Here is my first real post here. lol I got all my old posts moved over, that was a total PITA, but it's done.
My boy is 3 months old and is over 16lbs. He still nurses all the time, he will space those out eventually right? lol He does every once in a while, but usually it's still pretty frequent. We've been testing the EC waters with him and caught our first poop the other day! Yay!! Breastfeeding is going SO much better now, have a lot to write about that.
Haven't been able to do a lot of studying yet, the boy just won't let me. ;-) He's pretty cute and he's growing so fast, so it's ok that he's taking up so much of my time. I do sneak in a little here and there.
Still working on my Special Scars article and presentation, have lots more work to do though. Started a website for that purpose, but it's still under construction.
There's more but it's just boring day to day life stuff. ;-) Will be posting more soon!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
My son is 8 wks old :-)
This was originally posted on my old blog on July 9, 2010.
I'm such a dork when it comes to this blog. lol I fail at Twitter too. ;-)
I posted a while back that I was almost 40 wks and then didn't post anything else. My son was born May 11th at 2:24pm, his story is here - http://www.jessicas-haven.com/pgnb/thales-birthstory.htm. He's so beautiful. :-)
We've had our share of breastfeeding problems, mostly latch issues. He's really run me through the gamut. :-/ He's really lucky that I like him and that I really want to breastfeed him. ;-) It would have been really easy to give up a few times, I nearly did.
There is a lot on my mind that I'd like to post about, but can't sort it all out enough to make a post that actually makes sense. lol
I'm such a dork when it comes to this blog. lol I fail at Twitter too. ;-)
I posted a while back that I was almost 40 wks and then didn't post anything else. My son was born May 11th at 2:24pm, his story is here - http://www.jessicas-haven.com/pgnb/thales-birthstory.htm. He's so beautiful. :-)
We've had our share of breastfeeding problems, mostly latch issues. He's really run me through the gamut. :-/ He's really lucky that I like him and that I really want to breastfeed him. ;-) It would have been really easy to give up a few times, I nearly did.
There is a lot on my mind that I'd like to post about, but can't sort it all out enough to make a post that actually makes sense. lol
Respect for OBs...
This was originally posted on my old blog on May 5, 2010.
I'm sure you are all familiar with the brain fog that coincides with the last few weeks of pregnancy and how exciting it is when it lifts even if only for a few minutes. :-) I had one of those moments this morning while responding to a post on BBC forums and I wanted to share.
The title of the post was "New respect for my OB". (Oh come on, you knew I'd have to respond to THAT.) The poster just had her 36 wk appt and her OB was talking about the 5 successful VBACs he had the previous week. Good for him, I'm glad he does them. He went on to tell her that he has to be immediately available for VBACs and exactly what that meant (that he be in the hospital the entire time the patient is in labor in the hospital). He went on to tell her that he lost $3000 because he had to cancel 2 days of appointments because of all these VBACs. "And he just does it because it's the right thing to do. He did say that its getting to the point where he is going to have to limit the number of VBACs that he accepts because its just too much and he doesn't want his wife getting out the divorce papers." She went on to say that she's sooooo happy to have found such a good doc and suggested that ins cos should provide incentives to docs who do VBACs, etc. All the responses that she got were yay, cool, good for you, etc.
Here's what I posted:
"Immediately available is an ACOG rule, which many hospitals/OBs use as an excuse to have VBAC bans. I think it was bad form, however, for him to try to elicit sympathy from you by telling you how much money he lost last week by having "so" many VBACs. If ACOG would encourage OBs to lower the primary c-section rate they wouldn't have so many VBACs to worry about.
And finally, I can understand the wife of an OB getting frustrated because of the amount of time that he spends away from the family, but that is his freaking job. If he already was an OB when they got married, she knew before she married him. If he decided to go to school while they were married, I'm sure they had many discussions about his future schedule. As a student midwife, I've already had many conversations with my husband about the fact that I might be gone for days at a time, might have to leave in the middle of sex, dinner, birthday parties, we might have to drive separately if we are going somewhere and I have a mom that's due. It's part of the job and you have to prepare yourself and your family for it. If you don't it's your own damn fault and if you do and then they get resentful either they didn't fully understand or they don't get the importance of what you're doing.
Sorry - overdue and getting pissy here. I just get tired of the OBs "Oh poor me" attitude because of what their trade union (ACOG) makes them do. If they don't like it they should leave the union or fight for changes in policy. *sigh*"
I'm sure you are all familiar with the brain fog that coincides with the last few weeks of pregnancy and how exciting it is when it lifts even if only for a few minutes. :-) I had one of those moments this morning while responding to a post on BBC forums and I wanted to share.
The title of the post was "New respect for my OB". (Oh come on, you knew I'd have to respond to THAT.) The poster just had her 36 wk appt and her OB was talking about the 5 successful VBACs he had the previous week. Good for him, I'm glad he does them. He went on to tell her that he has to be immediately available for VBACs and exactly what that meant (that he be in the hospital the entire time the patient is in labor in the hospital). He went on to tell her that he lost $3000 because he had to cancel 2 days of appointments because of all these VBACs. "And he just does it because it's the right thing to do. He did say that its getting to the point where he is going to have to limit the number of VBACs that he accepts because its just too much and he doesn't want his wife getting out the divorce papers." She went on to say that she's sooooo happy to have found such a good doc and suggested that ins cos should provide incentives to docs who do VBACs, etc. All the responses that she got were yay, cool, good for you, etc.
Here's what I posted:
"Immediately available is an ACOG rule, which many hospitals/OBs use as an excuse to have VBAC bans. I think it was bad form, however, for him to try to elicit sympathy from you by telling you how much money he lost last week by having "so" many VBACs. If ACOG would encourage OBs to lower the primary c-section rate they wouldn't have so many VBACs to worry about.
And finally, I can understand the wife of an OB getting frustrated because of the amount of time that he spends away from the family, but that is his freaking job. If he already was an OB when they got married, she knew before she married him. If he decided to go to school while they were married, I'm sure they had many discussions about his future schedule. As a student midwife, I've already had many conversations with my husband about the fact that I might be gone for days at a time, might have to leave in the middle of sex, dinner, birthday parties, we might have to drive separately if we are going somewhere and I have a mom that's due. It's part of the job and you have to prepare yourself and your family for it. If you don't it's your own damn fault and if you do and then they get resentful either they didn't fully understand or they don't get the importance of what you're doing.
Sorry - overdue and getting pissy here. I just get tired of the OBs "Oh poor me" attitude because of what their trade union (ACOG) makes them do. If they don't like it they should leave the union or fight for changes in policy. *sigh*"
Cesarean Awareness Month gift
This was originally posted on my old blog on April 29, 2010
I almost forgot to post this here:
In honor of Cesarean Awareness Month my gift to all of you is the NIH VBAC New Insights Conference 2010 videos split up by session so they won't crash your computer. Enjoy and share freely!
http://birthaftercesarean.com/Home/NIHVBACNewInsightsConference2010/tabid/277/Default.aspx
I almost forgot to post this here:
In honor of Cesarean Awareness Month my gift to all of you is the NIH VBAC New Insights Conference 2010 videos split up by session so they won't crash your computer. Enjoy and share freely!
http://birthaftercesarean.com/Home/NIHVBACNewInsightsConference2010/tabid/277/Default.aspx
Almost 40 wk Update
This was originally posted on my old blog on April 29, 2010.
I'll be 40 wks tomorrow. Can't say yet if anything exciting is going to happen or not. Doubt it given my history, but this little boy acts like he's going to be doing things his own way. I just hope that my pelvis doesn't start hurting anymore than it does right now. Feels pretty good at the moment so...
Student Midwife update: I'm on hiatus at the moment. I did finish Phase 2 and had sort of started Phase 3 before I started this hiatus. I'm still working through the Midwifery Explorations class, would have liked to have finished it before the baby came, but diapers are a little more important. lol
The diapers, well that has been a long project that started over a year ago. When I was pregnant with my nearly 3yo I had bought 36 Bum Genius (BG) cloth diapers, 12 pink, 12 white, 6 yellow and 6 green. I love them, they make cloth diapering so easy! However, after nearly 2 years of use I noticed the elastic in the legs wasn't as snappy as it used to be. Being the crafty do-it-yourselfer that I am, I took one diaper apart to see how hard it would be to change that elastic. It was fairly easy, just take out one seam and the old elastic, put in new elastic (guessing how long that should be was kind of tricky) and sew the seam back up. So, winter before last I replaced the elastic in maybe two-thirds of the diapers. My daughter was only using them about half time so I didn't really *have* to fix them all. I got pregnant again last fall and new I would have to finish fixing the rest of the diapers. I heard that you could get the new BG diapers with snaps rather than velcro and was a little jealous. The only thing I don't like about my BGs is the velcro, it's just a pain in a variety of ways. I had just bought a snap press last year for some other sewing projects.
Then I found out I was having a boy. No way! Me? A boy!? Are you sure?? lol I looked at my diapers and knew I had a lot of work to do. I ordered some fabric dye, which was tricky trying to find the right dye that would stick to a synthetic material. So now, I knew that I had to finish replacing the elastic in the legs, dye at least the pink diapers, AND take all the velcro off and put snaps in. :-) At this point, I've finished replacing all of the elastic, the last four diapers that needed to be dyed are in the dye soaking at the moment, and I only have about 12-15 that still need snaps. I'm so proud of myself, they look really nice. I just hope that the dye really does hold. We still have plenty left so we can re-dye if necessary, but I'd rather not have to do that on a frequent basis.
That's where I am for now.
P.S. A little note, there are some people that comment on my blog Anonymously, can you at least put your first name in your comment so I have some idea who you are?? lol It's bugging me that someone is talking to me and I have no clue who it is.
I'll be 40 wks tomorrow. Can't say yet if anything exciting is going to happen or not. Doubt it given my history, but this little boy acts like he's going to be doing things his own way. I just hope that my pelvis doesn't start hurting anymore than it does right now. Feels pretty good at the moment so...
Student Midwife update: I'm on hiatus at the moment. I did finish Phase 2 and had sort of started Phase 3 before I started this hiatus. I'm still working through the Midwifery Explorations class, would have liked to have finished it before the baby came, but diapers are a little more important. lol
The diapers, well that has been a long project that started over a year ago. When I was pregnant with my nearly 3yo I had bought 36 Bum Genius (BG) cloth diapers, 12 pink, 12 white, 6 yellow and 6 green. I love them, they make cloth diapering so easy! However, after nearly 2 years of use I noticed the elastic in the legs wasn't as snappy as it used to be. Being the crafty do-it-yourselfer that I am, I took one diaper apart to see how hard it would be to change that elastic. It was fairly easy, just take out one seam and the old elastic, put in new elastic (guessing how long that should be was kind of tricky) and sew the seam back up. So, winter before last I replaced the elastic in maybe two-thirds of the diapers. My daughter was only using them about half time so I didn't really *have* to fix them all. I got pregnant again last fall and new I would have to finish fixing the rest of the diapers. I heard that you could get the new BG diapers with snaps rather than velcro and was a little jealous. The only thing I don't like about my BGs is the velcro, it's just a pain in a variety of ways. I had just bought a snap press last year for some other sewing projects.
Then I found out I was having a boy. No way! Me? A boy!? Are you sure?? lol I looked at my diapers and knew I had a lot of work to do. I ordered some fabric dye, which was tricky trying to find the right dye that would stick to a synthetic material. So now, I knew that I had to finish replacing the elastic in the legs, dye at least the pink diapers, AND take all the velcro off and put snaps in. :-) At this point, I've finished replacing all of the elastic, the last four diapers that needed to be dyed are in the dye soaking at the moment, and I only have about 12-15 that still need snaps. I'm so proud of myself, they look really nice. I just hope that the dye really does hold. We still have plenty left so we can re-dye if necessary, but I'd rather not have to do that on a frequent basis.
That's where I am for now.
P.S. A little note, there are some people that comment on my blog Anonymously, can you at least put your first name in your comment so I have some idea who you are?? lol It's bugging me that someone is talking to me and I have no clue who it is.
Journey of a Student Midwife, part 1
This was originally posted on my old blog on March 17, 2010.
I started midwifery school a few months ago. I've been wanting to start a journal of my journey, but couldn't think of anything cute, witty, educational, etc., to write about. So, I'm just going to write and we'll see where it goes.
I'm already in Phase 2 in Ancient Art Midwifery's Advance Midwifery Studies course. Sometimes, it still seems surreal that I've made this monumental decision and that I'm actually walking on the path already. But here I am and loving every minute of it! :-) At times it all makes my head spin, there is so much to learn, so much to do, but I want to learn it all and then more!
On my current list of things I want to learn more about, not all necessarily directly related to midwifery:
I have books on most of these. I realize that some of these would only take a quick internet search to find the answer and some of these will be covered thoroughly in my midwifery studies. I just felt the need to make a list so that I don't forget to look them up, read more, etc.
I haven't been able to get much studying done in the last week because I had yet another cold. This one is almost over and I pray that it will be the last for the season. Please gods, let it be the last!
I started midwifery school a few months ago. I've been wanting to start a journal of my journey, but couldn't think of anything cute, witty, educational, etc., to write about. So, I'm just going to write and we'll see where it goes.
I'm already in Phase 2 in Ancient Art Midwifery's Advance Midwifery Studies course. Sometimes, it still seems surreal that I've made this monumental decision and that I'm actually walking on the path already. But here I am and loving every minute of it! :-) At times it all makes my head spin, there is so much to learn, so much to do, but I want to learn it all and then more!
On my current list of things I want to learn more about, not all necessarily directly related to midwifery:
- Myomectomy
- SCT (which I can't remember what that stands for at the moment, will have to look it up)
- Micropreemies and vaginal birth, what are the risks?
- At term, how much of the uterus is fundus? (This is related to my special incisions research, to determine what "into the fundus" means on Surgical Reports.)
- Reactive Attachment Disorder
- Dermabond (I know what this is, but want to know what the pros/cons are.)
- Accreta/Percreta
- Newborn Physiology
- Thermogenesis
- brown fat
I have books on most of these. I realize that some of these would only take a quick internet search to find the answer and some of these will be covered thoroughly in my midwifery studies. I just felt the need to make a list so that I don't forget to look them up, read more, etc.
I haven't been able to get much studying done in the last week because I had yet another cold. This one is almost over and I pray that it will be the last for the season. Please gods, let it be the last!
Pregnancy, Birth and Civil Rights
This was originally posted on October 29, 2009.
I just finished watching the movie Ghosts of Mississippi. Being an Ohioan, I still have a hard time believing that there are people in the South that still think the way that they do about people of color and of the Jewish faith. The movie is based on a true story and a man that was assassinated in 1963, only 8 years before I was born. It was horrifying to me that the man who was finally found guilty had been flaunting his proud kill for nearly 30 years before they were able to convict him.
While I was watching the movie an email showed up on my phone from one of the lists that I’m on. A woman who is 39 weeks along and wanting to attempt a VBAC was told by her doctor today (a Saturday!) that she had scheduled a c-section for this woman next Wednesday unless she went into labor before then. The doctor also informed her that if she did not show up for the surgical removal of her new baby she would be recorded as non-compliant and would be reported to Child Protective Services. Civil rights? Since when did we hand over the right for our child to choose his or her own birth to these “care providers”? Why do these “care providers” think that they know better than our babies when it is time for them to come out? There are times when a baby needs to be removed early – but they are RARE and not just because the mother happened to have a previous cesarean. Why isn’t anyone (except for the women that these crimes are perpetrated on and sometimes their families) outraged at their behavior? Judges sign court orders for completely unnecessary surgeries before the mother even has a chance to get an atty, the surgery is done and over before she can argue her case or rebut the orders. How is that NOT a violation of our civil rights?? Why aren’t civil rights attorneys lining up to take these cases to court?
Why? Because they are un-winnable cases. The doctors have medical-ease that the judge and jury (if there is one) aren’t likely to understand. The doctors will make sure to explain it skewed in their favor. They claim the need for cesareans because of unstable heart tones as shown on the external fetal monitor. However, they don’t explain that the pitocin they insisted the patient needed may have caused those heart tones. Or the epidural that was necessitated by the pitocin may have caused those heart tone. Or simply the fact that the mother has been kept in a bed flat on her back with nothing to eat or drink for hours!
The doctors claim they are only operating in the best interest of the child. How is evicting a newborn baby from the womb of his or her mother before that baby is ready? Labor starts on it’s own exactly when the baby is ready. When the baby’s lungs are ready they release a hormone that sends a signal to the mother’s body that it time for labor to start. During labor the baby and the mother both receive a variation of hormones designed specifically for labor and birth. If you skip that entire process by removing the baby surgically before labor begins they both loose out on those beneficial hormones and the baby’s lungs may not be ready. If you interrupt that process by insisting that it isn’t moving fast enough they both loose out on those beneficial hormones and the mother’s body may not be ready to give birth.
Why can’t these “care providers” be patient?
“Midwives see birth as a miracle and only mess with it if there is a problem; doctors see birth as a problem and if they don’t mess with it, it’s a miracle!” - Barbara Harper, Gentle Birth Choices
I just finished watching the movie Ghosts of Mississippi. Being an Ohioan, I still have a hard time believing that there are people in the South that still think the way that they do about people of color and of the Jewish faith. The movie is based on a true story and a man that was assassinated in 1963, only 8 years before I was born. It was horrifying to me that the man who was finally found guilty had been flaunting his proud kill for nearly 30 years before they were able to convict him.
While I was watching the movie an email showed up on my phone from one of the lists that I’m on. A woman who is 39 weeks along and wanting to attempt a VBAC was told by her doctor today (a Saturday!) that she had scheduled a c-section for this woman next Wednesday unless she went into labor before then. The doctor also informed her that if she did not show up for the surgical removal of her new baby she would be recorded as non-compliant and would be reported to Child Protective Services. Civil rights? Since when did we hand over the right for our child to choose his or her own birth to these “care providers”? Why do these “care providers” think that they know better than our babies when it is time for them to come out? There are times when a baby needs to be removed early – but they are RARE and not just because the mother happened to have a previous cesarean. Why isn’t anyone (except for the women that these crimes are perpetrated on and sometimes their families) outraged at their behavior? Judges sign court orders for completely unnecessary surgeries before the mother even has a chance to get an atty, the surgery is done and over before she can argue her case or rebut the orders. How is that NOT a violation of our civil rights?? Why aren’t civil rights attorneys lining up to take these cases to court?
Why? Because they are un-winnable cases. The doctors have medical-ease that the judge and jury (if there is one) aren’t likely to understand. The doctors will make sure to explain it skewed in their favor. They claim the need for cesareans because of unstable heart tones as shown on the external fetal monitor. However, they don’t explain that the pitocin they insisted the patient needed may have caused those heart tones. Or the epidural that was necessitated by the pitocin may have caused those heart tone. Or simply the fact that the mother has been kept in a bed flat on her back with nothing to eat or drink for hours!
The doctors claim they are only operating in the best interest of the child. How is evicting a newborn baby from the womb of his or her mother before that baby is ready? Labor starts on it’s own exactly when the baby is ready. When the baby’s lungs are ready they release a hormone that sends a signal to the mother’s body that it time for labor to start. During labor the baby and the mother both receive a variation of hormones designed specifically for labor and birth. If you skip that entire process by removing the baby surgically before labor begins they both loose out on those beneficial hormones and the baby’s lungs may not be ready. If you interrupt that process by insisting that it isn’t moving fast enough they both loose out on those beneficial hormones and the mother’s body may not be ready to give birth.
Why can’t these “care providers” be patient?
“Midwives see birth as a miracle and only mess with it if there is a problem; doctors see birth as a problem and if they don’t mess with it, it’s a miracle!” - Barbara Harper, Gentle Birth Choices
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