Category Archives: pregnancy

He’s here!

pregnancy, recipes

I’m delighted to share the wonderful news with you all that our newest blessing has arrived!  He was born at 1:41 am yesterday morning (Weds), and weighed in at 7 lb, 6 oz – a very nice weight, especially considering that he was three weeks early!

The birth ended a pregnancy that’s been different than my norm very appropriately – with a labor and delivery that were very different than my norm.  🙂  My water broke three days before I actually gave birth, early Sunday morning, but since that happened last time, I wasn’t too anxious about it.  My midwife had told me then that most women will deliver within 72 hours of their water breaking.  There aren’t studies or statistics available on this, though, since most women have hospital births and are put into a situation of needing to deliver within a shorter time frame than many would  if labor was allowed to unfold naturally.  My midwife has been in the field for 13 years and has only seen this situation 4 or 5 times prior to me – and here I change her ratios by presenting her with the situation two times in a row!!

 I really believe that alot of the labor process is a mind game, and how well prepared you are mentally determines a lot of what you experience in the birthing process.  So when so much of this birth contradicted my past experience and expectations, it left me mid-labor feeling like I didn’t know the rules of the game.  For example, I had very strong transition like contractions, but only about every 8 minutes.  I told my midwife I didn’t know how to handle contractions like that so early on, since usually there aren’t more than just a couple like that at the very end.  She thought they were closer together than I thought, and that I might be much further along than I thought.  But they never got more than four or six minutes apart.  The unusual labor pattern was followed by an equally unusual second stage – you have to understand that after seven births (and being present for at least forty births of others), you get a sense that you know what to expect.  So when something is drastically different the eighth time around, it’s probably not a surprise that it caught me unaware!    

 But as different as this labor/birth was, it resulted in another beautiful baby.   The minute the baby is born, it always amazes me how quickly your mind shifts out of the laboring zone and into a totally different space of just being in the present with your newborn.  And for me personally, no matter what labor has been like, it all feels worth it the instant the baby is there (though five minutes before that I was wondering why I thought another baby was a good idea!).

This time I drank a strong raspberry leaf tea (two doses, since one didn’t seem to be helping), which is supposed to make labor much quicker and less painful.  I can’t know what the effect was since I don’t have another birth like this to compare to, but I have to think it was beneficial.  I’ll try it next time around and see how it works then.  :))  For those who want the recipe, it’s very simple.  Take one ounce of red raspberry leaves, and pour two cups of boiling water over it.  Let it steep for 30 minutes, strain, then drink as hot as possible once labor has begun.  (My personal tip – add honey so that the strength of the flavor doesn’t upset your taste buds.)  You can get the herbs from your local health food store, though I buy mine in one pound bags online since I get terrific bulk prices and enjoy the tea throughout pregnancy (when I remember to make it).  Raspberry tea is a great uterine tonifier during pregnancy and after birth, as well, but in regular tea-like amounts, not in this kind of strength.  Sometime in the future I’ll share the recipe that I have for pregnancy tea (I planned to share it with you when I made it for myself this pregnancy, but making the tea was one of those things I didn’t get around to doing). 

 I haven’t yet taken any raspberry leaf since the birth, though. My midwife has a wonderful (in results but absolutely disgusting in taste) Chinese herbal mix that is great for easing afterpains.  I used to have such horrible afterpains that I always felt that they made labor seem minor – they went on for two weeks and are the only thing I’ve ever taken any pain medication for.  The last birth was the first time I used this midwife (since it was my first birth in this area), and the cramping didn’t last more than three days after using this herbal mix plus the tincture she recommends, which is an amazing difference.  I unfortunately don’t know the recipe, because it’s a special mix that is made privately for her to give her clients, but the tincture that she recommends is called Afterease.  The bottle is upstairs so I don’t remember exactly what herbs are in it, but the company that makes it is called Wish Garden.  She also recommends taking liquid calcium, which I haven’t had, but I’m sure is a good idea as well.  So far the cramping has been very manageable, and it’s less than 48 hours after the birth.  I’m hopeful that by tomorrow there will be just minor twinges left. 

 My mom came by and gave me a massage, which was nice, since my ‘sit’ bones are seriously sore from the posterior presentation of the baby.  But even that is feeling much better than last night.  Isn’t it wonderful how quickly the body rejuvenates and heals itself? 

Now I’m gratefully off to bed!

Avivah 

Premature water breaking, and thank goodness the phone is working again

pregnancy

On Monday night I went out  for three hours, and when I got home, discovered that I had no phone service (apparently caused by the storm we had).   Since it was after 10 pm and I needed to immediately make arrangements for a friend to watch my kids the next day, as well as to get driving directions to NJ (where I needed to pick up ds14 from his camp bus), this was NOT a welcome realization.  I dashed out to a neighbor and used their phone and internet, then came home, relieved that though I didn’t have a dial tone, at least I had taken care of everything that would need taking care of until the next night when I got home.

Well, I was wrong.  Once I got home, I cleaned up the kitchen and dining room, and headed for bed, so that I would get a decent night’s sleep before doing so much driving.  I almost always read something before I go to sleep, and while I was reading, I hazily noticed that my back was slightly damp.  I didn’t really pay much attention since I was so involved in thinking about my reading, but ten minutes later, it suddenly hit me that I wasn’t imagining it, that I really was damp.  I sat up suddenly, and felt the bed all around me – wet.  I have to honestly say that right at that minute I was came close to panic, realizing that my waters broke (five weeks early) and I had no way to reach my midwife, dh wouldn’t be home until the next afternoon, and since it was after midnight by then, it was too late to go to a neighbor to use their phone.

After a few minutes in which my brain wasn’t working properly, I quickly got dressed and drove over to a friend’s house, fervently hoping that she would hear me knocking, and not ignore it if she did hear it.  I was so tense worrying about what to do if she didn’t answer that I almost cried with relief when she opened the door!  She generously loaned me her cell phone so I would have a way to make calls until my line was repaired.  I called the midwife when I got home to give her a heads up about the situation, and told her I was going to be visualizing that it was a high leak and it would seal up on its own.  I went to sleep, and when I woke up – no more leaking, no more signs of early labor!  I called my midwife and told her about it.  Of course there’s no way to know what happened without doing testing that would make giving birth essential within a very short time.  She said that there are two layers to the amniotic sac, the amnion and chorion.  Sometimes the outer layer breaks, and water that is trapped between the two layers is released, but the sac where the baby is stays intact.  That seems to be the most likely scenario to explain what happened with me.  Isn’t that fascinating?

Today, two days later, the phone suddenly started working again (I still need to cancel the repairman’s visit, which was supposed to be tomorrow – the fastest someone could come out).  It’s amazing how much more appreciative I am for having a dial tone when I pick up the phone than I was before!

By the way, ds came home from camp last night (dh ended up driving to NJ to get him since the midwife felt it was very unwise for me to take a chance of going into labor after the excitement of the night before and drive there myself as planned), and dd12 came home this afternoon.  It’s so wonderful to have them back again!

Avivah

No twins after all

pregnancy

The midwife was here yesterday morning, and it looks like we’re NOT having twins after all. But I told her that I really feel I need absolute closure on this and want an ultrasound. So this morning I’m going to pick up a referral for an u/s from another midwife who is a friend of hers who does work within the traditional medical system. My midwife said that she really expected to come and confirm the twins, because it looked so strongly likely at the last visit. All the signs for twins were there (including what seemed like two heartbeats), but I guess it can sometimes happen that everything can look one way and just not actually be like that.  My midwife also said sometimes a woman can just have a pregnancy that is outside her personal norm on all fronts, and maybe that’s what this is for me.

I’m still measuring ahead of my dates but only by 4 cm this time (last time was 5), but she can only hear one heart beat. I suppose the u/s isn’t necessary since she’s pretty sure about this, but after four weeks of thinking there would be two and then hearing there aren’t, I just want to know 100% and not wonder if somehow the positioning kept her from hearing one of them, or something like that. I do feel disappointed, but I knew there was a chance that this is what we would hear, and I kept stressing that possibility to the kids. They aren’t as disappointed as they thought they would be – they were always excited about the idea of a new baby, and that is still something to look forward to.

Avivah

Twins? Interesting way to ask

nutrition, pregnancy

I told you a couple of days ago about the strong likelihood of twins, and thought that it would be pretty agonizing to wait for another four weeks for the next midwife’s visit to know for sure. I don’t do ultrasounds as a matter of routine, but was really starting to think about getting one done just to find out for sure.

Since the midwife told me to start eating a diet for twins, that same day I called a friend with twins and asked her if she had any books to lend. She asked who they were for, and was quite surprised when I told her they might be for me, since she saw me the day before and didn’t realize I was expecting. I explained the situation, why the midwife thought what she did and why she was waiting one more month. When I got there, she took me down to her office and took out her crystal pendulum. (I didn’t know she would do this, and didn’t even think of it as option to explore using.)

A little background here – this friend has lots of experience with alternative healing type of approaches, and I got to see her use the pendulum several years ago when we were neighbors. At that time, my young daughter was coughing very badly all night long, and I had asked her for recommendations for which homeopathic remedy to use. She took out her pendulum, and asked several questions about specific remedies, and told me what to use based on that.

The way the pendulum works is that it helps accesses the intuitive mind and bypasses the conscious/intellectual mind, channeling unseen energies. The person asking and person being asked don’t know the answers consciously, but on the soul level, the answers are known. That’s how I explain it, anyway. It sounds hocusy-pocusy and many people don’t know why or how it works, just that it works. So the pendulum will spin to the left for a ‘no’, and to the right for a ‘yes’. Only yes or no questions can be asked.

Back to my story. I went downstairs with my friend, and she told me to hold out my hand, and took it. Then she took out her pendulum and I watched her hand stay perfectly still as it started spinning right, then left. After several minutes, she picked up the book Having Twins from her desk and said, “Here, you need this.” I told her, “No way, I want to hear the questions asked out loud, you can’t just think them to yourself and then give me the book!” She told me she wanted to check first about the possibility of polyhydramnios and the health of the baby/ies and didn’t want to ask it out loud in case the answers weren’t good.

So she did it out loud for me – here were the questions:
– Is Avivah a male? (left)
– Is Avivah pregnant? (right)
– Is Avivah pregnant with twins? (right)
– Does Avivah have polyhydramnios? (left)
– Are both babies healthy? (right)
– Is Avivah pregnant with identical twins? (Not saying :))
– Is Avivah pregnant with fraternal twins? (the opposite answer of above)
– Is Avivah pregnant with two girl babies?
– Is Avivah pregnant with two boy babies?
– Is Avivah pregnant with a girl and boy?

The answer to the last three was a ‘no’ to two of the questions and ‘yes’ for one of them. I’ll keep all of you in suspense and let you know in a few months if the specifics are right. As you can see, there were some questions that might seem redundant (like the identical/fraternal one), but are a good checking mechanism.  One possibility to stay aware of, though, is that the emotions of the one using the crytal can ‘cross’ with the one being tested.  And since this friend has had twins, that’s something for me to keep in mind.

She asked me before all of this what my intuition was telling me, and I told her that I don’t like to say what my intuitive thoughts are until after I know the facts. This process did confirm my own intuition (or is it wishful thinking?), and fit in with a dream I had the night before the midwife came (that we suddenly needed a larger dining room table to fit everyone), which suddenly came flooding back to me as soon as the midwife did the measurements.  That would still make sense if we were just having a singleton, though.

So that was interesting. It remains to be seen if it was accurate or not, so I”ll still be waiting for the most part for an official confirmation before mentioning anything (in real life) to anyone one way or another.

Avivah

One or two??

pregnancy

Today my midwife came for her monthly visit, and after the usual interesting conversations that we have, we finally got to the checking the size of the baby part. As she was taking out her measuring tape, I asked her, “I already know what the answer to this will be and feel silly answering since of course the answer is no, but my kids wanted to know, so I’m asking. Is there any possibility we could have twins this time?” (They were hoping during my last pregnancy, too!) So she said, “Well, let’s see,” and proceeded to take the fundal measurements.

I was absolutely positive that that would be the end of it all and the answer would be a definitive ‘no’, but to my surprise she made a ‘hmm’ sound and told me that I’m measuring at 28 weeks (I’m 23 weeks). I asked if that could be just because I haven’t eaten as well as I usually do and gained more weight than usual, and she said no. I asked how significant the difference in measurements is, and she said it’s significant. She spent a lot of time listening to the heartbeat, trying to determine if she was hearing two heartbeats or hearing one heartbeat from two different positions. She couldn’t say definitively, but said in another month it should be obvious if we are just seeing one baby who went through a big growth spurt right now or there are two babies, but that I should start eating extra protein in case it is twins.

Well, that was kind of a surprise (a nice one, though)! I have no family history of twins and hadn’t even considered the possibility at all. It would certainly explain why I’m looking noticeably more pregnant than usual! Usually people can’t even tell I’m pregnant until 8+ months, and now it’s already starting to be obvious at 5 months. It’s nice to think of having something else to pin the extra weight gain on, but I’m going to suspend any thoughts one way or the other until we know for sure. I’m at the stage in my life and parenting that twins is a really nice thought, in any event.

I told my kids what the midwife said (because they asked me why dh had a funny look on his face :)), and they immediately started planning what baby gear we would need for two babies, even though I firmly told them we really don’t know at all yet and in a month could find out there’s just one. I happened to have been given a huge amount of gorgeous baby girl clothing on Sunday by a first time mom who had seven baby showers, and received lots more clothes than her baby could ever wear. I have no idea if we’re having a girl or boy (we wait until we see the actual baby to find out), but if we end up having twin girls, we would certainly be set for the first 9 months for clothing! 🙂

I’m sure you can imagine what we’ll be wondering about for the next month. 🙂

Avivah

Gratitude for a miracle

pregnancy

This past week has been emotionally one of the hardest I can remember even having in my life. My very dear and special friend finally went into labor (ten days overdue – and we expected her to be early so it felt very overdue!), and we had her adorable toddler stay with us while she was in labor. Unfortunately, it was anything but a normal or predictable labor.

She had an extremely rare complication known as an amniotic fluid embolism, which is fatal in the large majority of cases. She had an emergency cesarean and was in surgery for several hours, as she was bleeding for hours without any stop (due to the embolism), and was continually given blood transfusions (she lost the equivalent of all of her blood twice). By truly a miracle, she made it through, thanks to the prayers of many, many people, and the wonderful staff who all ‘happened’ to be in the right place at the right time.

I don’t know if it was good or bad that I realized something was wrong early on, but it was a horrible feeling to have an increasingly strong sense that something was seriously wrong and not know why I had that feeling. I tried to intellectually tell myself that nothing could be wrong and I was just imagining things, but it didn’t help. I finally called her husband after an hour and a half (before that we had just spoken briefly to make arrangements for me to pick up his daughter, and I had no idea what stage of labor she was in) and apologized for bothering him, but told him that I was really worried and just wanted to find out what was happening. I’m not an anxious kind of person, but I was hoping that he would tell me I had been worried for nothing and the baby was born and everyone was fine. That’s when I heard she had been in surgery for over an hour and was having a lot of bleeding. Having a good amount of knowledge and experience with childbirth as an educator and doula, I immediately realized this was way out of the norm for reasonable complications and it seriously scared me. When an hour and a half after that the bleeding still hadn’t stopped, it was beyond frightening.

My kids realized by my tone of voice when I spoke to him the first time that something was very wrong – one of them later said that my voice sounded flat – and they all started praying for her. That day, even before I knew what had actually technically happened and how bad it was, I felt the situation was very tenuous. Literally, like someone’s life was hanging in the balance. And it really bothered me the entire day that I felt so emotionally dead – I kept asking myself, “What’s the matter with you? Your very close friend is in this terrible situation and you can’t even shed a tear?”

It wasn’t until later in the day when I heard that she had stabilized and was in critical condition and in the intensive care unit that I finally cried. And cried and cried. And since then I’ve been crying every day several times a day when I think about it. I read something yesterday that said that when a person isn’t ready to deal with an emotion, they don’t feel it, and that’s exactly how it was for me in those first hours. The possibility of a tragic outcome was so horrible that I just couldn’t feel anything.

So while I’ve had lots of thoughts on many things to share with all of you (some connected to this, some not), this has been foremost in my mind, something that I think about most of my waking hours. I’ve been too emotional about it all to even think of writing anything. At this point, I’m just grateful beyond words that she will be okay, and the baby is healthy – it’s like she won a high stakes lottery, as the statistics for both mother and baby in this situation are very poor.  Most don’t make it, and if the mother does make it, brain damage is a result in most cases. Life is very precious, and times like these are a real reminder of that.

Avivah