UC Thread #8, August '04 - Page 5

[majazama]

I don't know if anyone is interested in the registering of unassised babies in B.C, Canada, but I'll tell ya wht I've had to do anyways, and maybe if you all hear of someone who wants to UC in B.C., you could direct them my way.....

I had to phone Vital Statistics in Victoria and they sent me a birth registration, and two "declarations of live birth", that had to be filled out by two people that are not related to the baby. They had to include their full name, my full name, the NB's full name, where she was born, at what time, her sex, and her size in what hey wrote. They had to do this in front of a government agent, or a notary public... we went to a notary public, and they charged me 28$!!! to watch them sign the declarations, and for him to but a stamp on it.(rediculous) But I got it done, and sent it in to viatal stats with the registration of live birth.

So, that's what I had to do. It was a big hassle, in the weeks following the birth. I had to organize two of my mom's friends to come down to the notary at the same time.

[3_opihi]

Hey everybody new here!

Well, I'm not sure if some of you were reading about all my dramas back a couple weeks ago, but after firing my midwife and getting the all clear that my placenta is no longer going to detach, I am starting to prepare for a UC. I am 17 weeks.

My last baby was born at home, in the bathtub, midwife was there for less than an hour. I caught him myself. I know that I don't need anyone there with me. In fact, this time around I have this strong feeling that it would be a hindrance to me. Its funny, because last time I felt that I really needed tons of people there with me. I dunno, its funny how feelings can change.

So, I'll be seeing an OB throughout the pregnancy. Mainly, just to cover my arse. I plan to tell them we just didn't make it to the hospital in time. (we live an hour away) Also, getting a birth certificate and social security card in Hawaii is really hard, without a doctor signing off on it, so I think it'll just be easier that way.

I'm not so much wondering about the actual labor, but after it. For instance, how and with what do you use to cut the cord? What do I check with the placenta? Oh, and did anyone moniter the baby's heartbeat in anyway during the labor? I would think you just use motherly intuition, but I'm interested in what everyone else is doing.

Aloha

[cottonwood]

Hi mamamaya, welcome to the UC thread!

We used a sterile scissors to cut the cord and then tied it off with white baby shoelaces. (Boiled both in water for at least 10 minutes, dried, and then sealed in a plastic baggy.) This time I'll probably use embroidery floss.

The placenta, you just want to make sure it's all there, that no membranes or chunks seem to be missing. That way if you are having too much bleeding, you'll know there's still something that needs to come out.

We have a fetoscope, but did not monitor the heartbeat during labor, and probably will not again.

[Aura_Kitten]

for the cord, we used sterilized kitchen scissors (boiled for 10 minutes in water) and a shoelace, though i would recommend braided embroidery floss or umbilical cord string (which you can get from some OB nurses )...

we didn't check the heartbeat during labor + delivery, because she was kicking the whole time : (:LOL) so we didn't really have any concerns.

[Mama2Lennon]

All this talk about cutting cords has got me thinking about lotus births. I haven't ever heard much about it (a random article in the Compleat Mother some years back is all I've heard actually) and wondering if anyone here has done it. I did notice on someone's signature that it mentioned lotus birth. Any info on how to care for the placenta? It doesn't seem like a very common thing but any helpful hints would be, well, helpful

[Aura_Kitten]

we were plannng a lotus birth, but ended up cutting her cord a few hours after she was born, because i couldn't keep getting her latched on right, and successful breastfeeding was WAY more important to me than keeping her cord attached... i'm sorry that's all the input i can give you.

[ComaWhite]

[Aura_Kitten]

andrea, you're beautiful. i love your tattoos! thanks for sharing the photos with us. awesome cord tie!

[Unoppressed MAMA Q]

i'm in

if ya want me.
i probably won't be around here, much, as i'm done having babies.
but if you want another name to add to your freebirther list, i've done it twice, in 9/02 and 9/03, both in indiana.
peace all! my freeborn babies are some of the happiest people i know.

[Aura_Kitten]

:

glad to have you, and welcome to MDC!

[indigolilybear]

Re: placenta and lotus birth
When we did our first freebirth, we had trouble figuring out if the whole placenta was there and were concerned as I was bleeding a lot. We had a MW come and she showed us how to check it so I thought I'd add a bit to the details, in case anyone needs to know....you put it mama-side up in your palms, and cup it together a bit, which shows you more easily if any is missing.

Lotus birth: there is a huge thread on the homebirth archives re: lotus birth. We did it in our second birth, first freebirth. It is not hard but can be challenging. (does that make sense? :LOL) ANyway, Jeannine sells a booklet and I think the book about it on her site www.freestone.org last I checked. We used her booklet. basically we let it dry, let the Wharton's jelly solidify, rinsed it off a bit and put sea salt on it (not necessary but that's what we did...you can also use herbs like lavendar or do a "mother roast" which is when you heat up the whole house really warm and everyone goes about naked,esp. mama and babe) We had the placenta in a strainer w/a diaper under it. We re-salted it a couple times. It can get tricky walking around w/it. The cord dries into a shape after a couple days and isn't really flexible after that. Sometimes the baby's feet/hands jerk and get caught on it and it pulls them a bit. I even dropped the strainer w/the placenta once! Ouch! I felt so bad. BUT it fell off after about four days and I was very glad we did it. It very much slowed us down and kept the feeling very sacred and reminded us of how transitional his being was. TBH, I *kind of* regret not doing it this last time, but we had stairs, had a really rambunctious three yr old, and practice seclusion so I felt like it wasn't "for us" this time. We simply tied the very limp cord (probably around 12 hrs after the birth) w/some ribbon and snipped it w/unsterilized scissors. No prob w/it.

Re: heartbeat, never checked it at all the last preg. Tried during the preg w/ds, but never could find it so I gave up. It felt like a good/important transition *for us* to give up
"Appollonic" tools and rely on the heartone we sensed, not heard.

anyway, HTH.

[Aura_Kitten]

oh, we checked her heartbeat during the last few weeks of the pregnancy too... i didn't think to mention that earlier.

we didn't use any instruments ~ my SO just would put his ear to my belly and listen.

[ComaWhite]

andrea, you're beautiful. i love your tattoos! thanks for sharing the photos with us. awesome cord tie!

You just made my day klothos!

[madrone]

Thank you for the birth affirmations Klothos! Hopefully they will help me. Thank you for your always rational view on birth BlueViolet.

[TRIBE]

mamamaya

Aloha! I had a UC in HI a few yrs ago I didn't see an OB but I did contact a midwife during my last 2 weeks of pregnancy to help obtain the birth certificate. I know you can get one without but I didn't want the hassle. I wish I could remember that midwifes name as i am sure she would help you as well, she is very supportive of UC.

As for cutting the cord I used sterilized scissors. I didn't tie it off since we waited for the cord to stop pulsing. There was a little ick splatter but nothing major.

We had a doppler but I didn't use it during the labor. I felt connected and in tune enough that I would know if something was wrong without monitoring the heartbeat. This time I won't even have the doppler.

[sprinkle pocket]

hi mamamaya and mama Q!

i'm glad the discussion led to lotus and tying or not tying. (because i keep forgetting to ask about it) i'm not super attached to doing the *full* lotus birth, esp. b/c it may be cold and just be challenge enough to ec/bf and stay warm. but if i crave eating the placenta, does anyone know how long after the birth i can still eat it, if it's been attached to the babe? we tend to use nature cure for our healing, which gains much of it's basis from watching animals in nature (ex. hot/cold soaks, clay/mud packs, rest when it's needed, etc). so when i think about birth, i think about mama animals waiting a while, then eating the placenta/not tying off the cord. so i'm wondering if tying started as a practice with impatient ob's who just want to cut and run, rather than let it serve it's purpose before cutting. it sounds like most mamas that don't tie, have no probs. with bleeding/excessive leaking. anyone know anything different? i'm not sure i'll want to eat the placenta, but i'm open to that and lotus birth the same--just kinda figure we'll go with the flow and know when the time comes.

i also have been doing a little thinking about ob-induced ideas. i figure this uc-loving place is the best place to bring up these ponderings, since we all kind of (or wholeheartedly :LOL) question the allopathic model of birthing and see that the intelligence stored in a woman's body tends to be plenty to have a nice birth & a healthy babe, especially when the lifestyle leading up to the birth supports it, too. i'd love it if anyone has any thoughts to share about it. i'm wondering about the concepts of trimesters and transition.

as for trimesters, seeing as how pregnancy averages 10 lunar months, and in many cultures, the concept of 9 months is newer (if not still unknown), i'm having a hard time seeing 10 months being split into 3. the only way i could see it is if it's in 3 lunar month sections with the last being a babymoon where the buildup to birth is addressed, or the woman given extra attn, etc. i just don't know. also, that time is just the average, what about the 9 or 11 lunar month pregnancy? there seems to be alot of excuses given by doctors when they don't know why something happens.

i know this may be an unpopular idea, but i don't get morning sickness being an expected symptom of pregnancy and normal, or should i say neccessary and expected. i get pregnancy as being extremely normal and necessary for the continuation of species, so i don't get how it would factor in that we could survive in the wild if most of the pg women were puking and needing to lay down so they don't get sick, and can't eat. i felt like my version of ms was my body detoxing, as nausea, vomiting and poor appetite tends to be viewed outside of pg. so i did some cleansing for a couple weeks and poof, it was over. now when i start to get a twinge of it, i do some more cleansing and it's gone. so i'm wondering if ms is more a symptom of our lifestyles, diet, etc, rather than a symptom of pg. it makes sense in my mind that the baby would thrive in an environment built on whole foods, happy thoughts, and healthy amounts of activity, and the body would seek that state. (whew! am i going on or what?! jstu wait, there's more! )
ok, now transition. it's purpoted to be one of the stages of labor. but then you read these uc birth stories and alot of them leave the woman saying, "wait, i can't be ready to push, i haven't had the torture of transition yet. it can't be this easy!" or "i woke up and was fully dilated" so, i'm thinking that transition is nature's way to complete the birth within the limits of the woman's energy/ability. so if she hasn't been able to open/release everything that needs to be, nature does a little a&#-kicking, if you will. but to birth unhindered and free, allows the woman a greater chance to more "gently" open as she needs to in order to birth. not that this happens in every freebirth, i know. but freebirth seems to reduce or eliminate the need for transition to occur before the baby can pass into this world. whereas hosp. births tend to rely on it...(yeah, don't get me started on their reliance being on submission, epidurals, and pitocin/cytotec! :LOL)

any thoughts? any other ideas? anybody else question the state of affairs when it comes to what's viewed as normal in pregnancy? i want to hear all about it!

[nikirj]

Interesting thoughts, SP. For me, my MS was pretty bad. When I first found out I was pregnant, I changed my diet and have never eaten such a good diet in my life - but I was knocked on my arse 2.5 weeks later, worse than with either of my previous pregnancies, when my diet had been worse. I wonder sometimes if it isn't environmental factors (there's got to be some pollution in Seattle/Tacoma, right? Some gross stuff coming up from the carpet in the apartment I rent?).

About transition - when my first was born I had a 'textbook' natural labor (as in, exactly what doctors/hospitals expect, minus the drugs). I had a distinct transition phase, I barfed, I felt overwhelmed. I did sleep between contractions at some point and my mom said "that's great, shows you're really letting your body work!" but really, it was because I was physically exhausted and totally out of my body. With my second, I didn't experience a transition phase at all. Throughout the labor I had used visualization and embraced the feelings in my body as doing necessary work, and did my best to work with it. There was never any real difference between the contractions I experienced when I decided "ok, it's gonna happen soon" and when I started pushing. They were even still around 2 minutes apart. Pushing took 2 minutes (literally, 2 contractions) as opposed to the 1 1/2 hours with my first. I had never really considered the lack of a transition phase before, but I can understand it - I personally during my second birth stopped allowing my body to work for about 20 minutes while we got to the hospital (yes, both my 2 births have been at hospitals) and when I was checked, I was 6 cm - immediately after that I consciously released my body and I was pushing at my next contraction (and must have been fully dilated, since it took only twice). When I think about it, I'm just lucky they took me seriously when I said I was close to the end, as I must not have looked it according to the usual criteria. In fact, I think I must have looked rather like a woman in early labor, judging by what I've seen on TV shows and such. I certainly wasn't feeling tortured, despite it being back labor (ok, it was painful, but I didn't look one bit like the beaten-down women I see on tv). Oooh boy am I rambling - anyway, I tend to agree that 'transition' as a distinct stage is a fear-induced thing. I mean, sure intensity tends to get worse and worse (like I mentioned earlier, it didn't even do that to me, but I'll buy that it almost always does), but the idea that when we refuse to work with our bodies we must plateau at some torturous high-pain state while our bodies force the last bit of preparation that we have been preventing (consiously or otherwise) makes a sort of sense to me.

Time is such a socially induced thing. The measurement of time is absurdly arbitrary. Sure I understand the history (really, I do, I've found this interesting), but still, given a different turn of history who is to say we wouldn't be working on a base-10 system of some sort? When we decided how long a 'second' was, it was just a subset of 'minute', which was a subset of 'hour', and months are no less arbitrary. Who decided there are three trimesters to pregnancy anyway? Was it someone that matters to us? Why WOULD it matter to us what trimester we are in? Pregnancy is a changing, evolving thing, and we don't sit in first trimester until we suddenly open a door into the second - we walk fairly steadily through the process. I tend to disregard the trimester idea entirely, and like to think that the only really sensibly natural way to time it is by lunar month - however, I also time mine by week, just because it is in all the literature. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what calendar month I'm in, and don't really think about trimesters at all, either.

And about your last question - the only thing that really, really makes me madder than heck about the current system is the assumption that women don't birth their babies, babies are delivered by doctors (and following - that women aren't CAPABLE of birthing their babies without doctors, that those few who try it are 'absurdly lucky' and are somehow flaunting some natural order of things, rather than simply realizing that birth itself is a natural, systematically NORMAL process). There are a lot of things that bug me a little, but none more than the assumption that women are incapable of birthing babies without intervention.

[sprinkle pocket]

hi niki~good thoughts. thanks for sharing them. it got me to thinking. one of the things is, for having placenta brain, i did a good job getting most of my thoughts out, but i think i skipped some.

about m/s, the idea that you weren't too sick or at all with the 1st 2 would support the idea of suppression and the vitality it takes to have an acute healing crises. if you really were eating poorly, your body mayn't have had the energy to get the gunk out, so to speak. whereas, with your 3rd, it sounds like you were at a point where you were able to eat better which likely means other aspects of your life were healthier. so the idea that you were soo sick, could mean your body was better able to detox...and did. so that was kind of my point with the m/s idea, that it's actually a detoxing period. does that make sense for your situation?

and the trimester idea, you kind of said what i forgot to get to, that is, the odd idea that each trimester is unique (ex. m/s will end when you get to the 2nd trimester, and your energy will increase, etc). like you said, you magically walk through a door and it's new and different. i'm certainly new to this happening in my own body, but so far, it feels like a very fluid process. i get that things change, as different aspects of the baby develop, as my and dh's life shifts into that of parents entrusted with caring for another life, but it seems alogical to place merely 3 distinct chapters upon it. it seems like that's for the ob/gyn's benefit for studying it for a test in school.

as for your ideas of time, as i understand it from esoteric/old, old thinking, there are many pulses (subtle and not so subtle) that exist in the universe. whether it be the blood or cerebral spinal fluid pumping through the body or the slower pulse of the moon... there also is apparently a pulse to the planet as a whole. supposedly this idea comes from long ago when shaman and the like were able to tap into the knowledge of the planet and universe through dreams and meditative states. this is what i understand "time" to be based on, this pulse. as for the calender we live under when it comes to paying bills on time, well i don't know. that's a different ballgame, i suppose. it's funny to think of this natural order that people live(d) by compared to what body of knowledge bush thinks he's tapped into. (sorry, i couldn't help myself!)

thanks again for sharing your stories. it's really helping me put it together.

[majazama]

I just want to say on the topic of doctors "delivering" you, I phoned a public health nurse because I was paranoid about my baby gaining weight, and she asked me "Who delivered you?" and I said "I delivered myself!":LOL

[majazama]

I also wanted to say that I have not had *one* negative comment about me having my baby unassisted. Most people said I was __BRAVE__. I can't believe it. I thought everyone would go into how I was risking my childs life, blah, blah, blah. Maybe if I had told some people before hand, it would be a different story.