I have dealt with a good dose of psychological issues in my lifetime. Err... I should say, I'm in the process of dealing with them. I used to take a lot of psyche meds, most of them didn't work for shit. A few years ago I got off of all psyche meds, and felt pretty good. I had a small freak out during the planning of my wedding and the doctor gave me an SSRI, which immediately made me feel manic and restless, and scatterbrained, so I stopped it. He also gave me Klonapin, which is an awesome anti-anxiety med. Of course I really don't like feeling drugged, so I often cut the pills into fourths, yes, fourths. I think I only took a few doses and the rest were stashed away.
Then I got pregnant. Pregnancy raised the craziness from a 15% average to about 30%. I did not want to take any meds during pregnancy. It was hard. There were days when I really, really wanted Klonapin, there were days that I really, really, REALLY, wanted a glass of wine and I felt so trapped by the stupid uterine dweller that I felt resentful and just wanted it to all be over.
But I pressed on and survived and went a whole nine months on Caffeine, Tylenol, Advil (for weeks 14-24), regular Tums, a few doses of Unisom (for nausea), a couple doses of cough syrup, and one course of antibiotics for an ear and sinus infection. Literally those were the only substances besides food and water that I took. Next time I'm taking better nausea meds (if they exist) and heartburn meds. But I just won't risk the possible complications with psyche meds.
Pregnancy stated out very emotional, then the physical symptoms outweighed the emotional ones, then I just felt dumb for two months, and then the third trimester just slowly got me more and more crazy and more physically uncomfortable. I was so ready for pregnancy to be over. So ready to be a mom.
Ha ha ha! PMS, pregnancy, even birth, do not compare to post partum hell. I would have gone through the whole birth again to relieve my post partum symptoms.
And the thing is, it doesn't start right away, you get about a 48-72 hour honeymoon where you feel sore, and your kind of nuts, but you are also high on the birth and mesmerized with your baby, and stupidly in love with your baby and your husband (or partner, or boyfriend, or sperm donor, or whatever). So you think all is well, "sure I'm ready to go home from the hospital!" "No problems here!"
I remember getting home and sitting on the couch, holding my 2 day-old baby, and saying to my husband, "this feels so right." It did feel so right. I had felt like a mother without a baby for so many years and now I had my baby. I was also incredibly horny.
Too much information? Something about the hormones of birth made me want to go try to make another one, over and over again. It was so weird, I've never been so horny and simultaneously so ill equip to have sex in my life. We did our best considering.
The first part of hell I noticed the most was the physical pain. I had no idea that giving birth hurt you so goddamn much. I also got reports form other people in my family that it's not as bad as they think. My mother in law even claimed that once you're home from the hospital, you're pretty much fine. Oh my god, no. I didn't have a C-section, an episotomy, or even an IV or an epidural. I had one, minor tear.
I actually woke up about 24 hours after his birth with pain in my body from head to toe. Aching pain as if every muscle in my body had been strained and pushed beyond its limit. Then about 6 hours later I got a terrible headache on top of it. I was on the max dose of both Tylenol and Ibuprofen. The all over pain was mostly gone by the time I left the hospital.
I gladly took the wheelchair ride all the way to the car. Who the hell turns down a wheelchair ride 48 hours after birth? Wizards? In fact I was back for a lactation visit at 5 days post partum and demanded a wheelchair then too. I could still not walk long distances.
I really had no idea how much it interfered with your walking. For about 3 weeks, I really could not walk far. If I pushed myself, I got horrible pain in my hips. I also had to walk slowly. I wanted to go on walks, but it was so hard. Next time I'm going to walk to the park and sit down and eat a picnic instead. But at 4 weeks I was fine; I walked a few miles with the baby strapped to me, not quite a month old at Pride.
You also bleed, a lot. They tell you that the bleeding will last 4 to 6 weeks, mine lasted about 7. Although by the end you are just spotting. It's the first week that sucks the most because it's equivalent to the heaviest goddamn period you will ever have. A period where something went very wrong.
And you pee, A LOT. My water weight came off so fast that even in the hospital I noticed how small my legs looked. At two days post partum, when I weighed myself at home I was only about 8 pounds lighter than right before the birth. At about a week post partum I was already over 20 pounds down. Which means I peed out about 12 pounds of water in 5 days. At my 6 week appointment I was down 32 pounds (most of it gone in the first three weeks). I believe at least half of this was water. Still on me was about 23 pounds of fat and boobs. It's almost all gone today!
Anyway, when you lose 20 pounds in a week, you notice it. I noticed myself shrinking. I could tell from day to day that I was shrinking. Looking down and not recognizing your own body is a strange feeling. Add on some post partum hormones and you feel detached from your body. I remember thinking that I was turning into an infant, like some kind of female Benjamin Button. And I felt weak, so I wondered if my muscles and bones were wasting away.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
What You Find At Babies R Us
I hate Babies R Us. I keep ending up there. I can't stop. If you don't know what kind of car seat or stroller or frickin' bouncy chair you want and you want to be able to choose from 500 styles, it's the place to go. I like to see things in person. I like to touch them and see how they fold up before I buy them. Last night we went there to buy a more compact stroller to take on vacation with us. The stroller I chose off of Amazon.com barely fits into our hatchback, so we can't really bring it on a plane and hope it fits into our economy rental car.
But this store sucks. I hate it. I usually end up throwing some sort of tantrum in there. It took us over an hour to decide on a stroller. I drew a floor plan of the store to illustrate the crappiness of this place:
But this store sucks. I hate it. I usually end up throwing some sort of tantrum in there. It took us over an hour to decide on a stroller. I drew a floor plan of the store to illustrate the crappiness of this place:
Because Babies R Us sells everything imaginable for some items, stuff that probably shouldn't be sold. And then for other items they have a very crappy selection, or no selection at all. The store is huge and by the time you find the one item you need, you've become overwhelmed by the crap you've seen.
Babies do not need very much. This is the truth. Some clothes, a few toys, a surface to sleep on, a car seat, and a carrier or a stroller or one of each, and that's about all. Everything else is pretty optional. We registered here and ended up with barely anything on it. Which means we got repeats of a lot of stuff. We picked out his new car seat at BRU and then bought it for much cheaper on Amazon.
Avoid this place as much as possible.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Things I Thought of While In Active and Transition Labor
I don't remember there being a significant difference between active and transitional labor. My labor had two phases: before my water broke and after my water broke. The first one being very painful and the second one being hellishly, please dear God, kill me painful.
But for reference active labor went from about 1 am until approximately 4:30 am and transitional labor was about 4:30 am until 6 am. This is based on a rough estimate of where my cervix was in centimeters. Active labor is 4 to 7 centimeters and transitional labor is 7 to 10 centimeters.
Things that popped into my head during the peaks of the contractions, which were happening God-only-knows how close together, but way too close together in my opinion:
"I am NEVER doing this again!"
"We are adopting the next one."
"I don't care if the baby dies, I want the pain to stop."
"Natural birth is a bunch of crap, I'd rather be dead right now."
"This is not worth it, I don't want to be a mom if this is what it takes."
"Make it stop, please make it stop."
I do vaguely remember getting a break from the contractions. I believe I basically collapsed on the bed to rest. People were telling me to rest in between contractions, so I did. I had the freedom to move around with the external monitor, and I did a little in the beginning. But the external monitor sucks because it slips and baby moves and the monitor constantly looses the baby and alarms go off in the hall. I agreed to an internal monitor. I didn't move off the bed much after the internal monitor was put on, and I frankly didn't have the energy to do it. I did change positions in bed many times. I barely remember how I was positioned or even where other people in the room were.
I did express some of the above things out loud. At one point I said, "I don't care about the baby anymore." My doula said, "that's not true." Which I guess it wasn't, but I really needed to express how much pain I was in. I wanted them all to know I was not fucking around here. I was in PAIN. I also told my husband to kill me, please kill me.
But I was also at the same time determined to do this without drugs.
I was not aware of time, but at about 5 am I knew it had been a while and I knew I wouldn't last much longer without pain relief. I believe I said something like this, "No! I can't do it anymore. The pain needs to end now." My doula this time agreed with me and along with the midwife we all decided to do another cervical check just to see how far I was. The midwife checked me and told my doula, who looked very happy. "Do you want me to tell you the good news?" "YES!" I wanted the good news. "You are 9 cm!" Only 1 cm to go. I decided to hold off. By the time they would be able to get the anesthesiologist in and prep me for an epidural, I probably would be pushing.
I was still in the very awful transitional phase, but my mood changed a bit because I knew it was almost over, I believe I did a lot less yelling and was a bit less suicidal. I had made it this far, what's one more centimeter?
I had heard that you don't need anyone to tell you when to push. That your body knows and it tells you to push. I also heard that pushing can be hard and that you can hold off on pushing and let the contractions push your baby down farther. This can prevent tears. But I found that if I didn't push during a contraction, the contractions hurt, and if I did push during a contraction, the contractions barely hurt. Plus I wanted this to be over. I wanted to meet my baby. So at 6 am, I felt the urge to push, and I began to push.
I guess I would say that pushing was hard, but compared to transitional labor, pushing was amazing. So at the time I was pushing, I loved pushing because it provided a huge pain relief. I pushed as hard as I could and I was told my pushing was very effective, but I still had to push for nearly 2 1/2 hours, which is common for first births.
It did not feel like 2 1/2 hours to me. I believe I was either falling asleep in between contractions or was totally dazed and out of it and unaware in between contractions, because to me, pushing lasted about 45 minutes in my head. And it seemed like the contractions were right on top of each other with no end. I do remember collapsing in between the contractions and closing my eyes and relaxing my body fully. The nurses brought me juice to drink. They called it special pushing juice. It was apple.
They gave me little guidance, mostly encouragement, and told me I was pushing very well. My husband says he was nearly falling asleep. He had been up for over 24 hours by the time our son was born.
Because of the meconium-stained amniotic fluid they wouldn't let me in the birthing tub, had me on continuous fetal monitoring, and had an infant resuscitation team in my room while I was pushing. This is the one thing that did not go as planned. I really wanted to be in the birthing tub. There was also a chance that my delayed cord-clamping would not be allowed and that I would not get immediate skin-on-skin contact if he did not breathe and cry right away after birth. This was explained to me. It didn't freak me out at the time, because I knew he was alright, but it would have been scary had they cut the cord immediately and taken him away from me to resuscitate him.
At 8:27 am, he was born and he did cry right away and was put on my chest for immediate skin-on-skin contact and breastfeeding a few minutes later. I am very grateful for this. This was the most amazing few minutes and I'm so glad I got to have them. It made everything else worth it and in those moments I knew I would do it all over again someday.
But for reference active labor went from about 1 am until approximately 4:30 am and transitional labor was about 4:30 am until 6 am. This is based on a rough estimate of where my cervix was in centimeters. Active labor is 4 to 7 centimeters and transitional labor is 7 to 10 centimeters.
Things that popped into my head during the peaks of the contractions, which were happening God-only-knows how close together, but way too close together in my opinion:
"I am NEVER doing this again!"
"We are adopting the next one."
"I don't care if the baby dies, I want the pain to stop."
"Natural birth is a bunch of crap, I'd rather be dead right now."
"This is not worth it, I don't want to be a mom if this is what it takes."
"Make it stop, please make it stop."
I do vaguely remember getting a break from the contractions. I believe I basically collapsed on the bed to rest. People were telling me to rest in between contractions, so I did. I had the freedom to move around with the external monitor, and I did a little in the beginning. But the external monitor sucks because it slips and baby moves and the monitor constantly looses the baby and alarms go off in the hall. I agreed to an internal monitor. I didn't move off the bed much after the internal monitor was put on, and I frankly didn't have the energy to do it. I did change positions in bed many times. I barely remember how I was positioned or even where other people in the room were.
I did express some of the above things out loud. At one point I said, "I don't care about the baby anymore." My doula said, "that's not true." Which I guess it wasn't, but I really needed to express how much pain I was in. I wanted them all to know I was not fucking around here. I was in PAIN. I also told my husband to kill me, please kill me.
But I was also at the same time determined to do this without drugs.
I was not aware of time, but at about 5 am I knew it had been a while and I knew I wouldn't last much longer without pain relief. I believe I said something like this, "No! I can't do it anymore. The pain needs to end now." My doula this time agreed with me and along with the midwife we all decided to do another cervical check just to see how far I was. The midwife checked me and told my doula, who looked very happy. "Do you want me to tell you the good news?" "YES!" I wanted the good news. "You are 9 cm!" Only 1 cm to go. I decided to hold off. By the time they would be able to get the anesthesiologist in and prep me for an epidural, I probably would be pushing.
I was still in the very awful transitional phase, but my mood changed a bit because I knew it was almost over, I believe I did a lot less yelling and was a bit less suicidal. I had made it this far, what's one more centimeter?
I had heard that you don't need anyone to tell you when to push. That your body knows and it tells you to push. I also heard that pushing can be hard and that you can hold off on pushing and let the contractions push your baby down farther. This can prevent tears. But I found that if I didn't push during a contraction, the contractions hurt, and if I did push during a contraction, the contractions barely hurt. Plus I wanted this to be over. I wanted to meet my baby. So at 6 am, I felt the urge to push, and I began to push.
I guess I would say that pushing was hard, but compared to transitional labor, pushing was amazing. So at the time I was pushing, I loved pushing because it provided a huge pain relief. I pushed as hard as I could and I was told my pushing was very effective, but I still had to push for nearly 2 1/2 hours, which is common for first births.
It did not feel like 2 1/2 hours to me. I believe I was either falling asleep in between contractions or was totally dazed and out of it and unaware in between contractions, because to me, pushing lasted about 45 minutes in my head. And it seemed like the contractions were right on top of each other with no end. I do remember collapsing in between the contractions and closing my eyes and relaxing my body fully. The nurses brought me juice to drink. They called it special pushing juice. It was apple.
They gave me little guidance, mostly encouragement, and told me I was pushing very well. My husband says he was nearly falling asleep. He had been up for over 24 hours by the time our son was born.
Because of the meconium-stained amniotic fluid they wouldn't let me in the birthing tub, had me on continuous fetal monitoring, and had an infant resuscitation team in my room while I was pushing. This is the one thing that did not go as planned. I really wanted to be in the birthing tub. There was also a chance that my delayed cord-clamping would not be allowed and that I would not get immediate skin-on-skin contact if he did not breathe and cry right away after birth. This was explained to me. It didn't freak me out at the time, because I knew he was alright, but it would have been scary had they cut the cord immediately and taken him away from me to resuscitate him.
At 8:27 am, he was born and he did cry right away and was put on my chest for immediate skin-on-skin contact and breastfeeding a few minutes later. I am very grateful for this. This was the most amazing few minutes and I'm so glad I got to have them. It made everything else worth it and in those moments I knew I would do it all over again someday.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Many Small Things Add Up To a Big Deal
More than anything, what might push me to have a home birth for my next child was how awful I thought recovering in the hospital was.
About the only thing I liked about the hospital was the 24 hour service. Want a snack at 2 am? Push the button. Baby do something weird? Push the button. Run out of something? Push the button. The button is great. But no one explained to me where the button was. I figured it out, but the first time I wanted to push the button I couldn't find it and wondered around my room searching for it and ended up pushing a button on the wall. It worked, but I thought it was a very inconvenient place to have the button.
Basically a bunch of little things went wrong and a bunch of little annoying thing were said to me that the accumulative experience of being in the hospital made me not want to go back.
But there were times during my pregnancy when I found myself crying to my husband telling him I didn't want to go to the hospital. "I'll just stay at home! I can't go there!" One was when I was talking to my midwife about how people were asking if they knew when the baby was coming and how I would say, "You really have to give yourself a three week buffer on either side of the due date." My midwife said, "actually it's two weeks." And in my pregnant mind I thought, "NO! They are going to induce me for no reason if I go over due and something is going to go wrong! I'm out of here! I'm finding a new birth place! They can't make me go to the hospital!"
The next time was when I asked my midwife exactly what happens when you go to give birth with the midwives at the hospital. She explained it all. Which was good. There were no surprises. But it freaked me out. This is basically what got through to me, "you have to labor in bed for 20 WHOLE minutes hooked up to a monitor. Then we're going to use the doppler up to every five minutes on you to monitor the baby." For whatever reason all this monitoring freaked the hell out of me and again I thought, "Nope! Not going to do this! Going somewhere else! Finding a home birth midwife now!"
I'm sensitive to begin with, you see.
So here I am holding my 30 minute-old baby. And the nurse says something about pitocin helping to prevent hemorrhaging, can I jab you with a needle full of it. And I agree. And now my thigh hurts. But I have no arms available to help me deal with this hurting thigh. So I say, "rub me where they gave me the shot, rub me where they gave me the shot. Rub me where they gave me the shot!" Eventually my husband, who was just as bleary-eyed and out of it as me at this point thinks to rub my thigh. When you are holding a 30-minute-old baby, the room is not empty. But no one seemed to listen to me and I didn't know anyone's name.
Then there was the bed. I didn't know anything was wrong with my hospital bed until sometime during labor when I wanted to lower the whole bed down and it wouldn't go down. It was broken. Then about 5 different nurses said the exact same thing, "Hmm... your bed is really high up. Do you want to lower it?" Then I would explain that it was broken and wouldn't go down. And then nothing happened. I assumed that this was the bed I was stuck with. It made things hard during recovery because I really had to hoist myself into the bed, and my table didn't fit over the bed that was so high, so I had to eat leaning over the side of my bed to reach the table. Then the morning we were supposed to be discharged yet another nurse came in and said, "hmm... your bed is really high up, do you want to lower it?" And I again told her it was broken. And she said, "Oh we can get you a new bed." To which I said something like, "a what?! I can get a new one and I've been dealing with this broken one for nearly three days now!" "Oh yeah, that's no problem."
I fucking kid you not, a new bed was there in less than an hour. I was so pissed.
And there was the time a nurse came in, took my vitals and left and then about 30 minutes later another nurse came in and said, "Uh... let's see... uh... I think it's time to take your vitals now." I didn't give me the best feeling about my quality of care. And there was the nurse who was totally unsupportive of my breastfeeding difficulties.
And for God sake. I don't care if the birth is over. Read the birth plan! Birth plan includes vital things like: "we are not going to circumcise," "Andrea will be rooming with the baby for the whole stay," "no E-myacin in the eyes," "no Hep B shot." I was asked three times if we were going to circumcise. I was asked quite a few times if I wanted the baby to go to the nursery for a bit. And had two separate pediatricians insist on getting the eye goop put in his eyes. Skipping the Hep B everyone seemed to think was cool. I was so annoyed because I had written the birth plan and given it to my midwife who looked it over and approved it and signed it and put a copy in my file and they referenced it when I go to the hospital. This seemed to be an important document. Then all of a sudden it was like, "you had a plan? What?"
So all of the above things were relatively minor and maybe I would have forgiven them if it weren't for the one that broke the camel's back.
First of all imagine you have this tiny 8 pound being you are suddenly responsible for and you've never had one before. It's an overwhelming time to begin with. Pediatrician Dyad One enters when he is just a few hours old. It's a 30-something male with a very kind demeanor and a younger woman he is teaching; HCMC is a teaching hospital. Baby looks great! They say. Er... except he's a *little* jaundiced. They order a biliruben test which they assure me is pain free.
Many hours pass.
Suddenly I think to ask about it. I tell a nurse, "hey, they were supposed to do some jaundice test on my baby, but it hasn't been done and that was like 10 hours ago." "Oh I can do it." She says and starts to wheel my baby out of the room. I immediately start to sob and tell me husband to follow the baby. Baby cannot be more than a few feet away from me or I freak out. Brent follows and the baby comes back. It is evening now and we go to bed. Err... as much as you can with a baby who is 18 hours old.
The next day the PKU test is done and baby screams. But it should be all the blood work they need. Then Pediatrician Dyad Two enters and they look at his record and they look worried. They talk to a nurse and say that our baby's biliruben test was high enough to need a blood test done. And why wasn't this done? The nurse says she had no idea. I lose it now. I sob. I sob and sob and sob and sob. My baby has a problem and it was ignored and I have never felt more vulnerable in my life and I am scared. I am so upset that Pediatrician Dyad One actually comes back to personally do the blood draw for my baby, so that no nurses get in the way this time.
But my tension doesn't ease up and I find myself sobbing and telling them about all the other little things that went wrong.
Eventually I got to talk to the head of the Midwives at HCMC and complain to her. She apologizes, but I'm already pissed.
Our baby ended up not having too bad of a jaundice after all. He was fine. But it was scary anyway.
So that is why I am very hesitant to go back to a hospital to deliver a baby.
About the only thing I liked about the hospital was the 24 hour service. Want a snack at 2 am? Push the button. Baby do something weird? Push the button. Run out of something? Push the button. The button is great. But no one explained to me where the button was. I figured it out, but the first time I wanted to push the button I couldn't find it and wondered around my room searching for it and ended up pushing a button on the wall. It worked, but I thought it was a very inconvenient place to have the button.
Basically a bunch of little things went wrong and a bunch of little annoying thing were said to me that the accumulative experience of being in the hospital made me not want to go back.
But there were times during my pregnancy when I found myself crying to my husband telling him I didn't want to go to the hospital. "I'll just stay at home! I can't go there!" One was when I was talking to my midwife about how people were asking if they knew when the baby was coming and how I would say, "You really have to give yourself a three week buffer on either side of the due date." My midwife said, "actually it's two weeks." And in my pregnant mind I thought, "NO! They are going to induce me for no reason if I go over due and something is going to go wrong! I'm out of here! I'm finding a new birth place! They can't make me go to the hospital!"
The next time was when I asked my midwife exactly what happens when you go to give birth with the midwives at the hospital. She explained it all. Which was good. There were no surprises. But it freaked me out. This is basically what got through to me, "you have to labor in bed for 20 WHOLE minutes hooked up to a monitor. Then we're going to use the doppler up to every five minutes on you to monitor the baby." For whatever reason all this monitoring freaked the hell out of me and again I thought, "Nope! Not going to do this! Going somewhere else! Finding a home birth midwife now!"
I'm sensitive to begin with, you see.
So here I am holding my 30 minute-old baby. And the nurse says something about pitocin helping to prevent hemorrhaging, can I jab you with a needle full of it. And I agree. And now my thigh hurts. But I have no arms available to help me deal with this hurting thigh. So I say, "rub me where they gave me the shot, rub me where they gave me the shot. Rub me where they gave me the shot!" Eventually my husband, who was just as bleary-eyed and out of it as me at this point thinks to rub my thigh. When you are holding a 30-minute-old baby, the room is not empty. But no one seemed to listen to me and I didn't know anyone's name.
Then there was the bed. I didn't know anything was wrong with my hospital bed until sometime during labor when I wanted to lower the whole bed down and it wouldn't go down. It was broken. Then about 5 different nurses said the exact same thing, "Hmm... your bed is really high up. Do you want to lower it?" Then I would explain that it was broken and wouldn't go down. And then nothing happened. I assumed that this was the bed I was stuck with. It made things hard during recovery because I really had to hoist myself into the bed, and my table didn't fit over the bed that was so high, so I had to eat leaning over the side of my bed to reach the table. Then the morning we were supposed to be discharged yet another nurse came in and said, "hmm... your bed is really high up, do you want to lower it?" And I again told her it was broken. And she said, "Oh we can get you a new bed." To which I said something like, "a what?! I can get a new one and I've been dealing with this broken one for nearly three days now!" "Oh yeah, that's no problem."
I fucking kid you not, a new bed was there in less than an hour. I was so pissed.
And there was the time a nurse came in, took my vitals and left and then about 30 minutes later another nurse came in and said, "Uh... let's see... uh... I think it's time to take your vitals now." I didn't give me the best feeling about my quality of care. And there was the nurse who was totally unsupportive of my breastfeeding difficulties.
And for God sake. I don't care if the birth is over. Read the birth plan! Birth plan includes vital things like: "we are not going to circumcise," "Andrea will be rooming with the baby for the whole stay," "no E-myacin in the eyes," "no Hep B shot." I was asked three times if we were going to circumcise. I was asked quite a few times if I wanted the baby to go to the nursery for a bit. And had two separate pediatricians insist on getting the eye goop put in his eyes. Skipping the Hep B everyone seemed to think was cool. I was so annoyed because I had written the birth plan and given it to my midwife who looked it over and approved it and signed it and put a copy in my file and they referenced it when I go to the hospital. This seemed to be an important document. Then all of a sudden it was like, "you had a plan? What?"
So all of the above things were relatively minor and maybe I would have forgiven them if it weren't for the one that broke the camel's back.
First of all imagine you have this tiny 8 pound being you are suddenly responsible for and you've never had one before. It's an overwhelming time to begin with. Pediatrician Dyad One enters when he is just a few hours old. It's a 30-something male with a very kind demeanor and a younger woman he is teaching; HCMC is a teaching hospital. Baby looks great! They say. Er... except he's a *little* jaundiced. They order a biliruben test which they assure me is pain free.
Many hours pass.
Suddenly I think to ask about it. I tell a nurse, "hey, they were supposed to do some jaundice test on my baby, but it hasn't been done and that was like 10 hours ago." "Oh I can do it." She says and starts to wheel my baby out of the room. I immediately start to sob and tell me husband to follow the baby. Baby cannot be more than a few feet away from me or I freak out. Brent follows and the baby comes back. It is evening now and we go to bed. Err... as much as you can with a baby who is 18 hours old.
The next day the PKU test is done and baby screams. But it should be all the blood work they need. Then Pediatrician Dyad Two enters and they look at his record and they look worried. They talk to a nurse and say that our baby's biliruben test was high enough to need a blood test done. And why wasn't this done? The nurse says she had no idea. I lose it now. I sob. I sob and sob and sob and sob. My baby has a problem and it was ignored and I have never felt more vulnerable in my life and I am scared. I am so upset that Pediatrician Dyad One actually comes back to personally do the blood draw for my baby, so that no nurses get in the way this time.
But my tension doesn't ease up and I find myself sobbing and telling them about all the other little things that went wrong.
Eventually I got to talk to the head of the Midwives at HCMC and complain to her. She apologizes, but I'm already pissed.
Our baby ended up not having too bad of a jaundice after all. He was fine. But it was scary anyway.
So that is why I am very hesitant to go back to a hospital to deliver a baby.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Early Labor Sucks For Me, Why?
The books lie. Their description of early labor was way off for me. "Mild contractions" ... "5 to 30 minutes apart" ... "might not even feel them" ... "rest and relax" ... "sleep" ... "go about your regular business." Basically early labor can last a long time and usually can be ignored for a while, it's active labor you have to watch out for. My body thought differently.
Here's what happened:
I had some pre-labor symptoms, I was very sure my baby would be coming within a week. My vulva got very soft and wet, I started having painless contractions that felt like a tightening and pulling sensation in my uterus, sleeping finally got very hard to do. But it all really got started at about 6 am on May 29, 2011. I woke up with bad menstrual-like cramping. My cramping woke me up. I got up and walked around a bit, bounced on the birthing ball, I let my husband go to work. The cramping subsided a bit and I took a nap on the couch.
Around 8 am I woke up again from a contraction. A "real contraction." At least I thought it might be, because it felt very different and had a definite beginning and end. And then it stopped. And I got up and decided to make breakfast and attempt to "go about my day." HA HA HA! I laugh at the fact that I thought I could go about my day, oh I had no idea what was in store.
Very soon after this I felt another contraction. Again, it had a definite start and end and hurt a bit and my uterus was very hard. Too soon. The last one only ended a few minutes ago... this isn't right. I was freaked out at how close together my contractions were. They didn't stop. I timed them and there were anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 minutes apart, and they lasted 45 seconds to 90 seconds.
I was so confused and worried. Not a good combo for dealing with pain. I was both sure I couldn't be in labor because my contractions were too close together and sure I was in labor because I kept having contractions. And I was a little worried I was already in active labor and going to give birth alone at home. But in the beginning the contractions were mild, so I figured I had at least a few hours. But why so close together? It was very confusing. So I started calling people.
I called my birth doula, I called the HCMC midwives, I called my husband, and I called my friend, Manda. I sat in the tub while talking to my doula who was also unsure about weather I was in labor, she did offer to come over, but I told her to hold off a bit. The midwives basically said I was doing great at home, stay at home for now. My husband didn't answer and I left a message, he called back and I told him this might be the real thing, but I wasn't sure. He stayed at work. Manda was most helpful, she brought me Chinese food and kept me company.
Also, my doula and the midwives kept asking about mucus plugs and bleeding. I never saw that figgin' mucus plug. Mucus plug sign never happened for me. I also wasn't bleeding at all. Which I guess is good, but makes people skeptical of your labor. Bloody show is a definite sign of labor, I didn't have it. My doula even said it could be days or weeks still. I imagined weeks of contractions happening 3 minutes apart and got very upset. But in her defense she wasn't totally aware they were so close together, because I was more focused on how inconsistent they were 2 minutes apart once then 5 minutes, then 3...
Because of that stupid 4-1-1 rule. The "rule" is to not go to the hospital until you have contractions 4 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute in length, for 1 hour. I KNEW that rule. I had it down. I was planning on using it. My early labor made this rule impossible to follow. By the time I was calling the midwives and my doula I'd had contractions averaging 4 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute for several hours.
By the time Manda came over and fed me I could tell they were increasing in intensity. They got bad. Manda was there at about 12:30 pm and we hung out and timed them on and off and by 3 pm they were quite painful and I finally told the doula to come to my place. Still they averaged 4 minutes apart. But still I was pretty sure active labor had not begun, but I thought I was getting close. HA HA HA! I laugh now because active labor was a ways off.
My doula came and did what she did best for the whole labor. She kicked my butt. She insisted I go for a walk. I refused to leave our house, so I paced around the house and the contractions got more intense and closer together. Fuck. This was the first point in which I nearly wanted to quit. Walking made my contractions come very quickly. We called Brent and had him come home. I continued to walk with him and was in quite a bit of pain.
Early labor is supposed to have these nice breaks in between contractions. I often got a whole 15-second break while walking, or at least that's how it felt. And that's really what counts when you are in labor, the perceived break you get, not the actual. If I laid down I got a couple minutes. I became a bit afraid of moving around, because it made the painful contractions start, but at the same time I knew I had to move around.
My doula did let me rest too and I ended up laying in bed with Brent and crying. Labor was way, way, way worse than I imagined it to be. I felt like the baby should be out by now. I was so mad at how close together the contractions were. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I also moaned a lot through the contractions and got quite load and started getting snappy at people and demanding. Mama wasn't happy.
I believe this cued my doula into suggesting it was time to go to the hospital. Which got me excited, because I figured that active labor was upon us for sure. It was about 8 pm now, 12 hours of laboring at home. A good early labor.
Early labor wasn't over.
I walked in to the hospital from the parking lot and had too many contractions to count on my walk in. I was told this walk is typically one contraction in length (this is coming from someone who worked at HCMC). But since walking made my contractions happen almost on top of each other, this meant I had a contraction every few steps and slowed the walk way down.
The HCMC staff led us to my room and then basically ignored us. Which was in my birth plan after all. I wanted MINIMAL interruptions. HA! There were TOO few interruptions. I tried to eat a little, but my stomach wasn't doing too well and my appetite was low. I was anxious to get the monitoring over with and have a cervical check to see if I was 5 cm. I wanted to be 5 cm so I could get into the tub. I was in very much pain and wanted into that tub. HA HA HA! I must laugh again because really I had no idea what awful pain was yet to come.
They did finally hook me up to the monitors for a while and confirmed that I was indeed in labor (stupidest rule ever). And then the awful cervical check came. Which was possibly the most painful part of the whole labor itself. I screamed through it.
The rule was that NO ONE was to tell me how dilated I was. I would obsess about it and didn't want to know. The rule was that they were to tell my doula and no one else. What I know now is that at about 9 pm, after 13 hours of contractions averaging 4 minutes apart, I was at 2 cm, roughly HALF of early labor.
They told my doula. And I imagine this is what went on in her head, "TA-OOH CENTIMETERS! Are you fucking kidding me? Oh fuck, this is going to be long. I need to get her labor going quicker. I don't want any interventions and neither does she."
She made me step up and down on and off of this step stool. This sucked and made my contractions come very quickly again. Then I could rest, but then I had to take a walk. I was moving a lot and contractions were happening a lot. But I'm grateful for it because my labor was progressing. As in getting a hell of a lot more painful.
Things get blurry at this point. But I remember that even in early labor I was telling my doula that I was SURE I was in transitional labor. I was simply in too much pain to not be in transitional labor. I was very mad that no one believed I was this far along. I was sitting on the birthing ball in the bathroom and my doula looked freaked out. She basically said that I needed to calm the fuck down and prepare for many more hours of this. But she said it nicely. But the meaning was, "calm the fuck down and prepare for the long haul."
I laid in bed again for a while. And during one of my contractions I felt a popping sensation. It was about 1 am the next day, May 30. I thought it might be my water breaking. I sat up in bed and fluid GUSHED out of me. "My water broke." I announced. My doula, bless her heart. Said. "Really?" I'm sure it was innocent at the time, but I was pissed. There is no mistaking a huge gush of water for anything else. I put my husbands hand in it and angrily said, "feel it?!" My doula also said, "ok. things are going to pick up now." Oh how right she was, oh how awfully right she was.
The midwife came in and said, "we have meconium. Heavy meconium! No Tub!" I got hooked up to the continuous fetal monitoring and another cervical check showed I was at 4 cm. I was officially into active labor. For 17 hours I had early labor contractions averaging less than 4 minutes apart for the ENTIRE time. I feel like I deserve a medal simply for that feat.
Here's what happened:
I had some pre-labor symptoms, I was very sure my baby would be coming within a week. My vulva got very soft and wet, I started having painless contractions that felt like a tightening and pulling sensation in my uterus, sleeping finally got very hard to do. But it all really got started at about 6 am on May 29, 2011. I woke up with bad menstrual-like cramping. My cramping woke me up. I got up and walked around a bit, bounced on the birthing ball, I let my husband go to work. The cramping subsided a bit and I took a nap on the couch.
Around 8 am I woke up again from a contraction. A "real contraction." At least I thought it might be, because it felt very different and had a definite beginning and end. And then it stopped. And I got up and decided to make breakfast and attempt to "go about my day." HA HA HA! I laugh at the fact that I thought I could go about my day, oh I had no idea what was in store.
Very soon after this I felt another contraction. Again, it had a definite start and end and hurt a bit and my uterus was very hard. Too soon. The last one only ended a few minutes ago... this isn't right. I was freaked out at how close together my contractions were. They didn't stop. I timed them and there were anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 minutes apart, and they lasted 45 seconds to 90 seconds.
I was so confused and worried. Not a good combo for dealing with pain. I was both sure I couldn't be in labor because my contractions were too close together and sure I was in labor because I kept having contractions. And I was a little worried I was already in active labor and going to give birth alone at home. But in the beginning the contractions were mild, so I figured I had at least a few hours. But why so close together? It was very confusing. So I started calling people.
I called my birth doula, I called the HCMC midwives, I called my husband, and I called my friend, Manda. I sat in the tub while talking to my doula who was also unsure about weather I was in labor, she did offer to come over, but I told her to hold off a bit. The midwives basically said I was doing great at home, stay at home for now. My husband didn't answer and I left a message, he called back and I told him this might be the real thing, but I wasn't sure. He stayed at work. Manda was most helpful, she brought me Chinese food and kept me company.
Also, my doula and the midwives kept asking about mucus plugs and bleeding. I never saw that figgin' mucus plug. Mucus plug sign never happened for me. I also wasn't bleeding at all. Which I guess is good, but makes people skeptical of your labor. Bloody show is a definite sign of labor, I didn't have it. My doula even said it could be days or weeks still. I imagined weeks of contractions happening 3 minutes apart and got very upset. But in her defense she wasn't totally aware they were so close together, because I was more focused on how inconsistent they were 2 minutes apart once then 5 minutes, then 3...
Because of that stupid 4-1-1 rule. The "rule" is to not go to the hospital until you have contractions 4 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute in length, for 1 hour. I KNEW that rule. I had it down. I was planning on using it. My early labor made this rule impossible to follow. By the time I was calling the midwives and my doula I'd had contractions averaging 4 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute for several hours.
By the time Manda came over and fed me I could tell they were increasing in intensity. They got bad. Manda was there at about 12:30 pm and we hung out and timed them on and off and by 3 pm they were quite painful and I finally told the doula to come to my place. Still they averaged 4 minutes apart. But still I was pretty sure active labor had not begun, but I thought I was getting close. HA HA HA! I laugh now because active labor was a ways off.
My doula came and did what she did best for the whole labor. She kicked my butt. She insisted I go for a walk. I refused to leave our house, so I paced around the house and the contractions got more intense and closer together. Fuck. This was the first point in which I nearly wanted to quit. Walking made my contractions come very quickly. We called Brent and had him come home. I continued to walk with him and was in quite a bit of pain.
Early labor is supposed to have these nice breaks in between contractions. I often got a whole 15-second break while walking, or at least that's how it felt. And that's really what counts when you are in labor, the perceived break you get, not the actual. If I laid down I got a couple minutes. I became a bit afraid of moving around, because it made the painful contractions start, but at the same time I knew I had to move around.
My doula did let me rest too and I ended up laying in bed with Brent and crying. Labor was way, way, way worse than I imagined it to be. I felt like the baby should be out by now. I was so mad at how close together the contractions were. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I also moaned a lot through the contractions and got quite load and started getting snappy at people and demanding. Mama wasn't happy.
I believe this cued my doula into suggesting it was time to go to the hospital. Which got me excited, because I figured that active labor was upon us for sure. It was about 8 pm now, 12 hours of laboring at home. A good early labor.
Early labor wasn't over.
I walked in to the hospital from the parking lot and had too many contractions to count on my walk in. I was told this walk is typically one contraction in length (this is coming from someone who worked at HCMC). But since walking made my contractions happen almost on top of each other, this meant I had a contraction every few steps and slowed the walk way down.
The HCMC staff led us to my room and then basically ignored us. Which was in my birth plan after all. I wanted MINIMAL interruptions. HA! There were TOO few interruptions. I tried to eat a little, but my stomach wasn't doing too well and my appetite was low. I was anxious to get the monitoring over with and have a cervical check to see if I was 5 cm. I wanted to be 5 cm so I could get into the tub. I was in very much pain and wanted into that tub. HA HA HA! I must laugh again because really I had no idea what awful pain was yet to come.
They did finally hook me up to the monitors for a while and confirmed that I was indeed in labor (stupidest rule ever). And then the awful cervical check came. Which was possibly the most painful part of the whole labor itself. I screamed through it.
The rule was that NO ONE was to tell me how dilated I was. I would obsess about it and didn't want to know. The rule was that they were to tell my doula and no one else. What I know now is that at about 9 pm, after 13 hours of contractions averaging 4 minutes apart, I was at 2 cm, roughly HALF of early labor.
They told my doula. And I imagine this is what went on in her head, "TA-OOH CENTIMETERS! Are you fucking kidding me? Oh fuck, this is going to be long. I need to get her labor going quicker. I don't want any interventions and neither does she."
She made me step up and down on and off of this step stool. This sucked and made my contractions come very quickly again. Then I could rest, but then I had to take a walk. I was moving a lot and contractions were happening a lot. But I'm grateful for it because my labor was progressing. As in getting a hell of a lot more painful.
Things get blurry at this point. But I remember that even in early labor I was telling my doula that I was SURE I was in transitional labor. I was simply in too much pain to not be in transitional labor. I was very mad that no one believed I was this far along. I was sitting on the birthing ball in the bathroom and my doula looked freaked out. She basically said that I needed to calm the fuck down and prepare for many more hours of this. But she said it nicely. But the meaning was, "calm the fuck down and prepare for the long haul."
I laid in bed again for a while. And during one of my contractions I felt a popping sensation. It was about 1 am the next day, May 30. I thought it might be my water breaking. I sat up in bed and fluid GUSHED out of me. "My water broke." I announced. My doula, bless her heart. Said. "Really?" I'm sure it was innocent at the time, but I was pissed. There is no mistaking a huge gush of water for anything else. I put my husbands hand in it and angrily said, "feel it?!" My doula also said, "ok. things are going to pick up now." Oh how right she was, oh how awfully right she was.
The midwife came in and said, "we have meconium. Heavy meconium! No Tub!" I got hooked up to the continuous fetal monitoring and another cervical check showed I was at 4 cm. I was officially into active labor. For 17 hours I had early labor contractions averaging less than 4 minutes apart for the ENTIRE time. I feel like I deserve a medal simply for that feat.
I Hate My Blog and So Do You, Maybe
I have to admit it, I don't like my blog. I don't like where it is going. I don't like most of my posts.
Yes, I'm my worst critic, but this is also not how I imagined my blog to be like. My blog is actually kind of my first "this isn't what I expected motherhood to be like" moment. Mostly I didn't expect for motherhood to make me into this instant baby activist.
When my baby was born I spent many weeks crying on behalf of other babies. I would lay in bed holding my newborn and sob and tell my husband, "I feel so badly for all the other babies!"
It was instantly clear how little support there is for families out there and how child abuse and neglect is directly related. It's inevitable in our society. There just isn't enough support out there to prevent it. I was mad at the world, I became literally suicidal when I read articles about babies dying or people mistreating their kids. I probably should have seen a psychiatrist, but again... little support/resources available in our society right now. I had to have my husband convince me it was worth it for me to live another day. I actually felt resentful towards my baby a few times because it seemed he was the only thing preventing me from killing myself and ending all the pain. I felt trapped on Earth for the first time. For the first time I had a real reason to live and at the same time a very convincing argument that the world was a horrible place and I needed to leave it.
So this is kind of the start point of where my blog was coming from. Not a very good one. I felt a need to reach out and support and tell people what I'm doing and why and it has turned into this advice blog or something and I have grown to hate it.
On top of that, I have little time for editing or rewriting, so everything is in first draft crap land, including this.
I wanted this to be a blog that's 90% anecdotal, "hey this is what happened to me and what we did," and 10% backed up by crap I've researched/my own gut feeling about it. Instead it's 90% research crap I've barfed on to the screen and 10% anecdotal and it MUST END. It is not what I want.
But writing is a process and thank you so much for reading my barfed crap on the screen. I'm a good writer with little practice. This is my practice. One day I want people to pay me to do this. I realise that is a long ways away.
This is a turning point. I need to change my focus. And now that I have 7 months of parenting under my belt. I have parenting/family stuff to write about. So I'm going to go back and do a series of blogs about birth, then blogs about being in the hospital, then blogs about the post partum insanity. Much more personal blogs about my experience, less preachy trying to save the world stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I want to save the world. But I also want to write. I also want people to read the stuff I write.
Now that I'm not quite so insanely postpartum, I can now see the fun in life and the anecdotes worth writing about. I don't think this was possible for a while. So thanks for hanging in there. And I know if you are a worthy person to keep in my life you will forgive me for the blog gone off track.
So, I promise: Less defensive, judgmental stuff (still some); more personal stuff, really getting to know Andrea and her Not So Typical Life.
If you like my blog already, I promise it will only get better.
And here we go.
Yes, I'm my worst critic, but this is also not how I imagined my blog to be like. My blog is actually kind of my first "this isn't what I expected motherhood to be like" moment. Mostly I didn't expect for motherhood to make me into this instant baby activist.
When my baby was born I spent many weeks crying on behalf of other babies. I would lay in bed holding my newborn and sob and tell my husband, "I feel so badly for all the other babies!"
It was instantly clear how little support there is for families out there and how child abuse and neglect is directly related. It's inevitable in our society. There just isn't enough support out there to prevent it. I was mad at the world, I became literally suicidal when I read articles about babies dying or people mistreating their kids. I probably should have seen a psychiatrist, but again... little support/resources available in our society right now. I had to have my husband convince me it was worth it for me to live another day. I actually felt resentful towards my baby a few times because it seemed he was the only thing preventing me from killing myself and ending all the pain. I felt trapped on Earth for the first time. For the first time I had a real reason to live and at the same time a very convincing argument that the world was a horrible place and I needed to leave it.
So this is kind of the start point of where my blog was coming from. Not a very good one. I felt a need to reach out and support and tell people what I'm doing and why and it has turned into this advice blog or something and I have grown to hate it.
On top of that, I have little time for editing or rewriting, so everything is in first draft crap land, including this.
I wanted this to be a blog that's 90% anecdotal, "hey this is what happened to me and what we did," and 10% backed up by crap I've researched/my own gut feeling about it. Instead it's 90% research crap I've barfed on to the screen and 10% anecdotal and it MUST END. It is not what I want.
But writing is a process and thank you so much for reading my barfed crap on the screen. I'm a good writer with little practice. This is my practice. One day I want people to pay me to do this. I realise that is a long ways away.
This is a turning point. I need to change my focus. And now that I have 7 months of parenting under my belt. I have parenting/family stuff to write about. So I'm going to go back and do a series of blogs about birth, then blogs about being in the hospital, then blogs about the post partum insanity. Much more personal blogs about my experience, less preachy trying to save the world stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I want to save the world. But I also want to write. I also want people to read the stuff I write.
Now that I'm not quite so insanely postpartum, I can now see the fun in life and the anecdotes worth writing about. I don't think this was possible for a while. So thanks for hanging in there. And I know if you are a worthy person to keep in my life you will forgive me for the blog gone off track.
So, I promise: Less defensive, judgmental stuff (still some); more personal stuff, really getting to know Andrea and her Not So Typical Life.
If you like my blog already, I promise it will only get better.
And here we go.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Baby-Led Solids is THE BEST!
Everyone, stop spoon-feeding your babies. There is no need.
OK, let me start at the beginning. I have suffered from two different types of eating disorders in my life time, neither severe requiring hospitalization, but disordered eating none-the-less. One was extreme under-eating and one was (and still continues a bit) over-eating. I was determined to find a way to have my kids have a healthy relationship with food. I'm also so not a fan of picky eating in adults; it is a huge pet peeve of mine. I kind of feel like telling picky adults to grow up, already! But I don't.
I long before becoming pregnant I heard from two different acquaintances that baby food is essentially bullshit and not needed. And these were people I respected and who seemed to be doing well raising their own kids, so I believed them. Then I learned the term baby-led weaning or baby-led solids for those of us not too keen on the word weaning.
Then I had a baby. And started reading baby books. Sigh. Baby books are so behind the times when it comes to infant feeding. I can't read the feeding chapters because they piss me off too much. The bad information is prolific. Two things seem to be off, one is bad info on nutritional needs, the other is an exorbitant fear of allergies.
First of all, babies don't have a nutritional need for anything but breast milk and sunlight for the first year of life, possibly even longer. They don't NEED to swallow any other food if they don't want to. This seems to go against the popular belief that you need to shovel food down your baby's throat to get them what they need. Stop it.
Secondly, what I know about allergies is that they are more likely to develop if you don't breastfeed, if you start solids before six months, and if a baby gets a large amount of a certain food. So, wouldn't
you think spoon-feeding a large amount of a certain food into a baby who is too young would make him more likely to get an allergy from it?
Don't get me wrong, allergies can happen even if you breastfeed and hold off on solids until 6 months and don't spoon feed. But most allergies are not immediate anaphyatic shock, usually there is skin redness or bowel troubles or hives. We really need to calm down about allergies for children whose parents have no food allergies. Avoid the common triggers if you are worried, but I really haven't read anything that has compelled me to give my baby only one food every week (advice given in nearly EVERY baby book).
It was hard to wait until 6 months, by 5 months he was VERY interested in food, but I really wanted to wait another month. So the day he turned six months, I sat him in his high chair, made dinner and put some of the dinner in front of him. It was broccoli in some kind of spicy Asian sauce with rice, I held off on the deep fried beef. I try to only give him healthy stuff and deep-fried meat seemed to not fit that. He put it to his mouth, he coughed on the rice a little, and he was super happy And we had a super pleasant dinner. Brent and I could talk while baby amused himself, it was messy, but babies in general are messy creatures.
Baby-led solids is fun and stress-free. We give him pieces of whatever we are eating. We avoid whole nuts, but he's had peanut butter. We avoid raw veggies that are hard or fibrous. And we avoid sweets and fish high in mercury and anything else we deem as unhealthy, but it's not hard to avoid those things. He will never taste rice cereal, he will never taste baby food, he will never have anything pureed specially for him. I will never bring food to his mouth or a spoon to his mouth.
I've actually already given him a spoon to use and he's inaccurate and sometimes puts the handle in his mouth, but he gets the over-all concept that the spoon can get him tasty stuff. I load the spoon up for him at this point, but he does the rest. I hand him food sometimes, especially when not in the high chair. But mostly I put food in front of him and he does the rest.
He does not choke. He gags sometimes. Every once and while I've had to help him get something off the roof of his mouth. Babies aren't able to move the food from the front of their mouths to the back of their mouths at first. At least not consistently. Some food does end up in his diaper, but most of it falls back out of his mouth. He doesn't need to swallow it. This period is a time of experimenting with textures and flavors and to learn how to chew and swallow, eventually. I've read that babies get the swallowing down usually sometime between 9 and 12 months. Our baby is only 7 months, so swallowing is rare. Most ends up on the floor. And this is OK. Choking is much more likely if you force a spoon full of food into a baby's mouth, and honestly, I don't know how people get their babies to accept this, mine would swipe the spoon out of my hand I am sure.
I really believe that I am setting him up for good eating habits. I also plan on never coercing him into eating anything he doesn't want to. I plan on never making special meals for him. I plan on providing a variety of foods. I also plan on holding off on sweets and unhealthy foods for as long as I can, ideally a few years. But at the same time I don't want to demonize food. It will probably mean not keeping many sweets around the house. I also plan on never expecting a clean plate. In the country with so many obese children and teens, how can anyone still expect this of their children? It baffles my mind.
When left to choose their own eating pace and amount from the beginning, people are very good at controlling how much they eat.
I see even parents I respect totally messing this up and getting into power struggles about food with their kids. I once saw a mom insisting that her son finish the fig cookie before he ate more dried fruit, and I could not for the life of me understand why it mattered at all, and amazingly, when she finally let it go, he ate the fig cookie. Power struggles in general are dumb, ones around food can have very negative impacts on later eating habits.
I will do family meals, meals should not just be about feeding, they should be a social time. Mindless eating is no good. I mindless eat still. I also have a bad idea about when to stop eating, I don't trust anything my body tells me. And sometimes I don't realize I'm hungry until I'm light-headed or nauseated. My system is all messed up. And I eat way too fast. I inhale food. And I don't know how to stop it. I'm lucky that I've been able to mange it enough to keep my weight mostly healthy for the last few years. I don't want this for my son.
We cannot be in charge of our kid's eating, we must give that responsibility to them and then be supportive and put good food in front of them and respect them when they say they are hungry or they are full. I'm going to have a very hands off approach. We will probably have very few meal time rules. I will trust my son to eat what he needs, just like I trust that he is nursing as much as he needs. I don't have him on a schedule because I don't think it's helpful at all. I give him my breast on-demand, and for now that is best because 99% of his nourishment is still from my breast. I can have breast feeding limits later when he's 2 and 3 years old if I desire.
We're about five weeks into our baby-led solids and we love it and baby loves it, it is THE WAY to go. The book "Baby-Led Weaning." Is a great resource. There are also facebook groups and livejournal groups out there. Look into it and have an awesome meal time with your kids!
OK, let me start at the beginning. I have suffered from two different types of eating disorders in my life time, neither severe requiring hospitalization, but disordered eating none-the-less. One was extreme under-eating and one was (and still continues a bit) over-eating. I was determined to find a way to have my kids have a healthy relationship with food. I'm also so not a fan of picky eating in adults; it is a huge pet peeve of mine. I kind of feel like telling picky adults to grow up, already! But I don't.
I long before becoming pregnant I heard from two different acquaintances that baby food is essentially bullshit and not needed. And these were people I respected and who seemed to be doing well raising their own kids, so I believed them. Then I learned the term baby-led weaning or baby-led solids for those of us not too keen on the word weaning.
Then I had a baby. And started reading baby books. Sigh. Baby books are so behind the times when it comes to infant feeding. I can't read the feeding chapters because they piss me off too much. The bad information is prolific. Two things seem to be off, one is bad info on nutritional needs, the other is an exorbitant fear of allergies.
First of all, babies don't have a nutritional need for anything but breast milk and sunlight for the first year of life, possibly even longer. They don't NEED to swallow any other food if they don't want to. This seems to go against the popular belief that you need to shovel food down your baby's throat to get them what they need. Stop it.
Secondly, what I know about allergies is that they are more likely to develop if you don't breastfeed, if you start solids before six months, and if a baby gets a large amount of a certain food. So, wouldn't
you think spoon-feeding a large amount of a certain food into a baby who is too young would make him more likely to get an allergy from it?
Don't get me wrong, allergies can happen even if you breastfeed and hold off on solids until 6 months and don't spoon feed. But most allergies are not immediate anaphyatic shock, usually there is skin redness or bowel troubles or hives. We really need to calm down about allergies for children whose parents have no food allergies. Avoid the common triggers if you are worried, but I really haven't read anything that has compelled me to give my baby only one food every week (advice given in nearly EVERY baby book).
It was hard to wait until 6 months, by 5 months he was VERY interested in food, but I really wanted to wait another month. So the day he turned six months, I sat him in his high chair, made dinner and put some of the dinner in front of him. It was broccoli in some kind of spicy Asian sauce with rice, I held off on the deep fried beef. I try to only give him healthy stuff and deep-fried meat seemed to not fit that. He put it to his mouth, he coughed on the rice a little, and he was super happy And we had a super pleasant dinner. Brent and I could talk while baby amused himself, it was messy, but babies in general are messy creatures.
Baby-led solids is fun and stress-free. We give him pieces of whatever we are eating. We avoid whole nuts, but he's had peanut butter. We avoid raw veggies that are hard or fibrous. And we avoid sweets and fish high in mercury and anything else we deem as unhealthy, but it's not hard to avoid those things. He will never taste rice cereal, he will never taste baby food, he will never have anything pureed specially for him. I will never bring food to his mouth or a spoon to his mouth.
I've actually already given him a spoon to use and he's inaccurate and sometimes puts the handle in his mouth, but he gets the over-all concept that the spoon can get him tasty stuff. I load the spoon up for him at this point, but he does the rest. I hand him food sometimes, especially when not in the high chair. But mostly I put food in front of him and he does the rest.
He does not choke. He gags sometimes. Every once and while I've had to help him get something off the roof of his mouth. Babies aren't able to move the food from the front of their mouths to the back of their mouths at first. At least not consistently. Some food does end up in his diaper, but most of it falls back out of his mouth. He doesn't need to swallow it. This period is a time of experimenting with textures and flavors and to learn how to chew and swallow, eventually. I've read that babies get the swallowing down usually sometime between 9 and 12 months. Our baby is only 7 months, so swallowing is rare. Most ends up on the floor. And this is OK. Choking is much more likely if you force a spoon full of food into a baby's mouth, and honestly, I don't know how people get their babies to accept this, mine would swipe the spoon out of my hand I am sure.
I really believe that I am setting him up for good eating habits. I also plan on never coercing him into eating anything he doesn't want to. I plan on never making special meals for him. I plan on providing a variety of foods. I also plan on holding off on sweets and unhealthy foods for as long as I can, ideally a few years. But at the same time I don't want to demonize food. It will probably mean not keeping many sweets around the house. I also plan on never expecting a clean plate. In the country with so many obese children and teens, how can anyone still expect this of their children? It baffles my mind.
When left to choose their own eating pace and amount from the beginning, people are very good at controlling how much they eat.
I see even parents I respect totally messing this up and getting into power struggles about food with their kids. I once saw a mom insisting that her son finish the fig cookie before he ate more dried fruit, and I could not for the life of me understand why it mattered at all, and amazingly, when she finally let it go, he ate the fig cookie. Power struggles in general are dumb, ones around food can have very negative impacts on later eating habits.
I will do family meals, meals should not just be about feeding, they should be a social time. Mindless eating is no good. I mindless eat still. I also have a bad idea about when to stop eating, I don't trust anything my body tells me. And sometimes I don't realize I'm hungry until I'm light-headed or nauseated. My system is all messed up. And I eat way too fast. I inhale food. And I don't know how to stop it. I'm lucky that I've been able to mange it enough to keep my weight mostly healthy for the last few years. I don't want this for my son.
We cannot be in charge of our kid's eating, we must give that responsibility to them and then be supportive and put good food in front of them and respect them when they say they are hungry or they are full. I'm going to have a very hands off approach. We will probably have very few meal time rules. I will trust my son to eat what he needs, just like I trust that he is nursing as much as he needs. I don't have him on a schedule because I don't think it's helpful at all. I give him my breast on-demand, and for now that is best because 99% of his nourishment is still from my breast. I can have breast feeding limits later when he's 2 and 3 years old if I desire.
We're about five weeks into our baby-led solids and we love it and baby loves it, it is THE WAY to go. The book "Baby-Led Weaning." Is a great resource. There are also facebook groups and livejournal groups out there. Look into it and have an awesome meal time with your kids!
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