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When I first got pregnant I was fully on board the epidural wagon. I joked about how they could just go ahead and administer it into my spine on my way out of the car in the parking lot. "I don't want anything to do with that pain," I said. My opinion on this has since changed for various reasons. My pain relief preferences in the delivery room are not something I regularly discuss with my friends. My life is not like a Nuva Ring commercial where I sit around with my girlfriends and all of a sudden we start discussing our birth control preferences and potential side effects. In fact, I have mostly avoided discussing the issue with my friends because I don't think it's really any of their business (seeing as they're not going to be in the delivery room let alone the one pushing the baby out), but also because when it DID come up and I DID happen to mention in passing that I was going to try to deliver without the epidural, I was immediately pegged as "nuts." This is one decision that was solely mine to make and one decision I truly did not want other people's opinions on, BUT now that it's out and I've officially been deemed as crazy, I figured I'd write a little blog about it.
My decision to TRY to forego the epidural (and I emphasize TRY because I never said I was absolutely positively going to do this without pain relief - just that I would like to give it a go. If I do decide the pain is more than I can bear, I'm not going to beat myself up for asking for the epidural halfway through labor) - the decision initially came with the knowledge I obtained in the childbirth class my husband and I took. It's not due to the potential side effects of the epidural that rarely anyone ever experiences, but rather what I learned about child birth itself. Apart from believing myself to have a rather high tolerance for pain, our bodies are pretty well equipped for child birth. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that a woman's body is designed for child birth. I think a lot of the hype for the epidural comes from women doubting their ability to withstand the pain - if you set yourself up for failure, you increase the chances that you'll fail. The thought of delivery is nothing short of terrifying for a lot of women and the epidural offers a modicum of relief from that fear.
The epidural is a relatively new phenomenon. For centuries women give birth without it. I am in awe of the pioneer women who used to just pull over on the side of their wagon trains, throw up a tent with their midwife in tow, and voila, a baby! If that doesn't demand some respect, I don't know what does (it brings to mind Stewie in "Family Guy" saying, "Imagine the nads on the guys who did this in a wagon! Pioneers, Brian! We share their spirit! Manifest Destiny!"). I truly have more faith in myself than to think I should immediately turn to pain killers, and if my friends think I'm "nuts" for that, well, I guess it's a good thing they get to make THEIR own decision when the time comes. I appreciate their rash judgment against myself on the issue though.
Finally, aside from having faith in myself when it comes to delivery, I also have complete faith in my husband as my birthing coach. To say I made the decision to forego the epidural completely by myself would be inaccurate; Matt was a large part of the decision as well. He expressed an eagerness to be as much a part of the birth as possible and standing idly by while I get a relief from a small tube in my back isn't exactly partaking in the miracle of the birth of our son. After 9 unbelievably long months of having to be the one to carry around our son, I am thrilled to be able to have Matt share a large and important part of it. Ultimately I didn't know what to expect when I mentioned to Matt that I would kind of like to try delivery without the epidural, but he was so fully on board, it was just a reminder of why I love this man so much in the first place.
SO my friends may think I'm nuts, but I prefer to think of myself as tough. Everyone's different and when the time comes that they're pregnant and about to deliver, whatever decision they make in regards to their pain options will be what works best for them. I made my decision for me.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Stubborn, Just like his Daddy
Today I am 38 weeks and 4 days, so I know that I really don't have too much room to complain since I DO technically still have 9 days left till the "official" due date. Nonetheless, it seems like all I do these days is complain (especially since I got my hopes all high over what was apparently not my show): I don't sleep hardly at all anymore, I can't get comfortable no matter what, Roger still hasn't dropped so my rib cage is still being battered on a regular basis, I get winded walking from room to room. My lamenting is endless; my husband's patience is infinite. Whatever the case of my uterus may be, it would seem the little man is perfectly content staying right where he is - he's stubborn, just like his daddy.
Just about everyone seems convinced that he's going to come this week though since he's "not allowed" to come on the 12th (for lengthy uninteresting reasons pertaining to my husband), and I'm not exactly rooting for Friday the 13th, his dates are pretty well limited to sometime in the next 3 days or some time over the weekend. My dad is sold on the 14th because he's a big believer in Murphy's Law and he'll be out of town. I'm starting to lean somewhere more toward, oh, September time frame. My oh-woe-is-me mindset has lead me to believe that I will, quite literally, be pregnant forever. The second trimester went by so quickly - too quickly even - and now all of a sudden it's as if time has just... stopped. I will be the perpetual pregnant woman.
This weekend we finally finished up the nursery (which was started somewhere around week 20, furniture was eagerly built right after the baby shower around week 26, and then the room was pretty well procrastinated until we recently realized that it was probably somewhat important that we finish it before the arrival of our little man). I'm THRILLED over the letters (which my handy husband cut himself with his jig saw and which I painted).
I am, however, massively disappointed in the curtains. Admittedly I was somewhat upset over the general lime greenness of them when they first arrived, BUT once they were up - well, they don't look so bad. In fact, the lime green works kind of nicely; it adds a kick of color to the room. As for the curtains being "black out" curtains (which is why I specifically purchased these curtains), well... their capabilities in that aspect are up for debate. While they definitely do keep the room darker than the vertical blinds they replaced, "black out" is not how I would describe what they do. Maybe more of a "green out"? The curtains came with some pretty extensive literature boasting their temperature-controlling, sound-canceling, black-outing quality, and I'm hard pressed to say they do any of these things. I understand that no curtains can "completely block out 100% of the light," but these curtains don't even seem to block out the 99% they claim to be capable of blocking out. The picture in the brochure compares the black out curtains to regular curtains, showing how much light streams through the fabric of the regular curtains whereas it can't even penetrate the twill fabric of the black out curtains. Um, yeah. There's PLENTY of light coming through the fabric of these curtains - it's definitely not just from the small gaps above and below the curtains. I WILL admit that the room is definitely pitch black at night (black enough to strike horror in Roger's heart when he's old enough to be afraid of the dark. I see night lights in our future), but as soon as that sun starts peaking over the horizon... well, maybe we shouldn't have made the east-facing room the nursery.
SO 9 days till D-day and counting. Perhaps we can try to entice him out now that we've finished his room? Probably not. For not even being his own entity yet, I can already tell he's going to share a lot of his dad's traits :)
Just about everyone seems convinced that he's going to come this week though since he's "not allowed" to come on the 12th (for lengthy uninteresting reasons pertaining to my husband), and I'm not exactly rooting for Friday the 13th, his dates are pretty well limited to sometime in the next 3 days or some time over the weekend. My dad is sold on the 14th because he's a big believer in Murphy's Law and he'll be out of town. I'm starting to lean somewhere more toward, oh, September time frame. My oh-woe-is-me mindset has lead me to believe that I will, quite literally, be pregnant forever. The second trimester went by so quickly - too quickly even - and now all of a sudden it's as if time has just... stopped. I will be the perpetual pregnant woman.
This weekend we finally finished up the nursery (which was started somewhere around week 20, furniture was eagerly built right after the baby shower around week 26, and then the room was pretty well procrastinated until we recently realized that it was probably somewhat important that we finish it before the arrival of our little man). I'm THRILLED over the letters (which my handy husband cut himself with his jig saw and which I painted).
I am, however, massively disappointed in the curtains. Admittedly I was somewhat upset over the general lime greenness of them when they first arrived, BUT once they were up - well, they don't look so bad. In fact, the lime green works kind of nicely; it adds a kick of color to the room. As for the curtains being "black out" curtains (which is why I specifically purchased these curtains), well... their capabilities in that aspect are up for debate. While they definitely do keep the room darker than the vertical blinds they replaced, "black out" is not how I would describe what they do. Maybe more of a "green out"? The curtains came with some pretty extensive literature boasting their temperature-controlling, sound-canceling, black-outing quality, and I'm hard pressed to say they do any of these things. I understand that no curtains can "completely block out 100% of the light," but these curtains don't even seem to block out the 99% they claim to be capable of blocking out. The picture in the brochure compares the black out curtains to regular curtains, showing how much light streams through the fabric of the regular curtains whereas it can't even penetrate the twill fabric of the black out curtains. Um, yeah. There's PLENTY of light coming through the fabric of these curtains - it's definitely not just from the small gaps above and below the curtains. I WILL admit that the room is definitely pitch black at night (black enough to strike horror in Roger's heart when he's old enough to be afraid of the dark. I see night lights in our future), but as soon as that sun starts peaking over the horizon... well, maybe we shouldn't have made the east-facing room the nursery.
SO 9 days till D-day and counting. Perhaps we can try to entice him out now that we've finished his room? Probably not. For not even being his own entity yet, I can already tell he's going to share a lot of his dad's traits :)
Friday, August 6, 2010
Hurry Up and Wait
Nine months is a really long time. It seems like I should know what it feels like to wait after Matt's deployment to Afghanistan (he was gone for 15 months), but that was over four years ago and apparently I've since forgotten how much waiting sucks. During all my whining and complaining about how LONG I've been pregnant (which started a while ago, but picked up momentum when I reached full term at 37 weeks), I keep trying to remind myself that a couple weeks is really not that long, but it amazes me how relative time is - when you notice the passing of time, it feels like time passes slower.
The longest pregnancy recorded (that ended in a live birth) was 375 days back in 1945, so it would appear I have no room to complain over my measly 280 or so days. I really couldn't imagine being pregnant for 3 additional months. I keep telling Roger he seriously needs to consider making his debut pretty quickly here. Matt tells me jokingly that I've been "selfishly hogging our son" but I've assured him on multiple occasions that were there any way for me to SHARE the pregnancy with him, I would gladly pass that torch.
In Googling for the longest pregnancy ever, I stumbled across some other interesting pregnancy facts; like, for example, at any given time about 4% of women in the United States are pregnant. Pregnant women blend in well. Until my husband and I started trying to conceive (and subsequently I became pregnant), I never realized just how many pregnant women there are out there walking (or in some cases waddling) around. Now I notice them EVERYWHERE (and not just at my OBGYNs office which would obviously be a given...): baseball games, the grocery store, the mall (though admittedly I am mostly around the Motherhood Maternity store when I go to the mall these days). I'm sure there's a great deal of psychology involved in the "blind eye" we turn on things that are wholly unimportant to us - in fact, I'm almost positive I remember watching a grainy video on the very subject in my Psych 101 class - but I don't remember the small details behind those workings of the human brain.
These days the average size of a full term baby is 8 pounds (30 years ago it was 6 pounds). I suspect it's due to the discovery of alcohol and cigarettes being bad for you during pregnancy. Or we're just breeding a super race of large people. The BIGGEST baby every born was 23 pounds. My 8 month old niece is about 23 pounds right now. The thought of giving birth to a baby that size... ouch. The largest baby ever born that actually survived after its birth was 19.2 pounds which is absolutely unbelievable. That was just last year in Indonesia. The baby was delivered by C-section, but it's still absolutely amazing to me. How does a baby GET that big in 9 months?? I'm concerned because I think Roger's going to be closer to the 9 pound mark. Add another 10 pounds to that and then I'd probably have more reason to cringe over the miracle of childbirth.
All the random facts on pregnancy can be found here. The most important one amongst all my whining and complaining is the one which states that only 10% of babies are born on their exact due date (mine being August 18). Based on these statistics, it sounds like a 2 week margin of error is king; I wish they'd say in which direction... even I could accurately predict that my baby will be born sometime between now and the beginning of September :D I do, however, have reason to believe that that two week margin for me might be closer to 38 weeks than 42. I think my bloody show made it's appearance yesterday. What? You THINK? Don't you KNOW? Well, I know that I'm spotting - that much is obvious to me - but whether it's because we're about to get this "show" on the road (har har - I couldn't resist the pun) or due to my exam yesterday is tough to say. What I do know: cramping started yesterday, along with some nausea (both of which seem to be mostly gone today though). Doc puts me at nearly 2 cm dilation, and when I left the office yesterday she said, "See you next week... or maybe sooner..." (though she probably says that to ALL her patients who've passed the full term mark and started dilating).
There is, however, no denying that I'm spotting and that it's right in line with the description of what a bloody show should be. I've obviously told my husband (who came home yesterday to me packing a bag and doing laundry. It was our 4 year wedding anniversary and I thought it might be funny to tell him I'm leaving, but he doesn't always share my sense of humor and with my big ol' basketball of a belly protruding about a foot and a half in front of me there are only so many reasons I would be packing). Apart from telling Matt, it's tough not to go shouting it from the rooftops. I want to shoot off emails to family letting them know I have reason to believe that labor could start any day now. I want to call my mom and Matt's mom to put them on the alert. I want to hang a sign from our front yard announcing that I got my bloody show (though that might be a bit TMI for our neighbors). The point is, I want SO bad for it to be the "real thing." I'm so ready for my squirmy little consolation prize that comes at the end of pregnancy that I'm vehemently praying that blood vessels in my cervix are rupturing (not every day you hear that sentence...). I'm trying to be realistic though. Since I DID just have an exam yesterday (which HURT - how freaking far up there IS my cervix??) it seems possible and likely that it could be the cause of my little bit of bleeding. So I continue to wait for the more obvious tell tale signs. Like contractions. Then I'll go shouting from the rooftops. After 37 weeks pregnancy truly becomes a game of hurry up and wait.
The longest pregnancy recorded (that ended in a live birth) was 375 days back in 1945, so it would appear I have no room to complain over my measly 280 or so days. I really couldn't imagine being pregnant for 3 additional months. I keep telling Roger he seriously needs to consider making his debut pretty quickly here. Matt tells me jokingly that I've been "selfishly hogging our son" but I've assured him on multiple occasions that were there any way for me to SHARE the pregnancy with him, I would gladly pass that torch.
In Googling for the longest pregnancy ever, I stumbled across some other interesting pregnancy facts; like, for example, at any given time about 4% of women in the United States are pregnant. Pregnant women blend in well. Until my husband and I started trying to conceive (and subsequently I became pregnant), I never realized just how many pregnant women there are out there walking (or in some cases waddling) around. Now I notice them EVERYWHERE (and not just at my OBGYNs office which would obviously be a given...): baseball games, the grocery store, the mall (though admittedly I am mostly around the Motherhood Maternity store when I go to the mall these days). I'm sure there's a great deal of psychology involved in the "blind eye" we turn on things that are wholly unimportant to us - in fact, I'm almost positive I remember watching a grainy video on the very subject in my Psych 101 class - but I don't remember the small details behind those workings of the human brain.
These days the average size of a full term baby is 8 pounds (30 years ago it was 6 pounds). I suspect it's due to the discovery of alcohol and cigarettes being bad for you during pregnancy. Or we're just breeding a super race of large people. The BIGGEST baby every born was 23 pounds. My 8 month old niece is about 23 pounds right now. The thought of giving birth to a baby that size... ouch. The largest baby ever born that actually survived after its birth was 19.2 pounds which is absolutely unbelievable. That was just last year in Indonesia. The baby was delivered by C-section, but it's still absolutely amazing to me. How does a baby GET that big in 9 months?? I'm concerned because I think Roger's going to be closer to the 9 pound mark. Add another 10 pounds to that and then I'd probably have more reason to cringe over the miracle of childbirth.
All the random facts on pregnancy can be found here. The most important one amongst all my whining and complaining is the one which states that only 10% of babies are born on their exact due date (mine being August 18). Based on these statistics, it sounds like a 2 week margin of error is king; I wish they'd say in which direction... even I could accurately predict that my baby will be born sometime between now and the beginning of September :D I do, however, have reason to believe that that two week margin for me might be closer to 38 weeks than 42. I think my bloody show made it's appearance yesterday. What? You THINK? Don't you KNOW? Well, I know that I'm spotting - that much is obvious to me - but whether it's because we're about to get this "show" on the road (har har - I couldn't resist the pun) or due to my exam yesterday is tough to say. What I do know: cramping started yesterday, along with some nausea (both of which seem to be mostly gone today though). Doc puts me at nearly 2 cm dilation, and when I left the office yesterday she said, "See you next week... or maybe sooner..." (though she probably says that to ALL her patients who've passed the full term mark and started dilating).
There is, however, no denying that I'm spotting and that it's right in line with the description of what a bloody show should be. I've obviously told my husband (who came home yesterday to me packing a bag and doing laundry. It was our 4 year wedding anniversary and I thought it might be funny to tell him I'm leaving, but he doesn't always share my sense of humor and with my big ol' basketball of a belly protruding about a foot and a half in front of me there are only so many reasons I would be packing). Apart from telling Matt, it's tough not to go shouting it from the rooftops. I want to shoot off emails to family letting them know I have reason to believe that labor could start any day now. I want to call my mom and Matt's mom to put them on the alert. I want to hang a sign from our front yard announcing that I got my bloody show (though that might be a bit TMI for our neighbors). The point is, I want SO bad for it to be the "real thing." I'm so ready for my squirmy little consolation prize that comes at the end of pregnancy that I'm vehemently praying that blood vessels in my cervix are rupturing (not every day you hear that sentence...). I'm trying to be realistic though. Since I DID just have an exam yesterday (which HURT - how freaking far up there IS my cervix??) it seems possible and likely that it could be the cause of my little bit of bleeding. So I continue to wait for the more obvious tell tale signs. Like contractions. Then I'll go shouting from the rooftops. After 37 weeks pregnancy truly becomes a game of hurry up and wait.
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