How Goes the Pregnancy?

This is pretty much everyone’s favorite question when they see me. How are you doing? How’s the baby? Fine, fine, fine, all good. And it really is, overall. But in case you’re interested in the long version, here it is:

1. No internal heater. When people hear that you’re going to be super pregnant in the summer, they say, “Oh, that’s rough, you’re going to be so overheated!” When they hear it will be winter, they say, “Awesome, at least you’ll have an internal heater.” I have never experienced this phenomenon. In fact, I have felt generally colder during my two winter pregnancies, and even when I was massive in the muggy, new-to-me Maryland heat, I didn’t feel like it was any worse than when I wasn’t pregnant. I was expressing this to Brice, and he said, “You do have an internal baby heater. It’s just broken.” Well, that explains it then.

2. Emotional hostage. Here’s how I said this to the world of Facebook: “The baby has apparently taken my hormones and emotional regulation abilities hostage.” In practice this means that I am crying over some really dumb stuff lately. Like when my shower towel is too stinky. Or when I think about a story that I was going to write but didn’t. Or, you know, when I slightly overcook the grilled cheese sandwiches. (Even dumber stuff too, like fuzzy socks or the girls’ cute fashions, etc.) And then of course I also bawl over the not-dumb stuff, like when I’m tired and the girls have made a massive mess in their bedroom ten minutes after we’d just cleaned it up beautifully. Or when I am hungry but queasy and I can’t think of what to cook. Or when I’m stressing out about what it’s going to be like to have four kids. Which leads me to numbers 3 and 4 . . .

3. Nausea. So, I spent about a month and half feeling pretty decent most of the time. A couple bouts of queasiness here and there, but overall pretty great. And also not yet super uncomfortable, and also not super tired anymore. Of course, every time I started gloating about how I was feeling, I had a massive patch of vomiting (keeping me nice and humble!), but overall, I was doing well. Well, it seems we’re back to some fairly frequent queasiness again (though it is still low-grade and really nothing compared to women who actually have difficult pregnancies). And guess what are the two main things that help? Eating and lying down. As in, as long as I’m eating food, I feel fine. As soon as I stop, not so much. And then, after I eat, if I lie down for ten minutes or so, I feel better. So between these and just, you know, being pregnant, I’m pretty much going to explode into whale proportions.

Also, as of yesterday, it had been quite nearly a month since I had thrown up. And then came this month’s stomach bug, which has so far gotten four of the five of us. I can’t really tell, though, if my throwing up was because of 1: being sick; 2: pregnancy; or 3: having to clean up someone else’s vomit (honestly, Brice is the designated cleaner-upper in our house—for which he should be sainted—because I can’t stand it at all).

4. Four kids, plus labor and newborn stage and all that jazz. This should probably be broken down into two items, and I could actually write a whole blog post about it, but you’d get bored. So here’s the summary: Coriel’s labor: really hard. Addra’s: really easy. Koa’s: pretty hard. I’m freaking out that baby #4 will be more inclined to take after Coriel and Koa. But even if he’s not, “really easy” was still quite painful during the process. And then the newborn stage is insanely difficult for me (and when I say “newborn,” I mean “first two years at least”). I have, by and large, been not thinking about it all. Because every time I do, I become a major watering pot. I told Brice the other day that there should be a disorder called “pre-traumatic stress syndrome.” His response was, “Yeah, it’s called anxiety.” Which I guess is sort of true, but whatever it’s called, I’ve got a lot of stress and/or terror about labor/babyhood and then just plain being able to manage four kids.

At which point, someone reading this is thinking, “Well, then, you shouldn’t have had the fourth kid.” And my explanation may be hard to understand if you don’t believe in God the way that I do—because both Brice and I feel strongly that this was the right decision for our family, a prompting from God, even though it may be hard. So here’s a different way to look at it. Even if you don’t believe that God speaks directly to individuals to help and guide them, have you ever done something that you thought was hard and scary but you did it anyway because you felt like it would be a good thing? Maybe it was a job application, a college application, asking a specific person on a date, moving across country, training for a marathon. In so many of these cases, we take the plunge even if we don’t feel ready, even if we’re not sure we can handle it, because we believe it’s the best choice. And so here we all are, with me both pregnant and also freaking out. Because the bottom line is that even though I don’t feel ready, even though I’m pretty much terrified, I believe it’s the right choice and that when we make good, hard decisions, God makes it possible for us to do what is required.

5. Baby names—eek! It has already been pointed out to us from several sources (my sister K being the first) that if we name #4 a name that starts with E, our children will spell out CAKE. Now, I’m sure you can guess that this is the most important consideration in finding a baby name. Who doesn’t want their children to spell out a delicious dessert? So we’ve had quite a few E suggestions. Which is good, because at the rate we’re going, we’ll have to look through approximately a billion names to find two that we can sort of agree on. This baby had just better help us when he gets here, because so far the naming process is tough.

And that, my friends and foo, is how the pregnancy is really going. Thanks for asking! :)

The Birth Story, Part IV: In Which There Is Pushing. And Also a Baby

By the end of this blog post,
he will finally have arrived!

Note: You can find part I here, part II here, and part III here.

Finally, the pushing! Ah, sigh. Pushing. It just feels so lovely after all of those other contractions. Doing something! Progress! The end in sight! After the first unmistakable need to push, I turned to Brice calmly (it felt calm, anyway; I have no idea how I actually sounded) and said, “If the girls are going to be here for the birth, you’d better go get them.”

They were awfully enchanted with him.

I may have forgotten to mention it, but the girls were there the whole day—watching movies, playing, talking with and entertaining all our guests. Oh, I suppose the guests entertained them too, especially Meghan with the giant muffins and donuts she brought. Also, she brought a gift for the baby—a little bouncy seat that they all put together in the living room while I was off in my room doing the actual, you know, work.

So Brice got them from wherever they were, and the pushing continued. When you take those birthing classes, they always talk about the “ring of fire”—“Oh, I felt that ring of fire, and I just wanted to die! It was the worst!” and “There will be a terrible burning sensation!” After two other births and no noticeable “ring of fire,” I was a little puzzled about what was the big deal.

And then I felt it, and my detached, clinical brain said, “Oh, so that’s what it feels like. I see. Yes, that is rather unpleasant. Hmmm . . . I wonder how long it will last.” Meanwhile, my body was saying something more like, “Egad!” And then my brain said, “Well, it’s gonna have to last through at least one more push because I am not about to shove this baby out before he’s ready and tear things up down there.” So, when the contraction stopped, I stopped pushing. I must say, I am rather pleased and proud of myself for this bit. Even in that moment I was feeling pretty cool. Look at me, I thought, just sitting here calm as you please, waiting for the next urge to push, while my nether regions are totally aflame.

It must be stated that Meghan agreed. In one of several awkward post-game wrap-ups that we had in the weeks after the fact, she said something like, “Well, this is weird, but I was really impressed with the way you pushed.” Thank you, thank you, take a bow.*

Addra told me just today, "I didn't want
to touch him because of all that white
stuff." Then I got to teach her about
how awesome vernix is.

Then he was out, sounding like a newborn (actually, I have no idea if he squealed or not), looking like a newborn with all that lovely mushroom-colored, white-goo-covered skin. And he was on my chest and I was staring at him—this amazing, beautiful creature who came out of me. I made him! He is mine. I pulled him up to me and stared and stared and stared. He was gorgeous. Gorgeous and—

Egad!

Neither of us looks particularly happy at the moment.

If you look at the pictures of us together right after he was born, I do not look pleased to see him. I’m sorry to say that I think only one of those pictures finds me with anything other than a major league grimace on my face. And I have one word to explain this: afterpains. It is such a rude awakening to be sitting there, gazing in a mommy haze of adoration at this new life, thinking it’s over. You have gained the prize. And then the contractions start again and you remember you still have to birth the placenta. And your uterus has to shrink. And there’s all the blood and whatnot to expel. And and and . . . You’re definitely not done yet.

So while I may be grimacing in these photos, I’m also drinking him in—this creature I have sacrificed and suffered for, who I will continue to change and stretch and grow for. Inside I’m utterly and infinitely in love with this little messy, gloppy, floppy creature I hold in my arms.

And in truth, I still am.

P.S. But wait! There’s more! If you still haven’t had enough, I’ve got a post-game wrap-up post coming soon. Just to answer all those exciting questions you’re wondering about, like, “What good is hydrogen peroxide?” and “Were your kids traumatized for life?” and “How do you feel about old lady panties?”**

* I love the number of conversations we have that start with, “Well, this is weird, but . . . ” That’s some serious friendship going on. 
** Just kidding, I have no opinions to offer you on old lady panties. At least not in public.

The Birth Story, Part III: Picking Up Steam

Note: You can find part I here and part II here.

Further note: If you are inclined to be judgey about the decision to forgo pain meds, feel free to skip part III. Here is where I tell you how much it hurt and also that I am not a warrior about pain. But I am not really interested in being an example you can point to and say, “See! Not getting an epidural is crazy!” Plus, despite the pain, I would still choose this again.

Further further note: You may have noticed that Brice doesn’t feature prominently in this narrative. This is because, for the most part, Brice was just doing what he does best: quietly going about doing good. He was just there, you know, present with me, without getting in the way.* You can tell from the pictures how much he was a part of labor, but there are very few specific things I can point to and say, “Brice did this.” Mostly he just was. Which is exactly what I needed.

 

Finally, around 4 p.m., things went from sunny to doomy. Ahem, I mean that labor picked up. By which I really mean that I started whimpering and crying and saying, “No, no, no” repeatedly and despairingly. I mean really. I have distance from the whole experience now, which is why I can look at it and laugh, but in those moments it felt like my whole soul was saying, “No.” It felt like my whole world had narrowed down to just one unending contraction. It felt like this would never stop.

You want to know how desperate I was? When Susan suggested that she could check and see if I had a cervical lip in the way of pushing, I said okay. So here’s a bit of information about me: I do not—DO NOT—like cervical checks. When I’m asked what was the worst part of labor with Coriel, I can say without a nanosecond of hesitation, “Cervical checks.” (And that’s saying something, because labor with Coriel was pretty darn hard.) I didn’t get a single check with Addra, and that was bliss.

I am definitely not feeling good.

After I said okay, I also said, “But if you check and I’m only dilated to, like, a six, just lie to me.”

Here’s what she said after she checked: “Well, you’re not quite ready to push yet.” (I asked her later, in a postpartum checkup; she said I was dilated to about seven.)

You’re probably wondering about now why I would choose to do all of this stuff when there are awesome things like epidurals in the world. Well, that’s a complicated question with many answers. The short one: I think it’s better for me and for the baby.** Also, pain isn’t the end of the world, not even bad bad pain.

Speaking of pain, though, I never hopped in the shower! Ridiculous me. Showering was the epic relief that made Addra’s birth pretty much a cakewalk. (Which is only slightly overstating the case.) I remember that Laurie suggested it once or twice (her recollection: “I kept telling you to get in the shower”). And I remember that all I could think was how hard it would be to get in the shower. And how hard it would be to get back out. All that stepping over bathtub ledges as if they were the Great Wall of China or something. You can’t be asking me to do that sort of crazy hurdling when I’m in labor! And for what? Any minute now, I would feel the need to push. So instead I dithered around, forgetting that contractions do stop occasionally (no, not really in this case; I swear I was in transition—unending waves of contractions—for endless hours). Forgetting that the feeling of water beating down on my back might be lovely. That if I couldn’t pick my leg up to get over the ledge, someone would do it for me (because labor isn’t really weird enough without other people picking up your body parts for you). So, um, no shower.

And really, while I was in it, that time did seem to last forever—wave upon wave of contraction, with not even a long enough break in between to properly use the bathroom. (Come on, I would say, sitting on the toilet. Really? You couldn’t just wait for thirty seconds?) Now, outside of those moments, I realize it was only about three hours, maybe four at the outside, of really intense labor. But such is the nature of reality—it isn’t always helpful when you’re in it.

Scootching off the pillow again.

Eventually I was in sheer misery mode, whimpering “no” in a pathetic voice over and over again (no strong, Amazonian roars for me!), and I was lying in my bed. I repeat: I was lying in my bed. On my back! The horror! I used to see the occasional birth photos of other women lying on their backs straining and pushing, and I would think sanctimoniously, “Well, if you’d just get off your back, everything would be much easier. I had Addra kneeling beside my bed, and it was awesome. I would never give birth lying on my back.” Ha! As I lay on the bed, everyone kept trying to prop me up with pillows or suggest different positions. I would pretend I didn’t hear them and then slowly scootch myself sideways off the pillows until I was sort of leaning sideways but definitely on my back. It was the only thing that was even vaguely comfortable (emphasis on “vaguely”). So much for the virtues of gravity in labor, that’s all I have to say.

Stay tuned for part IV, in which things get even more hairy.

* Well, except for one or two contractions where he misjudged that I needed a massage or a hand on my abdomen when what I really wanted was not to be touched—and also to rip his head off and throw it out the window. But hey, no one’s perfect, not even Brice.

** Again, please remember I’m not judging you or anyone else for doing something different. NO JUDGEY!

The Birth Story, Part II: Donuts and Music and Scarfy Things, Oh My!

Note: You can find part I and its associated warnings here.

So now we’ll start to fast forward through some of this day, hitting just the “good parts.” (And yet still in excruciating, four-part detail!)

* Around 9 a.m., I realized I had never put together a playlist of music to listen to while in labor. So I tossed about seven songs into a group and put it on repeat. Because I had exactly enough brain power to come up with about seven songs. Actually, I had less brain power than that because I had actually come up with most of them in my head previously and had just never done anything about it. These songs were on repeat for many hours of the day, but I barely noticed them. I was probably the only one. At one point, Meghan (who I assume was going crazy from having to listen to “A Thousand Years” or “Little Wonders” for the seven thousandth time) casually asked, “So, do you just have this playlist on repeat?” Um, yes. Yes, I did. (I think I turned it off after that, thereby saving my birth team from the edge of madness.)

* I brought in the whole crew around 10 a.m. Susan, our wonderful midwife. Laurie, the birth assistant. Meghan, friend, photographer, and bring of donuts. There was the checking of the heartbeat (but the absolutely-not-on-your-life-no-checking of the dilation). There was some friendly chitchat, and everyone settled in to my living room to give me some space to sleep or whatever I wanted in my room.

* I was still laughing, still totally relaxed, still capable of carrying on conversations. If you’ve gone through the Bradley method of training for birth, you’re thinking, “Oh, Jeanna, you’re not even close to ready to give birth.” And you’re right. This was early labor, folks. Really early labor.

See? Still totally in early labor.

* I spent inordinate amounts of time worrying about the people in my household. They were all there, waiting on me. Waiting on me. Egad, the nerves. The performance anxiety. Laurie had a test to study for—I was keeping her from it. (I really wasn’t; she studied at my house.) Meghan had her very own newborn—I was keeping her from him. (I really was, but she was terribly gracious about it, and she left to take care of him a time or two.) In retrospect, the best plan would have been to send them all home. I could have called them back again when things picked up. But the paranoia, remember—this baby could pop, right? That’s what everyone was always saying about third babies. “They just pop out!” “Shorter and shorter labors!” (And since my second labor was really only active for about four hours, I felt justifiably concerned.)

We must be ready!

* Brice read to me for a while from some excessively cheesy romance novel I had on my kindle at the moment. That was embarrassing, largely because it involved cringing at the plotline. (I think there may have been time travel involved. Or past lives? Or both? I don’t remember; I think I blocked it.)

Apparently the scarf is called a rebozo.
Also, I think I spent about twenty minutes
total on that ball. But at least it was fun
for the girls to play with!

* At one point in the meltingly hot afternoon, I tossed a t-shirt over my tank top and headed outside to walk (waddle) up and down our street. While I did this . . . not a single contraction. Not one. I came back from the walk and stated casually, when asked, that I didn’t think the walk had helped much. I was lying, desperately trying to pretend that things were further along than they were.

* Laurie suggested some sort of homeopathic hoo-ha to try to nudge labor along (“See! I knew they were getting impatient,” I thought to myself), and I said, “Why not?” I have no idea if it worked, but let’s just say it did. Laurie also suggested, when the contractions finally started picking up, a neato scarfy-wrappy thingie around my belly. It helped for some contractions, and I wanted to rip it off and burn it to oblivion for others. Ah, labor.

Still, over the hours it slowly became obviously that labor was finally picking up.

Stay tuned for part III, in which things get hairy.

Update: A friend asked me about the purpose of a rebozo. Here's how I saw it: You know how when you're pregnant and you sneeze, you think your whole abdomen is about to explode into fiery shreds of what used to be muscles and ligaments and such? So when you feel a sneeze coming, you bend over and wrap your arms around your belly? To me, the rebozo was kind of like that. However, if you ask the internet, they don't talk about that. Instead it's about positioning and relaxing and whatnot. Sooo . . . I hope you feel enlightened now.

The Birth Story, Part I: In the Beginning...

Yes! I have finally started writing this down and posting it here. Please do not die of shock.

Be ye hereby warned: There are details in here, people. Potentially gross and/or awkward details. Because childbirth is awesome . . . and also filled with blood, goo, and lots of skin. So enter at your own risk.

Be ye hereby also warned: This is only part I of the exceptionally long, unedited version. If you want the shorter, less exciting, and significantly less snarky version, wait for the summary instead.

It began with a pop and a gush of hot fluid. It was a bit past midnight and I’d been sleeping when my amniotic sac decided it had had enough. I’d often wondered what water breaking felt like, since I hadn’t even noticed it happening with either of my other two children’s births. The answer: it feels like Weird.

My words to Brice: “I think my water just broke.” (Brilliant observation, yes?)

Probably the cleanest this room has ever been.

Excitement pulsed through me as I hobbled quickly to the bathroom, trying not to leave a river in my wake. Here’s what Brice had done by the time I came back: Sat up. Stared at his phone.

Clearly the rush of adrenaline I felt had not extended to him.

So we called Susan, our midwife, just to let her know. I was trying not to squeal in happiness that finally pregnancy would be over! But there was definitely a little bit of internal celebration going on. Susan said to try to rest and let her know if I started having contractions. Just the thought of not having contractions for a while was daunting, but I realized it was a possibility. So I took a deep breath and tried to sleep.

Ho hum, nothing to see here. Just a woman pretending
she's farther along in labor than she really is.

Let me state for the record that trying to sleep while you’re also trying to record your contractions—this is not a good formula for getting much rest.

Five hours later, it was clear that I was in labor but not by much. (If you want to be all boring and technical about it, I will tell you that contractions were about a minute long and ten minutes apart.) I was happy and antsy, crazily nervous that this labor would be so speedy that no one would show up on time (midwife, birth assistant, or birth photographer). While I was pretty sure I could do this without any helpers if I had to, I didn’t really want to. When Addra was born, I had no idea I was as far progressed through labor as I was—right up until the very contraction that was obviously a push. (At which point I observed, “That was a push!” I am apparently brilliant and witty while in labor.) Susan was only at our house for about half an hour before Addra was born. The birth assistant didn’t arrive until after the fact.* So this time around I was understandably paranoid that people weren’t going to make it on time. Far too paranoid, it turns out.

I'm so glad I have this picture. The painting hanging on
the wall is one given to us by Brice's mom. The one on the shelf
was a card my mom wrote to us for our wedding. She died
about four months before we got married, so receiving it and
the afghan she'd crocheted for us was a beautiful gift from her.
Anyway, it was nice to have that reminder there. (Also, you can't
see it, but the painting is of a woman holding up her child
to the sky. Mom and I saw it together many moons ago, and
she saved it for years to give it to me on the right occasion,
which just ended up being my wedding. I kind of love it a lot.)

We kept in touch with both Susan and my friend and birth photographer, Meghan. Time passed. Boredom interlaced with nerves interlaced with intermittent ouchiness. There should have been a point in here when I realized that labor was going to be slow. Every time I got up to move around, contractions slowed. When I sat, they sped up. This is not the usual way of things. It’s funny that the thing that served me so well in labor with Addra—religiously timing contractions—became a bit of a problem here. It made me hyperaware when I should have just taken a deep breath and quit freaking out. Hind sight is brilliant, yes?

Stay tuned for part II, in which donuts are eaten.

* Please note: This is not an argument against birthing at home. Had I been planning to go to the hospital, I still would have stayed home most of the time, since I misjudged how far along I was. The difference is that I would probably have been on the road to the hospital when suddenly I realized my body was ready to push!**

** Please also note: This is not an argument against birthing at the hospital. This post is completely argument-less. Even though I do think homebirth is awesome. 

These kids of ours were excellent at entertaining themselves.