UC support thread #7, July '04

[cottonwood]

uc thread #1
uc thread #2
uc thread #3
uc thread #4
uc thread #5
uc thread #6

roll call

andrea88 -- UC 8/03 story
Aurora -- UC 10/03 story
Whit -- UC 11/03 story
2much2luv -- UC 1/04
thechrysalis -- UC 1/04 story
Mothernature -- UC 1/04 story
indigolilybear -- UC 3/04 pics
citizenfong -- UC 3/04 pics
Carrieanders -- UC 4/10/04 story
Chaka Falls -- UC 4/04
amyamanda -- UC 5/04 story
Karenpl -- UC 6/04 story
bookwormmama -- UC 6/04
wildthing -- midwife-attended 6/04 story
grnbn76 -- emergency cesarean, 7/04 story
Hathor -- UC 6/29/04 story
Mamajaza -- UC 7/04 pics
ChildoftheMoon -- born still 7/19/04 peacefully at home
gr8fulmom -- UC 7/04 story
Klothos -- UC 7/04 story
Chandar -- UC 7/04
luna13mama -- UC 7/04
madrone -- August
TinyBabyBean -- EDD August 18th (3rd UC)
Oshunmama -- EDD August 26th
JesseMomme -- August/September (first UC 11/02, story)
violet -- August/September
StacyL -- mid September
4xmamamia -- September
mellie-bellie -- EDD September
lovemygirl -- mid to late September
blueviolet -- late September (first UC 7/01, story)
rachel -- EDD late October
DancerMom -- late November
FowlMommy -- late November
Ame -- first half of December
laurata -- December (first UC 3/02, story )
Lula's Mom -- December
AmyD -- EDD December 7th
nikirj -- EDD December 30
Dandylion -- January/February 2005
mehndi mama -- late February 2005
sprinkle pocket -- late spring/early summer 2005


Please PM me to make changes.

[madrone]

For those who don't know this, I'm registered at a hospital that's a bit over an hour away. We figure that we will tell people that it just happened too fast and that we couldn't make it there.

I had what should be my last pre-natal doctor's visit today. Had to meet with an anethesist first because hospital policy requires you to meet with one. But it was only about 5 minutes and he was pretty cool. Wrote down on my file that it was counter-indicative for me to have an epi and that I didn't want one, weighed me, checked my blood pressure, and that was about it.

Then I met with the OB and really liked him. He's Syrian and we talked a bit about birth there. It's going more and more medical (in Syria) and he thinks that may not always be a good thing. When he wanted to examine me, I said that I prefered not and he was completely okay with that. He wants me to up my iron tablets to twice a day because he doesn't think the levels are high enough (my GP perscribed them at once a day when I became anemic). He also wants us to go in at 41 weeks to check on the baby and says we would go home after if the baby is sounding good. That they generally do every other day visits after 41 weeks just to check on the baby. DH didn't particularly like this thought at all, but I'm not quite worried about that at this time. DS was born at 40w6d, so maybe this one will never get to 41 weeks either. But if this one does, I really don't know about going all the way there. Maybe I would be trying to find someone to listen to the heartbeat nearby that would appease hospital policy.

I don't think I would actually mind having someone attend this child's birth if it was this doc just because he seems to think that one intervention leads to another and that it's best just to not start them in the first place. But, he's on holiday for August. He did an ultrasound since I have only had 2 and we get 3 here (we, nor individual doctors, have a choice on some things here because they are required by, basically translated, the state health department). The baby and everything else looks good. He said he didn't think this one would be as big as DS (who was 9lbs 12oz and 23 inches), but ultrasounds are not accurate at all in weight. One thing really bothered me about the ultrasound though. I know that this little one was on the left side a little while back and I could feel his back. But he has been moving around. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was a bit concerned because he turned horizontally again and stayed that way for a day. After, he went back to the left side. Anyway, for the past few days, I haven't been able to find his back. I had been trying to sleep more on my right side because I've heard that it's better if their back is more towards the right side than the left side. But I was almost afraid once I stopped being able to feel his back that what if he turned the wrong way and was now posterior. I couldn't quite say that thought though, so I kept just re-assuring myself that he was on the left side even though I couldn't find his back. So now I'm kind of doubting myself because he's on the right side and I couldn't figure that out. I still cannot find his back to feel where he is. But he is there. I don't quite understand why I'm not feeling his back to know how he is positioned. And since having the ultrasound, I've been having so many BH, that they are making it even harder to try to find him.

Anyway, after seeing the doc, we went into the maternity ward and I had the midwife do a small tour. I hated her! For one thing, she smelled like an ashtray. Not someone I would want around me during childbirth. Then she also wasn't very open. They only have a table where people lie down in the birthing room. I said I was going to stand up and asked if they had a bar and she said that I need to understand that they are used to having people lie down. What I wanted to say back is that I really don't give a @$&* about what you normally do, I'm the one having a baby and I'll be the way I want. But I basically just left fast, knowing that there is no way she would be delivering this baby.

Now I'm trying to process my feelings on everything. After meeting that mid-wife, I really would not want to go there for the birth if I decided to go someplace. I really want a UC and having her as a possibility at this hospital, the UC would be clear. But I have lost a bit of confidence in myself, at least for the moment, because I couldn't figure out on my own where the baby had moved to.

When I saw that I was incorrect on the position, I had decided that I was going to see the maternity ward, and with an open mind, because maybe I'm not as aware of myself and my baby as I thought I was. What if I cannot figure out something during the birth? I had decided on two different emergency plans. One, there is a surgeon that owns a house about 20 feet from mine and he will be here on holiday for the month of August. The other, I had thought that I could always go to this hospital that does not do births about 15 minutes away at the last minute. But what if I don't realize that me or my baby need help and don't know to go get help? Not being able to figure out where this little one is own my own has really blown my confidence. At least for the moment. How do I get it back?

K - any signs of your baby coming?

[sprinkle pocket]

madrone! you're a strong wise woman and know your body and baby better than anyone!!

maybe this is the time to know that you don't need to know the "facts" but instead to feel? you will know if you or your baby need help during the birth. but i have every confidence in you that you can have a beautiful blissful uc. you can talk to your babe and tell him/her what you need from him/her, like if you prefer a particular position. remember that babe's can birth in any number of them. this is their process too and you can make your requests! just remember that the wisdom in your body is far greater than any ultrasound or ashtray excuse for a midwife (sounds like someone that other midwives would be ashamed to call a colleague!). nature has a way of taking care of things--including showing us things that move us in the right direction. maybe the hospital experience will not only help you crystallize your confidence and faith in your body/knowledge, but also help your dh further understand why uc is sooo right to you.

do you have birth affirmations taped all over your house? are they something that would help? i'm going to do that soon. i just finished laura shanley's book (bravo laura!) and got some good ones from it to get me started. i find that when the negative stuff starts creeping in, it works for me to replace it with new information, rather than focussing on trying to get the neg. stuff to go away--which would only give it more energy. then i feel like i'm moving on rather than spinning around on the neg stuff. don't know if that helps?

[cottonwood]

Madrone, where is your placenta? Is it possibly in the way? Remember, even midwives who are skilled at palpating cannot always determine the position for sure. To me, it's not something that is indicative of my ability to feel whether all is well. I mean, I don't know where my liver is, exactly, but I am pretty sure it's working just fine.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think that not knowing the position of the baby makes your body less able to do what it can do, or you less able to recognize when you need help. And forgive me for stating the obvious, but it doesn't make the hospital more likely to help you have a normal birth, either.

[madrone]

Thank you both for responding. My placenta is right dab in the middle upper part of my uterus on the outside. The only thing that I can figure out on why I'm not feeling him is that his/her back must be a bit far from my side. I think as I've been thinking about that, I'm starting to feel a little better. And I really needed that reminder of that even midwives are not always able to tell the baby's positioning by palpating. Kind of forgot today about how many people that I know that have had that experience. Maybe the OB wouldn't have known either if he had palpated instead of seeing with the ultrasound. What kind of affirmations do you have about Sprinkle? Would you share them with me? Because maybe I need to have some posted about also. DH has gotten so that he feels much better about a UC now and actually took that I didn't know where the baby was pretty well. But I know we'll be talking a lot more and I'm not certain that he has expressed all of his feelings about that.

DS needs me. Thanks again for both responding. Take care - Tiff

[gr8fulmom]

I have not posted on this thread before today but I must admit that I have been lurking for sometime.... Dh and I read many of your posts with keen interest throughout this pg and we really considered a planned u/c. After a lot of discussion, we decided that we were not comfortable with it because we had no one to help us with our other two children during the birth (most of our family live out of town and even friends are too far especially because I have fast births...).

Funny how things work out sometimes...when I went into labour yesterday, we did call our midwives, but they were busy at other births and as it turned out did not arrive until a full hour after our beautiful new son, Lucas was born.

I wanted to thank all of you, for sharing all your thoughts and stories in this forum, because there is no doubt that you inspired us silently with the courage we needed to know we didn't need any help after all... We could have insisted that our midwives find another backup or we could have called 911, but we both instinctively knew it was just meant to be and everything would be alright. And, of course it was.

Lucas was born in a birth pool in our bedroom after about a 3 hour labour and about 3 minutes of pushing . Daddy caught him as his two big brothers watched, and we all rubbed him and cuddled him on my belly in the pool. The midwife watching the video later gave him APGARS of 8 and 9. I got out of the pool to deliver the placenta which arrived about 40 minutes later. My blood loss was minimal and I am barely bleeding today. I didn't tear at all. We didn't cut the cord until after my midwife arrived only to discover he had a true knot in his cord! She was so happy for us and said she had just known we had really wanted this and it was meant to be

I will try to write out the whole birth story soon and will post a link here.

We feel truly blessed to have had the birth we always wanted for this child! And again thanks to all of you...this thread unkowingly provided us with much needed information, inspiration and support .

Jen

[Aura_Kitten]

no birth going on here yet.

i'm am trying the mystic induction i call "Labor Cookies." hehehehehe

[LavenderMae]

Congratulations Jen!!!! Welcome baby Lucas!

[cottonwood]

Gr8fulmom, congratulations!!! May I put your birth on the roll call? Even if it was not a planned UC, like you say you intentionally made the choice not to call for other assistance when your midwives could not make it. Ultimately, you consciously decided to do this, and you knew intuitively that it was right.

Madrone, FWIW I have never been able to tell exactly how my babies were positioned; I've used other sources for that, like a fetoscope, or a midwife's hands. To me, to have to rely on outside sources for this information is no more of a comment on my instinctive abilities than relying on outside sources to tell me the sex or how dilated I am.

[luna13mama]

Originally Posted by klothos

no birth going on here yet.

No birthing here either and tomorrow I am at 43 weeks! and I am sure of the dates with this one. I just never guessed this would happen with this pregnancy and it is a real test. I am thankful that I am not having a managed pregnancy or by this point I could no longer be considered for a homebirth with midwives and if I was being seen by and OB I would be pressured to induce, not to mention all the tests. I have decided to go see a midwife who is really cool about UC and she's just going to check heart tones, position, my blood pressure, etc. At this point with all the outside influences around me clouding my intuition, I feel like I could use the reassurance of a "profesional" that me and my baby are thriving. My instincts say that the baby is super happy in there and just waiting a bit more to come out but then I have crazy thoughts that go through my head like what if the baby is in a bad position, what if there is something wrong preventing labor to start, what if I just won't be able to go into labor without being induced... All nosense really! It would be sad to have forced her out before ready and I am trying to enjoy this time. So hard though in this society when I am doing this without outside care, trying to keep trusting my inner senses.

[Aura_Kitten]

So hard though in this society when I am doing this without outside care, trying to keep trusting my inner senses.

i keep returning to Hathor's birth story for inspiration.

on my morning walk, i ran into one lady from the grocery store who hadn't seen me in a week or so, and she was quite startled i was still pregnant, remarking, "i thought you had already had your baby!! " and i said, "ah no, not yet," and smiled...

when i was at the bank earlier, the ladies there asked when i was due, and i said, "oh, early this month," and they were commenting how i'm lucky to be able to go this far along, and how so many women are induced just past their due date. (yeah, "lucky" ~ as in, "able to take charge of my own health care")...

one of them looked at me and said... "well... you walk enough..." and i just smiled and said something like, "yeah, she'll come when she's ready..."

she asked who my dr is and i told her, but didn't mention i had stopped seeing him and was planning a homebirth. i figure i can suprise them.

(small community.)

if someone had their baby and i missed it, congratulations. i've been a little self-absorbed these past couple of days...

[thebabyvirus]

Originally Posted by luna13mama

My instincts say that the baby is super happy in there and just waiting a bit more to come out but then I have crazy thoughts that go through my head like what if the baby is in a bad position, what if there is something wrong preventing labor to start, what if I just won't be able to go into labor without being induced... All nosense really!

I feel the same way! I'm 40 weeks exactly right now.. well as "exact" as you can get anyway when you don't keep track of numbers.. and I feel rationally that the baby is fine, wiggles a lot, still moving around and stretching, but on the other side I keep thinking AHH the baby's breech (pretty sure it is, though I know that can change any time), or AHH my placenta must be blocking the door! (there's symptoms for that right??) But I keep just trying to relax, let the baby come when ready. Besides, there's some things I want to get done before it comes anyway Also I get feeling a little guilty like i'm somehow getting in the way of labour myself, emotionally somehow? *confused*.. like the baby is breech or waiting because it knows somehow that I may not be ready? and if so, how do i get "ready"?

By the way, hi i'm new My names Melissa.. i recognize some of you from cbirth and livejournal. I'm 23, from BC, married to Kelly and this is our first pregnancy/baby. I think that's it. yep. It's "due" today or saturday. Depending.

hehe, i just thought of something. I hope i didnt introduce myself already, because I meant to. I don't think I did though. Oh well, if this is redundant, ignore me hehe...

-Melissa

[JesseMomme]

: Congratulations! Welcome Lucas

to the thread Melissa I've been on cbirth for over 3 years now but I've lurked there mostly these days.

[Aura_Kitten]

Also I get feeling a little guilty like i'm somehow getting in the way of labour myself, emotionally somehow?

i've been feeling like that myself too and trying to meditate + clear my head enough to see if i'm blocking labor...

are you in the LJ UC community?

[gr8fulmom]

Thanks for the congratulations!

Blueviolet, I would be honoured to be added to the roll call

By the way, Lucas was born on his due date and I had really felt he was going to be earlier, and I had prelabour for weeks! which I never had with my other two pg...so I know what those in waiting feel like...I went through many 'mental' exercises to make sure I wasn't blocking labour...but they really do come when they are ready I just kept saying to myself...patience...patience...it's one of the most important tools of parenthood! Hang in there!!!

Jen

[thebabyvirus]

Originally Posted by klothos

i've been feeling like that myself too and trying to meditate + clear my head enough to see if i'm blocking labor...

are you in the LJ UC community?

Hi
yes i am on the LJ UC community, same nick
i mostly lurk on cbirth too!
learn sooo much from it though.

[madrone]

Congratulation Gr6ful and welcome Lucas!

Luna - you're still waiting also. I hadn't thought I had seen you post anything for a few days and thought maybe that meant you had your baby. Both you and K seem to be taking this so much better than I ever would. I don't know how I would come up with the patience. I completely was obsessing over every twinge with DS when he was born at 40w6d. And my obsessing started around 37 or 38 weeks. I'm 38.5 weeks now with this one and am not obsessing yet this time. But I figure I will be at the beginning of August. I'm not ready now, so I keep telling him he has to stay in for a bit longer.

BlueViolet, ever since this thread started, I have really admired your wisdom. It really does help me to know that you cannot tell exactly how your babies are positioned. And this morning, this one got the hiccups, so I know where he is at this moment. He's turned horizontally again with the head on the left side and bum on the right. He won't be able to come out that way, but for some reason I'm glad to know that he is still moving around so much.

[majazama]

Wow, gr8fulmom, another boy!!! I don't know if you knew but I had another girl. Congratulations! UC is the way to go, hey? My labour and birth was so simple, quick, and easy. My DD was born in the bathtub, with the sac still around her head (born in the caul).

I hope to come to one of the LLL meetings in maple ridge some day soon. I love the name Lucas, very cute.

[Chandar]

I am a major lurker here and on c-birth. Just wanted to chime in on the waiting game. I am 40 wks 3 days. My friend who got pregnant the same week I did had her ds last Thursday. I'm a tad jealous. I have considered changing my phone message to: "If you are calling about a baby, the answer is still no, and we will be sure to let you know of any birthing after it happens. Thank you, and please don't call us, we will call you." I never gave my family a date just middle to end of July, and the calls have started. I have even been asked for a date several times. My aunt tried to get sneaky and asked today if we could say we were past the date. Yeah nice try. I am fine, no contractions, no birthing, but I am HOT and CRABBY, so go ahead and question me again on my backup plan, and how sure I am. :

[Aura_Kitten]

no madrone, i'm obsessing. i'm very much obsessing.

"If you are calling about a baby, the answer is still no, and we will be sure to let you know of any birthing after it happens. Thank you, and please don't call us, we will call you."

:LOL that's the same message i've been considering putting on our machine! i'm so sick of people asking and asking and asking... it's like, "are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet?" ARGH! and i haven't given anyone specific dates! i think everyone ELSE are more impatient than i am... their impatience is really rubbing off on me. i find myself wanting to get this baby OUT just to shut them up!

all day i've been having hugs, some very intense rushes, a lot of crampiness and feeling like i was going into back labor... and then they calm down and stop... and then start again... this is driving me nuts! and it really doesn't help to have everyone asking about the baby.

i still need to sweep + mop though. maybe the baby is waiting for me to clean the kitchen..... i really hope not. i don't think i have the energy left for that... oh yeah, and i need to take out the garbage in the bathroom... again. why can't everything just stay clean? i clean it... and then we keep on living here and everything gets messy again.

enough ranting.