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Saturday, 21 November 2009
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A Feast to Ourselves...
We are going to have the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with Ryan's family this year. However, neither my Mom nor Ryan's are terribly into turkey, so turkey often doesn't happen at family holidays. Therefore, we bought the smallest one we could find to have at home. And, to make the occasion even more grand, we were able to find some folks to come share it with us.
So yesterday I made a rice and quinoa stuffing, wild mushroom soup, and a chocolate truffle pie to go with the turkey, mashed potatoes, and asparagus I'm making today.
And we woke up sick this morning. So, we're not having company, and we're going to be eating turkey for ages! On the bright side--I'm not going to have to spend much time in the kitchen making dinner this week. I can focus my energies on things like holiday goodies instead...
Thursday, 19 November 2009
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Not Yet, Little Man!
We've had a rather busy couple of weeks. Mercy and I spent a good part of last week at my Mom's with my sister, her son and husband, and, of course, my mom. We came home to Ryan on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon I realized that our refrigerator was nearly empty. We needed to go grocery shopping.
I picked Ryan up from school on Monday evening so that we could all go to Winco together. With Mercy so freshly potty trained it is so much easier with both of us. She inevitably has to go (or at least check out the bathroom), and that is a hassle with a cart full of groceries, a diaper bag, and her to shuffle. Last week I think Mercy and I visited the bathroom at Safeway 5 times in a 1/2 trip. As it turns out, she just really liked the big, yellow, "wet floor" sign that is stored in there and kept wanting to go back to play with it.
Anyway, we came home at about 6:45pm with more groceries than I have ever purchased in one trip. While Ryan unloaded the car I proceeded to heat leftovers for dinner and put groceries away. At about 7pm I suddenly realized that my back really hurt. A few seconds later the fact that my front was pretty sore, too, registered. It took another minute or so for me to realize that I was having contractions.
We sat down for dinner, and I'd hoped that sitting and eating would make them subside, but it didn't. At 8:20pm we called the hospital. I was told to lay down and drink lots for an hour and call back. By the end of the hour they were 8 minutes apart rather than 3, so I was told we could continue to monitor at home. By 1am (my last remembered time before falling asleep), they were 20 minutes apart. The next day they were down to every hour and stopped altogether at 2pm.
Needless to say, I was told to take it very easy for a few days. Ryan has been wonderful about letting some less important things at school slide a bit and working in more time to stay at home. So I have been getting more sleep, and he has been doing the dishes every evening. Today it has been 48 hours since I had any contractions, and we are starting to relax a little. I was permitted a little more activity today, which felt nice. We're continuing to play it on the cautious side, though.
I'll be 26 weeks tomorrow, and though these days they usually save those babies, we want Gilead in there for quite awhile longer. We're praying this was just an odd occurrence and that the rest of the pregnancy is trouble-free!
Saturday, 07 November 2009
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An Addendum...
After yesterday's post I feel that I need to add an addendum. I know some wonderful people, and even have a couple of friends, who have home births or who refuse any sort of medication when in the hospital. And I'm so glad that their bodies are able to accommodate their desires in that department! I count myself blessed in that I have never thought of the delivery issue as a big deal, until hard decisions needed to be made regarding the deliveries of our children. At which point I was shocked at the number of extremely strong opinions I got on the subject. I had never realized that people were so passionate about such a thing--particularly when they didn't know me well.
In my family there is a history of difficult deliveries. So, would I have been inclined toward a home birth even without my medical complications? Probably not. Would I have run to a scheduled c-section for the "convenience" of knowing the date, time, and method of delivery? Absolutely not. I have simply found myself in a place in which what needs to be done has drawn an alarming number of reactions--and most not positive.
I'm thrilled for those that are able to have their children at home, and I'm equally glad that other options are available to those of us who quite literally might not survive that experience! Sometimes the Lord's mercies are evident in the most high-tech situations in our modern world, and sometimes in the most homespun. I'm thankful for both.
Friday, 06 November 2009
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Currently
Deliver This!: Make the Childbirth Choice That's Right for You . . . No Matter What Everyone Else Thinks
By Marisa Cohen
see relatedDeliver This!
When I was pregnant with Mercy, I struggled with how to proceed in planning her delivery. We live in a community in which home-birth is a big deal. However, I knew that given some conditions that I struggle with, that would be a bad idea. In fact, one of them (which is of a nature you simply don't blog about) can interfere with childbirth so heavily that many doctors who are familiar with it won't even attempt a natural delivery. I was conflicted. A large part of me simply wanted to go straight to the c-section. I knew how much pain I had been in as a result of this condition in the past and couldn't imagine what delivering a baby would do. However, I was hearing over and over again how superior a natural delivery was, and it seemed to be some sort of "rite of passage."
So I chose a local doctor who had a reputation for not intervening until the mother and/or baby were absolutely in danger. He also hadn't really heard of my medical complication, which isn't terribly unusual. It is rare, and typically affects post-menopausal women, so if a doctor primarily sees women of child-bearing age he very likely hasn't encountered it. I figured that this way I would be in a hospital should something go wrong, but even the home-birthers liked this doctor, so I wouldn't get as much pressure to rethink my birth-plan.
Things went wrong. I didn't end up with that c-section, but there was intervention. Mercy suffered some pretty significant head-trauma (which is, in part, the cause of her gross-motor delays) and my recovery was very difficult. This coming from someone who had undergone 5 surgeries by the age of 22. My recovery from my "better, more natural" delivery was the hardest of them all. My frustration level would go through the roof when people would learn I had a frightening and difficult delivery, but comment "well, at least you didn't have a c-section." As if that would have been worse than the possibility that the delivery had worsened a pre-existing condition and caused potential damage to our baby.
Toward the end of my pregnancy with Mercy I came across a book entitled "Deliver This! Make the Childbirth Choice that's Right for You...No Matter what Everyone Else Thinks." I felt better about my choice to have Mercy in the hospital after reading it, and this time around I have gathered even more confidence. Gilead is a scheduled c-section.
Yes, it is medically advised c-section, but I still get raised eyebrows and shocked "why's?" I suppose I could have just gone with the doctor's advice and not told anyone until the last week of pregnancy, and then simply stated that he was breach. If that turns out to be true, that would be a great alternative, but if it isn't, I couldn't lie. But, as he said "very few who have had a delivery that is even close to normal are going to understand why this is necessary."
I'm not having a baby for the "experience" of delivery--I want the baby at the end, no matter what kind of delivery is necessary. For me there is no emotional trauma or feeling of inadequacy for having a c-section. I don't feel like any more of a woman for having pushed Mercy out, nor do I feel like less of one for having Gilead cut out. I'm sure very few people who push natural delivery so hard would state that they are in it for the experience as much as the baby, either, but is certainly the impression that I've left with after hearing a passionate speech about the wonders of natural birth.
In the introduction to "Deliver This!" the author, who is a health-writer, states "I have found that no matter what your opinion is on a health issue, somehow, somewhere, there is a published study to back you up (it may have been done on a dozen subjects in a small town in Sweden, but still, it's there and you can quote it.)" I wanted to shout "Thank you!" when I read that. I believe we all need to keep it in mind when trying to sway another on a non-salvific or moral issue.
In the chapter dedicated to medically advised, pre-planned c-sections, a paragraph early on says that "while no one grows up dreaming about giving birth in an operating room, these women want you to know that a cesarean can be just as fulfilling and just as wonderful as a vaginal birth--and in some cases, they believe it can be even better for both mother and baby." Later in the chapter the author emphasizes that we really don't want to hear "oh, I'm sorry" when you learn that we're headed for c-sections--as if we don't end up with beautiful babies just like everyone else.
While I know that many, many people have uneventful, and even relatively quick and easy deliveries, it seems that the fall has affected some of us more than others in that department. And quite frankly, I am incredibly thankful to live in the day and time that I do. I will always believe that the interventions that are now possible are part of the redeeming of culture that those of us Reformed circles talk about so readily. Without them neither me, nor my babies, may have survived delivery. Yes, I'm having a c-section. Unless Gilead tries to make an earlier appearance, he'll be coming via a surgeon's hands on February 18. And we are completely at peace with that. His delivery is just as much in God's hands as it would be if he arrived at home, or via a natural or medicated delivery in the hospital. That alone makes the whole thing seem much less an issue than we finite beings want to make it!
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Encouraged by the Little Things
Thank you for all of the kind responses to the last post. Mercy now seems to be working on getting her eye teeth in, which means that more than ever my house is cluttered since we've been losing 2-4 hours of sleep a night with her. Not to mention the high maintenance days those nights lead to on Mercy's parts.
However, one small thing that does leave me encouraged is the frequency with which Mercy pretends to clean. If she can't find a sponge she'll use a wipe to clean anything she can. Then she'll proceed to put things into the washing machine. It reminds me that she obviously sees these things happening!
Pianorose
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- Name: Amber
- Country: United States
- State: Idaho
- Birthday: 10/22/1983
- Gender: Female
- Member Since: 3/24/2006
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