focus on each contraction. I did yoga poses against the wall for a few surges and used my birth ball for a few more. The yoga poses I used were shower pose and a modified downward dog pose. I commented to Hyrum that the time when a surge let up was so nice. The whole contrast effect was amazing. I totally loved that short time when one had let up and I had a minute before another began.

The apprentice midwife, C, arrived. She assessed things, and then stepped outside to call the primary midwife, M, and told her to take her time but head on over. When she came back inside, she took one look at me, and went back outside to call her again to tell her to come straight over. In the few minutes that had passed, I had gone from handling surges well to being completely overtaken by them. The birth ball was next to a little typewriting table, and I had started grabbing the table during the surges. They were coming so fast, there was hardly any time to catch my breath.

I went to lie on the bed to try side lying for a few surges. That was not so very comfortable, and I was starting to feel kind of pushy but not really. At one point, I cried out that I couldn’t do it, and even as I said it, I knew I was in transition and that my comment was a textbook response, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying it out loud. Hyrum (my husband) said that he was really glad that one of the midwives was there for that, because in that moment, even though he knew it was a textbook transition comment, I looked so scared that it freaked him out. C reminded me that it was just one surge at a time. I said, “I know, but they’re coming right next to each other.” She said yes, but that I needed to relax between them and let each one go. All of a sudden, they eased up, and I was indeed pushy. She did a VE, and said she couldn’t find the cervix, so to go ahead and listen to my body. The next little window of time was nice, because I’d feel mildly pushy, and then there were a few minutes between each surge to rest. I pushed my arms against the wall above my head when I had the urge to push. This short period of time was such a welcome reprieve from the intensity of the surges I’d been having only minutes prior.

M showed up soon after that, while I was still lying on the bed. She did a VE and said she didn’t feel cervix either, so to trust my body. She asked if I wanted them to fill the birth pool, and I said no, I didn’t think it would be worth it or that there would be time. I decided to go push on the toilet for awhile. I would have used a birth stool, but because she’d rushed over from her office, she hadn’t had a chance to go to her house to pick it up. Around this time, “Kondole Part 2” by Psychic TV was playing. M said she liked my birth music. I liked it too. I pushed on the toilet for awhile, and it was a good place for me to push. My husband and I found a groove so that when it came time to push, he was in front of me, and I grabbed his hands and pushed against them. A few days after the birth, neither one of us could figure out why our arms were so sore until we remembered this position. Basically, we were both working our pecs by pushing against each other. I had been pushing there for awhile, and M said that when I felt the baby crown, I should come forward off of the toilet, and C would come behind me and we could put a chux pad on the floor. They had also warmed the room by this point and it was really hot, so they kept putting icy washcloths on my neck. She brought in some candles for the bathroom. We all thought the baby would come soon. We were wrong.

After awhile, there hadn’t been much progress, and so she did a VE again, and realized there was a little cervical lip left. She did the exam on the toilet, and then helped push the lip back while I pushed. It hurt like hell. I think that I had pushed for about an hour before we realized the lip was stuck. Maybe more. She also then had me “push where her fingers were” to get a better push going. That hurt like hell too. Some music came on that wasn’t doing it for me, so I asked M to put on Sigur Ros “Agaetis Byrjun”.

Then she suggested hands and knees on the bed. I had a big stack of pillows in front of me to rest on between surges. I was actually pushing more like in a squat. And Hyrum applied counterpressure during surges. It was nice to rest in between, but not really all that comfortable. The midwives fanned me between surges, but stopped when I was actually having one—I guess to not distract me. At one point Hyrum let me know he would need to use the bathroom after the next surge, and while he was gone C applied counterpressure. It was the only time he left me the whole time I was in labor. The midwives also kept offering me Gatorade between every few surges, and it tasted surprisingly fantastic. I guess my body really needed it. They also checked the fetal heart rate every 15 minutes with a little hand held Doppler machine.

I went back to the toilet for awhile—can’t remember if I wanted to or if M suggested it. She brought in pillows for behind my head so I could lean back. The toilet was nice for pushing, but really uncomfortable in between surges. And at one point, she brushed my hair from my face, and told me that I looked “so pretty”. It was very kind, and I probably did look pretty. It was not what you expect to hear during labor. You expect powerful, or something, but pretty was a unique thing to hear. My eyes still well up when I think about it. She also had me try a lunge on the toilet so that one foot was on the toilet and the other on the floor. It was a really interesting position, but difficult to keep my balance even leaning on Hyrum. It was a nice change though.

She suggested that we walk a little, so we walked out to the living room. When a surge would come, I’d rush back to the toilet for a few, and then she’d suggest I walk again. Hyrum would encourage me just to make it to the front door or to the back door. Little goals were helpful. Each time I did that, I would have a really strong surge afterwards. During this time, I asked Hyrum to re-start the Sigur Ros CD that had just played. Turns out, it was still playing, but I was so out in labor land that I didn’t even recognize it. I thought something else was on. M restarted it anyway.

Shortly after that, I tried side lying, which ended up with me on my back in more of a Bradley Method pose. M was near my feet and encouraged me to push against her if I needed to. Hyrum was at my right on the bed, and C at my left. They had me curl my head up with C helping me. M said she was going to help me out, and she did some stuff inside of me that really hurt. She told me later she was trying to make space and do finger forceps and such. At one point I screamed, “no, no, no, M stop!” She looked almost like I had struck her. It has to be hard to cause pain when you know you’re helping. She looked so empathetic. It was at this point that the real pushes began, and I began vocalizing–screaming, really, through them. They said, “now that’s how you get a baby out.” They told me to push through the pain. They would tell me to stay with it and push as long as I had “it”—the urge. It was hard to give over to that. Sometimes I would whine that I was trying, and they would tell me that they knew and that I was doing great. They told me I was doing great several times, but I didn’t always believe it. I felt like I would be making more progress if they were right. Looking back, I realize that I was doing great, to be working so hard during such slow progress.

I guess that during that time M was doing “finger forceps” and a lot of other stuff to try to help the head along. I just remember her using a lot of lube and being, as she said later, “all up in your business”. She told me later that she couldn’t even feel around the head and realized it was really big. When I was sort of passed out between surges, she mouthed to Hyrum “your head” and pointed at him and then her head. He has a big head.

At one point, I said that it hurt in my lower pelvis. M thought it might be my bladder, and offered to catheterize me. I was really scared of a catheter and said maybe I could pee. She said she really didn’t think so because the head was far enough in the canal to make it really difficult. I asked if it would hurt. She said not compared to everything else. They had a little trouble, because my urethra was in a weird place or something, but finally got it in. I didn’t really feel it, and then they were pulling it out and it was over and I’d already peed and didn’t know it. It did help. It was only a little pee, but the pain went away.

Hyrum says he remembers me raising my arms to the sky when I was pushing during this time and that it was a very powerful image. They also brought out a mirror at some point, and I could see the head inside of me and I said “I can do this, I can do this”. At some point, Chris and Cosey, “Allotropy” started playing. I was only vaguely aware of the music once or twice. By now, I was so deep in labor land I didn’t even realize there was music most of the time.

At several points through the pushing nightmare, I said, “baby, please come out.” Or I would ask why the baby wouldn’t come out. And the midwives were always calm and said the baby just wanted to take its time or something like that. I just continued to plead with the baby to please come soon and kept telling it that we wanted to meet it.

I don’t know if it was at this point or when I was on hands and knees at the end that M said she felt like I was backing away from the power rather than staying with it. She was right, but the feeling was so scary. She said I had to stay with it and so I worked harder to do so. But it was overwhelming.

After I was on the bed, I went back to the toilet for awhile, and we walked a few times. I was glad I did the intermittent toilet pushing because I didn’t get the purging diarrhea that comes with early labor, so I was pooping plenty on the toilet.

After this toilet trip, they suggested I go back to hands and knees. So I did. And I do think that’s when she told me not to back away from the pushing. And she also suggested that I make lower vocalizations so that I didn’t waste energy on the noise. So I did. It helped. I was sort of in a squat position a lot of the time when I was pushing and sort of pushing against Hyrum even though he was on the right side of me. Leaning forward to rest didn’t work, so I rested on him. There was very little time between surges during this time. They told me I just need to push with all my might and get the baby out in the next few pushes. I could reach inside and feel the head right there. Also, the baby’s heartbeat was occasionally slower, and so they kept reminding me to take deep breaths for the baby.

When the ring of fire started, I thought maybe I should pant, but they said to push as hard as I could. So this was different than a lot of other people’s birth experiences because we just needed to get this baby out. I was scared of tearing, but had to say fuck it. And I remember M saying that when the baby came out, she would pass it through to me. It took forever for the head to crown, and then the face was sort of stuck in the ring of fire. And I remember thinking, shouldn’t it all just come out? And I would try to push between surges, but had no power. I was starting to get worried. It burned constantly between the surges and I thought I couldn’t take it. Hyrum had said a few different times during the birth that I would find out the sex soon, as a way to sort of inspire me. I didn’t care. At the end, the only thing motivating me was making the pain stop. I realized that Coil, “The Snow” was playing while the head was crowning. It’s a very upbeat, driven CD, and it was really appropriate because it gave me a little extra energy. The baby ended up being born to this CD. I even wrote the artist to tell him so.

Apparently, C saw that I had pushed the head out, and it was stuck at the chin. Which means the baby was stuck and is a sign of shoulder dystocia. All of a sudden, M was behind me and I felt like there were 20 hands inside of me and she said that I needed to just keep pushing and pushing. And I knew something was wrong because the tone of her voice had completely changed. She was still calm but very serious. I don’t know where I found the strength to push and push with no urge, but I did. I felt like there were so many hands inside of me and hands inside of my anus. I thought for sure that both midwives had their hands inside of me, but it was really just M’s. There were also no hands in my anus, but it felt like it. Part of that might have been because I’d read about shoulder dystocia and that sometimes it’s necessary to try to hook the baby’s shoulder by going in through the anus. When I asked her about it later, she said she hadn’t done that, but had thought about it. Apparently, she had hooked one shoulder, but couldn’t find the other, and later on told me that she thought his arm might have been caught behind him, which would also explain his slow descent. After not being able to hook his shoulders, she suddenly said “I need you to get on this side (left) right now”. I was prepared for her to try other tugging and maneuvers once I did. So I began to move to that side, and as I moved, I swung my right leg really wide, and before my hip hit the bed, the baby was flying out. I had dislodged it. It turns out that the baby had been stuck with the head out for 3 minutes after they realized it was stuck at the chin, which is not a terribly long time, but long enough to be getting really concerned. It seemed like so much less time, especially since I was pushing with all of my might the whole time. She told me later she had thought she was going to have to break its arm to get it out. “Better a broken arm than a broken brain.”

It took 20 seconds for him to start breathing, but seemed like so much longer to me. I just kept saying “come on baby” and C said, “don’t worry, baby is fine”. I was bleeding a lot and they told me to tell myself to stop bleeding. That didn’t work fast enough, so they gave me a shot of pitocin. I’m glad they did. The reason C had tried to reassure me that the baby was okay was because they have noticed that when a mom freaks about the baby, she bleeds worse, and you can end up with two emergencies on your hands. I think that’s a really interesting effect. When the mom is worried about the baby, she loses the ability to will herself to be okay.

Once the baby let out a cry, Hyrum greeted the baby by saying, “Hi Albert”, because he had seen the genitals on the way out. For weeks I hadn’t been able to think of the baby as a girl and my intuition had been correct.

They did give him a few puffs of oxygen initially because he was quite blue. It took awhile after his torso pinked up for the blue to leave his hands and feet. His apgars were 7 and 8.

He was born at 3:24 p.m. I had pushed for several hours. If I’d been in the hospital, they’d have cut me open for sure.

M recommended a Vitamin K shot because Albert’s head was so very bruised from all the pushing. I consented.

There was blood and meconium and fluid EVERYWHERE. The bed, the floor, the walls, all over M. Everywhere.

Hyrum and C dead lifted me to a position where I was laying on the bed with my head at the head. Once the cord stopped pulsing, Hyrum cut it with C’s assistance. But I had no energy left. And I couldn’t push the placenta out. Even with gentle tugging on the cord. After awhile M said, more or less, get the damn thing out. I don’t want to transfer you for THIS. So I went to the toilet and pushed and tugged and got it out in no time with help from gravity. By myself. We made placenta prints out of it.

I got away with a tear near my urethra and a weird burst near my perineum that might have been a varicose vein. Nothing worse than 1st degree. M had considered an episiotomy and was glad she didn’t do one. Thank God for perineum massage and the constant massage M kept doing throughout. We were all shocked that I didn’t tear much worse than I did.

Afterwards, I thanked M for getting my baby out safely and said I knew she could do it. She said my faith in her is probably the only reason she got him out. She also said I really was a great birth mom because I listened to her and changed positions and cooperated. I felt really good about that.

I have no pictures from the moment Albert was born because Hyrum was helping me and the midwives were busy assisting. This is a good reason to have a doula or support person, and I had a support person—but never called him back. That was because things picked up so quickly that I just didn’t have a chance and thought things would be finished much sooner than they were. It makes me kind of sad that he didn’t get to be here, but things never really go the way you planned. But I still had exactly the birth that was meant for me. He was the first person I called once the baby was born.

I commented that I guess we could have filled the tub after all. But M pointed out that with all of the position changing I had done, it wouldn’t have done much good. I was also kind of bummed that labor took off so quickly that I didn’t get to work on any of my labor projects. But as C pointed out, if I’d had a long early labor, I still would have had a long pushing phase too. And probably would have been too tired at the end.

After I finally got the placenta out, I really wanted to get cleaned up. I was sitting in a chair in the bathroom, and nursed Albie for the first time. Hyrum took my pulse, and it was about 150 beats per minute. The midwives thought for sure he must have miscounted. So they took it again. And it was indeed 150 beats per minute. So, I was forbidden from standing in the shower. M got a washcloth and cleaned me up at the sink while I sat in my chair. No doctor would ever do that for you. She also went to the kitchen and grabbed me some yogurt and Hickory Farms sausage, cheese and cracker stuff. I was so hungry but it was kind of hard to eat. I was told to stay in bed as much as possible, and once I was lying back down, my pulse chilled out to a reasonable range.

Afterwards, the midwives had another birth they had to go to, and so I lent M some clothes since hers were covered in “me”. Hyrum went out to our favorite Thai restaurant and brought home some coconut soup and some pork toast appetizers.

During a follow-up visit, M said that even though I thought they’d done a lot of work, that I’d really done the work. And I was a great laboring mom because I’d been willing to try new positions. She said a lot of moms would have given up and said, "that’s it, take me to the hospital." Honestly, that possibility never even occurred to me.

People say to me that I was brave, and that they would never birth at home because “what if something goes wrong?” Well, something did go wrong. Thank god I had a midwife. Thank god I was mobile and able to change positions and able to push with all of my might. A little dude that’s stuck is a big frigging deal. I would much rather a midwife use her hands and not damage the baby’s head than use forceps. In a hospital, the best tool is often still having the woman change positions—not easily done while numb from the waist down and hooked to machines. So, all I can say is thank god I was home and not drugged.

It sounds so cliché, but birthing at home was the most empowering thing I’ve ever done. And the weird thing is that I’ve been "politically active" for some time now and have given speeches and organized actions and generally been a part of that whole scene. In retrospect, I realize that birthing my baby at home assisted by midwives was the most political thing I’ve ever done. And there were only three people there to witness it.

So, the short version is that Albert Wright Patterson was born on Valentine’s Day at 3:24 p.m. My water had broken at 8 a.m. You would think that would mean I had a short easy labor, but there was a ridiculously long pushing phase, and then his shoulders were stuck, and had it not been for the fact that I was undrugged, mobile, and had a goddess midwife, I think things would have gotten ugly. And somehow, I got off with only some first degree tearing. God bless perineum massage and midwifery care.

So then, the boy was jaundiced. Like, pumpkin colored. We had tried sunlight and lots of nursing, but the boy was seriously yellow. He was really bruised at birth and so the midwife recommended vitamin K and so between the bruising and the shot, it’s no surprise. So we took him to the hospital on Sunday (four days post-birth). We took him to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and I was prepared for a nightmare scenario. I was pleasantly disappointed. My milk had come in on Saturday, and they were really supportive of breasfeeding. To the point of me getting room service food because I was a breastfeeding mom. I was encouraged to take him out of the lights and breastfeed as often as possible. I was blown away. I had chosen a family doc rather than pediatrician for the baby, and was ridiculously pleased with the practice as a whole. It’s the residency practice/program at Good Sam. Every doctor who checked in from that practice reiterated how important it was for me to breasfeed and avoid a bottle if possible (!!!). They discharged him after 12 hours because his levels were falling, and then we went to the office for a follow-up the next day. And everyone had been surprisingly gentle with him as well. At the follow-up, the doc was great, and was not alarmed at his weight loss (born at 8 pounds 14 ounces and was down to 8 pounds 3 ounces), so it seems that these docs are actually educated. Hallelujah.

So, we’ve just been chilling at home doing our thing. However, Albert and I now have colds…although it seems to have hit me much worse. No fever, just a sore throat and a really annoying dry cough. And I can’t get a straight answer from a pharmacist about what I can take for the cough while breastfeeding. The cough is keeping me from sleeping, so I hope it passes soon.

That’s the short version on the happenings. Working on the birth story and will post as soon as I can. 

Leigh says I am killing her by not giving any updates. But there’s not so much to tell.

I did see my midwife today, and I am about 1 cm dilated and 40% effaced. She asked if I wanted her to "semi-sweep my membranes". I declined, reasoning that if I have dilated painlessly thus far, that I’d like to keep that up a little longer. However, the baby is now estimated at 8 lbs. so I’m thinking that if I make it to next week’s appointment (without going into labor prior to that), I’ll probably take her up on it.

So, that’s pretty much it. Now it’s all just hurry up and wait… 

I had some bloody show this morning. It was considerably more blood that I expected, but a large part of the shock factor was that it has been so long since I have seen blood…it initially scared the bejeebus out of me, until I remembered that it was supposed to happen.

I’m excited, because this means that there is a very high probability the baby will be born in the next two weeks. Yay.

So, on Thursday night a new episode of "Scrubs" aired. I have fallen in love with that show over the last two years since episodes started coming out on DVD. I feel that it is currently the funniest show on television. That being said, in this episode, they addressed post-partum depression, and did so in a serious and ethical way. One of the main characters, Carla (who is a nurse), just had a baby. Her husband, Turk, is a surgeon. The episode begins with a shot of her sitting in rocking chair with the baby in her arms, crying. She says, "I can’t do this–we have to take her back". It was heartbreaking. These two are people well-steeped in medical knowledge and familiarity with the disorder. But the bottom line is, he doesn’t know what to do and she thinks getting help means admitting she is a failure. He is at least wise enough to mention the problem to someone else, whose significant other had suffered from PPD as well. Jordon comes to talk to Carla about the way she is feeling, and when she admits that she has wanted to throw the baby out of the window, we can say yes, this is progress . Jordon points out that the problem won’t fix itself through sheer will and that she needs to get help, and the exact quote includes a dig at Tom Cruise (and Scientology) that I can’t remember right now…

The beautiful thing about this portrayal is that the last several episodes of the season have centered around how much she wants a baby. And she is a character who normally totally has her shit together. And these are both people who are well-educated about the disorder. And still, she gets whammed by it, demonstrating that it can happen to anyone and it has nothing to do with how much you want your baby. Although there are certainly recognized risk factors for PPD, it is still difficult to predict who will get nailed by it. I found it particularly interesting that she had to have an emergency c-section, and c-sections are associated with higher risk of PPD. She is also the take-care-of-business independent type, and I think it is always hardest for this type of woman to ask for help.

The episode also includes a scene about her absolute frustration with breastfeeding and how she feels like a failure because she can’t even feed her baby. She then meets with lactation consultants, and although the scene is more funny than informative, it at least points out that a) breastfeeding can be hard and b) there are these special people who may be able to help you.

One of the things I have already noticed about receiving care from a midwife is that she asks me how I’m feeling, and when she asks, it’s clear that she doesn’t mean just physically. I never got that sense from the doctor, although I’m sure that the question could have been directed at physical and emotional well-being. Also, the doctors never asked about any mental health history of myself or my family, and although these tidbits don’t exactly predict PPD, it at least opens a door to discuss such things. When I hear about mothers who do crazy, horrible things to their infants, because they were convinced it was "possessed", it breaks my heart. Especially because it’s almost always a poor mother who probably does not have much help, let alone resources to find help. And people’s reactions to these stories are so harsh and assume the mother is just a horrible person. A horrible person may beat or ignore their kid. A person who microwaves the baby because the voices told her to is a completely different category.

I had an appointment with my midwife on Wednesday (and yes, it’s taken me this long to write about it). It was an appointment where she and her assistant came to my house and we did all the medical history forms, etc. and then she did a belly exam. It was really cool, and it really makes me wish that I’d made this decision sooner. When I would go to the doctor, I always had to leave a urine sample, but I didn’t know what happened to it after it disappeared behind the little metal door. The doctors never said anything about it one way or another, and I don’t even think they usually got the results before they saw me that day anyway. So I had no idea what it was used for. Well, the midwife made me pee on a stick that had several little colored squares on it and tests for things such as infection, glucose, ketones, protein, etc. 

Anyway, after I peed on the stick, she had me compare it to a little diagnostic chart of colors. So I was able to see for myself that there was a little protein in my urine (probably need more fluids), some ketones in my urine (I was hungry), and my pH was a little off (not surprising). By the way, these are not pictures I took–I simply stole them from somewhere else. None of these deviated from normal enough to be of real concern. But you have to understand that I’m an overachiever. And had I been able to see this little stick all along in pregnancy, I guarantee you I’d have been drinking enough water and whatever else was necessary to get the perfect pee-stick score.

The other thing that she gave me is a sheet to keep track of my diet. Now, having read 15+ books on pregnancy, I have had more than one opportunity to make use of a diet sheet to keep track of what I was eating. I just didn’t. And I haven’t eaten badly—I just didn’t really give it too much thought. But when someone else gives me a sheet to use, that’s different. And it’s not mandatory. She’s not going to drop me as a client if I don’t fill out the sheet. She’s not going to send me to my room, either. And besides, I could just lie on the sheet. But just the fact that someone else is encouraging me to monitor my food and actually gives a damn about my diet made me actually start using the sheet. And I’m getting more protein than I thought I was but have discovered that I just don’t eat enough grains. Period. Unless corn chips, tortillas, or white bread count. In fact, I’m lucky if I get in one whole grain serving per day, let alone FOUR. So in the past two days, when I got hungry for a 9 p.m. snack, I was able to look at the sheet and figure out something to eat that optimized the categories I hadn’t already fulfilled. I still am coming up a little short, but I refuse to eat when not hungry, so it’s a tricky balance. Nonetheless, I am already eating better than I was a week ago simply because someone asked me to pay attention.

After we did all of the medical-form-informed-consent-form-diet-sheet-agreement-to-pay stuff I laid down on my bed (which was weird but very cool) and she did a belly exam. I’d had a terrible fear that the baby was not going to turn ever since the ultrasound tech uttered the words “bicornuate uterus” at 12 weeks. Which in and of itself was not scary. Until I googled it. Oops. Don’t do that. But, apparently the baby is already head down, so I am less concerned now and can move on to obsessively worrying about other things.

Then I called my insurance companies on Thursday. The woman at the corporate office for my primary insurance said midwives were covered, but she was clueless about homebirth. And actually, I had to tell her where to find the midwife info on their own website. I talked to our insurance rep at ASU who looked at some fine print documents that said that midwives are only covered under doctor supervision and if they deliver in hospitals. Which is crap because they cover birth centers. (???). Anyway, for the form that is going to the midwife’s biller, I just wrote down what the corporate rep said because she really should be able to give me accurate information. So, United will be a crapshoot. However, I am covered under my husband’s Starbucks Aetna policy as well. So I called them too. And after asking what state I live in they said yes, without a doubt, licensed midwives are covered and so are homebirths. Which is awesome. So again, there’s one less thing for me to worry about.

Well, we’re committed now… I had my last appointment with my OB yesterday. She seemed, um, disappointed in my decision. Or in losing a patient. Or something. I knew that she would have to terminate care as soon as I told her about the homebirth, but I didn’t expect it to be done so abruptly. She said she supported my decision, but didn’t seem genuinely supportive.

About two months ago, I saw one of the other docs in her practice, who said that I needed a 32 week ultrasound for a low-lying placenta. Because I haven’t had any spotting and because I know that placentas tend to move upward, I wasn’t particularly concerned. I did ask the OB about this before she vanished out the door, and she said that it was low-lying, not previa, so she saw no reason for another ultrasound and wasn’t concerned. This difference in doctor opinion is exactly why I didn’t want to continue my care there. I also had an experience at around 12 weeks where one doc told me I could take a few drugs in combination for allergies, and a month later my doc said she’d much rather I just suffer through sleepiness with Benadryl and keep all drugs to a minimum. I adored my doctor, but the discrepancy between her model of care and the other two doctors was just enough to make me uneasy. How differently would they view labor and delivery? How differently would they view the "necessity" of interventions? So, although I was sad to leave her care, the last little exchange about the ultrasound made me really feel like I was making the right decision.

My mother was initially, shall we say, uneasy, with my homebirth decision. But she trusts me and trusts that I had done my research and had made a responsible decision. Funny thing is, once I started talking about the problems with hospitals and that model of care, she opened up about her experience birthing me. What a nightmare…

She was overdue, so they induced. This was 1977. They induced her on a Saturday, and after 2 days of non-productive labor with no food and water, she said fuck this, I’m going home. They said she couldn’t. She said watch me. So, she went home on Monday and went into active labor on Tuesday. I figure once she was home she actually relaxed enough to let labor progress. So, she went back to the hospital. Where she was of course tied up and knocked out and tended to by a doctor she had never met. She was so knocked out that three nurses were pushing on her stomach to try to get me out. Because of the position they had her in, her tailbone was in the way of my descent, and "surprisingly" I was in distress. Really, I am shocked that a baby who’d been through two days of induction and now was receiving valium would be distressed…So, because her tailbone was in the way and they needed to get me out immediately (due to their own mismanagment of labor), they reached in, broke her tailbone, and yanked me out with forceps. I was horrified by this story. She also said that she found the whole process demeaning as someone had their hands up her cooch every hour, and they were people she had never met. My mother at that point in her life already had a history of being sexually assaulted, so I can only imagine how horrible the whole experience must have been. I felt like crying. I told her that now, if someone has two days of unproductive induced labor, they just cut you open, and that was exactly why I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I think she gets it.

When she was pregnant with my brother, she found an kindly old OB who didn’t believe in inductions because babies come when they come and he had seen too many preterm babies be delivered as a result of inductions. My brother was late, and my mother labored at home and did what my great grandmother had told her to do which was stand up for every contraction. It worked for her. She arrived at the hospital 20 minutes before he was delivered and thus missed out on unnecessary exams and drugs. He was still delivered by forceps, because of course, she delivered on her back, but at least she didn’t feel violated. She said that the forceps were necessary because he had a big head. I said, "I bet you could have got him out just fine if they’d let you squat." She said, "You’re probably right". And there you have it.

Interesting side note…we were both delivered with the bag of waters still intact. I thought that was really cool for some reason. Though I was surprised they didn’t rupture it intentionally anywhere along the way. 

I never knew that my mother had an abortion when she was young until I faced an unplanned pregnancy when I was eighteen. I never knew she had a second abortion until I was pregnant again six months later. I never knew what her birth experiences were like until I was months away from my own. I wonder what else I will find out in the years ahead.

Wow! I just saw a little news blurb about the possibility of epidurals interfering with breastmilk production. I am not necessarily shocked by this little research tidbit. I am, however, totally blown away by the fact that I saw it on FOX NEWS. Folks, we have officially entered Bizarro World.

So I met with M yesterday, and decided to hire her as my midwife. I felt very comfortable with her, and loved that she had a background in political theory because homebirth, to me, is a political action. I’m really excited about working with her. I am a little sad to let my doc go, because I do really like her, but I know due to her liability insurance that there’s no way to continue care with both. And, let’s face it, the doc delivers in hospitals. An idea that seems more wrong to me with each passing day.

I ordered a birth tub (kiddie pool) the night before last. Some coral reef something or another that was sold out on pretty much every website and so when I found one I snagged it NOW. Thought about renting a "proper" tub, but damn, they are expensive, and who knows if I’ll even spend much time in there. Marinah said to crank the water heater, and that she’ll just constantly boil water anyway because "she’s a midwife" which made me laugh.

A few weeks ago we bought a cheap stethoscope becuase supposedly, the baby was big enough to hear the heartbeat. That didn’t work out so well, and the thing had just become a frustrating little tool that I repeatedly tried to use while never hearing ANYTHING except my own stomach goings on (which are frightening, really). But the night before last, I got lucky. And I could totally hear the heartbeat, and it sounded really different than the doppler thing. It just sounded like…a heartbeat. And I listened to it for a long time before the baby turned somehow and I could no longer hear it. Suffice it to say, the $12.95 was finally worth it. 

I am currently working on (or perhaps, not working on) a paper for a "Child Language and Drawing" course. It is the last thing that I need to finish for the semester, and so rather than pay it any attention in the last three days, I am of course starting the paper now. The course was really interesting and much more challenging that I had anticipated. A lot of debates about different theories of language and how children begin to recognize words as distinct meaningful units of sound and such. One of the things we talked about was that for a long time, a lot of researchers thought you had to talk directly to an infant/toddler and emphasize a word for the child to learn and understand the word. More recent studies show that even if the toddler is just present for a conversation and seemingly not paying attention, the toddler learns the new word. Well, duh. How many times have you heard a story about a precious 18 month old using their new favorite word, fuck, or its equivalent. I’m quite certain that most parents don’t devote a lot of time to making sure their kids learn how to swear, but magically, they learn to do it on their own.

So, my project is looking at cross-cultural differences in children’s drawings. I was hoping to find studies that would maybe show whether or not there are certain universals that children do in different cultures before their drawings take on culture-specific images and properties. Alas, I have had no such luck. So now I am sitting here with a pile of largely unrelated articles trying to brainstorm about how they fit together. Or that is what I was doing before I started procrastinating here. 

Went to meet with a midwife yesterday. I am interviewing another tomorrow. I was completely blown away with the difference in the "office" of this midwife versus any doctor I had been to. It was more like a home. I wish I had known sooner how big the difference really was. 

A good friend of mine blew through town yesterday. We were good friends in junior high and high school. Then, adulthood happened, and we sort of lost track of one another. Finally got in touch last spring and emailed a decade’s worth of stories to each other. Funny how with some people, it really seems like no time has passed. I went to stay with her overnight in Yuma last summer, and it was so comfortable. I really missed that feeling. We did a whole bunch of tequila shots that night. Here’s a tip. Get yourself some orange wedges and cinnamon sugar. Lick it, slam it, suck it, just like if you had salt and lime. It is soooo tasty. It might seem gross, but seriously, it is the only way I can do tequila shooters, and it makes a fantastic holiday-time shooter. We did those shots Friday night and stayed up all night talking. When my hangover lasted until Sunday (and we didn’t drink that much), I decided to take another pregnancy test. I had taken one the previous Thursday. In my impatience, I didn’t wait the full time on the Sunday test, and just went, "oh, of course not, whatever". When the hangover then lasted until Monday, I took another one (this was becoming an expensive habit…). It was positive. I dug Sunday’s out of the trash, and there I saw a very, very faint little line that I would have noticed had I waited the full five minutes. Oops. Needless to say, that was the last time I did shooters…and I have craved citrus constantly through the pregnancy. The way I see it, little babe was probably implanting that night…hope s/he likes oranges.

So I hadn’t seen my friend again until yesterday, when she was on her way home from the Prescott area. She stopped to see the new house (hubbie and I bought our first house a few months ago) and we had a cozy little breakfast and it was really nice to see her. I have asked her to come up for the birth, even though I have other girlfriends, she’s the one that I most want to be here with me. I never would have thought that when we met (oh my god) 16 years ago that she would some day see the birth of my baby.

Okay, back to work. 

Up until about two weeks ago, I planned to have a hospital birth. I love my doctor. She is one of the few doctors in the Valley that actually acts more like a midwife. But then I started panicking…what if she wasn’t the one on call? Could I trust the other doctors? Would I have to fight to avoid interventions? Would I be diagnosed with "failure to progress"? And thus, I started looking into the possibility of a homebirth. It took about 48 hours, and then I had pretty much talked myself into it.

So now, I have just made couple of appointments with midwives to interview them and find out who I "click" with. I have been amazed at how much more excited I am about the birth now that I have made the decision to homebirth. And really, I had never really given it much thought until my SIL whom I adore had her baby by homebirth two weeks ago. Her first birth had been a nightmare. Premature rupture of membranes. Induction. Failure to progress. C-section. Bah. I am so glad that this time was better for her. And then, I heard that one of my heroes, Ani Difranco, has decided to have a homebirth. And it’s not that I’m like "ooh, all the cool kids are doing it" but more like "wow, you know, this is something that belongs in the hands of women" and even if you have a female OB, the whole medical model is inherently patriarchal by nature. So, all this time, I’ve been a supporter of homebirth, but thought, "oh, but it’s not for me". And then I had to ask, "why not?" and figured that maybe I should put my money where my mouth is.

And have I mentioned my DH? My DH who totally rocks? He was was a history major who also received a Certificate of Concentration in Women’s Studies. He just graduated last May. One of the big projects he worked on for one of his courses was about the history of midwifery. He’s the one who first got me really thinking about the way this whole birth process had been stolen out of the hands of women. He’s the one who ranted about forceps deliveries and septic infections. And thus, he’s the one who was supportive from the moment I uttered homebirth as a possibility and I love him dearly for it.