On natural childbirth, etcetera

This is the post where I write down all the things I've been meaning to share about pregnancy, natural childbirth, and nursing. Let's start by acknowledging that I'm certainly no expert on this subject (maybe 5 kids down the road I'll feel more like one?). But when I was pregnant, I loved hearing people's experiences with pregnancy and birth, and after Jake was born, I would have loved to read what I'm about to write about nursing. Hopefully this post can prove useful to someone, if not just myself when it's time for round two. Forewarning that it will be rather long-winded and will likely contain a bit of TMI.


By the way, you can read Jake's birth story here:
http://ash-and-matt.blogspot.com/2011/10/jakes-birth.html. Okay, moving on.

On growing bellies:

My 6-year-old brother Joshie made sure to keep me humble. "Wow, that baby sure is growing in there!," he exclaimed when we visited Utah in July. Then, one month later,  I was Skyping my mom when Josh walked in and joined the conversation rather inquisitively.

"Um, have you been watching a lot of TV lately?," he asked.

"Nope, we don't even have TV," I explained.

"Then you must have been playing a lot of video games," he replied knowingly as he gestured to my big belly.

I laughed. "Actually, I've been making a baby -- arms, legs, you know."

"Oh! You're like a machine!," he concluded.

That's right, everyone. A baby-makin' machine.

My belly on my birthday, at 39 weeks exactly.

On exercising through pregnancy:

I highly recommend the book, "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy" by Dr. James Clapp. It makes a lot of sense. A healthy pregnancy is important for both the mom and the baby. I exercised throughout my entire pregnancy with Jake, and was jogging and playing tennis up until the day he was born. Even while I was on just-in-case modified bedrest (because of the IUGR) from 33-37 weeks, my doctor had me very slowly do the elliptical 3x's a week for circulation's sake. I felt a million times better on days that I exercised and it definitely helped with my all-day sickness, mood, and eventually, labor and recovery.

That said, there's such a stigma about exercising when pregnant. A sweet little grandma about died when she saw me out for a run last July. And when Jake had IUGR, I felt like everyone would judge me for having exercised and "hurt" my baby. Of course, my doctors -- including the high-risk specialist I saw multiple times a week during the third trimester -- assured me that was not the case. They were very happy with my weight gain (which, while I'm engaging in TMI already, was 29 pounds) and promised the exercise I'd been doing was good for me and my baby. I trust my doctors, and especially my perinatologist, and if they said my exercise was good, then my exercise was good. But people don't sit in my prenatal appointments with me -- um, thank goodness -- and therefore I still worry about those judgments regarding Jake's and future pregnancies.

On hiring a birth photographer:

Best thing I've ever done, ever. I highly recommend it to everyone. We got to capture those special moments for ourselves and share them with our far-away families, while allowing Matt to be totally in the moments rather than trying to document them himself. Letting Matt just enjoy it and having pictures of him doing so were huge selling points for us, and it was worth every penny for those reasons alone. He never had to pause and fumble around for the camera to get a quick shot of Jake being weighed, and when the nurse handed me my baby for the first time, Matt got to lean in close instead of jumping behind a camera lens. We have beautiful pictures of Matt meeting and holding his first-born son for the first time, and the pictures of the three of us as a brand-new family are priceless.

Interestingly enough, I told our photographer beforehand that I didn't really want many pictures of the labor part -- I just cared about pictures once the baby was born -- but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I treasure the pictures of those moments before Jake was born, too. Sandy captured the love, concern, pride and joy on Matt's face, and the pictures offer a beautiful little glimpse into our marriage. A few of our favorites can be seen in the slideshow on Jake's birth story post.

The few people we told about hiring a photographer before Jake was born thought it was a little odd, but I'm pretty sure they changed their minds when they saw the pictures. I know that one argument against birth photographers is not wanting to have a stranger in the room for such a special moment, but if you think about it, the room is full of strangers -- doctors and nurses -- already. What's one more? Sandy was a sweet fly on the wall, just capturing moments as they happened and giving us all the space we needed. We plan on hiring a birth photographer every time. (In fact, I already have my photographer picked out for our next baby in Utah. No, I won't be getting pregnant for awhile.)

On natural childbirth:

I believe in modern medicine and am certainly grateful for it. However, unless it was truly medically necessary, I didn't feel like medical interventions or drugs were right for me or my baby with this delivery. Of course, every person and situation are different, an epidural isn't the end of the world, sometimes c-sections are necessary, yada yada yada. You get the idea. If Jake hadn't shown barely-enough signs of growth at every appointment like he did and had to be born at, say, 34 weeks instead, perhaps things would have been different.

When I was a teenager, I remember saying I wanted to deliver my babies naturally so I could get up and shower immediately afterward. Then I grew up and developed a few more, well, "grown-up" reasons for choosing natural childbirth. Which was good, because it took a good seven hours or so to pry myself away from my baby and into a shower, so that reasoning would have proved rather faulty. I won't delve into all of my real reasons here, but I'd be happy to share those in another setting.

I ended up deciding that the Bradley Method made the most sense to me -- it's pretty basic and logical (I'm not one of those "imagine that you are floating on a cloud" type people at.all.). Luckily, I'm married to the most supportive human being on the planet. We ordered this book, which is fantastic. Fantastic, and a bit, um, graphic. Matt covered up all the pictures with post-its and dutifully read the entire thing with me (well, separately, but we both read it), and we prepared together. It made a huge difference to have a partner who understood what was going on and knew how to best help.

For those curious about the pain aspect, I won't sugarcoat it. The pain is real. Back labor is excruciating. A contraction at 5 cm is absolutely nothing compared to a contraction at 10 cm. There is honestly nothing like it. Believe it or not, the contraction pain seems to calm down a little bit during the actual pushing stage, presumably because of the adrenaline, counter pressure, and the fact that's when you're really working with your body. And then you have the baby and the pain is immediately replaced with the unspeakable joy of holding your little one. Oh, it is all so worth it. In the end, I was able to be very much "there" for every part of his birth, he came out wide awake and alert because he hadn't received any drugs through me, and I was able to have a pretty decent recovery.

On trusting yourself:

My two tips for anyone planning a natural birth are to be prepared and trust yourself. When it was time to push, the 5 well-meaning nurses around me and even my doctor kept giving directions, counting, and telling me to push when there wasn't even a contraction. In the craziness of the moment, I listened to them at first because you know, this was new to me and they've done this a thousand times and I had a baby trying to come out of me. But inside, I knew better. As soon as I tuned them out, trusted myself, and did things my way, there was real progress and Jake was born in minutes. Trust yourself.

On nursing:

It's been really frustrating, especially since things were so easy (albeit excruciatingly painful) in the very beginning and I feel like I messed things up for my baby somehow. And then I feel like it's not fair, because no one else seems to have such a hard time with nursing. I think that last sentence is why so many moms quit nursing--because they think it's so easy for everyone else and therefore something must be wrong with them. I'm here to tell you that nursing is absolutely not easy for everyone.

We've really been through the ringer with nursing. If there's a nursing problem, I guarantee you we have dealt with it. Cracks, bleeding, rawness, being required to exclusively pump for a couple days, Jake preferring the bottle after that, mastitis, pesky thrush, never-ending wrestling matches at feeding time, hyperlactation, and most recently, trying to maintain supply during a recent nursing strike. My doctor and lactation consultant told me they've never seen a mom as damaged as I was who actually continued to nurse.


There was a one-month period where everything possible was going wrong and it seemed like I did nothing but nurse, think about nursing, talk about nursing, or research nursing problems and solutions online. (PS: The La Leche League site and Kelly Mom are both helpful.) I was bound and determined to nurse my baby at least until the recommended 6-month mark if at all humanly possible. So despite all the pain and frustration, we made it and are still going strong. But I had to make little goals for myself along the way -- first 6 weeks, then 3 months, then 6 months. Now, we'll see.

When I think about having another baby, being pregnant, giving birth naturally, and recovering all sound fine. But doing this nursing thing all over again? That makes me want to cry. Of course I'll do it and hopefully it will go better the next time around, but oh my, I will not be looking forward to it. If you ever have any nursing problems, please feel free to call for empathy.

Ah, the joys of public nursing. At Disney World, no less, when Jake was 2 months old.

On sleepless nights:

Jake had a rough night about three weeks in and Matt sweetly stayed up to help me with him. Unfortunately, this caused him to sleep through his alarms and be late for work. He texted his coworker to let the office know he was on his way. Later that morning, Matt's boss came by his desk. "Sleepless night last night?," he asked. "Yep, and a sleepful morning," Matt responded. Thank goodness for an understanding boss.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a "sleepful" anything in what seems like forever. Jake was actually a decent sleeper for the first few months, waking up around 12:30 or 1:00, then 4:30 or 5:00, and then for good around 7:30. But then we went to Utah for the holidays and he turned 4 months old and it was all over. For the past two months, he has waken up every 1.5-2.5 (if I'm lucky) hours throughout the night. (Now that Jake's 15 pounds and 6-months-old, sleep training is on the agenda.) He typically wakes up happy, just wanting to hang out and snack and stuff. I haven't completed a single solid REM sleep cycle in more than 60 days and I feel like a zombie all too often. And yet, every time he wakes me up, no matter the hour, I can't help but feel happy to see his sweet little face.