Some Thoughts

For awhile now I’ve seen this picture floating around on Facebook…

Going to stop there and make a couple BIG disclaimers:

Disclaimer #1.  In writing this I am not meaning anything against anyone who has posted this picture.  A) Everyone has a right to share whatever they wish on Facebook, so even if it was something horribly offensive (which this is not) – oh well… I’ve moved on from worse things on there before lol.   B) Because of the places/people I’ve seen this come from I feel pretty safe in guessing the spirit in which it was intended and it’s a good one.

Disclaimer #2.  This is tied into point B above… Not only do I know most people sharing this picture are meaning it in a very empowering way, but I’m pretty sure it was made with that intention as well.

Anyways… That all being said, this picture has been bothering me for awhile and I finally pinpointed why.

Or at least I figured out what was bothering me beyond the obvious.

On a personal level I had no problem figuring out what bothered me about it.  I’m here preparing for another painfree (naturally painfree) birth.  Part of this includes avoiding things that undermine that, like drama filled tv shows showing a woman screaming her bloody head off…  While not quite as bad as that (LOL) this does that to an extent too.  But as I mentioned in my disclaimer (or hinted at rather) I’m not about to tell someone not to post something they believe in, like or whatever on Facebook. Not cool.  Deep breath, find my happy place if I need to and move on.

But there was something else nagging at me beyond that… and I finally figured out what it is!

It makes it sound impossible.  The human body can only bear up to so much pain, but childbirth equals more…  Ignoring personal beliefs about pain and childbirth, and the fact that its supposed to be about how strong mothers are, to me it comes across as seeming like something we can’t do on our own or would be silly to try.    Maybe I’m just being cynical lol… but that’s the impression it gives me.  And writing that out, I guess that does tie into my first reason a bit…  expands on it maybe? I don’t know… I’m babbling at this point lol.

Feel free to disagree  or give any other thoughts…  Pulling it apart and thinking about it from different angles has kinda helped me on this one.  Still not crazy about it, but at least I can look at it more objectively now.

Full Moons…

Made myself laugh this morning… Not that it was all that funny, just hit me that way…  Someone posted an article on the moon’s effects on childbirth (which automatically interests me for obvious reasons) and…

Ok first off the timing was perfect.  I’d made a half joking comment to Baba on the way home from Church after I saw the moon saying maybe that was what was causing how I felt that night.  Basically lots of pressure, back pain and almost felt like I was in labour without really being in labour.  I spent half of Mass forcing myself not to get down into positions that I knew helped with back labour last time because.. .well for one I was at Church and for another I wasn’t in labour lol.  Got home, saw the article and one of the first things to pop into my sight  was this:

On speaking to various medical staff involved in natural childbirth, the first thing I learned was that expectant mothers often experience false signs of labor during full moon. Contractions known as “Braxton Hicks” — sometimes noticeable to the mother and sometimes not — become more pronounced and many travel to the maternity unit in the belief that “it’s time”. Disappointed — or perhaps relieved — they return home, the pains having subsided with no dilation of the cervix.

K… maybe I’m not so crazy  Made me feel better about how I was feeling either way.

Well I left the article up on here to finish it later… Got on this morning and made it to the comment section.  Someone referenced looking back at their own birth and seeing that they were born on one too and I got curious.  Now, I know the moon did not affect my own birth.  Absolutely know it.  My mom had herself induced on the 13th.  ”Stubborn” girl that I am I held off almost an entire day and came the 14th lol.  Believe me I have heard it about that… over and over and over.  Anyways, moot point…  But yeah figured I would look and see when it was that year.  The 19th.  That made me laugh.  I’m horrible I know.

As for the first part of that, I’m feeling a lot better this morning.  Normal again. Told the girls in my due date group last night that I hope this doesn’t happen every month lol.  I really don’t remember w/ ZJ.  I don’t think I would have even put it together if we hadn’t been out last night.

Cutest Conversation Ever…

Planning to make a video of Kalila talking soon, but haven’t gotten around to it yet… I doubt it’ll be today. But I did have the cutest conversation with her earlier.

Baba missed his walk this morning… and decided to make it up by taking ZJ down to pay a bill.. walking of course. Not quite as far as he normally does, but with the stroller it should be good. Kalila was not happy about it though. She broke down crying… After a few minutes of holding her and hugging her and telling her how much I love her she made a comment about when she was a baby. This led to her talking about when she was born.

Now… I don’t know how much I’ve said on here about it, but Kalila’s been talking about babies and birth a lot lately.  One morning she said something about being cut out of my tummy.  Confused me a bit because we’ve never told her that (and she wasn’t btw) and while she has seen c-sections on tv, it has been a long time since she has. Getting off topic (of sorts) though. She’s also brought up wanting a sister… or a set of twins (boy/girl) and all that fun stuff.  Today it was when she was born and when ZJ was born.. or started off that way anyway.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but she said something about a dr delivering them… Skipping over that not being the case with ZJ, it wasn’t really with her either despite me having an Ob and having a hospital birth that time. Dr never showed, we had 2 nurses and a med student. So I explained that to her (like she’ll remember lol) and told her a little bit about when she was born. She thought it was funny, esp the medicine in my back and not feeling my legs part. And then told her about ZJ’s… she laughed at the “bath-tub” part of that one.

That ended with her making a comment about us thinking he was gonna be a girl.  I think more like she’s decided she wants a sister instead, but still lol. I said no, and told her again (for the millionth time) that we knew he was a boy and that she has a brother (oh yeah she’s tried to say he’s a baby girl now and even make him into one with her magic wand). That led to her talking, once again, about wanting a baby sister…

Yeah once again… not happening yet lol. She kept trying to say that there’s a baby in my tummy (no..there’s not lol). Went through telling her that all over again and that it would be awhile, but still she’s still stuck on the subject. So if you talk to her and hear stuff about babies take it with a grain of salt…

34 Week Update

Not a whole lot to say today… thankfully  

Our appointment went well. Tests all came back good, everything normal. Zavier is still head down. Very happy about that… He’s not posterior anymore either… although he still has a little ways to turn lol. Not too worried because he moves all the time. 

We talked about what happened on Saturday, and what to do if I start to worry again (before 36 weeks, after I already knew lol). Talked about all the other symptoms I’ve had lately… all are normal, nothing to worry about… which I figured.

Um… what will happen in the next few weeks. I guess this one kinda started it… They sent home the papers about the Group B test so we can make a decision about that… and will discuss it at our next appointment (36 weeks) along w/ what foods to bring, newborn options, etc. Fun fun. After that appointment we’ll go from every two weeks to every week. I can’t believe its that close lol. 


Another thing that was brought up is that since after my next appointment we’ll technically be ok to have the baby (although I’d rather not… still pretty early lol), its also about the time we need to have our bag packed for the BC, the carseat installed, diapers & coming home outfit, etc.  She also said we should start stockpiling what foods we’re bringing. Prob a good idea… As funny as a trip to HEB might be at that point… 


Talked more about who’ll be there. Not like a list or anything, just that we do plan to have people in the waiting area, and Kalila in the birthing room. We’d talked about that before, but like I brought up awhile back… I was a little worried about if we need someone in there with us to keep an eye on her. They would prefer that so… more decisions to make. 


Getting tired now so can’t really remember what all else lol. I know there was more, but nothing really big. Anyways, here’s my 34 week picture and a couple Kalila snuck in on lol.

Oh, before I go… on a related note: I’m now officially having random people come up and ask how much longer I’ve got lol. 


And you see that sticker on Kalila’s hand? She pointed to it at the store and said “Ach E B” I don’t know if she’s recognizing the logo (she does w/ Target) or the letters, but it really surprised me lol. Was cute.




 

Homeschool

No not talking about Kalila lol. Talking about us. 

I’m not going to go into details about the classes. For one the links I shared before have pretty in depth descriptions so it’d be pretty repetitive. Besides, I just don’t feel like writing that much lol.

We started on Saturday though. Its the easiest day for us since Baba is off. Because of when I got it in, I went over everything on Friday… Read the first chapter & listened to both tracks while doing something (is suggested so you consciously listen at least once to make sure you’re comfortable with them). I plan on doing that w/ each chapter every Friday before our classes. Saturday we read through together and he listens in on the first track and will the second one on either Sundays or Tuesdays (conveniently the schedule for when I listen to what works out perfectly with his). Every day after Sat I alternate tracks and (though I really don’t need to) am rereading the chapter. 

Our first class went well. Kind of surprising w/ everything going on… but I think I needed the distraction. Was interesting discussing all that w/ Baba though. And I’m just glad he’s putting up w/ me on this lol. 

As for the tracks… last night, well I’d say didn’t go so well but its not really an issue. I fell asleep at the very beginning of it. We had a pretty busy evening (ate over w/ some new friends, possible post later lol) and I was exhausted. I kinda figured I’d crash, just didn’t realize it would be so quickly. I know its normal though, and I’m sure I’ll make it through it at least once this week w/out doing that lol.

Hypnobabies Intro

Impatiently waiting for UPS right now lol. So thought I would spit this out before I get back to what I really need to be doing (need to wake myself up first anyway lol). 

If you read my earlier posts on childbirth classes you might/probably know we were leaning towards HypnoBirthing. I loved the book. The classes sounded good… but when it came time for all this it just wasn’t feasible. Not saying the method itself wasn’t, but just us taking them. Baba works, goes to school, we have one vehicle, Kalila, etc… Working in 5 weeks of classes around our schedules would have been crazy. Plus… finding them in the first place. The most convenient place rarely has them. We did get a reference for someone else, but… read back up a few lines lol. 

And like I said (I think) in my post about one of my last checkup posts… We talked about the home classes. HypnoBirthing doesn’t have them, but there are others. The main one I knew anything about was Hypnobabies.  

Now.. I don’t think I wrote about Hypnobabies earlier when I was researching them all.  Not because I didn’t consider it at all, but because it’s the same concept as HypnoBirthing and while I’d read the book on the other… I hadn’t with this one. Just saw reviews/descriptions/etc. In fact I did consider it, because there were some big advantages – home study, lower cost, having all the materials on hand for future pg’s, and some great reviews including ones by people who preferred it over HypnoBirthing. But I wanted the actual class setting and like I’ve said multiple times before, just loved the book.  


Back to the present though lol. Actual classes not an option so we decided to go this way… and I’m perfectly content with the change. Just knowing what we’re going to do is a relief.  And while waiting for it to come in has been almost torture (just because we have so little time left lol) it has given me time to go back and read over some of the info about the program again.  Obviously I can’t really say much not having been through it yet (although I’m pretty sure you’ll get updates as I go through it, just depends on how much time I have on here)… but for anyone interested I’m including a couple links. 


This first one is the official Hypnobabies site. I linked straight to the home study page instead of the home page because its where the main info is. 


The second is a review by Natural Birth & Baby Care. I love how she spells out the entire program. It really gave me an idea of what to expect in the next few weeks. 


Oh look, I finally convinced Kalila to get off my lap (or Mumble did) so I think I’m gonna get off of here and distract myself w/ housework until that package comes in

Mini Update

Pregnancy & Other Vents

32 Week’s Now…

Well, if I can ever find the cord so I can upload pics… I purposefully used the real camera so I could post them and now can’t find the cord lol. Anyways…


Not a whole lot to say about the appointment. It went well. My tests all came out great. I was so afraid they wouldn’t, esp since I felt bad yesterday morning and Baba’s been sick… but no. Perfect. Everyone very happy with that! I did seem to gain a lot of weight in the last two weeks… like over 7 lbs lol. But I’m putting at least some of that up to wearing heavier clothes and shoes.


The one big thing that did come up… is that we figured out why my back has started hurting so much lately. Really only in the last day… At first we were thinking the trip last weekend. All that time in the truck would make perfect sense, even the midwife chalked it up to that… until she felt the baby. He’s still head down, but he’s posterior (facing up). Back pain explained.  She gave me some tips to get him to turn around, so hopefully that will happen soon.


Odd side note.. .was talking to Baba a min ago about when Kalila was born (because this part is not something I exactly saw lol) and he said she was looking up when she was born. He didn’t realize that wasn’t “normal” or whatever. All the sudden things from the end of that pg make sense too. I was never told what position she was in (and honestly I can’t tell myself for anything.. I know there’s ways to tell but they go right over my head lol) and assumed she was facing down.


We also talked a lot about what will happen as I get farther along… which isn’t that far away lol. We talked about classes too and Baba & I have made a decision. As much as I would like to take the actual classes, the home version will work better for us. I just need to look into where to get the materials now. I know where, but still… gotta compare prices first. 

And that was it really. Oh Kalila. First off we talked about her being there and what to do to prepare her a little more. Got some good tips.  And of course she ran around being cute… Showed off her A, B, C skills. Pointed them out on cards… and then had to help with the doppler. She got to push the button to turn it on. Too cute! 


Ok, let me look for that cord so I can publish this now

Ignore me being a mess btw… nasty weather!

Feeling Dumb

I could have posted this last night but I had that other post all ready to go lol… I had one of those nights though. 

It all started with dinner… I got off the menu again, which is fine… it turned out great. But I used two burners, one for the mac & cheese and the one in front of it to cook the asparagus before adding it in… and when I went to get my bowl I sat it on the stove and then picked it up by the bottom, burning my hand… 

After dinner I was pretty busy w/ Kalila.. finally got her in bed and decided I’d wait until she was asleep to get to work getting things done that I needed. While waiting I looked up some hypnobirthing type stuff and found a free mp3 and thought I’d listen to it while I waited too… uh… yeah… I fell asleep. 

I woke up after it ended at some point and realized how little time I had left before Baba got off… rushed to get everything done… and found that I’d left the burner on low, burning what little was left of the food (Id planned to put up). 

On top of that, the water filter thing was still sitting in the sink half way filled (was working on that while making dinner).

Now, I know I needed the sleep… and did feel better afterwards. But still… lol.