What are some books you recommend for pregnant women to read and be inspired to make informed decisions and be proactive in their care?
I have a lending library with books for Jewish mothers (Labor of Love by Rachel Broncher, The Jewish Woman's Guide to Childbirth by Aviva Rappaport) which are good, as well as a couple of books from Marsden Wagner (Creating your Birth Plan, Born in the USA)...books about labor/delivery, books about breastfeeding...I'd love to add.
Growing your Baby has a giveaway here for a fantastic book: Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein (creators of The Business of Being Born)...I'd love to add it to my collection -- try to win it and see for yourself if it's good :)
Any other suggestions?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Due to popular request...
I've been asked to write about my births, and what has helped me come to the philosophy I now have.
I'll start with my first birth, and add on later when I have time.
My first pregnancy was when I was living in a new city to me and I had to find an OB. I did tons of research (read: ask my friends, before I knew about online resources), and decided I wanted to deliver in the hospital my mother in law works at as an LC. Well, I knew I wanted a natural childbirth, but considering the C-section rate there is hovering between 45-50%, I wasn't thinking. I just assumed I could do my own thing and be safe.
By 4 months of pregnancy, I had found an OB with good recommendations. He didn't do obstetrics though anymore....so he referred me to his partner.
It was terrible. I don't want to go into it, but I was humiliated there. And since he didn't take my secondary insurance anymore, it was a breeze leaving him.
So on to OB 2...he was a bit of a weirdo, but I had been warned as much by a relative who used him. He was competent and laid back enough to let me do what I wanted, which is what I needed.
But by my 9th month, I was jaded. I didn't like anyone in his practice, he insisted on a hep-loc for my low risk birth, and I was not all that impressed with the hospital when I didn't hear a peep in the L&D ward; I thought no one was in labor. The epidural rate was 98%. Not for me. I'm scared of needles ;)
So with much haste and with my connections, I found my wonderful, wonderful midwife. At 38 weeks, I was not ready to have a homebirth, so I opted to use her in the hospital.
My first appointment was with her assistant on 7/7 (Thursday)...on 7/9 I would be 40 weeks. I was not showing any signs of dilation or anything.
Friday afternoon I tripped over the vaccuum cord trying to get to the phone, and was in pain when my backup doula called. A coworker of my mother in law had given me childbirth classes, and agreed to be my doula, but she wouldn't be available Sunday, so had arranged with a friend to be on call then, and this backup was calling me to touch base.
Well Friday night in the middle of the night I woke up and realized my mucus plug was breaking down.
The entire Saturday, I had backaches off and on, but as my baby was posterior, I had been having terrible back pain for a month and didn't think much of it...
Saturday night, my husband went to pick up our wedding album from his parents' house. It had just (finally!) arrived, and we had let them look at it before bringing it home. My sister in law was visiting for the summer and she and my mother in law argued about if that meant I was in labor or not.
"She's not, or I (my husband) would not have left her alone."
"Oh, but maybe she is because she needs a picture to focus on."
My husband returned, laughing, and I said, "Actually, I might be in labor....I've been having intermittent back pains all day." (I hid it well I guess!)
He started paying attention, and we realized they were 15 minutes apart. I had some soup and decided to try to get some sleep. We were giddy.
At about 3 AM I woke up. Contractions were more intense; I couldn't sleep through them anymore...I decided to take a shower...By 5 I knew this was IT, and I woke up my husband; perhaps he wanted to shower and get ready -- who knew what day we would have?
We tried calling my midwife, but it went to voicemail. I left a message.
My husband spiked my waterbottle with sugar for energy, but I didn't let him help out anymore...I didn't want massage; I just wanted to breathe and jump through my contractions.
I called my backup doula...lucky me, it would be a few hours to get in. There were a total of 6 hours I was not covered. And we were blessed to be giving birth right then :)
Without telling me, she called my m-i-l to ask if she would do it, but my m-i-l, bless her, told her *I* had to be comfortable with it, and I was not.
By now the contractions were getting more intense, and I still couldn't reach my midwife.
At 6:15, my waters broke, and there was meconium in the fluid. We had to get a move on. Contractions were coming strong, every 5 minutes, and I found it very hard to get my act together and get to the car. We didn't actually leave till around 7 AM. Luckily, early Sunday morning is great for traffic...we did run a couple reds ;)
When we got to the hospital, they wanted to put me on a monitor for 20 minutes, and I couldn't sit through 3 minutes of it. The nurses looked at each other and realized we'd have to hurry. They asked me to change, and realized I was fully dilated.
We got into a room, and the bed was BROKEN. It would not go up, and there was no pillow...fortunately, we had brought one, but one pillow on a flat bed is not good for delivery!
My husband saw they were preparing an IV, and he told them "Why does my wife need that? She's been drinking, has energy, is about to have a baby...don't put that in!" I was glad he noticed and spoke up for me, since I had no idea what was happening, trying to breathe through the contractions and answer idiotic questions (What is your occupation?).
The on-call midwife came in and tried to help me deliver...I pushed, but I was in a horrible position...just then, my midwife ran in. The hospital had reached her (the battery on her cellphone had not gone in right when she replaced it the night before; most clients have multiple numbers for her, being new, I hadn't gotten all that info yet!) and she got me a squatting bar. Half an hour later, my son made his appearance into this world.
He was fine, despite the meconium, despite lack of GBS results (from my previous OB), despite no medical intervention.
Had I stayed with my prior OB, I would have had a cross-cut C-section, knowing the information I do on the partner who was on call the day my son was born...because of the meconium, he would have rushed to deliver my baby.
This gave me plenty of room for thought for my next birth.
Everything could have been viewed as going "wrong" in the birth (midwife unreachable, no doula, meconium), but my attitude was so positive, and I was on a high of endorphins, thinking I could do this again, tomorrow!
I'll start with my first birth, and add on later when I have time.
My first pregnancy was when I was living in a new city to me and I had to find an OB. I did tons of research (read: ask my friends, before I knew about online resources), and decided I wanted to deliver in the hospital my mother in law works at as an LC. Well, I knew I wanted a natural childbirth, but considering the C-section rate there is hovering between 45-50%, I wasn't thinking. I just assumed I could do my own thing and be safe.
By 4 months of pregnancy, I had found an OB with good recommendations. He didn't do obstetrics though anymore....so he referred me to his partner.
It was terrible. I don't want to go into it, but I was humiliated there. And since he didn't take my secondary insurance anymore, it was a breeze leaving him.
So on to OB 2...he was a bit of a weirdo, but I had been warned as much by a relative who used him. He was competent and laid back enough to let me do what I wanted, which is what I needed.
But by my 9th month, I was jaded. I didn't like anyone in his practice, he insisted on a hep-loc for my low risk birth, and I was not all that impressed with the hospital when I didn't hear a peep in the L&D ward; I thought no one was in labor. The epidural rate was 98%. Not for me. I'm scared of needles ;)
So with much haste and with my connections, I found my wonderful, wonderful midwife. At 38 weeks, I was not ready to have a homebirth, so I opted to use her in the hospital.
My first appointment was with her assistant on 7/7 (Thursday)...on 7/9 I would be 40 weeks. I was not showing any signs of dilation or anything.
Friday afternoon I tripped over the vaccuum cord trying to get to the phone, and was in pain when my backup doula called. A coworker of my mother in law had given me childbirth classes, and agreed to be my doula, but she wouldn't be available Sunday, so had arranged with a friend to be on call then, and this backup was calling me to touch base.
Well Friday night in the middle of the night I woke up and realized my mucus plug was breaking down.
The entire Saturday, I had backaches off and on, but as my baby was posterior, I had been having terrible back pain for a month and didn't think much of it...
Saturday night, my husband went to pick up our wedding album from his parents' house. It had just (finally!) arrived, and we had let them look at it before bringing it home. My sister in law was visiting for the summer and she and my mother in law argued about if that meant I was in labor or not.
"She's not, or I (my husband) would not have left her alone."
"Oh, but maybe she is because she needs a picture to focus on."
My husband returned, laughing, and I said, "Actually, I might be in labor....I've been having intermittent back pains all day." (I hid it well I guess!)
He started paying attention, and we realized they were 15 minutes apart. I had some soup and decided to try to get some sleep. We were giddy.
At about 3 AM I woke up. Contractions were more intense; I couldn't sleep through them anymore...I decided to take a shower...By 5 I knew this was IT, and I woke up my husband; perhaps he wanted to shower and get ready -- who knew what day we would have?
We tried calling my midwife, but it went to voicemail. I left a message.
My husband spiked my waterbottle with sugar for energy, but I didn't let him help out anymore...I didn't want massage; I just wanted to breathe and jump through my contractions.
I called my backup doula...lucky me, it would be a few hours to get in. There were a total of 6 hours I was not covered. And we were blessed to be giving birth right then :)
Without telling me, she called my m-i-l to ask if she would do it, but my m-i-l, bless her, told her *I* had to be comfortable with it, and I was not.
By now the contractions were getting more intense, and I still couldn't reach my midwife.
At 6:15, my waters broke, and there was meconium in the fluid. We had to get a move on. Contractions were coming strong, every 5 minutes, and I found it very hard to get my act together and get to the car. We didn't actually leave till around 7 AM. Luckily, early Sunday morning is great for traffic...we did run a couple reds ;)
When we got to the hospital, they wanted to put me on a monitor for 20 minutes, and I couldn't sit through 3 minutes of it. The nurses looked at each other and realized we'd have to hurry. They asked me to change, and realized I was fully dilated.
We got into a room, and the bed was BROKEN. It would not go up, and there was no pillow...fortunately, we had brought one, but one pillow on a flat bed is not good for delivery!
My husband saw they were preparing an IV, and he told them "Why does my wife need that? She's been drinking, has energy, is about to have a baby...don't put that in!" I was glad he noticed and spoke up for me, since I had no idea what was happening, trying to breathe through the contractions and answer idiotic questions (What is your occupation?).
The on-call midwife came in and tried to help me deliver...I pushed, but I was in a horrible position...just then, my midwife ran in. The hospital had reached her (the battery on her cellphone had not gone in right when she replaced it the night before; most clients have multiple numbers for her, being new, I hadn't gotten all that info yet!) and she got me a squatting bar. Half an hour later, my son made his appearance into this world.
He was fine, despite the meconium, despite lack of GBS results (from my previous OB), despite no medical intervention.
Had I stayed with my prior OB, I would have had a cross-cut C-section, knowing the information I do on the partner who was on call the day my son was born...because of the meconium, he would have rushed to deliver my baby.
This gave me plenty of room for thought for my next birth.
Everything could have been viewed as going "wrong" in the birth (midwife unreachable, no doula, meconium), but my attitude was so positive, and I was on a high of endorphins, thinking I could do this again, tomorrow!
"You Don't Love Me"
Recently my 2 year old B has taken to some of the worst insults he can think of when he's upset at me.
"You don't love me."
"You're not my mother."
"You're not my brother." (That's right, honey ;))
I know it should break my heart, but it makes me laugh :P
He's just too cute to mean it :)
What are the worst things your toddlers have tried to hurl at you in anger?
"You don't love me."
"You're not my mother."
"You're not my brother." (That's right, honey ;))
I know it should break my heart, but it makes me laugh :P
He's just too cute to mean it :)
What are the worst things your toddlers have tried to hurl at you in anger?
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