todd reeves: the birth

Caution:  things are about to get very, very real on this blog.  If any of the following disturbs you, consider navigating away:  stories of addiction and recovery, explicit descriptions of nether-regions and birth processes, honest emotions, the reality of good and evil in our world.  Alternatively, continue reading and broaden your horizons!

As I rounded the bend into week 38 of my second pregnancy, a cloud of denial and confusion lifted and it became clear that my husband was an active addict.  Multiple substances were involved.  I won’t go any further into that nightmare, except to say that I decided we needed to separate for a while, and he decided to go to inpatient rehab.  We both knew this meant he would miss the birth.  This was indescribably sad, simultaneously very freeing, and absolutely the right decision for our family. 

In my 39th week.  Little did I know how long I still had to go . . . 

 As I struggled to adjust my vision of what birth and family life would be like, my blood pressure, which had always been borderline high throughout the pregnancy, began to skyrocket due to stress.  This was no shock to either my midwives or myself.  I showed no other signs of pre-eclampsia (no swelling, no protein in my urine, no headaches, not seeing spots, no stomach pain).  They decided, after some research, to keep me as a client, provided that things didn’t get any more out of control with my pressures and I continued to show no other worrisome signs.

The main thing on my mind was that I wanted to give birth to the baby before my blood pressure got so out of control that I would be facing another hospital induction.  I started taking a tincture of motherwort and hawthorne, which was rather dramatically effective at keeping my blood pressure in check.  (Here’s to living in a neighborhood with an herbal supply store and experienced herbalists to help me!) 

I also began doing all those things that are supposed to bring about labor:  eating pineapple, eating spicy food, acupuncture three or four times a week, chiropractic adjustment, massage, walking long distances.  Week 39 passed, then my due date. 

I broke out the big guns.  I started taking evening primrose oil.  I had my membranes stripped – twice.  I took blue cohosh.  My sister came to stay with me for a long weekend as I turned over into week 41.  I continued to have strong, painless Braxton-Hicks contractions, as I had for weeks.  I had been dilated to 4 cm for at least two weeks. 

This baby just did not want to come. 

I didn’t know if it was emotional reservations I was having about the birth, if God was trying to tell me that I needed to consider another plan besides home birth, or what. 

From checking my cervix, my midwife Jennifer and I both tended to think that the baby was asynclitic – meaning his head was tilted to the side and it wasn’t putting even pressure on my cervix to open it.  Only strong contractions would bring him into proper alignment. 

At 41 weeks and 3 days (Wednesday, May 15), I reached the end of the road.  Jennifer came over to check my blood pressure and other vitals.  My BP was way too high – 185/100, twice.  We talked over our options.  At 42 weeks, licensed homebirth midwives in Tennessee are required to take their clients for a Biophysical Profile, which is a cluster of tests on the baby that measure how well he is holding up in there.  The vast majority of women do not return from this test and are induced after the BPP.  Jennifer asked if I was willing to go in for a BPP the next morning, with the knowledge that I was most likely walking into a hospital induction.  I agreed.  Since I would have to do it in a few days anyway, why not just go ahead? 

But there was one old wives’ tale that I hadn’t yet attempted.  The dreaded castor oil.  I decided that tonight was the night, as I was staring down the barrel of another pitocin-drenched birth.  I took a tablespoon at seven pm, Jennifer came over and stripped my membranes one more time, and I started cleaning the house – trying to stay upright and get some good contractions going.  The castor oil wasn’t too bad.  I chased it with apricot nectar so I didn’t taste it.  It had the consistency of what I imagine motor oil might be like?  It’s a strong stimulant laxative that is really supposed to give you kicking diarrhea.  I had one measly, normal BM.  I figured I was immune to the stuff.  I took the dog for a long walk, paid the bills, did some laundry, and thought about packing for the hospital (Vicki was already with her grandparents for the night).  I took one more tablespoon of castor oil at 11 pm and lay down to rest. 

At about 1:00 in the morning, I rushed to the bathroom for the awful diarrhea I had been promised.  But it still didn’t really feel like labor.  After finishing up, I went back to bed and slept a bit longer, even though I felt some cramping.  At 3:00 or so, I woke up and could no longer rest comfortably through the cramping and contractions I was feeling.  Now THIS was labor.

I tried to take a bath.   The pain got more and more severe, very quickly.  I tried to stand up.  I tried to sit down.  I tried to rock back and forth, I tried to drape myself over a stack of pillows.  The contractions were coming so fast, I had no idea what to do.  I must have been having them every thirty seconds, lasting about a minute?  I couldn’t get my head together to time them.  I felt like I was losing it and I surely needed to get to the hospital.  My main thought was, If this lasts for ten more hours, I will die.  Finally, I texted my friend Stephanie who was going to support me through the birth, and midwife Jennifer.  It was about 4:17, according to my text log.  I texted them both:  “Come immediately.  Want hospital want drugs.  Can’t cope with this.”  They both responded that they would come right away.  I waited for what felt like hours.  I cursed them both, wondering if they fell back asleep.  I looked at my phone.  It had been six minutes. 

Steph got here first.  She had never witnessed a birth, and I apologized that this was going to cause her to never want children.  To her great credit, she was amazing.  Although I could tell she was scared by the drama of it.  All I could do was lean against the kitchen counter and yell “No, No, No, No.”  I cried to God to help me and save me.  The pain and pressure were so intense. 

Jennifer arrived shortly.  She could tell through the door, as she waited on my front porch, by my yelling and carrying on that this wasn’t going to last much longer.  I was either having a baby or going to the hospital.  I had a few more contractions before she could get me to lie down and check my cervix.  It was totally gone.  It was time to push!  Within a couple contractions I felt an unbearable urge to bear down.  I was standing up, leaning against the side of my bed.  Four or five pushes later, and baby Todd was born!  There was a huge gush of fluid as his head unstopped my water.  It was 5:06 am.  I had been awake for two hours. 

Todd’s shoulders were broad and he didn’t want to turn them correctly.  Jennifer had me push and pulled him out quickly.  He was big!  8 pounds, 12 ounces.  He looked so huge compared to Vicki when she was born (7lb1oz).  She wasn’t that size until she was almost 8 weeks old!

He had his thumb from the very start!  

I had trouble birthing the placenta, which was very large as well.  It took me about an hour and it was very painful.  They had to push and prod at my abdomen a lot.  I was so panicked because I thought the pain was going to be over when the baby was born!  No such luck!  After two shots of pitocin in the thigh to clamp down my bleeding, I was finally able to push it out. 

Stephanie had been holding the baby while I was delivering the placenta.  He hollered and screamed from the second he came out – very healthy and pink.  He had the “look” that overdue babies sometimes have:  long fingernails, dry skin, wrinkled hands and feet, thinning hair.  He was definitely fully cooked!

I felt great.  I didn’t have any tearing or need stitches.  I felt very tired, of course, and sore in all my muscles.  The birth had been so intense that I could hardly believe it.  I had what is called a “precipitous birth.”  This is the kind of thing where ladies have their babies on the sidewalk.  I was so lucky that Jennifer lives just around the corner!  Bobbi, our other midwife, didn’t make it in time. 

I am so thankful for the level of skill and care that our midwives showed to me.  They truly became friends and confidantes as they walked with me through a very difficult time.  There are unfortunate circumstances at play, of course.  But what has been so amazing is the goodness and grace that God has shown our family through it all.  I have had friends and family at my beck and call since Todd’s birth.  Someone stays with me every night.  People take Vicki to and from her school each day.  They bring me whatever food I want. 

In the brief time of Todd’s birth, I had to face my emotions about some very real evil that has come into my life.  I believe now that that is what was keeping me from birthing for so long.  And in labor, as I screamed “No!  No!  No!” I was declaring my opposition to this evil.  God is so good, and has given me another healthy baby and birth.  I have so much for which to be thankful, even in the midst of evil and suffering.  

brewer(ish) diet updates

I wanted to give a check-in on how our (as in, me and fetus) diet is doing this time around.  I really appreciated the emphasis on sound nutrition and whole foods that the Brewer Diet offered, when we learned about it as part of our Bradley classes.  What I didn't love was the scrutiny I had to pay toward how many grams of protein I was eating per day, checking foods off a list, and feeling some guilt about eating Chinese takeout now and again okay a lot.  There was a great deal of accountability because we had to turn our diet checklists in to our Bradley instructor each week, and she gave us feedback on what we should have more or less of.

I decided that for this second pregnancy, I would continue to implement the principles (many of which have just become a way of life for me now) of the Brewer Diet, without the strict attention to a very proscripted diet.

It turns out the accountability became an easy thing for me, because my own body is providing very clear checks on what I should or shouldn't be eating!  If I slip on my good diet for a few days, I feel awful.  Digestive troubles, low energy, skin breaking out, sore.  If I have too much salt or restaurant food, I puff up like a little muffin.

So, here's a sort of "day in the life," where I give you a snapshot of what and how I'm trying to eat.

Breakfast:  two pasture-raised eggs mixed with a little raw milk and salt, and scrambled in butter.  A slice of homemade toast with butter.  A clementine.  Coffee with a lot of raw milk.  Pregnancy tea.  I eat this same thing literally almost every morning.  I never get sick of eggs, toast, and coffee.  Sometimes I have fruit, sometimes not.  Sometimes I put tiny cubes of cheese in with the eggs to melt.  Sometimes I add bacon.  Every couple weeks or so I make pancakes so the family doesn't die of boredom. I figure that the fact that I eat this every day, and never get sick of it, and in fact crave it in the morning, means that this meal is doing really good things for my body.

Mid-morning snack:  At a meeting.  Homemade crackers, a few slices of cheese, some carrot sticks.

Lunch:  leftover cider-braised pork chop and cabbage.  Smoothie made with strawberries, banana, peaches and yogurt.

Supper:  taco salad.  Tortilla chips, shredded lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, salsa, and ground beef and kidney beans with my special house taco seasoning.  Milk chai.  (I've been making our own chai concentrate and it is divine.  Recipe to come soon.)  (Also, sorry - I don't know that there's an attractive way to photograph taco salad.  It is just not a dish known for its beauty.)

what to eat when you're expecting

When I was pregnant with Vicki Jo, we took a 12-week childbirth education course called the Bradley Method of Husband-Coached Childbirth. I really drank the kool aid on this one. It was such a formative experience for us as a couple. It impacted our childbirth experience dramatically, and resulted in a group of close friends (who I sadly left behind when we moved from Kansas to Tennessee).

The Bradley Method has strong nutritional guidelines for a healthy pregnancy and the avoidance of complications (recognizing that nothing can be fail-safe!). These guidelines rely heavily on the work of Dr. Tom Brewer. Here is a fantastic interview with him in which he details his history, his research, his findings, and his recommendations.

The three important things to remember about the Brewer diet are: (1) adequate protein; (2) salt to taste; (3) sufficient calories. These three things must go together. I think a lot of us using the diet get caught up on the protein part. But, by itself, it will not give the same benefits as the whole diet.

Hear me out, though. I know that there is no magic solution to the problems that can develop in pregnancy. I myself had high blood pressure and possible pre-eclampsia, in spite of following this diet pretty closely for most of my pregnancy. (I did eat out a ton and eat a lot more processed foods at that point, and my groceries were not very "clean," in terms of free-range, pastured, naturally grown, raw dairy, etc.) But I guess my reasoning is, How can eating very well, and not making any room for junk, be a bad idea when you're pregnant? It's not like I found following this diet so painful and onerous that I just didn't want to do it if it didn't "work" for me.

Okay, the nitty-gritty. The Brewer diet for pregnancy is:
*2 eggs daily
*1 quart milk daily (or 4 servings of dairy such as cheese, yogurt, ice cream)
*2 reasonably sized (3 oz or so) portions of meat or fish daily
*2 servings of something fresh, leafy and dark green (broccoli, dark lettuces, greens, kale, cabbage)
*4 servings of whole grain bread daily (cornbread, whole wheat, corn tortillas)
*1 vitamin C food daily (citrus, tomato, papaya, cantaloupe, strawberries, green pepper)
*3 servings of fat daily
*a yellow or orange vegetable five times weekly
*a baked potato three times weekly
*liver weekly

This is the uncomplicated outline that doesn't make my brain hurt. At the Brewer website, you can find extensive amounts of information about where different foods fall.

Things have been a little touch-and-go on the diet for this far. First thing: I don't really think it's necessary to have all that food (especially all the grains and all the servings of dairy) in the first trimester. The variety of fruits, veggies, protein, eggs, dairy - that's good. The growing fetus needs all those vitamins to build a skeleton and rudimentary organs.

But now I'm just about to second trimester (for the record - I think trimesters are kind of a load of crap. Women had babies for a whole lot of years before they knew what "trimester" they were in, and there is nothing about the baby's development that changes so distinctly between 12 and 13 weeks, or 27 and 28 weeks, know what I mean?). Time for young fetus to grow. To put on muscle and grow strong bones, he will need protein and calcium. Bring out the milk and meat.

Wondering what it looks like? Here's a "day in the life" (which may or may not ever have actually happened on a real day in my actual life):

Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled in butter, wheat toast, strawberries, milk
Lunch: big green salad with leftover sliced steak, homemade honey mustard dressing, cheese
Snack: crackers, yogurt dip
Dinner: salmon, carrots, brown rice, milk
Snack: ice cream

growing something big!

Oh friends.  How I have wanted to tell you about this for so long.  And yet . . . having known so many who have suffered the heartache of miscarriage, I held off for the traditional 12-week waiting period to be over.  We have heard a heartbeat.  I know that disaster could still strike (nothing is taken for granted in this journey), but I wanted to wait until the likelihood was lower.   

We are going to have another baby!!!!!!

FAQ's on new baby:

Was it a surprise?
Yes.  Not going to give any more details than that, but we were not anticipating having another child just yet.  Jeff, the eternal optimist, says, "Awesome!  All the kids will be out of the house before we're fifty!"  (We hope.)

How do you feel?
Physically:  Great!  As with Vicki Jo, first trimester seems to present no problems for me.  No nausea, no soreness or tenderness anywhere.  I seem to be one of those women for whom the cocktail of hormones present in pregnancy brings about really good well-being.  The one side effect I experienced last time, fatigue, even seems to have stayed away so far.  Although, I was joking with our midwives that "tired" is a very relative term, and now, with one young child, we operate on kind of a different plane than we did before.  Exhausted may just be my way of life!

Emotionally:  Pretty good.  We have gone through some of the "how will we pay for this - where will this baby's space be in our small home - how will needy and sensitive Vicki Jo adjust to this - how can I take maternity leave from my very busy job - am I ready for the physical rigors of carrying another child" freak-outs.  But I have a great feeling of assurance.  It must be the Holy Spirit.  I know now that I can expand to fill roles that I never knew about before.  I ran into an acquaintance awhile ago who kind of summed it up for me:  "You guys don't do anything halfway, huh?"  Yep.  Leave it to us to get married, graduate from school, find jobs, move 600 miles away, get pregnant, have a baby, get ordained, find other jobs, move 600 miles again, buy a house, put an addition on that house, and get pregnant again.  Within three years.  

Boy or girl?
Not going to find out until birth.

Due date?
April or May.  Not really going down the route of announcing a certain date, even to myself or our family.

Plans for care?
Barring any complications, we are going to have a home birth!  Our hospital experience at Vicki Jo's birth was not bad, but it left both of us feeling that there was nothing about it that we couldn't have done much more comfortably at home.  Also, I love the approach of pregnancy and birth being normal life stages for women, not special events that need medical management.  We interviewed several midwife teams, and the one we picked is superb.  Jennifer, Marilyn and Bobbi have mountains of experience, make us feel totally at ease, and are tuned in to my wavelength of food as medicine and using herbs and natural remedies to try to ease pregnancy complaints.

Tennessee has the benefit of the Farm Midwifery Center, founded by Ina May Gaskin, so there are about a gazillion home birth midwives here.  In fact, there is a separate certification for them - the CPM (Certified Professional Midwife).  It involves rigorous training and hundreds of hours of observation and experience.  I feel totally confident that these women know how to handle a low-risk pregnancy and birth.

Jennifer, Marilyn and Bobbi have just set up a practice in East Nashville, about six blocks from our house!  I walked there with Vicki Jo and the pup the other day.  It's lovely.  I will do all my prenatal visits there, except the one at 36 weeks, which they do in our home.  

Second pregnancy compared to first?
Totally different for me.  If there was one song to define my first pregnancy, it would be U2's "In a Little While," especially the chorus of "slow down my beating heart."  There was a nervous, heart-fluttering, shallow-breath anxiety about my whole first pregnancy, from the time I saw "pregnant' on the stick to holding Vicki Jo against my chest, shivering.  It was something I just couldn't shake, despite all my preparation, meditation, and knowledge that the stress was harmful for both of us.  I just don't feel that this time.  At all.  I feel relaxed and at peace.  I don't need a sonogram to tell me a due date.  I don't need to look at a thousand books and websites to see how big my baby is today.  I just work, play, rest and eat as normal.  I have always been someone who likes to repeat experiences, because I know I will do better at them after the first time.  Pregnancy seems to be no different. 

Also, this time, my job is much less demanding (time-wise) and stressful than my prior appointment.  My diet has improved drastically (I cook almost all of our food, we eat grass-fed meats from local farms, drink raw dairy from a farm in Kentucky, and eat cooked and fresh vegetables from gardens and farms, I don't eat nearly as many grains and empty starches as I used to, I drink and eat a lot of fermented foods, and I'm working on getting fish oil into my diet daily).  I'm roughly following the Brewer diet again (embracing principles without the crazy protein counting), although much of it has just become second nature.  For example, I have eaten two eggs scrambled in butter every morning for the last year, so I haven't had to struggle to fit in the two eggs each day that the Brewer diet recommends.

I am working on walking about an hour each day, usually with Vicki Jo on my back and the pup by my side.  If we can scrape together the money, I will take prenatal yoga each week at the local studio (would be a great Christmas present, family members who are reading!), have monthly acupuncture at our community clinic (only $15 per session!), and have monthly massages.  We are contemplating taking another Bradley class, as well, to refresh our skills and to meet other expectant couples.  Again, not sure if we can cover the cost.

Well, I have given you the exhaustive run-down.  We are so happy.  We were and are a bit stunned, but giddy with the love that is growing inside and between us. 

Between five and six weeks at the in-laws' house.

Between eight and nine weeks at the office.



Coming up on eleven weeks.

the doctors

I was thinking this morning about the various doctors that have become very important to me in the last two years. 

Education has always been a paramount value in my family.  In many ways, it was the fundamental core principle around which we were raised.  If school was going well, all else was pretty much negotiable.  My brother and I both hold master's degrees, and my sister has two bachelors.  I'm considering a doctorate, but . . . another post, another time.  Seriously, though.  I was largely allowed to run amok in the neighborhood so long as I maintained excellent grades.

So I tend to trust those people with letters after their names.  Even though I went to a college where I saw firsthand that money tended to "create" a lot of intelligence in people who perhaps didn't have the full complement of skills for the positions they'd inherited.  Even though I know that education in our nation has been inflated such that the bachelor's degree is the new diploma.  Something about the sheer commitment it takes to finish a doctoral program speaks to me about a person's character.

And these particular four doctors came into my life around the advent of my daughter.  I cackle to myself when I think about my ignorance just a few short years ago.  Don't get me wrong - I am no parenting expert!  Far from it!  But I feel like, because of their research and knowledge (much of it casually dismissed when they were first producing it), I have a set of guidelines, or maybe ideals, to cling to when I'm tossed in the stormy sea of infant parentdom.

Dr. Bradley:  Revolutionized my understanding of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.  And provided me with an excellent group of friends, to boot.  And created a common language around birth for my husband and myself. 

Dr. Brewer:  Although recent evidence suggests that pre-eclampsia is a disorder of the placenta that is present from the very first weeks of pregnancy, I have no doubt that Dr. Brewer's diet protected me from an even more dangerous situation for my child and myself.  Following his guidelines probably staved off the worst part of this disease for me, and kept symptoms at bay until the very end of my pregnancy.

Dr. Montessori:  Following my child through her planes of development, I have Maria Montessori to thank for introducing me to a community of parents who care so deeply about the world that they want their children to become contributors to their fullest potential.  My child is already capable of amazing things, simply because Montessori taught me to observe her and offer her opportunities to be independent.

Dr. Price:  If Montessori helped me understand the child's intellectual development, Dr. Price helped me understand the physical development of my child, even on a molecular level.  Thanks to his research, I don't feed my child cereal (she can't digest it), and I give her chicken broth to drink (it is a healing remedy for the gut).  Yes, it's odd.  But if you really commit and open yourself, his principles make a lot of sense.  Just not for vegans.

These whitecoats have all marked turning points in my relationship with my baby.  I am so thankful for coming into contact with their knowledge, even if sometimes they leave me despairing that I will never reach the full potential that their ideas can offer.

on my shelf: husband-coached childbirth

Today I will give the second installment of those books that I've found indispensable in birthing and raising a child thus far.  To see some of my other book reviews, check out this link and these three links.  But today, we're going back to the start.

I first got turned on to the crazy genius of Dr. Bradley way back in my first year of Divinity School.  The wife of a fellow student posted a flier advertising for her Bradley classes, and my interest was piqued.  This was a woman whose prowess in child-bearing and -rearing I really respect, and I knew that she had done it naturally and was embracing a similar kind of lifestyle to what I hoped for our family someday.  So I started poking around on our great big internet, and found out the basic facts.

Dr. Robert Bradley was an obstetrician who practiced in the mid-twentieth century.  He had grown up on a farm and was convinced from watching animal births that birth didn't have to be the painful, frightening experience that our culture insists that it is.  Animals appeared to give birth without pain, after making careful preparations and entering into total relaxation.  So, he started practicing with low-income single mothers and the results were astonishing.  By teaching some very specific techniques and fulfilling six basic needs of the laboring woman, the vast majority of women under his care were able to give birth without any medication or intervention.  So, he passed on his knowledge to a family called the Hathaways, who really became the big Bradley evangelizers.

Jeff and I found a Bradley class in our area that was starting up right at my twentieth week of pregnancy.  The class goes for twelve weeks, two hours per class (although our chatty class frequently stretched into three hours and more!) - making it one of the longest and most comprehensive childbirth preparation classes.  It was the best choice we made in all of our pregnancy.  Our instructor, Amber, was so deeply knowledgeable and passionate about birth and maintaining the health of the pregnant woman.

The book that goes along with the course is called Husband-Coached Childbirth.  Say what you will about the title (old-fashioned, not everyone who has a baby has a husband, etc), but the book is fantastic.

The book is charming and kooky.  Dr. Bradley starts to feel like your slightly crazy but brilliant great-uncle.  He has theories on why women shouldn't wear underwear.  He encourages husbands and expectant wives to continue their intimacy with enthusiasm (and detail!).  But when it comes down to it, he reduced his rate of intervention and surgery to what was absolutely required by the biological statistics.  There are situations where a cesarean is absolutely necessary, but only about three percent of the time.  That was his rate.

He outlines nutrition, exercise, all stages of labor and birth, and what you can expect emotionally and physically in the period immediately following birth.  His was the book that I made sure I had on my nightstand as the baby and I were recovering in bed.

And, as I've noted elsewhere, the class really bonded us together.  Jeff and I got closer, he became totally sold on the notion of natural childbirth and became my greatest supporter and coach, and our class has enjoyed some great times together and continues to meet regularly for playgroup and cookouts.  Because of the nature of the class, the moms that I'm now friends with have great insights for me.  And we owe it all to Dr. Bradley!

Seriously, if you're at all interested in returning to some of the biological roots of childbirth, and birthing in relaxation and total knowledge of what is happening, read this book.  Take a class if you can, but if you can't, at least read the book.  There will be parts that have you shaking your head and giggling, but you will walk away with an incredible foundation, and wonder why your doctor didn't tell you this stuff.

we women

My friend Betsy is great about posing questions to me about Scripture and Christian culture.  Lately, she sent me an email saying, essentially, "What do you think about all that stuff Paul said about women not being in charge?  And there being categorical differences between men and women beyond biology?"

I had to think long and hard about my response.

I used to be really incensed by Paul's attitude, and a more general stance in Christianity, that women and men had different capabilities, and that women needed to submit to men.  I still totally disagree with the last part about submission, but being pregnant and having a small child has changed me.  Struggling through the fact that, despite modern advances in medicine, carrying and delivering a child is something that can kill you.  And then, the continual weight you feel in being solely responsible for the feeding of a tiny being who could conceivably die if you don't do it right.  These things tend to change a person.  I am no exception.

I was always one who had more guy friends than girl friends.  For some reason, I've always been drawn to the company of men.  I like the way that they joke, they don't fuss at each other, and the way that plans seem to come together more effortlessly than with a group of women.  I have always struggled to find a good group of girlfriends (one of the reasons I joined a sorority - one of my favorite surprise game-changers in conversation with people!).

So, when I found out I was pregnant, there was so much I wanted to talk about . . . and guys just aren't the right audience.  No one was rude, or told me I was gross, but there was just a mismatch in the conversation.  After all, no men had any experience they could offer me firsthand.  And as things progressed, I needed women even more.  As I was scared about the complications at the end of my pregnancy, made it through the travails of labor, and went through some dark times in establishing good growth for my breastfed baby, I mostly just felt like I needed my mom.

But that wasn't possible, because she had died six years earlier.  So, enter this woman:

This is my sister, Nelle (on the right.  That's your truly on the left).  She is seven and a half years older than me, and has a son who is almost four.  She also had a baby on January 1 (the first baby born at their hospital in the new year . . . she got so much free stuff), so we were able to compare notes.  We talk and text daily, and she has coached me through this whole motherhood thing with ease and grace.  She's also a registered nurse, so she has medical expertise to add to sisterly caring.  I could not have made it to this point with any sanity if she wasn't around.

And enter these women:

This is our Bradley birth class - after we'd all been through the marathon we trained for together!  Amber, our teacher, is on the far right.  Amber truly became more than a teacher to me.  She was there to address all my crazy questions and fears no matter what time of night.  She offered continually to come to my home and help me work through plans for labor.  She is someone who is deeply invested in making sure women know the power they have in bringing children into the world.  And the other women in our group have become such a great support for me.  With the addition of other members with young babies from La Leche League, neighborhoods, and friends of friends, we have a fantastic playgroup that meets weekly for advice, sharing, and just being there for one another.  My baby is the youngest of the group, so I get lots of hand-me-down clothes, as well as a good dose of "it's going to be okay my baby went through that phase too."

So, although Mom isn't here with me now, I know that her spirit comes to me in these other women.  And my mind has changed a little bit about Paul.  Women truly do experience things that men can never know.  It doesn't make us worse or better, but it makes us need one another.

vicki jo

Well, the time has come.  I have more to say than I can fit into a Facebook status, and I feel like some folks think my commentary and theories on things are worthwhile, so I'm going into blogging.  If you don't want to read it, you don't have to!  That's the beauty of this format.  I have a neat little system set up for topics, but today, we're starting with the single most important thing that has ever happened to me:  I helped a baby enter the world.

Let me tell you how it happened.

Pregnancy had gone swimmingly for me up until the last ten weeks or so.  Seriously - no morning sickness, no nighttime bathroom visits, I even LOST weight in the first trimester (probably because I had to stop drinking beer).  However, around thirty weeks, my blood pressure started creeping up.  I began retaining a lot of fluid.  My feet, hands, wrists and face were very swollen.  Jeff and I had taken a Bradley birth class (best thing ever - please take one if you are even remotely interested in natural pregnancy and childbirth), so I wasn't stupid.  I knew that this was probably spelling pre-eclampsia, which properly terrified me. 

Our midwives, who are amazing people, didn't push me into an induction as some medical professionals might have done.  Instead, they took a "conservative observation" stance and ordered lots of tests to make sure my organs and the baby were all holding up well.  The non-stress and protein tests were all coming back good, and although I was advised to spend as much time as possible laying on my side, I agreed to meet my stepdad and his wife for dinner on Friday, April 1.  I was thirty-nine weeks and one day - six days until they had been telling me this baby would make her appearance.

As I was walking out to my car to drive across town and meet them, I saw two boys riding their bikes down the street.  I squinted into the evening sun and waved to them.  Simultaneously, my right foot missed the final step onto our driveway, and I fell with all my gigantic pregnant weight full onto my belly.  I had my cell phone in one hand and my purse in the other, so my belly truly broke my fall.  The two bike-riding boys sped over to help me, and people poured out of the sketchy house across the street.  Never in my life have I been so grateful for the suspiciously high turnover of people at that house - they all wanted to call an ambulance for me!  I declined and drove myself the five blocks to the hospital, completely terrified, sobbing, covered in dirt and blood from my scratches, and not feeling the baby move.

When I arrived at St. Francis, I looked like a bedraggled tweedle-dee.  I presented myself at Labor and Delivery and told them my story, taking those big heaving ragged sob-breaths.  They hooked me up to a monitor for observation.  Rita, my amazing nurse, calmed me down and told me the baby's heart rate was fantastic.  I slowly began to feel her move again.  They wanted to keep me for two hours, to make sure everything was okay.  I felt like that was unnecessary - I still wanted to go eat dinner, as I was pregnant and starving.  But they kept me.  Finally, I was allowed to get up and go.  But, when I stood up, I felt like I had peed my pants.  I knew that this could not possibly have happened without my noticing.  I told Rita, and she had my lay back down and check on this mystery fluid.

Pretty soon the mystery was solved - it was amniotic fluid, and we needed to get ready for the baby to be here!  I was totally floored.  This was not what I had planned, I had not felt a single contraction, Braxton-Hicks or otherwise, and I knew from my recent visits to the midwives that I was not in a good place for an induction.  My cervix was high and closed, and trying to force the baby out would very likely end in surgery - my personal nightmare.  Because of my high blood pressure, I knew I would be confined to bed, on my left side, for the duration of labor.  Hospital policy was that the baby needed to be out within 24 hours, one way or another, or infection could begin to set in because of my broken waters.  I began to wish I had never drawn attention to my amniotic fluid situation and just been able to go home.  But it was too late.  I called Jeff, who was thrilled to get this baby show on the road.  It was about 6:00 on April 1.

They hooked me up to the many machines that would become my constant companions for the next 20 hours.  IV, which was awful and made me feel like I couldn't bend my right arm; fetal monitor, which was awful and had to be dragged with me on my next 132890 trips to the bathroom; blood pressure cuff, which was awful and automatically squeezed my arm annoyingly hard every two minutes whether I was contracting or not.  In case you can't tell, Jeff and I are planning a homebirth for next time.

Jeff soon arrived, jazzed about his role as my Bradley coach.  We read through our birth plan with our nurses - the first six or seven items were already moot!  Although we knew an induction was likely because I was not in any kind of active labor, we were still totally committed to making it through without any other medications.  My generous midwives gave me until two the next morning to see if labor might kickstart on its own before starting the hellish Pitocin.  I did crosswords, Jeff rested, and I even managed to close my eyes a little bit.  I visualized my body opening and the baby emerging.  I breathed deeply and willed my body to work calmly and effectively.  At two, they checked on me, and I had made some progress on my own!!  I hadn't really felt a contraction still, so I was shocked.  I was allowed to go on by myself, in dark and calm and quiet, until five that morning.  At that point, I had made no further progress, so Pitocin was started in my IV line.

It wasn't so bad at first.  The nurse had been instructed to turn up the level of the drug every 20 minutes until I started pushing, but she had mercy on me in my unmedicated state and let it stay low as long as I was making progress.  The contractions came hard and fast from the start, not at all like what I had heard natural labor was like.  Honestly, what it felt like to me was that I had taken 20 laxative pills and was waiting for the damage to begin.  Jeff coached me beautifully, although the stopwatch soon had to go because the beeping was driving me mad.  We relaxed fully into each contraction.  I continued to picture my body opening and softening. 

We labored this way for about eight hours.  I was making good progress, and then the midwife showed up.  She had the nurse begin to turn the Pitocin up as she had been instructed.  Things started to get a little hairy.  My low vocalizations, which had been extremely effective at helping me through contractions and in communicating with Jeff where I was at, pain-wise, stopped being so effective (or low).  I felt like an animal screeching in pain.  I began to ask about my options for pain relief.  I was offered stadol or an epidural.  We declined the epidural, but I took a shot of stadol into my IV line.  Stadol is a narcotic that lessens your perception of the pain you are feeling.  For me, it didn't relieve the pain, but it allowed me to relax more fully between contractions.  It also made me trip out.  I was picturing all these colors.  I felt like I was at a Pink Floyd laser light show.  I was telling Jeff about the chickens we were raising (they aren't real), and how we needed to feed them.  I was seeing contractions as shapes and colors.  Honestly, it was pretty awesome!  It took my mind off what was happening.  The stadol lasted about an hour, and then it was time to push!  I had insisted that the nurse check me, because something felt different - and I was right! 

Pushing was very difficult for me.  I think it was because the baby remained very high even when my cervix was totally open.  It took about two hours.  The first half-hour or so I didn't really push with my whole force, so I imagine that time was kind of wasted.  Once I got the hang of pushing, things got better.  I had to get to the point where I understood that I needed to push until it felt like my eyes were going to bulge out of my head.  That was what got the job done.  I was supposed to wait for contractions to push, but I just started inventing them so I could get the experience over with.  Also increasing my frustration during second stage was that I felt like the circus had come to town.  For almost all of labor, it had been just me, Jeff and occasionally our nurse.  It had been dark and cool and calm and quiet.  Now, suddenly, there was the midwife and the nurse and the midwife's assistant and probably a few other people all staring at me and there was a bright light pulled down from the ceiling and many people touching and encouraging me.  They all meant well, but I just wanted to be alone.  They also kept telling me I was almost there, when in reality it was another hour before the baby was born!  I felt falsely encouraged.  As you can tell, my perceptions were also in a strange, faraway labor-land.  Finally, her head emerged!  I remember shouting, "What do I do now?"  I didn't want it to go back in and lose the progress!  They told me to push again.  I felt lots of bumpy lumpy slithering, and her body came out!!  She was born.  I was elated.  I felt absolutely exhilarated.  My heart was pumping and my adrenaline was up.  I was sure that I would cry in this moment, but I didn't at all.  I felt very far from tears.  I was enthused, energized, ready to conquer the next challenge.  It was 4:32 pm on Saturday, April 2.  I had only been in active labor for eleven hours!

My memories after that fog up, but I know that Jeff was the one who began to tear up.  He had to go take a walk to release some of his pent-up energy. His mom was outside the room, and she came into visit her first grandchild.  They cut the cord after awhile, and waited several hours to weigh her and clean her.  I began our first attempt at nursing (funny to think about now, as it is something that is absolutely second nature).  Jeff brought me a taco salad - the first thing I had been allowed to eat in over a day.  My stepdad and his wife brought us flowers.  I had to be stitched up because I had a good-sized natural tear.  I just held the baby close, with lots of blankets wrapping us up.  I shook a lot - they told me this was normal as my circulatory system was adjusting to the lack of baby in my body.  Vicki Jo Grammer was 7 pounds and 1 ounce, 18 1/4 inches.  I think she was not ready to be born yet, or she would have been a little bigger.  But, she really didn't have a lot of choice in the matter the way it turned out.

Everyone says that labor and birth won't go the way you plan it, and I knew that was going to be true.  However, this was really, really far from what I had pictured happening.  It makes quite a story, and one that I will be so proud to tell Vicki when she is old enough to ask how she came into the world.  I am convinced that we owe our lack of surgery to the methods and techniques we learned in our Bradley class.  My body cooperated with the Pitocin because I willed it to relax and open.  The low, moaning, droning vocalizations were especially helpful in making it through contractions.  And, I could absolutely not have held it together without Jeff.  After all these years, he is very skilled in talking me down, and he displayed his talent in it for hours on end.  I always knew we were a great team, and this was our single most shining moment of partnership.