I still haven't posted how my second was born so I thought it was time since in a couple of months I will have a new story to share :)
Just like in Sammy’s pregnancy I started having contractions
on and off again for a couple of weeks before I actually went into labor. A few
days before, I really thought I was in labor but it turned out that I was just
really sick with some stomach bug. Thankfully I got over that in a day and I
actually had the best 3 nights of sleep of my whole pregnancy before I did go
into labor. Every night I would go to bed wondering if this would be the night
I would wake up to contractions and Tuesday night was no exception. My best
friend was home from the Bay Area so I knew I was in the clear then since I
really wanted her to be there. But I wasn’t even 41 weeks yet so I wasn’t
expecting much. Wednesday morning around 6 am my daughter woke up to potty and
nurse. I usually have contractions while nursing so I wasn’t surprised when I
got the first one but I noticed it was a bit different and more intense than
usual. I needed to breathe through it. Then very shortly after, I had another
one that I also had to breathe through. Then came the 3rd, which was
even more intense that I moaned through it which woke up my husband. He asked
if there was anything he could do and I muttered “no” but what I wanted to say
was get her off me. Toward the end of the contraction I felt goop come out so I
jumped up and ran to the bathroom to find that I had just lost my mucous plug.
The contractions kept coming at the same intensity and
frequency which was about 1-2 minutes apart. Chris and Sammy got up and started
getting the house ready just in case it was in fact labor. I thought it was but
I wanted to be distracted in case it wasn’t and to help time go by faster so I
started working on a Christmas card project. I was supposed to have a midwife
appointment at 10 that morning and we started thinking that I wasn’t going to
be able to make it. At about 7:30 I called one of the midwives to let them know
I was contracting and that I didn’t think I was coming to the appointment. She
told me to think of myself as not in labor yet and distract myself and to
continue to plan on coming in. Maybe we would have a baby that night. So I got
back to work on the project. But I couldn’t get very far. My contractions were
so close together that every time I would start cutting I would have to stop to
breathe through them and then try again. It took me an hour to finish cutting
out one thing! We started to call our “birth team” which was my mom, who was to
watch Sammy, my best friend and photographer, and then another friend that had never
seen a birth.
My contractions got stronger and I realized there is no way
I was going to get in the car to go to the appointment. They were at the point
that I needed Chris to get through each one, so at 9 we called the midwife and
told her we weren’t coming and let her listen to me while having a contraction.
Right about the time we called they kicked up a notch and it was obvious we
were having a baby today! We really wanted to labor alone for as long as
possible so she told me to call immediately when I started feeling pressure.
Right then Brittany walked in and I was very glad to see her face! Chris needed
to work on setting up the birth tub so she started helping me through my
contractions. We moved around and tried different positions to help me through
the contractions. Then I felt like I needed to poop so I labored on the toilet
for a little bit which felt great… until it didn’t. I walked out of the bedroom
and made it to the doorway when I had another contraction that was another
level of intensity. After that contraction I didn’t want to move in between so
I stayed bent over with my hands on my knees. A couple contractions later and I
started feeling pressure on my bum so I told my mom to call the midwives. I
thought to myself how I should probably move off the carpet onto the pads they
laid down in case my water breaks but the thought of moving was not fun.
Shortly after Chris told me to rotate around so that I would be standing on the
pads. At this point I was still leaning over on my knees and sometimes the bed.
The pressure continued and my contractions kept intensifying. Chris told me it
was time to take my pants off and the next contraction I squatted and my water
broke and the pressure became way intense. I reached down to see if I could feel
anything and sure enough I could feel the baby’s head crowning. Then my body
started pushing. This was the most incredible feeling ever! The best I can
think to describe this moment was it was like my body was an incredibly
powerful train that was taking me a long for a ride and I was just there
enjoying it. It was so overwhelming and powerful and not that I wanted to but
there was nothing I could have done to stop it. One big amazing push and at
10:05 am I felt her body slide out of me and onto the ground. My body continued
to push for a couple of seconds and then I picked up my baby and was so
ecstatic that I had just birthed her so easily!! Seriously one of the best
moments and feelings in my entire life!!!! She cried immediately and we were
all so excited! Chris looked and announced, “It’s a Girl!” My mom brought Sammy
in right as she heard the cries and I stood up to sit on the bed while we
waited for the placenta. About 10 minutes after she was born the midwives
walked in and laughed at the sight of me just sitting on the bed with the baby.
A couple of minutes later I delivered the placenta and she nursed immediately.
The midwives helped clean everything up and take out the barely filled birth
tub. And we snuggled into bed together as a family. I only had a small scratch
and it didn’t even feel like I had just given birth! My recovery was so easy;
it was really surreal that I just had a baby! Woke up at six and had a baby by
10! Such an ideal birth!
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
Should you induce labor naturally
At the end of my first pregnancy, I developed a rash called PUPPP...and it was miserable. It began when I was almost 40 weeks. I can easily say it was the worst thing to ever physically happen to me. I felt like I was going insane with itchiness. I won't go into great detail since that isn't the purpose of this post but just know that if anyone was ready to have that baby it was me.
Days went on and no labor came. Days turned into a week and it just kept on going. My husband kept reminding me that the baby had to come out at some point, this couldn't last forever. But the farther I went from my due date the less I believed him.
So we were trying to induce labor naturally. We did everything I knew to do; spicy foods, lots of sex, evening primrose oil (not necessarily to induce), walking, hiking, bouncing. I asked my midwife about castor oil and decided against it. (Her reasoning is, if it has a laxative effect on you it could on baby as well which is no good!) But that baby would not come.
About 41 weeks and 5 days my midwife gave the green light and encouragement to try black and blue cohosh tinctures. By 42 weeks my baby was here and the PUPPP was finally over!
What I learned from that, was that babies usually just won't come no matter how much you coax them if they aren't ready.
But as I have read stories and even seen people I know try to induce naturally I am beginning to think it still isn't a good idea.
Doing things that you have been doing your whole pregnancy (at least should be) like walking, sex, hiking, eating good food which in my opinion should include spicy :), aren't really inducing labor. They could help but only in the sense that doing those things are good for your health and getting the baby in position as well as preparing you for labor.
They can be hard on your body if you aren't giving yourself rest but other than that they really shouldn't be the cause of you going into labor when your baby isn't ready.
More of what I am talking about it the more drastic "natural ways" to induce labor, like castor oil, stripping the membranes, trying to break your water, laxatives, really intense foods, extreme pumping etc. These things could actually affect you and your baby.
If you believe in having your baby naturally then you should also be willing to let it come on its own time. I told you my story at the beginning so you would know that I completely understand how miserable you are and how desperate you are to be our own person again. I get the aches and pains and even the extra ones, but it isn't worth giving up a natural birth or worse, the health of your baby for a couple of days or weeks early.
Scientists still aren't fully sure what causes labor to start, although they do know it has to do with when the baby is physically able to breathe on its own. (Except in special circumstances when the body senses a danger either to mom or baby and begins premature labor) We shame the medical community for inducing women too early and babies being born still immature because of it. Yet so many women who want natural birth try to do the same.
These methods may do nothing for you. But sometimes they do cause reactions like very strong contractions that you and your baby aren't ready for. You could stress the baby and cause it to release meconium. You could cause yourself to go into labor before your body is actually ready causing a very long and difficult labor. You could be sacrificing your ideal natural birth.
There are times when trying to induce naturally should be used. If labor needs to start either synthetically or "naturally" it is clearly better to attempt to start it naturally but otherwise, in my opinion, I think it is best to wait.
Days went on and no labor came. Days turned into a week and it just kept on going. My husband kept reminding me that the baby had to come out at some point, this couldn't last forever. But the farther I went from my due date the less I believed him.
So we were trying to induce labor naturally. We did everything I knew to do; spicy foods, lots of sex, evening primrose oil (not necessarily to induce), walking, hiking, bouncing. I asked my midwife about castor oil and decided against it. (Her reasoning is, if it has a laxative effect on you it could on baby as well which is no good!) But that baby would not come.
About 41 weeks and 5 days my midwife gave the green light and encouragement to try black and blue cohosh tinctures. By 42 weeks my baby was here and the PUPPP was finally over!
What I learned from that, was that babies usually just won't come no matter how much you coax them if they aren't ready.
But as I have read stories and even seen people I know try to induce naturally I am beginning to think it still isn't a good idea.
Doing things that you have been doing your whole pregnancy (at least should be) like walking, sex, hiking, eating good food which in my opinion should include spicy :), aren't really inducing labor. They could help but only in the sense that doing those things are good for your health and getting the baby in position as well as preparing you for labor.
They can be hard on your body if you aren't giving yourself rest but other than that they really shouldn't be the cause of you going into labor when your baby isn't ready.
More of what I am talking about it the more drastic "natural ways" to induce labor, like castor oil, stripping the membranes, trying to break your water, laxatives, really intense foods, extreme pumping etc. These things could actually affect you and your baby.
If you believe in having your baby naturally then you should also be willing to let it come on its own time. I told you my story at the beginning so you would know that I completely understand how miserable you are and how desperate you are to be our own person again. I get the aches and pains and even the extra ones, but it isn't worth giving up a natural birth or worse, the health of your baby for a couple of days or weeks early.
Scientists still aren't fully sure what causes labor to start, although they do know it has to do with when the baby is physically able to breathe on its own. (Except in special circumstances when the body senses a danger either to mom or baby and begins premature labor) We shame the medical community for inducing women too early and babies being born still immature because of it. Yet so many women who want natural birth try to do the same.
These methods may do nothing for you. But sometimes they do cause reactions like very strong contractions that you and your baby aren't ready for. You could stress the baby and cause it to release meconium. You could cause yourself to go into labor before your body is actually ready causing a very long and difficult labor. You could be sacrificing your ideal natural birth.
There are times when trying to induce naturally should be used. If labor needs to start either synthetically or "naturally" it is clearly better to attempt to start it naturally but otherwise, in my opinion, I think it is best to wait.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
My Journey to Healing my Diastisis and all the changes that go with it...
If you happened to read my last post you wold have read how I am learning so much right now about alignment and natural movement and how my mind is being blown right now with new concepts. I have been working hard these last 2 weeks since getting my splint to repair my DR (diastasis recti) and correcting my alignment in my body.
It must be working because 2 weeks ago my DR was a for sure 3 finger widths apart...yesterday when I checked it was 1 at the bottom and not quite 2 in the middle and top!!!! I cannot believe how much it has changed and how quickly.
Now this doesn't mean that I am out of the water yet. I have read that the gap can measure different widths at different times and since I am pregnant I will have increasingly more pressure being placed on my abs as baby gets bigger. But the main thing that excited me is that what I am doing is working.
What am I doing? Well, first off I started wearing a prenancy abdominal splint from thetummyteam.com. I love it! It is very comfortable (for what it is). I was/ am able to wear it 24 hours a day. You can take breaks if you need to but the only reason I did was to feel the baby moving with my hands when it was really active. But you can't just wear a splint and expect to get better. So I have been doing tummy safe whole body workouts (with pregnancy in mind) from www.fit2b.us .
At first I was just wanting to workouts that focused on core work...until I began learning about the real cause of a DR. In my last post I wasn't as learned as I am now about what a DR really is and what causes it. Most people think it can be caused by pregnancy but in reality the problem was there before I got pregnant. The problem was the way I carry my body and move or don't move.
I mentioned last time about how we have trained our bodies to sit all day long. What this has done is shortened certain muscles and possibly tightened others. Our bodies adapted from the time we were children to allow us the endurance to sit all the time because that is what we kept telling our bodies we needed to do. What this has done though is altered our bodies so that when we try to do other movements like standing or walking or any type of exercise, our muscles aren't shaped the way they originally were as children when we could climb up a tree like no one's business or even just run around like banshees all day long without feeling all the aches we do now.
We see the aches and pains as normal but I don't believe they are. Yes our bodies get older and can wear down in certain areas buy why is that people living in traditional cultures can work so hard physically into their old age and before 30 we start moaning when we stand up. Its because we aren't using our bodies!
If you break a leg and have it in a cast for weeks, then you take it off. The muscles in the leg have atrophied. You wouldn't expect yourself to start working on your leg intensely and in fact a lot of people have to go through physical therapy afterwards to gradually build up the ability to use it again. We have cast our whole bodies in a sense by immobilizing ourselves. A lot of our muscles have atrophied and don't function the way they were supposed to.
Whoa..what was the point of this post again? Oh yeah, my DR. Before I get carried away writing about everything I am learning let me get back on point.
So on top of working my body, I have been learning about the proper alignment of our bodies and working to correct things that my body has adapted to doing like have my pelvis tucked out and my ribs thrusted forward. I correct myself every time I notice and I can tell the difference for sure. These little changes are what is actually necessary to heal a DR and prevent it from coming again.
Since I am pregnant and my body is shifting I won't be able to fully correct my alignment right now, well that and I have 20+ years of training my body to do the wrong thing to undo. But working now is going to ensure a healthy pregnancy and birth and will set me up for a quick recovery and starting point to continue to work on alignment after baby is born.
We, meaning Chris and I, are brainstorming ways to make our home more movement friendly (when we actually move into our own home). As if I weren't weird enough, I am really focusing on changing our lifestyle to include tons more movement in our life. I want my children to continue to move naturally and have the abilities they were created to have.
I know I always say this, but not sure how often I will keep posting. But I will try to stay up on our journey, more for me really. I want to document the changes in our life and the healing of my DR, because who knows one day maybe I will be teaching this stuff! I hope so anyways...
So go out today and MOVE! Go walk off the trail and feel your confused body waking up from its slumber.
It must be working because 2 weeks ago my DR was a for sure 3 finger widths apart...yesterday when I checked it was 1 at the bottom and not quite 2 in the middle and top!!!! I cannot believe how much it has changed and how quickly.
Now this doesn't mean that I am out of the water yet. I have read that the gap can measure different widths at different times and since I am pregnant I will have increasingly more pressure being placed on my abs as baby gets bigger. But the main thing that excited me is that what I am doing is working.
What am I doing? Well, first off I started wearing a prenancy abdominal splint from thetummyteam.com. I love it! It is very comfortable (for what it is). I was/ am able to wear it 24 hours a day. You can take breaks if you need to but the only reason I did was to feel the baby moving with my hands when it was really active. But you can't just wear a splint and expect to get better. So I have been doing tummy safe whole body workouts (with pregnancy in mind) from www.fit2b.us .
At first I was just wanting to workouts that focused on core work...until I began learning about the real cause of a DR. In my last post I wasn't as learned as I am now about what a DR really is and what causes it. Most people think it can be caused by pregnancy but in reality the problem was there before I got pregnant. The problem was the way I carry my body and move or don't move.
I mentioned last time about how we have trained our bodies to sit all day long. What this has done is shortened certain muscles and possibly tightened others. Our bodies adapted from the time we were children to allow us the endurance to sit all the time because that is what we kept telling our bodies we needed to do. What this has done though is altered our bodies so that when we try to do other movements like standing or walking or any type of exercise, our muscles aren't shaped the way they originally were as children when we could climb up a tree like no one's business or even just run around like banshees all day long without feeling all the aches we do now.
We see the aches and pains as normal but I don't believe they are. Yes our bodies get older and can wear down in certain areas buy why is that people living in traditional cultures can work so hard physically into their old age and before 30 we start moaning when we stand up. Its because we aren't using our bodies!
If you break a leg and have it in a cast for weeks, then you take it off. The muscles in the leg have atrophied. You wouldn't expect yourself to start working on your leg intensely and in fact a lot of people have to go through physical therapy afterwards to gradually build up the ability to use it again. We have cast our whole bodies in a sense by immobilizing ourselves. A lot of our muscles have atrophied and don't function the way they were supposed to.
Whoa..what was the point of this post again? Oh yeah, my DR. Before I get carried away writing about everything I am learning let me get back on point.
So on top of working my body, I have been learning about the proper alignment of our bodies and working to correct things that my body has adapted to doing like have my pelvis tucked out and my ribs thrusted forward. I correct myself every time I notice and I can tell the difference for sure. These little changes are what is actually necessary to heal a DR and prevent it from coming again.
Since I am pregnant and my body is shifting I won't be able to fully correct my alignment right now, well that and I have 20+ years of training my body to do the wrong thing to undo. But working now is going to ensure a healthy pregnancy and birth and will set me up for a quick recovery and starting point to continue to work on alignment after baby is born.
We, meaning Chris and I, are brainstorming ways to make our home more movement friendly (when we actually move into our own home). As if I weren't weird enough, I am really focusing on changing our lifestyle to include tons more movement in our life. I want my children to continue to move naturally and have the abilities they were created to have.
I know I always say this, but not sure how often I will keep posting. But I will try to stay up on our journey, more for me really. I want to document the changes in our life and the healing of my DR, because who knows one day maybe I will be teaching this stuff! I hope so anyways...
So go out today and MOVE! Go walk off the trail and feel your confused body waking up from its slumber.
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