Call Me Crunchy

I realize that I haven't really blogged at all about this pregnancy, and I'll get around to that eventually. But first, there are some things that have been on my mind a lot lately, mostly in regards to labor and delivery, and dealing with a baby afterwards. Umm, if you are a man, you probably want to skip this one. Although I am not sure what man other than my husband might be reading this blog anyways.

I have said for several years that I wanted to attempt to labor without the assistance of an epidural. My reasoning behind this has nothing to do with what some people think, that women who CHOOSE not to have one do so due to religious reasons, or what I get most from people is, well women have been giving birth without them for centuries, why shouldn't I? Negative, that particular statement actually makes me mad. And I personally do not feel as though God wants us to have such pain because of Eve's downfall, why in the world would he have given man(woman!)kind the knowledge to create such wonderul pain drugs?? I have several reasons of my own: the main is that I have a nerve disorder called Hereditary Neuropathy with Pressure Palsy that has been passed down through my maternal grandmother. Basically how I describe it to people is that when I wear high heels for longer than an hour, my toes go numb. The difference is that the feeling takes sometimes around a month to come back to my toes, rather than a few hours. After I had my wisdom teeth removed several years ago, this showed itself by me not having feeling in a portion of my mouth and lip for over a month, despite 2 rounds of steroids. So that, coupled with the fact that my mother has had horrible experiences with getting epidurals, possibly related to this disorder as well, led me to the decision that it would probably be best if I forgo the epidural route. The thought of my legs being numbed and then the possibility of it taking longer than a couple hours to regain the feeling is a terrifying one. Also, my aunt, who is a lot smaller framed person than I am, delivered 2 of her 3 children sans epidural, and I saw how amazing my mother was to coach her through it, so I figured I could do the same.

So with Carter, I enlisted the support of my mom, who is an amazing labor coach. She is essentially what some women hire these days, a doula. I knew with her support(and the fact that if I started to cave to the pain, she would tell me to suck it up!) that I could make it. And, thank you Jesus, my labor was not very long either. I was incredibly nervous that I wouldn't be able to handle it though, and so I did ask if there was something they could give me through the IV that would take the edge off. I now regret that decision because they gave me Demoral, which I thought was a small dose of it in the first place but now I think the nurse just said it was, and it basically only made me drunk. Like very drunk. Like the drunk I felt that time in college at Nascar when I thought it would be a good idea to drink straight out of a bottle of tequila or something. Not my finest moment in life, and not a feeling I ever wanted to experience again. So I felt every. damn. contraction. Only I had to keep my eyes closed for a period of about 4 hours so as not to see the room spinning and throw up. I felt very foggy and have vague, odd memories of that whole time period, and when it came time to deliver that was also a fog. And then very shortly after he was born the nurse handed me a handful of pills, and in my drugged stupor I just swallowed them. Turns out they were pain killers. My body overreacts to anything stronger than tylenol, so that whole entire day was a blur. I think I may have taken one more half dose of pain meds, but after that I just dealt with the soreness or asked for regular tylenol because I absolutely cannot stand feeling so out of control of my body. 

From pretty early on in the pregnancy, I began to get nervous about the delivery part. Could I make it again? What if my labor was longer, instead of shorter, like most supposedly are? Then I started having dreams about the hospital forcing me to have a C-section. They kept telling me it was because I had already had one previously, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't convince them that they were wrong. I had this dream multiple times over a few month period. So I became obsessed with not letting that happen or not caving into the pain. I began reading up on natural delivery, something I never even thought about doing when I was pregnant with Carter. I watched youtube videos of natural labor and delivery. In doing that I discovered a film called The Business of Being Born. It was produced by Ricki Lake, strangely enough, and I watched a 28 min clip of it on youtube(with like Russian subtitles or something) and was totally fascinated. In that short clip it reiterated and put into words exactly how I feel about the whole process, and how it has become a business, and not just a natural part of life. I would love to see the whole film, without the annoying subtitles, but I'm too cheap to pay $19.99+shipping for it.

I am definetly not judging people on their choices.  Its wonderful that we have the technology and availability of modern medicine here in America so that you rarely hear stories of women or babies dying during labor and delivery. But I would be lying if I said that it didn't disturb me a bit how the whole process is handled these days. It is entirely too easy for a woman to decide that she wants to have a C-section just to avoid labor and delivery, and doctors have way too much control over the choices made for a woman. Even though I am blessed to have a doctor with a rather laid back old school attitude, I still feel as though he makes more of the decisions with my body than I do. For instance, 4 days before I went into labor with Carter I had my last weekly visit, at which I told him I really felt as though it could be any day. He checked my cervix and decided that I still had a few weeks to go, even told me it looked like I would go to my due date. Lo and behold, 3 days later I was most definitely in the home stretch, and the next night my water broke. He was literally shocked to see me in labor when he got to my room. I got in a big I-told-you-so there. Had he listened to my insticts and what I was telling him, he might not have been so surprised. I mean, it didn't really matter, but what if it was something more pressing than just that, like something not being right? I feel like a midwife would have handled that differently. It seems as though women are mentally coached these days not to listen to their bodies, and put much more stock into what a medical professional tells them than what they feel is going on. A woman's instincts are nothing to joke with, they are usually right! I almost feel sorry for women who don't realize that they can have a say in this whole process, and they don't have to do what "society" tells them is the norm. It makes me want to be very public about it, like I'm helping women's rights movements or something.

It really got me thinking about the whole hospital delivery experience. Fortunately my first was pretty good, with no one really telling me you need to do this or that, or giving me a time table of when events needed to occur, and they allowed me to be very much in control of the situation. But what if this time around I get a pushy nurse?? What if they decide I am not dilating or contracting to their satisfaction and want to give me a buttload of pitocin? That was the one thing I was really mad about with Carter, was that the nurse pushed a (what she claimed) small dose of pitocin to regulate my contractions, before even giving them a good chance to get going on their own, which I feel like intensified the contractions.  I am way too chicken to have a home birth with a midwife, but I am really wishing that I would have had these thoughts sooner in this pregnancy and found a birthing center and midwife to deliver at. I just feel like a midwife is trained more than sufficiently to handle what would come up, and that I would have a lot more freedom during the process. I hated having an IV in, for the "just in case" reason. I hated that they wouldn't let me out of bed to labor. I hated that I had to lie flat on my back to deliver. Which, by the way, is widely known to be the worst possibly position to push a baby out of your hoo ha. Gravity people, think about it. Again, its for the convenience of the doctor and his or her abilty to be all up in your business. Which I get, I really do, but its just not necessary.

The whole point behind that filmed being made is to educate American women on the fact that they do have options and they do have a say in how things go. And that you are not a freak if you choose to not follow the "rules" of the hospital or doctor. I feel like women are judged here for choosing to have a midwife deliver their baby instead of a doctor, whether it be in a hospital, birthing center, or at home. They are looked down upon as hippie freaks, even judged for the risk people think they are taking of putting their own and their baby's life in danger by not having a medical doctor present. In reality, America is one of the few countries where it is not the norm for midwives to deliver.  They are often times trained better and more specifically in the labor and delivery process, and everything before and after it.  My own friends have told me that I'm nuts for choosing against an epidural. Several of them didn't think I could actually do it the first time around, which because of my personality, made me even more to determined to do it!  It wasn't easy or anything, it wasn't some out of body spiritual experience. It sucked. It hurt. But you know what?? It was a mere few hours of my life, and when it was over I wasn't in pain anymore. Well, not the same kind of pain. And less than an hour later I walked myself across the room to the bathroom, and I didn't have to lay in bed wondering how long it would be before my legs found themselves again.

Another option that I am exploring and leaning towards this time around is cloth diapering. Christiaan thinks I am nuts. And again, so do a bunch of my friends. Its way different than when my mom used them with us and had a diaper service, seems much easier to deal with except the whole washing them yourself thing. Its my understanding that once you get a system down its just part of everyday laundry. Those suckers are not cheap to get your stash started, but I absolutely HATE buying disposable diapers. I can't stand going through them that fast. And because Carter is stubborn and obviously following his own calendar, it is looking like he may still be in diapers or pull-ups by the time Delaney is here, and I really am not looking forward to buying twice the amount of diapers. My current tentative plan is to stock up on cloth diapers, but use newborn sized disposables at first, because I have been told that their little legs are too skinny in those first few weeks for the cloth ones to be effective, plus they poop that nastiness like every hour, and I would imagine that would create a laundry nightmare! Once she is big enough for cloth diapers, we will try switching to those, but use disposables like for church or babysitters. Who knows, this may never work for our family, but I am willing to try!

Also, something I have recently discovered is a concept called baby led weaning. This one I haven't even discussed with Christiaan yet, but I am sure he will think I have truly lost it. There is a book to buy that describes it, but basically instead of starting them on rice cereal and jarred baby food at about 3-4 months(or 2+ like I did with Carter!) you wait a bit longer until about 6 months.  At this point, you begin giving them the same food items that you are eating at mealtimes, for the most part, and letting them explore holding them and how to eat them. Apparently their grasping and coordination are beginning to become more definite and this eating activity allows them to be expanded even further. Also by this point their risk of developing an allergy has lessened. I haven't read the book yet, but the basic concept makes sense, and seems to be cheaper than buying jar after jar of rank smelling baby food. Which I also despise doing! Again, I have no idea if it is a good idea or will work with us, but Delaney should hit 6 months about the first of next summer, so I figure that would be a perfect time to try it out!

Despite what this post might sound like, I am not a hippie freak nature girl. I am not trying to get in tune with my chi or aura or whatever, am not trying to be all spiritual about the labor and delivery process. Because believe me, the words going through my head were nowhere near spiritual! And by some miracle from heaven I managed to keep them inside my head instead of sharing them loudly with the whole L&D ward like my brother had predicted! I am also not what some would call green or trying to save mother earth from the toxic trash of disposable diapers, and I can guarantee you that I will not be consuming my placenta in any form, nor do I have any desire to breastfeed my child til they can walk up to me and ask for it. Although I do plan on utilizing my chiropractor to get my body in alignment in preparation for delivery, but um hello what huge preggo wouldn't want their back to be popped when you can't turn past a certain radius of your body??  And its kinda like having a massage. I just want to explore my options and be in control of my life and decisions regarding my children and their well being, as much as I can be. I feel like I should know what is best for me and for them, and for our whole family.

Please do not think that I am judging people for not feeling the same way as I do. I am very sorry if I offend anyone by this post, so please don't take it the wrong way. Many of my friends and family members have had many different labor and delivery experiences, and every woman is completely different. Ultimately, you should do what is in the best interest of your baby and you, and if that means being induced or having a c-section, so be it! Obviously there are circumstances at which point I would make the decision to do either myself. I just feel it is important that women know they have choices and its ok to make a choice other than what your friends or family think you should do.

I'll get off my soapbox now. :)