Looking back on Freebirth…

I can’t believe that it has already been a year already.

A year has passed from the day that my baby was born, into our hands, in a pool in the living room of our house. A birth attended only by his father and his brothers.

An experience that was not only exhilarating, empowering but also healing for myself.

My choice to have an unassisted pregnancy and an unassisted birth was first due to the lack of midwifery access. There are no birthing centres in my region and midwifes are not allowed to practise out side of them. The birthing centres that are out of region do not take women out of region because they are too much in demand. It was a decision that was first made for me since there was no way that I would ever go see a doctor for a pregnancy or a birth. The decision did not scare me…. instead I felt relief.

I knew that having a UP/UC was the best choice.

Now… I look back at the pregnancy. There was so much less stress being unassisted. No appointments, no refusing tests and being made to feel guilty when I knew that the tests are not necessary. I was able to experience pregnancy for what it is. I was able to listen to my body and find the answers to my questions. I was able to gain control, something that I lost when I relied on a midwife for advice or answers.

I look back at the birth and realize that it was exactly what I would have hoped that birth could be.
With my other two, I had to deal with posterior babies, with long labours, with back labour, with “failure to progress” beyond 3cm. I truly believe that most of the problems were due to the presense of a midwife, to the presense of other people. The stress of deadlines, of numbers, of the rules that the midwifes have to follow all hindered in birthing process. However, It was a midwife in my second birth that gave me the confidence I needed to give birth.

After she spoke to me I was able to lose myself in my “la-la land”, She gave my the confidence to ignore everyone, to ignore their advice, to ignore their presence, to listen to my body. She gave me the confidence to know that I could birth my baby, that I as a woman I was made to give birth. I was able to do that all well enough that I was able to relax enough to sleep between contractions and essentially sleep through transition and soon after I gave birth to my second son.

I was unimpressed however with the way that the third stage was over managed and mismanaged in my opinion.

This midwife gave me confidence in myself. The others took my confidence away. I knew in my heart that I needed solitude to birth after that. It was that reason that I felt a sense of relief when I choose to go unassisted.

I find it ironic that my confidence to birth alone stemmed from a pep talk from a midwife, but I thank her for that.

So, when I read Khéna’s birth story, when I look back at my freebirth, I feel peace with the way things happened. It is something that I don’t feel reading my other births. I am proud with the way that my children were able to experience birth as being normal. I am proud that they will remember birth as being positive and natural. I feel proud that they were able to see the birth and that their new brother fit into the family so seamlessly in many ways because of the way he made his entrance into the family.

I am proud that I was able to take control of my body and do what I needed to do to have the easiest and healthiest birth that I could have had.

If I have another child there is no hesitation in what choices that I will make.

A year ago…

now…

I wonder…

2 Midwives in Montreal are having to defend themselves after a coroners report came out yesterday after a baby was born still last November. The coroner said that the death could have been preventable and that the midwives were to blame. The details are not clear but there was meconium, aspiration and a loss of heartbeat before birth.

Sad, scary for me to think about but was it really because of the midwives?

If the same would have happened at the hospital (and it does) are the doctors to blame? No, of course not… Doctors make mistakes, they are humans or just don’t have any idea of the real, natural side of birth.

It is really tiring to hear peoples comments about this. If something happens out of the hospital than right away it could have been “preventable” and people should be held accountable. Why not the same for doctors? They do things to women everyday that risk the lives of both the women and the babies, yet they are never held accountable… Why? They risk women’s and babied lives by inducing labour when women are not ready (if you “have” to induce then your body is NOT READY), by managing the third stage, by just intervening whenever the can because of their cookie cut views and protocols instead of letting birth occur naturally. (I have a better post on this)

I wonder if the coroner would have said that the doctor should be held accountable, or is he just like most of the other doctors out there… scared of midwives taking over their jobs and women having control over their own health and well being…

I wonder what this will do to Quebec Midwives…

So… the Ecofest was today…

Besides it being miserably hot and humid in Montreal today the ECO fest was pretty cool and our presentation went really well… there were not too many people there but it was a lot of fun anyways and the reaction was great also…

We (Geana and I) talked about UP/UC defining it and explaining how we got to that point…

How for both of us, our negative experiences with past interventions as minimal as they may have been (from even just the presence of a mw being too much greater interventions) brought us onto the path of birthing unassisted… (well, she hasn’t birthed yet, but is getting close)

We talked about it being empowering as women an act of feminism even. Taking back the role of a woman, getting away from the medical establishment that seems to want to control a woman in pregnancy and in birth.

How for us, pregnancy and birth are just part of our ordinary life and how much less stress it brought to us and how natural pregnancy and birth can be.

It felt great to stand up in front of an audience and talk about going unassisted… I really enjoy talking about it and sharing it.

I can’t believe that it has already been nearly 9 months since I lived that amazing experience and held my sweet Khéna for the very first time…

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“I am Selfish”

Rixa wrote a Great response to a comment about her being “Selfish” by choosing UC.

I am Selfish

Another response to an anonymous comment that “in my opinion unassisted birth is not only dangerous but selfish.”

I am selfish. I admit it.

I am selfish because I want a birth experience that leaves me feeling fulfilled as a mother, that gives me confidence and joy.

I am selfish for giving birth at home, because I want to minimize the chances that my newborn will acquire an infection. Infection rates of newborns are many times higher in hospitals than at home. (1)

I am selfish because I want to avoid an unnecessary cesarean section; healthy women birthing at home have average cesarean rates of 1 to 4%, compared to around 20% in healthy women birthing in hospitals.

I am selfish because I do not want my vagina cut open by scissors (the nationwide episiotomy rate is STILL around 30%) or my belly cut open by knives. I have a 60% chance of acquiring a surgical wound if I give birth in a hospital.

I am selfish because I would prefer not to have to go into labor, pack my bags, get in the car, drive to the hospital, check in, sign consent forms, refuse the standard hospital procedures, and fight for what I want—all while giving birth to a baby.

I am selfish because I do not want to be separated from my baby. I want to hold my baby as soon as she is born. I do not want her to be taken from my arms to be weighed and measured, injected and bathed. I am selfish because I want to nurse her freely, without interruption.

I am selfish because I want to be washed in a “cocktail of love hormones,” to borrow a phrase from the French obstetrician Michel Odent. These hormones—endorphins, oxytocin, and prolactin—are released in full force only to women birthing without medications, in safe and private environments. Narcotics, anesthesia, surgery, and even high levels of stress and adrenaline inhibit the release of these hormones.

I am selfish because I want my baby to be born into her parents’ hands and to know only the safety and warmth of our arms. I want her be born in an atmosphere of love and ecstasy.

I am selfish because I want to avoid postpartum depression. Women who birth at home have much lower rates of postpartum depression. (2, 3)

Sometimes we need to be selfish.

(1) Mehl, L., Peterson, G., Shaw, N.S., Creavy, D. (1978) “Outcomes of 1146 elective home births: a series of 1146 cases.” J Repro Med. 19:281-90
(2) Jones, Carl. Alternative Birth. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1990 p. 24.
(3) Kitzinger, Sheila. Home Birth. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1991 p. 193.

Rixa took the words right out of my mouth…. those reasons were just some of the reasons that I choose UC.

This reminds me of a post I made during my pregnancy about another comment about UC that I often about being “brave”…

Brave?

a bit of an update…

I haven’t been around much lately… well not much around anywhere… though I spend most of my day next to the computer.. I don’t type much because I am tired of typing with one hand… so I have just been doing more clicking etc…

We had a nice holiday…. Simon’s mom, sister and her bf came for the eve, we had fondue, exchanged gifts and they stayed the night… the boys had presents waiting for them in the morning…

I got a new Palm which l am having a lot of fun with… and because of a mix up we ended up getting two… so now both Simon & I have one…

Actually after starting this message on the computer, l decided to write the rest on the palm so that it would be easier to write..

Anyway, the holidays were nice… Having Simon at home has also been great… l have really had the chance to babymoon and give Khéna all of my attention… but Xavier and Colin are not lacking attention either…

The boys are all changing so quickly… I took a picture of Xavier yesterday that makes me realize how he is growing… how much he is changing….

He has a new found love now for Playmobil’s and a big bag that l found last year with his pirate ship has kept him busy for two days now… He is almost weaned but not completely. He now goes a week or two without nursing and then comes back for a few days…

Colin has also changed… though the boys can now play together better, they can also fight harder… Colin is still a little joker, he can make us smile in an instant, he has also become very temperamental and very sensitive… I see him taking the role of the middle child…

Colin is in love with trains and was so exicited to get some “Thomas the train” clothes and a new train for his train table…

He still amazes me every day. His vocabulary is amazing which is both great and hard at the same time. Great because we can talk to him and understand him, but it also means that it can be easy to forget that he is still a babe at only 27 months old…

And Khéna… well he just turned a month old yesterday… he is an amazing baby. He is a great sleeper but loves to sleep on mommy… luckily he has a mommy that hates putting him down and who believes that babes should be in arms as much as needed and as much as they want…

EC is doing very well… he just keeps on getting clearer and clearer with his signs… we rarely miss a BM and catch many of his pees…. he is also starting to hold it in more and more until we catch on to what he is trying to tell us…

Khéna also just keeps getting bigger (of course) but he is outgrowing his clothing so fast… footed pj’s need to be 6 months and onsies are 6-9 months…

We have also been all gifted with his first smiles which of course is one of the greatest things… (haven’t caught it on photo yet though)

3 weeks old today…

In a few hours it will be three weeks since I gave birth to Khéna, three weeks since he took his first breath, three weeks since I met my third son…

I can’t imagine life without him.

He is becoming so much more aware of the people around him. He looks at us in way that way that shows that he is more aware than we may imagine. Yesterday we went shopping and he was in the wrap pushing his arms out so that his head was free and so that he was looking straight up at me, his eyes and expression were just breathtaking.

He wasn’t just a baby in my arms. He was Khéna Mael. My new little man.

Khéna is a great sleeper still and sleeps pretty much through the night… if he does wake up he nurses a bit, Simon will potty him and then he is back to sleep… since he is co-sleeping he just has to start moving and grunting for his needs to be met so really I don’t think that he really wakes up for any of it anyways… he has a bit of a crying spell during the evening but after making him comfortable and full he calms down and then is ready for the long sleep ahead of him…

EC is doing great… we pretty much catch 100% of his poos now and though we still miss a lot of pees, he always has one waiting for the potty… He surprised me yesterday by not having a bm the whole day and when we got home and during the night he made up for it… His signals are getting so much clearer especially for pooing and he just doesn’t want to use a diaper for that… Hey!!! I don’t blame him!!

On Sat, I put him down to sleep out of arms for the first time and he slept in his Amby for at least an hour and a half… He had not slept out of arms since he was born. By the end of his nap I couldn’t wait to go pick him up, but it felt good to prepare a meal with my hands free while Simon was doing things around the house…

I still can’t believe how big he is… At 3 weeks of age he has outgrown most of the clothes that Xavier and Colin were still wearing at 2-3 months of age… So I now find myself putting all the newborn/3 month old clothes and bringing out the 3-6 and 6 month old stuff…

Anyway… I’m going to take some pics later today but for now I will share the pics of his first nap in his amby bed…

Grumble…

The civil Status Office called me this morning. They got the forms to register Khéna’s birth but she said that she would be sending us another form that needed o be signed by a doctor. I told her that that was the reason that I had included the letter from the midwife. But guess what… they seemed to have misplaced the letter from the midwife. The lady had no clue that the letter was in the envelope. I told her that I made sure that it was in there because I knew that they needed it and I asked her to look in the envelope again… she said that she is not the one that opens the mail….

Khéna started to cry, probably feeling my stress rising and she said that she would see what she could do and call me back… about an hour later she did and said that she talked to her superior and asked if she could have the name and phone number of the midwife. So I handed that over to her. Hopefully that will be enough. They will call me back with news.
Another phone call today was from a Nurse at the CLSC… she will be coming by tomorrow to see us… It is a nurse that I know and that I talked about UC while I was pregnant so it will be fun to see her and to share how things went…she was a bit surprised when she had found out what I was planning, and was bit surprised that it had worked out so maybe it will give her a good view that birth can actually be natural.

Ha!!!

So I just called the CLSC in my area to just mention the birth so that they have it in their files… So the secretary asks me a few questions…

Her: was the baby born in the region?

Me: yes at home

Her:Did you have a midwife?

Me: No I was alone…

Her: (talking to herself) No discharge date from hospital… (back talking to me) Was it a vaginal birth?

me: umm…lol… yeah…. (DUH!!!!!!)

Days and nights with new babe…

Khéna is a great baby… Of course there is not such thing as a bad babe, but there are babe’s that are easier than others and he is one of the easy ones.. of course it helps that all of his needs are met the second that he expresses them and he is never out of arms awake or sleeping.. but he is a very relaxed and mellow baby.. Days are spent sleeping, nursing and with a few diaper changes and ECing thrown in there.

I started to EC him on Sat morning so he was 4 days old then… Now on Day 9 he gives me good signals when he has to poo… and semi clear to pee…

Yesterday I caught all of his poos except for one and though his diaper is most often wet when I go to potty him, he still does one then also… today again I have just missed one… and his signals are getting clearer… or at least he is expressing himself louder
Nursing him has also been really easy. Though I didn’t have big problems with Xavier or Colin, I have even less with Khéna. Though he was doing a lot of clicking noises for the first 2 days until my milk came in, he had no problem latching, he wasn’t hurting me at all and just a few times of sucking on my finger and me pushing his tongue down a bit combined with my milk coming in fixed that problem. He is also the first of the three that has no problem latching on while laying down and doesn’t gag at my overactive let down. I guess those few extra pounds have him an advantage…
This has made night so easy. He nurses when we go to bed and then gives us a solid 5-6 hour stretch before waking to nurse. Simon gets up to change of diaper, potty him and then I nurse him and he gives me a few more hours.

I have really enjoyed baby mooning also. Besides having twice slept in a bouncy chair next to me while we ate supper he hasn’t been out of our arms or cuddled near us in bed since birth. I have also not been out of the house since I gave birth. We have ordered groceries online, Ordered gifts for the kids online, Simon has walked to the store`with the boys etc… we have not had many guests either, so we have truly been in a bubble made for five…

To be honest, though I am getting antsy to leave the house, I am not looking forward to going out, not in the car at least. Because Simon doesn’t drive that means that I have to, which in turn means that Khéna will be in the bucket seat in the back seat. Simon will sit next to him but he will seem so far away from me and I am not looking forward to that. Though I was very attached to the boys after birth, this baby moon has made me so much more attached faster.It is truly amazing and I didn’t think that it was possible.

again a few more pics…

Here is Khéna in the Cuddly Wrap… I LOVE stretchy wraps for newborns!

and here are a few more

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