Ouch…. I just fell….

It is really yucky today… but we had a few things to do outside before it gets too cold and especially since we had our first frost and though it is drizzling, wet and windy it is not raining as much as it was yesterday so Simon decided to go do it today…

So, Simon has been outside all morning (since about 8am) putting things from the yard away and I dressed up the kids all warm and headed out with them too… I started draining the pool and went to put something in the shed and I slipped on the ramp infront of the door.. i banged both my knees pretty bad and scraped one of my palms a bit but I am OK… one of my knees took the fall more then the other and it is a knee that I already have problems with and it is already swelling… I really didn’t need this… This is the first time I have fallen while pregnant… it isn’t something that I like…

I also have a feeling that babe may have engaged a bit more during the fall… since it happened I have a bit more pressure on my cervix… just hoping that it won’t jumpstart labour before babe is ready to come out on its own…

Got my birth pool today!!

The delivery guy arrived at the door this morning with a big box with my birthing pool….

It jut makes things seem so much more real…. I mean… this thing sitting in the hall way is what I will be hopefully giving birth in a few short weeks…. I can’t wait to do a test run and sit in it for a little while and try it out…

There are only a few things that I need to get for the birth and then I am all set to have this new babe….

Hmmm…. why don’t I just list the things that I need to do here…. it will probably get me to do it more quickly…

• get the baby clothes out of the shed, separate just what we need and wash it.
• get the newborn diapers out and place them somewhere handy
• make a basket/box with everything that I need for the birth so that it is all on hand and in one spot
• write a “birth plan”… not a conventional birth plan of course… just something to have quick reminders on for both Simon an I….
• Buy some embroidery floss and braid it
• buy or find a new pump for my birthing ball (mine broke when it fell) and the ball needs a bit of air…
• Make a few more meals if I can…

There might be more of course….
OH… and about two weeks ago I decided that we needed a new fridge…. (after having to re-duct tape the shelves in our current fridge that we got free 6 years ago) it was supposed to arrive in a few weeks but I got a call saying that they will be able to deliver it on Thursday!! Don’t ask me why but I am really excited about it… weird huh!?

36+ weeks…

I can’t believe that I am already in my 37th week!

Colin was born at 38 weeks and if this babe decided to do the same that would mean that I would meet the little one in 2 weeks… Though I would like that for reasons of being uncomfortable and in pain… I would actually prefer to have this babe a bit closer to mid-november…

I have been having tons of BH lately.. some that are downright painful… With the boys I had a few painless BH and never really experienced labour in front… this time, I feel all of the BH in the front and I can really guess what labour will probably feel like… I am a bit excited to think that I will probably get to experience real labour instead of back labour..

I have decided again that I really want a waterbirth… I had thought that I didn’t for a while and that I would try to use my bathtub if I needed water but it really wouldn’t work at all… the bathtub is WAY too small and the water doesn’t cover my belly at all.. also, we have one of those rectangular shaped bathtubs with a steep back so you can’t really lay back and relax… anyways… I ordered “La Bassine” last week and should be getting it this week and I went and picked this up from an aquarium supply store so that I can fill and empty the tub easily….(I won’t be using the gravel cleaner ;))

I have a few supplies ready but just need to get them together so that they are all at the same place and ready to go if we need them… and I still have a few things that I want to pick up…

It is so hard to imagine that very soon I will be holding a new babe… a new little life…. this little person that has been moving around inside me for months… nursing and cuddling… and breathing in that newborn baby smell again…

Here is a pic from today…

Brave?

Some people I have encountered are truly scared of birth. In their eyes, birth is dangerous. For mother and child and needs not only to be attended but managed.

Though I am not shy about my decisions, I have not talked to many people openly about my plans. However, I do not lie either. If someone asks me where I am going to give birth I will say at home, if they go further and ask if/how I got a midwife I will tell them that we don’t… The same questions always come up after that… who is going to check you? Who is going to cut the cord? and then the what if’s come out… Then I get the comment “you are so brave” or something simular… I respond to the questions simply… no one will check me and I would let a doctor of midwife do it either… The cord will be cut after birth by either Simon or I after a the placenta comes out or longer… the What if’s I don’t go into details and just say that I am ready for many situations and will deal with them at home.

The brave comment is what makes me go crazy….

I am not brave to birth at home. What is brave in my opinion is to entrust my body to someone else. I was willing to do that with my last two pregnancies and births and I am not happy with the way that they turned out. Of course I have two gorgeous and healthy boys but the births were long and I felt rushed and threatened. I cried many tears because I felt that I had no control, not control over my body because I knew that I had to let it do its work, but control over my treatment. I wish that I wouldn’t have had so much courage those times to trust these strangers, I wish I would have had the courage to take charge of my own health completely and would have known more when I was pregnant with the boys. Of course, I was raised in a society of fear and was taught that doctors and midwifes were the experts of birth and a woman’s body in pregnancy and that you must surrender your body over to them and trust them. I am glas however, that though I was taught that, I never could believe it… I once went into a small surgery on my toe and was terrified of the needle to freeze my toe… the doctor tried to calm me down by asking me if I trusted him… I said no… he was so struck back at that and asked why I was there… I told him that I couldn’t do it by myself…

Looking back it is not that I am just afraid of needles… I have always been fearful to put my trust in doctors. I feel sick to my stomach at times when my mom speaks about doctors… she seeks them for pills and treatments. She wants blood tests, and scans and every intervention imaginable. She loves being medicated and whenever her body does something different, even though there is a good and clear explanation for it, she seeks a doctor… and when that doctor doesn’t want to give her enough pills or tests she finds another… now she is on hormones, antidepressants, blood thinners, muscle relaxers and an array of other meds…. and of course she self medicates with drugs, alchool and whatever other pills or homeopathic meds that she can get a hold on… she has always put all of her trust in doctors and medication. She doesn’t trust her body at all.

The day that I found out that I was pregnant and called the birthing center and was told that I couldn’t have a midwife I actually felt relieved. I was quite hesitant to call the other birthing center and when I finally did I wanted to hang up… I told the head midwife that if I didn’t get a midwife I would do things alone and though she may or amy nto have though that it was a “threat” it was just the truth and it was actually wishful thinking on my part. I never did call them when the time came that I may have had a place at the birthing Center, but when they called me a little rush of fear came over me…
I feel the need to be informed about birth and the more that I am informed the scarier the idea of having interventions and someone managing the birth becomes frightening. I do believe that there are women that are lucky enough to find a lay midwife that will not do any interventions at all but becomes a friend and a support person during the birth and is able to let the woman have complete control. However, I do not think that there are many midwifes out there that are able to so such a thing. I do think that I have found one however, a midwife that I have not met, that will not be here at all, that I probably will never meet, but has invited us to contact her if we have questions during the birth and for legal stuff after the birth to ease the process to get the birth registered.

The other day I called my grandmother just to say hi and we ended up talking about my plans a bit, my grandmother who had 5 twightlight births (drugged into unconciousness and awoke to a brand new baby that she was not allowed to hold too much) was actually mouch more supportive then I though she would be and started talking to me about the births of her siblings. My great grandmother was an amazing woman and I was very close to her. I knew she breastfed, I knew she birthed at home in her little country farm house. But it was amazing to hear a few details… my grandmother was surprised by the fact that the boys may see the birth and then remembered that she herself had witnessed the births of her siblings. She was surprised that I will be alone at home, but then remembered and shared that in birth a neighbor woman would often only show up near the end or even after the actual birth. I think that she understood a bit more where I am coming from.

Thinking about it all… maybe I am brave. Brave to go against the norm and trust my body and trust nature instead of trusting someone else. Brave to follow in my greatgrandmothers footsteps instead of following in my grandmothers or my mothers. Brave enough to believe that new doesn’t always mean improved.

Many times I have inspiration in unassisted birth stories…

Here are just two of the many that I have read…

Babs & Xan

Amber & Mycelia Violet

wow… this kid is active!

My pregnancies with Xavier and Colin were quite simular.. they were both posterior, both in the same spot the whole pregnancy, you could hear the heart at the same place for both, the placenta was very low lying each time and though they were active it was not much and most of the movement was limited to one place on my tummy and right below my ribs on the far right side. My labours with them played out mostly the same way also…

This baby however, is all over the place… was tranverse for quite a while, has been breech and is now head down most of the time. It turns and punches and kicks and is having tons of fun in there it seems… a few times int he day and then for an hour or two in the evening there is non-stop movement… kicks, stretches and it often feel like it is trying to get out from the top of my uterus and right through the skin…

I really have a big feeling that labour this time will be completely different… maybe I will be lucky this time and have no back labour… It is hard for me to imagine though since I haven’t had “normal” labour before… All of the contractions I have experienced were in my lower back, though I could feel the contractions in front it was the back pain that stuck out and In each case they turned within minutes of coming out… so I really didn’t get to feel what a normal labour would be like…

At the moment this babe is LOA… a great position for a quick birth… I would love for it to stay like this… I would love to labour without back pain, or at least ALL back pain…

Anyways… this babe is always moving, the placenta is high and instead of being stuck in a low OP postition and not being able to move… this babe is having a ball…

Just a few more week left… I am starting to get nervous…

met with the doula…

Well… the doula came by yesterday and the boys were great and really let me talk with her… I found that we really hit it off but whole she was here my nose started to get stuffed up, my eyes were tearing and I started feeling off and even took a bit of my inhaler a bit later on…

This morning it hit me…she might be a smoker or live with a smoker and it was maybe an allergic reaction as I feel that I am getting more and more sensitive… I e-mailed her and was right. Both her and her DH are smokers… she asked if she could recommend me to other Doulas that she knows… I have a feeling that that might be best.

It is a bit sad because I really liked her… but it is something that I just can’t deal with… I don’t want to start tearing up, get stuffed up and have trouble breathing in labour…

I may meet with another Doula… and if not well I will just stick to my original plans of ust having Simon, the kids and maybe a friend or two depending on if they can make it or not…

Maybe I can talk to them a bit more and get them ready for what may or may not happen in birth and really talk to them about what I expect from them…

Productive day…

Well…

I finally got some meals done. This morning I started by cutting up onions, garlic, carrots and Celery…

Cooked the onions and Garlic with two Family size packs of ground beef.

Filled 5-6 bags with that mix (two big portions aside) and froze it… (the prepared frozen ground beef with onions will be used in recipes that call for browned ground beef like tacos or shepherd’s pie)

Cooked up the carrots and celery in two big pots and added meat to both of them and then canned tomatoes, puree etc and spices and made one big batch of chile and one big batch of Spaghetti sauce.

While that was simmering I made two loaves of Banana Bread and baked them.

While the Banana bread was baking I made two Apple Pies which I put in the Freezer before cooking and then froze one of the Banana breads (Simon wanted to have one left out to eat) but froze a Zucchini bread that I made the other day instead….

Then I baked a big squash that I had on the counter for a few weeks now that I needed to cook up…. and then bagged and froze that.

Then I cut up a big peice of Pork that I had bought on special and got 4 very large porkchops out of it and then cubed the rest and marinated them for souvlaki brochettes and put them into bags that will make two very generous size suppers for us all….

When the Chile had cooled slightly I put it in Ziplock bags and got 3 meals worth out of it and the spaghetti sauce will give me quite a bit more than that but I am just waiting for it to cool now…

I am really happy with today… I still have quite a few things that I want to get done but at least I have really gotten my head start…

I already had a portion or two of spaghetti sauce in the fridge and I had a few meals worth of homemade burritos and enchilada sauce… now with the things that I have today I have some things that I can fall on when I don’t feel like cooking, especially after the new babe comes… I am going to plan another one of these days again soon and get even more done… I also want to start making meals double the size and freezing half…

Our first buy…

Well last week we made our first purchase for the new baby…

An Amby bed!!!

found on Craigslist in Montreal for a great price! This is a very rare find here in Quebec since pretty much no one that I know has ever even heard of them…

Though we are Co-sleepers most of the time… (well 100% for the first few months) at some point I like nursing to sleep in the living room and then putting babe down in their bed and then they can join us after the first wake up… I just love the way that this bed is made and it just feels so much more natural to have baby in a hammock/sling like bed…

around 31 weeks…

Every few days I have to check and see about how many weeks I am… This pregnancy I seem to be really in touch with myself and how I feel etc… but the technical stuff seems to evade me…

I don’t really have a due date in mind, and I don’t want to… I just tell everyone that the baby will be here between mid November and the beginning of December… But everyone seems to want a date…so I just give them one that is in the middle somewhere…

Not having a date gives me comfort; however, knowing how many weeks I am gives me an idea of how many weeks I have left to get things done…

I still have tons to do… though I keep thinking that I have more time and keep on procrastinating what I have to get done and then when I check again to see how many weeks I am at then my mind starts racing again…

• we have to find two bureaus for the boys clothes (or one big one)… the dresser that ds#1 is using is broken and doesn’t have enough space so I can’t even pass it on to Colin… and the one that Colin is using is for the new babe (it has passed down and used for 3 generations)
• we also have to rearrange their room so that it all fits since the babe will be sharing a room with his/her big brothers. (Well technically the babe will be in our room)
• I have to make Xavier’s Halloween costume,
• get the babies clothes out and pick out the warmer clothes,
• get clothes out for Colin from Xavier’s old clothes.
• Wash the new babe’s diapers and find the covers that are somewhere in the house on various cabbage patches and other dolls…
• Prepare and Freeze more food so that I will be able to have somewhat of a babymoon without having to cook a lot.
• Finish buying birthing supplies and figure out if I want to buy a water birth pool…

There must be other things that I have to get done too…

Anyways… I am getting more and more excited about the birth. Even though I have had rough and long labors, I LOVE giving birth! I am looking forward to laboring in my own home, not having anyone there but Simon and the kids. I feel ready to have my UC and I feel confidant that it will happen.

I am also looking forward to having a babymoon after the baby is born. Staying in bed and getting to know the new babe. Simon will be on Parental leave so I really feel like I will have the time to get to know the new life that will come into our home and the boys will also be taken care of. And then later on I will be able to give attention to the boys also and Simon will be able to get to know the new little one…

Birthing choices…

A post on MDC got me thinking about the way that birth is thought about by UCer’s vs the Mainstream.

Many people on each side many believe that the other is putting themselves and their child in danger by making the birth choices that they are choosing. Personally I can see where each is coming from but of course I would more easily side with the extreme UCer.

On a post asking that was talking about the need of others to put UCer’s down because of the choices that they are making a poster said that it has to do in part with the lack of trust in others.

I read this and thought about it…

I think that the lack of trust in others is part of it but I do not think that it is the initial problem. The problem in not in the lack of trust in other people but the lack of trust in one’s self…

I see the problem being that women just don’t have the experiences of seeing how things are naturally done… in birth, breastfeeding and all of the other things that used to be taught by seeing (seeing sisters, mothers, cousins, friends, aunts etc) and trusting instinct…

Now most women seem to turn to books and “experts”… they have lost touch with the way things were and have lost touch with the confidence that comes with seeing these things throughout a lifetime, and instead have gained confidence in trusting others (books, doctors etc)

Some Women seem to have lost touch so much that they no longer trust their instincts at all and learn to put them aside and ignore them. They have lost touch completely with their selves in favour of listening to others… As a consequence they become helpless in a way… not uneducated really because they believe that the “expert” knows it all and will tell them what they need to know and they do internet searches or book searches and find the same information from other “experts”. (Though there are still some very uneducated women I believe that make very uninformed choices in pregnancy and birth) The next logical step in the slippery slope after losing that confidence in self, it is then to look for permission from the experts on most things (or for experts to “give” permission with use of certain language without giving the impression that they are taking that confidence away)

When things become normalized in a society then trust shifts… Until very recently trust within the realm of birth, breastfeeding, the raising of children was in the hands of women. Women of the community, women of the family and in the woman herself. When the shift started, and the trust was handed off to men and “experts” then not only did the trust shift but whole views shifted also. Knowledge that as once passed down from generation to generation was lost, knowledge that was once an integral part of womanhood was lost. The only way to normalize these things again is for women to regain trust in themselves and regain trust in other women that trust themselves.

At this moment I can not see it happening soon. Many women seem to not understand not trusting the “experts” on everything. Some women seem threatened by it. They have been taught, have learned from the people around them, and have learned from the women around them that the experts are to be trusted… it becomes what is normal, what it comfortable, what is to be done…

I do believe that there are some aspects of birth and health that are best handled by some experts. Though I don’t agree that we have the best experts in our society…

Our “experts” are products of the same society that puts all their trust in them. Such as many women seem to have lost touch with confidence in them selves and put all of their trust in doctors, those same doctors believe that they have all of the answers, should not be second guessed and expect the women to have little or no say in their care. This shows when women seem to be scared to talk to their “expert” doctors about doubts they have and why some doctors will be so insulted when woman goes against or second guesses their point of view (as seen by women who are “fired” by their OB’s for refusing tests, or families that are “fired” by the pediatricians for refusing vaxes)

In some places in the world premature babies are not kept in incubators, sterile environments with wires and monitors and tubes etc and deprived of human contact except for when an “expert” gives permission… Instead, they are released with their parents who are taught how to feed them and keep them warm by utilizing Kangaroo care 24 hours a day for weeks and months on end. Instead of being placed on oxygen to help them breathe they are places on their parent’s chest, instead of having monitors and machines to control heart rate, they are placed in their parents arms.

We have to start trusting nature, trusting our bodies and trusting ourselves again… when we do, I believe that birth will start seeing the shift it needs.

x-posted in my pregnancy journal